The RPG Duelling League
Social Forums => General Chat => Topic started by: OblivionKnight on December 31, 2009, 12:09:50 PM
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Well, it's a day early, but I wanted to name the new topic, like Snow did >_>
Wait until tomorrow, for 2010!
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I hope to have MK2 and AT2 for 2010. I look forward to playing them.
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Let's see if you actually finish them.
I'm tackling DQ5 right then, then SO1 next. DQ5's been good to decent most of the time, but god damn does the game need to stop yanking your good human party members out.
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I have plans to play a lot more in the New Year - I already finished Wizard of Oz...I probably should rant about it? I'll do that later, when I am done with work.
Plan to play a lot of games for redone stat work. Random question regarding math since I am retard: you have a 10% chance of something, and you have 4 times to use it. How do you calculate the actual % of it happening when using it 4 times? I know it's not 40%!
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Elfboy had that answered in one of the season topics in the board (the one with Cecilia vs. Dhaos in Godlike) with formula and all. Too lazy to pick the exact formula from the topic itself, but hope directing you to a place.
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I am tired and lazy but x/y*!n does the trick doesn't it?
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I have plans to play a lot more in the New Year - I already finished Wizard of Oz...I probably should rant about it? I'll do that later, when I am done with work.
Plan to play a lot of games for redone stat work. Random question regarding math since I am retard: you have a 10% chance of something, and you have 4 times to use it. How do you calculate the actual % of it happening when using it 4 times? I know it's not 40%!
1-0.9^4
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That is it. Thank you.
Fuck tired math.
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I've been backtracking in Torchlight because, super genius that I am, I managed to completely miss four stages of the ember scavenger-hunt. It's paid off, though, since clearing out those old levels has gotten me a lot of really nice loot, including two unique rings and a pretty awesome set helm. The death laser still rapes everything.
Arkham Asylum: Nearing endgame. Closing the valves on the island's sewer system, stopped before tackling the one that requires a full-on Predator sequence to reach.
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Also playing Arkham Asylum, but I'm not as far in; Batman is headed to Killer Croc's lair right now. I've finally gotten the hang of the Predator sequences; despite Batman having so many more stealth tools at his disposal than Nathan Drake or even Solid Snake, up to this point I've been falling back on old 3rd-person stealth habits and getting spotted. These inmates have WAY better vision than MGS soldiers...
Recently finished Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. Possibly the only game I've ever played that lived up to its hype. Truly superb on just about every level. Compared to the original (which was pretty good, too), 2 has better controls, better story, better action sequences, better graphics, and far, far better integration of platforming and shooting sequences.
In between, I've been playing Radiata Stories and trying and failing to beat the final(? - it is a Tales game) boss of ToS: Dawn of the New World. But I suck at Tales games, Emil and Marta are already already overlevelled for the fight, and I can't raise Lloyd or PC#4's levels because of the weird system. :P
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Dissidia: IC Chaos is a cheating bastard. That is all. Redoing the previous DOs to unlock the last little bit of buyable equipment.
The Maw: On sale, so picked this up. Game is basically "eat what you can, blow up what you can't", and is at least slightly amusing. Up to the sixth level.
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Space Trader - Picked it up from Steam because hey I like Freespace and I could use a new one. Wait what? It is like Freespace... but a FPS instead of a space sim.
So I get to go back and forwards between planets selling goods in an incredibly boring fashion with side quests where I get to play a shitty version of Quake 3? No wonder this scored so horribly low. Oh well one $5 dud. Such is life.
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity - Now this. This is fucking awesome and I highly recommend it. It is also on sale and is amazingly enough fairly unique. It manages to be fun and actually pretty funny and has the best named acheivements ever. It is Base Jumping the arcade game. It has a sense of humor.
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Suikoden Tactics: Rank Kyril/Andarc/Seneca.
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In between, I've been playing Radiata Stories and trying and failing to beat the final(? - it is a Tales game) boss of ToS: Dawn of the New World. But I suck at Tales games, Emil and Marta are already already overlevelled for the fight, and I can't raise Lloyd or PC#4's levels because of the weird system. Tongue
Stick two Mystic Symbols on Marta. I'm guessing you missed getting her a Healer Ribbon and Master Mind (TP costs -> 1 and instant casting), but two Mystic Symbols dramatically reduce casting times and let you keep the healing fountain running. Other than that use her MA whenever he uses his so that you can heal everyone instantly.
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My problem with Predator sequences is that the fun way to play them is also the way that gets you shot in five seconds. Inverted Takedowns are so impractical, but so cool...
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So I've been trying to beat STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl, I'm currently headed to the Dark Valley for some reason or another.
Anyway, the game is a mixed bag. On the positive side, it has absolutely wonderful atmosphere and setting, it does a good job of world building, and the game is just generally gorgeous. The combat system is...alright. It's very grounded in realism, which is both a good and bad thing. It's good, because it forces you to really think about the right weapon for the right job, and encourages flanking and stealth. It's bad because it makes the beginning segments of the game when you have nothing but a shitty pistol and a useless knife a tedious mess. The weight system is obnoxious, and it seems to actually punish you for exploring all those hidden cashes and doing lots of missions. But let me explain.
The main way to gain currency in this game is to find and sell Artifacts, which are mysterious objects that appear due to the fallout zone the game takes place in. They're found all over the place, and often you'll come across notes from people you've killed detailing caches where you can find them. But you can only carry around 50 kg of stuff at a time before your stamina starts running out really fast. Your various weapons, armor, healing items, and food will take up 60 to 80% of that, leaving you with very little space to pick up before you run out. Every person who you come across that isn't automatically hostile has some money and items to trade, but often they have so very little it's barely worth it. There are dedicated traders with infinite money and a lot of stuff to buy, but there's only two in the game so far and they require running through several levels and loading screens to reach. And with your stamina low you can run for like 4 seconds before you have to stop and regenerate stamina. And you can forget jumping. I've long since abandoned trying to sell weapons or extra ammo because it's just not worth it, since you can only sell weapons to the aforementioned traders.
Apparently you can join different factions in this game, I don't know what the benefits/consequences for doing so are exactly.
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Replaying Avalon Code. Still the best and worst game I have ever played.
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Cross Edge - Postgame stuffs. Beat all the bosses in the first area so I have all the characters now.
Using the team of Morrigan, Meu, Misha, and Vivi. Morrigan and Meu can use Fanatic Rave, Misha and Vivi can use Ragnarok, and if I equip skills right, I can do Absolute Fear with this team as well. Seems like it should work for everything I need to do.
I never really messed with Composite in the main game outside of a few bosses that were tough, but I really needed it to get past the first postgame bosses. Ended up boosting my offense core stats by like 200 (when the base is ~100) and AP about 4 or so. This made a huge difference, since my damage output skyrocketed and I finally had enough AP to use Fanatic Rave and Ragnarok. As a result, the bosses went from really really hard to jokes. Composite is broken and I should've used it more in the main game.
Busy trying to get all the titles that unlocked in the second area. I don't think I can get all of them right now since some seem to require beating a boss or two, but I might as well hunt these randoms down first since I'll actually get some EXP/EP out of them.
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Playing FFXII and EF right now...
and on the interweb I have been playing this game called League of Legends.
It's free and fun. Good team game if anyone is interested.
...
I should prolly keep track of what rpgs I have beaten in 10.
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So I've been trying to beat STALKER: Shadows of Chernobyl, I'm currently headed to the Dark Valley for some reason or another.
Anyway, the game is a mixed bag. On the positive side, it has absolutely wonderful atmosphere and setting, it does a good job of world building, and the game is just generally gorgeous. The combat system is...alright. It's very grounded in realism, which is both a good and bad thing. It's good, because it forces you to really think about the right weapon for the right job, and encourages flanking and stealth. It's bad because it makes the beginning segments of the game when you have nothing but a shitty pistol and a useless knife a tedious mess. The weight system is obnoxious, and it seems to actually punish you for exploring all those hidden cashes and doing lots of missions. But let me explain.
The main way to gain currency in this game is to find and sell Artifacts, which are mysterious objects that appear due to the fallout zone the game takes place in. They're found all over the place, and often you'll come across notes from people you've killed detailing caches where you can find them. But you can only carry around 50 kg of stuff at a time before your stamina starts running out really fast. Your various weapons, armor, healing items, and food will take up 60 to 80% of that, leaving you with very little space to pick up before you run out. Every person who you come across that isn't automatically hostile has some money and items to trade, but often they have so very little it's barely worth it. There are dedicated traders with infinite money and a lot of stuff to buy, but there's only two in the game so far and they require running through several levels and loading screens to reach. And with your stamina low you can run for like 4 seconds before you have to stop and regenerate stamina. And you can forget jumping. I've long since abandoned trying to sell weapons or extra ammo because it's just not worth it, since you can only sell weapons to the aforementioned traders.
Apparently you can join different factions in this game, I don't know what the benefits/consequences for doing so are exactly.
Yeah when I fiddled with Stalker I always ran mods to increase carry weight and to remove durability issues. The latter isn't a huge deal in game (compared to say Fallout 3 where all your guns seem to be made out of silly putty) but still not something I like to deal with in a shooter.
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Tales of Symphonia - Beaten. Thoughts... hmmm... might as well rant.
Plot is kinda bad and the writing just fails. More on this when I get to character breakdowns but... it's basically a trainwreck. They also tacked on some extremely pointless melodrama towards the very end (FUCK YOU TOWER OF SALVATION FUCK YOU TOO DERRIS EMBLEM BULLSHIT) and it was just... ugh. Gameplay... eh, I like Tales gameplay more than I likely should, and it does feel somewhat better than ToE in that regard.
Character thoughts...
Lloyd: Generic Tales main. He and Stahn can go have a slapfight in a battle of wits. Idiotic and hopelessly idealistic, and he doesn't really give the impression that he actually learned anything from his fuckups. Pretty unsurprising that he wound up becoming The Messiah in the end. Gameplaywise? Not a whole lot to say. I wound up controlling him most of the time out of lazyness, felt generically solid enough.
Colette: The Mary Sueness! It burns! But but she's clumsy and bad things keep happening to her and we're supposed to feel sorry for her! But it happens so often and the cures to the problems come up in increasingly short order so it kinda becomes amusing after a certain point. I know, I'm a horrible human being. Controlled her for a bit, wasn't fond of it, and her AI is pretty worthless.
Genis: Didn't suck as much as the above two. Faint praise considering that he was kinda bland and didn't really exist for decent chunks of the game. The whole making friends with Mithos bit might have had some potential but they didn't really do anything with it. Granted, this is more Mithos's fault than it is Genis's. Anyways, Tales mage. With what seemed to be longer charge times than what they're usually burdened with. Oh joy.
Raine: Okay I admit I liked Ruin Mode >_>. Past that... uh... she smacks Lloyd for his idiocy. She also needed to smack the mayor of Iselia for that grand outburst of hysteria but whatever. Was pretty absent for what was supposed to be a voice of reason but then again I suppose that's only to be expected. Anyways, Tales healer. Yay.
Kratos: Argh. They try to set him up as a mentor for Lloyd and then he goes "HAHA I am actually with the bad guys by the way I cannot tell you anything Lloyd NOW FIGHT ME!" Laaaame. Gameplaywise he'd be an interesting fighter/mage hybrid if the system actually lent itself well to that. Too bad it doesn't. Probably my biggest gripe with the series, thinking on it.
Sheena: oh hay Colette must die wait Desians are bastards and razed a city must join good guys oh I can also form summon pacts that will somehow prove vital to progressing the plot. Um yeah Sheena kinda felt forced after a certain point. Doesn't help that she's also apparently Lloyd's alternate love interest when the game practically beats you senseless with LloydxColette. The little sideplot with whatshisface the ninja traitor also felt kinda dumb. In terms of gameplay? Sucks. Plain and simple.
Zelos: Oh hey let's make the other Chosen a horrible human being! Seriously, Tales writers. Middle ground. Have you heard of it? Pretty much does nothing except flirt. Then he goes oh hey Imma gonna backstab you okay except I apparently blundered into picking him in some scene so he then went Lloyd trusts be so it's a fake backstab okay. I might be a bit fuzzy on the details but by then I pretty much tuned Zelos out so. Pretty much identical to Kratos gameplaywise.
Regal: Yeah. Like I said to super in chat, I can totally see the hate. The level of sheer wangsting is just obnoxious and the Hadouken scene doesn't really help matters. I'd join in on the hate if I could be arsed to, but wangst only makes me angry when mixed with epic stupidity. Gameplay... uh, he kicks things. Can't say much, didn't control him ever.
Presea: Oh hey it's an emotionless little girl wait what do you mean she's really 28?! That's... pretty much it. *shrugs* There's probably something I'm overlooking here but eh. Anyways, she hits things with an axe. Didn't control her ever either.
Yuan: Right you existed. Good for you, you had the sense to oppose Mithos's stupid. I guess that's the best that can really be said about you.
Mithos: Oh god where do I begin. You know how I was talking about wangst mixed with epic stupidity? Well, that's Mithos, the results of Tales writers not knowing when to stop. His basic stuff is fine enough, preventing the development of mana-consuming magitech, rezzing his sister, and ending discrimination against half-elves as per her dying wish. The problem lies in how he goes about doing these things. One would think that, if one had the means Mithos had available, he would have the church he established as a front do what churchs are ostensibly supposed to do, namely provide the moral and spiritual guideance to teach people that magitech is bad for the world and you should love your neighbour even if he's a half-elf and all that good shit. Dunno how he'd go about rezzing Martel but eh. But then again if he took the reasonable route we probably wouldn't have had a plot but still.
WHAT HE DOES: Splits the world in two, forcing them to play tug-of-war for a limited supply of mana, erects a truly bizarre plan in which the Chosen is supposed to become Martel's vessel, and facilitates this shit by having magitech reliant half-elven psuedonazis run around running experiments on humans to create Mcguffins that are supposed to eventually turn people into soulless angels. Or horrible semi-blob monsters. I don't know which. And it gets worse. When confronted with the radical idea that humans and half-elves can get along, he rejects it entirely. Because, y'know, such a thing could never happen and there isn't a spiky-haired moron who is best friends with a half-elf right in front of you. And he certainly never tried to befriend YOU when you were out pretending to be an innocent victim. Then later Martel wakes up briefly and tells her brother that's he a collosal idiot for doing this. SO NATURALLY when she says that if he was going to act like this then it would be better if the elves had never left their stinking mana comet or whatever the fuck it is Mithos takes this as an indication that HE should go to the stinking mana comet and take Martel (who is oh so inconveniently inside the thing that's providing what little mana there is to the world) with him. Because, clearly, when your sister says she never wanted things to be this way it means that you should make things even WORSE for the world you fucked up. And FINALLY, when he's defeated? He said he'd do it all over again if he could. Because nothing in his plans was moronic in the least. Fuck you Mithos Yddgrasil. Fuck you and your epic nonsensical stupidity and angst. You were also barely competent as a boss.
All in all... it was enjoyable enough as long as I didn't pay attention to the plot. Will probably replay it in the future to grab stuff I missed. As it stands... I'd probably place it at a 6 but then again I enjoyed the gameplay more than I likely should and I'm not really sure how much to dock the game for Mithos's stupidity.
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DQ5- I just took a magic carpet ride! Nearly to level 30 with the main, the kids are nearing level 20. Cleared the third TnT board. I may run that one again.
SF4- Tested this out and played for a half hour with Shale. It is a ton of fun and I can throw fireballs easily now!
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Stick two Mystic Symbols on Marta. I'm guessing you missed getting her a Healer Ribbon and Master Mind (TP costs -> 1 and instant casting), but two Mystic Symbols dramatically reduce casting times and let you keep the healing fountain running. Other than that use her MA whenever he uses his so that you can heal everyone instantly.
Mystic Symbols stack with each other and with Marta's innate cast-speeding-up?
Gah.
Yeah, that would certainly do the trick. >_<
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FF12: YIAZMAT IS DEAD! HE'S FUCKING DEAD! I NEVER HAVE TO SEE THAT BASTARD AGAIN! BWAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAAH!
*ahem*
In other news, all hunts in FF12 are completed as are all super bosses. Now I don't need to play the game ever again...or at least this file.
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No More Heroes - Beaten just in time for the new years, and for the sequal. Game hops between being really fun[the actual gameplay] and kinda tedious[cash grinding that serves little purpose other than to prolong the game]. 7/10 overall? The sequal sounds like it'll kick ass, on that note.
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...wait
Meep still hasn't start U.SaGa yet?
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Tales of Symphonia - Beaten. Thoughts... hmmm... might as well rant.
Zelos: Oh hey let's make the other Chosen a horrible human being! Seriously, Tales writers. Middle ground. Have you heard of it? Pretty much does nothing except flirt. Then he goes oh hey Imma gonna backstab you okay except I apparently blundered into picking him in some scene so he then went Lloyd trusts be so it's a fake backstab okay. I might be a bit fuzzy on the details but by then I pretty much tuned Zelos out so. Pretty much identical to Kratos gameplaywise.
Really don't have much to say about the rest of your rant, apart from feeling that even though the characters were overall crappy, they had an amusing chemistry.
But on Zelos... I'm guessing you didn't save him from the way you're talking about him.
Regardless, I always felt that Zelos was the most salvageable ToS character. He's Jesus, and enjoying himself! Unlike most christ-characters, who are all-too-willing to give it all up to be 'normal' but they feel they MUST sacrifice themselves for the good of the world (how realistic!), Zelos actually acts like someone who was raised being told 'You're special and everyone loves you.' It's just really nice to see the trope inverted and played with like this. Zelos isn't a terrible human being, he just -is- a human being. He grew up in a palace, but with all the freedom in the world to do anything he wanted, and everyone loved him. The only thing hanging over his head was that whole 'you're supposed to die for the world' thing, which he didn't even take lying down, trying to figure a way out of that. Contrast this to say... Yuna from FFX.
Zelos was selfish, yeah. But that's part of what made him better than the cardboard cast.
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Yay, new topic!
FE10 - Replaying this, up to 2-Endgame. Hard Mode. More difficulty is cool, the weapon triangle removal is a headscratcher, the enemy range indicator removal is psyduck. I'm focussing on dudes who are Wind, Heaven, or Light affinity this playthrough. Ilyana really sucks in Part 1. Stop making Edward and Meg look good with your ability to get one-rounded by anything fast, 2HKOed by everything else, failure at tanking mages, and inability to reliably hit anything. Hate thunder magic. Astrid also sucks but at least she can hit.
Super Luigi Galaxy - Is fun, but FE10 has taken over recently.
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What's that, Meeple wants everyone to have Yiazmat as their avatar? Make it so.
The Maw: Beaten. The game was very short, and I would have felt robbed to have paid full price for it. I still have a few levels to get 100% eaten in, but that shouldn't take much longer.
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Touhou Odyssey: Beaten after waaaay too much leveling. I probably went overboard, but damn the final's scary during that limit phase and I wasn't going to fuck around and get crushed at the last second again. Breezed through the opening phase and slugged through the rest with minimal casualties (two deaths, both to ID). Final party was Yuugi/Ran/Nitori/Aya/Komachi/Meiling/Tenshi/Suwako/Suika/Reimu/Sanae/Patchy. Pretty much my standard boss-fighting team, really. Levels ranged from 143 to 165 (Patchy and Reimu being the outliers).
Anyway, final boss done with, I ascend to floor 21 and immediately get hit with a speech about Karnov. This makes it all worthwhile. Also, wow, optional boss swarm on the lower floors.
Rambling about PCs to happen later, I guess, have to head out for now.
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Arkham Asylum: Beaten. Great, great game. The presentation is jaw-dropping, the gameplay is smooth and well-constructed, and everything feels like a full-fledged Batman game ought to feel. I wish they'd done more with boss fights - there's so many ways to use the environment, and they didn't do anything with it for the big fights (plus the way you actually beat Joker is all kinds of unintuitive), but that's a minor niggle. Best moment of the game for me was probably pulling the floor right out from under a couple of mooks during a predator sequence, then booby-trapping the floor where they landed so when their buddies came to investigate they would explode. So much awesome.
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See, all I really need to see to cement my opinion of TO as a game is the fact that Chen's nowhere on that boss killing list.
While I am of course VERY DISAPPOINTED IN YOU, it says a fair bit to me that my best character for my playthrough is not on your list for you - mainly, this just speaks to not only the options you have available, but the generally good balance that the entire cast has. There's only a few people that genuinely do feel obsoleted by newer characters (Cirno, Minoriko, Wriggle) - everyone else brings -something- to the table.
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Speaking of TO...
Touhou Oddessy - Second pair of Flansocks obtained (The first was gotten from EoSD Extra). Party consisted of something like Tenshi/Meiling/Reimu/Ran/Sakuya/Youmu/Yuugi/Suika/Chen/Sanae/Cirno/Patch, with a massive blitz happening after a ton of buffing and getting to the Forbidden Fruit phase where everyone not named Tenshi, Meiling, or Reimu just kinda melted to the stupid-powerful composite MT flying around. Going to actually grind a whole bunch now, since I literally won on my last attack (0 SP Chen, 2k HP Meiling, Suika finished with dunk which has massive delay, and Sak with her non-existant damage was on the bench). Will probably go for the high 70s/low 80s before attempting 16F boss, which should let me get the BP to get Kaguya as well so two birds etc.
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There's only a few people that genuinely do feel obsoleted by newer characters (Cirno, Minoriko, Wriggle) - everyone else brings -something- to the table.
I'd argue that Wriggle isn't even technically obsolete, since her poison is generally three times as strong as anyone else's (MT is less efficient but still notably better). Sure, arguably not a great character (the stats and mults suck), but not really "obsolete". Minoriko and Cirno have cheaper spells for what they do, but it ends up not being that big a deal so I can kinda see it there.
Cross Edge - More postgame stuff. Finished up all the titles I could (like 2, but did parts of all the others) and am now upgrading my gear to take on the bosses.
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No More Heroes - Beaten just in time for the new years, and for the sequal. Game hops between being really fun[the actual gameplay] and kinda tedious[cash grinding that serves little purpose other than to prolong the game]. 7/10 overall? The sequal sounds like it'll kick ass, on that note.
The sequel's minigames look quite awesome.
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Osmos- Simple puzzle game. Not too bad for a couple of bucks. I've cleared the first four~ levels or so, no idea how far I will get otherwise.
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Played dozens upon dozens of songs on Audiosurf so far, still nothing gets my adrenaline going like Shut Up and Explode! by the Boom Boom Satellites (Also known as the OP to Xam'd). Even after trying a bunch of Dragonforce and Rhapsody songs. There's a part in the middle where it's just INSANE.
Tiger Track from the Eureka 7 OST is good times, probably my #2. #3... probably the ED to Bakemonogatari, amusingly.
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rack from the Eureka 7 OST is good times, probably my #2. #3... probably the ED to Bakemonogatari, amusingly.
Altair! :fistshake:
WoW: So, felt like satisfying some masochism. New LFG is a godsend. Now I don't have to worry about getting kicked outta a group for being undergeared because everyone has worse gear than me. I've only been chart topped once and the guys killed everything so fast none of my DoTs could even tick.
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Tales of Symphonia - Beaten. Thoughts... hmmm... might as well rant.
Zelos: Oh hey let's make the other Chosen a horrible human being! Seriously, Tales writers. Middle ground. Have you heard of it? Pretty much does nothing except flirt. Then he goes oh hey Imma gonna backstab you okay except I apparently blundered into picking him in some scene so he then went Lloyd trusts be so it's a fake backstab okay. I might be a bit fuzzy on the details but by then I pretty much tuned Zelos out so. Pretty much identical to Kratos gameplaywise.
Really don't have much to say about the rest of your rant, apart from feeling that even though the characters were overall crappy, they had an amusing chemistry.
But on Zelos... I'm guessing you didn't save him from the way you're talking about him.
Regardless, I always felt that Zelos was the most salvageable ToS character.
Most? More like the only one really. In a cast full of blands/morons, he's the sole one who stands out for good things.
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FF7: Disc 1 beat! Finally got off my ass and did it, Fort Condor can die for its obscure triggers ESPECIALLY since the last 3 give you nothing and are mistranslated -_-
Onimusha 3 Abridged:
Episode 3: By the Power of Ako!!!!
Narrator: When we last left our Hero...that is to say the Samurai who...
Samanosuke: Just say my name and what era I'm in so we can get to the actual story.
Narrator: FINE! When we last left SAMANOSUKE who was in FRANCE searching NOTRE DAME...
Samanosuke: Thank you.
Narrator: ...he had just gotten a new awesome sword.
Samanosuke: Man, this sword is awesome and big and...wait, why is it Wind Elemental, while my two light weight swords are Light elemental?
*Zombie Skeleton Demons attack out of nowhere, Samanosuke butchers them effortlessly*
Samanosuke: Oh look, a Golden Skull...embedded in an odd spot...guarded by Dark Aura...which I can absorb with my gauntlet...I smell more Crest puzzles...
*7 Resident Evil style puzzles later*
Samanosuke: Ok, if this room doesn't have actual plot development, I QUIT!
Skeletor: Ah, Samanosuke, you made it at last!
Samanosuke: (...you know, maybe I should just quit ANYWAY.)
Skeletor: But you are too late!
Samanosuke: (Yeah, I'm just not digging the hero gig right now...)
Skeletor: I have already found the TIME FOLD!
Samanosuke: (Also, I really should have picked a better outfit than this. I mean, my past self gets this cool red armor, but I get a bad hair cut and this weird looking generic samurai suit...)
Skeletor: With it, Nobunaga shall CONQUOR THE WORLD!
Samanosuke: (Maybe I should have stopped at one of these French Shops along the way, and got new future clothes...)
Skeletor: NOT JUST THIS ERA! BUT THE FUTURE AND PAST TOO! WITH GENMA YOU SEE!
Samanosuke: (...wait, how did I know this was France? No one told me and I thought it was China about 2 hours ago...)
Skeletor: So, Samanosuke, what are you going to do about it? You cannot fight what's in the past!
Samanosuke: (and then-...wait, he asked me a question, damn it, that means I have to respond)...well, I could just...kick your ass, I guess.
Skeletor: You'll have to catch me first! *Jumps into a portal*
Samanosuke: GET BACK HERE EVIL ONE!
*Follows suit, ends up in a weird docking area*
Samanosuke: What manner of sorcery is this?
Ako: Oh! That's the boat Jacques was on! This must be where he lands!
Samanosuke: I see...say, why not check up on him, he should probably get a heads up as to what out skull faced freak is up too.
Ako: Ok! *teleports...but fails* ...huh? I can't leave! THis is weird...
Samanosuke: Or just a stupid attempt to integrate plot and gameplay to force a new aspect that requires actually swapping between me and the French Guy at the players will instead of the plot's!
Ako: Oh, right, that's the real reason, isn't it? Well, lets get to one of those purple points!
*one gameplay device later, now back in the feudal era*
Ako: JACQUES!!!!!!!!
Jacques: Oh, its you...
Ako: Jacques, I've learned of the villains plot, for you see...
*one boring explanation later*
Jacques: ...so Samanosuke is in this is exact spot 500 years in the future...by which we really mean 420 cause SOME CAPCOM PRODUCER CAN'T FUCKING SUBTRACT.
Ako: Yep!
Jacques: Well, that means the PAST AND FUTURE ARE LINKING UP! This is really bad!
Ako: Yep!
Jacques: Well, no use standing around here, lets get to work, and finally actually work together with Samanosuke to solve this riddle!
*the two, with AKo's help, start swapping emblems back and forth at will to continue nonsense and what not, eventually Jacques enters a room with...lots of random junk*
Jacques: Man, there's a lot of random junk in this room...I bet its all the GENMA's fault!
Ranmaru: Aha! Its you! You'd make quite the good detective!
Jacques: ...aren't you one of the bad guys? You realize you could have just stabbed me in the back and just won here and now, right?
Ranmaru: Oh, I'm not being paid to do that right now. See, this is one of those "Henchman appears just to mock the hero" sequences.
Jacques: But you're not really mocking me, you just complimented me in fact!
Ranmaru: Yeah, well, you...uhh...and....damn it! I'm leaving! May my honorable walk out be a symbol of my anger and protest to your ability to verbally defeat me! *he does exactly that*
Jacques: ...I wonder if he remembers he's only 14 years old and speaking to some guy whose a seasoned cop from the future...oh well, I can't do anything here, maybe this BARRIER will be gone 420 years in the future coincidentally...
Ako: Yeah, maybe it will!
Jacques: So Samanosuke can get the object then!
Ako: Yeah!
Jacques: ...and you know, sort of send it back to me to make use of it...
Ako: Yeah!
Jacques: ...which requires your help.
Ako: It does!
Jacques: ...you realize you need to go to the future to pull this off, right?
Ako: YEp!
Jacques: So...
Ako: ^_^
Jacques: (...are crow demon fairies really all this dense?) Ok, look, I need Samanosuke to get this item, and then send it back to me.
Ako: Oh! Oh! I know I know! I'll go to the future, tell Samanosuke to get the item, bring it back here, you use it, then you both benefit cause you're in the past!
Jacques: Yeah, that's what I was getting at...
Ako: Yay! And I thought of that all by myself! Glad it was all my idea! WHere would you be without my intelligence!
Jacques: ...just go to the future already.
AKo: OK!
*Ako goes to the future*
Samanosuke: Ah, so its my turn is it.
Ako: Yeah!
Samanosuke: So what happened in the past that needs my help here?
Ako: Well...I don't remember...
Samanosuke: ...wonderful...
Ako: But we'll be ok, I promise! IN fact, I'll go back and ask Jacques what he wnated right now!
Samanosuke: No, how about we just explore the place and see if anything new openned up thanks to his actions.
Ako: OK!
*Samanosuke reaches the same room, now 420 years older*
Samanosuke: Hmm...interesting object, its almost like there was a barrier here some hundreds of years ago!
Ako: Of course there wasn't one! If there was, it'd still be here!
Samanosuke: Uh, yeah, right. Anyway, about this object...
Skeletor: AH! Samanosuke! You found me at last!
Samanosuke: Yeah I...wait, you snuck up on ME and you're giving ME credit for finding YOU?
Skeletor: Indeed!
Samanosuke: ...maybe I should be happy that I got stuck with the MORON villain.
Skeletor: Oh yeah, I brought a friend here for you to play with!
Samanosuke: Do I really want to know?
Random Zombie: SAMANOSUKE!!!!!!!!!
Samanosuke: Oh, Ranmaru...you look awful </actual line of dialog>
Zombie Ranmaru: I WILL DEVOUR YOUR FLESH AND EAT YOUR SPINE AND KILL YOU!
Skeletor: I have brought him back from the dead, now far more powerful than he was before.
Zombie Ranmaru: AND THEN I WILL SLICE YOU INTO TINY BITS AND FEED YOU TO DUCKS AND KICK YOU IN THE BALLS AND HELP OLD LADIES CROSS THE STREET AND...
Samanosuke: ...you know, when I killed you, I was moderately pleased (partially cause it meant Nobunaga was screwed), but now I'm starting to regret this action...
Zombie Ranmaru: NOW LET US FIGHT!
Samanosuke: ok, FINALLY something I can agree with you on!
*The two fight, the fight consists of Ranmaru jumping around like a maniac and making cheesey villainous henchmen one liners that are completely forgettable*
Zombie Ranmaru: DAMN YOU SAMANOSUKE!
Samanosuke: What, cause even as a Zombie, you can't beat me?
Zombie Ranmaru: I'll be back, just you wait! I let you win this time cause...uh...yeah, I just did! *he runs*
Samanosuke: ...seriously, why am I stuck with all the freaking MORONS for villains?
Ako: Oh, its ok! Jacques has to deal with him too, only he's still alive there!
Samanosuke: Oh and...wait, you can remember that, but you can't remember why you're here specifically?
Ako: Nope! Oh, I'll be taking that object to Jacques now! He said he needed it!
Samanosuke: This is not my average ordinary magical samurai mission...
*420 years earlier*
Ako: Jacques! I'm BACK!!!
Jacques: You know, I don't get it; if you can travel through time at a whim, why do I always have wait exactly as much time as it takes for you in the future to bring stuff back in the past? Couldn't you just teleport back here like 2 seconds after you left?
Ako: But then it wouldn't be as fun!
Jacques: ...anyway, this object I have...lets go make use of it I guess.
*Jacques does exactly that, beating up LIVING ARMORS, Trolls, more ZOMBIE SKELETON DEMONS until finally*
Jacques: mm...a dead end...
Hanging Man: GREETINGS! WE MEET AGAIN!
Jacques: Ok, no, I definitely NEVER saw you before.
Hang Man: Do you want what's down below? Its quite rewarding!
Jacques: ...this is totally optional and has nothing to do with the plot, right?
Hang Man: That is correct!
Jacques: Yeah, sure, why not.
*Jacques gets a Thunder Stone from this*
Jacques: Man, that's weak. But what's this strange purple glowing...
*Jacques' weapon turns into a HUGE ROPE MACE. No, not a Chain Flail, a Rope Mace. THAT SHOOTS ICE*
Jacques: Man, my weapons just keep getting more awesome as they come, don't they? And somehow, my Pistol has unlimited ammo to make for some stylish holds!
Samanosuke: *From the Future* God damn it! Why do you get all the cool weapons? All I got are these twin swords and a big cleaver. Meanwhile, you got a Flaming Whip Sword, Lightning Sword Chucks and now an Ice Sword Flail.
Jacques: The advantages of being french!
*Jacques continues onward, enters a room, lots of demons being beaten up by a half naked fat man with a large glowing pointed stick*
Honda: AHA! You cannot beat the almighty Haichiro Honda! I AM INVINCIBLE! NO ONE CAN STOP ME!
Jacques: Hi there!
Honda: NO ONE CAN STOP ME! *He leaves*
Jacques: ...I guess he didn't see me. Weird, I thought he was a bad guy, but here he's fighting Genma...
Ako: Yeah, its really weird!
Jacques: ...I'm guessing he doesn't even know his own role, and...CRAP! Another dead end! You know what this means, right?
Ako: Nope!
Jacques: ...just go to the future and tell Samanosuke to look for more stuff that I might be able to make use of!
Ako: Ok!!!
*420 years later*
Samanosuke: 6703 blood stains, 6704 blood stains...
Ako: Samanosuke!!!!
Samanosuke: Ah, you're back, so how did it go.
Ako: How did what go?
Samanosuke: ...lets just move on.
*Samanosuke deals with a bunch of booby traps*
Samanosuke: Ok, no, why the hell do I get all the Booby Traps like spinning blades and BARREL CRUSHERS while he gets the cool awesome weapons? Seriously, this game is suppose to be about Samurais, NOT FRENCH MEN KICKING ASS!
Capcom: Fine, if you're gonna whine, just take this new weapon then!
*Samanosuke gets a BIG FUCKING AXE*
Samanosuke: ...I...guess I should be...thankful? I mean...I mostly use swords...
Giant Troll: ROAR BLARG SMASH BAM!!!!
Samanosuke: Eh, lets see how this *he cleaves the Troll effortlessly in half on one hit with a critical* ...um, ok, this might work. I wonder what kind of magic it uses-*creates big walls of Lava that kill things dead* ...yeah, that'll do.
Hang Dude: Ah, we have a new guest it seems.
Samanosuke: Oh, hi there. What's your name?
Hang Dude: Would you like to take my challenge?
Samanosuke: Yeah I...wait, weren't you back 420 years ago with Jacques?
Hang Dude: Oh no! That was my Great Great Great Great Great *ad nauseum* Great Great Grandfather Hang Man! I'm Hang Dude! We're totally different!
Samanosuke: Right...ok, I accept your challenge! HAVE THEE VILE DEMONS!
*Samanosuke gets a Wind Soul*
Samanosuke: So I guess when I turn into Sephiroth, I get NEW POWERS now, huh? Eh screw it, I'm taking a nap.
Jacques: *From the past* Hey, that sounds like a good idea! I think I'll do the same!
Ako: Wait! What should I do? Both of you can't take a nap! What about saving the world!
Ranmaru: I'll do it!
Ako: really?
Zombie Ranmaru: No, I'll do it!
Ako: AH! THere's two of you!!!!
Narrator: ...ok, no, I'm just ending this episode right here and now, cause god knows we're allowed to let Ranmaru do ANYTHING remotely worth noting.
Zombie Ranmaru and Ranmaru: ...awww...
-
So, I beat FF4: TAY. Gameplay wise, not much surprise and plot was a little shoehorned, but it was decently cheap and affection for the game carried me through it.
Anyway, ranking wise? Complicated. There are no equipment shops for the last third of the game, so you have to find everything. Since almost nobody has unique equips (whips, katanas and harps are about it) that makes it tough. If you strike the optional characters, it gets a bit easier, particularly since most of them are shitty versions of characters you already have. At that point there is, at least, enough weapons to go around. But since I think there's maybe one piece of armor that someone has a plot claim on (Edge's cape from solo fighting Rubicant), most people would be wearing the storebought Mithril stuff anyway.
So yeah, past that, some gameplay feelings.
Cecil is pretty much the same as he was, so comparatively he is not as good since Kain, Edge and Yang all got fairly significant buffs. On the upside, he at least has Ceodore to make him look good. I don't know how Ceodore has the parents he does, but he is bad at healing AND bad at fighting at the same time. Additionally, he has less health than Rydia, which is bad.
Kain got a big buff in the form of being able to cast haste, esuna and some low-level cure spells. This is nice because Jump does not keep him in the air very long. He's still kinda sluggish, so haste is very important, but he's not worthless anymore.
Rydia and Rosa are exactly the same. Moving right along.
Edge also got a big buff, more or less the same one Kain got. His healing is a bit better, and more importantly his haste is cast with his Masamune. So it's free, instant cast, and unlimited use. He can also cast protect on himself with one of his weapons, but that's kind of moot because he can just use Mirage for 100% evade for the next three hits. So yeah. Also a little more health than before, which is good for him. Got a lot better for sure.
Yang is pretty much the same, but he got a new command: cover counter. Exactly like cover, but you counter attack. Yang is a goddamn beast.
Either Palom or Porom get Doublecast, but not both. Whichever one you picked will probably take Rosa/Rydia's spot. I used Porom because she has more MP than Rosa, and Palom doesn't get summons. So yeah.
Ursula, Yang's daughter, is low health, but dodgy. She can self-heal and cure status for free with chakra, too. Still, she takes hits very poorly which lead me to put her in the back and use her as a healer in Yang's tale. Ultimately she's pretty solid, but her lack of durability means I'd take Yang over her.
Golbez is like... Marcus. He's amazingly good when he first joins Edge, Rydia and Luca. He has almost 3000 health to start out, and solid gear from being on the Moon. But he never gains health. When I benched him he was level 49 and still had 2,971 health after almost twenty levels gained. Wasn't sure what to make of that, but I gave Cecil Golbez's slot since Rydia had finally learned the 3rd-level elemental spells Golbez starts with.
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Golbez's hp is another word game. Which is why it stay the same all the time. Pretty stupid, though.
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Soul Nomad - Been generally enjoying this. The ways the various classes interact is definately noticeable, in that it feels like it influences the key stat directly instead of mucking with the damage value. Also, proper usage of classes has been made very obvious in a recent battle where I was struggling and likely to loose in my first try, but a squad rebuilding later, I demolished the battle after shuffling things around to make my units more specialised. Well, that, and picking up one of those water monsters. They're kinda awesome. Game also just tossed some nicely leveled Nereids at me, though not an extra room, so I'm feeling a little gyped, but honestly, I suspect I have more rooms than I need right now anyways.
That said, there is one aspect of the game I'm learning to hate. The freaking Change command. It wasn't so bad when the formula for locks was Rooms - 1. When I wanted to rearrange stuff, then I'd just unlock everything, and then slap locks in place when I got something good, and when the last one was good, I'd move on. Took too bloody long, but nothing got wasted at least. But now? Now it's getting harder and harder to avoid having some scrubby, worthless 4 man room. And that's just assuming that any 6 man room you get is even in a formation you can get any use out of (I'd mention five, but I honestly don't see a 5-4 split as worth considering). All of which means that my crap to good stuff ration is shooting out of whack, and I can only see it getting worse. Which is a shame, since it is possible to get seven man rooms. Just... almost never show up...
Honestly, I'm just glad they have the homeroom system so you can at least pick what room type you want, which keeps the system from being completely aggrivating.
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You can get more locks, but yeah, the number will always be a bit short of the number of rooms you have. I think the most you can have is seven out of nine rooms locked (and that's counting homeroom into the total).
The plot nereids are pretty badass; Juno always wound up being a killstealer who held an easy lead in levels, on my file.
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KotOR - Been playing this the past few days.
Up to Tatooine, after finishing Manaan. Went Darkside Jedi Consular, and have spent basically the entire game Plaguing people and then murdering them with Force Lightning. It is fun.
Using the 2 Jedi PCs for now, until I get HK-47.
I don't think I like the game's moral system? I guess I mean I want to play the game like PS:T and talk my way out of everything but you can't do that frequently and still get Dark points. Also, going dark path closes off so many quests sometimes, too, though I suppose often there's a way to do the quest and still get dark side points. And not like it matters: I'm already evil enough to be able to cast 3 Plagues and 3 force lightnings (enough to kill almost every group of mobs I've come across) without needing to recharge.
Also, ha-ha. Suck it, giant fish-god.
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KotOR - Been playing this the past few days.
Up to Tatooine, after finishing Manaan. Went Darkside Jedi Consular, and have spent basically the entire game Plaguing people and then murdering them with Force Lightning. It is fun.
Using the 2 Jedi PCs for now, until I get HK-47.
I don't think I like the game's moral system? I guess I mean I want to play the game like PS:T and talk my way out of everything but you can't do that frequently and still get Dark points. Also, going dark path closes off so many quests sometimes, too, though I suppose often there's a way to do the quest and still get dark side points. And not like it matters: I'm already evil enough to be able to cast 3 Plagues and 3 force lightnings (enough to kill almost every group of mobs I've come across) without needing to recharge.
Also, ha-ha. Suck it, giant fish-god.
Get Insanity. GET IT. GEEEEEEEEET IT. Stun for Dark Siders oh wait Stun was Universal so the Dark Side version eats the up-to-50% cost reduction for being Dark. Yay.
(Also don't rule out Light Side abilities for your main. Heal for instance.)
As to the morality...as I've rambled at points, the games follow movie logic very strictly. KotOR2 is somewhat better about it, but mostly makes you follow the movie logic and then sorta questions the movie logic.
(Though, for your specific case, there's a lot more "Give me money/let me betray people/etc." options that are less about combat and more about making people do the same things with added harm-threat cashflow, and less quests closed off...IIRC the FAQ mentioned one quest on Nar Shaddaa as notable just because it was one of the very few you couldn't avoid a LSP on.
KotOR2 is better. <_<)
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KotOR morality ultimately follows Star Wars Morality which is stupidly black and white. This is fine, KotOR1 follows very classic Star Wars stuff all through it (especially Episodes 3,4 and 6), KotOR 2 is a love letter to Empire Strikes Back and it shows there as well.
-
League of Legends
So I mentioned I was playing this, does anyone else have it? It's free and it's a team oriented 5v5 game of pure madness. Never played Warcraft 3, but that's what my friends say it reminds them of.
Anyways, it's a good game to play with friends and you can think up several ways to plan yer attacks/defense methods.
My characters name is Juan Dinero, so send me a friend invite if you play!
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Diablo II: Random grinding in Act 5 Nightmare has turned up a steady stream of set/unique items, despite the fact that I have like 40% magic find. M'avina's Gloves, Tooththrow, Crow Caw, eh. Laying of Hands, pretty nice. Bul Katho's Wedding Ring...
Wait wait, Bul Katho's Wedding Ring? Isn't that like 2% chance even if a unique ring is generated? It's like the game is daring me to go through Hell.
I'm game for this, even if I have to mod down some of the BS to make things bearable (screw you, Hell Ancients). Luckily Blizzard at least made it easy(-ish) to mod D2 ever since 1.10 patch.
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Majora's Mask - Decided to do a... pseudo-speed run? Running through the game as quickly as I can, although not bothering with things like "reset if it goes wrong to save 5 seconds!" Beaten Woodfall Temple, unlocked the Owl Statues around there and Milk Road/Clock Town. Currently on 2h 10m.
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Touhou Odyssey: Stomping aftergame bosses. Most of the refluffed plot bosses are done (just have the F16/18 reduxes left), and lord did that give me a stupid amount of skill points. At one point I had three million just sitting around. Have one million of that left now--been keeping some in reserve in case I stumble across another PC, but I'd guess that's not going to happen until I can fully explore floor 21. Which in turn clearly won't happen until I kill all the seal bosses. Three out of four of those are done; the one of floor 20 isn't realistically beatable just yet. Doubled MAG + anything MT = horrible massacre. It'd be feasible if Tenshi's debuff move had a respectable hitrate, but god does that skill suck at doing what it's supposed to do.
Oh, boss rush done too. This was harsh, and aggravated considerably by Djinn Storm spam near the end. At least the rewards are nice (GREAT QUESTION MASK. +100% to all stats. Yes). I desperately hope the redux version of it is not required to progress in the aftergame, however. And there damn well better not be more optional bosses lurking on floors 7/13/17. I'm pretty sure the maps look exactly as they did previously, but there are so many teleporters on them that it's possible one of those events is actually a leftover boss.
New PC seems pretty decent. Not like Rumia and Wriggle needed to be made even more obsolete, but it's nice to have them in the same fighter.
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SRWW - *Lowe comes up with a mech upgrade out of nowhere.*
*GUNDAMKAISER GERBERA STRAIGHT.*
... >____>
-
SOFD- About to kick some Space Flea butt I think. Revorse Tower floor five? I hope so! Outslugged big "demon" baddie in the space lab at L61 with Pericci though Ilia (L47) was dead at the end. Mavelle and Millie were L55~ and managed to share in the EXP reward~
-
XF- Beat 2-7 or whatever. 2-4 was ridiculously hard, all the next ones were stupid easy. Hope the next battles will be a bit more challenging.
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SRWW - *Lowe comes up with a mech upgrade out of nowhere.*
*GUNDAMKAISER GERBERA STRAIGHT.*
... >____>
Lowe Gear: That goddamn awesome.
-
SRWW - *Lowe comes up with a mech upgrade out of nowhere.*
*GUNDAMKAISER GERBERA STRAIGHT.*
... >____>
So have you seen the attack where Lowe throws the 150 meter Gerbera Straight like a crazy motherfucker yet?
-
Suikoden Tactics: Heinz is clearly not a complete asshole who wants to backstab us and yet everyone loves him.
Go Coop, tho.
Current squadron is, usually swapped in/out, Lazsnow/Kyril/Corselia/Seneca/Flare/Kika/Sigurd/Nalleo/Dario/Eugene/Flare (...I think that's it?). Should try some of the newer people, but lazy.
-
Onimusha 3 Abridged:
Episode 4: Ranmaru's Still a Moron
Ranmaru: Oh burn in hell!
Narrator: *bitch slaps Ranmaru* BACK IN YOUR CAGE!
Ranmaru: Yes sir! *does exactly that*
Narrator: Anyway, when we last left SAMANOSUKE, he was about to take a nap cause he was bored.
Samanosuke: Nah, I'm up now, so what do I have to do again?
Narrator: How the hell am I suppose to know? I just read a god damned script! You're the protagonist!
Samanosuke: Sheesh, whatever. Anyway, I shall...wait, crap, am I at a dead end?
Ako: Yes, yes you are.
Samanosuke: ...well, I guess its Jacques turn now!
*Jacques takes over*
Jacques: Well, now that I have this RED DISC that Samanosuke sent me...
Samanosuke: *From future* WHAT THE HELL? AKO!!! I DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD TAKE THAT THING!!!!
Jacques: I shall continue onward in my journey!
Samanosuke: *From future* ...strange, after my complaint, the Red Disc spontaneously appeared in the exact spot I planned on placing it! Time Travel is a perplexing thing indeed!
Jacques: ...this is my section damn it, STOP INTERRUPTING ME!
Samanosuke: *From future* Oh, right, sorry.
Jacques: Anyway, lets make a move on and-...
*He enters a room with a HUGE FUCKING 2 HEADED DOG*
Jacques: So...Ako...what's it saying?
Ako: Why do you assume I know what dogs say?
Jacques: Cause you have pretty much every useless power known to man, outside of exact specific scenarios that only me and my future companion would run into?
Ako: Oh, right! WEll, it says LEAVE NOW!
Ranmaru: *comes in out of nowhere* Oh, yeah, I forgot to say, THERE'S A GUARD DOG!
Jacques: ...damn it, you're not suppose to be in this scene!
Ranmaru: I'm not?
Jacques: NO! NOW GET OUT SO I CAN HAVE A BOSS FIGHT!
Ranmaru: ...nobody loves me :( *he leaves even though he was never actually in this scene to begin with*
Jacques: So I guess this is the guard dog then...lets get this fight over with!
*Boss fight ensues, Jacques emerges victorious*
Jacques: Ok, now that that's done with...
*trap springs, entire area starts flooding*
Jacques: ...should have seen that coming.
*He runs up stairs, killing more ZOMBIE SKELETON DEMONS*
Ako: Man, your luck really sucks Jacques.
Jacques: No thanks to you!
Ako: Well, if you stopped yelling at me, you wouldn't miss that DEMON TRAIN OVER THERE!
Jacques: What demon train? *he looks behind him, sees a DEMON TRAIN leaving* ...oh the convenience *he gets on it without any flair and drama despite it moving at max speed*
Jacques: *sigh* I just want to go home...can you tell Samanosuke to figure this stuff out already?
Ako: OK!!! Wait, what are you doing?
Jacques: Taking a nap, cause I'm not going to be in the game for quite a while due to some screwed up nonsense.
Ako: Got it!
*back 420 years in the future*
Samanosuke: So its my turn again? Ok, lets check out this new room!
*he does exactly that, upon entering the room*
Zombie Ranmaru: DIE!!!!!!!! *he misses spectacularly*
Samanosuke: ...oh, hi, Ranmaru...what's up?
Zombie Ranmaru: I'LL KILL YOU!!!!
Samanosuke: Are you really sure you want another curb stomping? I mean...seriously, do you think anything is going to change since 20 minutes ago?
Zombie Ranmaru: YES!!!! NOW I WILL KIL-
*Samanosuke kicks him in the teeth*
Zombie Ranmaru: OW! My 434 year old Undead teeth! You'll pay for that!
Samanosuke: Look, can we just get on with-*Random aura engulfs Samanosuke* What kind of sorcery is this?
Zombie Ranmaru: Oh look, you fell for my trap! Now you'll become a Genma and I'll get my revenge!
Samanosuke: So you're going to turn me into a demon?
Zombie Ranmaru: Yes!
Samanosuke: Thereby making me stronger just like you?
Zombie Ranmaru: Yes!
Samanosuke: And you're suppose to defeat me after I get this upgrade?
Zombie Ranmaru: YES!!!!
Samanosuke: Even though you couldn't beat me as I am now?
Zombie Ranmaru: Yes! THIS PLAN IS FLAWLESS! SEE YOU IN HELL!! *Samanosuke teleports away*
Ako: Oh no! I need to go tell someone something is wrong! I know! I'll tell them!
*In Jacques Apartment*
Ako: Samanosuke is in trouble!
Henri: I must help him! If he's in trouble, dad is too! I'm off to Notre Dame! *Henri charges out of the house*
Michelle: No! Henri! You mustn't...Ako, we have to find him, or else he's in trouble.
Ako: Ok! Lets go! But you'll have to become a playable character if we're to do this.
Michelle: Ok, can I still use guns and grenades?
Ako: Uh, I guess?
Michelle: THEN LETS DO THIS!
*Michelle guns down a bunch of demons with a Semi-Automatic Shotgun, Assault Rifle, and blows a few things up with Grenades*
Ako: So you find anything yet?
Michelle: No, not quite-...*finds a document* ...except that this says there's something going on in the Zoo...HENRI AND SAMANOSUKE MUST BE THERE!
Ako: OK! ...wait, we don't even know that Henri got kidnapped, aren't we getting ahead of ourselves?
Michelle: He's a 10 year old boy whose sole purpose is to be motivation for Jacques to care about this time line (Cause apparently, me being engaged to him isn't enough...), and help out my own character development, what od you think?
Ako: I don't think!
Michelle: (how do Jacques and Samanosuke put up with her?)
*meanwhile, in jail*
Henri: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!!!
Samanosuke: Be strong, Henri! Michelle will save us!
Henri: No she won't! She's a bitch!
Samanosuke: Look, its either have faith in her, or just whine and accept your death.
Henri: DO I have a choice?
Samanosuke: No, no you don't.
*at the Zoo with a french name that I don't give a shit about*
Michelle: You know...it occurred to me...me and Henri were speaking English even while you weren't around, even though we were all clearly speaking French before you entered the picture...how is that possible?
Ako: Cause French people speak English ^_^?
Michelle: ...anyway, we're in the Zoo, so I guess there's going to be Demonic animals right?
*A DEMON GORILLA COMES OUT OF A CAGE*
Michelle: EAT LED YOU UGLY PIECE OF CRAP!
*It dies, Michelle explores for a bit, finds a bunch of useless items, and a Sniper Rifle, ultimately gets a boat*
Ako: So...why don't you and Henri get along?
Michelle: Cause his mother died in a car accident...
Ako: Oh, ok! That makes perfect sense!
Michelle: ...there's more to the story than that, you realize.
Ako: Oh, I get it! You crashed the car into her, didn't you?
Michelle: ...what? No! That's not it! She died protecting Henri, and he blamed himself, so now he just doesn't want a new mom!
Ako: Huh? You make no sense!
Michelle: But that's what happened...
*Boat stops moving, Fish Demons appear...then get shot to death*
Ako: Uh-oh, is the boat broken?
Michelle: Nah, its fine *she kicks the motor, it starts moving* see?
(This actually happens in the game.)
*Michellle reaches the jail*
Henri: Michelle! Yay!!
Michelle: Hang on, I'll get you out of here!
Samanosuke: ...what? You're just going to ignore me? Geez, its cause I'm asian, isn't it?
*they get out of Jail*
Henri: Michelle!!!
Michelle: Henri!!!
*The them from Chariot's of Fire plays as those two slowly run to a hug*
Skeletor: FOOLED YOU!!!! *Grabs both right before they hug*
Samanosuke: SKELETOR! GET BACK HERE!
Skeletor: A woman and a boy, perfect specimens. Ehehehehe! COME AND SAVE THEM IF YOU CAN SAMANOSUKE!
Samanosuke: Whelp, that diversion is done with, I guess I better go save those two...
*Samanosuke beats the shit out of a crap load of Demon Gorillas on his quest to reach those two, including running all the way across the Zoo to get ONE FUCKING KEY to open a door where the two were taken which was from a door in the exact room he started in*
Samanosuke: Capcom, why do you do this to me?
Skeletor: Because, you're the main character!
Samanosuke: Since when do you break the 4th wall?
Skeletor: ...SILENCE! YOU WILL NOT SAVE THESE TWO! NOW DIE!
Samanosuke: Wait, you mean...I'm about to have a boss fight...that's actually RELEVANT?
Skeletor: What about Ranmaru?
Samanosuke: He's relevant?
Skeletor: ...ok, I suppose I should have chosen a BETTER henchman to ressurect...maybe that Honda guy would have been better...but enough banther, LET THIS EPIC FATED CONFRONTA-...
*Samanosuke shoots a flaming arrow into Skeletor's face*
Skeletor: DAMN YOU SAMANOSUKE!!! *he "dies", Michelle and Henri get saved*
Michelle: Thank you Samanosuke, its finally over!
Samanosuke: No, its not. There's never just one freak of nature, or alternatively, they never die merely once. Here, can you take me to this spot? That's probably where they'll be.
Michelle: Uh, sure!
*they jump in Michelle's car!*
Ako: Hmm...you know, Henri, you should let go of the past.
Samanosuke: Holy crap, did you just say something useful?
Ako: ^_^
Henri: But I can't do that so easily!
Ako: Well, if I get an item from your mother, I can let you meet her one last time, do you have anything?
Henri: Uhh...dad might!
Ako: Oh, that's too bad. Guess we need to come up with a different...
Samanosuke: No, we don't; you just travel back to Jacques and get an item from him and bring it here, you have that power remember?
Ako: Oh, right!
*she goes back to Jacques*
Jacques: Hmm...an item from my dead wife? Uh, how about this ring she use to wear?
Ako: NO! It has to be something from her.
Jacques: ...just take the damn ring.
Ako: Oh, ok! I forget why I'm here anyway ^_^
*Back in the present, Ako does some weird shit with the ring*
Henri's Mother: Henri, stop being a little cry baby and move on with your life! Its not your fault I killed myself for you!
Henri: Its not? Ok, yay! I feel better!
Ako: There! Now you and Michelle should get along much better!
Samanosuke: Awww, isn't that happy...now if you excuse me, I got a cryptic castle in the middle of this city to overtake single handedly! You two stay here!
*Samanosuke charges into the castle...only to find he can't progress at all cause everything is locked*
Samanosuke: let me guess...all the objects I need exist 500 years ago, and you'll have to get Jacques get them for me, right?
Ako: YEP! Later!
*back with Jacques*
Jacques: Man, that was the smoothest ride ever, Demons should really go into the transportation business, cause they're much better at that than the whole World Domination thing...
Honda: AHA! ITS YOU!!!
Jacques: Oh, the guy who looks exactly like Misturugi from Soul Calibur.
Honda: Yes! NOW EN GUARDE!
Jacques: Wait, we're enemies now?
Honda: BUT OF COURSE!
Jacques: What makes you say that?
Honda: Because...uhh...*he looks up, sees a demon woman* ...because we are, OK!
*Half assed boss fight ensues*
Jacques: Ok, look, its quite clear you're not evil, just kind of psycho...
Honda: And you're not half bad a fighter!
Demon Woman: Heihachi, kill him already!
Honda: No.
Demon Woman: Why not? I'm your boss!
Honda: No you aren't.
Demon Woman: What?
Honda: I don't take orders, so I'm just sort of going to leave now.
Demon Woman: Bah, I don't need you, I'm going back to my slave labor.
Jacques: Say...this place...its in France...ARE WE BACK IN MY TIME!? *remembers he just fought Honda* ...no, no I'm not.
Ako: Good news! Samanosuke is here as well.
Jacques: Ah, will I meet him?
Ako: No, cause he's here 500 years from now ^_^!
Jacques: ...I see...well, guess I should explore this place or something
*Bunch of emblem puzzles and swapping back and forth between characters later, in the middle of which Jacques learns the weird demon woman's name is Vega Donna*
Vega Donna: Come you French, if you don't work, I'LL EAT YOUR SOUL! Now, I'm going to take a nap!
Jacques: ...did she just quite literally let me get a free pass into rescuing these guys?
French Slaves: Uh? We're saved? Ok, lets stop working and run into demon infested terroritory!!!
Jacques: yes! Do that! Hurry!
Vega Donna: What the...Demons are escaping? GET THEM MY GENERIC MINIONS!
Jacques: Oh no, generic genma, whatever will I do, if only I had ancient japanese weaponry of illogical elemental properties to fight them with...
Vega Donna: Yeah, you can't beat them cause you totally lack tho-...
*Jacques kicks their asses effortlessly with ancient japanese weaponry of illogical elemental properties*
Vega Donna: But you just said you didn't have those...
Jacques: ...I'm just going to pretend that sarcasm wasn't invented in the 16th century and casually leave now.
*He does exactly that, meanwhile back in the Future*
Hang Dude: Whoa man, its like...you again...
Samanosuke: How the hell did you get here? And since when did you talk like a stereotype hawaiin surfer? Wait, how do I even know what the hell Hawaii is?
Hang Dude: I just do, man! Now, are you like going to do my challenge...man?
Samanosuke: ...I guess I might as well kill time waiting for Jacques do his ACTUAL PLOT.
*back with the main plot*
Jacques: Ok, I have saved some slaves and *key comes flying towards him from nowhere* Huh? A useful object? Didn't expect that...
Honda: Here you go, there's more French Men in the area over in the front.
Jacques: ..why are you helping me now? Didn't we just sort of try to kill each other?
Honda: HA! You act as though I actually plan these things out! That's a good one!
Jacques: ...I'm gonna go do some more heroic stuff if you don't mind.
Honda: You go do that, I'm gonna fade away from significance again!
*more random Resident Evil like Emblem Puzzles later*
Jacques: Ok, we've not really run into any real competition in a while, something vile is afoot!
*a trap triggers, Jacques and Ako, despite her TIME TELEPORTING POWERS, are stuck in that room*
*back in 2004*
Henri: DAD NEEDS HELP! He's in trouble!
Michelle: What? Jacques' in trouble? But...he's 500 years in the past! How are we suppose to help him?
Henri: We just will, OK!? I'M GOING TO SAVE HIM!
Michelle: Not alone you aren't, I'm coming too! First, we need to find Samanosuke! He'll know what to do!
Henri: Ok!!!
Will Michelle and Henri find Samanosuke? Will Jacques die a painful death in this cliched trap room? Will Honda ever figure out if he's a villain or just some arbitrary ally? Will Ranmaru EVER serve a genuine purpose in this story?
Ranmaru: HEY! I'm already really important! I mean...look at me! I have a name and everything...I even have a zombiified version of myself!
...like I said, will Ranmaru EVER serve a genuine purpose in this story?
Ranmaru: ...aww...
TUNE IN NEXT TIME FOR ONIMUSHA 3 ABRIDGED!
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I realize my writing is probably just sucking now, but I made a commitment and I'll stand by it! Next episode should be the last <_<
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Dragon Age: Origins.
This just FEELS like a Bioware. The throwaway opening (x2!). The quick establishment of an epic premise. The dialog branch style... there is just no mistaking it.
I am enjoying it so far. The difficulty on Normal is not much, but it is a hella lot of fun to burn up some Darkspawn. Yes sir. Playing a female Mage because I heard that females had a better plot and I like burninating things.
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... and done. Was rewarded shiny FMVs, endings and credits after a hard earned victory on the fourth attempt. Overall thoughts later. Zzzzzz.
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They fixed some of the spikey difficulty in patches after release and mages are brokened. There is some actual consequence to your sex in DA regarding the endings unless there is something a bit twisty they do that I don't expect.
I will have to play my next character as a female elf, but after the win of Dwarfstache when I started up a Mage I had to roll with a Manstache as well because goddamn they have some pimping stache action in this game.
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XF: Just beat the ambushed by monsters battle. I decided to kill King Tarrasque III instead of trying to do wacky nonsense at the gate. Petrify is pretty mean. The escape map was pretty silly since the win conditions weren't really laid out (I could have checked them I guess!). Ended up sending one Berserker in the map and hoping not to die.
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Star Ocean FD character thoughts -
Roddick- Decent enough. Probably the most mellow of the SO mains since I can't remember him doing any overtly over the top emotionally dramatic whining/etc like Fayt and Edge >.> Mainly just there, kind of mellow and laid back and his reactions to others in some of the PAs were hilarious.
In game - SO main. Which means he is good but there's usually better (Mavelle, Maria/Peppita, Reimi/Meracle) although the main is usually easy to control as is the case here too I think/ Never really used him enough to tell just how good he can actually become - just until Millie and Ronyx with Mavelle joined proper as well as to recruit T'nique - but yeah.
Millie-Spirited/spunky female lead who's not afraid to speak her mind or deliver a punt to those mouthing off about her!? Hell yes I'll bite. Unfortunately they had to stick in some damsel in distress stuff there right at the very end of the game which put a bit of a damper on the whole thing but oh well. She's probably still the best female lead? I don't remember Rena very well but I'll put her above the other two >.>
In game - Healbot. Earned her keep and then some. Eventually a rez bot too. Incredibly useful to my no item creationed team keeping my fighters in fighing condition enough so that I always usually had at least one extra PC left to switch to for item use if needed. Sometimes she didn't quite keep up and the only PC left would be Millie herself (she mostly kept herself safe at range) which resulted in major ouchies a couple of times as I frantically switched to her to try to frantically revive peeps only to fail in dodging the pain from teh bosses. Regardless her support was vital to my wins when I got a good rythm going.
Ronyx- Toro. If the hat fits ... Completely oblivious to a lot of things and off in his own little world :) Didn't get as much out of him as I was hoping, again the characters are mostly just there in this game.
In game - Used him for like two seconds =P Offence mage!? Picked up a bunch of spells for him from treasure chests in the final dungeons which might be interesting.
Ilia- I still thought of Mirage when I first starting playing. At least on the surface i.e they both have similar equipment/battle styles, they both like their drink and they both are a team with their superiors (Mirage/Cliff, Ilia/Ronyx) However yeah there is definitely more to Ilia than Mirage, at least that we get to see. I'm not sure that's such a good thing though >.> Her bitchiness to Phia was out of line unless I'm missing something, hell Ronyx wasn't even there and while her reactions over the other women in the party and Ronyx were at least understandable ... yeah. Kick ass in the final FMVs though and a good enough person at heart =-)
In game - Solid. Played mostly as her until Mavelle joined. Pure brawler, works. Mistakenly switched her out for Welch and then switched her back in later on. As a result she was a bit lower levelled than my other PCs (Ilia was ... L47 for the big "demon" baddie in the space lab) but still good. May be relatively tanky and durable when built properly as well, I dunno?
Mavelle- Token beautiful mysterious woman type. Interesting enough backstory but since I didn't fufill the requirements to complete it since that would have meant losing her as a PC she was mostly just there. I can live with that!
In game - Broken~
Pericci- I thought she was a bit annoying at first which is surprising for me, I definitely found her more annoying than Peppita since she stuck her tongue out at me, was quite rude and ran away instead of giving me a free show ticket, autograph and sticking around to help me out in a crisis! :P However once I actually managed to recruit her as a PC her natural bounce and happiness worked for me. Apart from that - there! (yes this is getting to be a theme!)
In game - Ah proto-type Peppita ^.^ Main PC. Mistake probably. She's definitely not as good as Peppita with Power Dance not being a broken MT buff , Healing/Magical Dance not working on herself, her damage not being a gut's worth full and her statuses not being many. Still Power Dance was a nice AoE damage move and Dream Hammer was solid enough once she finally picked it up. Not to mention Healing Dance/Magical Dance were still decent enough supports whenever I felt like controlling other PCs. Should have probably just kept controlling Mavelle but meh ...
T'nique- Possibly the most "there" of them all! Joined too late to really make an impression either way other than that he seems like a bit of a smart ass >.>
In game - Never used 'im <.<
Welch- You know ... I know Welch is supposed to be entertaining and funny or something and ok some of it *was* funny ... but some of it was just disturbing >.> Especially that chuckling sprite ... *flees*
In game ... words cannot describe this.
Final party winded up as Pericci, Mavelle, Millie and Ilia with Pericci being my highest at L69 vs the final boss. Both the big demon baddie and the space flea as well as the Crimson Shield before hand turned out to be quite epic battles which caused resets until I found something that worked. Fun. Definitely felt it was worth it for the ending FMVs/etc though.
**
Everyone's various shades of Light/Middle in the DL assuming no item creation I think except Roddick who gets Heavy for having the broke that is Good Luck Charm as well as picking up powerful swords end game >.>
Overall thoughts remain the same as from my initial impressions. Fun romp of a game and probably a lot more fun if you just break it into littly bitty pieces right of the bat. Maybe.
Game can probably be either as short or as long as you want. I completed it within twenty five hours and that was with a lot of back tracking for private actions, I imagine getting the best gear for/doing the arena with everyone adds quite a bit to that too =-)
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League of Legends
Level 10 now. I'm focusing my mastery points in offense for the most part. I guess I could adjust them to each different hero I play with at the time, but....lazy.
I find that I enjoy playing with Ashe, Warwick, or Nunu as of right now. I have 3200 IP points saved up, and thinking of collecting enough for Twitch who cost 6k or so to unlock.
My wins/losses are pretty even as well. Good thing no one else can see how many Ls I have!
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KotOR: Up to the first planet of the endgame. Should have seen the ZOMG twist coming for a while but I didn't. Incidentally, it makes the whole Korriban section way more entertaining. Well, either that or being Dark Side and using this section to beef up on the evil (especially since my white guilt tricked me into getting a bunch of light points in Kashyyyk), which was way more entertaining than I'm sure the light side path of Korriban would have been.
Right now, team is Chesthair Ey Arthr running around stunning and killing everything with magic, HK-47 on ranged duty and Julianned Fries melee attacking. I briefly considered taking Carth instead since he is a waaaaaay better built character than Juliananeszxxx but he's also a total fucking wanker so fuck that.
Incidentally, I wish I had known that Force persuade was just an independent feat and not a bonus to the persuade skill, so I wouldn't have wasted my last feat with Chesthair Eyyyyy Arthr but the game's kind of crumpling to the power of the darkside, so I'm not too sure it matters.
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DQVIII- Jumped back into this after a break. Prince Charmles was suitably hilarious. Sad part is that his plan was kinda sound until he decided to trade for that fake one. Poor Medea. Finished with that part. Just scouring the map for stuff/alchemizing/leveling before the Dark Ruins.
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BoF4: In some random ruins finding some item for what can only be a horrible stereotype of the Chinese so that I can reach the capital. Ershin is still tearing shit apart with Quake/Blizzard, and Nina's healing is godly. Which is why they're spending most of their time in the back to restore MP. I still find the battle system weird, but mostly good. Ershin is still awesome. Tee-hee-hee.
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WoW: Exalted with every Northerend faction except Ashen Verdict and Frenzyheart. But I have mercenary so ha!
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Ilia- I still thought of Mirage when I first starting playing. At least on the surface i.e they both have similar equipment/battle styles, they both like their drink and they both are a team with their superiors (Mirage/Cliff, Ilia/Ronyx) However yeah there is definitely more to Ilia than Mirage, at least that we get to see. I'm not sure that's such a good thing though >.> Her bitchiness to Phia was out of line unless I'm missing something, hell Ronyx wasn't even there and while her reactions over the other women in the party and Ronyx were at least understandable ... yeah. Kick ass in the final FMVs though and a good enough person at heart =-)
Also? Claude's mom.
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BoF5 - Got, in tunnels fighting spiders with the full team. Throwing meat at spiders has never been a more effective combat strategy.
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Ilia- I still thought of Mirage when I first starting playing. At least on the surface i.e they both have similar equipment/battle styles, they both like their drink and they both are a team with their superiors (Mirage/Cliff, Ilia/Ronyx) However yeah there is definitely more to Ilia than Mirage, at least that we get to see. I'm not sure that's such a good thing though >.> Her bitchiness to Phia was out of line unless I'm missing something, hell Ronyx wasn't even there and while her reactions over the other women in the party and Ronyx were at least understandable ... yeah. Kick ass in the final FMVs though and a good enough person at heart =-)
Also? Claude's mom.
Much like Ninian is DEFINITELY Roy's Mom, cause Nintendo totally confirmed it?
...oh wait...
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Everyone's various shades of Light/Middle in the DL assuming no item creation I think except Roddick who gets Heavy for having the broke that is Good Luck Charm as well as picking up powerful swords end game >.>
No item creation=Ronyx's low 2HKO is going to get some kind of crazy boost. That said, without item creation, everyting but Roddick is still some sort of Light or Middle anyways.
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Ilia- I still thought of Mirage when I first starting playing. At least on the surface i.e they both have similar equipment/battle styles, they both like their drink and they both are a team with their superiors (Mirage/Cliff, Ilia/Ronyx) However yeah there is definitely more to Ilia than Mirage, at least that we get to see. I'm not sure that's such a good thing though >.> Her bitchiness to Phia was out of line unless I'm missing something, hell Ronyx wasn't even there and while her reactions over the other women in the party and Ronyx were at least understandable ... yeah. Kick ass in the final FMVs though and a good enough person at heart =-)
Also? Claude's mom.
Much like Ninian is DEFINITELY Roy's Mom, cause Nintendo totally confirmed it?
...oh wait...
I thought the remake -did- confirm it?
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Ilia- I still thought of Mirage when I first starting playing. At least on the surface i.e they both have similar equipment/battle styles, they both like their drink and they both are a team with their superiors (Mirage/Cliff, Ilia/Ronyx) However yeah there is definitely more to Ilia than Mirage, at least that we get to see. I'm not sure that's such a good thing though >.> Her bitchiness to Phia was out of line unless I'm missing something, hell Ronyx wasn't even there and while her reactions over the other women in the party and Ronyx were at least understandable ... yeah. Kick ass in the final FMVs though and a good enough person at heart =-)
Also? Claude's mom.
Much like Ninian is DEFINITELY Roy's Mom, cause Nintendo totally confirmed it?
...oh wait...
I thought the remake -did- confirm it?
The Welch ending, yes. It's like Laguna being Squall's dad.
On the other hand, it's not like Ninian being Roy's mother because that would make Roy 1/4 dragon, and they didn't redraw Ninian to make her look exactly like Roy, like they did with Ilia.
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HAUSER IS JUDE'S DAD!??!
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Interesting stuffs =-)
/me nods @ Dhyer
Niice. Haven't decided completely what I do or don't allow though much as I haven't completely decided if I just allow IC armour/accessories but not IC weapons in SO3 or if I also allow the weapons. I'll eventually play around with SO1's item creation more extensively and see. Feeling if I allow it in one game regardless of which one I should allow it in all.
Final Fantasy Dissidia- Started in earnest. Now quicksaved in Cloud's story after the Firion stuff. Jecht is too manly for my shirt - is there any way to sanely defeat the Jecht clone on that floor? I tried a few times and would have persisted out of sheer stubborness if I hadn't wanted to get moving >.>
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Eh, thought of a better example, since the WA4 one has clear genetic markers that you can use as proof.
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You mean the shades that are several levels above you, noted by a gold chess piece CT? You can ignore those for now.
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Rob: ...Squall is Laguna's dad?
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Tiiime Kompression!!!
Ah good to know, thanks Xer~
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There was an accident with a time machine and a prophylactic.
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That makes so much goddamn sense. Laguna's brain damage is attributable to Rinoa and Disc 3+ Squall.
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SRWW - Did Tekkaman Blade need -that many- upgrades?
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SRWW - Did Tekkaman Blade need -that many- upgrades?
It's W, it has to constantly top itself with broken units.
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CT, regarding Super Shadows...
They're geared for extra challenge on your first run; if you've got experience with the game (like I did when I played the English version), beating them is reasonable, but your first few DOs, you probably should skip them. The "Reinforced" pieces are the only ones like this. They're noted by being bigger and armored.
Generally speaking, pieces are like this:
Silver Helmets: Weaklings
Silver Helmets with Pointy Objects behind them: Not weaklings!!! ...but still fairly easy to beat.
Armored Thingies: Tough enemies, usually one per Destiny Odyssey, you'll note their level is MUCH higher than anything else; good idea to skip them if you aren't confident.
Armored Thingies with pointy objects behind them: Replays of Maps only; these are the PSYCHO FREAK Manikens who exist so replays aren't total "You crush everything" and also exist to making getting DP Reqs easier for that 100%
Gold Pieces: Gimmicky. They have about the same AI level as the Pointy Objects one, maybe the Reinforced ones, but their levels and stats aren't absurd; however, they typically run off some weird thing, like they'll have Soul of the Destroyer, which gives 1000% Initial Brave (IE they will probably kill you instantly), but have 1 HP (so you do the same to them), so its quite literally a "whoever gets the HP Attack in first!" These guys often cheat with Phoenix Downs and take 2 shots however, but yeah. The gimmicks vary, where as the other pieces are all straight forward fights.
Don't worry about DP or tough pieces on your first run; the initial Destiny Odyssey Runs are to get a feel for the character, as well as some quick levels, and figure out who you awnt for SHade Impulse (as well as equipment and such.) Replays are where you start ripping your hair out for DP <.<
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Tales of Vesperia - Played a lot of this while I was at home hanging out with my brother and allowing my brain to turn into a puddle of goo. Not actually done with the game, but I just got Estelle back and methinks that if Tales tradition is any indication all I have left is one dungeon worth of doing in the bad guy, followed by an arc I'm going to pretend doesn't happen, probably revolving around the psychological infirmities of Yuri/Estelle/Both (my money's on both: they've beaten Estelle's issues to death, but that never stopped Tales writers from doing it again, and Yuri's been more or less emotionally stable, so he's a ripe target) or something remarkably stupid Ioder/Flynn decides to do, followed by a final boss. Deep breath.
Not really a whole lot to say about it. Yuri's an interesting and thoughtful main character, his relationship with Flynn seems like it was written by an FFT fanboy (this is a good thing) there have been no major trainwrecks thusfar (except maaaaaybe the Raven thing, but while that was kinda silly it is by no means fatal) Repede is just great (I believe he was conceived of by someone who watched Porco Rosso, thought about a man deciding to be a pig, and thought it would work well in reverse), Judith is so bad at telling people things she ought to that it's hard to believe she's not from TotA, and FF9 skills meets FF12 item synthesis is entertaining if occasionally frustrating (ToV players who were fastidious about weapon synthesis probably shudder at the words "Cocatrice Claw" and possibly "Bird Feather (Medium)" ).
I am highly amused by the game providing not one but two good-seeming, powerful men with long silver hair. This introduces the (slim) possibility that at least one of them may turn out not to be a villain.
Anyway, yeah, good stuff.
Also: 3 dungeons without the healer? Screw you too, game.
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methinks that if Tales tradition is any indication all I have left is one dungeon worth of doing in the bad guy, followed by an arc I'm going to pretend doesn't happen,
Pretty much.
probably revolving around the psychological infirmities of Yuri/Estelle/Both (my money's on both: they've beaten Estelle's issues to death, but that never stopped Tales writers from doing it again, and Yuri's been more or less emotionally stable, so he's a ripe target) or something remarkably stupid Ioder/Flynn decides to do. Deep breath.
But you'll be happy to know that at least it doesn't happen -this- way.
Also: 3 dungeons without the healer? Screw you too, game.
Estelle's a lame healer anyway. Raven's insta-heal ends up better in practice. Mind, Estelle's a crazy tank.
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Also she has a full-life revive, and buffs and things. Raven's HP/s thoroughput is much better but she's got utility and she's really hard to kill.
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Interesting stuffs =-)
/me nods @ Dhyer
Niice. Haven't decided completely what I do or don't allow though much as I haven't completely decided if I just allow IC armour/accessories but not IC weapons in SO3 or if I also allow the weapons. I'll eventually play around with SO1's item creation more extensively and see. Feeling if I allow it in one game regardless of which one I should allow it in all.
Even Roddick actually sheds a very hearty teardrop without IC (Actually him more than anyone). He wants that Soul Eater.
Actually, looking at it, the damage drop isn't going to be as big as I thought, since they'll just default to the A rank Arena weapons. Still makes Roddick, Phia, Ashlay, likely Cyuss, Erys, Millie, and Ioshua at the very least somewhat sad for non-damage related reasons.
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Raven is there for 2 of the dungeons without Estelle and as stated he is quite sufficient at healing (You just have to set him to do nothing else). Personally, I just use both of them. Raven doesn't heal often, but it is a nice option when it is there.
Almost spot on about the third act being shit, but not for the reasons! The characters don't really fail or break down. It sucks for whole other reasons.
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SRWW - *FUBs Tekkaman Hiver and Aki weaponry.* Everybody should be as cheap to upgrade as the Tekkaman army.
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FF9 skills meets FF12 item synthesis is entertaining if occasionally frustrating
FF9 meets FF12? FF9 had synthing itself, and it was more or less the exact same way ToV has it! Really, ToV just ripped its skill and synth system from FF9, and then tweaked it a bit to call it its own unique system.
(not trying to knock on either game, but both Synthing and its Skill System are basically direct mirrors of FF9's; the main changes are the "Auto Equipped" factor in ToV on Skills, and with Synthing, there's just so many more things TO synth, what with all the weapons basically having at least one "+" form and there being a bajillion items...I guess the latter part is where you get the FF12 part from <_<)
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Labyrinth of Touhou: Found a gap in the defenses of Yukari, and somehow managed to win on my third or so attempt on serious tries. Only using that restore move once helped.
Anyways, onto 17F and the part where everything promptly kicks my ass until I gain like 15 levels. Holy Angels are probably the most dangerous in a long line of enemies: Either you don't kill them and everything else gets a free turn, or you try to kill them, fail, and eat MT overkill. At least Reimu's Paralyze seems to work nicely.
(Also, going to try to avoid spoilers from here on out. Was considering not spoiling the boss but I think the people who just started were around when I won, plus it should be stupidly obvious very early on that you'll wind up fighting Yukari at some point.)
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Smashy: Floor 18 has (slightly) easier randoms and Floor 17 has nothing missable, so I highly recommend rushing to floor 18 and going from there.
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(not trying to knock on either game, but both Synthing and its Skill System are basically direct mirrors of FF9's; the main changes are the "Auto Equipped" factor in ToV on Skills, and with Synthing, there's just so many more things TO synth, what with all the weapons basically having at least one "+" form and there being a bajillion items...I guess the latter part is where you get the FF12 part from <_<)
Yeah, that's pretty much what I meant. The difficulty of actually laying hands on all your raw materials and of keeping track of what you actually need, especially before you get an airship, seemed a lot like FF12. It's a very good thing that ToV has the decency to allow you to synth in any shop, given the number of times towns are arbitrarily cut off from you.
Take 'Bird Feather (Medium).' In the first half of the game it's dropped only by Axebeaks, which are to be found in only one early area which you lose access to for long swaths at a time. When you finally need it for synthesis, you need something like 15 of them all at once, and you don't even have access to the birds (they become necessary when you hit the coliseum, but they're not to be found on that continent, which you can't leave for a while). The drop rate from Axebeaks is bad, to boot; unless you make a concerted effort it would be shocking to have more than 5 on hand. Having 15 is tantamount to committing Axebeak genocide.
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Well, Axebeaks are jackasses. They deserve it.
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WoW: Shammy, Pally and Warrior alt are all working out. Enhancement is awesome.
Dragon Age: Wandering around, random questing for a bit. Party deserves a break after recruiting both the Arl and the Dalish.
Hotel Dusk: Room 215: Continuing the saga of cop turned deliveryman slash PI turned guy who has to do chores for people to learn useful information. Kinda stumped on this whole wine bottle thing. I think I've done everything I'm supposed to, but I can't seem to advance the story. Not sure what I'm failing to do.
Team Fortress 2/Left 4 Dead 2: Same as they ever are.
Demon's Souls: Debating playing this some more, finally.
Capcom vs SNK: Card Fighter DS: Amused. Game is pretty throwaway on the whole. The writing/translation is awful (I'm not sure what a couple cards I've encountered actually do, and a few outright lie about it), the AI is awful (had a 27-odd winning streak that should not have existed until the game threw all my action/counter cards at me for four straight turns... counting my opening hand), the TCG itself is pretty mediocre (I can break it in about a million ways with the limited card pool I've seen) and even the controls are kinda fritzy (in a TCG based game, seriously), but I can't help but find myself at least partially entertained by it. We'll see how I feel when I reach the game breaking glitch in this version. Whee.
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CTDS: Decided to ignore the Sun Stone as soon as I was told "It must be nearby. Let's look for it!" Carrying on with my sidequest hunt, I finished off the Golden Hammer quest for the Reptites and started a new one. Need to find some curing herb in a place east of the Southern Swamp. Riiiight...
In other news, beat Mother Brain. Dungeon was pretty easy outside of the boss, who's gradual power boosts were </3. Eventually won by stalling with one Display intact to Haste/Barrier everyone, then spammed Ice Tackle and Dark Mist. Robo is now awesome.
Oh yeah, how do I get past the damn Cyrus ghost in the Northern Ruins? :/
BoF4 is now on hold because P3 came through finally FUCK YEAH. Don't think I'll be playing any other console games until I've beaten both Journey and Answer.
Junpei and Yukari's voices already annoy me, but at least Yukari seems like a decent enough character. Junpei... We'll see.
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Junpei was fine for me, but I had P3FES which apparently made physicals better across the board (not overpowered, but still good).
CTDS: Sun Stone is in the same era, exploring the map will show an obvious indicator. Get past Cyrus' ghost by getting people in the past to repair the building - remember that chests in 600 AD improve if you leave them alone for 1000 AD (and sealed chests improve if you check but don't open them in 600 AD, then open in 1000 AD.)
The stuff in the Time Vortexes or whatever they were called are honestly kinda FAQ bait and require a lot of jumping back and forth in time, but there's some cool and challenging boss fights in there to make up for it.
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Smashy: Floor 18 has (slightly) easier randoms and Floor 17 has nothing missable, so I highly recommend rushing to floor 18 and going from there.
Sounds fun, although melee angels are going to sap Exploration Chen's SP if she can't level up really soon
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Cross Edge - Stomped the first set of 5-2 bosses and one of the second set. Mages have ridiculous damage. The fighters are just there to break the enemies while the mages mop up.
Now that I've unlocked a third island I need to do more title grinding. Yay.
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SDGGGW-
Finished the Origin Generation. Going on to Another Generation without looking into the Extra Generation map that was unlocked yet.
Guyana!Devil Gundam takes up over three times as many squares as the Albion. I don't remember it giving off the impression of being so massive in the show. Amusingly it has less HP than the Great Zeong.
Current team-
Albion/Zenon et al [Crossbone Gundam X1/Amuro '79 [Gundam Double X/Mark (GG) [Ex-Superior Gundam/Lanalowe (GG), Gundam Leopard/Eris (GG), Heavygun (Aina)], Dendrobium Stamen/Kou [Great Zeong/Char '79, Zudah/Shiro]]]
White Base/Bright '87 et al [Gundam Mk II Basic/Camille [Gundam Unit 4/Billy (GG) [Tieren Ground/Luke (GG), Gogg/Alfreda (GG)], Zeta Gundam/Judou [BuCUE/Eterna (GG), GM/Ivan (GG)]]]
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Symphony of the Night: Started this yesterday, played 3-4 hours in so far. Fairly short game I assume since a decent chunk of the map is filled in already. Bosses have been pretty feeble so far, either because I'm getting overleveled while backtracking incessantly or because they're just sad. Guessing the latter. Eh. I was in the mood for an old-school platformer and the game's decent enough as such, I can forgive it that.
I guess killing Richter = bad end. Or there's stuff I need to do before fighting him, maybe. Still a few scattered areas I haven't got around to filling in (underground places you need double jump or bat form for, the mist grate in the outer wall, the right branch of that clock hallway room since I'm not sure how that place works, the horrible spike hallway in the upper left of the map). Will knock those out and see if that changes anything.
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There's a rather annoying secret you have to pull off to get the good ending. The only hints are in some item descriptions.
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Onimusha 3 Abridged:
Episode 5: What is a Man? BISON!!!!!
Narrator: When we last left our hero he...
Michelle: Ahem, I believe this is MY section of the game!
Narrator: It is?
Michelle: IT is; I don't get many ofthese and I'm NOT letting you give credit to someone else.
Narrator: ...fine (Hard bitch...)
Michelle: I heard that!
Narrator: Crap! *Flees*
Michelle: So, lets see, I have to take down more of these demons while making sure the son of my fiancee does not get hurt. This shouldn't be too-...
*Bunch of demons appear out of nowhere*
Michelle: Um, crap, if only I had some sort of explosive other than these dinky grenades...
*she picks up a Grenade Launcher ina chest that Samanosuke somehow couldn't open*
Michelle: ...that'll do! *Blasts them all to kingdom come*
*the two reach the top of the clock tower thing, along the way, Michelle refuses to move if Henri is one inch too far from her!*
Samanosuke: Michelle, Henri, what are you doing here?
Henri: Dad's in trouble!
Samanosuke: How the hell do you know this? Oh, wait, I get it...YOU'RE A MARTY STU!
Michelle: I thought it was Gary Stu...
Samanosuke: ...semantics aside, how the hell do you know your father is in trouble 420 years ago?
Henri: IT says so in this history book here!
Samanosuke: ...I see...well, these things aren't historically accurate...
Ako: HELP! JACQUES IS CAUGHT IN A TRAP AND HE NEEDS YOUR HELP!
Samanosuke: ...and Crow Demon Fairies are even LESS reliable sources...
Henri: Dad's in trouble? I GOTTA HELP HIM!
Ako: Yeah! There's a trap down there, lets go!
Samanosuke: ...is anybody listening to me?
*Henri cracks the code on some DEMON KEYBOARD from 420 years in the past. No, don't ask how, he just does, and its all by pushing arbitrary buttons*
Henri: I did it!
Ako: You did it!
Henri: Yeah, now I gotta send this to dad!
Ako: Yeah, we gotta send this to Jacques!
Samanosuke: So, uh, how do you plan on doing that?
Henri: I'll tell dad myself!? *psychic bullshit occurs, despite Henri being a totally normal mundane child*
*back in the Feudal Era*
Jacques: I can see my life flashing before my eyes...damn this poison...
Henri's Voice: Dad! I know the combination, don't give up! I'll tell you it in the form of a minigame puzzle that resembles the game Simon!
Jacques: Huh? A Deus Ex Machina? Exactly what I need to get out of this situation!
*One puzzle later*
NOTE: Said Minigame was my only reset the entire game, cause I tend to screw up at Simon-like games. Just thought I'd point that out!
Jacques: I'm alive! I'm so giving my son a raise on his allowance once I get back home!
Ako: Yay! Jacques! You're alive!
Jacques: yeah, I am...now go tell the others I'm fine!
Ako: Ok ^_^
*back in 2004*
Ako: You're dad's fine!
Samanosuke: Well, that's great news, isn't it Henri?
Henri: Yeah, it is!
Samanosuke: Now, lets see what's behind this door!
*they go in, big magical machine nonsense*
Samanosuke: ...great, I guess this thing fuels the Power Source of the TIme Folder and...
*Television screen turns on, Zombie Ranmaru is there in front of the Eifel Tower*
Zombie Ranmaru: SAMANOSUKE! I HATE YOU! DIE! MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Samanosuke: ...I fail to see how this is relevant...
Zombie Ranmaru: I WILL THROW YOUR BONES INTO A PIT WHILE I DEFICATE THROUGH OTHER GENMA AS I SING BAD COUNTRY MUSIC IN AN ATTEMPT TO MOCK YOUR CORPSE!
Michelle: Do you know this guy?
Samanosuke: ...is it not too late to deny any sort of connection to him?
Zombie Ranmaru: AND THEN I WILL EAT THE BRAINS OF YOUR LIVER THAT YOU WILL NO LONGER HAVE AS I DISEMBOWEL YOU! HEIL NOBUNAGA!!!
Michelle: Is he just mocking you on a TV for no reason?
Henri: How does he even know you're watching it?
Samanosuke: ...seriously, is it too late to pretend I don't know this guy at all?
Ako: Oh! Its your best friend and buddy forever Ranmaru, isn't it ^_^?
Samanosuke: ...I hate you...
Zombie Ranmaru: Oh, yeah, I'm suppose to mention something about a Time Folder and how its ready...BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER! I SHALL DRINK YOUR BLOOD OF YOUR STOMACH ACID AND-...*Samanosuke turns the TV off*
Samanosuke: Ok, I've had enough of that crap, but he did mention the TIme Folder, where could it be...
Michelle: Well, that WAS the Eifel Tower in the background, I think we should head there.
Samanosuke: Sounds like a plan!
*TV turns back on*
Zombie Ranmaru: DON'T YOU DARE CHANGE THE CHANNEL ON ME SAMANOSUKE!!! Oh yeah, you're going to die as this building collapses on you, TOODLES! *TV turns off*
Samanosuke: Um...shit, I think I have one word for this situation?
Ako: And what's that?
Samanosuke: RUN!!!!!
*the group all runs out of the dungeon, once outside, a big boulder explodes revealing a large two headed dog*
Ako: *gasp* Its awoken from its 420 year old sleep!
*Dog attacks Henri, Michelle blocks it and is knocked out, as though she died melodramatically even though the hit obviously didn't kill her*
Henri: MICHELLE!!!!!
Samanosuke: Vile dog! RESPECT YOUR MASTER NOW!
*Dog stops and listens*
Samanosuke: ...did it just...listen to my words? Um...ok, lets try this *picks up a bone and throws it* FETCH!
*The dog runs and chases it off a cliff*
Samanosuke: Hey, its like I just skipped a boss fight.
Ako: ...cheater...
Henri: MICHELLE!!!!
Samanosuke: HEy, wake up, stop faking it!
Michelle: Huh, what happened?
Ako: Yay, she's alright ^_^
Samanosuke: Like I said, she was faking it...but lets get out of here, and save the drama for later, ok?
Henri: Ok, fine.
*they jump in Michelle's car, insert generic action car racing an explosion sequence here, everyone is fine*
Samanosuke: Well, it looks like we need to head to this Eifel Tower, how far is it from here?
Michelle: About 10 hours
Samanosuke: ...nuts...
Henri: Hey, Ako, can you go see what my dad's up too? Oh, and tell dad to marry Michelle!
(He actually says that last part...)
Ako: Alright ^_^
*420 years earlier*
Ako: Hey Jacques! Everyone's fine and happy and they're getting along happy and he says he wants you to marry Michelle!
Jacques: Well, that's good to here, so I guess its time we make some progress?
Ako: Yep ^_^
*TJacques makes his way into the castle*
Vega Donna: *insert Naga's Laugh here* Ah, yes, its you, BUT YOU'RE TOO LATE!
Jacques: ...look, I don't even know who you are, you're just a random demon chick who exists for obligatory fanservice in this game, would it hurt to have a little plot?
Vega Donna: Yes, YES IT WOULD! But anyway, observe, I SHALL UNLEASH THIS CASTLE'S SECRET!!!!
Jacques: What would that?
*A large JAPANESE temple grows in the middle of the large FRENCH castle...yes, you read that right...and I mean it in the literal sense*
Jacques: What...the...hell...
*Said Temple is also being carried by a Kaiju-sized Bug Demon...and by "carried" I mean the temple is actually growing out of its back...no, I am not making any of this up*
Jacques: Assuming I'm still alive, when did that bitch drug me, cause there's no way I believe that this shit is happening...
Ako: Oh, this happens everyday here.
Jacques: ...I see...
Vega Donna: *insert Shantotto's laugh here* Now, I believe this is the part where you fall off and become conveniently separated from me!
Jacques: And what makes you say that?
Vega Donna: Cause the PLOT DEMANDS IT!
Jacques: ...oh, well then, I guess I'll take me leave *Jacques falls off the giant bug, the giant bug lands in what looks like a Temple Base conveniently perfectly fit for the rest ofthe large temple*
Jacques: HOLD IT!!!!...you know, it just occurred to me...that castle exists in my time, how the fuck can that be when it just got TOTALLY OBLITERATED by that large bug thingy?
Ako: Uhh...Capcom oversight? *is holding a compilation of Resident Evil files*
Jacques: ...sure, I'll go with that.
*wakes up from unconsciousness*
Jacques: Ugh, where am I?
Samanosuke: Oh, good, you're back with us. We saw you fall from that thing and well...I think its best for everyone's sake we don't go into details.
Ako: ITS SNOWING! IT MUST BE GENMA WORK CAUSE ITS SUMMER!
Samanosuke: And there's that.
Honda: Aha! He's awake!
Jacques: ...YOU!!! WHAT DO YOU WANT!?
Samanosuke: Whoa! He's on our side. Lets just say he flipped a coin and it went in our favor.
Honda: Hey, I have perfectly good reasons to fight for you!
Samanosuke: ...even though you're a loyal vassal of Nobunaga.
Honda: I didn't say I don't have good reasons to fight for the Genma too, now do I? BUT I WON'T FIGHT ALONGSIDE THOSE FREAKS SO WE'RE ALLIES NOW!
Jacques: Uh, ok, so...basically, what's the scoop?
Samanosuke: We've located Nobunaga's hide out! However, the 3 of us alone won't do, but we've discovered an ANCIENT ARTIFACT in a temple nearbye that will help us out!
Honda: I WILL GET THIS OBJECT!
Jacques: Actually, Honda, I was hoping you could, you know, go back and pretend to be on their side? It'd be good to have someone in on the inside.
Honda: ...or I can do that. Yeah, that works, I WILL BE THE BEST DOUBLE AGENT YOU EVER SAW!!!! *he leaves*
Jacques: So about that mystical artifact...
Samanosuke: Oh, its the Oni Army Orb.
Jacques: ...the what?
Samanosuke: Oni Army Orb.
Jacques: Are you seriously telling me its called that?
Samanosuke: Yes, yes I am.
Jacques: And I'm suppose to take it seriously?
Samanosuke: Yes.
Jacques: Dude, that sounds like something a 2nd grader can come up with!
Samanosuke: Look, I don't name these things, so take it up with the Ancient Oni Army who are sealed up inside the thing that we can use to our advantage.
Jacques: Eh, screw it, lets just get the damn thing.
*Jacques and Samanosuke get separated by a random gate, they decide to split up of course, Jacques finds the Orb*
Jacques: I guess this is it.
Samanosuke: Ah, you found it!
Jacques: I-...wait, weren't you trapped outside?
Samanosuke: Look, you don't ask me how I got in here, and I won't question how we get out of this supposed Point of No Return moments from now.
Jacques: ...fair enough. Anyway, how does this work?
Samanosuke: Someone with an Oni has to control the Army, they'll fight for us.
Jacques: Ok, you'll control them cause you're better with that kind of stuff than me.
Samanosuke: Ok.
*The two enter battle field, Samanosuke summons the ONi Army, a bunch of Phantom Demon Samurais come and starting the Zombie Demon Skeletons. Note that Phantoms move as though they're on skate boards...even though they lack skate boards*
Jacques: Ah, good an army of canon fodder that's already dead, now I can kick some ass!
*Jacques cuts swath across the Zombie Demon Skeletons as the Phantom Demon Samurais help him out, he eventually breaks into the temple*
Jacques: Well, I'm here, and...wait, where did all my useful Undead Red Shirts go? God damn it, I'm solo again, aren't I?
Ako: You got me!
Jacques: Yep, I'm alone...
Ako: HEY!
Jacques: Now to-...*sees Honda on the ground as a bloody mess* HEIHACHI!!!
Honda: Damn, they got me. Ranmaru's trap failed!
Jacques: ...Ranmaru set up a trap? ANd if it failed, why are you hurt so much?
Honda: Who said Ranmaru's trap did this? I just fell down the stairs, into a bunch of Zombie Skeleton Demons, and this is kind of what happened when their knives were out.
Jacques: Oh, ok, I can believe THAT. For a second there, I thought you implied Ranmaru did something important.
Honda: Ha! Like that'll happen, but now I'm going to sort of disappear from the plot, so uh, yeah, pretend I'm dead. By the way, Nobunaga isn't here.
Jacques: Ok. *clears throat* HONDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *Camera is slowly zooming away from him dramatically* YOUR DEATH WON'T BE IN VAIN! *he storms off dramatically*
Vega Donna: *insert Kefka's laugh here* Ah, you've arrived! Well, now we shall fight.
Jacques: Ok, look, I'll fight you, but please, just tell me, WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?
Vega Donna: *insert Albedo's laugh here* I'm Nobunaga's wife, and QUEEN OF THE GENMA! ANd-...
Jacques: ...ok, that'll do.
Vega Donna: But I'm not done!
Jacques: Look, all I wanted from you was a modicum of plot; we can't have someone whose less useful than Ranmaru running around.
Ranmaru: *from offstage* HEY!
Vega Donna: *insert some generic evil low pitched villainous laughter here* BUT HERE'S WHERE YOU DIE!
*One boss fight later*
Vega Donna: NO! HOW DID I LOSE!?!??! But the Time Folder is complete! *insert a 10 year old giddy school girl laugh here* *she dies*
Jacques: Crap, well, better go find Nobunaga...oh, Ako, go tell Samanosuke...the future one...to stop shit on that end.
Ako: I don't want too!
Jacques: Wait, what?
Ako: I've been taking shit from you two all along, I WANT SOME RESPECT!
Jacques: ...you're a freaking Crow Demon Fairy whose use in this game is akin to Navi from Orcarina of Time...
Ako: DOESN'T MATTER!
Jacques: *sigh* Fine, I'll give you $5 if you do this.
Ako: Ok ^_^ *she teleports to the future*
Jacques: ...did she actually believe me? Wow...
*at the Eifel Tower in 2004*
Samanosuke: Michelle, Henri, you stay here, THIS TIME ITS PERSONAL!
Ako: Yeah! Lets go kick some ass!
*Samanosuke just beats the crap out of everything in his way until he reaches the top*
Samanosuke: God damn it, why'd I take the stairs? That elevator would have come in handy here, stupid hero's code of "Always take the harder route for EXTRA DRAMA!"
Zombie Ranmaru: SAMANOSUKE!!!!!!
Samanosuke: ...and my reward is him...
Zombie Ranmaru: AHAHAHHAAHHAHHAHA! YES! NOW I SHALL DUEL YOU IN THIS FATED CONFRONTATION OF LIFE, DEATH, TIME, SPACE, POODLES, AND HEIL NOBUNAGA!
Samanosuke: Ok, look, you're not exactly a major character,c an you just walk to the side while I blow up this machine?
Zombie Ranmaru: not...a major...character? HOW DARE YOU SAY THAT!
Samanosuke: Yeah, now, where's the main villain in charge?
Zombie Ranmaru: I'm STANDING RIGHT HERE!
Samanosuke: ...no, seriously, where is he? I mean, I know I beat Skeletor, but there's either somebody behind him, or he's not really dead, and waiting to make a grand entrance.
Zombie Ranmaru: Damn it, PAY ATTENTION TO ME!
Samanosuke: And why should I?
Zombie Ranmaru: CAUSE I'M THE MAIN VILLAIN!!!!
Samanosuke: ...you know, arguing with you is like arguing with a 5 year old boy, except 5 year old boys actually understand what is being said to some extent.
Zombie Ranmaru: DIE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*Samanosuke just punches Zombie Ranmaru*
Zombie Ranmaru: Curse...you...Samanosuke...*pulls a lever on the big switch of the DEMON EIFEL TOWER*
Samanosuke: Shit, I'm too late...and I let Ranmaru actually do something USEFUL. Crap, I just hope Jacques and my past self can deal with this problem...
*back in Feudal Japan*
Random Samaurai Commander from the Game's Opening: Alright, men, we're going to take Nobunaga's fort! By which I mean, you two will do all the work while my men get useless slaughtered.
Jacques: Its cause we have big awesome mystical weapons and your mean are just generic samurai, isn't it?
Samanosuke: Yeah, pretty much. Lets just get this over with.
Jacques: Ok...
*a reenactment of the game's opening occurs, except Jacques is now kicking ass in the mix, at least til they reach the front door step*
Samanosuke: Beyond this door is Nobunaga...
Jacques: And finally, the end of my journey, I can soon go ho-...
Ranmaru: SAMANOSUKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Samanosuke: ...do I know you?
Ranmaru: Oh come on! I know we've fought at least once before! I even sent a generic demon monster thing at that other guy over there!
Jacques: ...let me deal with him.
Samanosuke: Why?
Jacques: Cause there's something I've been wanting to do the entire damn time I've been back here since I first saw this guy.
Ranmaru: Oh, you want to fight me? Well, YOU DON'T STAND A CHANCE AGAINST ME-...
*Jacques kicks his ass effortlessly. No, I'm not kidding; its really just horribly one sided to the point where he just starts punching him to death, eventually Ranmaru falls off the balcony and dies*
Jacques: For both our sakes, let us hope he's dead, and not going to come back as a Zombie in my era.
Samanosuke: ...who was he again?
Jacques: ...you know, I'm not really sure, thinking on it...lets just go beat up Nobunaga.
Samanosuke: Works for me!
*The two enter, Nobunaga is sitting on a throne, wine glass in hand, with what appears to be a red police cap on his head*
Jacques: ...I'm not even going to ask...
Samanosuke: Beware the mustache, Jacques...
Jacques: Why?
Samanosuke: That is the source of his Genma power!
Jacques: Good to know!
Nobunaga: Ah, so you know? But even knowing that, it won't be enough to defeat me!
Samanosuke: And why's that?
Nobunaga: Cause even milk...has an expiration date *punches Samanosuke, he gets knocked out*
Jacques: ...ok, that analogy made absolutely no sense whatsoever...
Nobunaga: Now for the Western Barbarian from the future!
*The two engage in epic battle, note that Nobunaga ALSO has Ivy's sword, so we have two WHIP SWORD USERS going at it...ok, Jacques also has a ROPE FLAIL and Sword-chucks, but lets not get into that, Jacques comes out victorious*
Nobunaga: Beaten...by the Western Barbarian...good show *he falls into the flames*
Jacques: IS it over? *he gets engulfed i white light* ...yes, I can finally go home.
Ako: Yay!!!!!
Nobunaga: I'M NOT DEAD YET! SEE!?
Jacques: Oh shi-...
Nobunaga: And to prove it, I WILL KILL SAMANOSUKE! *He does so*
Jacques: NO!!!!! I must help! *gets teleported to his own time*
*back in France*
Jacques: Hey, I'm back...crap, I need to get back to Japan.
Henri: DADDY!!!!!!!!! *he tackles Jacques*
Samanosuke: Ah, Jacques, you've made it back! That must mean the Time Folder is in effect!
Jacques: Wait! I need to help you defeat Nobunaga of your time!
Samanosuke: No, I can deal with this on my own! Everything shall soon be where it belongs.
Jacques: Good luck!
Samanosuke: Indeed! Oh, and you three will make a good family!
Ako: Later ^_^!
Jacques: (Thank god I won't be seeing HER again!)
*Samanosuke goes back to his own time*
Jacques: ...I was going to tell him that Nobunaga sort of killed himself there, and...holy shit, I'm speaking French again! And my accent is back!
Michelle: You know, I'd question how that's possible, but I think I've seen enough fucked up shit for the past 24 hours.
Jacques: Well, lets go home then!
Zombie Ranmaru: I'M NOT DEAD YET! IN FACT I'M STILL SO VERY MUCH ALIVE THAT I WILL PROVE IT THROUGH THIS ACT OF PURE VILLAINY AND EVIL AND *stabs Henri in the back* AHAHAHAHAAHAHAH SEE!?!?!?
Jacques: Henri! NO!!!! *beats the shit out of Zombie Ranmaru Effortlessly...again...*
Zombie Ranmaru: Curse you...Samanosuke...I won't forget this...in the depths of hell...even though I know I will be going to heaven...HEIL NOBUNAGA!
Jacques: Henri. Speak to me, you can't die! *Oni Gauntlet flashes, heals Henri's wound, disappears*
Henri: Daddy!
Jacques: Henri!!!
*meanwhile, back in Japan*
Samanosuke: ...well, it looks like nothing has changed since I last left. Things are still on fire, war going on, and *looks to his left* Oh! Ranmaru's even already dead! Excellent!
*busts in*
Samanosuke: NOBUNAGA!!!!!!
Nobunaga: But...what...how...I killed...oh I get it, you're the OTHER Samanosuke...from like 20 minutes into the future, aren't you?
Samanosuke: Yeah, and for killing me I have one trick up my sleeve.
Nobunaga: You're not going to revive your dead self as a Zombie and then double team me?
Samanosuke: ...no, not only is that morally wrong, but its also stupid. I mean, who would revive a dead person as a Zombie?
*420 years in the future, just before Samanosuke gets warped in*
Skeletor: Aha! Arise, Ranmaru! You will be the perfect Henchman as...ZOMBIE RANMARU!!!!
Zombie Ranmaru: DIE SAMANOSUKE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skeletor: ...ok, remove the "perfect" part...
*back to stuff that matters*
Nobunaga: Ok, good, so you think you can beat me when your past self failed?
Samanosuke: Yes...though, I'm not gonna take chances! *merges his Oni Gauntlet with his dead selves, and the two bodies become one, Samanosuke transforms into SUPER SEPHIROTH*
Nobunaga: ...you know, even though I know you're in some sort of invincible God Mode, I STILL THINK I HAVE A CHANCE!
*Samanosuke beats the shit out of Nobunaga for about 5 minutes*
Nobunaga: Can't you not see Samanosuke? Your friends die! For surely you cannot protect them now!
Samanosuke: You better have some sort of way to back up that threat, or I will be-...
*Nobunaga pulls off Demon Hax, his fortress of DOOM turns into one of those big surreal flying stone areas that only exist for big epic fights in the middle of spaceless voids, and Nobunaga himself transforms into SOUL CALIBUR'S NIGHTMARE*
Nobunaga: Now to beat you in a CHILDREN'S CARD GAME...WITH SWORDS!!!!!
Samanosuke: ...or we could just fight like normal people with super powers do.
Nobunaga: That works too!
*the two battle, epicness ensues, at some point, Sephiroth-Samanosuke gets the Soul Edge from Nightmare-Nobunaga, battle continues on, Sephiroth-Samanosuke wins!*
Nobunaga: I have been defeated...why? WHY CAN'T I WIN!?
Samanosuke: I'm going to assume that's a rhetorical question and just watch you die now.
Nobunaga: Fair enough. BUT MY MUSTACHE AND ITS EVIL WILL ALWAYS LIVE ON!
Samanosuke: ...I was afraid he'd say that...
*Nobunaga dies*
*sometime in the near future, Samanosuke is sitting by a river*
Samanosuke: Ah, peace at last, nothing can go wrong now.
Ako: HI SAMANOSUKE!!!!!
Samanosuke: ...NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*Credits roll, but with ONE AFTER SCENE*
Hideoyoshi: Ah, Nobunaga has fallen, its time for a new era...one where I rule the Genma...for I have INHERITED HIS MUSTACHE MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
THE END
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Yeah, that's Onimusha 3 for you. Fun game, and the Abridged series more or less sums up the plot. Thanks to Xer for pointing this game out to me or I probably would have never touched it. Might do the Heihachi Honda mini-game thing since that seems quirky and what not.
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Normally don't post about non-RPGs, but...
Playing CV: Aria of Sorrow. Got to Death in a single sitting, but he killed me on a lucky shot. For some reason, I am taking boss notes. The RPGDL has corrupted me to the point that if a game uses numbers, I want to write them down...
Eternal Poison: Finished Thage and Ashley's stories. The game has pretty solid writing and most of the VAs are good quality, too. Music is fitting, and visual style is appealing.
Gameplay is kinda sluggish. It's not bad, it's just not engaging for some reason. There's a lot of interesting concepts going on, and I find myself utilizing all of them, but somehow it just isn't -fun-.
Playing Olifen's story, and Logue is a beast. Possibly literally?
Despite the slow gameplay, the whole package of the game stands out to me. It feels like an RPG where the creator was suddenly inspired to write a gothic fairy tale, realized that his creative vision would be best explored in a game format, and got someone to put together a SRPG to go along with it. Not that the fairy tale is particular original or amazing by literary standards, but it does some surprising things and it utilizes its world well to explore the characters and try to keep the player guessing about the mysteries of the world and the characters' motives. The multiple main feature of the game really heightens the exploration of Besek and while the characters/stories after Thage's chapter aren't nearly as engaging, they are still good at expanding upon the world-building.
Seeing how it all comes together is keeping me playing.
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Continuing along in Soul Nomad. Learning to hate ranged units with a burning passion. Pyremages specifically thanks to that whole if they get first shot they can do some nasty things. Aside from that, generally liking the gameplay, the characters... and even the story is kinda holding its own now. Even more so now that Penn is out of the plot. Sadly, I do have a sneaking suspicion I can pick out who the final boss is.
Anyways, up to the third Shauna fight. She is annoying, seems to be a boring nihilist (aka, not Kefka) and refuses to die. Also, Plot! refused to let me kill her when I had the chance. Damnit people, would it have hurt you to at least have let Gig have his fun with her? It's not like she has any redeeming features. Hell, I'm not even using the Gypsies already in my party, so she's just gonna be a benchwarmer if ever she is recruited. Bah... Probably won't have anything bad happen to her in Demon mode either.
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Man, you're so wrong about Shauna in just about all counts. >_> Just keep playing.
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Man, you're so wrong about Shauna in just about all counts. >_> Just keep playing.
Don't usually do this, but yeah, quoting for emphasis.
Jade Empire: Finished, game goes by quickly once you start getting the really broken stuff, fully upgraded Crimson Tears in focus mode obliterates things, and it's only one of the I Win buttons the game hands you. Usual Bioware morality stuff, they largely stop trying to pretend that Closed Fist isn't evil by chapter 3.
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If the game tries to redeem Shauna, I think I may have to hate it. For all of five seconds. I mean... how can I hate something with Gig in it? He's so cuddly and adorable.
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Just play the damn game, you'll see.
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If the game tries to redeem Shauna, I think I may have to hate it. For all of five seconds. I mean... how can I hate something with Gig in it? He's so cuddly and adorable.
Just keep playing. And by that, I mean "do Evil Path too".
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Okay, yeah, Soul Nomad is good, but don't over-hype it. It's not going to live up to ridiculous standards.
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Eh, I suspect in this case it's not hype for the game itself, but more commentary on how I should reserve judgement on this one specific character. One specific character that caused me to actually look up Tonfa's affinity faq because I wanted to stomp her into the mud that badly (On that note, realising that Juno's the only person on my team capable of aforementioned mudstomping has lead to happy, happy results!). And she's done so much shit so far that, again, I don't care if she actually does have some kind of legit sob story, she's happily heading down the road to near Lekain douchery. Doesn't help that she has not been handled well so far, instead getting all of these "You wouldn't understand my pain!" Speshul moments. >_>
So yeah, maybe she does fit in on the demon mode. But in the hero's path, I just want to curbstomp the bint, and leave her bloody carcass behind instead of letting her get away again, and again, and again because she is some kind of pretty bandit princess who brings nothing but misery and destruction in her wake. And while it may be irrational, it will definately feel wrong if the party in any way, shape, or form, forgives her.
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WoW: Got my 4piece t9. Hit 4k on the training dummies. Which is lower than what it will be once I run an instance because Wandering Plague doesn't hit for full against them for some ass reason. Also had an ass time with gems because I had a unique-equipped on the pants that I also put on my helm. Waste of 160 gold urgh.
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Use the Nightmare tear in helm slot yeah (Both badge and tier being +8 Str in a yellow socket) and get the Agi +3% Crit damage meta or if you absolutely insist on the crit meta (Which is probably pretty close call for Unholy I guess) put the Nightmare Tear in your helm like you have (Pants slot bonus is not worth picking up especially) throw a Strength/Stam purple into your chest piece (I assume you are using the 75 badge head? Not that the difference is really huge between going the shoulder or helm off piece, but I guess it depends on how much Hit you are running on other pieces, I am not familiar how much is on DK T9 DPS Set since I was working on tanking set). 160 gold isn't a huge loss, should make it back easy enough off a set of dailies.
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I mean... how can I hate something with Gig in it? He's so cuddly and adorable.
Truth, unblemished truth.
/me sets super on fire in support.
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SRWW - God, fuck Orgun's EN guzzling.
/me gives him a Big Energy Generator, a Mega EN Chip and FUBs his weaponry, picking the -20% EN costs bonus.
Much better.
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Labyrinth of Touhou: Exploration Chen'd 18F. These treasure items are getting all 'Whoa' now, and the drops aren't too far behind (Hi there Blue Saber drop on a fairly common 17F enemy). Saw the 18F boss, decided I needed about 30 more levels (I am still massively underlevelled.), and went BP grinding for Kaguya. F.O.E.: Third Strike died easily when it realized that it still sucked against PAR.
And then I fed the group responsible for the BP requirements for Kaguya to a Bloodstained Seal. Seriously, that was just really bad for a number of reasons:
1) 1000 BP. Yes you get 4 characters, except...
2) Sanae's going to be in the reserves most of the time, although she'll likely be the biggest source of BP. Also, bit of an obscure pick over Wriggle (Wriggle's IN, Sanae's FOE connection isn't obvious until after you get Kaguya)
3) Eirin's TP is trash. At least this is fixable, unlike...
4) Reisen. Reisen has two purposes in this game: Stat Downs, and art that makes no sense. Seriously. The art makes it look like her ears are attached to the side of her head (or at the very least, facing the wrong way)
5) Mokou is recruited so late for this purpose. Any team that can beat Mokou has likely already killed off Dark Forge and Hill Gigas to get to 16F.
So yeah, right after seeing how far ahead I likely am I just slapped +TP on those 4 and punched Kedamas.
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KotOR: Cleared Tatooine, Kashyyk and Korriban. Plot twist ensues, though I'd been spoiled on it so. On Manaan now, haven't done anything there yet though.
Character is a Scoundral -> Jedi Guardian. Pretty much just focusing on the Speed powers and healing, and very occasionally pulling out the Throw Lightsaber antics. Swap the party around alot, though my favorite one is probably Juhani + either Canderous or Big Z. Gate SMASH, etc.
Not too much else to say. Fun game.
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BoF5 - I has a D Dive. D Counter already up to like 7.8 and I somehow wandered back to the platform I exploded Bosch on. Dunno if I'm screwed or totally going the right way and in good shape.
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Party swapping is fine in KotOR, everyone works from the same Exp pool based on the main PC pretty much (one of the reasons level squatting is so powerful in KotOR but ultimately doesn't get you much). Only is a bit of a pain juggling the equipment (shitty menus), but otherwise, go for it.
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BoF5 - I has a D Dive. D Counter already up to like 7.8 and I somehow wandered back to the platform I exploded Bosch on. Dunno if I'm screwed or totally going the right way and in good shape.
Dragon Quarter has very little, if any, actual Backtracking, so generally, if you're re-exploring an area, then that's a bad sign.
Due note that there are two "Lift" areas; the one early in the game with Bosch, and the one you come in with Lin/Nina joined up; this is the only time the game really reuses a dungeon design, though its mostly for stylistic and plot consistency reasons (You're going consistently up, after all, the logic is same levels look the same, even if you're at a different point.)
Regarding your D-counter...7.8% sounds pretty standard for where you are; it sounds bad that running = the D-counter raises, but note that its 0.01% every like 20 steps; the amount you gain by merely running is so negligible, its honestly unimportant. The real way you get your D-counter up is either using D-Dash too much (like...a lot too much. Don't feel afraid to use it if you just want to get around Random Encounters, or get a quick speed boost), or more importantly, using D-Dive, which REALLY raises the counter.
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CK was kind enough to lend me his PSP as part of his ranking drive for WA:XF. A very nice gesture (something to do on 12-hour holiday Amtrak trips!), and despite the mostly negative rants below I'm actually enjoying the game a good bit. The gameplay is solid, and I'm the type of person for whom good gameplay OR a good plot can make a game worthwhile. The plot... has some potential, and I like a few characters, but some major plot issues too.
I see that Ciato is also posting thoughts, so figured I'd give my midgameish report. Oh, and spoilers.
1-5
We need an army! Friendly drifters Jack, Arnaud, and Yulie joined up. Wish I'd figured out that "reject = reroll" a little earlier as far as stat maximizing, though. Jack's gone Secutor-Sentinel, Arnaud Sacred Slayer-Fantastica-Elementalist, Yulie Elementalist-Gadgeteer-Sacred Slayer(very occasionally Fantastica).
As far as others? Clarissa is Dandelion Shot-Gadgeteer with DS equipment always (Decelerate on a gun is pretty amusing). Felius is Halberdier-Secutor-Sentinel-Grappler, Labrynthia is Elementalist-Arcanist-Sacred Slayer, Levin is Martial Mage-Geomancer, and Ragnar is Stormrider-Sentinel. Levin and Clarissa get particular call-outs on great gameplay design - they're tons of fun to use and stay distinctive no matter what class they're in.
1-7
First major plot ARGH. Clarissa not being the shiny special princess with super magic powers but having to make do without them woulda been actually pretty cool, which is why I initially approved of "The princesses of Elysius have special powers!" Woulda led to some neat situations, like being forced to choose whether to fake it or not. But instead... Clarissa is even shinier and specialier than the real princess? .....ugh.
(Also, while this may be explained later, I'm getting hints of plot laziness with regard to the setting. The princesses have special powers... but there's a king? Wouldn't this mean the royal family marries away its seers and loses control of them? What happened to the Queen anyway? They haven't said boo about her; I guess she's dead. It's possible, of course, that Elysius is a Queendom with a dead queen, or that descent passes through the female line but power is held by the husband, but I'd like these things made explicit. As is, I suspect it's just lazy tropes: there's a king because you expect a king, but everyone loves princesses so let's give them magic.)
1-8
Okay, as a storytelling device, I respect that rather than hit you over the head with all the introductions and chatter when people meet up, it's more interesting to stretch it out a bit so you can plot->battle->plot->battle->plot rather than ploooooooooot->battlebattlebattle. Still, this is a bit late to find out Levin and Felius don't know each other, and haven't even been introduced! Haven't they fought together a bunch and already have a mini-rivalry?! And would "Felius is Clarissa's bodyguard" been that hard an answer to have given long ago, by Labrynthia if no one else?
More to the point... did Clarissa just totally spill the beans to Levin?! She uses her real name and talks about travelling the wilderness with mom for five years which the real princess blatantly didn't do! ...and then... Levin accepts it and then calls her "Your Highness?" I like Levin so I'm just going to pretend this scene never happened.
1-9
Beat up Rupert. Doesn't seem like I got any particular bonus for killing him, but it was fun. Wonder why his offense was so uninspiring.
Still: On the villain-o-meter, Rupert is the best by a lot. The rest of the council seems to be idiots and/or lame yet the plot doesn't realize this. Look, "turn own country into Zimbabwe" is generally the tragic fate of bad rulers, not an intentional grandiose master plan.
1-14
Fun, yet the first really aggravating mission. First time through, I have things wrapped up. Secutor Felix can either Hard Smash the enemy Excavator for a 91% chance of ~110ish damage, or Upper Hand for ~90 damage. As said Excavator has 170 HP, I figure why take a chance? I'll just hit him with the 100% UH twice. Unfortunately, after the Excavator runs past, when I go to complete the 2HKO I see Upper Hand has mysteriously dropped to 71 damage now. And the Excavator's movement meant I couldn't catch up to Hard Smash him. Dunno if I had the height (dis)advantage before or if Overflow ran out or something, but the 14 HP Excavator barely made it into town to wreck havoc(?!).
Second time, I switch Felius to Sentinel (Jack was already a Sentinel manning the right), but fail due to activating the reinforcements too soon and also being too effective in rushing my units up, when I really wanted to let the first wave come a little farther so I'd be in position to block the next set.
Third time, I get the abuse of the timing on the reinforcements right, and by intentionally stalling the third reinforcement set with lots of Shut Out / Crippling nonsense on the Right rather than killing them, the mission is much easier. Yay!
1-16
More plot fail. Respect the need for fight excuses, but... come ON. To make this work it requires Ragnar to be an idiot. I mean, it'd have been better if he'd just flown into a rage and stomped off; fine, his hatred is so strong he's irrational about it. Instead he's rational enough to talk about "No this is bad" yet not enough to explain WHY. Worse, Stronach & co. are also idiots - do they all activate the Black ARM simultaneously? Wouldn't a "can we find a brave volunteer" approach work better? Or, better yet, change the plot so that Black ARM effects kick in an hour after activation, so after a test attempt Stronach & co. would have reason to doubt Ragnar?
Actually that's a problem with 1-15, too. Fine, so 2/3 people in an expedition find a Black ARM, activate them around the same time, then kill the third person... and then the 2 undead mercs get stomped by everyone else who put the area on lockdown and investigate what the hell went wrong. It's not like they're vampires, they're described as ravening beasts not "hold still so I can attatch this equpiment to you and activate it so we can have friends." Seriously, just change the plot to have the hour-later kick in so things could make more sense.
Yeah, the more I thought about this the less I liked it. The entire black ARM plotline calls attention to the "ARMs are downloadable skillsofts from Shadowrun that you somehow learn the more you use!" plot element anyway, which is fine as a gameplay excuse but bizarre plot. This is weird flavor even for the world of Wild ARMs and vague references to ancient fallen empires don't help.
2-1
Brutal, brutal mission what with the fact they've 4 levels on you, have a better tier of equipment (screw synthesis), and get a giant jolt of reinforcements. Took me three tries, with the first attempt basically being a straight invasion that blundered into the surprise reinforcements of doom. My winning strategy: clearly Loch Ness Monster abuse is required. Geomancer Levin immediately teleports over to the enemy side and wakes up 2 more of the enemy force (so 4 will charge across the water, not 2), then teleports back. Slaughter the 4 as they wade through the swamp while also moving to the middle island. This will activate the reinforcements harmlessly while out of range. Levin once more drawed some across and into the swamp... and actually a bit too much, as everything kind of fell apart and Levin / Clarissa / Felius died horribly to speedy and painful Berserker beats. Thankfully, I had thought before that Ragnar was badly out of position - he was blundering about in the "right" side of the swamp if the enemy position is "up" - but as he went back, he drew the Berserker and others to follow him. Thus staying in the swamp, rather than going on land to finish off the squishy mages now that shore guards Clarissa/Levin/Felius were dead. So Labrynthia and Yulie rained Elementalist destruction on those who were in range while the swamp monster ground down their other forces fruitlessly chasing a Heal Berry-chewing Ragnar. Things stabilizied, Labrynthia started reviving people, and shockingly I was back in business. I found this one mostly on the fun side of difficult, at least.
2-2
Not TOO bad. The fact that 3 CLM was required to get on the Lift was rather annoying and forced a restart, but doable after that. This game really likes forcing you to change up classes.
2-3
Meh, beatdown that's very dependent on enemy positioning, which is hard to control. They have their back to the wall = no Formation Arts. The fact that I was now rich enough to use Revive Fruits made this doable at least.
2-4
ARGH, the "storm the gate" mission, my vote for most frustrating so far. This one definitely required Fire Emblemish precision since, say, letting someone accidentally wander one space into range of the enemy Elementalists = death = restart. Not sure why they recommended Berserkers here, it's clearly all about Grapplers to make the fight doable with the ludicrousness of picking up and throwing heavily armored Sentinels out of the way for massive damage. (Okay, also picking up and throwing Elementalists, too.) Took me five tries, I think.
2-9
The screwiness of counting all turns really aggravated here, despite it being ultimately an easy mission. My normal team had noooooooooo way of beating the limit, their MOV scores just weren't high enough. I guess you're supposed to use 6 Berserkers? But I didn't pre-buy 6 sets of Berserker equipment. No, while incredibly silly, I just went with Berserker Labby solo as she ran / warped her way through. Because if it's just one person of course time moves slower! Or something. (At least I can kind of explain why enemy turns matter, I'll pretend that fewer enemies reduces the urgency on the escape maybe.). Also I have no idea how important classes are to growths but I hope I get Labby back sooner rather than later so that she doesn't waste her level-ups in useless Berserker Strength boosts.
Also. MASSIVE PLOT FAIL at the end of it. Again, I can respect the need to not do a "And they live happily ever after" ending TOO soon. But this is ridiculous!
A) The Council was doing super-evil things in what had to be EXTREME PUBLIC VIEW. All those houses around? The fact that Grauswein was being summoned in a "plaza," i.e. where people normally congregate? All the people who came to see King Hrathnir, or saw Charlton insulting / threatening him? And the mass summoning of undead, again in a PLAZA?! I'm sorry, this is the end of any kind of public support for the Council, and I will be extremely annoyed if they try and seriously spin this as "Chevalet Blanc assassinated the king!" Like Rupert tried with Levin's dad.
B) Heck, the entire streets should have been a panicked riot with masses of evacuees at the gates! The whole government-is-trying-to-summon-a-superweapon-please-evacuate thing which presumably Chevalet Blanc spread, and even if they didn't, how could that secret possibly be kept when they're shouting about it with the soldiers? At a PLAZA? And presumably Rupert wasn't guarding the Grauswein suicidally, so there was some kind of getaway plan, meaning people had to know there needed to be a getaway.
C) And the worst part of all, why on earth did nobody bring up the EXTREME EVIL the Martial Guard had just been doing, very verifiably, to Levin's dad? And say that King Hrathnir had nobly sacrificed himself to stop an insane scheme to blow up half the capital to get at Chevalet Blanc, and had acknowledged Clarissa as an (adopted) daughter? If Levin's dad had refused to believe them or something, meh, but at least they tried. Though from the setup they've made, "I may not be the princess but please investigate this attempted MASS MURDER and you'll see who the treasonous ones are" should have solved the problem right there, especially backed with Levin's support.
D) This is really a shadow of C, as Clarissa IS established as a bad liar, so I'm kinda fine with her just sulking in response to the "fake princess" accusation. BUT. Why act so shocked? Of course Rupert knows! She should have been preparing for this for a long time! ...sigh. I'd have been way happier if Clarissa had acted liberated and acknowledged that she was a fake (yay! I don't have to lie anymore!) and then immediately went back to peppy, furious do-gooder and accused of Rupert of badness / indirectly causing Hrathnir to die.
So. Meh. I was expecting that the Grauswein would go off, which actually would have given the bad guys a solid excuse to keep after Chevalet Blanc and accuse them of being at fault - in that kind of chaos, it'd be hard to tell who did what with lots of rumors swirling about. This way of keeping the plot going? Laaaaaaaaaame.
Also, in non-villain / non-PC character thoughts, all I can say is that Katrina better have an "it's magic" backstory to explain her problems, i.e. she really does have a "hollow soul." If she's supposed to be "today's made-up mental illness," then fail. (Also hmm, on closer inspection, that sure looks like her in the logo with the sword. Uh oh.)
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Dragon Quarter has very little, if any, actual Backtracking, so generally, if you're re-exploring an area, then that's a bad sign.
Due note that there are two "Lift" areas; the one early in the game with Bosch, and the one you come in with Lin/Nina joined up; this is the only time the game really reuses a dungeon design, though its mostly for stylistic and plot consistency reasons (You're going consistently up, after all, the logic is same levels look the same, even if you're at a different point.)
Regarding your D-counter...7.8% sounds pretty standard for where you are; it sounds bad that running = the D-counter raises, but note that its 0.01% every like 20 steps; the amount you gain by merely running is so negligible, its honestly unimportant. The real way you get your D-counter up is either using D-Dash too much (like...a lot too much. Don't feel afraid to use it if you just want to get around Random Encounters, or get a quick speed boost), or more importantly, using D-Dive, which REALLY raises the counter.
Right. I'll be saving D-Dive for bosses as close to exclusively as possible. Hoping to get through without having to go with a retry, but the game seems so built for it that it almost feels like a shame that I'm trying not to.
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Using D-Dive for bosses is good, but best not use it for ALL bosses. Generally, hold off on using it unless as a last resort; its very much an "Auto Win" button (D-Charge x3/4 + Twister One shots just about every boss in the game...I'm not kidding), but it will eat through your D-counter FASTER. Try to muscle through a boss first, and if things seem to be going bad, then use D-Dive (or alternatively, if you've blown too many items, reset -> refight and just D-Dive from the beginning.)
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Towards the endgame you are likely to start having to D-dive the major bosses (unless your setup is really really good). But a lot of the earlier ones can be done the normal way without too much trouble, even without spamming the crap out of items. As long as you don't use it on randoms you SHOULD be all right... it is possible to go through the game D-Diving every single boss and still finish with <100% D-ration, but it is cutting it dangerously close and you should conserve it if possible. The best time to do fight fair is for earlier bosses, since trust me, it only gets harder.
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Buy lots of items. Watch boss tricks carefully. There is nothing the game will throw at you until the very end which you can't beat with just your wits and a healthy item supply. Granted, you definitely have enough D-counter to Wyrmstomp most/every boss in the game if you use it wisely. Just don't feel you have to.
The D-counter is really more about being intimidating than being an actual threat to make you restart. I know I had exactly the same reaction as you when I first played the game until I reasoned out how trivial the costs of just running around actually are.
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Bayonetta: I bought this today, aka the day it came out, cause well, I didn't realize QUITE how hyped the game was, and recognized that the game might actually sell out quickly, so if I don't get my hands on it fast, I'd have to wait a while for it, and being that I have no real obligations now (barring work, which only lasts 4 hours a day), this is an ideal moment to grab new cool looking games!
Anyway, just beat Chapter 3. Initial impressions?
It really lives up to its hype. The game is basically "Devil May Cry, but with a female lead, so of course the badass levels are reduced for massive fanservice." Granted, Bayonetta still manages to look stylish, and pull off some of the same wacky antics Dante has (she just recently went lava surfing ON A HUGE DEMON to avoid being killed by said lava, for example.), and well, she's all over the place in gameplay. The game actually does a good job of letting you do pretty much ALL the cutscene shenanigans in gameplay...I mean all. You see her pull this crazy bullshit gun stunt out, and you think "There's no way the game will let me do that" ...lo and behold, its actually available! Some of this stuff, granted, requires specific combos, which you're more likely to pull off by accident, but hey, they're there (and generally, all accidents are serendipity; you're trying to do a basic move, then you pull off one of her more advanced combos, and things get splattered...and you find yourself in no position to complain!)
One thing that does slightly annoy me about the plot isn't the plot itself, but how it shifts from genuine cutscenes (Good!) to still shots on a reel, as though they're trying for like an old 40s movie thing or something (I...don't get this myself; it gives the game its own unique flavor, true, but it makes things less fun to watch.)
Oh yeah, game has Quick Time events, cause hey, why not throw in some God of War aspects to fuck up some DMC!? Unlike God of War, though, its far more fluid rather than detract from gameplay, cause they don't really stop action so much as move with it. Its kind of like God Hand's aspects. Though, the game also has genuine "Press BUtton to Not Die" events which does hurt the game some, though THANKFULLY, they don't seem to evolve much beyond single button presses so far, and a failure lets you start off from that exact quick time event. Still, would have been nice if they just didn't exist at all.
Otherwise? Game's shaping up to be really good, and maybe its the kind of game that will smack Capcom into making DMC5, cause its the first game that I've played that genuinely emulates DMC style combat, while having its own added flavor to make it not just a DMC-rip off. No, God of War (at least the first) did not do that right; see, Bayonetta fights aren't repetitive nor are they trivial like God of Wars were, and your deaths come from genuine fights, not platforming fuck ups. They're actual fights and they're fast paced rather than GLORIOUS ANIMATIONS SLAMMING DEMONS!!!!
Oh, that reminds me, Bayonetta takes after DMC for its use of gore and what not...as in, its more just added for graphical effect, which makes the scene look snazzier, cause its mostly demon angel blood, not humans, let alone humans getting decapitated, arms sliced off, etc., which is mostly just "LOOK AT THIS GORE ISN'T IT GRUESOME!?" Oh, hi God of War <.<
...I know, I'm slamming God of War down, but God of War was hyped just as much as Bayonetta, and really didn't live up to it. Bayonetta, meanwhile, does actually live up to its hype!
Oh yeah, ONE LAST THING!
One thing that stands out to me for Bayonetta vs. DMC style combat? The scope of it.
DMC fights are generally in smaller, tighter areas, and you tend to take advantage of this. Larger areas tend to mean enemies just take advantage of that and get you from behind. So generally, you want the smaller areas, so you can make use of your big shiny explosives in small corridors!
Bayonetta's the opposite; fights are more in big wide areas, so you can jump around like crazy, cause the nature of the combat is somewhat more mobile. Generally, you want to get in wide areas, instead of stay in close quarters, where your mobility is minimized.
Not trying to say one is better than the other, just interesting how they're similar systems, but already I can feel enough of a difference that such a thing is noticeable!
So, uh, yeah, my first impressions, beyond a few minor nuisances, are generally pleasant. Like I said, for all that the game got hyped to hell, it pretty much lives up to it, but then, I guess there's plenty of time for the game to FUCK UP HORRIBLY and make me eat my words! </cynical statement>
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Guitar Hero 5: I could write a long post ranting about the numerous ways this game fails, but I think this sums it all up rather nicely:
"2 minutes to midnight! (LONG PAUSE) The unborn in their wombs!"
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LONG PAUSE you too, Activision.
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SRWW - FUB'd Gaofighar on both mech stats and weaponry. As if the game wasn't utterly broked before.
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SotN: Maria chooses the strangest places to hang out. Across the hellish spike corridor, inside the creepy, suspended pentagram chamber? Yeah, strange girl. Anyway, I cleared everything in the castle (except the upper right passage leading from that clock room, which hopefully did not contain any nifty loot; I could never see how that place worked) and freed Richter from the clutches of SHAFT (I can dig it).
On to bizarro world now.
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Use the Nightmare tear in helm slot yeah (Both badge and tier being +8 Str in a yellow socket) and get the Agi +3% Crit damage meta or if you absolutely insist on the crit meta (Which is probably pretty close call for Unholy I guess) put the Nightmare Tear in your helm like you have (Pants slot bonus is not worth picking up especially) throw a Strength/Stam purple into your chest piece (I assume you are using the 75 badge head? Not that the difference is really huge between going the shoulder or helm off piece, but I guess it depends on how much Hit you are running on other pieces, I am not familiar how much is on DK T9 DPS Set since I was working on tanking set). 160 gold isn't a huge loss, should make it back easy enough off a set of dailies.
Tier Helm since I need it for my 4slot. Strength/Stam was what I was planning for my chest anyway once I replace it with something with slots. As for hit, I'm currently overcapped by accident so I don't need to worry about that.
WoW: Bwhahahaha. (http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i312/Fudozukushi/Other/WoWScrnShot_010610_040610.jpg) Yeah, the reason I was mad about the 160 was because I was so close to that damn thing.
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If you need the helm for you four piece did you pick up some Icecrown loot in one of your other slots or get something better than the 245 off set pieces from Triumph badges there? Cause you should be pretty much using either the 245 shoulders or helm there short of raiding for better lot(Can't remember if you do raid sorry >_>, would have assumed you would pick up your 4 piece T9 much sooner on a DK if you did raid though) and if you are blowing past the hit cap (Not that being past the 8% soft cap is bad as a DK anyway, spell hit never hurt anyone) then you should pick up the 245 Helm in place of the shoulders since it has no hit.
WoW - 10 man ICC raiding wooo, we got Rotface down, working on Festergut. For what kind of amounts to Loatheb and Grobbulus retreads (with 2 Gluth minibosses for trash!) they are kind of cool fights. Rotface was pretty tightly tuned, but 10 man version is fairly simple with just stacking everyone on melee for the spores. Festergut we are going to have to work on a bit, but then that shouldn't shock me, we never were ones for a clean Grobbulus kill. Got a cloak upgrade, so that is one of the key pain in the arse to get pieces covered. Can even get enough Primordial Saronite from my 2 alts to be able to make the Ilevel 264 boots if I find someone with the pattern already. Otherwise I need to do a few more days worth of random heroics to buy the pattern. Shame, the boots were one of my few heroic ToC pieces, but such is life.
Edit - Invert Rotface and Festergut there. We got Festerguy down, he is the easy one. Rotface is the Grobulus one.
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Dissidia- End of Zidane's path (Cloud, Firion, Zidane) What do you mean what's taking me so long >.> L9 vs L15~ Kuja is insane. Grrr I want to keep all my monies for Terra! <.<
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Dissidia- End of Zidane's path (Cloud, Firion, Zidane) What do you mean what's taking me so long >.> L9 vs L15~ Kuja is insane. Grrr I want to keep all my monies for Terra! <.<
Equipment carries over between characters, and having just one of an equip lets you use it on as many characters as you want. Yeah, it defies RPG-logic that way; the main reason to have more than one is for purposes of synthing.
I believe all of Terra's equips are used by Onion Knight as well (at least, the basic stuff), so yeah. You can actually check who can use what in the shop by pressing Select on the equip and changing its stat display to eventually show who can use it; will be done in a style of numbers of course, blue = Cosmos, Red = Chaos IIRC (or just Top = Cosmos and Bottom = Chaos if I'm totally screwing the colors up!) So naturally, a Blue "VI" would be Terra, a Red "IX" is Kuja, etc.
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I recommend D-Diving pretty much every boss on an initial play and then doing them legit on a replay, but I didn't particularly abuse items.
WoW: Levelling my Shaman. And by levelling, I mean taking a break from that to grind Darnassus rep because I don't like Elekks.
Demon's Souls: Started playing this again. Flamelurker is giving me fits, so I'm going back and item/soul collecting. Managed to get all the items out from under the green and red dragon after 7 or so deaths.
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Persona 3: I love Atlus humour. It's freaking brilliant. The references are everywhere and the humour is just so bizarre that you can't help but laugh.
I've just got past the first block in Tartarus, meaning I've done the trainwreck (literally!) Also taken Elizabeth on a date around Paulownia Mall, which is the main bit of 'bizarre humour' I meant - although, Kenji's S-Link is coming pretty close. I can imagine that'll end up being odd.
Talking of Imagine, that was the first reference that got me. "Spring: Year 20xx" on "Innocent Sin Online". Really, Atlus? That's not even subtle. And that's the best part. Tatsuya and Maya - deja vu? And that's not even mentioning the Cielo Mist drink. "Imported from Jamaica."
Have I mentioned how much I love Atlus lately?
In other news, Junpei is still annoying, finding S-Links is -.- and the guy in the old bookstore couple is :psyduck:. "Oh yeah, I forgot my son died. Sorry!"
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If you need the helm for you four piece did you pick up some Icecrown loot in one of your other slots or get something better than the 245 off set pieces from Triumph badges there? Cause you should be pretty much using either the 245 shoulders or helm there short of raiding for better lot(Can't remember if you do raid sorry >_>, would have assumed you would pick up your 4 piece T9 much sooner on a DK if you did raid though) and if you are blowing past the hit cap (Not that being past the 8% soft cap is bad as a DK anyway, spell hit never hurt anyone) then you should pick up the 245 Helm in place of the shoulders since it has no hit.
No raiding. No guild even. I'd have to fight family for raid time and it's not worth that hassle.
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Snowfire: Classes don't affect stat growth at all so don't worry about that.
Cross Edge - Finished up 5-2. Vermillion is a dick. Perfect Barrier, Deep Breath, a defense boost at low HP, AND regen? And counters? Argh.
Need to synth up ultimate equips next I think. Unfortunately I can't get more Empowering Jellies yet and only have like 7 so I will have to use less efficient composite items for now. Sadness.
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Mega Man Maverick Hunter X: Half of the bosses cleared. Chill Penguin is still probably the easiest Maverick in the entire series, though Toad Man still has him beat overall. The absence of Powered Up in the marketplace makes me a sad Doma.
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Bayonetta: Up to Chapter 10. Glancing at the Umbra Tears of Blood, aka the game's achievements, it seems there are only 14 chapters, cause the 2nd to last one is "Get Platinum in Verse 1 and 2 of Chapter 14!" But then, maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Would make sense, mind, given the way the plot is heading, sounds like there may very well be not a lot left.
Game has been living up to my initial impressions still. Would have been nice if I had figured out that you didn't have to BUY equips after making them, and buying them was more just "You can equip two at once, for your legs and arms at the same time!" type ordeal...I think...I could have used the damage push in a few earlier areas! Oh well, that's my fault.
Another minor flaw this game has: Metal Gear Cutscene Syndrome.
Yeah, it really likes having cutscenes and such. Some of these are just pure fun stylish action sequences (yay!), others are just pure plot that seems to drag (to its credit, the characters are colorful enough that the scenes aren't a total bland), it sometimes reaches a point of "oh come on, I just want to kill some angels!"
Also, Falling Sequences are neat (Yes, falling sequences...you have to play the game to understand what this is), and having a random Motorcycle Chase Sequence THAT YOU ACTUALLY GET TO PLAY (sort of like in FF7) was fun too. I was afraid cause the latter is something that is so easy to screw up and make frustrating, but despite the game being hard to this point, it was actually pretty forgiving (my guess is that it was meant as a bit of a break from the hectic gameplay, more just a chance to relax, but try to keep things fun.)
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KotOR: Beaten.
So, good is dumb and evil is stupider. Malak is a wanker. Final battle was silly. Do you have to kill all those Jedi in the light side ending? I can't imagine so.
Good game, and had I not played Planescape Torment before it (or played it several years after its release) I probably would have had this near the top of my RPG list. As is, annoying gameplay quirks (getting stuck on corners, not really being able to run away from fights because your stupid AI teammates keep running back to attack the enemies, etc) and George Lucas' executive meddling neutering every single character except HK (and yes Jolee shut up now) keep it lower.
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KotOR: Beaten.
So, good is dumb and evil is stupider. Malak is a wanker. Final battle was silly. Do you have to kill all those Jedi in the light side ending? I can't imagine so.
Nah, the end of KotOR 1 light side is basically the ending of A New Hope, but with lightsaber fighting instead of X-Wing vs. TIE combat.
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I just let him drain them and raped his sorry self whenever he came back for more. Dual-wielding is so ridiculous in that game.
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For Light Side you can Destroy Droid them from memory. That or you can you know, just ruin his shit with something overpowered before he drains (Power game harder if you are going to Power game).
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Force Breach works, too.
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/me nods @ Meeple
Yeah I'm playing through Onion Knight now. He's fun =-)
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Torchlight: I seem to be coming up on the end of the plot. Just did the last ember and bounty-hunt quests.
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SRWW - Okay, NOW the game is completely broken. Valzacard and Genesic GaoGaiGar get, SRWW tosses its arms upwards and goes back home resignedly.
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/me nods @ Meeple
Yeah I'm playing through Onion Knight now. He's fun =-)
Onion Knight is my main. Fast, aggressive and can branch anything into an HP attack? Yeah, I'll take that.
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Torchlight: I seem to be coming up on the end of the plot. Just did the last ember and bounty-hunt quests.
They won't give you new quests? Rightclick them, man. Right in the face. (actually, if you're near the end of the game your rightclick move probably doesn't get more targeted than 'on the screen somewhere')
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Nah, I just went and beat Ordrak's face in.
Speaking of which, I just killed the giant, red, scaly, fireball-slinging lord of all evil, and now I'm getting sent into a completely random new quest in the crypt on the southeast edge of town from NPCs I never heard of before. This really is Diablo, because I can't figure out whether I'm talking about Torchlight or Hellfire in that sentence.
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Gar? Gar!
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Bayonetta (Demo): Devil May Cry clone. Combat is good, everything else was disappointing.
Dante's Inferno (Demo): God of War clone. Worse combat then Bayonetta, but debatably better everything else.
Flamelurker is an Ass: Flamelurker blows.
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Torchlight: Started up a Vanquisher with a little puppy on Hard mode a couple days ago. I'm only down to the 5th level of the first dungeon. The game is shiny and eminently enjoyable.
Shooting monsters in the face with two flintlock pistols feels damned good.
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A Kingdom for Keflings: Beat. Very dull, yet somehow strangely addictive.
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Bayonetta (Demo): Devil May Cry clone.
Read that as "Devil May Cry Alone." Which is an emo hit just waiting to happen.
This really is Diablo, because I can't figure out whether I'm talking about Torchlight or Hellfire in that sentence.
Yeah, I was a bit surprised by how blatant some of the copying was. I heard Diablo clone and I was thinking skill trees and fast-pased dungeon crawl with slews of baddies that need to work on their HP, not Identify scrolls with red ribbons and Town Portal scrolls with blue ones, not to mention the atmospheric town music accented by guitar strums.
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In fairness, that last part is because they just straight-up hired Matt Uelmen away from Blizzard to compose the soundtrack.
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In fairness, that last part is because they just straight-up hired Matt Uelmen away from Blizzard to compose the soundtrack.
Ok, that's pretty awesome. Thievery done right!
Anyone with the Kartia psfs kicking around who wants to hear perhaps the most blatant ripoff, listent to Revelation, the main theme, and see how long it takes you to realize it's not actually from FFT.
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Mass Effect: Started it up to see if it would run decently on my computer. Apparently it does!
Why is it completely impossible to make lady-Shepard who doesn't look freakish and terrifying?
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Bioware character designs.
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Mass Effect: Started it up to see if it would run decently on my computer. Apparently it does!
Why is it completely impossible to make lady-Shepard who doesn't look freakish and terrifying?
Her neck is always too long and you can't adjust it. That's what freaks me out.
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Maverick Hunter X: Cleared X Mode, unlocked a movie and Boba Fett. They changed just enough to make it fun to play again.
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Boba Fett mode is fucking awesome~
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I've been neglecting Eternal Poison for Castlevania.
I beat AoS, and finished a stat topic for the bosses! (whoo!)
And now I'm moving onto replaying Dawn of Sorrow. I'm still not decided whether I prefer the AoS art or the DoS art. The DoS art is closer to my preferred style of anime art, but it's also more generic as a consequence. The AoS art is the traditional Castlevania style, but it has a few stylistic choices that mildly irk me. Still a good style though. I do like the amount of detail that the artist puts into her (his?) character designs. I suspect most people here would rate AoS art >>>>> DoS art, simply for the 'less generic' part.
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Bayonetta: Beaten Normal mode! I sucked a lot so I mostly got Bronze statues (aka D Ranks.)
I finally discovered what Bayonetta is! Its basically Interactive Shonen Anime at its most ridiculous. Think of a Shonen Anime Cliche, the game has it, just instead of WATCHING ridiculous fight sequences, you PLAY THEM.
Anyway, game is pretty much what I said before; it emulates DMC appropriately while keeping some unique niches to keep the game from feeling like just a knock off. The game's only flaws that stand out to me are:
A. Cutscenes. Some of them are uninspired in the still film strip style that I mentioned, which feels like it was done to save space so the game didn't go to multiple discs. That wouldn't have been a problem if the game didn't have so many and so long. Thankfully, this factor is completely negligible on replays where you can just scene skip most of them, but yeah, definitely some Metal Gear SOlid Custcene Syndrome kicking in here (something DMC games were good at avoiding.)
B. Quick Time Events. QTEs are meh to begin with, but Bayonetta fails them up in another, somewhat annoying way; they give you almost no warning when the event is coming (well, you can induce when it happens), and its arbitrary what buttons to push, but worst of all, you have an incredibly brief period of success. Its really unforgiving, and cause there's a variety of buttons you CAN push, and no way to know WHAT to push, its likely you'll do them twice.
Thankfully, the game is lenient on check points, so often dying in a QTE is just "Redo the animation sequence over again!"
Otherwise? Yeah, not gonna repeat myself. Damn fine game, pretty much lives up to its hype.
...ok, and if the Shonen aspect didn't make it clear, yes, the game just stops trying to keep itself together and just COMPLETELY TRAIN WRECKS in the end, for the sake of more explosions, fights, what have you. Its fun to watch, but you really need to remember to just completely turn your brain off at that point.
In any event, anyone whose a fan of DMC3/4 should give this game a try. Actually, seems like something fans of God of War would like too, cause it definitely has some things God of War had that DMC games don't (platforming, QTE, etc...just unlike God Of War, platforming =/= death, it just yields damage loss)
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BioShock. Can't believe I haven't replayed this in so long. God damn but it's a good game. I don't even LIKE shooters.
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Oh, by the way. You know everything about Torchlight that wasn't copied from Diablo - a pet that carries items for you and can make merchant runs, fishing for random gear and fish that transform your pet into something else, fame as a stat that gives you extra skill points when it levels up, an enchantment salesman in town with a chance to remove all modifiers from an item, "retiring" your character and handing down an item of your choice to the next one? Yeah, they took all that from a 2005 roguelike called Fate. Although again, they stole it by way of hiring the game's lead designer to make Torchlight.
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I don't even LIKE shooters.
Considering the usual Rob/gun association, this makes me chuckle.
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BoF5 - ...fairies and digging antz. Huh.
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It's BoF *of course* there's fairies ...
/me nods @ Meeple
Yeah I'm playing through Onion Knight now. He's fun =-)
Onion Knight is my main. Fast, aggressive and can branch anything into an HP attack? Yeah, I'll take that.
Niiice. Yeah I can easily see him becoming a favourite of mine too. Hurray for kid characters that kick ass! =)
/me continues pottering around in quick battle mode for XPs
Beating up on poor Ex Death. Have Terra at L20 now. Is that a good level to start Shade Impulse? Meeple what's a good way to use Terra? I remember you telling me not to spam Tornado at the mini meet but it's been working so far >.>
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Tornado spam starts working when enemies figure out how to get away from you; Destiny Odysseys are easy enough for it to work.
Generally, just mix things up. Snipe with Flood, use Tornado as a defensive move, use her ranged moves to build up brave, etc. Holy Combo should be equipped ASAP to hopefully Master it for the sake of Ultima, use Meltdown for extra pressure...yeah, she's got a lot of options, its best to make use of most of them. And then there's "When in doubt, use Meteor!" when you get it <_<
Level 20 should be fine to start Shade Impulse at; you'll get the levels you need as you go along, especially if you stick with one character.
Tornado's a good move, but getting in the habit of spamming it can get you into trouble, especially against higher difficulties (granted...Chaos tends to have a lot of problems getting around that move <_<)
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Oh, by the way. You know everything about Torchlight that wasn't copied from Diablo - a pet that carries items for you and can make merchant runs, fishing for random gear and fish that transform your pet into something else, fame as a stat that gives you extra skill points when it levels up, an enchantment salesman in town with a chance to remove all modifiers from an item, "retiring" your character and handing down an item of your choice to the next one? Yeah, they took all that from a 2005 roguelike called Fate. Although again, they stole it by way of hiring the game's lead designer to make Torchlight.
In fairness, if you take Diablo and remove graphics you basically have a roguelike.
It's probably more accurate to say the game's a remake of Fate from the sound of it.
KotOR2:
Up to Onderon, by way of Nar Shaddaa and then Dantooine.
I am up to my ass in Jedi, is nice. KotOR2's way of fixing the imbalance there was to really make everyone Jedi except the people that it wouldn't make any sense even remotely to be Jedi, then have those people get broken stuff to compensate. What the hell, it's fun.
KotOR2 kicks ass, I would just like to mention. Much more fun than 1 to me overall.
Touhou Labyrinth:
You know, I picked this up expecting to get bored with it after a few floors.
I'm on the Floor 10-through-12 extravaganza now. <_<
Remarkably fun game. EO style maps but not FPD(although, considering how they handle it, the difference is mostly cosmetic), moves ubelievably fast as a game(Sub-10 second fights is a GOOD THING for this style of game), kinda sad randoms(They're the kind that would be dangerous if they got a turn and sometimes do so don't screw around, but otherwise...) and ridiculously good bosses(Hey look this guy's using ITD MT 2HKO/borderline OHKO on me.).
I like a lot of the basic concepts, like how it relies on you actually using a team of twelve people in swapouts and how the game uses skill-based delays better than FFX-2 overall(A subtle thing is that every broken boss attack tends to have delay enough so that you can scrape yourself off the floor if you live through it at all, for instance.), and it balances having really simple, static characters by having so goddamn many of them and balancing them. Neat game.
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Randoms get tougher. Sadly. Otherwise, yes, what you're saying.
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In fairness, if you take Diablo and remove graphics you basically have a roguelike.
Oh, I didn't mean to imply that Diablo and Torchlight aren't Roguelikes.
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I don't even LIKE shooters.
Considering the usual Rob/gun association, this makes me chuckle.
If they made a shooter that I could play with one hand while I drink with the other, I would like that. But I don't generally enjoy games that I can't drink while I play. At least in Fallout 3 you can set up a shot for each attack in VATS.
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My understanding is that traditional Roguelike games involve permadeath, only one save file that autosaves, and extreme difficulty such that beating the game is not expected - the focus is simply trying to get as far as you can manage. That is most emphatically not what I think of when I hear Diablo, although I guess Hell difficulty in 1.10 would actually fit if you don't twink/trade for ubergear or farm exp heavily.
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Angband and most japanese Roguelikes either default to not permadeathing or have an option to avoid it.
(Admittedly, Angband and it's variants calls it's death avoidance a cheat option, but it is there.)
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FF7: Highwind get! Also did the 2nd to last Fort Condor sequence I NEVER HAVE TO DO THOSE THINGS AGAIN...after the next one...uh, yeah, if I ever replay FF7 for the umpteenth time, I'm never taking Fort Condor sequences seriously again, they are so not worth it and waste huge amounts of time (Exception being the first, for the early Double Growth weapon on Red XIII of course.)
Also got the 3rd Elemental Materia for the first time ever!
And abusing Powersoul is fun and educational, and Deathblow Vincent is very much not worth the hype at all, but whose shocked?
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WoW: Went and did ZG out of boredom. The Tiger fight took me about half an hour. Lousy gimmicks!
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Permadeath is a classic part of Roguelikes, but not a defining component. All these things taken from Fate are from older Roguelikes than Fate.
The shift from your standard roguelike to the real time point and click frenetic hack and slash redefined the roguelike components far more than fishing, retiring and more user friendly inventory system did.
So at heart, Torchlight is a good game, Fate was a good game. You are far more likely to get something out of Torchlight though currently then you are from Fate just by sheer availability.
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Hell Countess can go die in a fucking ditch.
Tir and Eld runes for a drop? -_-
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Suikotactics:
Beaten. Fun little game. Like the elemental games, wish there was more unit variety but hey, that's why my team was half ranged units endgame.
Probably a 7/10, overall. Plot was fluffy and short, I called the Walter/Kyril reveal THREE SCENES IN but not the Kyril one. Guess he gets to go sign up with Geddoe/Hugo/Chris/Tir/maybe Lazlo/whoever from S2/5.
Kyril'd be a Heavy/Godlike to me - durable evasive tank with a shot of ITE OHKO and the option of more ITE for a damage drop. Andarc's a Middle - more damaging Corselia without the insane evade, but still a winning trade. Seneca/Corselia would both be borderline L/M; Seneca lacks durability but should scratch a 2HKO thanks to crits, Corselia is fucking Lambda without the speed but with better durability outside of evasion (Lambda arguably ignores ITE but hey). New Merchant of Death wants his human form ANYWAY, the fish form has a 2HKO and okay durability but the human form has insane evasion and immunes non-basic physicals, and has a high 3HKO I think. So... yeah. NMoD for Heavy/Godlike, be able to outslug him with basic physicals (keep in mind he has a Thunder Rune to give him terrain boosts) or gtfo.
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Darksiders - Not actually playing this myself, but watching my brother play it, I just have to say this. Wow, this is The Legend of Soul Reaver starring Prince Arthas the Space Marine.
Seriously, the game is very much Zelda post OoT feeling, but with some very Soul Reaver elements to it. War looks like Prince Arthas in Warcraft 3 cutscenes mixed with a Space Marine/Chaos Marine from WH40K. This could mean that this game is made for Andrew.
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DQ8- Beat Dhoulmagus, beat Evil Jessica, through to the end of Marta's arc. The party really needs to hop to it, but I guess there's no beating SIR LEOPOLD!!!!!
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TO: Floors 21-25. At this point I can't move on without beating bosses that are stupidly overpowered, soooo more grinding in the near future. Joy.
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Okami: Just beat the First Dungeon...Hana Valley or whatever? My ability to remember names of these places =/= good.
So far, game seems decent enough. Not sure if I'll hype it as a favorite or anything, but I can at least understand where the hype comes from. Granted, the game really does take quite a bit of time to get going, cause the tutorial dungeon is kind of meh, and the town stuff feels like it overstays its welcome a bit. Game gets better once you finally get out of said town and do genuine gameplay.
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Kyril'd be a Heavy/Godlike to me - durable evasive tank with a shot of ITE OHKO and the option of more ITE for a damage drop.
Just to note, Kyril is relatively unevasive for a Suikoden Tactics character. Granted, the average evasion/semi evasion of the game is like 60%.
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I don't average evasion, so he's evasive to me.
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In that case, Seneca is the one with the similar to Lambda evasion, as Corselia's as now close to 90%! Both of which are too insane given Corselia's MDef/Panels/healing and Seneca otherwise being solid to be on that border. Even the marginally 5th rankable Simeon may be too much for Light with perfect Silence and 60% evasion (But...probably not).
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I'm leaning toward allowing offensive magic to create panels of their element, for purposes of Suikoden Tactics chars. So Seneca suddenly despises fire with a vengeance, and Corselia, lightning (though this matters less). Andarc is arguably the one that is rarely if ever provoked by it.
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Oh, she does, but she's still fast with at least solid damage and 70% evasion. Hates fire magic badly, 70% evasion comboed with solid speed, average damage and complete and utter mocking of evasion herself make her way too much of a terror. Compare this to Thomas: She's equal speed to faster (depending on how you take SD), deals with evasion far better, and has about 50% more damage. He already laughs at most Light fighters while struggling against mages, and she just generally takes that to another level.
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I am going to add Trodain onto my list of Most Boring Places to Visit in RPGs. Ugh, and the music helps nothing at all. Trudging through this game, I am. Just finished up the library side, and now in search for a Moonshadow Harp. Vaguely remember that pathetic king whimpering over his dead queen, and supposedly the harp is within royal grasps. I'll go there. Just Zoom'd to Simpleton for a save and perhaps some R&R. Anyway, I'll probably trek my way back to the king's place because I want to experiment with some of the alchemy recipes I just learned, and I certainly need to be on the map now don't I?
Time: 26:51.
Guv-L23; Swords - 25; Boomerangs - 27; Courage - 28
Yangus-L23; Axes - 40; Clubs - 10; Scythes - 2; Fisticuffs - 1; Humanity - 41
Jessica-L21; Whips - 36; Staves - 4; Sex Appeal - 30
Angelo- L21; Swords - 14; Bows - 10; Charisma - 13
Thinking about taking Yangus down the ole' Fisticuffs route since I'm not really interested in clubs or scythes anymore. Last few things I've made in alchemy were some pretty strong axes. Angelo needs more points, the world moves on.
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PS4 - Due to me getting new games this one got pushed back a good year or so but finally got back in to complete it. Just had to do dark force 2 to endgame so it didn't take me long. Raja made PD pathetic as it simply couldn't kill me so it was pretty anticlimatic.
It is a game thats aged well and was very enjoyable throughout. The characters were all different and likeable so I didn't have any problems with it all.
9/10 if I was to rate it.
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Dissidia- Yaay Meeple I has Ultima! Holy Combo > Ultima works wonders. Flood is ye old reliable and I prefer that and Tornado over Meltdown honestly. I kept Meltdown on since I got it and it was a pain, should have just stuck with Tornado for those armoured pieces. Flood however saved the day though I never did manage to defeat an overpowered Sephiroth >.> The rest however went down at various points or other (I'll do a list of who I found easiest to hardest overall at some stage) Terra's L53 now and I'm on the third section of the third Shade Impulse. It was my bonus day yesterday wheee~
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SDGGGW-
Just finished the Gundam X section of Another Generation. Only the Turn-A section to go, and then on to the New Generation.
I found myself needing a bigger warship than the White Base due to getting Amuro '93 via new scout link. The most obvious choice was to get another Albion as the Albion had shown itself to be fairly dependable, but no I had to go and decide to get something different instead. Curse variety. The obvious choices were the Argama, Nahel Argama, or Ra Cailum, but... I had used the Argama for several maps in the Neo Zeon conflict and it is a horrible ship.
Warships have different locations at which units launch from. The White Base and the Albion have the assault doors on the front of the "legs", for example, which gives a nice small bonus in available area units can launch to as they can use either. The Argama meanwhile has units exit onto the external catapult from the hangar at the center of the ship and get accelerated forwards off the ship. In theory. In practice, they just use the hangar as a regular exit point, so they have to waste several squares of movement moving over the warship itself. It is headdesking.
The only vaguely tangible benefit to launching from the center of the ship rather than the front is that units can get into positions to the sides or back of the ship quicker than units that are forced to leave from the front. But I have never found myself finding this possiblity worthwhile in any of the centre-launch warships I have used. A: Generally, all worthwhile warship weaponry is forward-facing only, so if you need units to the sides or backs you are either facing in the wrong direction, or you have enemies in front as well in which case it's probably a better idea to deal with them first regardless so that you can take advantage of warship support bombardment. B: Warships move further when moving directly forward than they do moving backwards or sideways, so if you try to move towards the enemy in a suitable orientation for launching units you are semi-crippling youself. C: It takes a full turn for a warship to rotate 90/180 degrees.
So, I didn't get the Argama. I didn't get the Nahel either, although I didn't remember how it worked as it was only in one map, due to the name association. I got the Ra Cailum, which not only ended up being a central-launch warship but is also considerably longer than the Argama, so most of the time units don't even clear the end of the freaking thing and have to sit off to the side. I did use the Ra Cailum in the CCA map but I didn't remember how it worked there either, and its team there was Jeigans which probably spent most of their time on-board, Re-GZ BWS which has considerably more move than the Jeigans due being a plane, and Hi-Nu which had EN regeneration due to being a Master unit and didn't need to go back to the battleship much.
While I'm railing against lousy warships, the Freeden has ONE WEAPON which hits a range of 4-8 squares in a roughly 90 degree forward arc (which is magically usable instead as a forward three-square-wide twelve-odd-square-long column when used for support bombardment...). Atrocious. The Freeden II has its exit point on the BACK of the damned ship, and this is not made up for by it being a generally small ship.
The Atomic Bazooka MAP looks hilarious. 42000 power, and MAPs here are generally direct damage and unevadable. And I've only seen one unit from memory that had more health than 42000. Sadly NukePhysalis cannot be remodelled into anything I don't already have access to so I'm not going to be using it at any time soon.
Current Team-
Albion/Zenon (GG) et al [Quin Mantha/Amuro '79, Rig Shockew/Mark (GG) [Vighna Rona/Lanalowe (GG), AEU Helion/Eris (GG), Ground GM/Aina], Gyan Custom/Kou [Dom/Char '79, Z'Gok/Usso, Death Bat/Shirou]]
Ra Cailum/Bright '87 et al [Gundam Mk IV/Camille, Crossbone Gundam X1/Amuro '93 [Gelgoog/Billy (GG), Akuto Zaku/Luke (GG), Galbaldy Beta/Alfreda (GG)], Alex Chobham Armoured/Judou [M1 Astray/Eterna (GG), Zssa/Ivan (GG), AEU Enact/Sibbuk]]
As far as I know you can't take more than two warships into a level, so I'm probably going to have to start kicking out original pilots now when I get new scout links.
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Dissidia- Yaay Meeple I has Ultima! Holy Combo > Ultima works wonders. Flood is ye old reliable and I prefer that and Tornado over Meltdown honestly. I kept Meltdown on since I got it and it was a pain, should have just stuck with Tornado for those armoured pieces. Flood however saved the day though I never did manage to defeat an overpowered Sephiroth >.> The rest however went down at various points or other (I'll do a list of who I found easiest to hardest overall at some stage) Terra's L53 now and I'm on the third section of the third Shade Impulse. It was my bonus day yesterday wheee~
Meltdown is a nice pressure move. Firing level 1 is a good way to push enemies back, Level 2 -> Holy Combo trips the AI up a bit (and if timed right, you can actually do Holy Combo if Meltdown L2 Hits; this had the added bonus of every Flare in the combo being a crit due to how you'll be in Brave Recovery mode), level 3...is only really useful for sniping at long distances or in short corridors like Kefka's Tower or Pandemonium.
Also, be sure to abuse Meteor a lot. Just about all of Terra's attacks can be chained into that; most notably, Meteor can activate Holy Combo if timed right, and Meteor even puts you airborne for a slight second so you can fire Holy Combo without having to Jump or Dodge-Cancel.
Actually, for Meltdown to work, Dodge Cancelling really helps, since it takes away the recovery time, and its only that which allows the Meltdown Level 2 -> Holy COmbo trick to work. Meltdown in Esper Mode is especially cruel cause you can fire Meltdown 2 -> Meltdown 3 in successive order, and dodging both is not the easiest of things to do (especially since it trips up the AI all the time)
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SotN: Beaten. Drac was a sad, sad final boss. I literally just stood there and mashed attack. Not a lot else to do given he takes up near the breadth of the screen and pretty much sits at ground level the whole time. Most of the bosses were pushovers, really. After a certain point most of them did 1 damage with every attack (the CV3 trio, while an awesome fight for being who they were, were sadly among these totally harmless fights). Except Galamoth. Man, he was a jerk. Will likely do Richter mode at some point (the game's so damn short, so why not?) but figure I'll hit Freedom Force next time I feel like starting something new. Change of pace and all.
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How do you chain Meltdown? Do you just press and hold the button again?
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When you're in EX mode, just hit the button again after you let it loose.
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Press the HP Attack button after the initial shot. From my experience, its almost always a level 3 that's fire irregardless of the level of the first shot, though I have seen Level 2's fired off. I think it might depend on how much time is between shots or something.
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It's got to do with the timing, definitely, then. I have pressed the HP attack right after, and it didn't do anything most of the time. Though the once time I managed it, I got off two Lvl 1's, actually. >_>
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SRWW - Wow, did you guys need to take that long to give me a Black Serena? Oh well. *FUBs it anyway.*
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It's got to do with the timing, definitely, then. I have pressed the HP attack right after, and it didn't do anything most of the time. Though the once time I managed it, I got off two Lvl 1's, actually. >_>
Really? Its incredibly easy to pull off; heck, I just did it now and got 3 level 3's in a row after using a level 1.
You do realize you're suppose to press the attack while she's still in animation of the move, right? Like fire a level 1, and while she's still recovering from the Fireball, press it against immediately. Its easier to do wtih a level 2, where I can just say "press it while the fireball is still out."
I...really don't know how you can't get the timing down. Its pretty simple "press the button as the other one is going on."
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Yeah, alright. I think I'm pressing it too soon.
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SRWW - *Gai gets like 20 levels in a single stage.* alrighty then.
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SRWW - *Gai gets like 20 levels in a single stage.* alrighty then.
Now, we've got an important question here: Which one?
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I think I shall withhold my advice on Terra Chaining for the moment, since it will immeadiatly be used against me. Though, I will say there's few things as fun as Twin Holy Combo.
Anyways, J and @G are both still on the backburner, mostly because J's gotten too long and the mid battle save too jittery to actually play it while going from place to place. And while I am figuring out how to deal with that, trial and error tends to be accidental, and therefore eat a few hours of time each time it happens. So, Soul Nomad. I have given a 9 slot Gladitorium to Juno, a schwack of nereids, and filled up the back row with Saboteurs and a Cleric. It wrecks things. The other groups I have aren't nearly as settled, though Trishia seems to be staying consistant with three archers, a cleric and a front row of Grunz and some redflanks. Anyways, everything that can be locked now is locked at 9 slots, and it is kinda fun.
As for plot... just finished the third world eater arc. It... lived up to its hype. And it got a lot of hype. So, kinda interested to see where things go from here.
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SRWW - *Gai gets like 20 levels in a single stage.* alrighty then.
Now, we've got an important question here: Which one?
Gai Daigouji, Nadesico. I figured I'd use Double Gekigan Flare for its over 7k power at cap+Soul-powered glory for 120 Will. For all two stages you get to use it for.
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WoW: Hahahaha, my shitty tank gear gets me hit capped for some insane reason.
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That happens sometimes. When I was in full ToC gear I was at the expertise cap, which was fucking ridiculous.
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Endless Frontier
Beaten, 1st RPG I beat since.....oh....let's say Persona 4. Haken, you class act, what a way to end the game. And rightfully so, he deserves it!
Fun game, silly story, awesome fighting system. I'd prolly give it a 6/10 or something. I doubt it has much replay value.
Dragon Quest 4
So, I have played the 1st Dragon Quest games when I was just getting into emulator and such, but do not remember their stories other then the intros. I know these games do things like trilogies or something. My question is: Is there anything I should know of importance that happens in the 1st 3 games while I play this one?
Anyways, I named the main Solo because I hate you all. I just finished chapter 2 and now get to play a fat merchant who had some sort of ridiculous cult following which even got him his own game! Yay!
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Nope, DQ4 has no tie ins to the previous games. DQ4-6 are the trilogy.
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IIRC, DQ4-6 are either related VERY LOOSELY with no actual references to how beyond "They all have Zenithia", and the order is 6-4-5 (I believe in DQ6, you actually save Zenithia and its before Zenithian Equips came into being, or at least, were named Zenithian stuff; the legendary set in that game was something else, which I think the theory is that AFTER DQ6, they were called Zenithian Equips) *OR* the games aren't related and its just reusing the same elements for the heck of it.
The logic is, again, Zenithia's existence in these 3 and its lack of existence in the others, and I believe the fact that there are some trademarks specific to these 3 games as well, but dunno them offhand.
This is contrast to DQ3-1-2 Trilogy where the game is explicit about the link ups, which are fairly obvious, so really no point in bringing them up. Don't think the "Zenithian Trilogy" actually references each other at all, so its a loose connection at best. Its kind of like BoF 1/2/3 vs. BoF4's relation to said trilogy. BoF2/3 openly reference BoF1 in a few ways that's more than just arbitrary cameos, BoF4 is sometimes predicted to be a Prequel, IF related at all, cause it CANNOT work as a sequel, but there's little to no justification behind this other than things like "BoF4 has Deis!"
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SRW - Final stage already? That's vaguely sad.
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Just finished grind fest I mean chapter 3 in DQ4.
No more merchant!
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Finally got the PS3 back from my stupid little brother who's had it stolen up in his room for the better part of a year, so went on a demo downloading spree.
Lego Indy 2: Plays almost exactly the same as the original.
Super Rub-a-dub: One of those wooden labyrinth type games... with rubber duckies and sharks! Uses the motion sensor in the PS3 controller, and while it's an interesting concept, I don't think it has enough in it to be worth a full game.
Fat Princess: Pretty darn entertaining. Just one problem - I started the demo map on the default settings, and there were so many players there was no way there was going to be a a winner. After playing for half an hour, I just quit the map.
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KOTOR - No, I'm not replaying it, but my roommate is and I've been watching while reading books. Game is 100% easier with a Guardian with 18/18/10/8/8/8 base stats. Additionally, naming the main character Darth Revan makes the scene on the Leviathan absurd.
Braid - Beat World 5 after giving up and FAQing the last piece. World 6 is annoying but I think I can do it.
Trine - Level... 3? This game sucks. The combat is obnoxious (So, my cursor controls the shield but the D-pad controls where I attack? Ugh.) and there's no reason to not just have the Thief spam level 2 arrows to get rid of the enemies. Physics puzzles are kind of cool but also INSANELY TEDIOUS and the method for rotating Planks is stupid (I should not have to spend 6 minutes getting a plank rotated just right because some jackass decided that the planks needed momentum when you're rotating them. Ugh.). I may not continue playing this game for a while.
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TO: Finally managed to kill enough bosses to unlock floor 26. I haven't beaten either of the recruitable bosses on floors 21 and 24 because seriously, what the fuck. I was actually doing very well on the latter when suddenly...Master Spark brutally sodomizes the team for what I swear looked like six-digit damage. Fucking overkill limit on a 15 million HP boss. We get it game, your bosses are hardcore. Lay off it already.
I'm pretty sure completing inventory of the maingame equips is necessary for getting the fifth star and unlocking something (presumably a PC or two) back on floor 20, but the game will not cooperate with the random drops. There are two items missing. Two. One of them is apparently found on floor 20 and I am astonished it hasn't appeared by now given that I've probably spent a solid five hours leveling on that damn floor. I think the game's just going out of its way to cockblock me by this point. Hate.
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Okami: just killed a huge freaking spider through gimmicky means.
...ok, whoever said this game isn't "that much like Zelda" really needs to look beyond the obvious differences. Yes, combat is different, yes, Amateratsu can Jump, and yes, there are different growth patterns...
But lets be reasonable here; that's what makes Okami not a ZELDA RIP OFF. Its still very much the same style of game. You do random things, then a big dungeon with a lot of puzzles (for all that Okami is a bit more blatant about how to do them, for better or worse), sometimes item collecting is involved. You gain power ups that let you do more odd shenanigans, and you kill enemies to gain things like Health, Money, and Magic Refills, but *NOT* EXP!
There are even many of the same style of items. I mean, I got the Bomb painting not long ago, and I JUST got an art that's Not!Hook Shot...if I get a Boomerang and Bow&Arrow (which I'm doubtful of, granted), I'll have gotten all Zelda Stereotypes <.<
So, uh, yeah, the game is very much the exact same genre as Zelda, just like any self respecting game, it actually tries to be unique rather than just rip off a popular title.
THAT SAID...the game is fun so far <_<
Note: I'm aware most people basically sum up Okami as "Zelda-like", but there was one person who actually said "I don't get why its compared to Zelda much; the two aren't that alike" and that stands out. Heck, I even have several IRL friends (a few are MAJOR Zelda fans even), and they openly state "Game is Zelda-like", so yeah, I'm aware whoever said this is in the minority.
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Trine - Level... 3? This game sucks. The combat is obnoxious (So, my cursor controls the shield but the D-pad controls where I attack? Ugh.) and there's no reason to not just have the Thief spam level 2 arrows to get rid of the enemies. Physics puzzles are kind of cool but also INSANELY TEDIOUS and the method for rotating Planks is stupid (I should not have to spend 6 minutes getting a plank rotated just right because some jackass decided that the planks needed momentum when you're rotating them. Ugh.). I may not continue playing this game for a while.
Really? That is a shame. Control scheme worked really well on the PC... Aiming wasn't that big a deal and the physics puzzles were pretty intuitive and responsive with a mouse.
Edit - But yes Thief is pretty much how you do combat, but the game is far more about the puzzle elements than the platform elements for where it is best.
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SRWW - Beat. Cobrayrence was pretty sad, but an improvement over J's hilariously pathetic final. At least, he has 500k HP over both forms.
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Playing FFIX, because I'm in the mood for some goddamn nostalgia-based gaming. One, jesus christ ATB was a bad choice for this game and it's long animations that don't stop charge time. And two, I just met a man-lady who is just called "Fuck." It's kind of jarring to see as a character name, but I think it's an improvement over the default.
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I've been neglecting Eternal Poison for Castlevania.
I beat AoS, and finished a stat topic for the bosses! (whoo!)
And now I'm moving onto replaying Dawn of Sorrow. I'm still not decided whether I prefer the AoS art or the DoS art. The DoS art is closer to my preferred style of anime art, but it's also more generic as a consequence. The AoS art is the traditional Castlevania style, but it has a few stylistic choices that mildly irk me. Still a good style though. I do like the amount of detail that the artist puts into her (his?) character designs. I suspect most people here would rate AoS art >>>>> DoS art, simply for the 'less generic' part.
What they really need to do is to fetch the Suiko2 artist.
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DQ4 finally in Solo's chapter...
My title by the way is Wipeout King!
I know, I'm awesome~
*flexes*
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/me gains EXP with Shantotto~
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WoW: Hurrah. Exalted with Darnassus on my Shammy. No more Elekk. I can now resume doing meaningful things.
Demon's Souls: Trying to get this beat at least once before I return to Dragon Age. Finished up 3-2 and 3-3 (Maneater got punked by a better weapon and the million healing items I acquired in 1-3). Old Monk was silly. Really silly.
Made it to the boss of 1-4 (without killing the Dragon ;_; ). He doesn't seem... too bad? Admittedly, I only got him down 25% or so, but I spent a good chunk of the fight scouting his moves and trying to get my rolls down. I should be fine if I can avoid his dash, but I kept not rolling for some reason. Thinking I'll head over to the next set of levels to get some more gear and souls. Want to upgrade my bow so I can kill the dragon in 1-4 because fuck dodging him every time.
CvS Card Battles DS: Up to... 14th? floor. Running with an all green deck currently. Discovered I have a stupid combo in the form of Jedah + Battle Download.
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SRWK - Jesus CHRIST, the Levlius -fails-.
EDIT: Since I'm at it, SRWW unit evaluations from the peoples I used regularly.
Kazuma (Valzacard/Valguard/Valhawk) - Um. For half of the game, the Valhawk is one of the worst Reals in the game. Kazuma is a good pilot and having a subpilot in Mihiro is neat, but Valhawk's weaponry, while sorta versatile, seriously lacks in power, and the stats are utterly generic for a Real. Once you get the Valguard, though, things shift: from a damageless Real with versatile weaponry, you go to a goddamned immortal Super with versatile - but still kinda lacking for a Super - weaponry and five pilots. This is fine and dandy, especially since the 22000 HP+nearly 3k defense monstrosity even -dodges- and its damage is fine for slugfesting. Then, Valzacard comes and epitomizes all of Valguard's perks with yet -another- pilot, across the board strong weaponry, more evade, even more defense and a 110 Will finisher that caps off at the mid 6,000s. So um yeah. It's a rather neat unit in the boiling of eggs, but, besides Valzacard's like three stages of lolgame, it's not a dominating monstrosity in everything, which is also cool. Fun.
Gai Shishioh (Genesic GaoGaiGar) - Broked. Gai gets very good at dodging and GaoGaiGar -also- has effective concrete due to his barrier and solid defensive stats. Offensively, it has insane attack power on its weaponry too (1-3 P free weapon that caps off at 6k Power? WHAT. Its boss-fighting is also crazy crazy) - the only real issue being the lack of range. All-Range Radars are GaoGaiGar's friends.
Rainbow Oni Cop Army - I'm sorta torn on them. Using them in bulk, in practice, is a good idea due to how cost-efficient they are due to the whole "upgrade four for the price of one" deal, and they benefit very well from upgrades - along with giving you some neat carryovers. On the other hand, they aren't impressive as standalone units, and their spirit sets have holes too. Reals without Focus really struggle before getting their upgrades up to date, really, and even merged, the Oni Cops don't really have the concrete to take a lot of hits. Once they get rolling, they're pretty good and worth the money, at least. But using them is a waste of time if you're not abusing the carryover. Do -not- pump up their Melee in lieu of Ranged like I did, for the love of god. >_>
Tekkaman Blade - Utterly nuts. Sure, unlike J, Blade sorta grows into being crazy (although he does so fast) instead of being stupid since forever. However, he ends up even crazier. Having ridiculous offense+amazingly versatile weapons+two pilots+high movement and godly evade = toodles. Also, he has like the strongest long-range combo attack in the game backed up by -Soul-. Double Reactor Voltekka capping off at 8100 power was just overkill.
Tekkaman Army - Dear god what were they thinking with the Tekkaman units in this game. Tekkaman Hiver has the most retarded MAP in the history of everything (1-8 Range+1-8 IFF AoE off 5100 cap. Even if you don't like MAPs in general, this one is worth abusing, and it's cheap to upgrade) backed up by game-best SP and Love and is the other half of Double Reactor Voltekka. Granted, her stats sorta suck before some BP pumping, but no big deal. Tekkaman Aki has the privilege of sporting game-best Melee - and running entirely off that stat -and- having a strong, cheap finisher combo with Tekkaman Blade. Tekkaman Somner and Vezna get a strong combo finisher at 120 Will (Double Voltekka) and another three-people finisher (Tripple Voltekka) with Hiver. And -all of these guys- get the crazy godlike evade+mobility+two pilots deal that Tekkaman Blade does. To add to that, they're close to the cheapest units to upgrade in the game, and they get huge benefits from upgrades due to high caps across the board. Range -is- an issue before they hit 120 Will (1-3 Teklancers don't really fly all that well, but then, FUBing their weaponry and raising that helps), but past that? Yeah. Worth more if you're planning to upgrade them steadily and strongly, but they're more than cost-efficient enough to allow that. The leeway you get with them by abusing subpilots is also nutsy - they also help fix the Will matters easily in general.
Sosuke (Arbalest) - Sorta cool, but he has a few issues. Lambda Drive is great, especially off his insane Will gains, but the Arbalest kinda has range/movement issues. Evasion is excellent, but you really want to give the machine an All Range Radar and some Boosters. The firepower once it hits 120 Will starts going crazy, at least, and the P emphasis is also cool.
Gundam SEED Yaoi Guyze (Meteor Freedom/Justice Gundam) - You know, the non-existant Strike Gundam failure downtime kinda gave them a more positive vibe from them in W. Very much like J Freedom/Justice Gundam, although their weapon bases seem a bit higher, which isn't bad. The MAP is also neat when you get the Will, but that's usually when you already killed a ton of people anyway. >_>
Lowe Gear (Gundam Astray Red Frame) - Complete offense monster with two pilots, inane evasion and awesome mobility that can swap into a Super with monstrous offense and awesome range! Yay! Lowe is really fun and powerful, and his machine gives some crazy, crazy carryover. Starts lousy, gets good fast, then starts getting really ridiculous. Its only low point is lacking range outside the Powerloader form, but past that? You can't go wrong with P attacks that cap off past the 5ks that break barriers off -that- Melee.
Gai Murakumo (Gundam Astray Blue Frame) - Portable Lohengrin cannons? Sign me in. Past that, Gai is a complete badass: awesome mobility+Hit&Away+absurdly versatile slugfesting. An awesome slugfesting P weapon and an awesome sniping weapon, both being Will-free on requirements, then he gets a strong sniping finisher, and THEN the excellent combo with Lowe. Basically covers all bases while being good at all of them. Excellent Will gains as well.
Prayer Reverie (X Astray) - X Astray is a really neat machine. Tons of range, actual concrete to go with the great evade, decently strong weapon power for a Real, a good MAP... but Prayer doesn't really fit the machine. He has good stats, but his spirit set compliments the range/offense game poory. No Snipe/Assail/Soul/Love/even Accel kinda undermine the mech's possibilities in that sense, although hardly crippingly so. Prayer tries to be half support, half slugfesting in spirits, and he even sorta works, but he kinda needed one of those money spirits - particularly Soul or Love - to truly make the X Astray shine. He doesn't sink it, far from it, but so it goes. He also could use better Will gains. Still liked it a bunch, though.
Angstkito (Black Serena) - YOU GET IT FOR TWO STAGES YESIU.JPG. The durability is pretty silly and the weapon power is good on the strip finishers (and then on the Double Gekigan Flare combo with Gai), but the weaponry really could be more versatile. Rather powerful, but.
Gai Daigouji (Aestvalist Gai Custom) - There for Double Gekigan Flare. Custom Aesties are actually okay, though, even if the weaponry doesn't impress me.
Orgun - Man, that's some utterly amazing weapons. Orgun is an offense dynamo: slugfesting, sniping, finishers... he has it all, as long as you can solve his braindead EN gurgling. At least, there are many ways to do that, and this makes him brilliant. In a sense, he's like Tekkaman Blade with better weapons but worse EN efficiency and lacking a subpilot. This is significant, of course, since his spirit set is really generic and a second pilot would fix that issue, and the EN guzzling is annoying. Still, that's quite an offense game. And running off a Real. W really liked damaging Reals, and that makes me go squee~
J (J-Ark) - So retarded. Functionally immortal with the insane HP, defenses and barrier, and the slugfesting+sniping are wonderful. Oh and it fucking has four pilots why. The only downside is being available for so little time, but jesus christ this is crazy.
Whoever else, I kinda forgot.
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Playing the Trek Online beta. I'm not that far, but I have to say: the character creator is fucking kickass. I spent like two hours messing with that thing. If you could change their legs around I could have made a perfect Draenei. Also, there's like thirteen different styles of uniform you can go with (and a couple of bonus ones. I'm rocking the Wrath of Khan outfit).
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FERD- Finished. The final boss is the most durable FE boss I've seen so far with 930 hp! The reflection crap makes most of your guys useless though so I used a team of Nolan, Nasir, Edward and Shinon as they could take a good 100-200 off a turn.
I'm still wondering why people feel Ike is overpowered because the mans bleeding useless in the endgame.
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Sands of Destruction - Started this. Balanced, Morte is not.
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What is a Sands of Destruction.
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It's a brand of spinach.
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Crossing the gap all children wished vegetables did by turning greens into games?
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FERD- Finished. The final boss is the most durable FE boss I've seen so far with 930 hp! The reflection crap makes most of your guys useless though so I used a team of Nolan, Nasir, Edward and Shinon as they could take a good 100-200 off a turn.
I'm still wondering why people feel Ike is overpowered because the mans bleeding useless in the endgame.
Ike is almost impervious to being RNG screwed. The game has to make sure that Ike can beat the Black Knight in the one on one so they gave him great starting stats and promotion bonuses. I see what you mean though. I had a bunch of units who were better than him especially the Marksmen units who turned one of the crappier FE classes into one of the most overpowered.
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Ike is almost impervious to being RNG screwed. The game has to make sure that Ike can beat the Black Knight in the one on one so they gave him great starting stats and promotion bonuses. I see what you mean though.
Black knight fight is a joke with a hammer (has anyone actually used Ragnell for that fight?), but yeah you're right his stats are great except for his horrible res which makes him useless several times as you can't risk him. The Oliver, dragon and final boss fight are what come to mind right now.
I had a bunch of units who were better than him especially the Marksmen units who turned one of the crappier FE classes into one of the most overpowered.
Have to agree as Shinon >everyone else. When I first saw provoke on an archer I was a bit perplexed but damn is it effective. Countless enemies fluff their turns so I can kill them easily and best of all Shinon doesn't suck up the xp either which is what you want.
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Black knight fight is a joke with a hammer (has anyone actually used Ragnell for that fight?), but yeah you're right his stats are great except for his horrible res which makes him useless several times as you can't risk him. The Oliver, dragon and final boss fight are what come to mind right now.
*raises hand* You're assuming people actually have the fore-thought to equip Ike with a Hammer for that for fight, let alone recognize it hits weakness. Many people use Ragnell for that reason. Hammer is *NOT* as obvious a choice for that fight as you're making it out it to be, especially due to Sword vs. Axe factor (Hammer is -6 Defense, in practice, relative to Ragnell, and a crap less accurate. The damage offsets this, but factoring all this in, it could be a turn off.)
Have to agree as Shinon >everyone else. When I first saw provoke on an archer I was a bit perplexed but damn is it effective. Countless enemies fluff their turns so I can kill them easily and best of all Shinon doesn't suck up the xp either which is what you want.
Dunno, Marksmen really only shine at the end of the game when Double Bow kicks in, cause hey, ACTUAL MELEE COUNTERS.
The Ike hype comes from the fact that he's good the entire game. He tanks things like crazy from the get go, magic hurts him, ubt Mages aren't common enough, and they only 3HKO him in practice due to his good HP, so really he only has to care about El-Thunder, Arc Thunder and Arc Wind, cause of Crits (and placing Soren, Titania, Ranulf or Mist near him can quickly work that away too anyway.) Once he gets Ragnell, you sit him in one area, and watch things die. Heck, he was tearing things up with a Hand Axe in Chap 4-4 (his is cause I stubbornly raise him to SS in Axes just for shits.)
Shinon cannot do this; he's not as durable as Ike, and doesn't counter Melee. Its really only the last stretch that he shines.
Honestly, the character that stands out the most in FE10, for Beorc, is Elincia, from my 2 playthroughs. Mobile, kills things, more durable than you'd think, and to top it off, can heal. Yeah, Shinon can attack from Range 3, but when you have a lot less move, its not as major a deal.
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Snow: For what it's worth, you can actually swap Mwu over into the X Astray for plot reasons I won't get into right now (GUNDAM SEED PLOT). He isn't an uber pilot either, but he does have Love and better will gains than Prayer if you didn't need another Bless-bot like I did endgame.
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Snow: For what it's worth, you can actually swap Mwu over into the X Astray for plot reasons I won't get into right now (GUNDAM SEED PLOT). He isn't an uber pilot either, but he does have Love and better will gains than Prayer if you didn't need another Bless-bot like I did endgame.
I read about that, actually, for GUNDAM SEED PLOT thingies. On the other hand, one of the reasons I kept Prayer around was exactly because of the Bless spamming. He may not have succeeded entirely at the mezzo support/mezzo slugfesting thing, but he did have the sense to pick up at least the crucial support spirit. But Mwu on the X Astray probably would be pretty darned neat.
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*raises hand* You're assuming people actually have the fore-thought to equip Ike with a Hammer for that for fight, let alone recognize it hits weakness. Many people use Ragnell for that reason. Hammer is *NOT* as obvious a choice for that fight as you're making it out it to be, especially due to Sword vs. Axe factor (Hammer is -6 Defense, in practice, relative to Ragnell, and a crap less accurate. The damage offsets this, but factoring all this in, it could be a turn off.)
Some people might miss it admittedly (theres only like one or two hammers in the game). However you have a prep phase to switch the weapon in, and I'd find it a bit strange by that point in the game a player not having worked out the weakness thing.
If BK's appearance isn't enough to suggest weakness to the hammer then the shield icon in his profile is.
Dunno, Marksmen really only shine at the end of the game when Double Bow kicks in, cause hey, ACTUAL MELEE COUNTERS.
You say that likes its a bad thing. I for one do not like one characters sucking up all the xp so its actually a plus to me. With great stats, provoke and no close range counters all nearby enemies will bombard Shinon with little effect, thus opening the way for me on the next turn to kill them all with whoever I like.
You are right on the double bow improving Shinon though, because by that point you don't really need the xp so much so Shinon is free to wreck the enemy.
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For me the Double Bow was an excellent addition to a very very good unit. I've played through twice and both times I've used Rolf. For me, what makes Marksmen really good is the skill activation rate. Due to the crit boost along with great skill and speed caps and growth, there were very few battles where Rolf did not activate either Deadeye or a critical hit. Then they get one of the best weapons in the game in the Double Bow which is the only weapon in the game with a 1-3 range possiblity and IIRC it gave +3 strength as well. The only thing that could survive a round from Rolf at the endgame was the bosses with Nihil and even then, hitting them with the Double Bow where they couldn't counter was still very effective.
About Ike vs. BK, Hammer vs. BK is pretty FAQ bait. I wouldn't be surprised if there were people who played through the game without realizing that Ike could even use axes and despite being the Black Knight, I think most players wouldn't immediately think that he was weak to Knight Killer weapons unless he ran into one while in the earlier battles. Additionally, Hammer is a rare weapon and it's a definate possibility that it has either been used up or equipped on someone who you didn't bring with the team. Finally, the game seems to set the battle up as a sort of Ragnell vs. Alondite battle since those are their signature swords.
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I used Ragnell myself, despite knowing about the Hammer thing. Since, well, the +5 defense plus the +10 tiles lead to taking like 11 damage or something. it's crazy. Plus range 1-2 to match the Alondite is nice.
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Honestly on Ike's path I tended to find that he had a pletora of poweful units available so it wasn't that difficult. He was GOOD, but not so much as to stand out for being a one man army compared to everyone else. Endgame comes along and all of a sudden the bosses are monstrosities. Being able to hurt them without being countered, AND having some of the best damage in the game with the Double Bow was a pretty big selling point for me.
Honestly because of the defense panel and the BK's AI not being too clever, that fight isn't really much to bat an eye at. Nihil assumed, of course.
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Plus range 1-2 to match the Alondite is nice.
Black Knight is a real man and always attacks at melee.
Hammer is more of an awesome bailout for that fight than anything. It's very easy to get an Ike who can't beat BK without resorting to the Hammer or a lucky critical. Just saw a friend get to the BK fight and was in this situation because Ike was like 2-3 points below average Str which is barely even noticeable earlier in the game but is crucial for beating Imbue. I guess you could get stuck without a hammer but there are two of them and one of them is unmissable.
Ike is very, very clearly better than Shinon in the overall game for reasons Meeple said - he's RNG proof, he's more durable, he's more damaging, and he can counter. Shinon is better at endgame but that's less important because not only is endgame shorter, but you have Tibarn/Cain/Nailah who are better still (also Rolf, but that only matters if you raise both).
FERD - Hard Mode, Heaven/Wind/Light focus playthrough, is up to part 4. HM does ramp things up. I'd love it if not for NO MOVEMENT RANGES WHY WHY WHY GAME DESIGNERS ahem. 4-1 was quite a nasty fight. Part 3 was also better, particularly 3-10 and 3-11, the former of which never gave me trouble in NM but now all the enemies are too fast for your tier 2s (except the real speedsters) to double, and even low tier 3 Titania/Haar have issues in this regard. Despite using a slightly smaller party than usual this playthrough, lower Exp (not much, mostly for hitting things) and especially BExp is also noted, as I only hit Tier 3 with two people in Part 3 (Titania and Haar, natch).
Super Luigi Galaxy - 60 stars, halfway there! God I hate Bouldergeist's Daredevil run. Don't want to talk about it. Luigi's controls are easy enough to adjust to but he's still clearly worse than Mario, so yeah, it's kiiinda a hard mode, just a small enough change overall to not be that notable of one. Works.
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So they gave BK worse AI than the usual? Awesome.
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No, that was his AI in FE9 too. Again, it's very consistent with his motives. He wants to battle Ike, not lol-I-snipe-you-from-range. If he was trying to win he'd have gangbeat Ike together with Levail and a gaggle of Bolting mages.
EDIT: To be clear, this is AI specific to him. Most enemies will try their best to avoid counters in such situations.
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Never thought of using a Hammer in that situation, but then again the fight was cake regardless.
~
DQ4 - Got the twins and Taloon now.
... seriously? They basically made Taloon like one of the temp characters. He pretty much does his own thing in fights. Can't wait to get Ryan or Alena.
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Wierd... I remember him abusing the range 2 on my second playthrough. First it was never used because I didn't realise that the hammer was going to hit weakness. Just never occurred to check. Then again, Ike had also capped four stats by that point, so he was kinda shrugging the BK off while doubling him for massive pain. As for the whole it's easy to notice thing, the aforementioned friend also needed to be told, despite also being the guy who found VP1's A ending without a FAQ.
Anyways, it seems I also play things.
SRWJ - Puttering around Map 22 right now, Nadesco path. Having fun with the Y Unit, which is keeping the Nadesco high up there on killing power. Really, only the supers are beating it right now for attack power, and the Map Attack is awesome. Aside from that, not much else to note, though for some reason I'm trying to babysit the Layzner instead of just letting it sit in the Nadesco.
Soul Nomad - Normal Path beaten. The game actually manages to pull off some surprising twists in the late going. Especially the bit at the third World Eater which... managed to live up to the hype. The stuff afterwards led to some interesting, and kinda surreal, battles. And the last PC really did catch me by surprise. Though, very useful, those attack patterns as well as the combo attack were just a nice boost. Plot... still trying to decide if there were dropped threads or not, but it holds together fairly well for what it is. Finally, the scene after the credits was hilarious, though the ending itself was not. Then again, I got final PC's ending, and not Gig's, which would have likely been better.
Tried out a bit of what I assume is the Demon path, but going to leave that until tomorrow as my brother wanted to play.
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Oh, yeah, it does fit. I'm just surprised that they spent the time to code specific AI for it.
Edit- I'd recommend checking out the endings on Youtube. As a rule, Female Revya has better variations. Gig and Danette are a must.
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Female Revya/ Levin ending is my personal favorite.
Also, GAME IS NOT DONE UNTIL YOU'VE BEATEN DEMON PATH.
You are only 70% complete. You really shouldn't even think of it as having 'beaten the game' until you've done Demon Path. That's like calling VP1's B ending a real ending.
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You mean the path that's labeled with the Bad End marker? Suikoden 5 has some awesome Bad Ends too. Doesn't mean that you haven't beaten the game just because you haven't gotten them. As for the endings, I totally intend to youtube them after I beat Demon Path, for all that I don't expect there to be more than one there.
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Demon Path does have two endings, based on whether you win or lose the last battle (so, you can easily get both of those yourself.)
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DQ4 - Got the twins and Taloon now.
... seriously? They basically made Taloon like one of the temp characters. He pretty much does his own thing in fights. Can't wait to get Ryan or Alena.
Yeah, Taloon's kind of not good in combat. Out of combat he's got Padfoot and Whistle, though, and those are nice to have.
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You mean the path that's labeled with the Bad End marker? Suikoden 5 has some awesome Bad Ends too. Doesn't mean that you haven't beaten the game just because you haven't gotten them. As for the endings, I totally intend to youtube them after I beat Demon Path, for all that I don't expect there to be more than one there.
Suikoden 5's Bad Ends are not nearly as lengthy as Soul Nomad's. Also, Demon Path has a lot of the better stuff in it IMO.
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Staying in the castle is a fairly long bad end, man. And both it and joining Barrows have some decent stuff.
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You mean the path that's labeled with the Bad End marker? Suikoden 5 has some awesome Bad Ends too. Doesn't mean that you haven't beaten the game just because you haven't gotten them. As for the endings, I totally intend to youtube them after I beat Demon Path, for all that I don't expect there to be more than one there.
Suikoden 5's Bad Ends are not nearly as lengthy as Soul Nomad's. Also, Demon Path has a lot of the better stuff in it IMO.
Bad End 1 is. Sorta.
WoW: So, I was clearing trash in ICC 10 the other day. Deathsworn Ward pops up and the ally NPCs jump in. Including Darion's horse. I have no idea. Also the DK T10 Helm is the most absurd thing. I want it.
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The NPCs on the way to Marrowgar will do that, if you dodge all the wards in the first room it is pretty easy to get ambushed up the arse by a Deathsworn Ward or 2 because the NCPs charge in through the cleared room and set off the alarms. Many good times had there. Fury will tend to only charge at stuff in that first doorway though.
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... seriously? They basically made Taloon like one of the temp characters. He pretty much does his own thing in fights. Can't wait to get Ryan or Alena.
He needs that to compete with the other PC's. His stats are miserable next to the other PC's, which makes sense. He's a merchant, not a trained soldier.
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He also makes us rich yesss~
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DQ4
Lv 23ish, just got the Z shield from those amazons.
My title is now Frosty Foe and I have collected 15 mini medals!
Huzzah~
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Dragon Age Origins:
Game continues to be fun. My main has mastered Arcane Warrior and the basic invulnerability that comes with that class. Throw in the fact that I have enough equips to more than offset the Mana drain of the mode abilities and I can even throw a spell or two around while pretending to be a tank warrior (and kicking the actual tank warrior's ASS at that job). The main solo'd a plot-fight that is supposed to be too hard to win. Tank is understatement. Other than that, Cone of Cold is hax, Force Field removes a threat from play while you kill other stuff, and fighters just do their jobs to kill things. Leliana's GT stun+damage move is very nice though. Melee folks dish out good damage but it tends to be of the ST variety. Mages are your god.
Plot is of course dark and cynical as to be expected. No surprise there. Interesting that the game actively rewards you for making pragmatic decisions that are still kind of the act of an asshole. I suppose that fits with the "gray" theme. For example freeing an Earl who is a known rapist gets you support for a decide-who-gets-to-be-king sidequest, while leaving him in prison gets you nothing but fuzzy feelings. At least in KoTOR they gave you light side points. None of that nonsense here. And it seems that even some courses of action that seem blatantly 'wrong' end up having superior consequences to the goodie-goodie alternative. Notably letting the clearly power-hungry Bhelen ascend to the throne. After all, who cares if you are a dick to your pampered enemies when you want to end the system that has basically enslaved/criminalized a good portion of your population for hundreds of years?
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Honestly, the Dwarves are screwed either way. They can either exist in a stifling caste-based system or they can probably get overrun by Darkspawn (since that's what the Caste system was created to fight).
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They need to get out from underground to survive, simple as that. The dwarves in the best situation are the surface dwarves.
Edit - Of course then they are probably just jumping into the same situation as Elves, but it is generally better than the Orzamar slums and caste system.
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SRWK - The Levlius is still terrible. Also, seriously, Godannar, tit tommy guns?
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TO: Completed inventory of maingame items. The game initially refused to acknowledge this and I had to stomp the final boss again before it took notice. Weird. Anyway, I was clearly overlevelled for the boss thus unlocked, but you know what? That's a nice change of pace by this point. The two recruits I got from that...well, the actual boss looks decent enough. Her friend is uh. Well, the offense is unsalvageable. She makes Reisen look like a champion slugger. Support skills might be nice, will have to try them out and see how much the buffs/debuffs are for.
Still walled by any boss I can access right now. Since one of them's blocking progress on floor 26 I guess I don't have any choice but to grind past them. 100k damage limits are not even remotely survivable, though. I mean, that's with most everyone already halving the element. Komachi only has ~85k HP! Tenshi managed to cut the 26F boss's limit to 50k or so by virtue of having State of Enlightenment up, so I guess my only hope is to twink her out to resist the appropriate element and hope the horrible overkill attacks are OPB.
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Wild ARMs XF: Yes, I'm the latest to start playing this. Just cleared 1-3. A few thoughts:
-Please, please tell me that Clarissa isn't the one she looks like. They can't be serious with that cliche, right? RIGHT?
-Are there random encounters or repeatable battles? I want to level up everyone and give them everything.
-1.1: In Which Clarissa Gets "assaulted" By A Dog. (Come on, it can't be just me who was a little disturbed by the post-game scene, even though I know full well that's not what they were going for.)
-1.2: In Which Even The Girls Want Clarissa.
-1.3: In Which We Learn That Class Changes Are Not Optional, And When They Want You To Change Class, They Don't Mean Just One Character Unless You Want To Spend Fifteen Minutes On Just One Level As Your Slowest Person Is The Only One Who Can Break Barrels (But I'm Not Bitter).
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There are repeatable battles, but not actual randoms. You fight them when you want to but you never have to. I don't know how early this becomes an option, though.
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SRWK - The Levlius is still terrible. Also, seriously, Godannar, tit tommy guns?
They exercised incredible restraint compared to the anime. Remember Stripperlion?
Also, which one's Levlius again? If it's the main mech, trust me, it gets better.
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-Please, please tell me that Clarissa isn't the one she looks like. They can't be serious with that cliche, right? RIGHT?
To answer this...well...its a spoiler, but probably not in the way you're thinking. If you don't mind being spoiled then, well...
SPOILERS
Clarissa is and she isn't Alexia. By which I mean she is Alexia BIOLOGICALLY, but she's not the same Alexia that people like Labyrinthia are acquainted with. That Alexia is actually is Clarissa's mother's ACTUAL daughter, while Clarissa is the ACTUAL Princess Alexia, however, due to an incident and their striking similarity in appearances (which apparently is purely coincidental; such things ARE possible in real life, for 2 totally unrelated people to have striking similarities to one another), they got swapped at a young age, and this factor was never discovered. The scenario is actually well illustrated in game, cause it gets around such questions like "wait, wouldn't the mother recognize her own daughter's outfit?" or "Why would those two HAPPEN to be in the same place?"
END SPOILERS
The game never outright states this, but all the evidence is there, to the point where if its NOT true, then that's a shit load of red herrings they tossed out there...and hell, it not being true only contradicts the plot points and setting they built up related to a few things, so it'd be especially stupid to deny it.
Sort of like how Claude and Syliva if FE4 are strongly suggested to be long lost siblings, but then Nintendo said "No, they're not; Sylvia's similarities are all coincidental, and her shared Holy Blood is from some other distant relative of Claude's!" Difference is, Claude/Sylvia being siblings is vaguely irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, so its more a "Ok, you wasted all that time implying she was, only to say she's not?" Granted, $5 says they INTENDED Them to be long lost siblings, but then they recognized "wait, we're strongly promoting incest cause those two CAN mate..." and decided to go against it later <_<
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You get access to "randoms" after 1-4, IIRC. Might be 1-5.
Be warned that high-end skills come very slowly except against one particular opponent (basically the game's grind spot) who becomes available in early Part 2. It's fine to fight a few randoms to pick up a few lower-level skills, but I don't suggest grinding for ATK+25% yet.
(Of course, I don't really suggest grinding in general, but if you're going to do it, do it right!)
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-1.3: In Which We Learn That Class Changes Are Not Optional, And When They Want You To Change Class, They Don't Mean Just One Character Unless You Want To Spend Fifteen Minutes On Just One Level As Your Slowest Person Is The Only One Who Can Break Barrels (But I'm Not Bitter).
Yeah, get used to that. It's what XF uses in place of things like level design, challenge and fun.
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*is almost done with XF ^_^*
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Yeah, get used to that. It's what XF uses in place of things like level design, challenge and fun.
Chapter 1 spams these at you a few times. Chapter 2 has one fight where you must use at least 2 Sentinels, and then there is a puzzle level or two later on. The vast majority of fights are straight up "Kill shit"
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-1.3: In Which We Learn That Class Changes Are Not Optional, And When They Want You To Change Class, They Don't Mean Just One Character Unless You Want To Spend Fifteen Minutes On Just One Level As Your Slowest Person Is The Only One Who Can Break Barrels (But I'm Not Bitter).
Yeah, get used to that. It's what XF uses in place of things like level design, challenge and fun.
The game stops that nonsense mid Chap 2, actually, instead making a few gimmick puzzle maps spread throughout (or alternatively, a few gimmick boss fights, but they're more "Learn the gimmick, don't get screwed by it" for the most part, rather than "Use Class/Skill OR DIE" as most a variety of ways to approach the fight.), and gives you a lot more straight forward areas, with attempting to be creative at Map designs (in some cases, they succeed; in others, its just annoying cause it does nothing but turn what should be a 5 minute fight into 15, but that's to be expected in a scenario like this; more a statement about SRPGs in general than XF specifically, mind.)
I won't deny that the game hurls a huge amount of gimmick maps early on and really gives you very little opportunities to just battle things straight out. I understand it was meant to replace a tutorial, but it really overstayed its welcome.
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That Chapter 2 fight is pretty trivial though. Most of the gimmick fights are in early Chapter 1; I guess it's a way of introducing the different classes. I think it's pretty neat but your mileage may vary.
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That Chapter 2 fight is pretty trivial though. Most of the gimmick fights are in early Chapter 1; I guess it's a way of introducing the different classes. I think it's pretty neat but your mileage may vary.
I don't mind that I had to change classes to do the battle, it's just that it seemed to be necessary to have everyone as the class to avoid having to continually wait and wait and wait.
*EDIT* Oh, and thank you to everyone for your help. That's why I'm usually one of the last ones to start a board-driven playthrough, so that people can help me without me needing to cheat (much). Also thank you to Meeple, haven't read the spoiler yet but I'll probably do so shortly.
Disgaea DS: Playing through with Prinny Commentary. While there have been a few funny lines, for the most part I am very disappointed. Up to Chapter 7.
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I dig. There is one battle very soon that made me tear all my hair out and then spontaneously combust as a warning.
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Sands of Destruction - Apparently we're supposed to cause a massive flood because papers raining from the skies said so. Also the game's sense of character/gameplay balance seems to be off a bit.
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XF- Restarted, speeding through C1.
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Okami: Current goal is to run around
Japan Nippon searching for DOG WARRIORS that are clearly NOT a Sentai team!
FFTA2: Started this, did the first two maps. If you think I have any first impressions YOU'RE DEAD WRONG MWAHAHAHA!
(IOWs, too early to tell anything)
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SRWK - Man, Shizuru is a cool pilot. The mech needed to be a Real, though. Also, Jeeg is a badass.
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Sands of Destruction - Apparently we're supposed to cause a massive flood because papers raining from the skies said so. Also the game's sense of character/gameplay balance seems to be off a bit.
Good, we need more people to say this game is crap.
KH BbS- The yaoi is high, the fanservice is readied just one minute into the game. Niu is very very pleased. And the monopoly is addicting, I kinda have forgotten about advancing the plot.
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SDGGGW-
Finished the SEED Destiny maps. Only 00, and then the Extra Generation, to go. Although since you get access to one new option part each map completed and I still need around 90 of them, there may be a ludicrous amount of the game in existance which is currently hiding.
Conveniently the SEED Destiny maps end right after ZAFT take over the Requiem. I was also perturbed during the Dardanelles map where I went to have Athrun finish off Kira only to have the game take over and cancel the attack then have Kira one-hit Athrun. It was a sad time. Frost Brothers did get up to some wacky hijinks throughout the Destiny maps which was a nice change from how the final phases usually went.
The Extra 3 map does take place at Messiah so I am currently optimistic that I will be able to fulfill my Shinn-smiting appetites there.
In other news, the commander of the Axis Zeon fleet in the SEED final was great. It's a shame that you can't get them for your own team.
With a decently accurate character, missile packs are broken. Except against Transphase armour and its ilk. But still. Accurate people in units with 6/8 missile packs = overpowered.
Current Team-
Albion/Zenon (GG) et al [Devil Gundam/Amuro '79, Destiny Gundam/Mark (GG) [Gogg/Lanalowe (GG), Nobusshi/Eris (GG), Gadlav/Aina], Strike Noir/Kou [Tornado Gundam/Char '79, Palace Athene/Usso, Contio/Shirou]]
Ra Cailum/Bright '87 et al [Xi Gundam/Camille, Nu Gundam/Amuro '93 [Gundam Maxter/Billy (GG), Tallgeese/Luke (GG), V2 Gundam/Alfreda], Shining Gundam/Judou [Tomliat/Eterna (GG), Gundam F90/Ivan (GG), Mahiroo/Sibbuk]]
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TO: Beat the 26F boss by virtue of her simply not using her limit attack for some reason. Uh...okay, works for me! 21F recruit is still absolutely horrifying and the 25F recruit is by now perfectly manageable right up until the point she obliterates the team with a limit that not even max-buffed Tenshi with 600 mystic resist can survive. I guess I can work on floor 27 now, but dammit, I want a full PC roster before moving on.
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WoW: I've seen 4 world epics drop in a week. Goddamn.
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Good, we need more people to say this game is crap.
Sands of Destruction - Killed a pig because he's a jerk. Actually a pretty tough fight because I'm underlevelled. Good thing Morte tanks like a champ.
Game is pretty decent so far. Pretty uncraplike.
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WA:XF - I hate prisons. Very much. Very very very much. Now, I'm assuming that the gimmick of the battle(s) is: Gadgeteers! Fast moving, item throwing, yay! Oh, and here's how you use items. Only one problem, those stupid townspeople get 2HKOed by boss lady + ranged fighter, and that causes a reset. Any advice beyond what I'm currently doing (i.e. Killing bats for money for a full set of equipment and then gems)?
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Prison? Levin uses his delay buster move on the boss to lock her down. Clarissa can go over and help with rob turn while your other PC's support the prisoners and help them escape.
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Infamous - Up to the second island. Getting around is a lot slower than Prototype, but the city has more character to it than Manhattan does in Prototype. Playing as a douche because just letting you know, still a douche.
Took fucking long enough for the price to drop down enough to stop kicking myself for not buying it when I was shopping with Sopko.
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XF- Did a little bit of grinding for Emulator abilities and now I am fighting spoilers and the undead.
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DQ4
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Randoms on the world map are all cheese-tastic. I'm still in the high 20s wandering, searching castles for any treasure chest I may have passed in my adventures. I have to make some king laugh or something, but i have no idea where the guys that they want em to find is at.
Oh, I found this liquid metal sword or something. Ryan now rapes everything.
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DQ4
I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Randoms on the world map are all cheese-tastic. I'm still in the high 20s wandering, searching castles for any treasure chest I may have passed in my adventures. I have to make some king laugh or something, but i have no idea where the guys that they want em to find is at.
Oh, I found this liquid metal sword or something. Ryan now rapes everything.
Go back to the first town in chapter 4 and recruit the jester there. He can make the king laugh and you get the Zenthian Helmet for that.
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Sands of Destruction.
Just saved Agan. Current team is pretty whoah.
Morte's got a bunch of MT attack spells, Fire, Wind and Ice elementals I think. I don't think it's wrong to say she's a sort of mage: her attack strings aren't particularly good due to the low amount of hits, and her battle strength tapers off now. Awesome durability, though. Quips aren't that stellar, although THERE'S ENOUGH ANNIHILATION is clearly broken.
Kyrie's pretty good for regular attacking. Has three curative spells (one heals Burn, one heals Poison, one for Regen) that are all MT, but his shine is in combo attacks. 2->4->6 string, usually has a crit in them and his morale is, overall, pretty good that you get to triple-act. Pretty good defenses post-IT'S PROBABLY, but otherwise just decent defense that usually gets broken by enemy attacks.
Taupy: wtf is this guy on. Awful morale in that he usually only gets to act once, but when he attacks twice in one round, he easily outpowers Morte/Kyrie regardless of their attack strings. Insane evasion and accuracy (53 Agi whereas the rest has 22/23...) so that most bosses just waste their attacks on him, and he even has MT healing that doubles as revival. The only thing keeping NINJA PIRATE TEDDY BEAR in check is that low morale.
Haven't used Agan so can't say much of him. Pretty funny game. Not stellar, nor thrilling, but it's pretty nice.
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WA:XF - I hate prisons. Very much. Very very very much. Now, I'm assuming that the gimmick of the battle(s) is: Gadgeteers! Fast moving, item throwing, yay! Oh, and here's how you use items. Only one problem, those stupid townspeople get 2HKOed by boss lady + ranged fighter, and that causes a reset. Any advice beyond what I'm currently doing (i.e. Killing bats for money for a full set of equipment and then gems)?
That's basically the first battle where you're actually supposed to just kill things dead. The only real "gimmick" there is to learn how to control battlefields. Learn how to do that. Learn how to do that in your freaking sleep. There will be a harder battle with the same "gimmick" later on.
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Infamous - Up to the second island. Getting around is a lot slower than Prototype, but the city has more character to it than Manhattan does in Prototype. Playing as a douche because just letting you know, still a douche.
Took fucking long enough for the price to drop down enough to stop kicking myself for not buying it when I was shopping with Sopko.
Heh. I picked it up for Christmas. I should get around to starting it too...
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Dragon Age Origins:
Beaten. I took the ending with 100% more sex because Cid told me to.
The endgame was kind of balls-out in terms of what they did to you. OGRE SWARMS where Ogres have this one move where they grab you in their fist and keep squeezing until you die (wel, my Arcane Warrior could survive it but yeah). The final boss quickly killed my two non-tanks and then got to face down two tanks with lots and lots of healing that just grinded him away. The fight took much longer than it should have thanks to the stupid constant knockdown. That sucked. Other than that I just kept using Heroic Offense on my main and plowing away with a Spellsword until the thing was dead (Heroic Offense is so very effective for Arcane Warriors thanks because they have accuracy problems to start with). The thing didn't have much in the way of actually killing my tanks but boy was it durable. Hax resistances too.
Plot fell apart at the end in execution. I mean, it had some neat ideas but they obviously either didn't know what to do with it really or made the scenario too general to encompass all the possible endings to the Landsmeet.
The only thing I can say about this game in the DL is GO DOG GO. And I guess Alistair has 40% Magic evade. Everyone has some form of status whether it is freezing things or stunning them or KNOCKING THEM DOWN (which actually lets you get in a good 2-3 swipes before they get up again). Guess I'll have to see what Andy says when he finishes with the auto-levelling. My understanding is that there are slight starting skill/spell differences for some of the characters between versions, but I don't think it will matter in the end. Endgame level was around 20, so the fighters should get all their 'school' talents and their class stuff.
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Sands of Destruction just took a turn for the worst. Kyrie's my highest damage dealer. OHKOs everything. What the hell game, why are you so easy to break.
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Infamous - Up to the second island. Getting around is a lot slower than Prototype, but the city has more character to it than Manhattan does in Prototype. Playing as a douche because just letting you know, still a douche.
Took fucking long enough for the price to drop down enough to stop kicking myself for not buying it when I was shopping with Sopko.
Heh. I picked it up for Christmas. I should get around to starting it too...
If you haven't started it yet at least pop it in and do the first 15 minutes. Seriously one of the best start screens ever made.
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SRWK - Okay, so Dann of Thursday is a motherfucking badass.
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DQ4
Kicking ass and taking names.
My party is Solo, Ryan, Alena, and Meena...
Meena is just there for heals, but does anyone know where I can get her a decent weapon? She has had the magma staff for awhile now, but the damage is lacking.
I'm about 22 hours in @ lv 35 now. My title has now become Roundabout Rover!
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CTDS: After asking around in chat earlier for a little help, I went and cleared the formerly haunted mansion, now the Hero's Grave. Powered up Masamune get! Moonbeam Armour get! Valkyrie's Bow get!
So, which one next? Dungeon under the desert was a close call last time, so might try that one, while the Devil's Claw or whatever it was called was FREAKING EVIL and so I think I'll give that a miss for now. And, who knows, maybe the Mega Mutant won't tear me a new arsehole next time?
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If Devil's Claw is what the Black Omen is? That's effectively the final dungeon. Yeah, its optional due to the nature of CT's 2nd half, but its by far the longest dungeon in the game, complete with at least 4 bosses along the way, plays directly into the game's main plot (rather than an arbitrary side quest that, at most, is relevant to a single character), and has by far the toughest enemies in the game. Believe Gaspar doesn't even talk about it like any other Fated Hour quest, but rather, only mentions it saying "its connected to Lavos!"
Oh yeah, the clincher to all this is that as soon as the dungeon is done, you're shoved right in front of Lavos himself, I don't think with any choice either (mind you, once the first stage is beaten, you can actually pull out. Beating the outer shell is NOT a point of no return, odd as that sounds for a Final Boss.)
So yeah, hold off on that dungeon til last cause its very clearly meant to be done last. Also, be sure to have Magus in it for the last few fights, if purely for stylistic reasons (not only some extra dialog, but it actually goes so far as to change the music of one fight too.)
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Black Omen isn't Devil's Claw. Devil's Claw is... where the Rainbow Shell is. I entered Black Omen, got torn to shreds by the Mega Mutant and left to do sidequests to level/gain equipment. Did Robo's, beat Ozzie again, and then did Frog's one earlier. Not too sure what I'm doing now, outside of training to beat the other two I mentioned.
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Oh, I assumed Devil's Claw was Black Omen cause you said it was hard. I seriously remember Devil's claw (originally Giant's Claw, probably No asstard censorship kicking in) being fairly routine Dinosaur Dungeon (eg have Lightning = Win.)
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Torchlight - Yeah it's Diablo. Alchemist with Chain Lightning whatever and lots of armor. All his other spells suck though. Maybe I need to put more levels in them. What a novel idea.
Trine - Played it a little more, it still sucks. I realize now what really irked me about the game - most of it is solving physics puzzles, and the actual movement of objects is slow and insanely bulky. This wouldn't really be a problem, except you have a very limited supply of mana for the one character that can reasonably move objects around, and the controls are so loose that you can use up all your mana trying to get a piece in the exact spot you need it, and not be able to solve the next step of the puzzle. Oh well, done with it I suppose.
KotOR 2 - About to get off the mining freighter. Going Guardian/Weapons Master light side. Unfortunately, this means I get no skill points whatsoever so talking myself out of every situation will be hard until I get mind control. Good thing battles are way easier when you have 18 strength and 15 con.
The game is... surprisingly buggy. The audio glitches out frequently, and often I'll move to open a container, watch the opening animation, and then have to open it again because buggy game is buggy. Other than that, I'm used to the PC controls so it is hard as hell to adjust to the much more awkward XBox controls.
Quick question: I heard that for the PC version of the game there was a patch in the works to restore the lost content. Is there a similar one to fix the bugs? Perhaps the game isn't as buggy as I suspect, but if it is, it would be nice to just pick up the PC version and play it sans bugs.
Other than that I am enjoying the game but progress is slow because I have to go to the neighbors' to play, and that requires them being home. Really tempted to just get it for my PC if I can but if not this situation will have to do.
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SRWK - FUCK, I screwed up and picked GxS route. Goodbye, Legend Gundam. =| May as well start on the retardedly byzantine reqs for the Fafnir secrets, though.
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Just go for Blade Gainer. It's simple and makes things explode.
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But I think I already screwed up with Blade Gainer as well. =(
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But you managed not to screw up Fafner yet? Impressive.
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Blade Gainer reqs don't start until stage 15B-2. If you're past that, then you can't get the Fafner secret either.
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Okay, so I screwed up neither.
On the other hand, are the GxS secrets and the Blade Gainer mutually exclusive?
EDIT: Also, on SRWK-related nonsense, I caved in and started upgrading the Rainbow Jerk. hinode's Kotona hype mind control rays at work here, people. Well, that and evasive, mobile healer with salvageable offense is something I definitely can get behind.
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Nope.
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Excellence. I guess I'll just go for Blade Gainer instead.
Tangentially: wtf jesus yamato
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GxS is only mutually exclusive with the absurd-on-first-playthrough Zoids secret and (first playthrough, at minimum) the Fafner secret.
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CTDS: After talking to people in chat, I discovered my major problem - I hadn't gone and got Crono back. Whoops.
Done that now, then beat the Giant's Claw, got Prism Helms and am now doing the desert dungeon for the woman who wants to grow trees. According to Gaspar, the only sidequest I'm yet to do is the Sun Stone, which is just a case of figuring out where it is. Yay~
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Quick question: I heard that for the PC version of the game there was a patch in the works to restore the lost content. Is there a similar one to fix the bugs? Perhaps the game isn't as buggy as I suspect, but if it is, it would be nice to just pick up the PC version and play it sans bugs.
The restoration mod also contains a bunch of bugfixes. It doesn't get everything but it gets the really major/annoying stuff.
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GxS is only mutually exclusive with the absurd-on-first-playthrough Zoids secret and (first playthrough, at minimum) the Fafner secret.
Do Kotona and Remii still get upgrades if you don't do Bio-Ptera?
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Those are automatic, yes. All the Zoids upgrades are.
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The real tragedy is that Blade Gainer is exclusive against the Gaiking the Great theme (on a first play).
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TO: Muscled through to the last floor. In sum:
Floor 27: Cake. There's an enemy here that gives you 90,000 skill points each. Sometimes they come in groups of three. Yeah, this is where any grinding will occur for the forseeable future. Boss is also hilarious.
Floor 28: Fuck off.
Floor 29: Less annoying, though it's mildly enraging that once I'd finally got people consistently faster than those initiative-spamming strategist fuckers the game throws a faster version at me. Argh. At least there are no longer tengu here. Again, fuck you 28F.
Floor 30: So. Every fight here is a beefed-up version of a boss elsewhere in the game. Several of them obliterate the team before I can move. Cue stupidly massive amount of grinding. Not finishing this for a while, I'd guess.
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KotOR 2 - About to get off the mining freighter. Going Guardian/Weapons Master light side. Unfortunately, this means I get no skill points whatsoever so talking myself out of every situation will be hard until I get mind control. Good thing battles are way easier when you have 18 strength and 15 con.
The game is... surprisingly buggy. The audio glitches out frequently, and often I'll move to open a container, watch the opening animation, and then have to open it again because buggy game is buggy. Other than that, I'm used to the PC controls so it is hard as hell to adjust to the much more awkward XBox controls.
Quick question: I heard that for the PC version of the game there was a patch in the works to restore the lost content. Is there a similar one to fix the bugs? Perhaps the game isn't as buggy as I suspect, but if it is, it would be nice to just pick up the PC version and play it sans bugs.
Other than that I am enjoying the game but progress is slow because I have to go to the neighbors' to play, and that requires them being home. Really tempted to just get it for my PC if I can but if not this situation will have to do.
It's already out, actually. It's called "TSL Restored Content mod." Download it, but keep in mind it makes certain parts of the game (Nar Shaddaa, mostly) a fuckton harder.
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KotOR 2 - About to get off the mining freighter. Going Guardian/Weapons Master light side. Unfortunately, this means I get no skill points whatsoever so talking myself out of every situation will be hard until I get mind control. Good thing battles are way easier when you have 18 strength and 15 con.
The game is... surprisingly buggy. The audio glitches out frequently, and often I'll move to open a container, watch the opening animation, and then have to open it again because buggy game is buggy. Other than that, I'm used to the PC controls so it is hard as hell to adjust to the much more awkward XBox controls.
Quick question: I heard that for the PC version of the game there was a patch in the works to restore the lost content. Is there a similar one to fix the bugs? Perhaps the game isn't as buggy as I suspect, but if it is, it would be nice to just pick up the PC version and play it sans bugs.
Other than that I am enjoying the game but progress is slow because I have to go to the neighbors' to play, and that requires them being home. Really tempted to just get it for my PC if I can but if not this situation will have to do.
It's already out, actually. It's called "TSL Restored Content mod." Download it, but keep in mind it makes certain parts of the game (Nar Shaddaa, mostly) a fuckton harder.
Harder, but not hard - KOTOR 2 without that patch is a serious contender for easiest RPG ever made.
You don't get your main character for these new sections which is the biggest hitch, but T3-M4 and HK-47 can be really good in 2 and you always get at least one of them, so make sure to build them decently and you're fine.
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KotOR 2 - About to get off the mining freighter. Going Guardian/Weapons Master light side. Unfortunately, this means I get no skill points whatsoever so talking myself out of every situation will be hard until I get mind control. Good thing battles are way easier when you have 18 strength and 15 con.
The game is... surprisingly buggy. The audio glitches out frequently, and often I'll move to open a container, watch the opening animation, and then have to open it again because buggy game is buggy. Other than that, I'm used to the PC controls so it is hard as hell to adjust to the much more awkward XBox controls.
Quick question: I heard that for the PC version of the game there was a patch in the works to restore the lost content. Is there a similar one to fix the bugs? Perhaps the game isn't as buggy as I suspect, but if it is, it would be nice to just pick up the PC version and play it sans bugs.
Other than that I am enjoying the game but progress is slow because I have to go to the neighbors' to play, and that requires them being home. Really tempted to just get it for my PC if I can but if not this situation will have to do.
It's already out, actually. It's called "TSL Restored Content mod." Download it, but keep in mind it makes certain parts of the game (Nar Shaddaa, mostly) a fuckton harder.
Harder, but not hard - KOTOR 2 without that patch is a serious contender for easiest RPG ever made.
You don't get your main character for these new sections which is the biggest hitch, but T3-M4 and HK-47 can be really good in 2 and you always get at least one of them, so make sure to build them decently and you're fine.
That's what boned me, hadn't adequately outfitted either of them.
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SRWK - Yay, first A Combo chip!
/me gives it to Gou.
Eeeeeeeeeeexcellent.
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Sands of Destruction.
Just saved Agan. Current team is pretty whoah.
Morte's got a bunch of MT attack spells, Fire, Wind and Ice elementals I think. I don't think it's wrong to say she's a sort of mage: her attack strings aren't particularly good due to the low amount of hits, and her battle strength tapers off now. Awesome durability, though. Quips aren't that stellar, although THERE'S ENOUGH ANNIHILATION is clearly broken.
Kyrie's pretty good for regular attacking. Has three curative spells (one heals Burn, one heals Poison, one for Regen) that are all MT, but his shine is in combo attacks. 2->4->6 string, usually has a crit in them and his morale is, overall, pretty good that you get to triple-act. Pretty good defenses post-IT'S PROBABLY, but otherwise just decent defense that usually gets broken by enemy attacks.
Taupy: wtf is this guy on. Awful morale in that he usually only gets to act once, but when he attacks twice in one round, he easily outpowers Morte/Kyrie regardless of their attack strings. Insane evasion and accuracy (53 Agi whereas the rest has 22/23...) so that most bosses just waste their attacks on him, and he even has MT healing that doubles as revival. The only thing keeping NINJA PIRATE TEDDY BEAR in check is that low morale.
Haven't used Agan so can't say much of him. Pretty funny game. Not stellar, nor thrilling, but it's pretty nice.
Huh? I think you got the completly wrong idea, the gam is.....
Sands of Destruction just took a turn for the worst. Kyrie's my highest damage dealer. OHKOs everything. What the hell game, why are you so easy to break.
Oh, so you find it out yourself.
KH BbS- Holy is so useful that I am a bit at shock. Sonic Rave is so useless that I am at shock too. And they really should give the bosses mroe hp, multi locks kill them waaayyyyy too fast.
And when is Sora's brain going to implode on itself? After fidning out how much crap got stuffed into his brain.
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Yeah, they really like fucking with Sora's brain... I'm hoping it eventually leads to a meltdown and he becomes the villain of any future games in the series. Man, it would be so satisfying to beat up Sora.
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Burnout Paradise: This is basically Burnout meets Crazy Taxi, and that's a pretty good combination.
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FF9. Picked up Amarant, named him "Lips" so that he would introduce himself to people as "the Flaming Lips." Also Dagger is named Dag because it still makes the scene make sense, but it's a fun joke about prison rape.
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FINALLY beat Chrono Trigger earlier today. Liked Lavos1, with the little early-game boss rush, and Lavos 2 was... gurk. Annoying. Spammed his damn status immunity removal move, but thankfully never hit Marle with it, so she just stood healing until Crono/Frog were hit out of confusion. Used up the stock of items I'd procured over the game, using about 6 Megalixirs over both forms. Lavos3 was interesting, since it was me and a friend who was watching, and we assumed the middle one was the main form. I was a little taken back when it suddenly died, and the pod on the right proceeded to revive it. Eventually killed all three in one hit with FROG SQUASH. <3
All in all, damn good game. Hampered by a few slow moments, but generally speaking, it's a fun rush through, with a good gameplay system and some interesting characters.
Next up, finish FF3.
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SRWK - Things Nova likes doing: OHKOing Mist. You better marry the goddamn loser soon, Sheldia.
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Dissidia- I has a L48 Shantotto and a L65 Terra. My CT bait quota is happy~
WA:XF-Started. Last thing I did was fight a free battle in the Bandit's Forest. Game's fun so far despite losing the gate fight through hitting one of my own characters with another's attack >.> I like Wild Arms so yeah. Doggie!
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SMT2 - Just saved all the gods of Japan. I have to say the Church guys are the most elite fodder I've ever seen in a game. I have a lv 68 Metatron and 72 Shiva already all the while at lv 39 thanks to them.
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SRWK - *Old Jeeg does the combo with Big Shooter.*
*OLD JEEG OHKOS SAILOR GUNDAM STARGAZER HIGURASHI LESBOMANFACE WITHOUT VALOR.*
...
<3<3<3
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Playing Persona 3, got probably around halfway through the game I want to guess? Got to sleeping table, got ass kicked several times, finally beat him with a little too much luck and magic mirror abuse, afterwords got this nagging feeling that my S.link's and daytime stats weren't even close to were they should be, so decided to start a new game, now with 100% faq baiting for social links.
So far I like the game fairly decently, tartarus exploration gets a tad old, but muting the tv and listening to a separate play list makes it more tolerable. Stupei and to a lesser extent his interactions with Chidori are about as obnoxious as his nickname suggest, don't really have a problem with any of the other characters up to this point at least, but we'll see.
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KH BbS- It has been very hard to not look at Ventus and Vanitas' final battle out of context. It is evoking yaoi thoughts for the sake of doing it. Vanitas' face just makes it more so. And yeah, I need the OST, and I need the cable to connect PSP to the TV, the PSP stereo simply does no justice.
Though bah, Xigbar and Ven didn't really turn out the way I thought, why is Xigbar holding such a grudge against Ven when they only met so briefly? Oh well, guess I have to scratch that pairing.
Oh, and Aqua is delviering firely death with Mega Flare and Triple Firega, she certainyl is the most broken among the three, how ironic consider her name.
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Burnout: Class B License get. If they hadn't replaced Crash with Stunt Run, and it wasn't so easy to wreck, this would basically be the perfect Burnout. The open-world setup really works.
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KH BbS- It has been very hard to not look at Ventus and Vanitas' final battle out of context. It is evoking yaoi thoughts for the sake of doing it. Vanitas' face just makes it more so. And yeah, I need the OST, and I need the cable to connect PSP to the TV, the PSP stereo simply does no justice.
Though bah, Xigbar and Ven didn't really turn out the way I thought, why is Xigbar holding such a grudge against Ven when they only met so briefly? Oh well, guess I have to scratch that pairing.
Oh, and Aqua is delviering firely death with Mega Flare and Triple Firega, she certainyl is the most broken among the three, how ironic consider her name.
I don't understand how the idea came about that KH needed to be taken seriously.
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Labyrinth of Touhou - 18F boss beaten, Chenlevel 100. Just needed to survive the early Demises and then made sure none of the really nasty status stuff happened. Think it was about 4 or 5 resets once I went at it for real.
Those are some shiny stats.
19F: Exploration Chen'd. Pern Sigil was some kind of What, giving nearly as many resets at 18F boss. Having him have that much damage with a partial ITD move that he can then use with doubled offense is argh. Only other reset on the Sigils was one to the uberKnowledge.
20F: Puts not-Pern sigils to shame. There's at least two things each monster here abuses. Hoping to see a lot of drops, since evidently they're all fairly epic.
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I don't understand how the idea came about that KH needed to be taken seriously.
358/2 Days is actually pretty serious overall. Its got some light-hearted moments, and its fair share of comic relief (Demyx), but its actually good at avoiding Nomura's standard crack and...yeah. Basically, 358/2 days is a game I can totally understand taking seriously, even if the others you cannot.
(doesn't hurt that the game downplays the Disney somewhat. Not trying to bash the Disney aspect of KH, just that its easier tot ake something seriously when we don't have Donald and Goofy as consistent allies. Oh, sure, Mickey appears late in 358/2 Days, but after KH2, its actually very easy to take Mickey seriously, odd as this sounds...)
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I don't understand how the idea came about that KH needed to be taken seriously.
358/2 Days is actually pretty serious overall. Its got some light-hearted moments, and its fair share of comic relief (Demyx), but its actually good at avoiding Nomura's standard crack and...yeah. Basically, 358/2 days is a game I can totally understand taking seriously, even if the others you cannot.
(doesn't hurt that the game downplays the Disney somewhat. Not trying to bash the Disney aspect of KH, just that its easier tot ake something seriously when we don't have Donald and Goofy as consistent allies. Oh, sure, Mickey appears late in 358/2 Days, but after KH2, its actually very easy to take Mickey seriously, odd as this sounds...)
I didn't give a shit about the rest of the cast, but I enjoyed exploring what were more or less faithfully-recreated versions of films from my childhood. Since the serious aspects of the game are focused on original characters that I don't give a shit about and terrible Nomura dialogue, rather than the one part of the game I find enjoyable, I don't understand caring about them. It's not like the game has great characters or anything.
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The gospel truth
Even in its best moments, there is nothing in Kingdom Hearts' original story that is remotely as good a reason to play the game as "dude, it's TRON and Aladdin in the same game!"
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The gospel truth
Even in its best moments, there is nothing in Kingdom Hearts' original story that is remotely as good a reason to play the game as "dude, it's TRON and Aladdin in the same game!"
While this would certainbly be my reason to ever play a KH game, I must admit that I'm not a rabid yaoi fanboy/girl, and neither of you are either.
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Also, Meeple was making the point that by 358/2, they actually start writing a story that doesn't suck.
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Also, Meeple was making the point that by 358/2, they actually start writing a story that doesn't suck.
If it takes you two main games and two spinoffs to start writing a story that doesn't suck, why should I be in any way invested in the main characters? You don't even get ONE whole game to convince me I should like your characters. You have like, three or four hours after the character is introduced to hook me in some way. By this point they've thoroughly disabused me of the notion of caring about their original characters in any way and reacting in any way to them but mild irritation that they're taking up screen time and disk space that could have been spent on a GODDAMN JUNGLE BOOK LEVEL GOD DAMN IT.
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Oh, KH1 and KH2 both kind of don't do the writing thing very well. Like Slayers (Next), the filler (that being the Disney worlds) is where the games grab their strength from, and in KH2, we add in "DMC-level ridiculous style antics" into the mix.
Well, that and they've also got competent gameplay <_< >_>
358/2 Days is...different. Like I said, it downplays the Disney a lot, so while in KH1 and KH2, you have Goofy and Donald following you every, 358/2 Days, you have allies who look like something you can ALMOST take seriously (...almost...)...and its writing and plot is shockingly competent too, despite being a KH Spin off.
THAT SAID...
FF7: Cloud just became sane again...relatively...
Did the PSX version have the music play through the entirety of the sequence from when Cloud stabs Sephy until the flashback ends? Cause the PC version stopped playing it around the time Sephiroth walked out of the room, and the music that played when Cloud confronted Sephiroth in the reactor was the reactor theme, which...just worked a lot better for atmosphere. Just wondering...
Dissidia: I have all level 50 Exclusives at least! Also most characters are at least level 30. Yeah, I don't play this THAT often beyond "one fight a day" to keep Mognet going.
FFTA2: Haven't gone far in plot, been doing a bunch of side missions. Battle system is...slow, but otherwise, game fixes a lot of FFTA's shit. I also have like 6 bows when I have 3 of any other weapon class at most; kind of irksome from a psychological standpoint of "ARGH! BACKLOGGED ON SKILLS ;_;"
Okami: Just beat Orochi! Stylish Fight and such.
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The gospel truth
Even in its best moments, there is nothing in Kingdom Hearts' original story that is remotely as good a reason to play the game as "dude, it's TRON and Aladdin in the same game!"
While this would certainbly be my reason to ever play a KH game, I must admit that I'm not a rabid yaoi fanboy/girl, and neither of you are either.
Well, at least one person noticed that fact that the gospel truth of KH is about selling yaoi.
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The gospel truth
Even in its best moments, there is nothing in Kingdom Hearts' original story that is remotely as good a reason to play the game as "dude, it's TRON and Aladdin in the same game!"
While this would certainbly be my reason to ever play a KH game, I must admit that I'm not a rabid yaoi fanboy/girl, and neither of you are either.
Well, at least one person noticed that fact that the gospel truth of KH is about selling yaoi.
I'm not sure what you grew up watching, but I suspect it's not the same thing as most of us.
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By this point they've thoroughly disabused me of the notion of caring about their original characters in any way and reacting in any way to them but mild irritation that they're taking up screen time and disk space that could have been spent on a GODDAMN JUNGLE BOOK LEVEL GOD DAMN IT.
Seriously, Tarzan instead? What the fuck, Nomura.
Also, yeah. a this point I doubt I'm capable of taking any story set in the KH multiverse seriously. Just give me my Disney worlds and leave it at that.
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By this point they've thoroughly disabused me of the notion of caring about their original characters in any way and reacting in any way to them but mild irritation that they're taking up screen time and disk space that could have been spent on a GODDAMN JUNGLE BOOK LEVEL GOD DAMN IT.
Seriously, Tarzan instead? What the fuck, Nomura.
We totally needed a King Louie PC.
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By this point they've thoroughly disabused me of the notion of caring about their original characters in any way and reacting in any way to them but mild irritation that they're taking up screen time and disk space that could have been spent on a GODDAMN JUNGLE BOOK LEVEL GOD DAMN IT.
Seriously, Tarzan instead? What the fuck, Nomura.
We totally needed a King Louie PC.
Balloo. You know you want a godless killing machine on your side who also loves jazz-derived dance music and spends most of his time tripping balls.
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Holy shit dude, I think Starscream has a bit part in Mass Effect 2.
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Fuck it is a week away and I still have to do a new run through after upgrading computers.
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I'm serious, he's got a bit part as a second-string mook who, in true Starscream fashion, shrieks like a bat for a while and gets punked the hell out.
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DQ4: Beaten?
I got what's his face to join me, and we beat down on theses two chicken and egg lovers until I had said person fully equipped with some nice gear, but now I have nowhere to go. Is this the end of the game? I know I read something in the story about killing someone else, but...
I currently have 41 mini medals, 22 monsters left unfound, and my title is now Warrior Philanthropist....weeeeeeee
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I'm serious, he's got a bit part as a second-string mook who, in true Starscream fashion, shrieks like a bat for a while and gets punked the hell out.
Glorious.
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SDGGGW -
Wow, Extra Generation enemies are built like tanks. It's a nice change from my army smiting all that stands before it, but some of the named enemies here were able to one-hit some of my team.
The AI is still nothing to write home about however.
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DQ4: Beaten?
I got what's his face to join me, and we beat down on theses two chicken and egg lovers until I had said person fully equipped with some nice gear, but now I have nowhere to go. Is this the end of the game? I know I read something in the story about killing someone else, but...
I currently have 41 mini medals, 22 monsters left unfound, and my title is now Warrior Philanthropist....weeeeeeee
Go back to the monsters' castle where you had to disguise yourself as one of them - you should be able to Zoom there. Just make sure to bring your optimal party, because you can't switch out mid-fight in this one.
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Wow, Sands of Destruction has one of the tankiest bosses I've ever fought. (it is a slow arse though)
Lots of HP (didn't keep track, heh), but uh. After its defense+regen buff, which it used after 50% HP for me...
Taupy does 0 damage per hit, so his entire string is 0 damage. Overdrive did 79.
Morte does 0 damage per hit, so her entire string is 0 damage. Special did 54.
Gunner did 32 per hit, 17 hits, so her entire string was around ~520 damage, plus a Special worth 180 and s/he can pull off three to four strings per turn.
The problem is that this tanky jerk healed 450 per round. Including Taupy and Morte's rounds.
That took quite a while to finish!
Game's still pretty easy though. Too many healing items are thrown at you, and healing spells are still very, very potent even at 1 MP.
Gunner is easily my favourite character. Strongest heal I've seen, it's MT, clears all status and debuffs, has a song to grant status/debuff immunity and Regen. Sadly, SoD enemies fail at debuff/status. Only bosses ever bother with it.
Bosses with Defiance are a bitch though, since I rely on combo strings a lot. Defiance increases Morale on being hit, and the higher your Morale the FASTER YOU TAKE YOUR TURN and the MORE ACTIONS YOU TAKE. So I once got quad-turned by a boss who immediately reduced my party from "full health Kyrie-Morte-Taupy" to "almost dead Taupy" and the boss went from "Ouch I almost ded" to "I am half-healed and owning you".
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FF3 Crystal Tower: Reminding me why games NEED MORE FUCKING SAVE POINTS.
Seriously. Fuck Yellow Dragons. My Ninja/Ninja/Knight/Sage team is owning everything, with Refia Sage healing constantly. Suddenly, FUCK Yellow Dragon just OHKO twice in one turn and you're dead. And back outside the fucking tower.
I might have beaten this dungeon by the end of the week. Or thrown my DS out of a moving bus. Whichever comes first.
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Bahahahahahahaha like that's the worst Crystal Tower has to throw at you.
Fun fact: Starting outside of Crystal Tower, there are NO MORE SAVE POINTS IN THE GAME EVER. And this is why I am never going to finish FF3.
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fuck ff3 I am going to finish that game if it kills me, but fuck. If there is worse to come, I can definitely conjure up the image of my DS hitting the road outside the bus window right now.
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I got as far as Cerberus, the fifth boss. It's kind of like a Yellow Dragon, except it hits three times per turn.
Fuck FF3.
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Use the back row more in boss fights. Also make a second healer for the final boss at the very least (and make sure you have a second set of White Magic for him, Arise/Curaga are the big ones). And feel free to run from dragons.
Not disputing that the final dungeon is bitchy and cruel with the save point nonsense, mind.
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I've been using the back row for my Sage(s) if nothing else, and did have 2 Sage, 2 Ninja up until I got Excalibur/Ragnarok and wanted to use them. Still, another Arise means another run through Eureka - at least I can grab that Moonring Blade that I ignored last time? >.>
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Man i do not know how people got through the last part of FF3 without savestates. I mean I like the game and all but goddamn.
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In fairness, FF3o was a lot faster than FF3DS. Simpler animations, simpler, faster scrolling plot scenes, and less durable bosses...yeah, redoing Syrcus + Dark World in the original was nowhere near as bad as redoing it in the Remake.
The remake does fully heal you between each boss fight though! That kind of ruined the Gauntlet Effect the original had admittedly, for all that you probably have enough Elixirs to support your Sages that late.
...not to mention a Sage in FF3o equated to "Full Screen Clearing" cause unlike the remake, Syrcus/Dark World were more generic randoms rather than the "Durable, fake-boss randoms that you fight one at a time." Things like Jormungands and Doga-clones you'd actually face multiple of at a time, instead of just one, who functioned like a boss, so a Sage's summon would wipe them all out.
...that also brings up the point of "Sage and Ninja were totally hax in FF3o", granted, Cloud of Darkness and 3 of the 4 Dark Guardians were still able to put up competent fights despite that. *Punts Cerberus in the original*
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Somehow I managed to run through the Crystal Tower+World of Darkness on the first try, and only at level ~52 after beating CoD. No$GBA's save states don't work properly for DS games, so that wasn't even an option.
I don't remember anything in Crystal Tower giving my any major trouble, though maybe I got lucky. In any case, be sure to go to Forbidden Land Eureka and get all the items, then leave and save before tackling Crystal Tower proper - assuming you haven't done so already.
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Most of the randoms in both dungeons suck, that's why you don't remember them. They do take a while to kill, mind, but they aren't very threatening.
Yellow Dragon is a Rare Encounter, alongside Green Dragon and REd Dragon. They hit hard, double act, etc. They're also the enemies that drop Onion Gear in both versions. They were vaguely hard in the original, but nothing TOO bad. In the DS version, they got suped up dramatically and now out-perform most bosses :/
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Sands of Destruction - Whelp, Kyrie just took his proverbial level in badass, game is broken more than it was before.
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That fucking tower in FF3 is the reason I stopped playing that gawd forsaken game!
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Diablo 2 is still the most hilariously imbalanced game in the history of anything - if anything, it's only gotten worse since 1.10. My only death through Acts 1-4 of Hell difficulty has been from the death explosion of a Fire Enchanted Raptor Nest, who was otherwise the most pathetic unique I have ever seen - it couldn't even attack me! I had no idea they could even spawn as uniques before that, as I'd never seen one.
Meanwhile, the Act Bosses all have inflated HP but can't do anything meaningful otherwise as Static Field + Crushing Blow kill them eventually. Diablo did manage to kill off my merc real fast, but only got three hits in on me that did non-pathetic damage.
Maybe Act 5 will be different - my first attempted excursion ended in an ugly manner as a bunch of fire-immune slinger cats blocklocked me to hell with their companions, the quill rats, and I opted to reroll for a easier enemy draw. The Ancients are pretty obscene on paper for a single player character - I'll probably just mod the game to nerf them, as I really don't look forward to the tedium of that fight without the ability to TP back for healing, plus three chances to draw killer boss mods.
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Tuesday is going to be possibly the greatest day in gaming since October of 1998. I just realized Mass Effect 2 and No More Heroes 2 come out on the same fucking DAY.
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Are you getting Mass Effect 2 right away? If so please post your first impressions asap, I'm wanna know if it owns as much as it looks like it's going to.
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fuck ff3 I am going to finish that game if it kills me, but fuck. If there is worse to come, I can definitely conjure up the image of my DS hitting the road outside the bus window right now.
just grind if all else fails. Puting Cod down is worth it.
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Playing DMC1. Phantom is a whore, Nelo Angelo is an immortal cheater, and Griffon got completely and utterly spoiled by having to fight Phantom first. Currently on my way from the Ghost Ship to the Coliseum, and it turns out Death Scythe >>> Griffon.
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fuck ff3 I am going to finish that game if it kills me, but fuck. If there is worse to come, I can definitely conjure up the image of my DS hitting the road outside the bus window right now.
just grind if all else fails. Puting Cod down is worth it.
By that logic, he should just play Dissidia; you can fight her much faster and as many times in a row as you want there (at least, once you unlock her! How long that takes depends on how quickly you get 500 PP of course.)
...I know, its not the same, but quiet <_<
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Are you getting Mass Effect 2 right away? If so please post your first impressions asap, I'm wanna know if it owns as much as it looks like it's going to.
I am absolutely getting it right away. I'm also going to hook up with Space Sarah Walker right away, thank you very much.
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As I recall, the main roadblock in Hell was the Ancients. Those guys were fucking bastards with the sheer number of immunities they got at the end of the game.
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Immunities, pray for no MSLEB axe thrower, pray for no Aura Enchanted fucking anyone, No Extra Fast WW guy, to many permutations of fail there and of course previously mentioned crazy stupid immunities. OH and you need a way to deal with the regen.
Fuck 1.10
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Cross Edge - Saw a good deal on it at 25 pounds (£15 off). Just started and currently not liking it very much, as from what I've seen most of the main characters are going to be gust characters :(. I mean I pretty much know the rest but it spoils the mood a bit.
Also lol on the dlc weapons because they're so overpowered I'm considering selling them as I don't like them tempting me. Any of them super rare or something? I don't want to sell something I'd have to grind for hours normally to get.
SMT2 - Smashed my way through 13 bosses and auto battled 12 of them. Random encounter with two physical immune baddies took longer then all the bosses combined which is pathetic.
Story wise I went middle of the road because I do not like the law side, but at the same time my whole team is law demons so Chaos is out.
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Cross Edge - Saw a good deal on it at 25 pounds (£15 off). Just started and currently not liking it very much, as from what I've seen most of the main characters are going to be gust characters :(. I mean I pretty much know the rest but it spoils the mood a bit.
Also lol on the dlc weapons because they're so overpowered I'm considering selling them as I don't like them tempting me. Any of them super rare or something? I don't want to sell something I'd have to grind for hours normally to get.
SMT2 - Smashed my way through 13 bosses and auto battled 12 of them. Random encounter with two physical immune baddies took longer then all the bosses combined which is pathetic.
Story wise I went middle of the road because I do not like the law side, but at the same time my whole team is law demons so Chaos is out.
Which pack did you download??
Some of the equipments are download exclusive.
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I'm a bit of a miser so I only got the free ones.
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.hack//Infection - A few hours in. Got addresses for Gardenia and samurai-wannabe. Mainly using Black Rose and Mistral, like many others, while keeping Elk and Natsume in range to be useful. Solid dungeon-crawler with a bit of interesting plot so far, though I wish the others could keep up with Kite's damage output on his physical skills when I can spare the SP.
Embodiment of Scarlet Devil - Finally getting around to a Touhou game. I can... beat the first 4 stages of Easy without using a Continue! That's gotta count for something. Fuck you Sakuya.
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Infection does indeed get things started off well, and mutation keeps things going and ends on probably the best moment of the first series. The other two are... less good. Mistral rocks.
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fuck ff3 I am going to finish that game if it kills me, but fuck. If there is worse to come, I can definitely conjure up the image of my DS hitting the road outside the bus window right now.
just grind if all else fails. Puting Cod down is worth it.
so. Those in chat would have seen my "ARGH FUCKING CLOUD OF DARKNESS AAAARRRRGGGHHH" rage earlier.
Got there, threw about 5 Shurikens at her while spamming Knight Excalibur/Ragnarok physicals as well and healing with my two Sages. Suddenly, my Sages both outspeed her and she Particle Beams to finish. Kills Ninja Luneth. So, Sage Arc Arises Luneth while Sage Refia Curaja-Alls. Except not because now CoD is faster and Particle Beams and Lightnings AGAIN and kills Refia. Next turn, Arc gets physicalled down and it all goes downhill from there.
Aaand back outside the Crystal Tower I go.
Seriously. Fuck FF3.
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Yeah, Sages are in a baaad speed range for Cloud of Darkness when she's using Particle Beam. I recommend switching at least one to Devout.
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Super Luigi Galaxy - 83 stars. Not much to report. Luigi's controls made "Hurry, it's hungry" (the Sea Slide sekret star) notably harder. Races are tough but good fun. Otherwise it's mostly easy but still a fun and pretty game as always.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Endgame. Map 3 at the moment. HM with the wind/light/heaven, focussing on PCs I've used less so far playthrough. Endgame-1 was easily the hardest battle in the game thus far, but that's not surprising, seeing as my party is...
Ike: A bit underlevelled because I'm not focussing on him much. As such he can hold his own (outside res) but isn't amazing (lol 28 speed in endgame). Good enough to Hammer the BK at least (actually this is easier on HM due to no weapon triangle!).
Micaiah: Like Ike but much more underlevelled. As in has gained like 3 levels total. At least she can heal. (I'm as weirded out as you are that she's even effective at that.)
Dragons: They're there, they tank and support as usual.
Sothe: No Baselard, but can activate Bane sometimes and is reasonably evasive at least...
Sanaki: Good damage, never doubles, 2HKOed by everything. The usual. Still not my worst mage!
Lethe: MVP? Probably. 50+ attack, 40 speed, Resolve+Adept+Rend means something nuts like a >90% chance to one-round just about everything while having psycho evade. Yeah, I guess Zihark does this too (and other SMs aren't bad at it) but Rend is a far better mastery than Astra, it's cool. Pleasant surprise of the playthrough, I was expecting she'd pick up at endgame if she managed SS strike (which she easily did) but not this much.
Vika: Has a horrible join so I babied her to hell in her first map. Payoff is pretty much worth it, doesn't have the same attack as Lethe, but 46 speed (and therefore 46% Tear rate) and Canto is cool, even if she has less skill flexibility.
Kyza: The speed cap hurts, and he was speed-screwed so I had to give him a Speedwing. Reasonably tanky though (>60 HP and >30 Def).
Laura: She uh heals things, and occasionally tosses in some semi-respectable damage. Slowest character with a 70% speed growth ever, she only very rarely doubled (a few Generals). Still, not a horrid attacker and party-best healer.
Ilyana: Is terrible. No, really. She isn't fast enough to do much of anything and her Mag isn't scary like Sanaki's to make up for it. 3HKOs aren't uncommon. At least she can heal! Which is to say with Arms Scrolls she can finally start using Physic in the final dungeon.
Astrid: Is the worst character in the game I have ever used (which is to say only Lyre might be worse). See, Fiona? As epically horrid as Fiona is overall, the girl has -potential-. Y'know, high Def, high Speed, free Imbue, Earth support and all that. Astrid takes Fiona, trades Speed/Def for uh RES AND SKILL, manages to have terrible overall stats in the big three (Str/Spd/Def) and makes even the Double Bow look like a mundane weapon due to lack of doubles and bad Str. Grah.
Bastian: Take Ilyana, give her weapon levels of SS/A/A/B instead of S/C/D/E in mid part 4, and improve her Mag and Res, and you have Bastian. This adds up to be a pretty large difference. Well, Ilyana will score some points for being able to fight E-3 boss I guess, but everywhere else Bastian is better, including against the dragons that are supposed to be her foe. High staff rank is especially big for someone kinda middling at combat. And he's this good (which isn't great, but...) without levelling up. He's certainly not a great endgame choice overall but he's above average out of the folks I have brought.
Volke and Stefan: Hey, I guess these two guys are technically different. Well, aside from the fact that Volke gets a map to look like a complete badass in (hi Tibarn authority stars and low luck stats making me dodge and critkill everything hahaha), the two are virtually identical thereafter. And pretty good. Speed to double everything, decent chance of hax, respectable 2-range offence (especially Stefan). They're both very mortal in the final dungeon (more luck would help) but still very helpful for offence alone, and the durability isn't -bad- or anything (wait Volke has 29 def how does that even make sense).
Kieran: Well, my Kieran got super-speed blessed so he kinda rules. He literally gained speed 8 levels in a row at one point. Off a 30% growth. This basically makes him Titania level, which is great. The speed cap of 31 starts hurting him in E-2 and will screw him over utterly in the last few maps, but between Hammer and Wyrmslayer and Urvan he's been excellent otherwise. Definitely a pleasant surprise, if a fortuitous and unobjective one.
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Yeah, Sages are in a baaad speed range for Cloud of Darkness when she's using Particle Beam. I recommend switching at least one to Devout.
Wait, so the last boss, who comes after all the rest of the Crystal Dungeon crap, is specifically designed to use the quirks of the game's battle system to fuck you over if you use the wrong class for healing?
I am so much less shocked than I ought to be. Fuck FF3.
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DMC1: Griffon continues to be easy, though he did manage to cheese a kill via stun-combo while being one hit away from death. Also, is it sad that I find it much easier to fight Nightmare by being "trapped" than by doing what I'm supposed to? (First fight)
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SRWK - YAY SECOND A COMBO CHIP *Gives it to Mist.* And he just got Crystal Heart to boot.
Also, what the christ Gundam Laser Lesbians is a durability freak (SOL IS A WOMAN WHAT THE HELL).
EDIT: I'd also like to toss this game at Elfboy. I really think he'd like the rebalancing and changes in strategical management. Makes the game definitely more challenging, but also more interesting, especially considering that there's a wider in-practice breadth of niches within the game. Really neat retake on SRW basics.
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Wait until the enemies start spamming Support Defend at you, Snow. The game changes pretty dramatically at that point.
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DMC1: Griffon continues to be easy, though he did manage to cheese a kill via stun-combo while being one hit away from death. Also, is it sad that I find it much easier to fight Nightmare by being "trapped" than by doing what I'm supposed to? (First fight)
Nightmare's Trap thing is suppose to be more a double edged sword rather than a genuine screw over. Its weird they do that, but I guess they were thinking most people would be turned off by the idea of fighting 6 Skull things with weird names I cannot spell for my life + A watered down version of a previous boss.
Obviously, Capcom realized this could be exploited to totally avoid Nightmare's gimmick entirely, so they let you do it only once; his Trap move afterwords will just become generic damage.
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Wait until the enemies start spamming Support Defend at you, Snow. The game changes pretty dramatically at that point.
They actually started this stage. I already thank the lucky stars I gave A Combo to Gou and A Combo L2 to Mist.
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...going through the Crystal Tower again, I've just reached the "Curse of the 5 Wyrms" scene. So, Doga goes and gathers 5 pure souls, and picks Desch, Sara, Alus, Cid and one of the 4 Old Men. Except he says "Won't one of you come with me to help Luneth and friends?"
...wouldn't it have been easier to take the 4 Old Men, if any of them worked, and then just one of the others? God dammit, RPG logic.
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To be fair, he thought of the Old Men last! But I agree, it'd be more badass if it was just the four Old Men there. They're the real heroes, as they said!
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I think we're to assume they sensed the characters in that order, and the 4 old men were last. I mean, you'd be right if the 4 Old Men were the first they went up, but they were to last.
And it makes sense since they are the least pure of the 5 (they are goofballs, if good hearted ones.)
In any event, you're also forgetting that FF3 is an NES RPG. Oh, sure, its a DS remake, but its the same plot and everything. REally, all that's changed are Ensemble scenes became character-centric since the "4 Headed Talking Hydra" is now 4 genuine characters with only slightly more character than the cast of FF2 (which...is a pity cause you'd THINK with how they handled talk sequences, they could have actually given a lot more to Luneth and Co. through those to make up for what is lost in plot scenes, but no dice. They basically just used their minor personality quirks for a slight addition to flavor to what was already generic "Talk to your ally" sequences.)
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Oh, I'm not forgetting that it's a NES RPG at all, just musing on it since I found it pretty funny.
In fact, I was laughing earlier about how badly edited the script is. I mean, it's clear where they've made small edits just to account for the characters - things like "The Warriors of Light need your help!" into "Ingus needs your help!" and the like, as well as some conversations not even flowing since they'll jump from "We need your help!" to "Luneth's in trouble?!"
On another note, we clearly need an FFIII-2 where you play as the Old Men.
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DQ4: Beaten for real this time!
I was around level 43 when I beat it. I didn't do any of the casino games, but i did find 41 of the mini medals. Also, I am missing like 22 monsters or so. Looks like I am not completely done with this game yet...
OH WELL!
Going to start DQ5 now. Yay, for purple turbans! I am going to try to wipe a lot less in this one! Had 10 wipes in DQ4.
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To be fair, he thought of the Old Men last! But I agree, it'd be more badass if it was just the four Old Men there. They're the real heroes, as they said!
Everything is better with old men.
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To be fair, he thought of the Old Men last! But I agree, it'd be more badass if it was just the four Old Men there. They're the real heroes, as they said!
Everything is better with old men.
Someone needs to make a TVTropes page with that name.
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FFTA2: I finally did another plot mission! ANd then I...have to either do another, or fight a level 44 Red Mage! Clearly I can deal with the latter!!!
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..or not, good thing I save BEFORE accepting the mission <_<
Also nice to learn that moves like Moogle Lance do NOT take the Weapon element, allowing me to be more willing to use things like Atomos Blade, as I can still get past the Elemental Law restrictions without having to temporarily hurt my skill growth. No clue how FFTA handled it, though, then again, FFTA2 is also more lenient about laws in general (and less penalizing if you screw one up.)
Okami: Just did the shrunken section. Trying to find that damned thief whose apparently hiding out. I did carry 3 people across Lilypads though!
Anybody who tried to deny that the mood of this game can be considered something other than "playful" really needs to wake up. I mean, the narrator just spoke of an EVIL FORCE and then ended with "Wait, aren't we forgetting something?" followed by Issun jumping around an Emperor's inwards in order to control him...said Emperor walking in a manner akin to a Monty Python Silly Walk.
Seriously, anybody who tried to imply this game was meant to be have a dark, deep plot...uh, no, its clearly just the game itself having fun.
(I'm not saying names, but someone tried to question how I can say that cause I was too early in the game. After 25 hours of playing, though, without the game once pushing me into doubt of this impression, I feel I can safely say this is the case.)
Note that by "playful", I mean the game's story and ideas feel like it was written by an elementary schooler, and it was picked up by an actual writer who turned it into a full story. I'm not trying to knock the game in any sense, mind, just saying that it gives that kind of impression, which is fine, cause it works in its own unique way. Just people who try to claim the game is remotely serious...uh, no <_<
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Okami is playful in the extreme. There are a few rather surprisingly dark points in the story, but the tone overall is very childish. Oh and awesome.
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Okami is playful in the extreme. There are a few rather surprisingly dark points in the story, but the tone overall is very childish. Oh and awesome.
First off, if its not obvious, you are NOT the person I was referring too, but somehow I don't think you assumed that, ubt just couldn't hurt to verify!
That said..
I can understand a moment or two of dark points, but yeah, the general tone is childish and what not. Just...the concept alone screams that. You have a MAGICAL DOG who PAINTS SPELLS with the help of a little wood fairy thing...really the game is just an elaborate, original fairy tale. Okami plays to this factor, rather than try to work around it, so it ends up being an advantage rather than a flaw.
This goes back to the whole "Dragon Quest is an Elaborate Fairy Tale" argument as to why the games suck. Yes, Fairy Tales aren't necessarily bad, but...the difference between Okami and Dragon Quest is rather stark.
Okami is very childish, knows this, and tries to play to it. Even when its trying to be scary, it feels more in that "Disney Villain" sense rather than genuinely threatening. Actually, it basically is your typical Disney Animated Movie, if spread to the scope of an Adventure Game (this isn't necessarily a bad thing.)
Dragon Quest is very playful but...tries to pretend its not. It pulls these big dark scenes...that utterly fail to have any major impact cause either its playing this cutesy, silly music in the background totally destroying the mood, or cause the games don't know exposition to save its life. Its a Fairy Tale that tries to pretend its not one, and uh, yeah.
Basically, same style, but Okami doesn't try to hide it while Dragon Quest often does (OR alternatively, uses its kiddy style to hide the darkness, which is equally as bad.)
And now, suddenly I realize just how well Okami would work in Kingdom Hearts...just sort of lacks the "Square" or "Disney" aspects and thus will never happen ever...
...which is exactly why Amateratsu needs to make a cameo PC form in Mega Man Powered Up 2! No, I have no clue how this will work, it just does.
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WoW: Quel'Delar~
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KH BbS- Good thing Kouli existed, or I would have died of shock. And it seems Aqua on top being a Pyro, is also very good with mines.
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So Niu is praising someone else for spoiling him? Makes sense!
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WA XF: Still before the prison fight. Been trying out a few of the classes just to see how they work.
Sonic Rivals: It's surprisingly decent, though I would have hated to have paid $30+ for it when it was brand new. In the final act in Sonic's story, because everyone else is lame.
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So. Finally beat FF3 earlier. Honestly, I just got seriously unlucky with my first attempt, as Shuriken/Arise/Curaja-All/Attack is more than enough to beat CoD. Did have one moment where both mages were on low health, but Curaja quickly solved that, alongside an Arise or two.
Final party were all Lv 54, Ninja Luneth/Sage Arc/Devout Refia/Knight Ingus.
Next DS game up is DQ5. Idly, I like that I've been finishing DS games lately. Now, if only I could do the same with PS2 ones...
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So Niu is praising someone else for spoiling him? Makes sense!
I think you misinterpreted.....
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In a sudden twist of fate, my next DS RPG turns out to be FF12 Revenant Wings! Despite Suiko Tierkries and FE11 sitting around, I popped this in on a whim and played around with it.
I hadn't seen much about it online, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. It's some weird FF RTS, and I'm really not an RTS person. The touch screen makes it bearable so far, so I suspect I will be powerlevelling while watching TV or something before I can get through anything more difficult than what they're throwing at me now. I just don't want to have to deal with it.
On the other side of things, the party-building aspect is pretty neat. I'm really excited about making pacts with more Espers to use as my ground troops. Yeah, that's a good selling point. I <3 the FF series summons, and it's cool to use them en masse.
Vaan and Penelo -actually- have something to do with the story in this game, so that's nice. They weren't bad in FF12, they just didn't matter. Unfortunately, whereas FF12 did a lot to eschew many of the the standard anime tropes, the RW staff obviously had a meeting along the lines of "You know what this game is missing? Anime Tropes. We need a whole shit-ton of those." As a balancing measure, they also decided to play up the lightheartedness and adventuring aspects of the tone, so at least the tropes feel appropriate.
I also discovered the crew logbook. Probably my favorite bit so far. I believe it's supposed to function like a 'where do we go next?' menu option, but the translation team went out of their way to make the log entries amusing. The PCs bicker and respond to other PCs' log entries and it made me smile.
So... I think I'll stick with it for a while, but the novelty may wear off quickly since I'm not a fan of the battle system style.
It is notable that it seems of the PCs have their own unique skillset this time around, so they are viable duelists for a change. However... stat topiccing it would be pretty rough. Perhaps Meeple might know a good way to go about it. I'll make some stat notes regardless. What would you say Endgame level normally is? Since I'll be intentionally overlevelling, I'll have to know when to measure stats.
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Bah, if you guys want to play DS games, play fucking WIZARD OF OZ, DAMNIT.
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It is notable that it seems of the PCs have their own unique skillset this time around, so they are viable duelists for a change. However... stat topiccing it would be pretty rough. Perhaps Meeple might know a good way to go about it. I'll make some stat notes regardless. What would you say Endgame level normally is? Since I'll be intentionally overlevelling, I'll have to know when to measure stats.
Think Meeple mentioned that there was no real solid way to measure damage at all, which is kind of a killer for a stat topic.
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I also discovered the crew logbook. Probably my favorite bit so far. I believe it's supposed to function like a 'where do we go next?' menu option, but the translation team went out of their way to make the log entries amusing. The PCs bicker and respond to other PCs' log entries and it made me smile.
So, they cribbed the only good thing about Tales of Legendia.
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Bah, if you guys want to play DS games, play fucking WIZARD OF OZ, DAMNIT.
So this. But I don't have a copy. And I want to play it in English.
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FE10 - So the Endgame-3 boss falls to the dynamic duo of Ilyana and Lethe, with the former doing 20 damage thanks to hitting weakness (and only taking 43 damage to her capped 45 HP due to being on Cover!) and the latter doing 7x2. Obviously not the fastest version of that fight ever (Rafiel's lack of Canto sucks, but he could refresh the healers safely at least) but it worked.
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It is notable that it seems of the PCs have their own unique skillset this time around, so they are viable duelists for a change. However... stat topiccing it would be pretty rough. Perhaps Meeple might know a good way to go about it. I'll make some stat notes regardless. What would you say Endgame level normally is? Since I'll be intentionally overlevelling, I'll have to know when to measure stats.
Think Meeple mentioned that there was no real solid way to measure damage at all, which is kind of a killer for a stat topic.
Yeah, there are no numbers on the screen. It streamlines the gameplay a bit, but it does hamper measurements. However! At least enemies have numeric HP, so I can test damage figures by simple subtraction (for all that it's a pain in the ass). Luckily, there's not many skills in the game to test.
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Even better, it turns out the Ultimania has formulas and stat-level charts for PCs AND enemies (and the one temp!).
Trance/Xer/Tai/Niu, please translate this so I can be lazy:
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LoL 2- Wanted something old to play and thought I'd go for something that had a few DL holes to fill in. Elfin. WTF. WTF. What a painful thing to throw at someone during the part of the game when you only have 1 PC. I saw this bastard do 560 to while I was defending (And had 430 HP! It's like motherfucking Energy Charged Saki...except I was defending). The HP+the evasiveness+painful damage is grah inducing.
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Okay, I've got the damage formula this time. The last image was of how to determine effective attack/defense. This one shows the method from taking the base damage to the effective damage. And I'm hoping that accounts for enemy defenses.
Trance/Xer/Tai/Niu...? A little help?
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LoL 2- Wanted something old to play and thought I'd go for something that had a few DL holes to fill in. Elfin. WTF. WTF. What a painful thing to throw at someone during the part of the game when you only have 1 PC. I saw this bastard do 560 to while I was defending (And had 430 HP! It's like motherfucking Energy Charged Saki...except I was defending). The HP+the evasiveness+painful damage is grah inducing.
Funny enough, that's probably one of the hardest fights in the game. The rest are all pretty gimmicky but not threatening at all, or ARE threatening but you have ample healing... Or are optional bosses.
A guide I read recommended being level 9 for that fight, and it'd probably be in your best interest to FAQ all the arte combinations if you if you haven't already. If you have the space for it, < \/ \/ \/ /\ will be a good move for charging up AP for a while.
Disgaea 3: Unlocked Land of Carnage!... And proceeded to get my ass kicked on HoO4. Whelp, back to the grinding board.
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I don't think I've mentioned it before, but by far the best feature of Diablo patch 1.10 was the easy ability to mod the game. All you have to do is:
1) Extract txt files from patch_D2.mpq with an MPQ browsing application, or download extracted versions from the internet
2) Edit the files in Excel or something else that can handle tab-deliminated text files (you can use a text editor, but the fields won't line up properly)
3) Place them in the right subfolder
4) Add the "-direct -txt" to the shortcut that you run D2 from
Not only does this make life a lot easier for full fledged mod makers, but it also makes it really easy for someone playing single player to eliminate most sources of bullshit in the game if they want. For instance, I think the Ancients in Hell with their three chances to roll crazy boss mods, inflated HP, and ability to draw magic modifiers that give them immunities that aren't displayed on screen (seriously, wtf Blizzard North on that) are complete nonsense with their can't-TP-or-die policy in single player. In multiplayer games there's at least some room for tolerance as long as one person stays in the room at all times. So I opened monstats.txt, nerfed the hell out of their Hell difficulty stats, and promptly killed them all in three hits. I also edited the Gloams' lightning damage from 200-300 to the intended 5-190 damage - they're still pretty scary in large groups, but at least it's not an instakill anymore. I also edited in all the ladder-only runewords and uniques, not that any of them have dropped.
Up to Worldstone Keep 2 waypoint now. Hardest challenges have come from fire-immune Succubi in the Crystalline Passage, who made for brutal progress (especially backed by corrupted rogue archers) and fire-immune Frenzytaurs in Worldstone Keep 1. I got lucky and found the stairs there pretty early, but standing in my way was a Frenzytaur boss back that killed my merc three times.
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Yeah, Elfin is ridiculousness.
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Mass Effect:
Started playing this a little in my scant free time. Haven't gotten far enough to comment. Is it good? Should I keep playing? ME2 sounds like it's going to be super rad, but... will my computer actually be able to run it? It runs Dragon Age happily, but I dunno how much more graphically intense ME2's going to be. If I won't be able to play the second one, my drive to play the first diminishes substantially. Hrmm.
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Bah, if you guys want to play DS games, play fucking WIZARD OF OZ, DAMNIT.
Also this, I played it a bit recently and I'm currently up to the first Autumn area. The Lion's actually been pretty useful in this area which is a nice change of pace. He can consistently take out the wolves in addition to the hard type enemies in the area which is rather nice. Dorothy is rather solid although she has a tendency to die at inopportune times. Scarecrow has kind of been lagging behind recently which could be becuase I haven't really been messing around with his skillset that much. Tin Man is very good. The 3x ratio is unfortunate, but he does so much damage that he makes up for it. Tin Man and Dorothy is my favorite party for fighting bosses, but Dorothy can do a pretty good job of fighting by herself if you can figure out where you need to have her defend.
Mana Khemia 2: Got this for Christmas and haven't been able to play it till this week because the PS2 was in the dorm room. I really like the leveling system, it gives the player a great sense of progress and generally allows for a nice amount of customization. I started with Ulrika's route and have just started the second semester. The entire party is unbalanced.
I've also been replaying DQ8 because I was able to find a new $10 copy at a local Walmart to replace my old copy that was eaten by my old PS2. I'm about to go into a cave to find a jewel so we can get Medea back from Red. It's an absolute joy to play. The graphics are still impressive despite being a console behind because they're so colorful and the designers made good decisions. I can see where the "DQ games plot = fairy tales" comes from especially since the game splits itself into sections so nicely. I can imagine a parent telling this story to their kids before bed and I can tell just where they would leave off the story for the next night.
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Diablo 2: Finished. Did they nerf Baal's orange missle in 1.10? I didn't get hit for 800+ damage at any point like I'm used to seeing in Hell. Actually, thinking on it they might've just removed the -100% penalty to magic resist for Hell difficulty, which was dumb and inflated the already dangerous Oblivion Knight Bone Spirits more than needed.
That was probably a needed nerf given how close it came to instakill for a lot of non-Barb/Druid characters, but non of Baal's other attacks seemed to have improved much, so he was pretty feeble aside from the stupid inflated boss HP. Whatever, Static Field and Crushing Blow did their job, and my merc didn't even die (or come close).
Final stats and skills:
103 strength
184 dex
180 vitality
35 energy
(All of the above is after equips)
1023 HP, maxed block and resists
4551 AR, 2593 DR
20 Enchant
20 Warmth
20 Fire Mastery
20 Shiver Armor
1 Teleport, Static Field, prereqs
Every skill point beyond that was worth little, I was struggling to figure out what to do with them. I think I had a few in Cold Mastery and one more in Static Field, but they didn't do much.
My equipment was really nice for a no-twink, no-trade single player char, somewhat ironically since it was total crap at the start of Act 4 NM. Just got some really good luck afterwards, especially on drops. Also muled away stuff like Trang-oul's Claws, Sigon's Gage+Sabot (had better gloves by that point), Bartuc's Cutthroat, and a rare Cedar Bow with +379% enhanced damage and 2 sockets. Sadly I lost the latter two in an ATMA crash.
Lacerator (Unique Winged Axe) - dropped Act 4 Hell
Prismatic Tower Shield of Deflecting, socketed with two Perf. Diamonds - bought Act 1 Hell
Tal Rasha's Horadric Crest, socketed with Perf. Ruby - dropped Act 4 NM
Que-Hegan's Wisdom (unique Mage Plate) - dropped Act 1 Hell
Laying of Hands - dropped Act 5 NM
Ocher Belt of the Whale - bought Act 5 NM
Sapphire Light Plated Boots of Transportation - bought Act 2 Hell (replaced the nearly identical Sigon's Sabot I got much earlier)
Crafted Safety Amulet, +8% blocking, +46 poison resist, +9 other resists, +10 life - crafted Act 5 NM
Bul-Kathos' Wedding Band - dropped Act 5 NM
Rare Ring, +106 AR, +14 lightning resist, +26 poison resist, +2 life - dropped sometime in NM
Bunch of charms, mainly resists and +life with 1 poison damage charm and 1 cold damage charm
Enchant prebuff gear
+3 Enchant Leaf staff on weapon tab 2
+2 Fire skills Circlet
+1 Fire skills Amulet
Backup gear
Sureshrill Frost (unique Flanged Mace) - dropped Act 5 NM
Strength Knout - made Act 3 NM or so, replaced previous Strength weapon
Random stuff I never used - Anya gave me a tri-elemental rare Orb in Hell that was amusing enough for me to save
Sureshrill Frost is pretty much an ignored item in the general community, but it was really good for this character: the +3 freeze meant I could work my way slowly through packs of ressurectable enemies, instead of having to gun for the Shaman/Unraveller ASAP. It held up nicely up through Act 3 Hell, but was just hopelessly weak against Fire Immunes by Act 4. Luckily Lacerator dropped for me on the Plains of Despair. Strength was reserved for Act bosses, with their massively inflated HP.
I had a Lem rune stashed from NM Hellforge and hoped to upgrade Que-Hegan's for more defense, but no Ko Rune ever dropped for me. Oh well. I also could've used that Lem to make the Passion Runeword, but never got a good four socket weapon and probably wouldn't have used it anyways - it doesn't have much damage for fire immunes, I didn't have a lot of IAS gear to take advantage of Zeal, and it didn't have Freeze or Crushing Blow.
Holy Freeze Merc's gear
284% Cruel War Pike of Winter, socketed with Shael and Amn runes - bought Act 5 Hell
Rare Circlet with 5% life leech, -3 MDR, fire resist - gambled sometime in NM
Prudence Balrog Skin - made Act 2 NM
My merc was ridiculously fragile at first and died several times even on the Blood Moor, but his survivability got a lot better when I made that armor and maxed out his resists. Sources online are contradictory but I think they desucked MDR in 1.10 - the whopping 17 MDR on Prudence seemed to help him a lot when dealing with LEBs and Beetles.
My main takeaway from playing this character is that lagfree potion use and teleporting on a durable character is just insanely powerful, even in 1.10. There were dozens and dozens of moments where my life globe suddenly dropped to near empty, but I never failed to drink a rejuv in time. Teleport without lag or desynch worries is just flat out ridiculous - if I ever ran into a situation I couldn't handle, like a double Archer boss pack that refused to be lured out in the Underground Passage, I could just Teleport straight pass it. Constant Telekill made for a pretty entertaining gameplay experience, once I accepted the fact that my merc was going to outdamage me under any circumstance.
Static and Crushing Blow are reliable act boss killers, so even with less item luck than I had a melee Sorceress has no real stopping points in Hell except for the stupid Ancients, and b.net players can just party up to get past that nonsense.
Next up: Female-only SRWK replay! Not as insane as it sounds considering I have 24 million in cash carryover, though I expect some... interesting stages still, due to being severely undermanned early on.
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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn Wind/Heaven/Light Hard Mode - Beat. Endgame 4... even my weak team was able to overwhelm the spirits well enough, particular note goes to Lethe and Vika here. Just made sure Kyza and Ike were on Wardwood to avoid the blitz. Sephiran himself was rather bitchy as I only had two PCs who could reliably survive a round of combat with him due to his 35 crit and Corona: Nasir and Vika. So they took him down.
Final battle, well... I lost Sanaki because she was holding Meteor which let her get doubled. Otherwise I watched my positioning, rescued Rafiel on turn 1 to avoid the MT physical, and managed to survive the MT doom well enough. Micaiah in the furthest corner barely avoids a OHKO! I should have lost Kyza on turn 5 but Ashera decided to status me out that turn. The only PCs I had who could double spirits (without Nasir) or auras (even with Nasir) were Sothe (whose damage kinda sucked), Volke, Stefan, Vika, and Lethe, so my win wasn't all that speedy. Vika hit SS strike in the final battle, yay.
Overall kill leader was Sothe, which makes sense as the affinity playthrough focussed my efforts on to him, he's really good for Parts 1 and 3, and he's around forever, even though he fell off at the end. Most of my other top PCs were ones I didn't even take into the final dungeon like Haar, Edward (yay killfeeding him for the first 5 chapters!), Titania, Rolf, and Nephenee, no shock there. Ilyana (that being around forever thing...), Lethe, and Kieran were tops among PCs I did bring in, besides Sothe.
Game rules as always, probably won't play HM again any time soon even though higher enemy stats is cool, because the other changes are idiotic.
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Haven't been playing much in the way of games recently. In fact, my only game time has been travel time, so all of my usual stuff has been tossed aside for... Metroid: Zero Mission.
Good fun all around, and packs up quick which is a plus. Currently at the end of the Pirate Ship.
Have to say, the Zero Suit segment was fairly fun, and made for a nice change of pace from the exploration/combat of Metroid with a nice stealth/Ohshitohshitohshit! segment. Also made exploring the ship right after that very satisfying. Space Jumping Screw Attacks and Frosty Plasma Waves on the formerly invincible jerks? Yes, please. Mother Brain also made for an interesting fight, though Ridley was just annoying.
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WA XF: Yay!
1.4: In Which The Instructions For The Mission Are Very Misleading, And I Win Through The Almighty Power of Sacrifice. Once I found out I didn't have to kill everyone, the battle was trivially easy.
Plot Interlude: In Which Dolores Umbridge, Trotsky, and Not!Janus Are Plotting. I also get generics of my own, yay! Everyone say hello to Auron, Luc, Ginny, and Nina1!
1.5: In Which I've Got Jells, They're Multiplying, And I'm Losing Self Control. So I nuke them. With lots of fire.
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Strago: Mass Effect one is decent fun. It has the usual Bioware RPG tropes, but the story is decent sci-fi and I like their handling of the conversation system. The morality system has the usual "It's better if you're a total baby-eater or The Messiah" problems in video games but isn't bad beyond that. The combat is easy but fun and there's a lot of different builds to try out (don't go for straight Soldier, though, it's boring as hell). Characters aren't bad for the most part, and I liked a few of them. The only really bad part is that the exploration is exactly the same all the time and they reuse a lot of environments and enemies in them. Get used to fighting the same giant sandworm on every single fucking planet. The Mako sections aren't very good, either.
But I'd still say it's worth going through at least once. If you're not having fun by, say, the time you get Liara then I'd say you should just stop there.
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Cross Edge - Games getting better though the unfriendliness of the combo system is still horrid. Just beat Lazarus and I'm liking him already, nice guy.
Current team is Morrigan, Raze, york and Aurica.
Oh yeah as for the Dlc I deleted it all except the extra dungeons and extra gold/ep/pp/tp sets.
SMT2 - At the castle and up to louy, but I haven't faced the lord of flies so I'm going to trek back down I think, anyone know where he is?
Anyway took a peek at Louy and he does like 20 damage per hit, are all the endgame bosses going to be this pathetic? I mean, I went into this game thinking it'd be pretty hard but at this point I'm not so sure as bosses are dealing out pathetic 50HKOs.
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Strago: Mass Effect one is decent fun. It has the usual Bioware RPG tropes, but the story is decent sci-fi and I like their handling of the conversation system. The morality system has the usual "It's better if you're a total baby-eater or The Messiah" problems in video games but isn't bad beyond that.
I wouldn't go that far. I'd say it's more like "Captain America or the Punisher. THOSE ARE YOUR TWO OPTIONS."
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Okami: About to jump into a huge whirlpool of...galacticalness...to fight off Dragons...
Also, I still don't quite understand why there's an AZTEC ROCKET in Feudal Japan for Kaguya. I mean, I looked up the folktale regarding her and what not, but somehow "People from the Moon" (which sounded like a euphemism for Gods) equated to implying that Aztecs went to Japan, built a rocket out of bamboo and...
...oh, right, its Okami, I shouldn't think about these things too hard <.<
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Strago: Mass Effect one is decent fun. It has the usual Bioware RPG tropes, but the story is decent sci-fi and I like their handling of the conversation system. The morality system has the usual "It's better if you're a total baby-eater or The Messiah" problems in video games but isn't bad beyond that. The combat is easy but fun and there's a lot of different builds to try out (don't go for straight Soldier, though, it's boring as hell). Characters aren't bad for the most part, and I liked a few of them. The only really bad part is that the exploration is exactly the same all the time and they reuse a lot of environments and enemies in them. Get used to fighting the same giant sandworm on every single fucking planet. The Mako sections aren't very good, either.
But I'd still say it's worth going through at least once. If you're not having fun by, say, the time you get Liara then I'd say you should just stop there.
Fair enough. I started out as an Infiltrator, which seemed like a decently fun idea. Thoughts?
Oh, and anyone with any wisdom RE: will I be able to play ME2? should chime in as well.
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Cross Edge - Games getting better though the unfriendliness of the combo system is still horrid. Just beat Lazarus and I'm liking him already, nice guy.
Current team is Morrigan, Raze, york and Aurica.
Actually, the combo system is very patterned and not so bad once you learn it (I have all the normal combos memorized by now). And the Arcane Tome lists all skills you have that satisfy the requirements for a combo, and even shows moves you have/combos you can do with your current party/setup in different colors. Not to mention the game tells you if a character can trigger a combo in battle.
And yeah, Lazarus is pretty cool.
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Sands of Destruction: Going to some earth tower. I think. Game kind of breaks itself.
Honestly, I like the game overall, but... some of the mechanics decisions are quite bad. Forcing a turn ending move once you get 6 BP even if you have more than one action left over? Seriously? No CP for newly joined characters? No starting CP for not being in battle? I... just don't really see how anyone could think these are good ideas. Especially the first one. That just makes me facepalm so hard. CRITICALS CAN LOWER YOUR DAMAGE OUTPUT DUE TO GETTING TO 6 BP TOO FAST! STARTING WITH MORE BP CAN LOWER YOUR DAMAGE OUTPUT DUE TO GETTING TO 6 BP TOO FAST!! Come on.
I do like the characters (except Kyrie, he's boring), though the writing itself isn't the best.
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Actually, the combo system is very patterned and not so bad once you learn it (I have all the normal combos memorized by now). And the Arcane Tome lists all skills you have that satisfy the requirements for a combo, and even shows moves you have/combos you can do with your current party/setup in different colors. Not to mention the game tells you if a character can trigger a combo in battle.
Thats not the problem I have with it. You can make a team which has say 1 or 2 solid combos which will last you for a while, however the game doesn't tell you what type characters mostly use so you'll be forced to get a new team.
Getting a new team coes with heavy doses of grinding off course.
Also a combo system of this style is absolutely retarded in a game like this.
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Strago: Mass Effect one is decent fun. It has the usual Bioware RPG tropes, but the story is decent sci-fi and I like their handling of the conversation system. The morality system has the usual "It's better if you're a total baby-eater or The Messiah" problems in video games but isn't bad beyond that. The combat is easy but fun and there's a lot of different builds to try out (don't go for straight Soldier, though, it's boring as hell). Characters aren't bad for the most part, and I liked a few of them. The only really bad part is that the exploration is exactly the same all the time and they reuse a lot of environments and enemies in them. Get used to fighting the same giant sandworm on every single fucking planet. The Mako sections aren't very good, either.
But I'd still say it's worth going through at least once. If you're not having fun by, say, the time you get Liara then I'd say you should just stop there.
Fair enough. I started out as an Infiltrator, which seemed like a decently fun idea. Thoughts?
Oh, and anyone with any wisdom RE: will I be able to play ME2? should chime in as well.
Why WOULDN'T you be able to play Mass Effect 2?
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Thats not the problem I have with it. You can make a team which has say 1 or 2 solid combos which will last you for a while, however the game doesn't tell you what type characters mostly use so you'll be forced to get a new team.
Getting a new team coes with heavy doses of grinding off course.
Also a combo system of this style is absolutely retarded in a game like this.
Generally the first few skills tell you what attack line they prefer. Take Raze. He starts with D Skills. In fact, he ends up getting like four out of the five D Skills. There are some characters that differ from this, but they tend to be "all around" characters and get skills of many types, used mostly for bridging gaps other characters miss. It usually becomes pretty obvious a character is of this type pretty quickly, IIRC.
And I think the combo system worked BECAUSE of the way the game's set up. It really wouldn't work well in any other game.
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I am going to go out on a limb and say that if you could run Dragon Age then you should absolutely be able to play ME2. ME2 is still using the Unreal 3 engine I believe so shouldn't be a huge step up system req wise than ME1 really. If it doesn't work you will just have to fly out to San Fransisco and get money off me when I am there. Then we can have sexy San Fran style party time together.
And yeah what Rob said about the morality system in ME1, it is far far less RARRBABIES and teh jesus as two different reasons you are going to put a bullet in someone's braincase.
Infiltrator is a fine choice. I generally find tech based characters are more fun than Biotics. Biotics are fine, but they have a longer start up time for goodness. Barrier is strong and you can do a lot of things to stay alive. As a Tech character though you just max out Electronics since it is probably the best attack skill to get and it gets you tons of shield straight up so you can just soak damage like it is nothing and shields regen way faster than Barrier comes off cooldown until later.
I am actually playing an Infiltrator now, but am throwing up whether or not to just go the full tech route instead after I unlock a combat weapon.
All this taken into account Soldier is the easiest way to play through the game and is probably ultimately stronger than both Biotic and Tech anything. But that is just boring.
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DA:O and ME2 have the exact same system requirements, I think.
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Infiltrator is better than soldier. The strongest skill in the game is immunity, and both classes get it with about the same prereqs. Then Infiltrator gets some sweet tech abilities instead of crap like shotguns and assault training.
Basically you picked the god class. If you're not comfortable with that, skip the Fitness skill branch, since that what makes it broken.
In regards to "can I run X":
http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.com/srtest/
It doesn't have every game ever but it will always have mainstream stuff like ME2.
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Okay, I've got the damage formula this time. The last image was of how to determine effective attack/defense. This one shows the method from taking the base damage to the effective damage. And I'm hoping that accounts for enemy defenses.
Trance/Xer/Tai/Niu...? A little help?
I don't have time, KH BbS you know. EoE, EF2, AT3, LR are all this week too.
KH BbS- Aqua the pyro squashed uber Vanitas with her splendid mines like she should. Her level of brokeness continues to increase. Tried to tackle uber Vanitas with Ventus too; he didn't fair as well as Aqua, and it took me a while to figure out using Thunder Roll to fight in melee is the right tactic. The ice cream really help, allow me to constantly maintaining the Wing Sword mode, which makes up my lack of damage out put with just using Thunder Roll.
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Wild Arms XF-Storming the castle we go! A right pain in the 'royal' rear it is too. I'm thinking that next time I should just have Labby return to her usual Elementalist/Arcanist get up so she can nuke things ded once the cake gate opens and abuse Warp to make it to the gate in time. Having an entire team of Berserkers doesn't seem to be working despite having other class orginals equipped >.> I managed to actually get the gate open last time thanks to Levin respectfully denting things with Blast and then Ragnar poking things but then Clarissa died =(
Nice work Djinn =-)
Also Yoshi SO3 noaw? :P It has save points *and* skippable randoms! *flees*
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Forcing a turn ending move once you get 6 BP even if you have more than one action left over? Seriously? No CP for newly joined characters? No starting CP for not being in battle? I... just don't really see how anyone could think these are good ideas. Especially the first one. That just makes me facepalm so hard. CRITICALS CAN LOWER YOUR DAMAGE OUTPUT DUE TO GETTING TO 6 BP TOO FAST! STARTING WITH MORE BP CAN LOWER YOUR DAMAGE OUTPUT DUE TO GETTING TO 6 BP TOO FAST!!
Otherwise, it'd be way too easy on that first one, and the CP issues can sortof be fixed by using Tomes/Books of Knowledge. The game balance sways heavily between bosses and randoms: bosses can be difficult and randoms are almost never threatening, excepting a brief stint before one of the bosses where you have obnoxious mages that throw Ice III at you twice in a row for 200 MT damage with a chance of Sleep and there's two of them.
As for me: probably at the end of the game. Can do Agan's character quest, wonder if there's others...
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Also Yoshi SO3 noaw? :P It has save points *and* skippable randoms! *flees*
Aren't the skippable randoms what screwed me over last time? :P
As it goes, still playing P3. Up to the Change Relic and getting completely raped by 2HKO Magaru when I'm resisting Wind spells. Need to be Lv 18 to fuse Ghoul to immune Wind completely, spent the last day training to reach Lv 15. Gonna keep training to beat Change Relic, grab the 2nd Document (assuming it's there) and then leave. It's 04/06 now, and I need to have got that by 06/06, so... dammit, Persona.
Will also start DQ5 (DS) later today, yaaay~
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Bah, if you guys want to play DS games, play fucking WIZARD OF OZ, DAMNIT.
Scarecrow has kind of been lagging behind recently which could be becuase I haven't really been messing around with his skillset that much.
Abuse Tomato Bomb. Abuse it -hard-. It's his money randomsmashing skill, and it also works beautifully in tandem with Dream Land.
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SRWK - Two resets on "Dude, Where's My Will?". Good thing those Gainer villains are so fucking frail.
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ToS2: Been popping in for two-player intermittently while my little sister plays it, though it's gotten to the point where she's shy about fighting anything without me handling Marta. Such is the results of only one of us being very good at ARPGs, though discovering the joys of air-comboing and learning Phoenix Rush have combined to considerably improve the sis' effect in battle. Emil is, fortunately, kind of beastly, which helps her. Marta is very, very playable though, as was likely intended, so I've been having a fun enough time with her. Artes move either her or the enemy around a little too much for my taste, but are nice if I really need to make some room to get the hell out and heal. Marta's casting times are, unfortunately, pretty awful early on, especially for how little First Aid does against the reasonably tough early-game bosses. The giant whale... thing seemed tough at first, until we finally took advantage of the fact that HUGE bosses suck horrible ass against two human players who can pin them down for 80 or so hit combos.
The plot is... well I haven't caught all of it since I'm not the one playing the game, but it's inoffensive at least. On the one hand, I like the idea of expanding on the fact that combining two entirely separate worlds with different tech levels and ways of life would cause some bad shit to go down. On the other... probably added too many more big powerful god-things. Oh, and Emil is totally gonna be a REPLICAAA at this rate. Fortunately, character antics are entertaining, giving the three-man core party some good antics, and the guest characters get some nice scenes. Colette was a walking herp-derp moment, which was fun, and it's apparent that they weren't taking things as seriously with the writing here. Villains are not necessarily better at being villains, but are at least more entertaining than the usual Tales of fare, which is really all I ask for.
...should add that we just got to Iselia and are about to have the big scene with Raine I guess?
Oh, and people are importing the SRW DS games and not emulating them, right?
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I'm pretty sure most everybody playing the DS SRWs here is R4'ing them. I know I am.
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Infiltrator is better than soldier. The strongest skill in the game is immunity, and both classes get it with about the same prereqs. Then Infiltrator gets some sweet tech abilities instead of crap like shotguns and assault training.
Basically you picked the god class. If you're not comfortable with that, skip the Fitness skill branch, since that what makes it broken.
In regards to "can I run X":
http://cyri.systemrequirementslab.com/srtest/
It doesn't have every game ever but it will always have mainstream stuff like ME2.
Ah, very nice. Yeah, according to that site I should... run ME2 slightly better than DA:O, even. And despite aside from some slowdown when a million mooks are onscreen I've had no trouble with the latter. So, yay.
Think I'll stick with Infiltrator, though I've one more question: will Charm only get me Paragon points and Intimidate only Renegade? From only playing a little bit that seems to be the case, so I suppose I don't want to waste points buffing them both up.
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You are correct. Also I don't want to get into spoilers here but it's important that you get very high Charm or very high intimidate for an important plot decision later.
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I always buff the shit out of dialogue skills, so no worries there. I don't really like the binary moral nature of the two, but eh. Guess I'll flip a coin.
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You are correct. Also I don't want to get into spoilers here but it's important that you get very high Charm or very high intimidate for an important plot decision later.
Alternatively he can make sure to do all the optional character quests before going to Virmire.
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And I think the combo system worked BECAUSE of the way the game's set up. It really wouldn't work well in any other game.
Not what I meant as the combo system works but this is a crossover game. Having to pick characters you can't stand to be in your team so it works is greatly annoying.
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SRWK - *Overdevil Gainer stage.*
*Kills Overdevil Gainer Cynthia.*
*PLOTZ0RZ.*
*GAINER AND SARA TURN INTO DOUBLE-ACTING COMBOWHORING BITCHES THAT DODGE SHIT AND DO THAT AGAINST THE PARTY.*
*Loss condition: Sara or Gainer die.*
*Kills Overdevil Cynthia AGAIN.*
*Gainer FULLHEALS OVERDEVIL GAINER OF THE 80K HP OVER AND OVER.*
Fuck. You. Game.
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See, the game was expecting you to be able to read Japanese here. <_<
You're supposed to move Gaiking right besides the Overdevil right after the first time it ressurrects. That'll cause Gainer to return to normal and Sara to leave the map, plus you can actually kill the Overdevil.
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See, the game was expecting you to be able to read Japanese here. <_<
And to actually pay attention to SRW PLOT, seemingly.
And even -knowing- what to do, that condition is admirably stupid (Gaiking joins the map like 25 squares down and away from Cynthia. Getting him that far doesn't take him less than three full turns, and Sara/Gainer/Cynthia can -rip your party in half- while that happens).
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Gaiking pops up right beside Daiku Maryu. If you actually use Daiku like I do, you can get Gaiking besides Overdevil on the first turn. Just need Jesus Yamato to clear the way with his MAP.
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Ooooooooh. That should make it easy, yeah. I just don't use the Daiku Maryu (it lagged really badly in the first third of the game due to uh Gaiking being easily worth deploying and it takes 1/3 of a game for Daiku Maryu to stop sucking when Gaiking is out). But moving it is no big deal anyway.
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WA:XF- Up to 2-2. It was a delight to kick the ever loving shit out of 2-1 after last time, that's for sure.
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Marta's casting times are, unfortunately, pretty awful early on, especially for how little First Aid does against the reasonably tough early-game bosses.
All casting time reduction equips/skills stack. Make Mystic Symbols ASAP and slap two on her.
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Not what I meant as the combo system works but this is a crossover game. Having to pick characters you can't stand to be in your team so it works is greatly annoying.
Ahh, yes, that is very valid. I think it made for better gameplay, but you're right. Though it shouldn't be as much a problem once you start getting a lot of characters and skills, since you get more choices. Unless you just hate a lot of those characters too.
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DMC1 - Beaten. And the life-draining tentacles are whores. True final battle was pathetically easy, however.
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Okami: At Oni Island!
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DQ5: Started!
Actually I've been plowing through this game rather soundly. Just got my lil Saber pup back, and now he is all grown up and terrorizing villages. How sweet! My team right now is the hero and Saber along with a killer tomato with crazy defense and a slime knight called Goober!
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SoD: Yay, competent randoms!! Almost got wiped out due to being careless. Man, Taupy's godtier. I realised his buffs are all MT.
..................
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And I think the combo system worked BECAUSE of the way the game's set up. It really wouldn't work well in any other game.
Not what I meant as the combo system works but this is a crossover game. Having to pick characters you can't stand to be in your team so it works is greatly annoying.
I... never really ran into that problem. >_>
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DQ5: Started!
Actually I've been plowing through this game rather soundly. Just got my lil Saber pup back, and now he is all grown up and terrorizing villages. How sweet! My team right now is the hero and Saber along with a killer tomato with crazy defense and a slime knight called Goober!
Those are two of the best monsters you can get until gen 3, so enjoy.
WA:XF- So I randomly do a battle at flatwoods since I need to kill time before work. Yay, a free 65 CP from the uber random. Not complaining!
I'm right before 2-4, about to start the big Elesius arc. Much hate for the 2-1-2-2 in general but the game picks up from here on out. I don't know exactly my thoughts on it as a game, since it's such a mixed bag. There's so much good in the combat and battle system, and a lot of stupid early on with restrictive mission requirements and being tight on resources in general.
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SRWK - Wow, they completely trivialized the drawbacks from losing a unit. You don't even lose monies. Granted, losing my fodder SP pools is closer to =/ than =D.
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Mass Effect 2, FUUUUUUUCK YEAH
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OGS:EF
The elf lent this to me recently, and it's been pretty fun actually. Writing hasn't been anywhere near as bad as I feared with it generally ranging from witty to painful, with a shotgun level of consistency. Gameplay on the other hand, best game of its type since VP1. Dunno if it manages to beat it out, though I suspect they're a little too different for a direct comparison. Same tier at least. Actually kinda liking Forced Evasion as a mechanic, as when it kicks in, it generally feels like it's my fault for not timing things right. Of course, there's the rare time when the enemy manages to fall through an attack and a Support at the same time leading to a counter. That, is frustrating.
Not a whole lot else to really say at the moment, aside from general dislike to the fact that bosses trivially OHKO when you top out at 15 revival items. Or at least, I'm currently topping out at that.
Anyways, just finished second run through the Shiki-Oni castle, and about to go to Orchestral Land. Somehow. Assuming I don't get side tracked, again.
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Mass Effect 2, FUUUUUUUCK YEAH
I hate you so much.
Also I heard in this one you get to romance Tali and Garrus c/d????
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Not a whole lot else to really say at the moment, aside from general dislike to the fact that bosses trivially OHKO when you top out at 15 revival items. Or at least, I'm currently topping out at that.
Without the routine lol ohkos, bosses would utterly, utterly, utterly fail. Healing, SRW-style defensive spirits and items in EF are just amazingly hax. My problem with bosses is their repetitive mold, but besides -that issue-, you sorta need to up the ante offensively at the very least when you're dealing with broken of the level of SRW spirits -and- EF items.
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I suppose. Though it's leading to much higher rates of Item use than I'd like, especially since they're not yet cheap to purchase.
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They're affordable enough, I found, especially with -equips- themselves not being very expensive. I suppose that level of offense leads to a rough earlygame, but by the midgame, you won't be worrying about that much.
EDIT: Hope you enjoyed Kyon of the borderline 2HKO GT paralysis hax, by the way.
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Mass Effect 2, FUUUUUUUCK YEAH
I hate you so much.
Also I heard in this one you get to romance Tali and Garrus c/d????
Confirm. There's four options per gender this time, which is nice. You can't romance Grunt or Legion, though. I can tell you are disappointed.
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No More Heroes 2 was sold out (of course, I don't own a Wii, but that never stopped me from buying stuff before), and I still haven't gotten around to playing ME1, so I picked up Infamous. Having played the demo, I know it's decent.
WAXF: Got screwed on the poison swamp mission because I couldn't get over the hill in the middle of the map and all my distance fighters got worn down. So I shifted people to Elementalist and I'm going to pick up a little bit of CP before heading back. Sacrifice on a magic build crunches everything right now.
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Cross Edge - "Voice acting is pretty decent" I thought... then Augustine opened his mouth. Yuri lowenthal of all people is who they chose to voice the bloodthirsty madman. Come on they have Dave Wittenberg on board and they don't ask him to do a role he does perfectly, madness.
Also its retarded how according to what I've read killing August locks you out of the best ending. Why? Really why would that happen? Moving on.
Augustine - Wiped out a lackey a turn so it ended on turn four. August was less of a threat then the witchs he was paired with.
Bourd - Having to use two characters I don't normally use means I couldn't overkill him. Still died and dropped a crap ton of xp.
Troy and Anesha - They put up a good fight due to double turning but they got crushed by turn four.
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Mass Effect 2, FUUUUUUUCK YEAH
I hate you so much.
Also I heard in this one you get to romance Tali and Garrus c/d????
Confirm. There's four options per gender this time, which is nice. You can't romance Grunt or Legion, though. I can tell you are disappointed.
I'm still holding out hope for Wrex, but maybe they're saving that for ME3.
Shepard
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XF: 2-4 can fuck off and die as always. No really, I get a game over because I get a freak critical hit? Not only that, it manages to have two incredibly obnoxious mission requirements!
I love XF's core battle system, it's the best pure SRPG with jobs since FFT. The stage design belongs in Hoshigami; almost every single fight to this point has strongarmed you into a certain class or skill. This would be more forgivable if it weren't like the first 20-25% of the game. Polish is pretty terrible at points too. Seriously, you deequip everything when I change classes? Thanks guys. XF does so much well then gives you some obnoxious map and welp back to square one.
I am pretty sure I made this rant a year ago or so when I was playing it for the first time, but damn. I like the game a hell of a lot but *sets fire to 2-4*
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Mass Effect 2, FUUUUUUUCK YEAH
I hate you so much.
Also I heard in this one you get to romance Tali and Garrus c/d????
Confirm. There's four options per gender this time, which is nice. You can't romance Grunt or Legion, though. I can tell you are disappointed.
I'm still holding out hope for Wrex, but maybe they're saving that for ME3.
Shepard
If you don't have a ME1 save, Wrex is dead, sadly.
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FF7: Green Chocobo get! Its also A Rank now! Ancient Forest will probably be done next and Carry Armor won't be pleased <_<
FFTA2: Just met Lezarfold.
Okami: Ninetails has fallen.
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Seriously, you deequip everything when I change classes? Thanks guys. XF does so much well then gives you some obnoxious map and welp back to square one.
While kind of annoying, I can certainly see why they did this programming wise. Since otherwise you'll run into redundant skillset/item stuff that could be annoying to try to program around.
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SDGGGW -
So, Stage EX V... it makes me a sad person. For a start you only get to take in one group when every other stage in the game allows two. There are three gun platforms with MAP attacks that each have ????? HP (roughly 150k) which is the first time anything in the game has gotten so high (previous high as far as I remember was around 60k, 95% of things are below 30k). You need to destroy all of them for the break, which I managed to do around 2/3 of the way into the stage... then it brings them all back and you have to destroy them all again for the next break. Remembering that they have MAP attacks and you are now situated all amongst them instead of aways off as you started the map. A fine game of soldiers that is.
The Gundam Copies that are the main focus of the level are jacked up on stats but fair. They're also kind of dense and didn't seem to use MAP attacks when available and so on. The final copy, however... 80 thousand HP, stats jacked up even higher, a barrier that reduces several sorts of damage and immunes MAP attacks, a full set of character abilities - all of which are maxed, when no enemy previously in the game has had any ability over level 1 - these abilities include one which negates all of your characters' abilities, one which allows it to make Supercriticals while not in Ultrahigh Tension...
It fires its big gun, which is a beam weapon, at Mark. Mark is currently in Crossbone Gundam X1 Full Cloth, which has a Beam Shield, an I-Field, Antibeam Coating, all of which reduce/immune Beam damage, and a Full Armour System which reduces damage in general. IT GOES THROUGH WITH SEEMINGLY NO REDUCTION.
So! I gave up on that stage for the moment. Vaguely considering getting a Destroy since Photon Reflectors immune all beams whatsoever no questions asked in my experience, but it's also possible that his Nihil also negates unit abilities in addition to character abilities, which would certainly explain poor X1FC.
Currently I only have Turn-A (Empowered), Powered Wadom, and Turn-X left to get (leaving aside the question-markèd units in the 00 section). Looks like I'll replay some earlier stages and get those, and then consider my next goal from there. Assuming you can replay earlier stages, since I haven't tried yet.
Various thoughts on units and such-
Neue Ziel is spectacularly fearsome, which is an impression I've never really gotten from its appearances in SRW. A shame that it is restricted to space, although the majority of levels are space anyway. It's arguably better than the Neue Ziel II despite the hefty HP gap due to having a nice set of missiles which the II doesn't, although missiles drop off sharply in the EX stages anyway due to the increased enemy defence.
Just noticed that I'm also missing a custom GM Quell (presumably it is a Quell, but they could have mixed the order up again). The custom unit system has to be one of the more worthless functions in the game. OH MAN if I put Char '79 in a Gelgoog he will use it as a Char Custom Gelgoog with slightly increased stats! WHY THE HECK AM I WASTING A SLOT ON A GELGOOG? Very occassionally they will get new attacks, like the Live Zaku Warrior which gets a MAP 'attack' that raises unit tension. By a miniature amount. And you need to have Meer piloting it for it to exist. And Meer fails at life. No. Further, I put Amuro '93 in the Zeta Plus and it became the Amuro Custom Zeta Plus out of it, but for some reason this doesn't count as actually 'having' it for the purposes of the profile gallery and you need to use Amuro '87 WHAT
Zeta Gundam is immune to funnel attacks! That came in handy a couple of times. But it's not a particularly good unit.
F91 is, I believe, the first unit on the list that changes once it gets into Ultrahigh Tension. In this case it change to F91 Overheat Mode... however it doesn't seem to get afterimage from this (aside from a small effect while it's moving), it just get access to several different weapons than in Regular Mode. Why exactly can't F91 use its VSBRs unless it's overheating? Madness. Still, F91 gets off easy compared to some others.
Burning Gundam, similarly, goes into Hyper Mode once it hits Ultrahigh Tension. Burning Gundam, similarly, gets access to new weapons in Hyper Mode that it doesn't have in Regular Mode (more believable here however). Burning Gundam, unsimilarly, EATS TENSION WITH THESE WEAPONS. So directly after using them you get punted out of Hyper Mode. SPECTACULARRRRRRRRR
Thoroughly unlike SRW, Master Gundam only managed to hit Hyper Mode one time which was when the game forced it into being Hyper Mode permanently. Every other time I fought it it languished at low tension due to how the system works. Glee.
Virgos, urgh. Planet Defensers appear to be able to completely immune any weapon which isn't melee or remote-controlled. And they'll almost always use them on defence if they're being attacked by a weapon they're effective against. Extremely minor positive side is that you can have a support group with one unit using a weapon that's going to fail and everyone else using working weapons, and they'll throw up the defensers instead of attacking back or defending through a different method.
Turn-A Empowered's MAP Moonlight Butterfly. Completely drains the energy of every unit on the map (except people immune to MAP attacks and so on). It is hilarious. Especially if you have all your units in your warships and consequently not counting as 'on the map'. It needs to be in SRW (to be fair I haven't played any SRWs with Turn-A so it may well be).
Stargazer is in the game, but the only characters from Stargazer in the game are the villains? What is the meaning of this inanery.
I was not completely impressed to find that there is a Phoenix Gundam Powered in the game that doesn't show up in the profile list that I found completely by accident. Now I am vaguely paranoid that there are other things secreted away.
Current Team -
Albion/Zenon (GG) et al [Devil Gundam (Final)/Amuro '79, Crossbone Gundam X1 Full Cloth/Mark (GG) [Gundam Aquarius/Lanalowe (GG), Gundam Nataku/Eris (GG), Gundam Heavyarms Custom/Aina], Verde Buster/Kou [Providence Gundam/Char '79, Burning Gundam/Alfreda (GG), Palace Athene/Shirou]]
Ra Cailum/Bright '87 et al [Psycolo Gundam/Camille, Strike Freedom Gundam/Amuro '93 [V2 Assault Gundam/Usso, Wadom/Luke (GG)], Infinite Justice Gundam/Athrun '73 [Destiny Gundam/Lunamaria, Turn-A Gundam/Judau, Freedom Gundam/Sibbuk]]
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*nods @ super* Seriously. That damn battle had me near tearing my hair out and threatening to give up on the game too. Glad that's over, now I can get back to enjoying the game ^_^ I has plot scenes!
(Levin is too powerful, Clarissa dies, Labby dies, enemy thrusts Clarissa into a hole, enemy thrusts Labby into a hole, Labby makes enemy ded with counter attack, Levin dies, Labby makes enemy ded with counter attack, everyone makes it through the Gate but Ragnar - enemy uses Shut In, enemies gang up and make Ragnar ded - and so on)
My final set up was two Enigmancers (Clarissa, Labby), an Elementalist but with the weakest spell book (Levin), a Gadgeteer (Felius), Ragnar as his default and Tony. Clarissa had Elementalist and Sacred Slayer OCs as extra, Arcanist and Sacred Slayer for Labby, Martial Mage for Levin (<3 Blast), Sentinel for Felius and Ragnar. I weakened the two enemies at the front with Levin, then had everyone shift to the hard left and make their way to the gate from there. Healing, Protect and Turn Shift abuse commenced and then once I had everyone close I had Levin start wearing done the mage. Once she was weakened and the other enemies appeared much healing and Turn Shift abuse commenced until everyone was through the gate, taking out the Shut In abuser as they went. It ended up with Clarissa, Labby and Levin turn shifting each other for speed boosts. Yay! I think I finished off that damn mage at some point too but who knows. Nightmare~
Yoshi - Possibly but only for other randoms :P Bosses are easy (L1 Peppita with counter hax says so ;)) :P Seriously though Kaddan wasn't too bad for super and I because we made Maria Convert Damage so she could be an MP tank and an Elven Cloak for Adray (later on we gave him Convert Damage to MP too >.>) but I'd usually just skip the randoms there myself. More trouble than they're worth (except the green golem things with Triple EXP going for mad XPs and Regeneration Symbols, levelling doesn't matter too much to me but the MP regen accessories for the girls and Adray are nice =-))
Are you playing P3 on Hard mode? Watch out for the Hama/Mudo hax from enemies too. I only played it on Easy but I'd run out of those feather things for Minato and yeah ...
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I'll probably get back to SO3 eventually, CT. Just... not until after P3 and BoF4, at the very least.
Playing P3 on Normal, so ID spam isn't a concern yet. Did pick up a Homunculus a couple of floors back, though, so guessing it probably will be.. once I get Mitsuru in my actual party? But I have a boss to beat before that, and UGH. >.<
Edit: Also, I hate the standard lines for things like Game Over, winning fights, criticals, etc. "A single strike...?!" No, actually, those were three different attacks./me head-desks.
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Turn A... does not have anything nearly that exotic in SRW.
Alpha Gaiden, the Moonlight Butterfly MAP is just a really powerful attack that sucks up tons of EN. Still nice, and Turn A is a solid unit though you pretty much have to use Loran in it because it's mostly melee, and UC pilots are shitty at melee damage.
Or you could put Sochie in it.
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Yeah, 2-4 is almost certainly the hardest map in the game. Though, not sure why you were using regular physicals against an enemy you are forbidden from killing, at least if you weren't prepared for the chance of a crit game overing you and willing to risk it. If you haven't noticed that regular attacks crit and everything else doesn't by 20 battles into the game then you really haven't been paying attention.
Mario games - Are awesome.
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It's just typical bad XF design. It's not hard because of the challenge, it's hard because of obnoxious mission requirements that force you to win in a very specific way.
I was using physicals since oh hey, what are the odds it's going to crit and be enough to kill someone? *Splat, reset, rage*
XF's first chapter and a half is like a tutorial on how not to design SRPG's. So much bad design in what is an otherwise outstanding game.
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Demon's Souls: Beat. Fun game, but the end was relatively disappointing. Last few bosses were relative cakewalks.
Shadow Hearts: Covenant: IAQ has made me want to play what I consider one of the pinnacles of the genre again, so I am. Playing without Crests for kicks. It has actually caused some problems for me, and I even lost the first legit boss battle due to it simply taking too long to physical him to death. Lame. Beat Andre and recruited Lucia, who I assume will be super useful without any crests. Hurrah.
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P3: Spent an entire day off playing this, and have FINALLY just got the 2nd Old Document. I panicked when this wasn't on the same floor as Change Relic, but blitzed the next few (mostly empty) floors and found it at the barrier. Yay.
Change Relic itself went from a OHKO before training to a very high 4HKO after training (thanks to Wind resist Persona), and I had Dodge Wind as well. Then I got screwed over by Poison, so went through some more fusion to get the same thing, but with Posumudi as well. Then Change Relic got (very very slowly) owned. This kinda variety is why I like SMT games, though.
Off to rank up some more S-Links and get a new character. Yaaay.
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Mass Effect 2: GARRUS.
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Mass Effect 2: GARRUS.
Now with 3 times the ugly.
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Touhou Oddessy: Killed off the final some time ago, Chenlevel 135. I must have missed something or had a good idea/bit of luck with Sword of Rapture because the final wasn't all instant doom like I'd heard.
Screw Djinn Storm, though.
Anyways... aftergame stuff!
Bloodstained Seals: Facemelt on a Plane kinda sucked. Longname McFacemelt died after I'd gotten about 10 levels from killing off V2 bosses, which let me get WSMR off before it went ensuring everyone's survival and then promptly killed it before it got Final Danmaku off. The other two are still way out of my league though.
V2 bosses: Beat Chen, Reisen, Rumia, and Yuugi. The others are just too damaging for me at the moment, although if I twink properly I should kill off Cirno easily enough.
Everything else? High 2HKO MT or solid 2HKO MT with durability. Or just plain facemelting. Or being Nitori.
That said, up to around 147 Chenlevel and I still need the Scourge for 100% of the first 10 pages so yeah, still lots of work to do before I even touch 21F.
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Cross Edge - "Voice acting is pretty decent" I thought... then Augustine opened his mouth. Yuri lowenthal of all people is who they chose to voice the bloodthirsty madman. Come on they have Dave Wittenberg on board and they don't ask him to do a role he does perfectly, madness.
Wait, that was Yuri Lowenthal? Has to be one of his better roles then. ...whatever that says. Probably not much.
Definitely agree they should've given it to Dave Wittenberg instead though. Maybe they thought the disc would explode from too much awesomeness? I got nothin'.
Also its retarded how according to what I've read killing August locks you out of the best ending. Why? Really why would that happen? Moving on.
Because the best ending is FAQ-bait and retarded. Half of it makes no sense, though those tombstones hint at it. ...not all that well.
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I was using physicals since oh hey, what are the odds it's going to crit and be enough to kill someone? *Splat, reset, rage*
I'll grant the criticals, but besides that the "lower enemy HP but don't kill them" was a fine exercise in having to control damage. The game offers you more than enough ways around this so that you can pull it off. Now just imagine it without any damage projections.
DQ5: About where Scar was when he posted! Generally liking the game, as the combat is very very fast-paced (at fastest battle message speed). Also the yeti monster is awesome because the MT stun is like 100% unless resisted. Hell yes.
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Sands of Destruction: I think I am at the final dungeon. I'll hazard a guess I am as I just ran around the continent gathering what I PRESUME to be Ultimate Armour and Ultimate Weapons. Rhi'a may have one more but I have to do tedious research into inconsequential things to be sure.
The last leg of the game is, as expected of jRPGs, a... dredge. Dungeon->Dungeon->Dungeon with little PLOT attached so it just feels like I'm pointlessly hauling arse from dungeon to dungeon in order to defeat the latest boss they came up with for no particular reason at all.
Oh well. Game's still a bit broken against randoms, but post-buffing they are now a threat, and mages are a threat regardless. Blade Block is a god tier skill.
As far as characters go, extremely displeased with how weak Morte is considering she's a pretty cool character. Unfortunately her attack finds no fault, just everyone else overshadowing her something fierce. Seems like she's a good dueller still, though, as she has buffs which some characters SORELY want. (Sands of Destruction buffs are really, really potent)
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Because the best ending is FAQ-bait and retarded. Half of it makes no sense, though those tombstones hint at it. ...not all that well.
I thought they were just plot walls but they're clues :o! Its all dawning on me now yeah, that rip off story of Ikarus was so telling me to defeat Lazarus in 5 turns.
I enjoy reading them but the reason for there existance is retarded.
Raizen - Mans a beefcake. Was forced to use Zelos so I was down to three people but even with a full party it would have been difficult to knock off such massive hp in five turns.
Etna 2 - Joke fight when compard to Raizan as I easily overkilled Etna on turn two.
Raizen 2 - Beat him this time even though I was a man down. Just couldn't break so his defences were basically cutting my offence down to a third.
Reicher - Couldn't kill him. I use Raze so I wasn't a man down but he regens to much to be killed in five turns.
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So Bard... are you loving the Dragon-chick in SoD?
...she was quite the Tsundere in the anime. I figured you'd feel some kinship there. ^_^~
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Mass Effect 2: GARRUS.
Now with 3 times the ugly.
He told me "Used to be I was getting all the women when we went to the Citadel, Shepard. Now maybe you can start catching up."
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2-4 is about where I quit in XF. After DQ5 I should prolly jump back in that game.
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FF7: Did everything doable with a Green Chocobo, including racing related shenanigans (as well as getting my Good and Great to B class)...then tried to get a Blue Chocobo!
*10 attempts of getting nothing but Green Chocobos later, game gets turned off*
...I hate chocobo breeding sometimes :(
Okami: Winter Wonderful running around fun stuff. Also, why does Brown Fury have to be 2 Million?
FFTA2: ...I don't know if I advanced the plot or not. I do know that I finally am getting access to more interesting classes like Paladin and such.
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what are the odds it's going to crit and be enough to kill someone?
Probably about 1 in 6 or so, the same as the critical rate against everything else.
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what are the odds it's going to crit and be enough to kill someone?
Probably about 1 in 6 or so, the same as the critical rate against everything else.
Criticals Causing Resets are a bitch, and sometimes unavoidable when you get that skill which makes skills crit. I've actually had that happen once too...on the last enemy...cause I forgot that skill even existed...
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So Bard... are you loving the Dragon-chick in SoD?
...she was quite the Tsundere in the anime. I figured you'd feel some kinship there. ^_^~
So Rhi'a is good in the game and bad in the anime.
Got it.
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I don't know how she is in the game, but she's played for laughs in the anime.
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what are the odds it's going to crit and be enough to kill someone?
Probably about 1 in 6 or so, the same as the critical rate against everything else.
Criticals Causing Resets are a bitch, and sometimes unavoidable when you get that skill which makes skills crit. I've actually had that happen once too...on the last enemy...cause I forgot that skill even existed...
Regarding all this, hey at least this is one map in the game not any fight you happen to do at some random given point in the game. Fuck you FFTA.
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No More Heroes 2. Things I have done so far!
Totally ignored a Cloud Strife lookalike's angsting, then brutally murdered him.
Fought a star QB and his 24 cheerleader hos. They flew in to space and formed a giant robot, so of course Travis got out HIS giant robot and they fought. It was TRANSCENDENT.
Laid pipe, which isn't a metaphor for anything, but it IS a fun puzzle game.
Killed a giant retarded baby's head on a fat man's body armed with a flamethrower. I think it was a ghost.
Watched Sylvia shoot a naked zombie kid in the head with a giant handgun.
Played Rad Racer, basically. It's funny how everything has no scale at all and you can't see turns coming.
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Game only gets more epic and ridiculous, as a heads up.
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KotOR- Finally beat it. Hurray random 'don't play games for a month' urges. Lightside, Male.
Hum. Largely it's very star wars. Bioware's flare for snark comes through an awful lot of course, which is cool since it gives even lightsiders a good Han Solo vibe. I can see where people want to punch the hell out of the early game- aside from having an air of "none of this mattered" and being way too long, Carth and Bastila do, uh, not have strong starts. Granted, Bastila is also Jennifer Hale, and you can Han Solo at her, so that's cool.
Ultimately... would I have liked or played this game if it weren't Star Wars? Probably not. Canderous, HK, and Jolee are fun characters, but the plot wouldn't be half as interesting if I didn't have an existing, ungodly knowledge of Star Wars lore, although it's solid enough in that context. Combat gets to be a chore against enemies you don't hopelessly outclass and mercilessly slaughter with Force Malestrom/Flurry of freakin' doom. Having done the intro of KotOR2 I know they address this a little by having more force powers to play with and balancing out weapon classes better, so character customization has more merit, but yeah, not a gameplay game at all. Still, playable and good at it's main mission. 7/10.
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Most importantly in KotOR2, they introduced the Precise Shot feats. Blaster-using characters finally become viable at end-game with it, because it makes it harder (and eventually impossible) to deflect blaster bolts. It is literally the only feat Jedi Mira takes until she maxes it out.
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Yeah, Candorous was rather lacking in the Star Forge. T hough by god he didn't die like Jolee did!
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Canderous quite easilly converts to Melee weapons for what that is worth.
But yeah going to say it again, if you enjoyed KotOR 1 even just for the Star Wars thing you definitely should check out the sequel. It is Empire.
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So Bard... are you loving the Dragon-chick in SoD?
...she was quite the Tsundere in the anime. I figured you'd feel some kinship there. ^_^~
Didn't watch the anime beyond episode 2 or so, so I missed her there. I've been told she starts on the Salvation side in the anime, though, and then becomes tsuuu~n for Kyrie? In-game, she immediately hits on him and joins him after being neutral at first.
She's also not too funny? She's your cool-headed arbiter who watches over the balance of the world.
Taupy is also a lot more serious than he apparently is in the anime, whereas Kyrie has balls in the game but none in the series.
So, yeah, don't expect the game and anime to be comparable. They're not. (although tsun Rhi'a makes me want to watch the anime again)
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Canderous quite easilly converts to Melee weapons for what that is worth.
But yeah going to say it again, if you enjoyed KotOR 1 even just for the Star Wars thing you definitely should check out the sequel. It is Empire.
Be sure to snag the restored content mod. It is good stuff.
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Unfortunately, I'm playing on my 360, so I'd have to get the game again to get that. Granted, something to consider down the road if I feel like replaying.
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The restored content mod is for KOTOR 2.
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Yeah worth tracking down the PC version of 2 to play. You would lose your save game transfer, but the main things that transfer are sex and alignment of the main, this defaults to Female Light Side, so I assume that matches up with what you played anyway.
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Plus I'm sure there's some editor that would let you put together a quick approximation of your character from the first game if you wanted.
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ToS2 - Final Dungeon. Woefully underleveled because my sister hasn't done a single quest, I imagine, since Alice and Decus killed us. Things were actually going fine until Alice whipped out Heal, then it kinda just... went downhill. Sis is gonna do quests and grab some better gear most likely then drag me off to finish the game - can't imagine the remaining bosses being as tough as long as they stay one-on-one after this.
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Plus I'm sure there's some editor that would let you put together a quick approximation of your character from the first game if you wanted.
Probably, but you would need the save game at the right spot to do it as well and a few other things. In all honesty it doesn't even change that much stuff. It really is mostly just if they refer to Revan as He or She and a few pieces of dialogue like 3/4 of the way through the game. Generally speaking people go ooohhhh mystary, no one really knows what Revan did!
Edit - And I am banking on CK being predictable, I have $5 on female and good.
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So Bard... are you loving the Dragon-chick in SoD?
...she was quite the Tsundere in the anime. I figured you'd feel some kinship there. ^_^~
Didn't watch the anime beyond episode 2 or so, so I missed her there. I've been told she starts on the Salvation side in the anime, though, and then becomes tsuuu~n for Kyrie? In-game, she immediately hits on him and joins him after being neutral at first.
She's also not too funny? She's your cool-headed arbiter who watches over the balance of the world.
Taupy is also a lot more serious than he apparently is in the anime, whereas Kyrie has balls in the game but none in the series.
So, yeah, don't expect the game and anime to be comparable. They're not. (although tsun Rhi'a makes me want to watch the anime again)
It would actually be that she becomes ~dere for Kyrie, but yeah. SoD anime is predictable, but fun. Morte was still Morte from what I hear.
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Edit - And I am banking on CK being predictable, I have $5 on female and good.
KotOR- Finally beat it. Hurray random 'don't play games for a month' urges. Lightside, Male.
Reading!
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Reading is one thing. Memory is something else. If it isn't numbers then it normally is gone after about 5 minutes.
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Sorry, I meant that I already have KotOR2, and it's an Xbox copy. Started a file, finished the space station stuff on second planet and ready to hunt down my ship again, but more importantly I already spent money on it. Exile IS Female/Lightside, though. (reasoning: canon, same as Lightside/Male Revan)
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NMH2- Fuck you, last boss. You are fucking impossible.
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Actually he isn't, he's just got a dumb gimmick. Know when his life gets low, and he does an attack that rushes from one side of the room to the other? Hit him from the front and clash with him during it. You'll get a cutscene. Then you can proceed as normal. That the game does not warn you about this at all is pretty stupid :/
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No, I'm past that part. Once he hits 1/3 life in phase 2 he inevitably chain-teleport-fireball-punches me to death.
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FFTA2: This game has too many missions for its own good! As in, I don't think I'm ever beating this anytime soon cause missions are addicting and then there's Clan Quests and *guns to face*
...on the upside, I'd rather THIS be the game's biggest nuisance (cause technically, all that stuff is optional) as opposed to its predecessor whose problem was basically "Everything Sucks."
Tatsunoko Vs. Capcom: Bought this, beat Arcade mode 4 times. First as Ryu/Morrigan (Ryu's ending), next as Chun-li/Megaman Volnutt )Chun-li's Ending), then Morrigan/Viewtiful Joe (Morrigan's Ending; I wanted to be insured I got a 3rd Capcom win, but wanted to have an easyish time, so I chose someone I was familiar with, hence why I chose Morrigan again), and then Frank West/Tekkamen (Tekkamen ending.)
Game is...a lot better than I expected. I played it briefly before in the Japanese version, wasn't fond of the controls, since the whole "Kick and Punch don't exist, THERE'S ONLY ATTACK!" led to scenarios like "WHY IS HURRICANE KICK THE SAME BUTTON AS HADOKEN!? WHY!?!?!?", but now that I've gotten use to the controls, its...what a Vs. game SHOULD be. It has the general insanity and unique all out style of a Vs. game, but at the same time, it never gets TOO hectic to the point where the game just loses all focus and its just a mangled mess of garbage. Fast paced, fun, intuitive...now if only I recognized a god damned Tatsunoko Character, I'd be good to go!
So far, thoughts on characters I played as...
Ryu is Ryu. If you've played as him in anything, you already have a good idea how he functions, and lets face it, Ryu's the "Go to" character for "Never changes, just adapts to the new system at most."
Morrigan's like Ryu in regards that "If you've played as her in other games, you know what to expect." Granted, unlike Ryu, she has some actual tweaks; still plays the same for the most part, but isn't quite as just SUPER TRADITIONAL like Ryu is (this isn't a bad thing from either perspective; Ryu's thing is being Traditional after all, so its nice that they decided to mix it up a bit with Morrigan while keeping her the same.)
Chun-li...wow, never thought I'd get use to her, let alone this fast. I've never really been fond of Chun-li's fighting style since Street Fighter 2, but she flowed a lot better in this game than I've ever seen, to the point where I might actually consider maining her.
Megaman Volnutt is...not like MvC2 Mega Man much at all, and he's weird and...yeah, disappointed. Not really someone I can see myself investing in.
Viewtiful Joe meanwhile...I can't tell. There are times I seem to have an idea I know what he's doing, other times I'm just all "Wait, what the fuck am I doing with him now?" I just don't understand him...which is why I'm going to play as him more til I figure it out damn it!
Frank West is a riot. If you've seen the trailer of him, he's every bit as fun to play as he is to watch. He's surprisingly easy to use too, and far simpler than I expected. Also, he's freaking Frank West.
Tekkamen is the only Tatsunoko character I've tried...go figure I chose the heaviest character in the game, apparently. I'm not a fan of him, mostly cause he's got a thing similar to Chun-li's lightning kicks, only they aren't as fast and combo-able; he feels like he's more about hitting hard on a few hits. On the upside, I REALLY like his 2 lesser supers. They happened to work well nicely with Frank West's "Real Mega Buster", which was nice!
What wasn't nice is neither character having reliable normal projectiles (Frank West's shopping cart isn't reliable <_<) to deal with the first form of Yami. After getting past that, the two mostly just crushed the other two forms like they were nothing, but that first form was cruel for that team. Flipside, Ryu/Morrigan more or less ripped the shit out of Yami on the first attempt!
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From Tatsunoko... you seriously need to try out Yattaman. He's frantic and fun. Weird attack patterns, but I think you can pick him up quickly.
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FFTA2: This game has too many missions for its own good! As in, I don't think I'm ever beating this anytime soon cause missions are addicting and then there's Clan Quests and *guns to face*
...on the upside, I'd rather THIS be the game's biggest nuisance (cause technically, all that stuff is optional) as opposed to its predecessor whose problem was basically "Everything Sucks."
So... from what I've heard of Crisis Core, same issue, except that's probably a touch more addicting at least? (I wouldn't know, haven't played CC yet)
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Dodge more, Rob. I never died once on that phase and I was on normal mode, he really isn't -that- bad >_>
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Cross Edge - Offence is now sky high as the team is now Felicia, Raze, Marie and Lazarus.
Lazarus 2 - Same as last time.
Raizen 3 - The usual slugging match.
Troy and Anesha 2 - Seeing a trend.
Lazarus 3 - Somethng different at last. Lazarus poses no threat what so ever but at least its not another copy pasta fight like the last 3.
Augustine 2 - Didn't touch the prick again. I think a guy in the development team was just being a prick when he made killing Augustine lock you out of the true ending. I mean Augustine is built to annoy you making most people kill him first, then BAM no true ending for you.
Demitri and Lilith - Same as last time.
Bourd 2 - Unexpected but after steamrolling the other guys he stops me dead in my tracks and gives me two game overs. Mostly due to his strangly accurate ID who killed both the people they were hitting 8 TURNS IN A ROW!
Perfect ID with that hit area means its killing two people regardless what you do so this guys badass in combat. Had to defend till he ran away but managed to snag his stuff.
Anesha - Gave me a little trouble due to spamming Ex attacks but I was always in control.
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End of Eternity- This somewhat feels like VP2, with more focus on the movement.....
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Tatsunoko vs Capcom. Smooth controls, gorgeous graphics, great music. On the minus side, hella obscure characters (and I'm not just talking about the Tatsunoko ones).
Beat it with giant robot who is not a cigarette lighter, followed by Ryu+Batsu. Granted, I know who Batsu is, but he's still obscure. If you're going to throw in Rival Schools at least use Kyosuke...
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Batsu is from Rival Schools? I thought he was from the Athena games?
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What the hell would make you think that? Those are SNK property!
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Also, Frank motherfucking West combos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQakJBKOwOw
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You don't fuck with Frank West, he'll fuck your shit up.
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Has anyone played Karas yet? I'm kind of really hoping that he's awesome.
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What the hell would make you think that? Those are SNK property!
Really now? Huh. I've never played anything SNK that didn't have Capcom in it, so I guess I never really thought about it. Who's the guy that works with Athena, then?
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Actually I may be mixing up my facts[since there's a longtime SNK char in most of their KoF games named Athena], what games are you referring to?
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IIRC, wasn't there like two Athenas in the SNK time-line? The actual Goddess who existed like thousands years before, and the girl in KoF whose suppose to be her descendant, hence all those psychic powers? I believe she had her own game which was similar to the one the other Athena was in, and actually made the connection there, and its the 2nd Athena that's always been used, the first getting a reference here and there when Athena does her whole "COSTUME BEAT DOWN BARRAGE" thing, donning the original Athena's costume in her last hit.
Either way, Athena is an SNK character. It was pretty easy to remember cause she's on the right side in CvS2, where its the Left = C Side, and Right = S side.
Furthermore, its CvS, NOT MvC. Generally, the Capcom side in CvS was entirely Street Fighter characters, with very few exceptions. The SNK side was, for the most part, KoF characters, again, with very few exceptions.
(and Athena is not even one of those exceptions, being a regular in KoF games!)
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IIRC, wasn't there like two Athenas in the SNK time-line? The actual Goddess who existed like thousands years before, and the girl in KoF whose suppose to be her descendant, hence all those psychic powers? I believe she had her own game which was similar to the one the other Athena was in, and actually made the connection there, and its the 2nd Athena that's always been used, the first getting a reference here and there when Athena does her whole "COSTUME BEAT DOWN BARRAGE" thing, donning the original Athena's costume in her last hit.
Yes, she did have her own game. It was simply called Athena (Athena's Wonderland in other cases). You could play it on Commodore 64!
The 2nd Athena, who is basically MODERN MORTAL ATHENACLONE... with psychic powers, made her debut in Psycho Soldier (alongside Sie Kensou).
Also, you could use the original Athena in SvC Chaos.
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XF: Done through act 2! Game is a ton of fun in spite of my earlier complaints about map design, though I must note the solo clarissa map is really stupid.
*Sets fire to Ragnar* How a game can so utterly miss on one character when most of the rest of the cast is good blows my mind.
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I thought the Original Athena was NOT actually playable, but one of two potential super bosses (the other being Red Arremer, who is likely Firebrand...I'll give SvC Chaos one thing, it did use some cool unique characters that I'd like to see used more!) Either way, I did forget that Athena (original) was in Chaos.
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Welp, beat NMH2. The trick was to get him to 2/3 health, switch to the huge lightsaber, and trigger darkside mode. Bam, he's done.
Anyway, that was a bizarre ending, but it made a strange amount of sense when I thought about it during the credits. I'm guessing the lack of resolution on Henry and Travis' fight is a lead-in for a sequel starring Henry (since Suda51 said Travis won't be the star of the next game).
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I thought the Original Athena was NOT actually playable, but one of two potential super bosses (the other being Red Arremer, who is likely Firebrand...I'll give SvC Chaos one thing, it did use some cool unique characters that I'd like to see used more!) Either way, I did forget that Athena (original) was in Chaos.
Pretty much. She -became- normally playable in NGBC, though.
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Dragon Warrior 3 GBC version: I've previously given up on the NES version, but I figured I'd give the GBC version a chance.
Anyway, backstory. Once upon a time there was a hero who went out to fight a demonlord. Like the player controlled heroes, he believed in wandering around randomly a lot before engaging the target. At some point he had a talk with his wife. She brought up the subject of their child. In response the hero starts talking about how defeating the demonlord requires sacrifices. I take it he wasn't to pleased about having a child. Eventually he makes it to the destination.
The battle against the demonlord takes place on the top of a volcano. He does a lot of jumping around, dodging fireballs and sometimes even fires some fireballs himself. Several times he manages to jump from one side of the hole to another which is impressive since the hole is at least 50m wide. Finally, the demonlord hovers above the hole and the hero decides to jump at him. The maneuver succeeds, but has the side effect of transferring a lot of momentum to the demonlord, momentum which was needed to get him to the other side. Down he goes for a hot bath.
Some years later and the hero's child reaches not quite adulthood yet, but run around with swordhood. The child hears an disembodied voice calling.
I decide to try a female and name her Lia. Let's see if the GBC version will refrain from calling her a son.
The disembodied voice tells her he will ask some questions and that she should answer honestly. This is the personality generator. I have another idea, I just pick the personality I want and consult el-FAQo. Valiant sounds good. The disembodied voice agrees, in fact so much he twice tells her that she's basically shitting rainbows. After that the heroine awakens.
Lia's mother is standing at the bed telling her to get up. It's time for her to talk with the king. Yay! Even more yay, Lia's mother does unlike the NES version not call her daughter a son.
The king does call her the late hero's son though, but retracts that statement with "I mean daughter". I don't believe that was a honest mistake. In any case, the king tells Lia the demonking is still alive and she's all "I wanna follow my father's footstep" while the king is all "no, skip the falling into a volcano part". The king suggests that she gets some companions, with added firepower she may actually kill the demonlord instead of getting killed. A good idea since Lia is a girl and therefore can't just impregnate someone before committing suicide. The king also tells her not to mention the fact that the demonking is alive to anyone in order to avoid panic and finally gives her 50 gold to get some equipment. That's almost enough for two clubs!
Lia sets of to get her companions. She skips the preset clowns and registers her own. Turns out every companion gets five seeds to distribute among the stats and I can choose to distribute them manually or have them randomly distributed which is probably gonna include a lot of fighters with intelligence seeds fun. I choose to skip that fun.
I make one fighter named Harl who I may change into a soldier later. I distribute two of the seeds to strength, and the rest to vitality and agility. That makes him a macho which I can buy. Next I make a cleric named Mye who I may or may not change into a fighter later. She gets two strength seeds and three intelligence seeds. Apparently she's a romanticist. The third character is a dealer named Kara. I don't care to much about her seed distribution, but puts them on strength and vitality. For that she becomes a silly person. To bad she wasn't a man and had one of seeds on agility instead, then she wouldn't have to be silly and could instead have been a macho. Anyway, last I make a wizard named Seth, who may change into a cleric or a thief later. He gets intelligence and vitality seeds, in other words, he's a coward. Yeah, that's what you get for being bright and healthy!
I pick the fighter, the cleric and the dealer. My experience is that wizards aren't to strong early on and I thought the dealer will make money grinding faster.
Anyway, I get a club, grind ten gold and get another club. I also talk with the townspeople. Turns out that not telling about the demonlord is in vain, everyone and their grandma seems to know about it.
After five battles the dealer manages to once find 20% extra gold. That's makes 4% extra gold if that keeps up. I admit the dealer may have been unlucky and that that the 20% may have been the game rounding a bigger number down. Still, I decide the extra gold isn't worth a party slot and exchange her for the wizard. The wizard doesn't disappoint, he quickly gets enough MP to cast offensive spells in any battle with anything that resembles resistance.
After playing a bit more, the GBC version appears to be much less of a pain than the NES version. Getting the heroes ready to go anywhere without dying doesn't take as long as I remember. The spellcasters are getting much more MP when leveling up and I seem to need much less expensive equipment. That or I'm simple making a more liberal use of the frame-skip button.
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FYI, All recruited characters come with some equipment so the easiest way to equip your party at the start is to make a bunch and sell their crap, then delete. May be too late for that now but there you have it.
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WoW: Hit 30k HP in my tank set, and I'll have enough Frost for T10 piece Sunday. Then I get to worry about regemming, yay!
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The king also tells her not to mention the fact that the demonking is alive to anyone in order to avoid panic and finally gives her 50 gold to get some equipment. That's almost enough for two clubs!
You sure you're not dealing with some tramp looklike of the king instead. I mean he has a whole country/town at his command and all he can afford is 50 gold?
SMY DS - Started this today and it looks really good already. Got the dreaded Naming screen of death which caused me to think for a while. Eventually I just used one of those translaters to make my name sound less wrong for a game like this. Nickname on the other hand was easy.
MC shall now be known as Rozzer and his merry crew as the Peelers.
Cross Edge - Got far but keeping saves all over he place due to retarded conditions for true end.
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Started playing Spelunky. It's hard. Really hard. I won't give up, though!
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PWI: My faction beat the strongest faction on the server in Territory War tonight. Hells yeah.
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Nice. What'd you take over?
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SPOILERS FOR WILD ARMS XF WITHIN!
XF: COMPLETED! Part 4 and the Final Act were both pretty fun. The final boss was really a great strategy RPG boss – difficult enough to be noteworthy (basically the hardest battle in the game besides 2-4? In different ways of course. I just thought it was really well-executed – it feels like a battle that revolves around her that is still tough.
Hmmm. I don’t like the fact that Weisheit returns to the plot after his/her death in Part 3. I kind of enjoy the creepiness of the character for what it is. The Felius fixation is hilarious. She’s really hard to take seriously for me – I laughed at a lot of Kressen’s scenes.
Other characters:
Clarissa- A less irritating version of Virginia. I am pretty surprised that Alexia and her aren’t sisters. She’s pretty bright and optimistic without it being really grating. I like her a bit but not too much, she doesn’t have as much depth as she feels like she could have.
Felius- No real opinion, but the game is pretty good at leading you to believe that he might be a villain/henchman, between the mysteriousness and the wearing black and being SCARY when he’s angry, as well as the fact that bad things seem to happen when he wanders off for a battle.
Labby- I think she’s done pretty well. Arrogant and, well, a capable woman. But she’s still believable. I understand why Sopko avatared her.
Levin- I like him a lot. I think he is well-developed, he’s believably kid-like, and he’s cute.
Ragnar- Because a combination between Alonso and Zidane was too irresistible. Apparently. One of the worst characters I’ve ever seen in a game, a completely hypocritical, stupid, blathering sack of shit. He wants to DESTROY ELESIUS except he wants to ignore the fact that the people who he wants to destroy are in direct opposition to those who oppressed him. And just when you think he’s broken through and became less of a dumbass, Chelle converts him back to being a total tool. The Levin mentor thing is so forced and makes him feel like a piggy womanizer anyway, so bleh.
Tony- Awesome.
Alexia- Pretty neutral opinion on her.
Edna- A completely unredeemable, repulsive, unsympathetic bitch. Which is basically what she was supposed to be. Her ending was a little dissatisfying though. I really like her shear terribleness.
Charlton- Extremely awesome. He has a backstory that is pretty sad and then he kicks all the suckers who sympathized with it in the balls and talks about rising from the ashes. It’s really great – I like how they don’t try the sympathy angle. He’s a bit like a mix between Gizel and Marscal Godwin – does very bad things in order to achieve his goal of uniting Elesius under one flag.
Rupert- Less awesome than the other two, but still pretty sweet.
Chelle- Somehow less awesome than Ragnar. Oh my god did the writers drop the ball here.
Hrathnir- Owns the FUCK out of His Wankiness. He’s pretty cool otherwise, a really good guy.
Katrina- I really like Katrina and what they did with her. You feel so bad for her when she interacts with Edna and you cheer when she frightens the shit out of the stone cold bitch. I really liked all the stuff surrounding her, including the ending.
EDIT: Eisen- Needs to be kicked in the balls. I ATTACKED THE PRINCESS I CAN'T GET OVER THE SHAME. So I will cure this shame by ATTACKING THE PRINCESS AGAIN! Worst logic ever. Also gets owned by Levin.
END SPOILERS
Gameplay is fun. I think XF really drops the ball on about 6 maps and the rest are varying from too easy (Part 3 suffered from this) to really great (final boss, Final Weisheit, golem battle, 2-1, prison etc.). The swamp? 1-6 I hate, as well as all puzzle maps. Puzzles are the worst. I’m not a huge fan of 2-4 either because of me having to reset due to counterattacks. I dislike the second Royal Knights battle as well, although I like the first. I also like the Clarissa/Alexia battles.
I used three people with Widespread, lots of Emulators, and I abused Sacrifice.
I think it’s a really great game that is hampered by a few poor design choices (puzzle maps, the clunky menu system that always goes to Clarissa, unequiping all items when you change class). I really like the music and the graphics, and I think that the class system is a lot better balanced than FFT’s. The villain cast is really good, second maybe to only BOF4. I like the hex-based system better than the square system as well. Without the frustrating maps and a better PC cast I think it could have been a 10 but I am debating whether to give it an 8 or a 9 right now.
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WoW: Hit 30k HP in my tank set, and I'll have enough Frost for T10 piece Sunday. Then I get to worry about regemming, yay!
Make sure you check what is changing on the T10 tank pieces next minor patch when picking what to get since that will probably be this week.
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FYI, All recruited characters come with some equipment so the easiest way to equip your party at the start is to make a bunch and sell their crap, then delete. May be too late for that now but there you have it.
Thanks, but I think I refrain. If money grinding turns out to take way to long time it's for the best if I find out as early as possible.
You sure you're not dealing with some tramp looklike of the king instead. I mean he has a whole country/town at his command and all he can afford is 50 gold?
Well, as it turns out, it's one town and one village. It should still be enough for more than 5/3 clubs, but I'm getting the feeling the kings aren't very good at their job in this game.
Dragon Warrior III: The Heroine Lia begins her journey for real. The first goal seems to be to get out of her country. This turns out to be more complicated than expected since there's neither a ship in the whole kingdom nor a way via land to go to another country. By talking to her fellow countrymen, she eventually figures out what she has to do.
There's an underground path leading out of the country, but it's blocked by a wall. Since the wall was most likely erected by the king to prevent people from fleeing to greener pastures, asking him to send a few miners is out of the question. There's a magic bomb which could blow the wall to rubble, but the man who owns it has his door locked both daily and nightly. Fortunately, the door is red and there's a key which can open red doors on the top of a tower. Unfortunately, the tower is on an island and the lack of ships has already been mentioned. The solution lies in a secondary underground path, one that leads to the island.
While gathering the necessary information Lia also builds some levels and acquires better equipment. The fighter starts to disappoint, he hes both less strength than the heroine and cannot use any weapon properly. He is actually doing the least amount of damage of all party members. I nevertheless decide to stick with him since sooner or later a fighter friendly weapon has to show up.
Anyway, travel underground to the tower. Climb the tower to get the thieves key (if you have problem with burglary, make sure your door isn't painted red) and then get the magic bomb. Use the bomb to blow up the wall and get the heck outa the country.
Lia emerges on another country far away. The first town she spots happens to be the capital (there seems to be about a 50% chance that a randomly selected town is a capital though) and she decides to speak to the king. The king recognizes her as a heroine and has a request. The request has to wait though, because it's time for a rest so Lia quits after the king records her journey.
Eventually she resumes her adventure, but the king isn't programmed to make his request doing his opening dialog. Lia has to talk to him again to hear his request. Turns out that a thief named Kandary or something has stolen the kings crown and the king wants Lia to get it back.
Just like with Lia's home country, this kingdom has one castletown and one village. Since nobody in the castletown knows where the thief is, it's time to go to the village. Sure enough, the villagers manages to both tell her that the thief is holed up in something tower and that something tower is to the west. Other than that, a villager stands on a grave which he claims belongs to a fighter who defeated a bear with his bare hands. Chance is the fighter was using one of the few fighter friendly weapons so Lia decides to return nighttime for some grave robbing in case the fighter toke the weapon with him to the grave.
Unfortunately, that's not the case. The fanboy is still one the grave, sleeping however. The ghost of the fighter is also there, probably to watch so that the creepy fanboy doesn't do anything horrible to his corpse while everyone is asleep. The ghost confirms that he indeed used a weapon, an iron claw. The iron claw is sold in the village weapon shop meaning Lia has to buy it. Oh well, buying is not as good as finding, but still not too bad. She does buy the claw and a fighter armor as well. The new equipment coupled with the fact that Harl the fighter is lately getting better stat gains upon level ups means he stopped sucking. His strength is even starting to catch up with Lia's, although he's not quite there yet.
First some exploring. Other than something tower, there's some sort of gambling installation where you pay a token to walk some gauntlet. You roll a dice and walk the corresponding number of squares and depending on where you stop something will happen. Lia only gets gold and a herb which is good enough since there's still plenty of equipment upgrades left to get. For clearing the course she also gets even more gold and a sword stronger than the currently strongest available weapon in stores. Score!
Eventually she tackles the tower. That takes her two retreats before she makes it trough, one retreat because Lia suddenly needs anti paralysis herbs and has few of them and one retreat because the enemies decided to gang up on the wizard. After that and a a quick equipment upgrade (it's actually here Harl gets his fighter friendly armor) she makes it to Kandary.
Kandary is standing close to two treasure chests and Lia intends to get them as well as the crown. However, Kandary pulls a lever or something and Lia and her party is sent a floor down via a pitfall. They quickly climbs back up, but Kandary is gone and so is the content of the two treasure chests! Well, there's only one way he could have gone and the party quickly catches up with him. Battle time.
The wizard stacks Increase and Kandary and his goons becomes less and less efficient for every turn. Speaking of increase, i realize that if I'm going to class change the wizard it should be to a thief so that I can get an Increase of before the enemies attack instead of after. Surely if the thief has a decent attack he won't need as much MP since he can save some by attacking instead of casting offensive spells. Anyway, Kandary loses and yields.
He offers to return the crown if Lia lets him go. She says no since she wants whatever was in the chests too, but Kandary pulls a "but thou must". Grudgingly she allows the content of the treasure chests walk away and settles for the crown. She returns it to the king.
The king offers her the throne as a reward. At this point it should be clear that's not a reward at all, but the king insists. So Lia becomes a queen despite there already being one.
The first thing Lia does as a queen is to chat with queen 2. She thinks it's a good idea to put a woman on the throne. If she wants a female ruler and the king doesn't want to rule, why don't they just have her do the ruling? Anyway, Lia doesn't want to find out and seeks out the king. He's busy gambling away the royal treasury which he apparently didn't see fit to leave behind. Fortunately he complies when Lia demands he resumes his duties as a king and the madness ends. It's pointed out that at her short time as a queen she already built a reputation of being a good ruler which doesn't bode well since she did absolutely nothing.
Quest complete and I have no idea why I had to do any of it. Next time, I head east? Going there wasn't a good idea earlier, but now the party is stronger. The game is definitely an improvement over the NES version. This version is less "spellcasters should use their spells wisely" and more "spellcasters will want to cast spells every battle."
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WoW: Hit 30k HP in my tank set, and I'll have enough Frost for T10 piece Sunday. Then I get to worry about regemming, yay!
Make sure you check what is changing on the T10 tank pieces next minor patch when picking what to get since that will probably be this week.
Ugh, seriously? *checks* Oh, just armor boosts. I was hoping they'd fix how worthless DK T10 set bonuses were.
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Wild Arms XF-Going home to pick this back up from where I left it which was after unlocking the final set of classes. Ragnar is a beast, Labby is love <3 Felius is too quiet and doesn't do enough which means he's just getting boring for me now, Clarissa and Alexia are just ok (though "I don't care if the winds in my face!" gets a bit what after a while! >.>) Levin is cute and adorable (he wouldn't thank me for saying so <.<) fine for what he is but needs more strong manly man plot like Ragnar (maybe in a few years or hopefully he'll get more strong plot as I play further like he had in the beginning of the game) and yes the dog is awesme. I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with Ragnar and Chelle because I personally am finding this interesting and Ragnar's character focus/development entertaining, I want to see if he gets over his "ghosts" 'n stuff and if Chelle gets rescued/more humanity comes into it or w/e. Plus Patrick, the other Patrick just cracks me up >.> I'm probably just odd but I'm actually finding Labby and Ragnar more interesting/involving than Felius X Weisheit/UoM/he/she/whatever the hell is going on/did the plot just do what I think it did plot <.< The stuff Soppy told me about princess plot is pretty far out there as well which ties into did the game just do want I think it did and yeah *spins*~
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Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?
Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics. Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.
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Nice. What'd you take over?
The Great Lake. We now control everything from The Mines west of Archo to Silver Pool.
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Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?
Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics. Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.
Eh, my mistake. I meant the DPS set bonuses.
As DW Frost though, AoE threat really isn't a problem due to HB. Well, granted all I ever get are ass DPS so there might be a problem I just haven't seen. Blood Tap gives runic power? Huh, well I've never had a use for it so I didn't know.
Actually all this talk of set bonuses is kinda pointless. I'm only getting th T10 piece from random and weekly raid badges. Guild still can't get enough to do Marrowgar or even trash consistently.
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TO: Beaten, doing aftergame, thought I'd finally set up my tier lists. Characters in () are aftergame people, being placed relative to where they're at now; however, this is mostly maingame commentary.
Tier 1: Reimu, Marisa, Chen, Yuugi, Ran, Kaguya, Rinnosuke, (Mystia, DEAR GOD Mystia, Sikieiki)
Tier 2: Alice, Komachi, China, Suwako, Orin, Aya, (Renko, Kanako)
Tier 3: Iku, Yukari, Tenshi, Sanae, Yuyuko, Patchy, Flandre, (Maribel, Yuka)
Tier 4: Sakuya, Remilia, Mokou, Suika, Eirin, Nitori, Youmu, (Keine)
Tier THE STRONGEST: Cirno, Wriggle, Rumia, Reisen, Minoriko
Tier What The Goddamn Hell Is Wrong With You: Flandre, Renko
Commentary (this could take a bit):
Reimu: Solid all around without excelling in anything. Early on, uses her SPI damage to help clear, but Marisa quickly picks up and does it better with MYS - the two work well in taking stuff out. The damage starts slowly sucking, though... and that's about when buffing her MAG for MT healing OR buffing defenses for tanking forever comes into play. Vital for later bosses, MT (row) Paralyze helps a lot on the final and multiple randoms... Yeah.
Marisa: Randoms? Asteroid Belt, or maybe Earthlight Ray. Bosses? Buff her up and toss out a Master Spark, then get back to regen'ing SP in the back row. Works so very well.
Remilia: Jeigan. Great early! But usage fades badly after floor 8 or so.
Sakuya: MT Speed buff! And and uh uhm. ...uh. ... yeah. Not unusable, even now, but still kinda "eh". The damage fails forever, which is sad.
Patchy: Jeigan! Except she's still so incredibly useful endgame... if she gets a turn. There's enough people to buff speed/enough free turn people that it's not a fatal flaw, but it's still saddening enough that she drops as soon as enemies consistently outspeed her and tend to have MT physicals. Some floors, though, she's a lifesaver.
Chen: Okay. I am probably the biggest hyper of Chen thus far. This being said? CHEN IS FUCKING AWESOME. Switch in->hi Kimontokou->FOIFOIFOIFOIFOI->see ya. PSW deals with a lot of high-DEF opponents that'd frustrate Chen otherwise, and the speed can allow her to get in a turn before some seriously scary randoms later and, often enough, take them out.
Meiling: TANK. HP, defense, adequate Mind, good resistances, cheap skillset. Tanking in her vein kinda becomes more difficult later but she still does fine at it which is impressive.
Cirno: Wishes she didn't have her entire skillset obsoleted really damn fast outside of the CLD element which is also kinda obsoleted fast. Meh.
Minoriko: Chibi-Sanae.
Youmu: One of a set of three (Youmu, Yuugi, Suika) who I'd call high-impact sluggers. Youmu's the best of the three at MT! And she does it dam well! ...that speed. It doesn't like life. It's bad enough to relegate her to mop-up duty.
Alice: Reasonably fast MT NE damage, both phys and mag: a powerful ST Fire phys; a... decent MT MYS attack. Great at weakening or clearing crowds, and the attached statdowns help even more there.
Rumia: Solid ST MYS damage! ...NOTHING ELSE. Holy crap the stat/skills are horrible. Demarcation has very theoretical use but I never got anything out of it.
Wriggle: Do you care about POIZN n/n
Yuugi: Okay. K3S? Her attack score? She -murders- things. Buffed by Kaguya or Rhino, it just gets bloody stupid levels of damage outdone only by buffed Marisa. Marisa is one shot. Yuugi is not. Really bad magic durability and being slightly sluggish can hold her back, but... not enough to lose her slot in tier 1.
Aya: I've been too hard on her - she's a Chen variant. Lacks Kimontokou, but there are others with MT buffs later so she's definitely usable - and her MT and ST damage are both solid and -fast-. Takes thought to use but is worth it.
Iku: More WND damage! Hers is magic, and good at bypassing high MND to boot. Also has an okay buff. Tanky, especially to magic, and only slightly sluggish helps.
Komachi: HP. Narrow Confines of Avici. That's it. That's all she needs. MT omnistatus+multistatdown? Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
Suwako: No durability! Kinda poor speed! If she hits you, she either goes for competent ST damage + awesome paralysis, competent MT magic, or... a NTR ST nuke that probably would rival K3S if she had the stats.
Sanae: ST healer, okay backup damage, has a decent omnibuff if she's bored.
Nitori: Situational use busting high-DEF randoms. No other practical application, but she's good at that!
Ran: Okay. Ran. Quick-hit composite NE damage. Two solid magic attacks, opposing elements. Two full-team buffs, weak but stackable on the back row. Yeah, awesome stats, awesome skills... definitely top tier.
Eirin: Meanwhile, overestimated her. Hourai Elixir is awesome utility! The damage is crap. Durability's nice but doesn't save her from being low-impact.
Tenshi: If you rely on non-ITD, you do not kill Tenshi. Period. She will laugh a siege to scorn. Makes a great frontliner for that reason.
Mokou: Needed more attacks that weren't reliant on hitting low Mind.
Flandre: I gave my rant on her before. Bizarre little character.
Orin: Dropped her one; Blazing Wheel compositeness creates some issues later and her NE phys backup's kinda weak. Still great clearing.
Kaguya: TWINK BAIT ALERT. Awesome damage if you take the time to buff up that MAG and SPD. Will -not- impress otherwise. Gets very, very good in aftergame, where the whole "hi I ignore defensive stats" really kicks in as an advantage.
Suika: Mrrrrgh Iunno. Should be good, but the damage never really impresses even post-buff.
Yuyuko: MT 100% ID + SPI damage. Yeah.
Yukari: Another Iunno. The damage really fails if Chen/Ran aren't out - and while Ran/Yukari out makes sense, Chen and Yukari don't really work together well as Yukari's support games fail to help Chen. Still solid.
Rhinosuke: MANnosuke has crappy damage! He has MT 100% ATK/DEF/MAG/MIND buff (World-Shaking Military Rule. Awesome name. Has the downside of being OPB and he leaves the team after the fight due to 0 TP afterward. Oh, and he can't switch in/out due to TP->0. But that's why the latter parts are important.). He has awesome defenses. He can actually manage decent ST damage, and Traumerei is useful on a rare few opponents (PC SoHD sucks). Fast. Durable. Buff is shiny. the ST damage ignores defense decently well. Yeah.
Maribel: Ran remix for the worse, but that's more saying something about Ran. Hits three elements (SPI/MYS/WND), has both magic and composite damage (composite this time is the MYS), gets a self-omnibuff... but the stats are lower enough that she can't sell the package as well. Still brutal.
Renko: Welcome to the "What the goddamn fuck is wrong with you" tier, Renko! The stats, they suck outside of excellent HP and passable speed. The skillset, though. Good grief the skillset. GALAXY STOP! Speed Down + Paralyze + MT ITD damage (that sucks due to Renko stats being -horrible-). CHARGE! MT stat buffer! Doesn't have Rhino's disadvantages... but it has FLAN'S. Damages her entire team and delays their next turn. The damage is not insignificant, but it is kinda "eh"; still, could kill if you aren't paying attention. The turn delay is the frustrating part, making her timing important to figure out. DEBILITATE! MT stat down! Awesome character, but very quirky.
Kanako: Quick-hit SPI damage that uses her ATK and MAG but pretty much only hits MND. Sadly, her stats aren't good enough to make this very shiny, but it's still good. Solid MT WND, incredible MT CLD. Durable-ish, speedy-ish. Overall competent.
Mystia: MT. PARALYSIS. OFF THIRD-BEST SPEED. AND SOLID DAMAGE. Oh and she gets a quick hit physical. Yeah.
Keine: No downside buffing, okay but not great offense, decent all-around stats, but the package fails to impress under scrutiny.
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TvC: Zero and Tekkaman Blade unlocked!
Beat the game with Viewtiful Joe and Frank West (FW was used in both, MM Volnutt was used alongside Frank West on the 2nd attempt) just to get 2 more Capcom wins, and then went with PTX-40A. cause hey, why not try the Giant Robot for my 6th Capcom Win and Zero unlock?
...PTX-40A may be the best FIghting Game Character ever. Just playing as a giant Robot in a Vs. Game who nukes stuff, whips out buzz saws, and...uh, yeah, it was hilarious to play as him. Its especially funny against Lightan, cause the two can actually flinch each other, so its like a regular 1v1 except much bigger and only one round. It was hilarious and well executed, good show Capcom!
After that, used Zero to test him out, alongside Ken the Eagle, in hopes for another T Win (which I succeeded at!), and then went with my first dual T team with Polimar and Ippatsuman.
Zero is really fun to play as. Technical, but very user friendly, and gotta love how most of his moves are from MMX4, and...yeah, he actually feels like Zero, not just "hey, he looks like Zero and uses some of his attacks!" Though, Capcom is good at avoiding the former in general, though god knows they've had plenty of practice with Marvel (dating all the way back with X-men Children of the Atom...which was good enough at capturing character specific fighting styles into a fighting game.) So yeah, that's to be expected! May end up maining him, but not sure; at least its nice to have several options on the table.
Ken the Eagle feels...kind of bland? Not bad, just...I dunno, he didn't seem to particularly stand out in anyway. Probably just not gonna bother with him.
Polimar I can safely say I don't like; too quirky, he can't move worth shit unless its through a dash and...ugh, yeah, definitely not my style. I'm sure he has potential, I just don't feel like getting it, good thing I finished off Yami with him so now I really don't have to care about him.
Ippatsuman, meanwhile, I had a good deal of fun using. His max super is hilariously awesome (Summon Giant Robot in the background to smite things! Seriously, how can you argue against that?) and he seems pretty easy to understand otherwise...barring that one anti-air Throw super move...which I kept accidentally pulling off on Yami...which didn't really work.
Oh, and Frank West's Alternate Max Super which he uses on Giants is made of win, but then, everything Frank West does is awesome.
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XF: Done with act 3! Game goes by much faster once you get Alexia and the game stops throwing weird mission requirements at you. A special burn in hell DOES go to the second to last fight in the Weisheit chain (A monster that resets your game? Dick move alert), otherwise yeah. The slime battle was incredibly annoying, but Labby can mostly solo that.
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Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?
Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics. Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.
Eh, my mistake. I meant the DPS set bonuses.
As DW Frost though, AoE threat really isn't a problem due to HB. Well, granted all I ever get are ass DPS so there might be a problem I just haven't seen. Blood Tap gives runic power? Huh, well I've never had a use for it so I didn't know.
Actually all this talk of set bonuses is kinda pointless. I'm only getting th T10 piece from random and weekly raid badges. Guild still can't get enough to do Marrowgar or even trash consistently.
See now I am even more confused. 7%/10% boost to your most damaging attacks or what should be effectively a flat 3% damage boost after the first cycle of your runes are both pretty rocking set bonuses >_> (admittedly harder to get as Frost running on Priority system, but Frost DPS is in the shitter at the moment and you should only go it for Improved Icey Talons really). They both beat the shit out of DK T7 and 8 (Both T9 and T10 are pretty freaking sweet though).
Certainly beats the pants off the healing Priest tier bonus. 33% chance to make Flash Heal heal 33% of the amount healed over 9 seconds (It seems to be kind a rolling hot sort of like the Deep Wounds or Ignite dots are) which is alright, 4 piece is 20% chance to make your Penance or Circle of heal make the next Flash heal cast within 6 seconds to reset the CD on Penance and Circle of Healing. Such a huge mouth full to get out and spikey all over the place proc. Just yuck. Rogue 2 piece is great, but the 4 piece is entirely missable, I am better getting some more Armor Penetration off set pieces than the 4 piece.
I love the warrior one though. You have a 20% chance for your Bloodsurge and Sudden Death talents to grant 2 charges of their effect instead of 1, reduce the global cooldown on Execute or Slam by 0.5 sec, and for the duration of the effect to be increased by 100%. Cause you know what Arms needed? More spikey out of control burst threat. Good bonus overall, but damn makes that proc watching even more key.
Edit - Oh and never had to use Blood Tap while tanking? I use a one disease rotation when I am tanking heroics, but not sure if this is optimal for you or should even be done anymore, but anyway prefer it off the pull anyway, Tap and you can get 2 Obliterates in your first set of abilities which is more snap threat than Plague Strike and 2 Blood Strikes. Bonus points for more Rime Proc chances. It is a DPS loss, but not sure if it is a TPS loss to do it, but it certainly gives you more threat to work with in the opening few seconds.
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Oh, and Frank West's Alternate Max Super which he uses on Giants is made of win, but then, everything Frank West does is awesome.
Did you try Frank's giant swing vs. G. Lightan? Hilarity ensues.
Myself, concentrated on the T side first, and have now unlocked Joe the Condor, who follows the Rule of Rob (everything is better with guns). Favorite characters on the T side are Yatterman-1 and Jun the Swan (weapons with string theme). Both version of Tekkaman are broken as hell.
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Oh, and Frank West's Alternate Max Super which he uses on Giants is made of win, but then, everything Frank West does is awesome.
Did you try Frank's giant swing vs. G. Lightan? Hilarity ensues.
Yes, yes I did. It was one of the best things ever. All Hail Frank West!
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NMH2- Finished. Masterpiece as expected. Now on to my next mission, finding a No More Heroes 2 soundtrack.
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XF: Finished. I got through half of the game this weekend thanks to the snow.
Final rating? 7/10. Game is a mix of brilliance and failure. The job system is wonderful, but the game handcuffs you with really silly mission requirements for the first half of the game. I got after VC for the same problems in the opposite direction; the missions reqs in XF often require very specific setups to win and blatantly punish you if you don't use them. Game picks up notably once you get Alexia, as that is the last of the puzzle maps and missions get much more straight forward after that. I also don't like how little CSP you get without flatwoods; it's a shame they devise such a wonderful system and then don't really let you use it much as you should be able to use it! Oh well. The game's really bad start and clunky equip interface largely hold it back from a 9 or a 10 score, which says how much the aforementioned items bother me.
Classes!
Secutor- Meh. You want attack 25% and the equips, but the class itself has range woes and the skillset isn't much. It's still your only option for fighters till Berserkers/Striders though.
Gageteer- Excellent on paper, didn't like in practice. It blew through items pretty fast in battle and required another skillset to give you enough items for long fights.
Elementalist- Books+mag up. You spend way too much time in this class with Clarissa and Levin. The skillset's okay, but man those skills are invaluable. Low movement+no skillset after moving hampers their effectiveness in a void, but you'll still be using them for the first half of the game.
Fantastica- LVP of the set, the skillset is strictly used for weird twinking setups (Hi six shooter) and forced MP bust maps. Rush is the only part of it I used normally.
Sentinal- Never used. Not terrible, just not a class I bother with. Don't like the mobility+range issues.
Excavator-Skillset is useless outside of finding the odd item scope and twiking Gadgeteers, but it's still useful thanks to the good speed and movement. Levin used this quite often, and Clarissa even shfited to this when I needed a high mobility mage.
Geomancer- It's either this or High Cavalier for game LVP. Shut out is massively nerfed from WA4 thanks to movement issues and the rest of the skillset is blah. There aren't enough leypoints on maps to make it worthwhile, and said laypoints don't show up on the preview screen.
Sacred Slayer- Best OC in the game, hands down. Heal is excellent in combination with Widespread, fragile has use for boss smashing and santify gives the skillset some magical damage to pick off foes at a distance with. Turn Shift is the new intrude; it lets you control the flow of the fight with turn manipulation and has the added bonus of being usable after you move. There are very few moves I consider few good if you have to move to use them in XF. The class itself is terrible at anything related to offense, but so worth it for widespread. Charms are good armors too.
Berserker- Ask me about having 8 movement and great stats. Valiant is also awesome if you get that far. The movement makes it useful for mages, let alone fighters, and the skillset has uses as well if you bother with spears. By far the best fighting class in the game till the final tier.
Strider- DROP KICK! Probably the best fighting skill in the game, as it takes advantage of Alexia and Felius's high weight scores and is ranged. Trail has tons of use as well, since it lets slow/immoble PC's follow someone like Levin and lets you move faster than a snail's pace. The class itself has good stats too. I used Strider OC to beat the final boss, which says it all there.
Grappler- Stats aren't good. Skillset does have some use, as there are enough cliffs to make it worthwhile. You can also use the throws to get your foe closer to your mages and for positoning fun, which is neat; plus killing Weisheit with a piledriver is hilarious. Nothing else worth getting besides Accelerator and OC in the class though. Accelerator goes well with speed twinks and is very low effort to get- which is weird, XF almost always makes you work for a class's good skills.
Engimancer- IFF is good and Devestate has uses in a pinch, but otherwise meh. This isn't worth using for your mages unless you have mastered elementalist/Sacred slayer already. Protect suffers from the usual XF buff nerfing. Probably the LVP of this set, just since the other three fighting classes have important skills to pick up.
High Cavalier- How do you make a class with balanced (high) stats, quicken, and intrude *suck ass?* You make them inferior to the competition. High Cavalier has nothing worth getting in it's skillset besides for the OC, even the mastery skill is crap. Quicken and Intrude aren't worth setting the skills for either, as Quicken's duration is terrible/has the usual XF buff problems and Intrude is both MP intensive and has the usual can't move/use the same round shit. I got this for Alexia for style purposes but otherwise ran screaming. Just not worth using at any point except for the OC; even Geomancer has 3-1 in which it can utterly destroy the universe if you so choose to go that route. The only way in fact I figured out how to get use from the skillset is Intrude+Quicken+Widespread for Alexia, but that requires mastering scared slayer, which has no other use for her and requires tying her down in a bad class for way too long, on top of costing a bunch of SP/MP/CP to do. Fail!
Emulator- Didn't find this too useful. It required lucking into the right skills- status is useless and the elemental spells only felt worth using for Labby. I'd rather have my mages spamming Sacred Slayer OC skills. Just feels overshadowed by extremist's godly non speed stats and Nightstalker's uber speed.
Nightstalker- Best class in the game. This+Turn shift+accelerator, and you can wave goodbye to speed concerns. Every PC besides for Alexia and maybe Felius should be in this class, as the turn split you get from it is unreal. Six Shooter's a really good skill as well, even if I didn't use it as much as I should've.
Extremist- God stats and Debilitator. What's not to love? Oh yeah, it has brutal offense and command critical as well. I used this for Alexia and man was I not let down. Bosses just explode when you get command critical to work, let alone randoms.
PCs:
Clarissa- Grab her OC/equips and run straight to elementalist. Sacrifice is extremely nasty if properly twinked and she's got really nice speed to go with it. Character wise? Suppose she's good enough. I find it very hard to take her seriously, considering how much of their physical mannerisms were used by Sailor Moon.
Felius- Probably the LVP? It's a well balanced cast though. Upper Hand is very useful early on, and his high weight gear means he can get a lot of milage out of drop kick and heavy strike. Character wise? I like the archetype, but he really didn't have enough development or deviation away from his protect theme to strike home.
Labby- Annoyed the living hell out of me with 'my 34 year old heart' and her babbling about getting old. Otherwise, worked as a mentor character and sometimes comic relief character.
Ragnar- Get the fuck out, with extra fire for his incredibly high handed grilling of Alexia right after you spring her from prison. Hey asshole, her father just died, maybe telling her that is more important than your usual self involved bullshit? See Ciato's rant otherwise. Hyper was useful for lategame twinking and he had evasion as a PC.
Alexia- Had style as a character. Specifically, her line about the martial guard's inability made me laugh. She didn't have a ton of depth, but she worked for what she was. As a PC? You run to Strider, get her the OC, and then run to Secutor/Extremist. Trail is broked+5 on her; it lets her get into the thick of battle without having to waste turns on movement. Drop kick takes adavantage of her weight and STR and gives her awesome offense as well.
Tony- About as good as a character/PC as you'd expect from a random dog named Tony.
Charlton- He grows on you. He is remarkably consistent with his ideals. He really believes the King's disarmament is bad for the country and fights it as hard as he can. The game even gives you some proof (The ecomonic impact of it) that Charlton wasn't all wrong. He's a brutal man who just knows his way of life and fights to defend it. Also has insane style!
Edna- Female Gorudo. She revels in her corruption and scumminess and plays the role of the perfect dirtbag to the hilt. She creates a monster in more than one sense of the word, which...yeah. She also is the only one of the villians who the game doesn't attempt to depict with any sort of positive light. even Weisheit has his goals and morals, Edna clearly has none.
Rupert- Perfect foil for Clarissa, as a drifter who will do absolutely anything for power. His weird sense of professionalism is neat to see and the game even does a very good job explaining his point of view and ideas with his random monolouges. He is befuddled by the loyality his minions in the martial guard show, since he clearly has none. He can't even fight and die on his own terms, since a group of deserters follow him to his escape route.
Weisheit- Fails, has creepy overtones to his already bad plot. Does get points for a consistent inner monolouge and early style.
Chelle- Fails, makes Ragnar speak and generally gets owned by him. NEXT.
Triad- Felt like a random addition to give you more foes to fight after you had finished slaughtering the Kinship and the guard. Aside: You pretty much single handily destroy the marshal guard, the kinship, not to mention a small army of drifters, not to mention the beatings handed out to the royal knights. Clarissa's a bit of a butcher.
Final- Was there? I didn't feel any rapport with the character, though the setup was pretty good.
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SDGGGW
Pilot profile gallery is now 100% complete, so the entire gallery is now completed aside from the hidden units.
I discovered that Phoenix Gundam Unleashed was able to be combined with any unit I could lay my hands on to result in plans for the next-most powerful unit in the game. However starting from Ground Gundam and running all the way up and off the end and back up to Zaku I, they didn't show up. Presumably the hidden units are excluded from the loop and I wasted my time gratuitously. Or they rank between Zaku I and Ground Gundam in worth and it's completely pointless hiding them like they are >_>
There are still roughly 70 items left to unlock. Since the only way of unlocking items that I'm aware of is the one you get automatically whenever you finish a map, I'm not entirely sure what sort of position the game was expecting me to be in at this point? The only objective I have aside from unlocking items currently is grinding for the final. And as I am currently sortieing just my two lowest-levelled main pilots in Psycolo & Devil each map (thoroughly ruining Psycolo and Devil's stats while I'm at it, since unit level stat gains are based on the pilot's level) I am not exactly doing a terrific job of that.
Currently it looks like I will be playing the first map without triggering any breaks over and over for a while, since it can be finished in one or two turns that way...
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WAXF -
-Poison Swamp Level, In Which We Don't Drink The Water. Solved by keeping Labrynthina reviving everyone as they fall and throwing a wave of characters with the Elemental skillset at the enemies.
-Guardian Shrine, In Which You Take The High Road, And I'll Take... Went center path, had Felius weaponbreak the center guy and just ignored everything else.
-Path To The Shrine, In Which Levin Is An Idiot. Levin goes in as Gadgeteer, filled up with Heal Berries, and casts Blast whenever he isn't healing. I have two Elementalists who pick off the other's on Levin's side, while Clarissa heads to the corridor and Howling Shots everyone on that end.
-1.8, In Which You're Not So Tough Without Your Fancy Sword, Are Ya? A Fantastica clears the path, Felius disarms the boss, Tony draws fire and Clarissa Sacrifices. Easy peasy, no resets at all.
-Intermission, In Which There Is A Meeting Of The Harry Potter Cosplayers. We meet Percy, to go along with Umbridge, Hagrid, Not!Janus, and Trotsky. I also get new classes, and with new classes comes new generics! The high defense Sentinel Dekar, the magic tanking Sacred Slayer Chansey, the move+find Excavator Rafa, and the couldn't think of a better name Geomancer Malak. I get prepared to rescue a hostage, and everyone's desire for Clarissa continues with Labrynthia very interested in undressing her.
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Touhou Labyrinth
92/100, Lv9300
I am nearing the end of my challenge, and therefore nearing the end of playing this wonderfully fun game. I will miss this very much, as I doubt I will come back to another run through of this game in an extremely long time. Over the times I've beaten up the FRUE FINAL, I've learned to love almost every single one of the 40 characters. Here are some of the characters that I've learned to appreciate during this massive trial of masochism that I failed to really realize the potential of in the main game:
Kaguya
It's already been picked up by Tai, and I've been beaten over the head with it by a bunch of people, but damn, that MND piercing property of her magic really really kicks ass on that insanely high (albeit twinked) MAG stat. She's easily now my top damage dealer against the FRUE FINAL, who seemed to love spamming Absolute Defense in his final phase, and earlier attempts found me struggling when I was only using one or two characters with ITD and did not really invest many skill points into Kaguya. Indeed, she is massive twink bait and is a very worthwhile investment. Even using her for Buddabowl, it's extremely convenient at a pinch. In other words, I had to really work hard into making Kaguya the magical destroyer that she turned out to be, oh, 'round the 70th time I started to beat the guy up. At Lv9300 and with Lv7000+ in MAG, she's a destructive force to be reckoned with. Not Flandre-tier destructive, of course, but well there, due to the ignoring MND and all.
Renko
Renko's only here because she has the most wacked skill-set I have ever seen. Debilitate is nothing short of a free "hurrr no buffs for you!" and is far more effective in dispelling the final's own buffs than it is to try using Tenshi's Sword of Rapture, which I'm confidently sure doesn't work often enough for it to be worth using. I took great care to boost Renko's defensive stats and her mediocre speed, with some levels into her decent-ish HP. I ended up ignoring her offensive stats as that's what you're NOT supposed to be using her for. She has an MT IMMA CHARGIN MAH LASER skill that instead gimps your delay and damages you slightly. The timing, is, therefore, required in order to work out the kinks of using the skill. But once you get the trick, it's very useful for quick bursts of damage. Galaxy Stop is also completely imbalanced in almost any situation, costing a measly 60 SP for something so damned good. Right, it does jack shit for damage despite it being ITD because I didn't raise her horrendous offensive stats, but the MT 120 Count PAR and the AGI down is just really useful. In other words, in the previous times I used her to fight the FRUE FINAL, I only used her for Debilitate and not much else, but she's now a dedicated mainstay.
Youmumu
Slow, but that was easily fixed-ish, at the short-term cost of increasing her power up even more (Lv9000-ish in SPD, but Lv6500-ish in ATK). She became an effective random-clearer alongside random-clearing greats as Chen, Orin, Alice, and others. Her ST attacks are relatively strong, though still comparatively same-y when you put her alongside Miss Yuugi and Suicamelon, I really didn't appreciate the power that Youmu had until I dragged her along. Not quite a mainstay in my boss-slaying team as Yuugi is, but still, a worthy character. If you can get over her woeful speed of suck and shit.
Swacko
Dual-type damage. Kinda like Yuugi, except intrinsically worse in stats. I tried to fix them as best I could, going for an even Lv7000 in all stats. Aaaand, well, Swacko's not entirely bad! Snake Eating forever remains a solid ST nuke that deals significant damage against the FRUE FINAL's ever increasing defense. Perhaps it is not as good as, say, Silent Selene or some shit, but it is still reliable.
It's getting late so I'll probably be editing this later but here's some fun mathsy data!
The FRUE FINAL at 100th time is:
HP 1742500000 (1b 742m 500k)
ATK 1703130
DEF 891020
MAG 2121965
MND 891020
AGI is... well, don't bother. He's almost always faster than you.
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Awesme dog ended up the last one standing on the Poison Swamp Level for me <3 Tony's climb/move is very useful early on =-)
Wild Arms XF- Final stretch I do believe. Dithering on whether or not to twink equipment and set ups before undertaking it. The fights just before and upon entering the capital were fun, one in particular was quite epic. Blade Pulsar! Felius ended up finishing it with counter attacks of all things, Ragnar was also left standing thanks to evasion hax with Extremist. I paid a visit to Ragu before entering the capital and had my ass horribly owned to me despite the best of intentions with what I had to work with. I don't know whether or not to bother about winning the fight but I might try again if I do bothering with twinking before defeating the game.
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Okami: Beaten! Time for a MEEPLE RANT! YOU CANNOT ESCAPE FOR THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOU NOW!
...er...I mean...uh...yeah, to the rant!
Where to start...well, I might as well start with the thing that really got me best about the game. Very few games these days...or heck, much in the way of modern media...really show signs that the creator(s) put their Heart and Soul into their creation. I mean, I've seen plenty of examples of games with a lot of effort, but they felt more like "Lets try to impress people, and not fail at it, so lets take intelligent approaches" rather than just making a game for the sake of the art, the idea of making just a good game, a product you can be proud of, regardless of how well it sells, a product made out of care and love, for lack of a better word, rather than the idea of making money.
Okami...is definitely that game. The game just gives this sense that the creators really wanted to make this, and they put a lot of effort in capturing their own selves, what have you. It was a game made for the art, much like how movies in the 30s were made for the art, not the money. I don't mean the unique art style, I mean art in the loose sense. It felt like they wanted the players to experience the adventure for what it is, and just sort of appreciate the hard work. It really stands out cause I can't think of the last game that really gave off this feel. I mean, fanboy side of me would say "FF6!" or something, but even if I convinced myself I wasn't lying to myself, I still have doubts that would come to the level of Heart/Soul Okami gave off.
So yeah, that's what impresses me about Okami the most; that a game in this day and age can still manage to be made for the art of making a good game, and one you can be proud of, not just to please the fanbase and make lots of cash. Granted, they obviously WANTED Okami to sell, but then, who doesn't want their game to sell well? Shame the game was a commercial failure...
Anyway, onto other aspects!
Okami is...what a 3D Zelda should be. I don't know about 3D Zelda's after the N64 era much, but Okami felt like it gave off a better scope and feel of adventure than OoT or MM, if only cause Japan Nippon is much bigger than Hyrule, though, I might be underselling Termina in MM, but the whole "everything revolves around one town" thing didn't really help if you ask me! The dungeons were more interesting, and they all lacked the puzzle design I probably hate most in games like these:
BLOCK PUSHING.
Block Pushing puzzles are major wastes of time, cause a character moves at a snails pace until you move the block into the right spot, and some cases, its possible to perma-fuck the puzzle, making you have to either press the "Start Over" button these games conveniently have, or"Leave room, re-enter, puzzle resets"...either way, its a waste of time. It was a pain in Wild ARMs 3, God of War, all Zelda games with it (well, LttP and LA weren't as bad about the slow moving part, especially since LA let you drag diagonally?) Seriously devs, STOP MAKING THESE THEY ARE NOT FUN OR INTELLECTUALLY STIMULATING. They're just a waste of time, space, and gameplay!!!
...and Okami rocks for more or less completely avoiding these. Yeah, it has BALL pushing puzzles, but they were far more simplistic, far lesser in number, and furthermore, BALLS DON'T SLOW AMATERATSU DOWN. it did involve some physicsing, but beyond one section, you could often just shove the ball against a wall, and use that to avoid screwing yourself over, and again, the puzzles were small in number, so it was more a fresh change of pace from constant Art puzzles, rather than "ugh, another block pushing puzzle."
Also, I give props for the game's platforming. It wasn't there a lot, but that's a good thing, and the good controls, and lenience on Ammy's jumps made them not hard...outside of that one FIRE WHEEL section in the big Ice Tower where you have some time nonsense, but hush. Honestly, the 2nd half of that Ice Tower needed to not exist; the tower was already complete enough as is, adding in generic Ice related puzzles just made the thing feel like its dragging.
Lastly, the game's hints were rather good too. I never really felt lost in dungeons cause either Issun would pretty much spell out what you need to do (through attempts to be cryptic) or simply observing the scenario works well. None of this Water Temple bullshit, that's for sure! Well, one part that did get me confused was the search for the dogs, but I think that was more me not knowing how to Drag someone (I didn't realize when you bite someone, you can hold onto them and drag them.) So really, never felt like I was getting too stuck; I did have to do some extra exploring at times when I was at a loss, but never did I have to check a FAQ and go "oh, dur", and it was more like "find answer 5 minutes later" instead of immediately, contrast to "Run around dungeon for half an hour doing nothing."
The game's battles were fun enough, if a secondary feature of the gameplay. Again, Okami is really what I feel 3D Zeldas should be. 3D Zelda fights were pretty much either "use x tool on y enemy, profit!", outside of the occasional sword wielding freak where its just "Block -> Counter." Okami fights are more straight up, and your options are a lot more interesting. I mean, in a 3D Zelda, I often WANT to bomb things, but it just won't work for the gimmick nature. In Okami, I can draw a bomb and watch it explode on the enemy...IN GLORIOUS FIREWORKS FASHION! Also, the way battles and non-battles were separated RPG style was nice, since you can try to solve one puzzle without worrying about a legion of enemies trying to kill you. Boss fights were gimmicky, but they kind of need to be or less they're just SUPER LARGE RANDOMS which would get lame.
...I have to question why "Bomb Drawing" is something used by heavenly gods. All other spells made sense, since it was basically controlling nature in some way. Want the sun to rise? Draw it! Need wind? You can do it! Slice something in half using DIVINE RETRIBUTION? Ok, I can buy that. Repair something that was lost with rejuvenation? You're a Goddess, so that's fair. Talk to plants so that they spit out long vines pulling you to specific flowers? ...ok, this one is just weird, I'll grant you that.
but BOMBS? They're just random! Its like "Amateratsu doesn't have explosions anywhere, and she's a freaking SUN GODDESS, how can we implement this?" and they just said "Fuck it, SHE CAN DRAW BOMBS NOW!"
This isn't a complaint so much as just being silly...
Which actually plays into my next section, the game's tone and style. Its very playful and lighthearted. Again, one person implied its a very serious and dark game, and I want to punch them for it. No, Okami is an elaborate Fairy Tale based very loosely on Japanese Folklore and such. Seriously, you play as a Wolf who paints things to get stuff done, and her only consistent ally is an immature wood sprite, who does nothing but complain, try to act smart and tough, or gawk at hot chicks. Unlike Zelda fairies, Issun was actually funny at times. The creators KNEW a character like this would be annoying, but its also a necessary evil when your main is a Silent Protagonist, as other wise you're just dealing with loads of Monologues, not to mention that Ammy is GENUINELY silent, not "Hey, she's got implied dialog"; she's a wolf, she CAN'T speak, so you need this medium to talk to people...
So they basically made Issun have no real redeeming qualities other than clearly being a good person at heart, and they even played it up such that Ammy did get annoyed at him at times, and played it more for comedy rather than pretending the character is really this perfect avatar of intelligence.
Ammy being a wolf actually helped her character, not hurt it...it gave a realistic means to make a character NOT TALK for once. Yeah, Link, we know you're a tight wearing pansy who doesn't have the guts to ask Zelda out, but what's your excuse to talking to EVERYONE ELSE? Oh, right, fanboys will scream and rave and go on a killing frenzy if Link so much as says the word "Hi" outside of CD-I or the Animated Series. Anyway, the thing that's nice about Ammy is...the game treats her like a Wolf first, Goddess second, cause to the public eye, that's what she is. They even call the option "Listen" and not "Talk." Furthermore, it makes a little more sense when people say their DARKEST SECRETS to a Wolf than to a human. I mean, thinking outloud to a wolf, the logic is "You're not going to tell anyone, so hey, I can use you to get this off my chest!" TO a human, its kind of weird and...uh, yeah. Though, there were moments that the people talked to Ammy like she was a person, but those felt kind of intentionally silly, and often Issun would try to help make the scene make sense by conversing with the guys in Ammy's stead.
The NPCs all ranged from Fun and Playful like Susano, to...well, token Emos like Oki, who just suck regardless of median. I'll grant Oki gets style points in the fight against the two owls at least...for all that the OTHER Dog ally in the previous fight was infinitely cooler for obvious reasons.
The game, basically, knew not to take itself seriously, but at the same time, didn't try to make a complete joke of itself. God Hand, for example, did the latter, but that was its thing; its a parody. Okami was not trying to be silly or ridiculous, just kind of cute and makes you smile. I guess its most comparable to an Animated Disney Movie like The Lion King or Beauty and the Beast...as in, the GOOD ones. Its light hearted and fun, though has its serious moments, and it has an occasional moment where it just gets you to chuckle, and it was good at invoking emotions when they were appropriate. Yes, the game has its serious moments, but the overall game is not serious, that's why I equate it to one of those GOOD Disney Animated Films; its writing is something all ages can enjoy, and heck, its gameplay too. If she wasn't already playing about 5 different games which get her easily confused, I may have actually let Mandy play this game some, cause she seemed interested in it when watching me.
THough, this is where I snipe at a genuine flaw the game has. Lack of scene skip when it'd be useful; it has scene skip...for points that are not wholly useful, but if you want to replay the game, you have to sit through a lot of dialog over again, even filler stuff and ugh. Really kills the experience of replaying the game.
Furthermore, narrative sequences. The one beginning of the game was boring as shit, just going "blah blah blah OROCHI blah blah blah SHIRANUI blah blah blah NAGI blah blah blah NOW THE STORY BEGINS!" though, kind of needed in order to build backstory and setting. I was letting that pass if it was the only one...but then we got other scenes where its like "And so, Amateratsu and Issun defeated the monster, but MORE DARKNESS APPEARED!" and so on, and...these just weren't very fun. They hurt the quick pacing, we were treated with stills (though they were well drawn, so it fit Okami in that sense), and then the fact that the dialog scrolls kind of slowly...yeah. These parts of the game stood out also cause they were against Okami's general light hearted and playful mood; they were serious bland narratives in a game that thrives on being colorful.
Leading into the next part...the setting. Okami is one of the best handled in this regard, mostly cause the art just really paints it well (no pun intended), and it actually felt like you were in feudal Japan. The music really helped too; I don't remember a lot of individual songs until near the end, but the style being pretty much entirely Classical Japanese really made it feel that way. Proof Capcom went that extra step and tried to make things that worked rather than "Ok, lets just throw J-pop here cause that sounds japanese and EVERYONE LOVES J-pop!" Dear god, Okami with j-Pop, that'd be a nightmare. It doesn't hurt that I find the Classical Japanese style music genuinely pleasing and soothing, so Okami using that had a nice feel to it. Its really quite relaxing when you're just running through fields at ludicrous speeds to hear a nice tranquil song. Some of the more upbeat stuff fit the tones well, as did the coloring used for "EVIL IS COMING!" sections and...you know, I'm just basically saying an obvious fact here, going on about Okami being really good at Artistic things...so yeah, lets just leave it at that.
Oh, and Okami's usage of Japanese names actually worked and felt appropriate here. Contrast to Persona 4, where it honestly just sort of clashed, though, the lack of using Honoraries certainly plays a role. I guess the difference is that Persona 4 didn't really feel like Japan, despite the whole DATING SIM aspect, and it felt more like "yeah, literal translation!" where as Okami it more flowed with the dialog, and even were trying to keep the whole "This game likes its Japanese Myth allusions." Apparently, the localization team specifically shortened a few names to keep the Japanese feel, but make them easier to pronounce for Western Audiences, which...doesn't surprise me (it explains names like "Nagi" and "Susano" instead of "Izanagi" and "Susano-o")
As far as individual themes go...again, I don't remember many, for all that they more or less all fit the game well enough (which is what's important, I guess,) Though, both versions of Reset and "The Rising Sun" were both songs I was fond of, so I guess the game basically went out with a bang in that regard. Interestingly, the Rising Sun I heard a day before beating Okami in TvC, cause they actually have that exact song when fighting Yami's 3rd form. When I heard the song in TvC, I basically went "...that's gotta be Okami's final boss theme; it sounds way too much like Okami's style" and even thought it had a nice feel to it.
Its also the kind of Final Boss theme that's good for a game like this. Its overpowering and inspiring, giving you that upbeat drama effect. I've seen too many games go "HEY LOOK EVIL GUY LETS PLAY EVIL MUSIC!" Okami avoided this for the final form, going more for music that fit Amateratsu's mood rather than the boss itself, a really great way to capture the scenario. The fact that the song in and of itself is good doesn't hurt!
Okami really did feel like a genuine adventure and I know I sound like a sappy reviewer, but really, the game is as advertised, and it really shows the amount of effort and soul they put into the game. I was honestly skeptical at the hype the game was getting, going "its probably alright, but nothing special", but wow, the game is genuinely impressive. It probably could have been shorter, cause I felt the game didn't quite need to be 40 hours, but eh, at the same time, I'm still shocked the game actually took that long, so...I dunno what I'm saying anymore. Damn good game in any event, and more proof that "Modern Capcom kicks ass."
Furthermore, Amateratsu is more proof that Capcom can make awesome Main Characters when they're not trying to be deep or serious...yes, I say this mostly cause she's just a divine wolf, but hush! She rightfully earns her spot next to characters like Dante, Frank West, and Gene.
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Errrr the 2 piece to make one of the stronger AoE threat talents in the game 20% stronger or 4 piece the 12% damage reduction for 10 seconds once per minute on a free an ability that gives you 10 runic power off the GCD?
Sure I would rather a cooldown reduction on D&D, but that is just because I run heroics. Given much more damage and you could almost push D&D into a single target tanking rotation as unholy.
Eh, my mistake. I meant the DPS set bonuses.
As DW Frost though, AoE threat really isn't a problem due to HB. Well, granted all I ever get are ass DPS so there might be a problem I just haven't seen. Blood Tap gives runic power? Huh, well I've never had a use for it so I didn't know.
Actually all this talk of set bonuses is kinda pointless. I'm only getting th T10 piece from random and weekly raid badges. Guild still can't get enough to do Marrowgar or even trash consistently.
See now I am even more confused. 7%/10% boost to your most damaging attacks or what should be effectively a flat 3% damage boost after the first cycle of your runes are both pretty rocking set bonuses >_> (admittedly harder to get as Frost running on Priority system, but Frost DPS is in the shitter at the moment and you should only go it for Improved Icey Talons really). They both beat the shit out of DK T7 and 8 (Both T9 and T10 are pretty freaking sweet though).
Certainly beats the pants off the healing Priest tier bonus. 33% chance to make Flash Heal heal 33% of the amount healed over 9 seconds (It seems to be kind a rolling hot sort of like the Deep Wounds or Ignite dots are) which is alright, 4 piece is 20% chance to make your Penance or Circle of heal make the next Flash heal cast within 6 seconds to reset the CD on Penance and Circle of Healing. Such a huge mouth full to get out and spikey all over the place proc. Just yuck. Rogue 2 piece is great, but the 4 piece is entirely missable, I am better getting some more Armor Penetration off set pieces than the 4 piece.
I love the warrior one though. You have a 20% chance for your Bloodsurge and Sudden Death talents to grant 2 charges of their effect instead of 1, reduce the global cooldown on Execute or Slam by 0.5 sec, and for the duration of the effect to be increased by 100%. Cause you know what Arms needed? More spikey out of control burst threat. Good bonus overall, but damn makes that proc watching even more key.
Edit - Oh and never had to use Blood Tap while tanking? I use a one disease rotation when I am tanking heroics, but not sure if this is optimal for you or should even be done anymore, but anyway prefer it off the pull anyway, Tap and you can get 2 Obliterates in your first set of abilities which is more snap threat than Plague Strike and 2 Blood Strikes. Bonus points for more Rime Proc chances. It is a DPS loss, but not sure if it is a TPS loss to do it, but it certainly gives you more threat to work with in the opening few seconds.
Both DPS bonuses are inferior to the T9. Getting the SS 10% means losing the T9 PS crits, which is big. Granted once I do get 2p T10 I'll have a Reaping build so it'll even out. The 4P bonus is just a different version of the T9 2p. I roughly get a 3% damage boost with it. But once again, Reaping build will screw that up. Mainly this is bitching because I'm so used to the T9 bonuses that I know I'm gonna start messing up once I switch my rotation out.
I honestly never needed to BT while tanking. Rime just procs so much naturally I never need to worry about Rune converting that isn't done by BS Pest.
WOW: T10 helm get. Also got Darkmoon Card: Greatness. Procs a lot less than I thought it would. Never seems to refresh either.
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SRWK - ahahahahahahaha dann of thursday is such a monster
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Dragon Warrior III: After having been crowned queen and then abdicated in less than five minutes, it's time for Lia to go do something useful. Or at least it's supposedly useful. Anyway, it turns out there is a second village in this kingdom, one I forgot about while recovering the crown. Up north is a village where everyone is asleep due to supernatural means. The party heads up there.
One villager is apparently awake for some reason. He mumbles something about an elf queen and a Dream Ruby. Basically, Lia have to get the latter and give it to the former. She heads of towards the elven village.
Now, this could mean there's a third village in this kingdom, but there's not chance the elves are in any way or shape actually part of it other than merely being in it's geographical location. In fact, having elves in you kingdom just makes part of it less "your's". Now there's a large forest from which you cannot chop down a single tree without them going apeshit. Also, Elves-Tolkien=assholes, so you also have some bad neighbors in them.
The elf queen informs Lia that her daughter ran off with the dream ruby and a human man and also adds that the human must have tricked her or something. Since the whole affair has "forbidden love" over it, there's no chance the lovers are still alive. Lia therefore doesn't have to persuade them to give the ruby back, finding where they died is enough. Her's adventurer instincts tells her that they died in a cave located nearby.
The cave turns out to be the hardest dungeon for a long time forward. The enemies hits rather hard and there's fast enemies spamming stopspell as well as other enemies exhaling sleeping gas (or "a sweet breath"). Still, the party makes it trough soon enough. The actual corpses cannot be found, but the Dream Ruby can as well as a letter explaining what's going on. Basically, since the elf queen didn't approve of their relationship they went and drowned themselves so they can be together in heaven.
Doesn't religions in general disapprove of suicide (unless you take a lot of enemies with you) and doesn't religions also in general claim that earthly bonds are broken upon death? 2) Why not just keep running away and live together in life instead of going trough with the whole drowning business? 3) Where does stealing the Dream Ruby enter the picture?
Lia however quickly asks herself "I have the Dream Ruby now, so why care?" and brings the Dream Ruby to the queen. The queen decides that the humans in the sleeping village may awake now, but she won't stop being an asshole. She hands over Wake Dust which will get the awakening job done.
The party heads back to the sleeping village and wakes everyone up. A few things are then revealed. It was the son of the man who escaped the sleep spell who stole the Dram Ruby together with the elven princess. Also, Lia's father stayed in the inn just a day before the village went to sleep. Had the lovers made their move just one day earlier things would have been much different. It's not revealed why waking up the villagers was necessary though assuming it even is. The arms shop does sell Cloaks of Evasion though and I get one for the wizard.
Now it's finally time to leave the kingdom. The party heads easts, an action that wouldn't have been a good idea prior to getting some levels in the dungeon. They locate a new village.
The theme of the village is dishonest merchants. Lia gets the advice that she shouldn't show she's interested in a ware, else she will be ripped off. She follows the advice, but despite that the merchants won't ever sell for less than twice the actual price and therefore ends up not selling at all. Worse, there's some honest merchants too who sells several of the wares the dishonest merchants sells. This makes one wonder what they are thinking. It's probably something in line of "shit, I'm not selling anything, I better jack up the prices to 16x so that I only have to sell a single armor in order to live in comfort for years!"
To the east is a cave which you can't get trough without a letter from a king which you can't reach without the magic key. To the south is the desert kingdom Isis in which the magic key is located. Time to get there.
Isis is annoying to get to. There's an oasis in the world map and entering the various tree tiles takes you to a magnified map of the oasis where a town and a castle is visible. The town and the castle are however blocked off by trees. It's not until Lia casts return and selects Isis, which has now been flagged as available, that the game allows the party to enter a tile which takes them to a place where the town and the castle is accessible.
The theme of this town is that everyone fawns over how beautiful the queen is. The queen herself is more sensible and realizes that her beauty is not something to get to carried away for. Other than that, the magic key is in a pyramid to the north of the oasis. There's a place where magic doesn't work in the pyramid, so the party gets a crapload of herbs.
The pyramid has pitfalls that can be avoided by not stepping in the middle of rooms and a puzzle that can be solved by trial and error or by memorizing a children's song in Isis. All things considered, the Magic Key is easy to get. There's however another treasure available with the magic key. You can find a Golden Claw for fighters in the basement. It's also in the basement that magic doesn't work and getting the golden claw ups the random encounter rate to about one for every two steps. Fun times.
With the magic key in hand Lia goes on a heroic castle treasury raiding spree. She locates some nice loot including an accessory which doubles agility, although it turns out she didn't need the magic key for that one. Oh well. The accessory goes to Seth the Wizard so that he can get his spells of before the enemies already pounded on the party.
Next destination is Portega, the kingdom who's king Lia has to talk to get trough a cave which she assumes she has to get trough. As the name implies, the theme of Portega is being a big port. In Portega a lot of townspeople talk about how much the king likes a certain spice. Lia suspects getting the cave opening letter will take some errand running. This turns out not the be the case. The king justs gives her a letter. The spice will get Lia a ship, something far more worthy of an errand quest than the passage trough a cave.
Anyway, go trough the cave. Give letter to a hobbit who in turn lets the party trough. Locate a new town.
This town doesn't have much of a theme other than possessing the needed spice. Only one man sells the spice, but his daughter got herself kidnapped by bandits. Who would have guessed? Anyway, her fiancé/husband decides to go off rescuing her. Hopefully they will both be kept nearby so that Lia can fetch them both in one go. That will have to wait a bit though. There's resting and exploring other locations to be done first.
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WOW: T10 helm get. Also got Darkmoon Card: Greatness. Procs a lot less than I thought it would. Never seems to refresh either.
15 second buff with 45 second ICD from memory.
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SRWK - ahahahahahahaha dann of thursday is such a monster
Oh you mean the machine that gets like four upgrades when it really didn't need any?
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SRWK - ahahahahahahaha dann of thursday is such a monster
Oh you mean the machine that gets like four upgrades when it really didn't need any?
The S rank+flight upgrade even makes sense to round it up, although it's um kinda awesome as hell! On the other hand, Van is such a fucking batshit pilot that he'd float base Dann of Thursday well into endgame anyway.
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I take it you haven't gotten Overflow yet, then.
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It's not like he's wrong. Post-Overflow Dann just goes past "awesome as hell" and into "seriously, Banpresto, what the fuck."
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I take it you haven't gotten Overflow yet, then.
How much dumber does it get.
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Overflow オーバーフロウ Damage Dealt +25%, Damage Received -25% and Critical Rate +10% when Will reaches 130
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Just want to note that I'm digging the Crystalgate DW3 Play-by-play writeups. They are humorous and make work that little bit more entertaining. It -almost- makes me want to play DW3. Almost.
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ME2- Yeah, that Batarian dude on Omega? I am like 99% sure that is Starscream.
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Oh fuck more ME2-
OH FUCK IT'S WREX.
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Overflow オーバーフロウ Damage Dealt +25%, Damage Received -25% and Critical Rate +10% when Will reaches 130
... WHY DID THEY GIVE MAZIN POWER TO VAN
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Sands of Destruction - Finished. Final boss had overkill and triple turned me and I didn't care.
Overall, decent game. However, it is possibly the most unbalanced game I've ever played, and full of terrible design decisions. Despite this, the core gameplay is decent, and the cast is somewhat entertaining despite the non-stellar writing. Kind of weird. 6/10 seemed right, I guess.
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ME2 - Garrus is Batman. This is late and way after it first comes up, but I just did his Loyalty quest and he is still Batman. HE IS THE GODDAMN BATMAN at that point, but Paragon Shephard cools him down to more Michael Keaton Batman levels.
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Dragon Quest V: Finished.
The game is neat, I'll give it that. I'm sure it was very good when it first came out for the SNES, but by today's standards I can only call it a cute setup. Granted, it is a good game all in all, and I enjoyed it far more than I thought I would.
The game's polish level is in line with 4DS, if somewhat better. The bosses are challenging without being brutally so, the randoms are enough of a roadbump to make you notice them usually, and the character diversity is decent by virtue of monster recruitment. For all that I barely used recruited monsters. Towards endgame things just stopped joining. Equipment setups were very typical DQ, with new stuff costing an arm and a leg and very limited twinking available (who gets the shiny accessory that doubles speed).
Characters:
Main- is a silent main with no personality to speak of. In battle he is good. I fed all my stat-up items to him because I (correctly) assumed he would always be in the party. He came out with fantastic physical damage, lots of tanking, and full healing that proved invaluable. I gave him the Meteorite Armband to double his speed because I liked his high strength boomerang attacks for randoms and his ability to heal quickly for bosses.
Bianca- Of course I took her the game expects you to do so and beats you over the head with this fact. She served as a decent carrier of the Oomph spell, which she was kind enough to pass onto Madchen. Other than that she had bad defense and HP and everything. Found her very useful when she was a kid and could envelope the ghost boss in an illusion!
Saber- Hits things. Tends to go before other stuff. Gets Roar way too late for it to be of use (early on stuff is susceptible to roar, even bosses. Later on things being hit becomes an exception rather than the rule). Still speedy damage isn't too bad, and if he was faster than Oomph he could just store power the first turn.
Yeti- He was the guy who let me see that Roar > earlygame. After that started being less useful so did he. To the point where I dumped him.
Goodian (Slime Knight): Hell yeah. Good durability to physicals, resists fire and thunder by a fair bit, and heals as you need it to. Can toss in damage as well off of speed that is good early (but becomes less so later). Just a very easily gotten and good, worthwhile monster.
Parry: LEGENDARY HERO! Parry is physically tanky and has lots and lots of good skills (Insulate = required for boss fights). It is a pity about his poor speed. I was also kind of ticked when he stopped getting HP on level-ups. Generally just a PC you use thanks to the skillset. Only PC with reliable revival.
Madchen: Fastest PC (they may have upped her speed in the DS version?). Also thanks to the Princess Robes she was my highest Defense PC at endgame. HP was growing nicely for a while and then like Parry's just stopped. Frustrating. Official Oompher since Bianca rejoined underlevelled and late. Also got theSalvation Staff, Sage Stone, and other items because of her speed. Wish she got better MT offense earlier. EVERYTHING ENDGAME IMMUNES ICE ARGH. Still, Oomph, and her Princess Saber let her Buff herself for bosses.
A giant kudos to the party talk system, which livens up the game and contains a metric assload of lines.
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DA:O -
Maybe some minor spoilers? I feel like everyone else who's going to play the game has done so, at this point.
Yeah, somehow I never actually beat this back when I was first playing through it. What the hell, right? Well, I ended up moving and doing a show and having super-extra-zero free time, and plus I was having to slog through the post-four-main-quests but pre-actual-Landsmeet in Denerim section and it really killed my buzz on the game somehow. I finally did muddle through the Arl Howe/Fort Drakon/fucking kill me this Alien Elvenage shit bores me events, and am about to do the Landsmeet proper. From there I presume it'll be just a hop, skip, and a jump to the THRILLING CONCLUSION.
Yeah, despite real life getting in the way of my completing it, Dragon Age is a pretty rad game. I've really enjoyed the amount of C&C in the game, particularly in that your choices often have an effect both on the world and on unlocking new abilities and class specializations. Not to mention that the unpleasantness of some of the decisions you have to make is just some dang compelling storytelling. I've also enjoyed, as a Dwarf Commoner, both my initial origin story and the ways it resonated when I went back to Orzammar. If there's a DA2, and I hope there is, even more ought to be done with that framework. Is there a way as a Dwarf Commoner not to have to kill Leske, by the by? That kind of broke my heart a little.
One thing I wish there had been more of is meaningful quests related to your party members. Alistair's is... you go to his sister's house and they talk. Not all that exciting. Same with Oghren, except it's an old girlfriend. And those, especially the latter, were great scenes, but they had me pining for BG2 and things like Jan's sister's abusive husband, Edwin's Edwina curse, oh my god the amazing mini-quest with Keldorn and his wife, etc. Just a little more texture as far as your companions' lives outside of the camp went. And it would have been nice if Morrigan hadn't been so obnoxious. Oy.
My PC is a goddamn fleshreaper, but controlling a Rogue got old along the way and at some point I'll probably play through it again with a lady mage and do the whole Arcane Warrior/Blood Mage business that's so powerful and eeeevil. I actually stopped using Morrigan after a while and switched to Wynne, since I was always just controlling the former and felt like I was sort of gameplay-spoiling myself for an eventual mage playthrough. Is Wynne supposed to be useful? I dunno, man, the magical healing in this game seems pretty unimpressive. I noticed a significant spike in difficulty when I kicked Morrigan out.
ME1 -
Also started this, as I mentioned. Finally managed to make a female Shepard that didn't look like some horrifying duck/human hybrid, thankfully. Jennifer Hale's just so much better at the VA than whoever that guy is. Just became a Spectre, got the rad alien dudes to join me and don't expect to use anyone but them if possible. Oh, and I'm a Paragon-focused Infiltrator. I though about going Renegade, but something about sci-fi makes me want to act like Captain Picard whenever I'm not being forced to shoot people. Well, except with Kirk-esque levels of sexing things up.
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Street Fighter 4. Unlocked Cammy and Sakura. I changed arcade mode to 1 round so I can get through it faster. Am not good with charging characters, but when a certain someone couldn't beat Seth with M. Bison to get Rose on their profile, I dutifully picked up the controller and tried 6 times - after halfway through, I looked at his moves and decided that teleportation, his. . . firery thingy and the slidey legs is all I need. Killed him. I feel good. I really do suck with charging characters though because I always hit the lower buttons.
Been practicing w/ Viper. I remember Sakura completely. Will beat it with characters after writing a paper, and composing a presentation today. Playing on a 360 controller is weird. . . I feel like I don't fully hit the bottom button sometimes. Also. I need a manual because I want to understand the blue squares, shield breaks and etc, fully.
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ME1 -
Also started this, as I mentioned. Finally managed to make a female Shepard that didn't look like some horrifying duck/human hybrid, thankfully. Jennifer Hale's just so much better at the VA than whoever that guy is. Just became a Spectre, got the rad alien dudes to join me and don't expect to use anyone but them if possible. Oh, and I'm a Paragon-focused Infiltrator. I though about going Renegade, but something about sci-fi makes me want to act like Captain Picard whenever I'm not being forced to shoot people. Well, except with Kirk-esque levels of sexing things up.
I always preferred Mark Meer. Jennifer Hale's voice just doesn't sound jaded enough to me, and no matter what origin you picked, you should be so jaded that everything should be at best, slightly surprising.
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ME1 -
Also started this, as I mentioned. Finally managed to make a female Shepard that didn't look like some horrifying duck/human hybrid, thankfully. Jennifer Hale's just so much better at the VA than whoever that guy is. Just became a Spectre, got the rad alien dudes to join me and don't expect to use anyone but them if possible. Oh, and I'm a Paragon-focused Infiltrator. I though about going Renegade, but something about sci-fi makes me want to act like Captain Picard whenever I'm not being forced to shoot people. Well, except with Kirk-esque levels of sexing things up.
I always preferred Mark Meer. Jennifer Hale's voice just doesn't sound jaded enough to me, and no matter what origin you picked, you should be so jaded that everything should be at best, slightly surprising.
That's funny, I actually think that Hale sounds a fair bit more purposefully detached and guarded. Meer's voicing is just flat and boring, to my ears. Plus, it's not like it's a game about Shepard's PTSD. Well, not Paragon Shepard's, at least. Also it occurs to me that I hardly ever pick Human Male when given an option. Point taken, though.
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ME1 -
Also started this, as I mentioned. Finally managed to make a female Shepard that didn't look like some horrifying duck/human hybrid, thankfully. Jennifer Hale's just so much better at the VA than whoever that guy is. Just became a Spectre, got the rad alien dudes to join me and don't expect to use anyone but them if possible. Oh, and I'm a Paragon-focused Infiltrator. I though about going Renegade, but something about sci-fi makes me want to act like Captain Picard whenever I'm not being forced to shoot people. Well, except with Kirk-esque levels of sexing things up.
I always preferred Mark Meer. Jennifer Hale's voice just doesn't sound jaded enough to me, and no matter what origin you picked, you should be so jaded that everything should be at best, slightly surprising.
That's funny, I actually think that Hale sounds a fair bit more purposefully detached and guarded. Meer's voicing is just flat and boring, to my ears. Plus, it's not like it's a game about Shepard's PTSD. Well, not Paragon Shepard's, at least. Also it occurs to me that I hardly ever pick Human Male when given an option. Point taken, though.
Heh, if Shep isn't totally jaded by the beginning of ME2, he's got to be the most gullible person alive.
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I'm sure I'll have a comment once I've finished the first one. Which should be relatively quickly, since: fuck sidequests.
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Odd, I found magical healing in DA to be what really broke the difficulty in the game. Attack magic is insanely strong, but even just the basic heal spell makes the game so much easier than relying solely on potions. Throughput isn't the answer to why the spells are good, it is the fact that you can have someone else other than the person needing healing do it for them and they can do it from a range. Group heal is just a godsend.
And yes ME1 sidequests are a pretty tedious grind. I recently ran through the game again and did the lot in about 3 or 4 days though, so you can get there if you have to. Stuff you pick up on Citadel is usually worth doing. Things you have to trawl throught he galaxy find tend towards more tedious.
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Huh, really? I can recall a few times when I was still using Morrigan when I would go, "Geez, I could really use a full-party heal right now." But that number was positively dwarfed by the times I though "Dammit Wynne I wish you could cast Cone of Cold." Seriously, that spell alone is heinous. Let alone Sleep, Nightmare, Paralyze, etc. I feel like those times I wanted MT healing only came when I made aome grievous-but-avoidable error in the first place. We'll see what happens on my next playthrough. It's possible that I'm just not noticing how much the healing is helping me.
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Do Wrex's. IT IS IMPORTANT YOU DO WREX'S BEFORE VIRMIRE.
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CSI: Hard Evidence - An adventure game... by TellTale... only without a funny license. Cleared the first two cases, and the game is decent enough bargain-bin style play.
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Character sidequests are something towards which I am favorably disposed. "Scan all the Keepers in the Citadel" is not.
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Dragon Warrior III: It's almost time for Lia the heroine to rescue the daughter of a spice dealer as well as said daughter's fiancé/husband. With almost it means she wants to explore a bit first. That or she simple missed the tower where the kidnappers are holed up and happened to find something else first.
Anyway, she enters the shrine of Dharma, the shrine of making broken characters. Unfortunately, that doesn't include her since the cleric there forbids her from changing her class. She wonders if she should bother changing her companions' classes at all, there's a danger that they become more powerful than she is. Maybe she can compensate by hogging all stat seeds and making sure they give the maximum benefit, but that will probably not be enough. Fortunately, her current party setup works just fine.
Nearby is a tower, not the one where kidnappers are. Talking to people who for some reason seems to live there reveals that the book of Zen, which allows you to change class to Sage, is there. Sounds good, but Lia never felt that the cleric needs to be able to cast mage spells or that the mage needs to cast cleric spells. The book could make the mage less fragile though, but again she fears she may end up with a companion more powerful than she is and instead stresses the importance of quickly rescuing the victims from the kidnappers.
Back to town and this time the party locates the tower of kidnappers. The tower is easy to get trough and so are the kidnappers. It turns out to be Kandar who this time has more hitpoints, but doesn't seem to do much more damage since last. Once he's throughoutly beaten he again asks for mercy and pulls a "but thou must" to ensure he gets the answer he wants. One day Lia will find a way to outsmart the system!
She free the what's-their-faces and returns to town. There she gets the spice as reward. She gives the spice the spice addicted king who sniffs eats it and then grants her the possession of a ship. Score!
A large part of the world now opened up to her, so it's time to travel to random locations and see if she finds something useful. Unfortunately, the first place she encounters is the castle of snobs. The guard there won't even let her in and calls the party "bumpkins". Maybe she could get the kings she already visited to get her a fancy sounding title. Even better, she could take advantage of the fact that she can temporarily become a queen and prepare all the royal documents she will ever need. Or maybe there’s a specific “get past the guard” item.
Well, she locates the needed item very quickly. The next village she hits has it. It's an invisible herb and the villagers even tells her to go to snob castle after purchasing some. Other than that, the village also has a temple which requires her to get the Final Key to access.
West of the village is a mountain pass. The village is however blocking said pass and there's no way to enter the pass without first entering the village. Lia does so and then exits the village westwards. This is in vain as every exit lands her south of the village. There's apparently no way to enter the pass right now. To the snob castle then.
The party becomes invisible right in front of the guard and then enters the castle. Other than useless snobs, there's also a block puzzle, or boulder puzzle to be precise, in the castle basement. Solving it yields the vase of drought. Lia doesn't know where to use it yet, but figures she will when she sees it.
Next the party locates a village in a very poor shape. The villagers are concerned that they are to close to the demonking and that something bad may happen to them. Sleeping in the run down inn reveals that their concerns were perfectly justified, at morning there's no villagers, there's only bones. At nighttime the villagers will be back again. Anyway, Lia decides to explore the currently desolate village and locates it's puzzle. A pile of bones has a letter stating that the owner of the bones wants to give a certain item to someone while still alive. The item is not with the bones, so it indeed has to be obtained while the owner is alive, or at least sort of alive. The owner happens to be a prisoner and while there's a one tile big hole in the prison, a guard is blocking it during nighttime. The jail can be opened with the Final Key, an item Lia doesn't have.
Lia also finds the Dark Lamp while exploring the village. This lets her change from day to night which coupled with the inn means she has full control over whether the villagers will be dead or alive. Awesome! Unfortunately, using it teleports the party to the village entrance, so the Final Key is still needed.
Next time she maybe finds the Key.
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FFIX- You are the reason ATB doesn't work. I didn't even really start to notice until late in Disc 2 (right around the time I recruited the Flaming Lips) but... jesus christ.
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Huh, really? I can recall a few times when I was still using Morrigan when I would go, "Geez, I could really use a full-party heal right now." But that number was positively dwarfed by the times I though "Dammit Wynne I wish you could cast Cone of Cold." Seriously, that spell alone is heinous. Let alone Sleep, Nightmare, Paralyze, etc. I feel like those times I wanted MT healing only came when I made aome grievous-but-avoidable error in the first place. We'll see what happens on my next playthrough. It's possible that I'm just not noticing how much the healing is helping me.
Don't get me wrong, attack spells are ridiculously broken. Healing spells though will let you go on forever no matter what is happening. Ideally you want both available anyway. If you send Wynne down say the Spirit line that has Corpse Explosion and Corpse Explosion 2.0 you are pretty much set for any given situation.
Wrex's side quest involves taking a side quest from a Helena Blake on the Citadel to go shoot some dudes. High reccomend it anyway. Edit - And generally speaking a suprisingly large number of the side quests do come back up in ME2, especially the Cerberus ones obviously.
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I still would have rather the scene where you meet up with Wrex in ME2 had you walking in on him railing a lady Krogan.
"Shepard."
"Wrex."
"Shepard."
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I haven't actually made it to Tuchanka yet, I have it an Illium left and I think I will hit Illium next. Mostly because I kind of want to delay making any decisions about the Krogan Genophage for as long as possible since it is still something I am unsure on how to approach it.
Just finished Tali side quest. Running around Citadel with Tali and Garrus makes for highly amusing party banter.
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ToDrDC - A TALES GAME WITH A DOWNRIGHT INTERESTING BATTLE SYSTEM ON PAPER WHAT THE HECK
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I haven't actually made it to Tuchanka yet, I have it an Illium left and I think I will hit Illium next. Mostly because I kind of want to delay making any decisions about the Krogan Genophage for as long as possible since it is still something I am unsure on how to approach it.
Just finished Tali side quest. Running around Citadel with Tali and Garrus makes for highly amusing party banter.
I'm not worried. I already saved the Rachni queen, if they become a problem I'm sure I can have them wipe each other out again. Besides, I'm pretty sure in ME3 at some point you will be saved by Wrex smashing through a wall riding the Rachni Queen and carrying two heavy weapons AT THE SAME TIME.
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I haven't actually made it to Tuchanka yet, I have it an Illium left and I think I will hit Illium next. Mostly because I kind of want to delay making any decisions about the Krogan Genophage for as long as possible since it is still something I am unsure on how to approach it.
Just finished Tali side quest. Running around Citadel with Tali and Garrus makes for highly amusing party banter.
I'm not worried. I already saved the Rachni queen, if they become a problem I'm sure I can have them wipe each other out again. Besides, I'm pretty sure in ME3 at some point you will be saved by Wrex smashing through a wall riding the Rachni Queen and carrying two heavy weapons AT THE SAME TIME.
Now I'm imagining Wrex as the Kool-Aid Man.
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OH YEAH *CRASH.*
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No. The only way that would work is if Wrex just tosses out a casual "Shepard."
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Given the "SHEPARD!!!!!!" *manly hug where balls barely don't touch* moment in ME2, I think we're past that point.
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wait Wrex gives Shepard a bro grab? 10/10 goty headed to a gamestop right now
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Sounds like Bioware finally learned how to make an RPG - Cater to the yaoi fangirls~
(worked for Kingdom Hearts)
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Have you ever seen a picture of Wrex? Just sayin'
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FFTA2: ...I really need to call it quits on optional quests at some point, cause this game is never being finished at the rate I'm doing things <_<;
That said, I'm suppose to do something with Airships and Sky Pirates or something or other.
Viewtiful Joe: Picked this up cause its cheap, and its a Clover game I haven't played, and considering they were batting 1000 with the games I played of theirs, spending $5 on this couldn't hurt!
Up to Episode 5, about halfway in.
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Sounds like Bioware finally learned how to make an RPG - Cater to the yaoi fangirls~
(worked for Kingdom Hearts)
Epic, epic facepalm.
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PWI: Hit 89, and did my FB. Decided to go Sage, cause I am a good guy. ;D
TvsC: Huh, Roll is actually good. I daresay very good. Her mop push hits knocked-down enemies, and you can combo the super mop push after it also. No coincidence that she has a move that makes you fall down also.
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Have you ever seen a picture of Wrex? Just sayin'
If you're implying that it's not yaoi-fangirl-bait just because he's unattractive and barely humanoid, you clearly don't know enough yaoi fangirls.
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I'll count my blessings, then.
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I'll count my blessings, then.
I am a little mad I can't have a man-love relationship with Garrus but I guess I should be thankful Bioware had Zevryn and whatsherface in Dragon Age.
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Oh dude, nothing on Garrus, but in Mass Effect 1 you could almost swear every time you go to chat with Kaidan on the Normandy it looks like they are just about to tongue kiss. Playing with a Handle Bar moustache may just make this effect even more clear. I think it is partly the red light in the background that does it and the way he wipes the sweat from his brow.
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Kaidan does look like he's hanging out in a brothel, yeah.
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His "I used to be tied up and beaten by a bad alien military man" story really doesn't help the situation.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPMOlEfhWGE
Cut from the game before release, unfortunately. Oddly enough the female Shepard/Ashely scene is actually complete if you unlock it.
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Dragon Warrior III: Lia tries to find the final key. She does eventually find it but first finds just about everything else first.
The first noteworthy discovery is an empty spot where a man wants to start a new town. He wants Lia to get him a dealer to help with the town building. Fortunately, she just happened to know someone she definitely can spare. Kara the dealer joins the party for the second, and probably last, time. The ambitious town founding man seems happy with the assistance. Hopefully the +4% income a dealer grants will be more useful for him than for Lia.
The next noteworthy discovery is a town harassed by a monster named Orochi who demands sacrifices, female sacrifices to be specific. Apparently it was the leader of the town who figured out the sacrifice to pacify monster method. Lia figures out a quicker solution which has the additional benefits of not being temporary and not requiring loss of women. Some townspeople also seem rather enthusiastic about this idea. Their leader is not however. She's in fact downright hostile and wants Lia to leave. Not suspicious at all.
Very close to the town is a cave. The party ventures there in search of Orochi even though chance is the monster's actually in town. They are lucky though and Orochi decided to venture down. Boss battle time.
This one turns out to be a lot of trouble. Orochi usually usee a flame breath attack which hits every party member for about half what Healmore heals. With four party members it means the total damage is about twice of what Healmore heals. This wouldn't have been such a problem had Lia also known Healmore, but she doesn't. Heal and medical herbs aren't really cutting it, so the fight becomes a race against time where the party tries to whittle down Orochi's hitpoints before they wipe. They pull a narrow victory. In another reality they could just have put the boss to sleep and it would have stayed asleep until it died.
The boss retreats trough a warp and what's left of the party follows. The warp takes them to the town hall of the village of sacrificing women. There the leader lies, wounded. The party is however in even worse shape and makes a quick retreat hoping that the monster will stay nicely wounded while they have a rest in Lia's house. It does that.
When they confront the leader the next day, she again tells them to leave, this time adding more threat. Lia refuses and the party has to fight Orochi a second time. Despite the monster being wounded, the fight is no easier. This time Orochi uses the flame breath much less, but it now gets two turns every round, so the damage output is about the same. Again the party pulls a narrow victory.
The monster is killed and the villagers hail Lia as a hero. While this is the kind of stuff she really wanted to do when signing up as a hero, the events still leaves a bad taste in her mouth. In both fights against the monsters she was one of the unfortunate to fall. Harl the fighter had at this point gained much more strength than she had. When the fights started to lock desperate, the party had to focus on keeping him alive so that he can finish Orochi off. While sacrifice is seen as heroic, sacrificing oneself so that someone else may finish off the big bad monster is the job of a sidekick. Had she only known Healmore things would have been different. A quick consult with el-FAQo tells her that it takes way to long for her to learn it. Once she does it won't be long until she learn Healall however.
From Orochi she gained the Orochi sword and an Orb. She is the only one in the party who can equip the Orochi sword, but she has a flail which hits multiple enemies, so no deal. When it comes to the Orb, she scans her memory and recalls someone saying something about six orbs being needed to awake something. Someone else also said doing so will make a ship unnecessary. Lia adds the orbs to her list of items to get.
More exploring reveals the third noteworthy discovery. She runs into the village where her father Ortega was born. The villagers mistake her for her father, apparently not seeing that she's a girl. Thinking of it, this isn't the first time people have gone "what, you're a girl?" Sure, her heavy armor makes it impossible to see that she has breasts, her muscular build is very unfeminine and her mannerism is nothing like what you expect from a girl, but still...
Anyway, after talking to a lot of old friends of her father she gets his helmet. The helmet provides 5 points of defense over her current head wear meaning she takes one less point of damage from enemy attacks now with a 25% chance of having a second point of damage subtracted. Lia can just feel how she's getting invincible!
Finally, Lia finds what she's looking for. Some shoals laying on the south of her magic map turns into an island when she uses her vase. The island has a shrine and inside it is the Final Key.
First she returns to the passage blocking town and unlocks the temple there. A cleric who apparently spends his whole life there greets her and offers her a challenge she has to complete alone. Lia accepts and is granted passage to the previously inaccessible pass. Going west reveals a cave.
Fighting alone turns out to be easy since the enemies are weak and her weapon hits a whole group. Or at least it turns out to be easy until she encounters a mimic who hits her with an instant death spell. Did her father have to put up with this sort of? Fortunately, Lia awakens next to the cleric who's all "oh you died, try again?" and she has a second go. This time she makes it to the end of the cave without any further incidents and finds her second orb.
After that she revisits the dead village. She enters the jail and talks to the man there. He recognizes her as a heroine and gives her a third orb.
More searching gets Lia to a pirate's hideout. They seem to know that she is the heroine and apparently figures not getting in the way of saving the world is more important than looting. The leader turns out to be a female who asks Lia if she finds a female pirate captain strange. Since Lia herself is a girl and leading a band of warriors, she says no. The captain however assumes Lia's just sucking up. Chance is she just enjoys the "OMG, it's a girl!" attention and got cranky when Lia didn't give her that. Anyway, some searching outside the hideout reveals the fourth orb.
Two orbs are left now. Lia also has to pay another visit at the various castles in case the Final Key reveals something more that's not nailed down.
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Viewtiful Joe: Beaten! Played a bit of Dante, nice to see he plays differently than Joe, and come on, ITS DANTE!
Game has a good sense of humor, and generally mocks old super hero cliches well enough. Gameplay is alright, nothing special...it really pales compared to Clover's OTHER 2 games I've played, but that's not really fair (seriously, looking bad compared to Okami and God Hand is not necessarily and insult.) Game is hard, but not stupidly so beyond an annoying section here and there...yeah, I can say it was worth at least the $5 I spent on it.
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Reminder for Pokemon players in the US: You can go to Gamestop through February 14th and download a special shiny Pichu, which unlocks additional content for the upcoming games.
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Oh yeah. Totally forgot to post last night.
BoF4: Beaten! This game's pretty awesome, although I find myself struggling to care about the characters - some were likable (Tee-hee-hee) but with little personal connection. The gameplay is amazing, although having harder bosses and more save points would be ideal - bosses near the end were utterly pathetic outside of Astral, thanks to Shield -> Vitalize. Still, definitely a great game, with pretty much anything you can ask for in an RPG at some point.
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Started up inFamous on a whim. Got through a bunch of the story missions, did some sidequesting. Having fun with it. Doing Good Path, because you're expected to be evil so I say fuck that. Just playing on regular ol' difficulty.
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You aren't really expected to play evil, the evil story line is pretty much a kick in the fork. Hero is no where near a markettable name as inFamous is.
Mass Effect 2 - Finished. Oh hey it is awesome how the autosave is after you can pick someone that will die. Oh well, fun game and really awesome, totally worth playing.
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You aren't really expected to play evil, the evil story line is pretty much a kick in the fork. Hero is no where near a markettable name as inFamous is.
I was being facetious.
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Eh is far from the first time I have seen people say it though and not joke about it. Playing through the evil route and yeah the game lets you know that you are a douche for no damned good reason and that is a stupid thing to do.
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Reminder for Pokemon players in the US: You can go to Gamestop through February 14th and download a special shiny Pichu, which unlocks additional content for the upcoming games.
I should note at this point that the "additional content" consists of a special Pichu that CAN NOT EVOLVE (or be traded, but that's much less important). No, its stats aren't any better than a regular Pichu, either.
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who cares, it's SPESHUL!!!
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Wait, is it the downloaded Pichu that can't evolve, or does it let you GET a Pichu that can't evolve?
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Went on a mini Vaca for the week, but brought my DS and DQ5 along with me.
I'll have all you no, that I am now happily married and have two obnoxious blue haired kids running around in the game.
They grow up so quickly. *tear*
I'm off to find my mothers town or something now.
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Wait, is it the downloaded Pichu that can't evolve, or does it let you GET a Pichu that can't evolve?
The downloaded Pichi is just a shiny Pichu with the 'Fateful Encounter' flag set.
If you trade it over to HGSS, you can unlock the special 'Spiky-Eared Pichu'. This is an alternate form(e) that can't be traded or evolved. However, it does get Pain Split as an event move! That's totally worth it! [/sarcasm]
Back on topic, reading about the jp release of DQ6r gave me the urge to play the English version of DQ5r for some inexplicible reason. Up to the wedding, where I've made a backup save so I can go back and use cheatcodes to level up the alternate wives quickly for stat topicing.
Party chat is really neat, and gives some nice incentive to go talk to every single NPC. Makes me wish it wasn't cut out of DQ4, where you had human party members on a more consistent basis. NPC dialog has been revamped in addition, and there's just generally more of it, with more hints dropped about Nimzo and things being afoot in Nadiria/the Underworld. Ladja/Gema definately had his plot relevance increased dramatically as well.
Gameplay-wise, both the fourth active party member and the increase in recruitable monsters are pretty welcome, as you get far more flexibility on playing around with the whole monster recruiting system overall. The recruiting system itself is still pretty dumb with lower probability monsters, but adding some useful high rate monsters like Rotten Apple mitigates it somewhat. It's more than just the "Slime Knight and space filler show" now*.
*Saber/Borongo excluded because you don't actually recruit it via the usual monster method
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Decided to binge on inFamous just cause. Almost done with the first island, just need to turn on the last substation. All the districts I can liberate are done. 40 out of 350 Blast Shards, 12 out of 32 Dead Drops.
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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon aka Marth is the worst commander of all time.
So yeah, apparently you get sidequests by having no more than 15 people alive. So I have been ruthlessly sending my own PCs to their deaths. And when someone dies, I generally just go on, though I have reset for Abel and Caeda, since they're actually good. Especially Caeda. There probably aren't too many other PCs I'd reset for. My mages are pretty cool, although Lena refuses to gain speed ever and Merric is still catching up, Athena is a reasonably solid Myrmidon (better non-speed stats than I expected), and Wendell is hiarious since I classchanged him into an UOM riding a dragon, and is my best prepromo (only other one I'm using is Wolf, who is pretty darn mediocre).
The game's story is utterly laughable, the dialog could not possibly be more generic and the slew of PCs who join you with negligible to no justifaction is rather silly. Polish-wise, I do miss shoving and rescuing, but otherwise the game's okay. Not winning any awards for being anything above mediocre and definitely the worst FE I have played thus far (though I am still playing it, which arguably makes it better than Geneology) but it's fundamentally not a bad game or anything. More FE is more FE, I suppose.
Super Luigi Galaxy - Almost done!
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FESD is pure vanilla FE in every respect, yes. I can't imagine even caring enough to get the sidequests, personally.
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FFTA2: You know what's interesting about this game? You can spend 2 hours on it and not make ANY plot progress!
...and that's exactly what I did!
God damn Ivalician Optional Mission Syndrome! FF12 had the exact same problem!
(...I suppose if there's something to complain about, this is technically a GOOD thing since its entirely MY fault that I get into this situation <.<)
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Reminder for Pokemon players in the US: You can go to Gamestop through February 14th and download a special shiny Pichu, which unlocks additional content for the upcoming games.
Even if it can't evolve, I somehow really, really would like to have it. ;_;
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100/100, Lv10500
Touhou Labyrinth is officially finished. Not planning to play this again in a very long time. My time is over, this was a great game for me to play~ So yes.
Recently, I've been playing on my Plat again, raising up NFE team. I dunno why.
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EarthBound, bitches. My entire naming scheme was thrown off when I realized I only got five letters for names and not six.
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Persona 3: Just started the Tower S-Link. That's the drunk monk. Fucking. Awesome.
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Smt Devil Survivor - Just beat the king of demons ending. Greatly enjoyed the game as it was more of the same you find in Smt 1 & 2. Next on the list is devil summoner as I haven't yet played one and if it proves as good as Smt 2 then I'm in for a treat.
Cross edge - Finished. Found myself having fun here and there but it ranks as one of the worst games I've played in a long while.
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Yay devil summoner! Do you mean the PS2 games or the older ones?
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The downloaded Pichi is just a shiny Pichu with the 'Fateful Encounter' flag set.
If you trade it over to HGSS, you can unlock the special 'Spiky-Eared Pichu'. This is an alternate form(e) that can't be traded or evolved. However, it does get Pain Split as an event move! That's totally worth it! [/sarcasm]
Actually the download one also comes with Endeavor, which Pichu doesn't normally learn. Potentially useful since they're fairly fast and have fail HP.
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Blueberry Garden - I have decided that this game is Tai. It is nice and simple looking and I spent my entire time playing it wandering around aimlessly while my world slowly drowned. It was a nicely dressed up exercise in futility. You also eat fruit that turns you blue and makes it easier to fly.
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Dragon Warrior III: First on the to do list is revisiting various castles and see what the Final Key can get her. The most noteworthy find is the Expel Shield. It turns out the fighter can equip it and suddenly he has the highest defense of the party. The situation is getting out of hand. He now has higher attack, defense, hitpoints and agility than Lia does and she does not yet have any noteworthy spells. Fortunately she has a group hitting weapon which he can't use, but it still doesn't seem right. Isn't it supposed to be sidekicks who has one skill that exceeds that of the hero while the hero is better at everything else?
While hoping the situation will somehow resolve itself, Lia visits the town under construction. It looks like Kara got a small shop going and a few people has been suckered into immigrating. The town is not yet really useful.
Next Lia goes to a shrine which warps her to a kingdom surrounded by mountains. This one suffers from quite a serious problem, other than the big one threatening the whole world that is. The king has suddenly started to act suspiciously and is now execution happy. Also, people are taking about the Change Staff that allows you to change appearance. Obviously there's no relation between the two. People are also talking about a mirror that allows you to see how things really are.
The first course of action is to go shopping. Then it's time to take a look at the king. The guards won't let the party in, but there's a convenient side entrance. The guard there asks if Lia is there on business. Of course she is, that's why she's taking the side entrance instead of the front entrance! Thus she makes her way to the king which in turns orders the guards to throw her and her followers into prison. The guards does so, but doesn't confiscate any of her equipment. Lia doesn't know if it's because they are dumb or because they are smart.
She uses the Final Key to get out of her cell. A guard is blocking the straightforward exit. Taking to him just yields a "Zzz, I'm talking in my sleep. The king is behaving really suspicious!" and no getting out of the way. Oh well, there's always the less straightforward exit. While getting out the long way, Lia finds a man locked up deeper down than the others. He identifies himself as the real king. Lia is really starting to suspect that the fake king isn't very good at the whole villain business.
Since the guards are already very suspicious of the impostor king and Lia just opened the cell to the real king, he could easily have walked out and rallied the guards. However, he refuses to move. Lia gets the feeling that she is supposed to get the magic mirror she heard about earlier. While much more complicated than needed, this method will get her much more glory than if the real king reclaimed his kingdom, so she doesn't complain.
The mirror lies in a nearby cave, another sign that the impostor king isn't very good at his job. Anyway, the layout of the cave isn't very complicated, but still manages to frustrate the party a bit by negating the "hug the left/right wall" method. Monsters there also like to drain the party of magic. Still, getting the mirror doesn't prove to be to hard.
The first plan is to reveal the fake king right in front of his guards. Unfortunately, cutscene fiat gets in the way and the party is thrown into jail a second time. Not surprisingly, the party still doesn't have their equipment confiscated, so out they go. This time Lia waits until night and enters the king's bedroom and produces the mirror while he's asleep. The king turns out to be a troll who looks about as intelligent as you'd expect considering his actions. Boss battle time.
This fight seems easier than the Orochi fight. Things does get a bit more problematic though when the troll takes out the healer via a critical hit and Lia still hasn't learned Healmore. Nevertheless, her party wins and this time Lia remains standing.
Other than glory and fame, she also picks up the change staff. Time to have some fun.
First she goes to the elven village. Her first plan is to change to an elf or a hobbit and see what she can do. However, the staff transform the party to slimes. To her surprise the elf shopkeeper is willing to sell to them in that condition. Are humans the only creature elves discriminate against? In any case, the rest of the elves manages to see trough the disguise so no fun can be had here.
Next Lia goes home to see if she can scare her mom a little. It works. It also works on a lot of other villagers. Eventually she gets tired of that game and trades the change staff to a hermit for a pirate bone which allows her to find a ghost ship.
Before tracking down the ghost ship, Lia pays the town under construction another visit. Things have changed. The town is now called Karaburg, has a weapon shop with quite expensive equipment, a theatre, a cell and a mansion for Kara herself. Despite the serious lack of housing, there’s actually quite a number of people there.
After some shopping, the party visit’s the theatre. There’s male dancers, a bar and some loot. Lia gets the loot and then leaves. As she’s about to leave, she’s presented a tab of 50,000 gold. While she’s not the type who regularly visits theatres, Lia still got the impression that you’re supposed to pay for entering, not exiting. She refuses to pay and the tab is waived upon the account of her being a friend of Kara. Alternatively, even 50,000 gold isn’t worth getting impaled by a flail.
Taking to the villagers reveals that they aren’t to happy about how the town is running either. One of them however reveals that Kara recently purchased a Orb, so she’s doing something right at least. Lia therefore pays Kara a visit, but she won’t just fork over the Orb. Maybe returning at night will be more fruitful?
Unfortunately, Kara was sensible enough to hire a guard. The guard however also bars the man, who had the idea of building a town here in the first place, from entering Kara‘s mansion. The man wants to warn Kara about an upcoming rebellion, but is now unable to.
Lia looks around and sure enough, she overhears some townspeople plotting rebellion. They seem to be worried when they realise she overheard them. One of them defiantly states she can’t stop it. While Lia is sure she could stop them from much more including breathing, she has no intention to stop anything. Things has to change for her to get the Orb.
Seth casts passtime and it’s day again. Now things are different. The town greeter reveals that Kara is no longer the mayor. The weapon shop has even better equipment to sale. The theatre has turned into a children singing contest hall. In this case Lia gets the suspicion that the townspeople just wanted to spite on Kara and made the theatre as much the opposite of what it previously was as they could. Thinking of it, was there even any children in this town yesterday?
Kara is chilling out in the cell. She wonders what she did wrong, but also reveals she hid the orb behind the throne in her mansion. Lia goes and gets it and decides this earns Kara a get out of jail free card. Kara however decides to stay and hopes the townspeople will forgive her at some point. She may not be to far off, at least one of the townspeople is already starting to wonder if things weren’t better with Kara running the show. Well, making the theatre into a children singing contest hall is a good sign that whoever’s now making decisions isn’t to competent either.
Five orbs of six gained. Next time Lia tracks down a ghost ship and maybe even the last orb.
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inFamous- Beat the first island. I'll miss Sasha's sexy voice and her tripped out interludes, but thus is progress. I'm unsure of whether to call her boss battle awesome or meh. Massive style points, but I can't say it involved much other than moving around firing at nothing and hoping it's real... but then again, thats supposed to be the entire point that it's a headtrip... hmm. Still, awesome game thusfar. Except for Follow the Courier sub-missions. Those can die.
Got all the Dead Drops in Neon, as well as all territory. Woo. Kinda let Blast Shards fall by the wayside while finishing things up though. 43/350 there.
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Blast Shards are kind of meh and yeah Courier sub-missions are the worst. They seem to stop after the first island. There is a few swear inducing Satellite Uplinks after that but generally found the side missions less annoying after the first island (mostly just due to less Surveillance ones and no Courier)
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After Mirror's Edge, Satellite Uplink missions are LOLEASY.
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Yay devil summoner! Do you mean the PS2 games or the older ones?
PS2. Lack of translation means I can't play the old ones for the time being.
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WA:XF -
-1.9, In Which Levin Is Still An Idiot. Puzzle map is easy, the fight after isn't as much so. Levin and Felius crush the peons with Blast and physicals respectively, and Clarissa alternates healing and Sacrifice on the boss.
-Synthesis, In Which I Have To Spend Money To Wait So I Can Spend Money To Get Equipment To Kill Things To Get Money That I Spend.
-1.10, In Which Not!Janus Doesn't Win "Boss Of The Year". I win through a combination of Elementalist spells and ranged physicals wihout much problem.
CSI - Beat. The game wasn't impressive, though it was at least somewhat entertaining.
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Mass Effect:
Train Wrex in shotguns, or just keep him with Assault Rifles?
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Assault rifles are better even at close range.
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In terms of damage output, assault rifles are the clear winner. Shotguns are kind of a niche weapon that you use against groups of enemies or at close range to knock something down.
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So it turns out that Master Dragon, ruler of Zenithia and overall Big Cheese of the DQ 4-5 world, spends his spare time moonlighting as Ned Flanders.
That explains a lot about the DQ universe, really.
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-Synthesis, In Which I Have To Spend Money To Wait So I Can Spend Money To Get Equipment To Kill Things To Get Money That I Spend.
Accurate description of all RPGs?
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FFTA2: I MADE SOME PLOT PROGRESS! Also beat the Red King and got a really nice sword with no skills! That's going to my Chocobo Knight!
Also, when did Vaan suddenly start taking pages out of the Book of Balthier? He's not only stealing his lines, but he's also kind of dressing like him. On the upside, we finally get a Penelo design that doesn't make me want to punch someone (her FF12 Design was just ugly, her FF12RW design was just like the most hideous fashion statement ever)
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Also, when did Vaan suddenly start taking pages out of the Book of Balthier?
Since roughly 10 minutes after meeting him?
On the upside, we finally get a Penelo design that doesn't make me want to punch someone (her FF12 Design was just ugly, her FF12RW design was just like the most hideous fashion statement ever)
Quoted for truth. On that note though, FFTA2 character art is surprisingly nice. Still resembles FFTA/RW art, but it's so much more detailed and clean. And the proportions are just slightly more realistic so it hurts less to look at it.
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Blazblue - Fought a really awesome Taokaka (and won)... But I saved the match, since my opponent's combos were better than my own. Just 73 more Ranked matches, and I'll have all the trophies in Blazblue.
Disgaea 3 - Trying to work on proper monster recruits to get their defenses high enough to actually survive in the Reverse Pirating of my Trapezohedrons. It's... Only going slowly, since I'm also obsessed with going through their Class Worlds with at least one cloned item.
Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - Just to give the series a fair chance (and since a friend said he'd pay me if I actually beat this one or FE7), I gave this a try. Got to chapter 4. Is it always going to feel this slow and painful to play?
Bowser's Inside Story - Put this down for a long while. Still at the trash heap behind Mushroom Kingdom's Castle. That's not a fun boss, even if it is easy while I have the Challenge Medal on.
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Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - Just to give the series a fair chance (and since a friend said he'd pay me if I actually beat this one or FE7), I gave this a try. Got to chapter 4. Is it always going to feel this slow and painful to play?
I am fairly sure there is an option to turn off the animations if it's that bad. Makes things very dull, but definitely quicker.
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Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones - Just to give the series a fair chance (and since a friend said he'd pay me if I actually beat this one or FE7), I gave this a try. Got to chapter 4. Is it always going to feel this slow and painful to play?
I am fairly sure there is an option to turn off the animations if it's that bad. Makes things very dull, but definitely quicker.
I'm more along the lines of conversation that is slow and pointless and boring and unskippable. Animations are cool, even though enemy turns also take forever, since they move one at a time instead of all at once. Yes, I'm very spoiled by Disgaea here.
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...wait, what? Fire Emblem conversation is no worse than any other RPG, and you're comparing it to Disgaea which... well, I found the conversations in Disgaea to be hideously slow and dull.
Each to their own, I guess. >.>
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So it turns out that Master Dragon, ruler of Zenithia and overall Big Cheese of the DQ 4-5 world, spends his spare time moonlighting as Ned Flanders.
That explains a lot about the DQ universe, really.
Madchen: So then Dr Agon is also a god, right? Does that mean he is married to the goddess? I feel sorry for the goddess.
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Deus Ex: IW - This still sucks but I will finish it anyway.
Hey if you have to play one of the FE games you may as well make it 8 since it is the easiest of the lot and practically breaks itself for you, easy money.
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...wait, what? Fire Emblem conversation is no worse than any other RPG, and you're comparing it to Disgaea which... well, I found the conversations in Disgaea to be hideously slow and dull.
Each to their own, I guess. >.>
Yes, but at least conversation in Disgaea is skippable, compared to... How many shades of generic and required watching? Sure, the beginning/end of a chapter may be required watching in Disgaea... I'm not sure, I never bothered skipping it; but the fact remains that even though the number of stages between Disgaea and FE could be comparable... The pacing is far from being even remotely close; Disgaea has maybe... 6 stages on average per chapter, for maybe an average of 11 chapters. FE does this at the beginning and end of each chapter... Where chapter = stage... At least 30 times? Nevermind, I just found the skip cutscene function.
Besides, I wasn't comparing the script to Disgaea. I was comparing gameplay - enemies in Disgaea all move at once before attacking, while enemies in Fire Emblem... ENEMY TURN -> Move -> Attack -> Move -> Attack -> Move -> Attack repeat ad nauseum. In Disgaea, it's ENEMY TURN -> All Move -> Attack -> Attack -> Attack... Not to mention that in Disgaea, you don't have distractions of "SHUT THE HELL UP AND LET ME PLAY!" caliber in the middle of a map... And don't even get me started on the method of gaining items.
Please don't tell me there's an option to make the game more dull. It really doesn't need that.
This isn't even to mention that the series' reputation of style feels like it's punishing my style of OCD/preference of gameplay.
But like I said, I only recently hit chapter 4. The game could pick up, I don't know. I just know that this early on, it feels boring. I think the biggest challenge of playing this is going to be not falling asleep or raging out from frustration while playing.
EDIT: And the game did manage to pick up in chapter 5!... After I finally caved in, and used Seth to recruit Joshua after 6 frustrating resets of character deaths.
...Maybe I have been judging this game too harshly... A little.
But the fact still remains that it punishes my preference of gameplay and I don't like it for that.
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SRWK - Okay, so I have to redo the Claw stage in order to actually get Fasalina and Michael. The upgrade given to Dann of Thursday is so utterly overkill that I can't help but wonder just how much of a GxS fangirl Terada is. Also, Blade Gainer inherits Godannar's upgrades? Fuckin' ace.
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Michael and Fasalina inherit from Dann, too, but by the time you get to that stage you can't do anything about it.
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Michael and Fasalina inherit from Dann, too, but by the time you get to that stage you can't do anything about it.
Like that's an issue when the Dann is the machine I've upgraded the most on like all fronts.
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You never know. I stopped upgrading Dann around 60% because it didn't need any more power to be MVP.
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Given how inefficient upgrading in general gets past -that- threshold and how 60% upgrades across the board tends to make a lot of machines deadly, I'm not really worried. I think Dann is within that area itself - 60% across the board. Goddamn, having a Super that dodges a lot is fun.
/me also gave Prophecy to Van just because I could~
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her FF12 Design was just ugly
I disagree as I find the FF12 design very sexy and snazzy :P
Devil survivor - Getting all the endings while waiting for devil summoner. Got the Yuzu ending and its nowhere near as bad as people say it is. I mean it has overlord Honda for YHWH's sake.
Also who the hell sends you those emails at the end? Its from "M" and the dark outline looks like it could be Metatron but if so, what exactly is a 8 foot tall angel using a DS for?
If no one tells me I'll have to assume metatron and YHWH don't appear because they're too busy playing super mario bros together or something. Which would kick all kinds of ass 8-)
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I presume it was Metatron telling you you're an arse.
Yuzu ending is good. Gives +7 or so speed? Makes your turn come about faster which can definitely be handy when coupled with Tyrants.
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The beginning of Star Ocean 2 drags like a bitch, just like every other tri-Ace game. But I do like how Claude is just like "Welp, I broke galactic law. My bad. Better try and impress this chick so I can bang her and her fine-ass mom." And then when the Mayor is telling him how dangerous it is to fight the rapist/cannibal (still not clear on which he was aiming for) Claude just responds "Please, I have a kickass raygun."
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Besides, I wasn't comparing the script to Disgaea. I was comparing gameplay - enemies in Disgaea all move at once before attacking, while enemies in Fire Emblem... ENEMY TURN -> Move -> Attack -> Move -> Attack -> Move -> Attack repeat ad nauseum. In Disgaea, it's ENEMY TURN -> All Move -> Attack -> Attack -> Attack... Not to mention that in Disgaea, you don't have distractions of "SHUT THE HELL UP AND LET ME PLAY!" caliber in the middle of a map... And don't even get me started on the method of gaining items.
Because remember, watching attack animations over and over and over is playing the game (I know Disgaea has since put in an animation skip function after D1, but you konw what? Disgaea without the flashy animations is even worse than Disgaea normally is, which is to say it is fucking abyssmal).
Just remember people, no matter how much you like either game, both of them are shit.
Edit - As we resolved in Chat the argument here is the normal issues with FE. Highly punishing RNG, permadeath and FE general anti-grind features. Nothing to do with turn length.
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Persona 3 FES: Okay. Coming to this from P4, I complained about the lack of control over allies. Then, it turned out they were pretty intelligent and I didn't really care. Now, what the fuck.
Reached the F72 boss with Akihiko dead, so Mitsuru/Yukari/Junpei as the party. The three Gigas things proceed to get knocked down by Yukari and the All-Out Attack takes them down to about half health. "Perfect!" I think. How wrong I was. Mitsuru then misses, Yukari uses a physical attack, and Junpei is Junpei. Having assumed Yukari would use Magaru again, I now have to watch as the Power Charged enemies proceed to DESTROY Yukari and Mitsuru. "Not a problem," I think, "I'll just switch to Pale Rider and use Garula - I don't even need to waste my revival items!" So I do. Except it does barely any damage, despite weakness, and I now have to decide how to kill them. I can't AOA, because they'll destroy me (having PC-ed again), and Garula does single-digit damage, so I'd run out of SP before winning. I decide to switch to Titan and Kill Rush one of them, killing it. I then try again, and... one hit. Dammit. It killed me.
Now, the problem I had here? Junpei. He was on Act Freely for the first half, and was switched to Full Assault after Yukari/Mitsuru died. HE DID NOTHING. Seriously, is this plot-based or something? Because that's a really fucking retarded idea - "OH YEAH I'm pissed off about taking orders, so I'd rather let myself get killed y'know?!" If it's not plot-based, why the fuck is Junpei so retarded. I was there using Slash Attacks randomly and they worked fine, so why the hell didn't he?
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SDGGGW -
Ground a pilot (Luke (GG) to be specific) up to level 31, bought a new Devil Gundam Final and ground it up to level 40 with the tier 4 level gain set. Gave it Berserker Systems I, II, and III. Ex V was not particularly happy with this turn of events, but Zero-G still managed to put up a fight with its annoying dodginess. Only ended up triggering the break twice that map, but since all three I saw were all 'Destroy all the Guarder Mk IIIs' I don't expect that any I missed out on were going to be particularly interesting.
Collected all the now-unlockable items, got one of the three units I was missing from beating Ex V and I had looked up how to get the other two earlier. It involved equipping a particular unit with a particular part, which is fair enough in and of itself, but you then had to go on and use the unit rotation system on that unit, which is thoroughly nonintuitive.
So all I could really do now is grind more in order to hit all the breaks in Ex V or build up money and buy all the rest of the pilots. Neither of these options sound particularly entertaining.
So! In general, I loved it. Nice break from the way in which SRW et al go about things. Only real complaint that comes to mind is the getting one item per stage system when there are 140 items to unlock and only around 50 stages, in a game where there is no real need to grind excepting for Ex V.
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Less Junpei, moar awesme dog.
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Now, the problem I had here? Junpei. He was on Act Freely for the first half, and was switched to Full Assault after Yukari/Mitsuru died. HE DID NOTHING. Seriously, is this plot-based or something? Because that's a really fucking retarded idea - "OH YEAH I'm pissed off about taking orders, so I'd rather let myself get killed y'know?!" If it's not plot-based, why the fuck is Junpei so retarded. I was there using Slash Attacks randomly and they worked fine, so why the hell didn't he?
Was Junpei equipped with an elemental weapon. I haven't played FES so I don't know exactly how they work, but that could have been why he didn't attack. Also, if you wanted Yukari to hit them with another wind attack you should have changed her tactic to Knock Down (or whatever it was called).
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Because remember, watching attack animations over and over and over is playing the game (I know Disgaea has since put in an animation skip function after D1, but you konw what? Disgaea without the flashy animations is even worse than Disgaea normally is, which is to say it is fucking abyssmal).
Just remember people, no matter how much you like either game, both of them are shit.
Edit - As we resolved in Chat the argument here is the normal issues with FE. Highly punishing RNG, permadeath and FE general anti-grind features. Nothing to do with turn length.
FE8 is notably not anti-grinding though, especially by FE standards. If you want to become 20/20 after Chapter 10 or whatever you can, it just means you probably need to re-evaluate where all that time is going.
I like turning off the attack animations in all games that can, personally. I don't really think battle animations contribute positively to the game. Brigandine is just unplayable with the attack animations on for example.
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Dude: Nah, Junpei's got some high Crit rate weapon. I didn't set Yukari to Knock Down because I assumed she'd use Garu attacking anyways, and I needed her to heal if things got bad. Turns out, they got bad way too quickly, and against her. Whoops.
Agreed with Ciato on attack animations. I tend to have them on for, say, 2-3 fights. Maybe turn them back on if I get a cool-sounding new move. Anything else, they're just a waste of time, especially for FEs.
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A setback like that is a good way to learn to take hold of the reigns of the AI. You can reset the settings on each character each turn, so just remember that and plan ahead.
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Mm, definitely will be from now on. Although I'm still confused as to why Junpei blatantly ignored the orders anyways and did fuck-all. I'm going to put it down to Junpei being a 'tard, methinks.
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I tend to turn animations on unless I keep redoing a fight over and over again and just want it over with. I'm a sucker for these things.
Though, exceptions exist, like Brig comes to mind. I know in Chaos Wars, not knowing of Animation Skip made some bosses downright dreadful to fight, like the boss of the 2nd to last chapter who spams his ULTRA COMPLEX ANIMATION SUPER MOVE. Egads that was a painful fight cause of how long it took, primarily cause of that move. If I knew Animation Skip existed (not intuitive in that game), life would have been so much easier.
(certainly made the Final Boss playable)
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Brig's attack animations are bad in the way low budget PSX polygons can only be. There's a reason the remake ditched those for little sprite physicals instead.
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I find that I turn off animations for console games but leave them on in handhelds. I think the size difference just makes it harder to track without the bigger pauses for the animations.
Speaking of.
FE6- Decided to pick this back up. I seem to have left the old ROM and save files on an older computer, so had to start over. C5. At this stage, the differences between it and the other GBA games (reinforcements) haven't really had a chance to show up. Although it seems to me that the game isn't shy about having large enemy counts from the get-go... and, of course, non-sword weapons failing and lower stat totals (ie low Skill) mean I occasionally have to pay attention to the weapon triangle.
Playing as a break/compliment to
Earthbound- Just got out of Moonside. I can't help but feel that, if I weren't FAQing everything, I'd be pretty annoyed at the game. Comparisons to Dragon Quest are apt in many ways, and not particularly saying what you're supposed to be doing at points is among them (although it has nothing on the order of the Zenithian Armor Hunts so far). Not bad for all that, but also something I have a hard time playing at a stretch. One dungeon at a time is pretty well enough for a given day.
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EB has something in game that Dragon Quest games only wish they had though:
Hint Guys.
Just about every town has one of those guys where if you pay them money, they pretty much spell out what you're suppose to do (or at least, point you into the direction, where you'll fumble upon the right thing to do by accident.)
They're basically the game's equivalent of Fortune Tellers that some games (often Non-RPGs) have.
I beat EB without any guides, frankly, and didn't get too last, when I was in like 7th grade, where as I doubt I'd do the same with a Dragon Quest (heck, in HIgh School, I still needed a FAQ in DQ5, and that's straight forward by the series standards!)
So I think that saying they're just like Dragon Quests in regards to direction is rather harsh, cause EB you can figure out what you're suppose to do by talking to everyone much easier than Dragon Quests.
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SRWK - I went through the byzantine requirements for Fasalina and Michael to get losers who don't even break 5k with their finishers at six upgrades? *Punt.*
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Saudade of Sunday has a natural A in space, at least.
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You know it's sad when that's a legitimate advantage. Granted, whenever I'm in space, I'm just tossing the SEED Destiny yaoi guys (YES, LACUS IS MANLY TOO WHAT ABOUT IT) at the universe first and foremost.
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inFamous- Stopped right before the Anything for Trish mission. Zeke is amusing, and the Street Fight sub-mission was easily the best one so far. Massive firefight between 20 enemies with you in the middle? yesplz. Been combing over the city for Blast Shards, over 50% done there. The Dustmen are a lot more fun to fight than the Reapers, at least. The Alden Strikes mission was... cool but annoying. Place was just too goddamn big.
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Dragon Warrior III: Time to track down a ghost ship. It's done by using the pirate bone and then you're told how far north/south and east/west you need to travel. The ghost ship floats around randomly, but not fast enough to make tracking it down harder. I don't know if it can spawn in an inaccessible position though.
The ghost ship has a lot of dead who aren't quite dead. Ghosts who look like flames, ghosts who looks like humans and ghost who looks like skeletons, or is it skeletons who look like skeletons? Talking to them reveals that the ship wasn't a very nice place even before becoming a ghost ship. After searching a bit, the party eventually discovers Luvmemory in a chest. Lia assumes that the teenage poetry book is important and takes it with her. Once she's confident she got all easy to find loot, the party leaves the ghost ship.
Next destination is a lake which one can reach from the seas via rivers. Unfortunately, a ghost is there and said ghost kicks the party out of the lake. Nearby is a shrine with a man who explains that a woman drowned herself in the lake after she heard (and confirmed?) that her lover died while sailing. He also suggests that if she's reminded of the love between her and her husband she may find peace. The party sails as close as they can without getting kicked out and Lia holds up the teenage poetry book. She even goes as far as to read from it after making sure her companions knows she will be very angry if they tell anyone about it. It's of no use though.
Desperate, Lia orders her companions to sail into the getting kicked out point and after being kicked out yet again, she tries waving and reading the teenage poetry book a second time. This works. Both the woman in the lake and her lover appears and have a talk in a globe of light. Then they disappear. The party can now enter the lake which has an island with a shrine on top of it. Inside the shrine is the Gaia Sword.
Then they travel to a volcano and casts the Gaia Sword into it. The volcano causes a lot of earthquakes and reveals a new path by clearing the mountains who happens to be in the way. The new path leads to a cave. Inside the cave Lia finds both an armor and a weapon only she can use. The weapon is stronger than what she currently has, but lacks the ability to hit multiple enemies, so no deal. However, it can also be used to cast quite a powerful spell and since Mye is lacking in damage department, she gets it. Unfortunately, it appears that if you can't equip it, you can't use it either.
After making a good job of exhausting both Mye's and Seth's MP pools, the party makes it to the other exit. There they find a shrine. This one has a man who's impressed they made it there and gives Lia the last orb. Time to go to shrine #138 and use the orbs.
Like all other shrine, #138 has people who apparently has lived there since the dawn of time and does absolutely nothing else. In this case it's two women who likes repeating each other. Lia uses the orbs to awaken the Lamia bird who takes off and lands somewhere outside the shrine. The women explain that the bird can fly them wherever, but that it will only obey someone pure.
Fortunately, the latter turns out to be just talk and Lia is saved from the trouble of having to find someone who's both pure and that will obey her. It's time for a rest for now though. Next up is getting to whichever places she couldn't reach before.
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Knights of the Old Republic: Started this and I already want to set fire to Carth.
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non-sword weapons failing
Don't forget about anima magic! And bows deserve note for being probably the least bad they have ever been in the series, since they're quite accurate, and hit 3x weakness on an enemy type the game goes fanboy mode over in the second half, wyvern riders.
FESD - Wow, around Chapter 13, the game finally discovered map design. This is pretty refreshing seeing as it is something that the series 90% of SRPGs could really stand to pay more attention to. Also, I take back what I said about the game's polish (well, some of it) because I realised it has mid-animation animation skip (and unlike SRW OG1-2, it still shows the effect on HP), and enemy phase display skip. Cool. Still has its other flaws (hahaha what plot, stupid character clutter, clunky menu system, some questionable balance decisions) but now it seems like they actually have tried to remake a shitty game and make it notably better while not pissing off the original fans too much. So uh good for them? Respect for game up, might be a 6 or something.
MVP so far is probably Caeda, also using Marth, Abel, Barst, Athena, Merric, Linde, Beck, Wendell, Minerva, Julian, and now Catria. Prepromos will probably both be dropped eventually (the base stats are just bad, for the level) but both are rather handy now.
Super Luigi Galaxy - Oh yeah, since I don't think I mentioned, finished this, cleared the Grand Finale galaxy. I am teh SMG master or something. Fun romp, not much to add about it at this point.
I also beat NSMB again since I'm not sure I mentioned -that- either.
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Finished InFamous and Radiata Stories, started Wild ARMs 5.
InFamous was a lot of fun. I enjoyed, not necessarily the selection of powers, but the availability of all of them at once without weapon switching. Story was cool in a wonderfully comic book-y way; the ending (I played Hero) fits supers so well, it's hard to believe no major Big 2 character has it as their origin - but offhand, I don't know of one who does.
Radiata Stories was... less fun. Not aggressively bad, but the pacing was incredibly uneven (60% or more of the game, including a majority of the optional content, comes BEFORE the split path? Man, what?) and the romance that was central to at least the direction I went was ridiculously undersold. Probably a 5 game, ambitious and did a lot of interesting things, but did them awfully poorly in many respects.
Wild ARMs 5, on the other hand, is freaking AMAZING. I can't believe how good it is. Best game on the PS2? Unless it falls apart at the end, I'm pretty sure it's going to be.
Best script of the PS2 era? Again, barring a late-game collapse, it's a lock; if Uncharted 2 didn't exist I'd seriously consider it a possible best script in gaming, full stop. FF12 and DQ8 have better DIALOGUE because their voice acting is superb rather than awful, but mute those voices and look just at the lines and every bit of WA5 is pitch-perfect. It sells me on scenes I've never been sold on in another game (or anime). Dean especially SHOULDN'T work (he's basically a generic Shonen protagonist), but his lines are done just so and I can actually buy him as a brave, determined young man rather than a moron.
I had four complaints early in the game: under-complicated puzzles due to replacing the tool system with the ammo system (but the ammo types have multiplied enough to be sufficiently interesting), too many random encounters (but the pacing of the ability to negate them is just perfect and negates this), too easy (but avoiding random by running pretty much brings bosses to "just right" difficulty at the point I'm at) and shitty voice acting. Only the shitty voice acting (mostly Dean; he's a tough sixteen year old, dammit, not a fucking little kid! Did you even READ the script?! Or speak to a sixteen year old in decades?!) remains to drag it down, which is a shame, but the game is PRETTY good about allowing me to shut those off.
Character customization, challenge, exploration, puzzles and dungeon design all seem very good, too.
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Wild ARMs 5, on the other hand, is freaking AMAZING. I can't believe how good it is. Best game on the PS2? Unless it falls apart at the end, I'm pretty sure it's going to be.
Best script of the PS2 era? Again, barring a late-game collapse, it's a lock;
Ohhhhhh.... boy. You are in for some serious scrotum-twisting.
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Just wondering, did you play WA4? The DL is one of the few places I have seen that actually picked up a relatively strong positive reaction to the game, wondering where that would fit in.
And on FE8 and anti-grind. FE8 level cap is so ridiculously easy to hit that it qualifies really. You don't even have to try. Compare it to Disgaea and the differences are astronomical.
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Ohhhhhh.... boy. You are in for some serious scrotum-twisting.
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Wild ARMs 5, on the other hand, is freaking AMAZING. I can't believe how good it is. Best game on the PS2? Unless it falls apart at the end, I'm pretty sure it's going to be.
It's nice to see enthusiasm for a game. It really is kinda rare to see this type of effusive display at the DL. I also enjoyed WA5's general tone and its ability to sell some particularly embarassing anime-trope-style scenes better than other games (ToS, Lunar come to mind for comparison).
Though, 'best game on the PS2' is the kind of overstatement you find in GameFAQs reviews... >.>;;
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Just wondering, did you play WA4? The DL is one of the few places I have seen that actually picked up a relatively strong positive reaction to the game, wondering where that would fit in.
I'm still baffled by some of the criticism WA4 gets. I mean, I know people expect game filler like that, but what would it have mattered if Hugo got his powers by falling in to a vat of liquid time? He just uses them to try and kill you, and when someone tries to kill you, you try to kill them right back. I mean, yeah, it would be nice if there were optional quests where you could investigate them or something, but I'd rather it not be in the game at all rather than have it be mandatory.
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WA4 really didn't need its central theme, the main plot is fine(ish), but the CHILDREN ARE JESUS was not needed, but yeah I agree on the pacing and way the game handles most of the villains, death and whatnot.
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Mentioning Crescent Hawks' Inception made me want to play Crescent Hawks' Inception. GO GO DOS BOX!
Now, it's time for my trusty exploit. Step one: get a few hundred C-Bills. Step two: Use all C-Bills to buy stock in Defiance Industries. Step three: Go to bed. When I wake up I will be disgustingly rich because Defiance Industries' stock price only does two things: go up, or stay the same.
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Which RS path did you take? Human or Fairy side?
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WA:XF
-1.11, In Which There Are Puzzles Solved By Smashing Things.
-Intermission, In Which Some Crazy Guy Is Making Soup For Dead People, And I'm Completely Sure There's No Way He'll Become a PC Whatsoever, Nope.
-1.12, In Which Brute Force Trumps Stupid Puzzles. Yeah, Didn't bother with the Laypoint puzzle. Instead, I had five people playing vanguard/healer to Levin as he crushed every one of those stupid enemies with Blast.
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Mentioning Crescent Hawks' Inception made me want to play Crescent Hawks' Inception. GO GO DOS BOX!
Now, it's time for my trusty exploit. Step one: get a few hundred C-Bills. Step two: Use all C-Bills to buy stock in Defiance Industries. Step three: Go to bed. When I wake up I will be disgustingly rich because Defiance Industries' stock price only does two things: go up, or stay the same.
Except when Hesperus II gets invaded.
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Does that happen in CHI? I've never seen it, mostly because it's set in that long gap between the Twelfth and Thirteenth Battle of Hesperus II.
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Just wondering, did you play WA4? The DL is one of the few places I have seen that actually picked up a relatively strong positive reaction to the game, wondering where that would fit in.
Disliking WA4 (compared to the rest of the series) is why I hadn't played WA5 until 2010. :P The theme, characters and story massively unsold me, the puzzles were series-worst to the point of seeming almost nonexistent, and WA is one of the VERY few series where losing a traditional world map was a HUGE blow rather than an actual improvement.
It's the low point in the series to me by far, but in fairness Wild ARMs is, taken as a series, pretty much the most consistently excellent in the genre. (WA2, WA3 and WAXF are all 9/10 games on my rankings, and WA5 so far seems better than any of them.) WA4 I would call exceedingly average, although, like Radiata, it *tried* a lot of things, I didn't feel it succeeded at many.
Though, 'best game on the PS2' is the kind of overstatement you find in GameFAQs reviews... >.>;;
:shrug: Somethin* has to be system-best. For me, that means WA5 barring a late collapse, Final Fantasy 12, Dragon Quest 8, or the original Devil May Cry. If Resident Evil 4 Wii didn't exist, the PS2 version might make the short list, but there's no way I'd consider giving system-best to a game that has a strictly better version available. I can't think of another game I'd even think to include. DMC3, maybe? But it was hard to the point of being frustrating/hurting my wrist/preventing me from finishing it, at least to date. Final Fantasy 10? I guess it would round out the list.
"Best on the PS2" is sort of damning with, if not faint, at least moderate praise, though. Even if WA5 just keeps going from high to high from this point on, I doubt it would manage to get into my Top 5 on the PS1, and as of this point it would be struggling to Top 5 on the PS3. Yeah, probably wouldn't crack the Top 5 PS3, either, unless it knocked Valkyria out?
Which RS path did you take? Human or Fairy side?
Fairy.
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Fairy
You should give the Human path a go then, its far more entertaining except for the ending scenes which are retarded.
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Fairy
You should give the Human path a go then, its far more entertaining except for the ending scenes which are retarded.
I went with it simply because the city of Radiata > everywhere else, but mostly because there are NO GODDAMN ELVES.
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Amen to that.
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Fairy Path is>>>>>>>>>Human both for story and Jack's character work. I found him pretty insufferable on the human path.
Gameplay I hated either way.
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I found Jack's voice during battles insufferable. I wanted to strangle whoever decided "turn off voices" wasn't an option, and that Jack needed to yell EVERY. DAMN. HIT.
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Fairy Path is>>>>>>>>>Human both for story and Jack's character work. I found him pretty insufferable on the human path.
Gameplay I hated either way.
Pretty much agree with that. I honestly don't see any advantages, plot and writing wise, to the human arc.
I also don't see how its more "entertaining", unless you find Jack's cronic idiocy in the Human Path actually funny (personally, I just wanted to punch him every time he spoke. Fairy Arc, they made him a serious character...and wouldn't you know it, he actually wasn't half bad as one either.)
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Ohhhhhh.... boy. You are in for some serious scrotum-twisting.
Agreed, and I loved WA5. I agree with BCB about the beginning, but you'll run into the problems beforelong. The problem with the game is that it seems they took what was probably and amazing script/story from the novelist and rewrote it with RPG and Wild Arms tropes, so you have some amazing base concepts and a fantastic start to the game, but after a certain point things just are not fleshed out with the exceptions of a few flashes of brilliance. It's just a case of horrible execution. I heard the novelist was very unhappy with what they did with her draft, so I'm really curious of what that was like.
Does that happen in CHI? I've never seen it, mostly because it's set in that long gap between the Twelfth and Thirteenth Battle of Hesperus II.
No idea. Never played CHI. Just making an off comment, since a Hesperus invasion can mean anything from getting nuked (First Succession War, Wobby jihad) to mediocre slapfights (The 3057-8 GDL affair).
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Fairy Path is>>>>>>>>>Human both for story and Jack's character work. I found him pretty insufferable on the human path.
Gameplay I hated either way.
Pretty much agree with that. I honestly don't see any advantages, plot and writing wise, to the human arc.
I also don't see how its more "entertaining", unless you find Jack's cronic idiocy in the Human Path actually funny (personally, I just wanted to punch him every time he spoke. Fairy Arc, they made him a serious character...and wouldn't you know it, he actually wasn't half bad as one either.)
The recruitable characters from human path are... like a billion times better, mostly. You have all the various guild members, city residents, farmers, and Jack's sister as a joke character, or three different characters for Fairy path (Elf, Orc, Goblin) palette swapped twenty times.
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Oh, I'd believe the PC's are better, the guild leaders alone are crack. I don't care for RS's gameplay at all though, so the story and characters are what it has going for it.
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Pretty much agree with that. I honestly don't see any advantages, plot and writing wise, to the human arc.
The bolded words are the important part. I specified those specifically cause I'm fully aware that the Human Arc has better PCs, and wanted to avoid someone responding in the way you did. Clearly, saying outright what I was comparing wasn't enough -_-
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Hey, it has a plot and writing advantage if you're racist! And only like humans!
*Waves his "Burn all Elves!" sign*
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<Elfboy> :(
SRWK - hrhrhr space stage I NEED TEN BILLION THRUSTER MODULES AGH
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Human path Jack is given a different impetus for going forward than Fairy path Jack. What comes off as Jack being a dick is more his desire to prove himself (which you could identify pretty early on easily enough).
Wild Arms XF: Replaying for great justice. I forgot how nutty a properly set up Sacrifice was.
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Its not Jack being a dick in the human path, he's just a complete moron. He shows little to no thought in his actions, mostly just follows orders like the dog he is, and is still an immature little freak whose basically just good at fighting enough that no one around him cares but Cross, who mans up to bitch slap him for being a moron in one scene (while still being the major douche that he is.)
Contrast this to Fairy Jack who actually uses his brain from the get go, and shows signs of maturity. Heck, the early Fairy stuff alone was more brain power than the entire human arc.
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I never really saw Jack as anything more than eager to please and/or prove that he is awesome. Demonstrating intelligence and insight would be kind of unusual considering. The King says "Yo, I need you to fuck up this dragon" and he will respond "AWESOME I have always wanted to fuck up a dragon, Your Highness," not mine the dialogue tree for reasons that the dragon needs to be fucked up and what its personal history with the region is.
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DQ5 DS - reached Nadiria. I'll leave the big picture comments on the game for when I beat it, but some comments on smaller details now:
-The huge nerf to Buff/Kabuff (down from +100%/+50% defense to +40%/+20%) really killed their utility. Against bosses who dispel they are way to slow to be effectiveness, and bosses without dispel don't use physical attacks much or are just plain easy without them anyways.
-The Happy Hat/Hat of Happiness really got beat with the nerf stick. In the original version it was 1 MP per step taken, which I found from experience meant I can freely cast Oomph, Kasap, even Kaboom as much as I wanted to with no risk of running out of MP at all. Here it's 1 MP per 8 steps or worse - ouch. This, along with the Oomph nerfing (probably justified) make Madchen a lot less effective than she used to be since she can't throw out endless Oomphs in every random for 2.5x-3x damage buffing. Oomph+Kasap is still really good for bosses, but I spent most of her turns using itemcasts this time around to conserve MP. These nerfs also counteracted the extra fighter and healer that Slime Knight provided, so the game remainedly merely easy instead of becoming a complete slaughter.
-The cave where the Pallium Regale/Royal Cloak is found is a *lot* easier this time around, as they removed Kamikaze from whichever random had it in the original (I forget). The Fire-Eaters and Ice-breakers still do some pretty hefty physical damage, but without the constant threat of massive MT damage the whole thing was pretty comfortably managable, unlike in the original where I got my ass kicked repeatedly, to the point of losing one Prayer Ring regaining healing MP and being lucky not to lose another one.
-The targetting for physical attacks against an enemy group is very noticably not random in this game. Attacks pretty much always focus on a single enemy within a group at a time, which is really nice. Wonder which DQ game they implemented this in.
Also, would anyone object to giving the main a higher exp value than everyone else in the DS stat topic? He should have a huge exp advantage over every other human PC due to their massive availability issues. Having the kids and wives at a higher level than him like in the SFC stat topic just feels wrong to me, that shouldn't be happening in-game unless you specifically grind their levels while he's dead to catch them up. Not that 1-2 levels is a big deal, but it's the principle of the matter.
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Yeah, Hinode. The main has a fairly large exp edge. That said, it isn't MASSIVELY better than the kids/Pedro. The wife however is just fucking out of luck.
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Knights of the Old Republic: One HK-47 get.
:)
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FFTA2: Quests. There are too many of them. I'm thinking I might just say "fuck it" to the rest from here on out, and just do required ones, unless some quests give me new jobs, I might do those <_<
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So, I've heard a lot of grousing about how games used to be "longer" back in the day. And I think I have figured out a very big reason for that, going back to modern-gen games after replaying PSX-era shit: Dialogue scenes in PSX games tend to go "Emote, finish animation, speak, other character moves, animates, repeat." It takes fucking forever.
Just something I've noticed.
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Hey, it has a plot and writing advantage if you're racist! And only like humans!
*Waves his "Burn all Elves!" sign*
This. Not that the non-humans give me any reason not to hate them anyway.
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So, I've heard a lot of grousing about how games used to be "longer" back in the day. And I think I have figured out a very big reason for that, going back to modern-gen games after replaying PSX-era shit: Dialogue scenes in PSX games tend to go "Emote, finish animation, speak, other character moves, animates, repeat." It takes fucking forever.
Just something I've noticed.
As a general rule, I advocate face-punching for anyone complaining, in any context, that things just aren't as nice as they were in the good old days. Nostalgia wankery is so irritating.
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Agreed. Anyone who complains that new games are shorter needs to play FF12. Sure, it's not an amazing game, but it can never, EVER be considered a short game.
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Cross Edge Hard mode - Been at this a devil summoner hasn't yet arrived :( Got through up to brosst 3 and then the event "Nikran Fire Spot" glitched on me.... >:( >:( >:( :'( :'( :'(
Yeah I'm never playing this again unless theres somehow and I doubt, a way to unglitch the game. I'm not one to sell games but selling CE seems very appealing right now. No game I've had has ever reached this line and I've played Dragoneer's Aria.
Unless theres a DLC weapon that completely overkills everything up to the final boss. Then I might replay as it would take no effort at all to get to where I was.
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Okay what the fuck. I just realized BioShock 2 ALREADY CAME OUT. There were two games all last year that I even considered buying (NSMBW and SO4, and SO4 was a huge disappointment) and they have put out four games I want in three goddamn WEEKS this year.
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Blame it on Call of Duty as a lot of games were pushed back due to it. I myself have the same problem with about three/four games all released in march that I want.
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Dragon Warrior III: Now with a flying mount, the first stop is the dragon queen's castle. The castle has a lot of talking horses, hobbits and elves. Apparently, they aren't very happy at the moment. The dragon queen is dying and laying an egg, something she apparently didn't do before, will kill her. Lia makes her way to the dragon queen for a talk which gives Lia the Light Orb, lays an egg and then dies.
Next destination is the castle of the demonlord. Since Lia is very close to learning Healmore, she makes sure she learns it before challenging the demonlord. The demonlord is found in a red glowing room and it's name is apparently Baramos. There was probably someone who mentioned his name somewhere and somehow Lia forgot, but now she knows it.
Reality 1 and 2: Baramos has attacks that hits everyone in the party about as hard as Healmore heals. He also gets two actions. It simple isn't possible to keep up the healing with only Healmore. Unlike with Orochi, keeping the fighter alive and hope he strikes the killing blow in time doesn't work. Baramos has in addition to his multi target attacks also strong single target moves which will concentrate on a single survivor. So, keeping the whole party alive means it takes more damage per round than it can possible heal and letting people die means the survivors will eat concentrated fire. This doesn't work out at all for anyone except Baramos who reigns supreme.
Reality 3: Lia figures out that she should go one step further than Healmore and also learns Healall (seriously, when the hero learns Healmore, she/he is 4 levels away from Healall and the cleric probably only has one level to go) while at the same time making her party overall stronger. This time the party fares better, that is until Mye becomes confused. Mye who previously kept the party alive proceeded hit the same party with Infermore. Again Baramos wins and reigns supreme.
Reality 4: This time it's Harl who gets confused. While he has Twinhits on, Twinhits seems to double damage, not attack. At this rate Seth has stacked five or so Increase spells on the party and even Harl can't punch trough all that defense. Since he's no longer useful, Lia lets him die and the remainders proceeds to beat Baramos. Harl loses the exp lead he had due to surviving both Orochi fights. Actually, he had even more exp lead than that. Mye and Seth were weak enough to occasionally snuff it against randoms and Lia once got hit by a Beat spell right before the party finished a battle which included a Metalbabble and therefore missed a huge exp reward. Now the exp lead has come to an end however.
Harl is revived and the party returns to the king of their home-country. A celebration, which includes six soldiers blasting away with trumpets, is held in Lia's honor. Something goes wrong though. A new demonlord shows up and introduces itself as Zoma. It proceeds to zap the soldiers with lightning. Lia has to admire their dedication, they keep blowing into the trumpets as their comrades are killed and even as the fifth soldier is killed, the sixth one is still going at it. After the soldiers are killed, Zoma holds a speech which boils down to "I'm evil because I'm evil" and then disappears. The king is distraught, but decides that Zoma must be kept a secret, just like Baramos was a secret. Lia wonders what the king is going to tell the friends and family of the dead soldiers, but "I'm deeply saddened to bring you these unfortunate news, but while on duty your father/husband/friend got ambushed and devoured by a flock of wild hens" would be her suggestion though.
Well, somehow it works. While everyone and their mother knew there was a demonlord Lia has to defeat, nobody seems to know that anything is wrong now. However, it's time to rest before going after then new threat. Lia goes to her mother to sleep. There she makes a new discovery, her mother doesn't let her stay anymore. Oh well, there's always the inn.
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When Crystalgate finishes DQ3, I want him to gather and preserve all his logs in a single topic. This is probably the most enjoyable way to experience DQ3. Vicariously, with all the grinding cut out, and as much snark as possible while taking the story surprisingly seriously.
Hey, I play games:
Eternal POIZN: Rondemion's chapter was great. More JRPGs need this style of main character. Not sure if I'll ever play the last chapter as it requires collecting all the Majin. And... well, I certainly haven't been trying to do that, nor do I care enough to do so. Might just have to Youtube the ending.
FF12 Revenant Wings: Slowly going through this at my usual handheld speed. Fun to pick-up and play, but I'm already forgetting the details of why Vaan and company are doing anything. Luckily, the logbook is still amusing and the PCs continue to banter with eachother while explaining the plot.
Oh, I've finished translating all the PC skills from the Ultimania, so I can start calculating endgame damage stuff.
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Battlefield 1943: Been playing a bunch of this today. It's like FPS Lite, with only three sets of weapons and four maps. But you get to fly in planes, and blow stuff up with tanks, so it's all good.
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When Crystalgate finishes DQ3, I want him to gather and preserve all his logs in a single topic. This is probably the most enjoyable way to experience DQ3. Vicariously, with all the grinding cut out, and as much snark as possible while taking the story surprisingly seriously.
This. That last writeup had me in hysterics.
FFT: Thanks to Super, ePSXe is actually running decently well now! Just 'beat' Wiegraf 1 - was actually decently challenging, was wondering why Wiegraf's Crush Punch wasn't better respected here until he, uhh, fled. Off to recruit monsters (okay, learn to talk to them) and learn some new stuff before moving on~
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Yes Crystalgate's DQ3 summary is made of win.
Eternal POIZN: Rondemion's chapter was great. More JRPGs need this style of main character. Not sure if I'll ever play the last chapter as it requires collecting all the Majin. And... well, I certainly haven't been trying to do that, nor do I care enough to do so. Might just have to Youtube the ending.
You don't need to do this. I'm pretty sure you just have to see/kill them all. Although Youtube always works, it is kind of a shame to miss some parts of the final chapter.
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FFT: Thanks to Super, ePSXe is actually running decently well now! Just 'beat' Wiegraf 1 - was actually decently challenging, was wondering why Wiegraf's Crush Punch wasn't better respected here until he, uhh, fled. Off to recruit monsters (okay, learn to talk to them) and learn some new stuff before moving on~
Wiegraf 1's Crush punch is only 25% ID. All Holy Sword is fixed odds.
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KotOR - Oh noes the jedi bitch got herself caught oh hey a cool old guy
Also: loldarthmalak
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FFT: Thanks to Super, ePSXe is actually running decently well now! Just 'beat' Wiegraf 1 - was actually decently challenging, was wondering why Wiegraf's Crush Punch wasn't better respected here until he, uhh, fled. Off to recruit monsters (okay, learn to talk to them) and learn some new stuff before moving on~
Wiegraf 1's Crush punch is only 25% ID. All Holy Sword is fixed odds.
...what. Are you freaking serious? That thing missed, like, once in about 4 fights, so about 15-20 shots. What the fuck.
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Yes, it's only 25%. Seems like you suffered from a serious case of the RNG hating on your guts.
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FFTA2: The game just handed me a Moogle Bard.
MOOGLE BARD.
I don't need to say anything else...
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So, what relevance in ME2 does killing the Rachni Queen have? I killed it because Wrex told me to and so I figured it was a good idea just like everything else he suggests. Is there a cool Rachni Rescue I missed out on?
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FFTA2: The game just handed me a Moogle Bard.
MOOGLE BARD.
I don't need to say anything else...
At least it's not a Moogle Songstress?
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Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes - Man, this is fun, mindless and crazy stylish. Beat Oichi Mode - AKA Bitch Went Nuts: The Game.
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ME2 -
Recruited Mordin aaaaaand.... Archangel.
Fuck yeah.
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He is my hero.
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AI3: Started playing this. Pretty good so far. Biggest complaint is just the amount of travellng needed since you're running around gathering ingredients and doing quests. Doesn't sound bad, but it wastes quite a bit of unnecessary time. I also wish that the flow of the game didn't make you participate in like 6-7 quests before giving you actual plot. It makes certain moments (like the one where I am at now!) kinda retarded. But oh well, Gust plot. Battle system wise is pretty good. You rape things pretty much under Burst, but the game's designed such that getting there isn't always easy. Game still isn't hard mind - just that at the very least, enemies are designed to try to prevent this. That's something!
I am also about to fight the boss that is actually faster than Belial. And no, his name is not Dhaos. In the meantime, remind me to beat in RICHARD that he needs to play WA4. Beat it into him. Daily.
FE10: Speaking of units that you don't use, I went through a portion of this again. Of course, since I am not insane like NEB, I do not play it on Hard mode but instead play it on Easy mode because I am a giant wuss. Gave Rhys and Boyd a try. Surprisingly, Rhys manages to get to 20 speed at level 14. Since I am on Easy mode, I shall also be attempting to dump EXP on random ppls, absolute suck like Astrid excluded.
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Cross Edge Hard mode - Been at this a devil summoner hasn't yet arrived :( Got through up to brosst 3 and then the event "Nikran Fire Spot" glitched on me.... >:( >:( >:( :'( :'( :'(
Yeah I'm never playing this again unless theres somehow and I doubt, a way to unglitch the game. I'm not one to sell games but selling CE seems very appealing right now. No game I've had has ever reached this line and I've played Dragoneer's Aria.
Unless theres a DLC weapon that completely overkills everything up to the final boss. Then I might replay as it would take no effort at all to get to where I was.
Someone is responding properly to netherworld game, at last.
And yes, some pricey download weapon is game breaking for the main game.
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3000 is the rough rating on all of them right? Not bad but I don't think they'd make everyone jokes for too long, it also seems pointless sinking more time/money into a game I don't like.
I blame Namco, Gust and Idea factory for all this. Gust added the lag (Play MK on the psp for their previous work) to annoy while Namco and ID combined their crap facter to fuck up the games plot, battle system and hell, everything in general.
I refuse to believe the other two had any part in this crime at all. NIS characters were fine and there was only TWO of them. No way they did much towards getting this game finished. Capcom also couldn't have done much as the darkstalkers are fine and there isn't even one Jill sandwitch level of awesome either.
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KotOR - Aaaaaaaand beaten. Way to belabor an otherwise easy fight with an annoying gimmick, Darth Malak. Well, annoying for me since my build was probably sub-optimal but still. Didn't save Bastila but nothing of value was lost so... yeah. Probably could have dicked around a bit more but eh. Game has its hangups (movement control could be better, INCOMING FIGHTERS got tiresome, and the overall cast could have been better) but I'd say it rates about a 7.
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You do realize the game was only really developed by a subsidiary of Idea Factory, right? [to rozalia]
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Hey, I still play games!
Not wanting to sink a lot of time into Mana Khemia on Thursday, I stumbled across a perfectly legal copy of Vandal Hearts and thought "Well, I can at least see what it's like to get an idea for voting purposes."
And, my initial impressions were pretty good. Simple gameplay, but engaging enough that I played up to the pirate map in one sitting. Also, there's a PC named Grog Drinkwater. Why is this man not ranked?
Anyway, so after I got done laughing at the ridiculous voice of the narrator, I noticed that the plot seemed kinda sensible. Holy Empire gets corrupted, nobles start oppressing the working class. Logically, peasants rebel! However, unlike ever other peasant uprising in history which ends with "and the peasants were brutally suppressed", this group lucked out and got a magic-using tactician to lead them. Now, for the fun part. Many years later, it's the -Nobles- who are being illogically oppressed by the former working class leaders. Our antagonists are freedom fighters taken to their logical extreme. Kane seems like an overzealous kid out for revenge and has developed a taste for blood. Political intrigue is surrounding everything and Ash is stuck in the middle of it due to his 'treacherous father'.
Well, it seemed cool anyway. Then about 2 minutes after I had these thoughts, Dolf walks up to Kane and Kane says "Hu hu hu, I like you, you're almost as evil as me!"
...Way to drop the ball, Vandal Hearts.
Still, GROG DRINKWATER!!!
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KotOR - Aaaaaaaand beaten. Way to belabor an otherwise easy fight with an annoying gimmick, Darth Malak. Well, annoying for me since my build was probably sub-optimal but still. Didn't save Bastila but nothing of value was lost so... yeah. Probably could have dicked around a bit more but eh. Game has its hangups (movement control could be better, INCOMING FIGHTERS got tiresome, and the overall cast could have been better) but I'd say it rates about a 7.
Same thing I usually say, KotOR2 is a lot better, especially with the restored content mod, your characters don't always get along and the villain is one of the best in history, yadda yadda. It's Empire.
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You do realize the game was only really developed by a subsidiary of Idea Factory, right? [to rozalia]
I remember reading that the others contributed to the effort while ID was the main developer. Then again Wiki and gamefaqs aren't the most reliable of sources so I should have checked.
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Niu would know more than me and especially more than those other two on that subject...
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So, what relevance in ME2 does killing the Rachni Queen have? I killed it because Wrex told me to and so I figured it was a good idea just like everything else he suggests. Is there a cool Rachni Rescue I missed out on?
If you freed the Rachni Queen in the first one there is a scene where someone that was rescued from pirates by the Rachni has a chat with you on her behalf pretty much and says that they are chilling and hiding, suggests that the original Rachni war was instigated by something fucking up the Rachni since these ones are generally speaking pretty chilled. Implied to be Reaper involvement somehow, either directly or something ala the Collectors. Otherwise I think she gives you hints to some stuff and might help you get a store discount on Illium or something. It isn't a huge aside, but it is something.
Also yeah Bioshock came out like Thursday last week or something man. It is apparently not overly stunning as reported from shooter players I know.
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FFTA2: The game just handed me a Moogle Bard.
MOOGLE BARD.
I don't need to say anything else...
At least it's not a Moogle Songstress?
I think you missed the point.
Moogle Bard was being hyped as an AWESOME thing. Don't you dare compare it to a MOOGLE SONGSTRESS <_<
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To be fair, it's not exactly CLEAR there whether it's hyped as awesome or awful - kind of open to interpretation...
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Obviously, that's what we need for the Olympics. Interpretive Rants.
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Hey, I still play games!
Not wanting to sink a lot of time into Mana Khemia on Thursday, I stumbled across a perfectly legal copy of Vandal Hearts and thought "Well, I can at least see what it's like to get an idea for voting purposes."
And, my initial impressions were pretty good. Simple gameplay, but engaging enough that I played up to the pirate map in one sitting. Also, there's a PC named Grog Drinkwater. Why is this man not ranked?
Anyway, so after I got done laughing at the ridiculous voice of the narrator, I noticed that the plot seemed kinda sensible.
Well, it seemed cool anyway. Then about 2 minutes after I had these thoughts, Dolf walks up to Kane and Kane says "Hu hu hu, I like you, you're almost as evil as me!"
...Way to drop the ball, Vandal Hearts.
Man, wait until the plot trainwrecks into time travel.
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Good: ePSXe running well on my computer!
Bad: Internet isn't, meaning I'm on my shitty old laptop to write this.
Good: Beating Wiegraf on my first try since sorting out ePSXe!
Bad: Realising I died against randoms after that and hadn't saved.
Long story short, Wiegraf is back to being a bitch. Whoops.
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I blame Namco, Gust and Idea factory for all this. Gust added the lag (Play MK on the psp for their previous work) to annoy while Namco and ID combined their crap facter to fuck up the games plot, battle system and hell, everything in general.
I refuse to believe the other two had any part in this crime at all. NIS characters were fine and there was only TWO of them. No way they did much towards getting this game finished. Capcom also couldn't have done much as the darkstalkers are fine and there isn't even one Jill sandwitch level of awesome either.
/me facepalms so hard.
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So, what relevance in ME2 does killing the Rachni Queen have? I killed it because Wrex told me to and so I figured it was a good idea just like everything else he suggests. Is there a cool Rachni Rescue I missed out on?
If you freed the Rachni Queen in the first one there is a scene where someone that was rescued from pirates by the Rachni has a chat with you on her behalf pretty much and says that they are chilling and hiding, suggests that the original Rachni war was instigated by something fucking up the Rachni since these ones are generally speaking pretty chilled. Implied to be Reaper involvement somehow, either directly or something ala the Collectors. Otherwise I think she gives you hints to some stuff and might help you get a store discount on Illium or something. It isn't a huge aside, but it is something.
Also yeah Bioshock came out like Thursday last week or something man. It is apparently not overly stunning as reported from shooter players I know.
So what you're saying is the big rescue from the reapers where Wrex smashes through a wall riding the Rachni Queen is going to be in Mass Effect 3.
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Lag in XEdge was a bit of an annoyance, but it honestly wasn't that bad.
Plot was... uh... well. What were you expecting, exactly? It was a silly crossover game. Worked fine to me.
Battle System gets a similar question. What were your problems?
And, to follow that up, what sort of glitch did you get anyway?
More to the point, though, honestly, NIS is certainly not blameless. After all, they are responsible for NISA, who deserve a swift kick in the ass.
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Lag in XEdge was a bit of an annoyance, but it honestly wasn't that bad.
Wasn't that what I said?
Plot was... uh... well. What were you expecting, exactly? It was a silly crossover game. Worked fine to me.
If the game had a bad plot in the sense it was silly and odd, fine. Making all plot scenes not involving Lazarus, Dimitri and Jedah boring as dishwater is not fine.
Battle System gets a similar question. What were your problems?
Repetive system that makes you use the same combos all the time against the same palette swapped enemies. Many games use palette swaps but this is the most offensive.
And, to follow that up, what sort of glitch did you get anyway?
Event either glitched or the timing that you have to do it in is messed up. I did two events that have no relaation to the event I missed before looking for it, games shows me the finger. One of the costumes has also glitched on me but I can live with that. I could have missed something myself but its so much easier to blame the game as its true end requirements are stupid to begin with.
Anyway Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army has arrived so Huzzah. Getting to grips with the system at the moment which caused me to be killed by some random gremlin things in the city all because those bastards cornered me.
The gameover scene is awesome though as it seems if you're a Kuzunoha you get to take your awesome hat into the afterlife.
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Dragon Warrior III: Before going after Zoma, Lia pays a visit to Karaburg to see if there's anything new that happened. Sure enough, the prison no longer exists and Kara is in charge again. It's night however and her manor is closed. Seth casts Passtime and it's day. But just as the party make it to the mansion, Kara hands over the command to someone else. Hopefully it's someone competent. She then greets Lia and announces that she will return home. Now she can be added to the party again. Hurray!
The theater now serve as a children's singing contest during the day and has male dancers at night. That's probably a representative of how this town wants to achieve a balanced rule, take half from one incompetent ruler and the other half from a second incompetent ruler and hope it translates to a competent rule. Give it a year or two and the town will probably be in the same state as the party originally found it in.
With that lose end tied up, it's time to pursue Zoma. The only place left to search is a cave in a swamp. The cave leads to a pit which eventually drops the party into a building. Talking to people there reveals they are in another world. More towns and more dungeons awaits!
Lia soon locates the first town. First step is to gather information. Apparently it's always night in this world. This is reflected by the priests and innkeepers always wondering what she is doing up so late. Everyone lives in fear of Zoma and Baramos was only one of his disciples. So, Zoma is threatening the worlds, ruined a celebration held in Lia's honor and now her victory over Baramos has been marginalized. Lia now has all the reasons to go after him.
Also, Ortega has been seen here. Finally, Lia knows that her father wasn't boiled in a volcano, he was trapped in another world! Then a chill goes down her spine as she realizes that the return spell or a Warpwing bought from a local store was all that he'd need to get back to his wife and daughter. When she finds him he better have a really good explanation!
Last, but definitely not least, Zoma hit the castle and swiped it's treasure before she got here. From the description of what was lost, it's equipment for her that's superior to what she currently posses. One of the residents gives her a map that works in this world, so it's always something.
The world turns out to be as big as Lia's homeworld, but has about 1/3 the content. As a result, it's rather empty which combined with the constant night brings an atmosphere of dullness. Anyway, somewhat close to the town is a cave, one where just like in the pyramid basement, magic doesn't work. Inside the cave is enemies who can breath fire, something you apparently can do just fine without magic. Lia finds herself the sole survivor after a nasty battle and makes a hasty retreat. 99 bought herbs later, the party makes a second attempt. This time they have better luck. They make their way to the bottom and finds a couple of chests, one containing the Hero shield. That seems to be one of the stolen treasure and Lia gladly attaches it to her arm.
Her defense is now considerable higher than that of her companions. This coupled with her somewhat recently gained ability to cast Healall means she's finally becoming the hero she has waited way to long to become.
Most of the world seems to be accessible right away, so Lia decides to do some scouting and add as many towns as she can to her Return list. One town is a desert town. It's local problem is drought, no doubt caused by the endless night. Another town is known for it's walls and the townspeople there a busy moping about how the walls are useless against a domonlord. The last town she finds has even more useless inhabitants, the majority have just laid down to sleep out of angst. Lia reminds herself that saving this world will be a necessary side effect of saving her own world.
During her travels she hears more news about her father. Naturally, he decided to go after Zoma. Some believes he will succeed. Other knows that he lacks any form of preparation that makes success possible. Most are of course just moping around.
Speaking about preparation, Lia picks up an oral list of needed items, the Sun Stone, the Rain Staff and the Crest. Even better, she actually picks up one of the items in a shrine between angsty town #2 and angsty town #3.
In that shrine is a woman who introduces herself as the fairy queen. She explains that she contacted Lia in her sleep. So, she was the disembodied voice that spoke to her in the beginning? The no longer disembodied voice then apologizes for any bad thing she may have said. She didn't say any bad thing though since Lia picked a personality she approved of, but it's still a nice gesture to apologize for what she may have said had the reality been different. The fairy queen then proceeds to give Lia the Rain Staff.
Next time Lia goes trough the towns again and pays careful attention to the clues the townspeople give her. Then she has to follow the clues will lead her to the needed McGuffins and some nice extra loot. That or she prays to elFAQo for guidance, whatever she feels like.
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inFamous- Zeke is a punk. Poor Trish ;-; The conflict with John and Moya is pretty neat. Otherwise, the villains so far are eh. Funny when your allies are more interesting antagonists than the villains. Anyway, Lightning Storm is badass. Almost done liberating the Historic District, but I probably have a few more story missions to go.
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ME2- So, no matter whether you picked Ashley or Kaiden to die on Virmire in ME1, state policy apparently becomes to memorialize them in the most ironic fashion possible.
If Kaiden dies, the Alenko Foundation is established to identify and train young Biotics. Supposedly it's nicer than BAaT because they have sonic stunners instead of stun guns to subdue the students with if they go out of control.
If Ashley dies, she becomes the first human ever to be decorated by an alien government (two, actually: both the salarians and the turians award her their highest medals of honor). Her epitaph is something Kaiden would say falsely attributed to her.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - Worked my way through the first case which was mostly fetch quests but I don't mind as the game is still in its opening. No idea why that guy transformed into a demon but I'm sure I'll find out and that shadow man will be responsible.
Now into episode 2 where I got into a fight in a bathhouse with two mobsters while NAKED! Well Raidou keeps his awesome hat because well, would anyone ever take it off? I don't think so.
Gameplay wise I've put a lot of points in Str which is something I never do in SMT games. I hope I don't come to regret that.
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DQ5 - Somewhere! I just got a magic carpet, and now want to watch Aladdin again! Also, not sure where to go, but that's because most my time has been spent on...
League of Legends - Addicting! They just released a new champion named Pantheon who is a spear toting, jumping fiend of a crazed spartan. Needless to say, he fits my dragoon obession and has become my favorite character to play with. <3
Tatsunoku vs Capcom - Interesting game. Not exactly like MvC, but then again it's made by a different company and also...it has G-Force character! Just trying to unlock all the characters right now. Fun anyways.
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Before I start the grinding process with exp modifier cheat codes, would anyone happen to have a DQ5 save file with Nera or Deborah at around 400K exp and no seeds used? That should be L36 for Nera and L37 for Deborah, respectively.
It'd save me some trouble if I could get stats for either from someone else.
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KOTOR 2 - Just got off Taris.
Enjoying the game. Having low influence with Kreia is marginally annoying since she's unwilling to tell me everything. Despite that she's still my best non-main character just because of her quantum entanglement force bond with Myi'Chell Auobammz. Baldur Bao Dar only has a spot on my team because my other options are lol utility droid and Atton. While Atton is less offensive to the taste than Carth by far I also built him stupidly and blasters kind of suck right now.
I wonder how much longer it is until I can upgrayedd to Weapon's Master. I've been dying some recently since I haven't leveled up past 8 (my teammates, for reference, are level 11.)
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Now into episode 2 where I got into a fight in a bathhouse with two mobsters while NAKED! Well Raidou keeps his awesome hat because well, would anyone ever take it off? I don't think so.
So awesome.
You won't regret those points in strength, by the way. There are a few things in the game that reduce or immune physical damage, but not enough to be a serious concern.
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KOTOR 2 - Just got off Taris.
Enjoying the game. Having low influence with Kreia is marginally annoying since she's unwilling to tell me everything. Despite that she's still my best non-main character just because of her quantum entanglement force bond with Myi'Chell Auobammz. Baldur Bao Dar only has a spot on my team because my other options are lol utility droid and Atton. While Atton is less offensive to the taste than Carth by far I also built him stupidly and blasters kind of suck right now.
I wonder how much longer it is until I can upgrayedd to Weapon's Master. I've been dying some recently since I haven't leveled up past 8 (my teammates, for reference, are level 11.)
Level 15. Also, Atton's build can be easily fixed by making him a Jedi and putting Finesse: Lightsaber on him. I don't even know what you did wrong but that will fix it.
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Blasters are great long-term, this is not KotOR1. You will get things that give them enough stopping power to make them the second best weapons in the game(And, due to how the upgrade-everything-ever system works, Lightsabers aren't a good idea to just run. You can. But...it's better to keep some different weapons around. You'll run out of crystals and then they won't be better anymore.).
Of course, Rob is still right. You could try to build Atton almost any way and that would at least salvage him somewhat, pretty fast.
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Jedi Defense + Lightsaber defense + Scoundrel's Luck makes him INCREDIBLY hard to kill. And if he does go down, he gets back up.
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Then I'll resume using him after Nar Shadaa. No point in risking screwing him up further until then.
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He's got a boss fight on Nar Shaddaa, so maybe keep that in mind. Also, NS is where you Jedify him.
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He's got a boss fight on Nar Shaddaa, so maybe keep that in mind. Also, NS is where you Jedify him.
Hence while I'll be keeping him a lower level until then: Jedi Sentinel levels > Scoundrel levels I assume. And if by "He has a boss fight" you mean "he's forced in a boss fight" then that's fine; Myi'Chell Auobammz, now that I know that there's no point in saving levels for her, is a one woman army.
Anyway, went to Dantooine, have not started the main quest yet but have gone through the crystal cave and I think I'm done with 3/4ths of the sidequests. Bao-Dur has recently gotten a feat level and is now able to survive more than a couple hits before dying. Hooray toughness.
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FFTA2: Obtained all generic classes finally!
Also, Ultima Shot is awesome, even though it costs 32 MP...
...oh, hi there Ether Shell from Canoneer <_<
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He's got a boss fight on Nar Shaddaa, so maybe keep that in mind. Also, NS is where you Jedify him.
Hence while I'll be keeping him a lower level until then: Jedi Sentinel levels > Scoundrel levels I assume. And if by "He has a boss fight" you mean "he's forced in a boss fight" then that's fine; Myi'Chell Auobammz, now that I know that there's no point in saving levels for her, is a one woman army.
Anyway, went to Dantooine, have not started the main quest yet but have gone through the crystal cave and I think I'm done with 3/4ths of the sidequests. Bao-Dur has recently gotten a feat level and is now able to survive more than a couple hits before dying. Hooray toughness.
No, I mean he has a solo boss fight. He's also got a sequence where you are seperated from the group and Atton is the party leader. You can turn him in to a Jedi before having to do any of that, though.
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He's got a boss fight on Nar Shaddaa, so maybe keep that in mind. Also, NS is where you Jedify him.
Hence while I'll be keeping him a lower level until then: Jedi Sentinel levels > Scoundrel levels I assume. And if by "He has a boss fight" you mean "he's forced in a boss fight" then that's fine; Myi'Chell Auobammz, now that I know that there's no point in saving levels for her, is a one woman army.
Anyway, went to Dantooine, have not started the main quest yet but have gone through the crystal cave and I think I'm done with 3/4ths of the sidequests. Bao-Dur has recently gotten a feat level and is now able to survive more than a couple hits before dying. Hooray toughness.
No, I mean he has a solo boss fight. He's also got a sequence where you are seperated from the group and Atton is the party leader. You can turn him in to a Jedi before having to do any of that, though.
Then the Final Solution to the Atton Question will go forward as planned.
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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - Yeah, I dunno what it is, but the game is rather addicting. I've ended up enjoying it a lot more than I expected. Just beat Chapter 20x. Caeda has been promoted for quite a while (as in she's Level 5-6 or so), Athena and Abel have promoted more recently. Still waiting on other dudes.
The Starsphere is awesome. Beck was getting murdered by limited weapon use (would it have killed them to drop another Hoistflamme?) but between finally getting a weapon upgrade and that little dandy he is much better. Granted, he has to fight various other people for it, but the concept of the ballistician is neat enough that I am willing to favour him a little. Boots similarly help him a lot. Not sure he's great objectively but it's neat to try a different kind of PC.
I missed Tiki because you have to keep a scrub PC alive for a long time to get her. :(
Party hasn't changed significantly since my last post. Etzel works as a second staff user filler but he's inferior to Wendell because he only has a D rank.
Super Mario World 2 - Game I feel very, very overdue to play. I actually did play it... 14 years ago or so... and remember liking it but haven't touched it since so I've been meaning to see it again with a more discerning eye for a while. I literally only remember three things about the game: the intro sequence (the setup is memorable), Baby Mario's waaaaah waaaah (MUST GET HIM BACK MAKE CRYING STOP) and the Raven who is pretty much the most creative boss fight in a platformer ever. Annnnyway, I'm up to the second half of world 3. Quite a number of things I like about this game. In particular, stage design is very varied and creative. As in, SMB3 level. Maybe. It's different. Bosses... early ones were just horrible (oh hey shoot eggs at them repeatedly) but then the game throws the Flower Pot ghost at you which is just brilliant. Also the froggy to a lesser extent. Challenge level is generally in a good place, too, which is nice. My main issue is with the controls, I just don't like how Yoshi handles much at all. I feel like I have much more trouble than I should landing in the correct place. The hovering thing is pretty cool at least, just the execution of the controls could have been better.
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PWI: Hit level 90, and got my gold TT90 armor set:
(http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/4494/90goldarmorset.jpg) (http://img683.imageshack.us/i/90goldarmorset.jpg/)
Can you withstand the sexy?
TvsC: Unlocked all characters, still have a few to get endings for. Got a 47-win streak in Survival mode with Roll (and minor assistance from Tekkaman Blade). Roll is so amazing.
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Dragon Quest 5: Finished. The second Nimzo fight took forever due to his HP getting pushed up to 7000, but I was under very little threat so long as I maintained Insulate up and spammed Sage's Stone, and with the 2x speed accessory on Parry that wasn't exactly hard.
As a game, DQ5 is really distinguished from bog standard RPGs by two things: the "generations"-spanning plotline and the monster recruiting system. Unfortunately, both of them seriously suffer from being bound by Dragon Quest sensibilities.
More than any other game in the series that I've played, DQ5 desperately needed a main who could talk and exhibit an actual personality - even a relatively generic one would help. So much of the plot revolves around the main's personal life rather than saving the world per se that the game would've benefited greatly from showing just how he reacted emotionally and grew from everything he went through (many of which are genuinely NOT cliched or bog standard for RPGs, for once). Instead we get an emotionless cypher who never shows any reaction to anything. The improvements to the script just accentuate how much of a missed opportunity this was.
Any claims that a silent main lets the player "step into the role" are invalidated by the fact that every single personal decision (and there are some pretty significant ones) is railroaded by the game with no chance to mold him in your likeness in any fashion, except for the marriage - and boy, does the game try to guilt trip you into doing what it wants there as well. Speaking of that much-hyped marriage decision, it basically boils down to the game repeatedly telling you over and over that Bianca is your One True Love because there's no way in hell to actually show a dialogue-less, expressionless blank having actual feelings or chemistry with anyone. Nope, gotta resort to the bludgeon with NPC text, including from one of the wife choices even!
Monster recruiting is a pretty neat idea on paper; it gives you access to an enormous variety of PC options, with tons of variety in terms of stats, skills, equipment, and everything. It also takes advantage of the fact that Akira Toriyama is a vastly superior monster designer than he is with humans (see the main looking exactly like Goku with a turban, or Bianca pretty much being Android 18 with different clothes). The "recruit by killing lots of them until one joins" system, combined with rates that are often pretty rare is a huge fundamental problem though. Most monsters require a lot of luck or a very significant time investment to actually get, and nothing speeds up the process so you just have to sit there and grind more. Oh, and when you finally get one to join you'll probably have to get it caught up on levels, too. More grinding, whee! Just what we needed in a Dragon Quest game! All the new monsters added in the remake help, since more of them means a better chance of getting something good to join up, but it doesn't resolve the fundamental issue.
Now in fairness you can easily go through the game with just Slime Knight (easy recruit), Rotten Apple (ditto), Saber (plot recruit), and assorted high rate flotsam like Slime/Brownie/etc along with your human PCs. But not going any further with monsters seriously limits the game's variety and replayability. It basically becomes just another generic averagish RPG with a substandard plot and some direction problems at time (though way better than most DQ games, admittedly). Now there's nothing wrong with a generic averagish RPG, obviously I've been in the mood for one of those enough to play the game twice (<_<), but barring these sort of irrational urges there's not much to recommend it over other titles lying in the sea of RPG mediocrity. Preferably one where the basic revival spell isn't a foul monster who steals mens' souls and makes them its slaves.
On the upside, Party Chat is a really neat addition that really does add a good deal of personality to both the human characters (when they're around, at least) and to the game itself, to some extent. People besides Harry/Henry actually exhibit a personality this time around, instead of being an indistinguishable morass of genericness. Since people react to almost every location (and almost every line of NPC dialogue, even), it's actually pretty fun to walk around and talk to everyone, then gauge your party's reaction. A lot of the kids' lines in particular were pretty charming in gen 3. Definately the best feature of the game to me, enough to enjoy replaying a game that I didn't really care for in the original form.
Party chat aside, NPC dialogue has been revamped subtly to better give hints on the plot and make the world a bit more developed. Stuff like namedropping Nimzo and his influence on Nadiria earlier on give a better sense of what the world's like for those players who try to talk to as many NPCs as possible. I also approve of the decision to expand on Ladja's plot presence; I remember thinking with the original that they had enough plot to make one villain distinctive but split it out between a whole bunch of people (Gema, Jami, Ivol, Mildrath, to use the original names) so that none of them were memorable in the slightest. Ladja isn't exactly a developed or nuanced villain in any sense, but at least you develop enough familiarity with him that ultimately killing him feels like an accomplishment.
There were tons of polish improvements compared to the original, as well: a bag to store items in instead of needing to deposit them in a bank (a painfully slow process, given all the NPC dialogue you had to go through to drop off/grab any single item), doors opening automatically instead of needing a menu command, no time wasted on a dialogue box if you search an area and don't find any items, being able to buy items in bulk, not having to go through a five-nested menu option each time you cast a healing spell out of battle... the list goes on and on. None of these are deal-breakers individually, but combined they removed a lot of tedium from gameplay. The game's balance has been tweaked in a number of minor ways, some of which I mentioned earlier, which are a pretty clear improvement overall.
On the whole, I'd say the game went from a 4/10 for the original to a 6/10. An alright game with some interesting premises but handicapped on execution by Japan's general "Change = EVIL!!!" policy on Dragon Quest games.
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It also takes advantage of the fact that Akira Toriyama is a vastly superior monster designer than he is with humans (see the main looking exactly like Goku with a turban, or Bianca pretty much being Android 18 with different clothes).
Such a low bar to clear anyways!
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - The mobster boss is impressed by my brawling skills, but asks the qestion of who wears a hat in a bath? Raidou Kuzunoha thats who!
Anyway the mission for this episode is a fetch quest but instead of fetching items, you fetch people.
First is a rickshaw runner who has been captured by the SOULLESS army. In the process Raidou gets captured but thankfully the SOULLESS army is incompetant and leaves him outside(!?) a cage guarded by two weak zombie guards. After a few sneaking moments later the runner is saved, who tells me I must first bring him his sister.
A quick detour to the mobster boss gets me the info that she is working in the red light district not far off to the north, and fair enough she is. Unfortunately she refuses to leave till I find the attacker of her husband, sid attacker goes by the name of "Red cape". Not "The Red Cape" but simply "Red Cape".
After beating info out of a ghost taxi (Really), Raidou finds that the Red cape hates taxis and had a piece of a rickshaw on him. Now who hates Taxis and uses Rickshaws? OH SNAP!
With this new info Raidou easily solves the case (After a silly puzzle of course) and kills the Red cape for his crimes.
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I'm sure that solved everything! Case closed, boy, what a short game.
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Toriyama can only draw three faces: Male 1, Male 2, and Female.
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Wild Arms of Oz: So gaiz why no boss Strawman/Lion/Tin Man stat topic yet
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The Starsphere is awesome. Beck was getting murdered by limited weapon use (would it have killed them to drop another Hoistflamme?)
There are almost no ballistas for a while, but soon you'll be getting more than you'll ever need. There's a shop that sells every kind.
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VP:DS- Done with the C ending path. The battle system is far less than it should be; the game has zero balance (see: Mages and plume skills) and the sin system feeds into this. You're encouraged to overkill enemies, but don't get much margin for error in terms of screwups. (No damage projections, can't hold back attacks). It was fun enough when it was SMASH late, but otherwise blah.
It's pretty much just a gaiden of the VP series, taking a look at the world a bit before the VP1 events. It's really cool for that, the game takes full advantage of VP1/2's style. The story has it's moments, but by and large Wyl isn't connected to it. Half the time there is no reason for him to be in the scenes, and as a character he bounces from a random sociopath to the do gooder of the day.
Actually, lowering it's score to 3/10. What a waste.
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S.T.A.L.K.E.R.:Shadow of Chernobyl-Finally, finally beaten. Became the Arena Champion and just bought the awesome armor from Yantar again. Got the hardest ending to get. You know the one.
Well, let's see. On the good side, the game's atmosphere and setting is great. Actually going through Chernobyl and seeing the reactor that blew, and everything else in high realism gave the game a great sense of style. The constantly changing game areas made the game feel more like a living, breathing world. There are several portions in the game that are disturbing and in general the designers did a great job.
If only I could say so much for the programmers. The game is a buggy mess. Sidequests show up that you can't complete. Sidequests you ignore will randomly finish themselves and you'll get rewarded. Random catches of supplies will appear and disappear off the map. There are stealth mechanics that will never, ever work. For all the game has plenty of weird Anomalies (side-effects of the weird radiation going off in the Zone), the nefarious Crash to Desktop Anomaly is most present in the game. It crashes more than any other PC game I have ever played. All in all it made the game very frustrating at times.
The combat is heavily grounded in realism, which is a mixed blessing. On the one hand careful aim and clever thinking can reward you well early. I took out a troop of military people with good armor and assault rifles with nothing but a jacket and a pistol. On the other hand, have trouble pulling off headshots? This game will make you cry. It's not so bad when all you're fighting is Bandits, but for the last 3rd of the game you're up against mercenaries and Monolith faction members with military exoskeletons that absorb bullets like raindrops. Weapons jam at the drop at the hat, which is a nice touch for realism, but incredibly frustrating when you've fought off an entire group and a unlucky jam lets the last guy pump your face full of lead. There's stuff like hunger mechanics and bandages to stop blood flow but all that really does is make you waste time in the inventory screen.
The story is nonsense with easily predictable cliches and no real narrative. You're some guy with amnesia and all you have with you is a photo of a person that you're supposed to kill. And....everybody acts weird when you ask about his whereabouts. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
So...I guess if I had to give it a rating I'd say 6/10. For all it's flaws it did try something different and unique, and I think if they devoted more time to debugging and playtesting it could have been a great game. But it's still bogged down by myriad flaws.
Next up...I dunno, guess I'll try to get back into KotoR and see how that goes.
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Dragon Warrior III: Time to sweep trough all towns in world 2 and get everything useful.
While not exactly useful, Lia does find Kandar. He's in a cell nonetheless, so someone figured out a way to bypass his "but thou must" defense. Lia reminds herself to find whoever arrested him and ask how he did that.
The Sun Stone, one of the needed items to reach Zoma is actually in the very first town of world 2 and a more throughout search allows the party to locate it. Two down and one to go. Lia also finds a flute next to a tree in another town. The flute isn't one of the big three items, but it's still needed for something. That should take care of the necessary items in towns. There's still the not needed, but still good though.
Lia gets the tip that she can find the Oricon and take it to a certain trader to be able to buy a Sword of Kings. She does that, but realizes that the Sword of Kings is near useless. It just happens to be so that in the very same town, she can also locate a Whip that's almost as strong as the sword and which hits a whole group of enemies.
The party also finds a good armor for Mye.
At this point Lia realizes she has a decision to make. She can let her companions change classes now that they have learned every useful spell they will ever learn with their current classes. However, as has been mentioned before, there's the danger that doing so will jeopardize her position as the most powerful member of her own party. Mye in particular is dangerous as she can end up with the same ability to heal as Lia has and the offensive power of a fighter. It was not to long ago Lia got the position as the most powerful one and she doesn't already want to give it up, so no deal. Her companions will have to do without class change.
Time to get the Crest, the last of the big three items. It's located in a tower.
The quirk of this tower is diamond shaped tiles which messes of Lia's orientation. When she tries to go north she will instead walk east or west and so on. Those tiles are usually placed above pits. While it sounds like the recipe for a lot of frustrating drops, this isn't the case. The brain numbing tiles will always change Lia's sense of orientation 90 degrees, so it's easy to control whether she will walk east/west or north/south and there's never a pit to both the longitude and the latitude. So, the party makes it up to the top without to much hassle.
At the top is a statue and using the flute causes the statue to change to a woman. She introduces herself as Rubiss, an elemental who created the world and thanks Lia for unsealing her. She also says that she will be even more grateful if Lia saves the world and then forks over the Crest. That's all items down.
Lia takes the three items to a shrine. A cleric there announces that sun and rain will become one and with a lot of music, the rainbow drop is created. With that in hand, Lia makes it to the spot where she's supposed to use it. She wonder what the rainbow drop will do, create a rainbow bridge maybe? Well, almost. It is a bridge alright, but instead of being made out of various colored and strangely solid lights, it's made out of wood. Lia can feel how someone's laughing at her, but she's unsure of whether it's Zoma or the various hint dropping townspeople.
In any case, the path to Zoma's castle is open and the party heads there. The first thing Lia does is to test if the outside spell works and it does. Confident that she can retreat whenever, Lia marches the party forwards towards glory. The glory is unfortunately cut short when a boss troll casts a spell which flings Mye all the way back to Lia's hometown.
Well, nothing to do but to retreat and fetch Mye again. Next time the party kills all boss trolls first.
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The story is nonsense with easily predictable cliches and no real narrative. You're some guy with amnesia and all you have with you is a photo of a person that you're supposed to kill. And....everybody acts weird when you ask about his whereabouts. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
So...the game doesn't give you a mirror?
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No, actually. There's no mirrors in the entire game.
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Sounds like fun. Even if it's predictable, I like it when games play with entertaining themes like that. Devil Summoner 2 is kinda like that, too. No huge shocker where things are going after a point, but the way they reveal the details has a lot of craft to it.
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I'm sure that solved everything! Case closed, boy, what a short game.
It would have if there wasn't TWO Red Capes! :o
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - Red Cape gave before he died some info about Red Cape MK2, his location. The location in question is the factory Red Cape MK2 used to own which should have been the first place Raidou should have checked, but Raidou doesn't complain as he got some sweet demons in the process.
The factory is small, 4 rooms to be presise. Of course Shadow man appears saying it won't be that easy and it never is. Raidou must go through a maze collecting fetch quest items and if he feels like it save some poor sods, which he does of course. Shadow man also mentions for Raidou not to worry if he dies because he'll tend to Raidou's lady friend, with a laugh at the end to show he is totally not a rapist.
The Maze has a lot of blocked off areas and while somewhat dull is a good place for xp, oh yeah Red Cape MK3 showed up but he has no awesome scene with epic music and so is a nobody.
Anyway Raidou passes the "Maze" due to his skills in map making, a skill that has been in the Kuzunoha line for generations. With this he can finally open the door where Red Cape MK2 awaits. Red Cape tells Raidou he'll tell him everything before blowing some chunks and giving birth to some fat ghost thing.... Raidou Kuzunoha is NOT impressed. Knowing he can't scare his enemy the ghost flees leaving the Shadow man to make an appearance at last, but who could it be? HITLER!!! Na that would be silly its the mad monk Rasputin.
Rasputin explains what happened with Red Cape and the fat ghost thing before telling Raidou he most die of course, oh and its good being famous. Of course Rasputin is lazy so he sends a demon out in his place, Chernbog! Who wishs he was as impressive as in DDS2 as he sucks here.
Case closed and now Raidou must solve a case involving missing shipments belonging to the local shop. Sounds mundane but Raidou Kuzunoha is involved and thus it will be awesome.
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Sounds like fun. Even if it's predictable, I like it when games play with entertaining themes like that. Devil Summoner 2 is kinda like that, too. No huge shocker where things are going after a point, but the way they reveal the details has a lot of craft to it.
It reminds me of the robot fight in Monotoli Tower from EarthBound, where the robot dies when you take the battery out, but your PCs can't do it because there is no button to tell them to. Except that STALKER isn't a satire of jRPGs so it doesn't really work.
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That is a shame. What games with obvious things need is 1) for the main character to figure things out with only a minimal lag from when you are able to, or 2) for the main character to have already figured it out before the player did and not to have let on, leading to a moment of badassery.
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VP:DS- Done with the C ending path.
It's pretty much just a gaiden of the VP series, taking a look at the world a bit before the VP1 events. It's really cool for that, the game takes full advantage of VP1/2's style. The story has it's moments, but by and large Wyl isn't connected to it. Half the time there is no reason for him to be in the scenes, and as a character he bounces from a random sociopath to the do gooder of the day.
The A Ending actually fills in Wyl's role a little more. WARNING, VPDS SPOILERS POSSIBLY!
If Wyl doesn't get around to actually killing anyone else with the Plume, then Ailyth and friends get mad, explaining that they put a lot of work into sewing the seeds of the whole war and leading Wyl to as many battles as possible to create the Angel Slayer. So, really, Wyl is the central feature of the whole war, and the forces of EBIL are pulling the strings for him. A Ending Wyl (the not-sociopath one) is understandably upset by this.
Since it came up in chat, I wanted to discuss VPDS and Wyl's seemingly misguided grudge against the Valkyrie. Now, obviously if you've played VP1 or 2, Wyl's hatred of the Valkyrie is pretty foolish, she had nothing to do with the death of his father (though arguably she is indirectly responsible for the death of his sister and his mother's insanity since she left behind the plume, but more on that later).
But in the time period/perspective of VPDS, we're not getting a Deity's point of view of the world. We're seeing Midgard from the common people a little more closely, with all the intrigue of the gods mostly hidden from view. Sure, everyone believes in the Gods and Asgard and Vahalla and all of that, but they very rarely come in contact with actual supernatural phenomenon. Even Mermaids and Dragons were somewhat rare in VP1.
Compare to modern-day religious people. There are many who strongly believe in the existence of God in some form or another, but there's a lot of disagreement on how exactly God works and behaves. The deities of VP are a lot easier to pin down as personalities, granted, but the common folk are still primarily going off of hearsay. Their parents told them the stories of the gods (probably slightly different stories depending on your family, too), and the only physical proof 95% of the population really has of their existence is the plume left on the corpse of the supposed Einherjar. Not everybody is Rufus, the half-elf chosen to be Odin's body double, or Lezard the mad genius top student of the magic academy, so the proof of deities is pretty lacking. But in VP1, we always got the impression that the common folk who were chosen to be Einherjar were pretty wise about how the Valkyrie worked. They knew the stories.
When I was playing VPDS, I remembered having a similar initial reaction - why the hell is Wyl pissed at Lenneth? So I kept searching for clues confirming that Wyl was an idiot. I kept waiting for someone to say "The Valkyrie doesn't kill people". Instead, I kept seeing the phrase "It is a great honor to be chosen to be with the Valkyrie". You know what this reminds me of? It sounds a lot like the things people say to comfort the families of soldiers who have 'died valiantly' in a war effort. And I'm sure it comforts the families of supposed Einherjar about as much as it does the real-world soldiers' families. Only the VP families are given a single deific figure to blame. Sure, some people probably see it as 'The Valkyrie takes those who have already fallen in battle'; but there are obviously some (Wyl's mother, Valmur's family) who have come to the conclusion that 'The Valkyrie -causes- those she chooses to fall in battle'. She is a -god- after all, it wouldn't be that big of a logical leap to make.
And, looking more specifically at Wyl, he is a child of his mother. Wyl was pretty young when his father died in battle, and from the moment the Plume was given to him, his mother began to rail against the gods, the Valkyrie, for taking him away. Raised in this kind of environment, with the only opposing sentiment being 'but your father's death was -honorable-', it's hardly surprising that Wyl developed the single-minded hatred for the Valkyrie that he displays in-game.
And in specifically C path, his sociopathic tendencies have been -cultivated- by Ailyth and Hel's influence. Wyl goes his entire life burdened by his broken family, with his insane mother's views drilled into his head, and his father's and sister's deaths causing a constantly-simmering anger to build up, and then one day, he dies in battle. But, his life is spared by (he thinks) a goddess telling him that he can finally get revenge on the Valkyrie - what he's ALWAYS wanted. He just has to hold up a feather. That's all. Sure, it'll kill someone, but that's all Wyl has to do, and she -did- just bring him back to life after all. First rule of persuasion, ask for a little bit at a time and people will eventually agree to anything. So Wyl and Ancel are in a tight spot later on, "hold up the feather! it's your only chance!" urges Hel. So he does, and hey, Ancel's stronger than ever! Maybe he'll be okay?
Well, Ancel dies. And even though Wyl didn't want to do it, he knows he's killed him. He's in shock, and grief, and he runs away from his comrades and anyone who would have (possibly) helped him. Well, they may have also killed him, but either way, he runs right into Ailyth, Hel's mouthpiece. Forget his father and sister, he's just killed his best friend, and he's not even able to begin grieving or dealing with his guilt when she tells him "it's okay little boy, it's not your fault. It -had- to happen. Think about your father, your sister, your anger." So she jumps him right into stage 2: Anger, and she keeps him there as long as it takes to get him to kill more people with the Plume. And now Wyl's stuck - he's already gone this far in, he KILLED Ancel (nevermind the circumstances behind that anymore), there's war all around him, and the Valkyrie is still out there, killing people and ruining families (as Wyl sees it anyway). What's a little more bloodshed when he can finally kill her?
The game doesn't explore all of this thoroughly with Wyl, but this is certainly where the story seemed to be pointing when I played the game. The individual intrigues along the way (except for perhaps Valmur/Phiona/Reinhilde/Auguste's story, which is where I gleaned most of Wyl's development in parallel, personally) are largely world-building. Though they do drop some subtle hints as to Ailyth's involvment in starting the war, which itself is just a side-story to Hel's plot to get Wyl to kill Lenneth.
A Ending, of course, would be the opposite for Wyl. Instead of getting mired in Ailyth's suggestions, he's strong-willed enough to look past Ancel's death and not inflict the Plume on anyone else. Personally, I find that kind of boring, as RPG heroes always seem to find this kind of strength, and I like Wyl as a misguided villain-type.
Back to C-path, Reinhilde and Auguste (and in some ways, their children) are interesting foils to Wyl. They are also suffering the loss of a son, who has the infamous Valkyrie plume left behind on his corpse. Phiona adamantly asserts that this is an honor, while her parents just wish he was still alive. They would have -none- of their children go to war if they could help it, despite House Haughn being a military house. Eventually, this argument over the son's Einherjar-hood leads to the death of both children (or in B path, both parents), and the remaining family members decide to follow Wyl, who understands what it's like to lose family members both 'directly' and indirectly due to the Valkyrie's actions. After all, if Wyl's mother hadn't lost it due to blaming the Valkyrie all the time, Wyl's sister might still be alive. Just more impetus for Wyl to want to kill Lenneth.
The argument that came up in chat was that Wyl was emo and his motivation was stupid. While I agree that he's definitely emo (and melodramatic), his motivation is pretty solid, even if the game rarely touches on it directly. I honestly felt that if the game went out of its way to beat all of the above explanation into the player's face at every turn, it would have been worse than the 'lack of exploration' we got instead.
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Touhou Labyrinth
Just 'cause I brought it up in IRC, tier list I made somewhere else.
OMGWTFGDLK??? TIER
This is special and completely independent of the actual tier list.
Flandre (Borderline A-B)
Renko (B Tier)
S Tier
Reimu
Marisa
Yuugi
Rinnosuke
Mystia
A Tier
Chen
Kaguya
Ran
Shikieiki
Utsuho
Borderline A-B
Alice
Meiling
Orin
Yuyuko
Komachi
Yuka
Kanako
Maribel
B Tier
Pachery
Swacko
Aya
Eirin
Iku
Keine
Tenshi
Sanae
Nitori
Youmu
C Tier
Remilia
Sakuya Really generous, would be in REALLY SUCK TIER w/o Lunar Dial
Minoriko
Rumia
Yukari
Mokou
Suika
You Really Suck Tier
Cirno
Wriggle
Reisen
Justifications for Contented Positions
Sikieiki in A Tier
Why? Siki has monstrous magical damage, and isn't completely slow, to boot. However, her lowest delayed spell still has 6000 delay, and costs a whopping 240~ish MP on Siki resources! Everything else costs around 8500. Which isn't very reassuring. Flandre, who has debilitating delay on her attacks, have higher damage potential due to her superior ATK compared to Siki's MAG. Siki would probably leave A Tier limbo if her attacks came out faster and she had more resources. As it stands, though, she is staying there.
Rinnosuke in S Tier
Rhino is someone who generally most people use at offense. However, that is a great misconception. Hihiirokane Blade is a powerful, fairly quick ST attack, there's no denying that, but that's as far as his offensive prowess goes. His REAL use is to spam World-Shaking Military Rule against bosses to make everyone super-strong, and then proceed to tank the shit out of enemy attacks. His initial defensive stats MAY leave something to be desired, considering Tenshi and Yuugi exist, but that can easily be fixed with skill points. Rhino is just a very solid member all around ever since the time you get him.
Yukari in C Tier
Yukarin is a true one-trick pony on her own. All she can really do is give the party an extra turn. Without Chen and Ran in the same party, most of her attacks do dipshit in terms of damage. Now, this is excusable since you'd have either or in your party generally, but as a character in herself, she's not at all solid. Decent-ish stats, but her attacks are too quirky for what they are. Shikigami Ran+ is decent damage if the two are around, but if not, too bad. You basically need 3 people for 1 spot. >:S
Sanae > Minoriko
In response to some guy on another forum
How the hell does your Minoriko heal more than Sanae unless you've been giving Minoriko more skill points? This doesn't make any logical sense, it only shows you're being biased because there is no way Minoriko is going to heal more than Sanae without being given more skill points, the numbers disagree. Okay, going to concede that Mino's healing is faster, but what's she got other than that? Falling Leaves of Madness is solid offense but that is pretty much it. Sanae has Miracle Fruits AND a non-elemental row spell.
Suika in C Tier
Response to same guy
Actually Suika's HP is completely average and many people have the same HP growth as her and are just as good if not better at slugfesting, like, say, Youmu. Yeah, Suika has a nice buff. But if you need buffs to be an awesome slugfester, you will never be an awesome slugfester. Ever. Even Alice, who mainly focuses on multi-target attacks, can potentially do more damage than Suika when both are unbuffed. Screw that Suika HAS to use her buffs before you can legitimately compare her with someone who can't buff, that is intrinsically unfair because that means you are immediately gimping another character since they can't buff. She's terribly terribly average >_>
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FFTA2: COMPLETED! People want a full rant on it but fuck it, there's not enough TO rant about the game. The fact that it lacks plot means that all I can really rave about is gameplay and there's really not much to say beyond this:
Take FFTA's gameplay. Now alter interface and polish such that things are a lot more user friendly, add in two more races, tweak balance, make things a lot easier to work with in general, and you have the basic development system. Laws are more "Follow them, you get special benefits and stuff that the enemy doesn't have, INCLUDING IN battle resurrection! Break them, lose these benefits." Really, that's all it was; if you break a law, you're at no disadvantageous standpoint compared to the enemy, you just lose whatever bonus factor (In Battle Revival + Whatever privilege of your choice) you had on the enemy...and some of those laws are so trivially easy to follow, they sometimes don't matter at all, be it cause its like "Don't use this race!" when its not part of your team, or "Don't use this element!" when you have at least 2 others to work with, etc. The only bullshit laws are ones that rely on random factors, be it enemy actions or shit like "Don't miss!" and then suddenly you miss on a 99% HIT CHANCE in a game that doesn't let you have 100% hit on Damage moves >_<
I've said this in chat, but what I mean is this:
FFT, one of its best points was its general plot and how it was handled; the actual political stuff was handled well, characters were decently written (Hi Delita), and the fact that we saw the plot from like every Point of View Imaginable allowed you to know more or less exactly what was going on, outside of the stuff the game really wanted to keep a mystery for the sake of, you know, keeping some suspense or something. Very few games actually managed this as well as FFT did.
FFTA2? One of its strength its is lack of plot and the fact that its aware of it, and doesn't try to pretend it has one. Seriously, you'd think there's a loose plot in there, but it isn't; its quite literally just "Luso and Friends and their zainy adventures in Ivalice!" There's like 4 plot missions that actually are related, and they're related loosely so...the final boss was pretty much just kind of tossed in cause "By laws of RPG, you need some giant monstrosity to be a final boss." This is the one point in the game where the game pretended to have plot, but really it didn't. It was a nice change of pace that the game did NOT have an actual crisis or anything.
Seriously, no earth shattering plot, no "The entire infrastructure is collapsing in on itself!"type scenario...its quite literally just Luso and the gang, and the stuff they go through. If they fail...Ivalice goes on, no one really notices, cause they're "Just another clan." The giant monstrosity wasn't actually a threat to Ivalice, just something that threatened the team...and the game didn't try to hurl morality bullshit at you either...yeah, there really is no plot, so the fact that the game didn't try to pull any last minute "IVALICE WILL BE EATEN BY A GIANT VAGINA MONSTER!" monster nonsense last minute was nice. It was more just "...we have one last obstacle in my way before I can go home? *sigh* Lets get this over with!"
Anyway, 8/10 game I guess; shocked it was as fun as it was. Its too addicting to consider a replay cause god damn is it a major time investment. Oh yeah, there's one last thing I have to hype before closing this "rant"...one very important thing that anyone whose played FFTA2 must agree with, lest they fail at life:
RANK HEAD EDITOR!!!!
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Dragon Warrior III: Time to beat Zoma. Well, on their way to his castle, the party has another incident where Mye is blown away and they have to go back and get her. Fortunately, this is the last time it happens.
The first floor tries to waste one's time. It has a lot of stair which leads to a corridor which in turn just goes in a circle. Fortunately, Lia soon discovers that there doesn't seem to be anything down those stairs worth her time. She instead proceeds to the middle of the castle. There are a lot of statues. With foreboding voices, they announce that they guard Zoma's castle and comes to life. Lia and her party is thrust into a battle with monsters they have only encountered about fifty-eleven times already! Somehow they prevail over their foes.
Killing all statues opens a wall which leads to the throne room. The throne room is full of damaging terrain and somewhere in it are some stairs hidden. This could be painful, but a simple spell neutralizes terrain damage, so all it serves is to waste time.
Next big floor has those orientation turning diamond tiles. Again, it's not hard to navigate them. The floor after that is rather straightforward.
Down below that however is where things are happening. Lia spots her father, who somehow made it to this castle without the rainbow drop. Maybe he built a raft or just swam? Whatever it was, it must have been complicated since he needed more than fifteen years to get here. Well, he happened to be fighting the King Hydra just now, so the questions will have to wait.
Ortega's performance leaves other things to be desired. It starts well enough, the hydra attacks and Ortega dodges while counterattacking. However, after missing twice the hydra decides it doesn't have to put up with the whole having it's attacks dodged crap and instead spews out flames. Judging from the damage he takes, Ortega has no flame resist equipment on whatsoever. Despite now taking a lot of damage, he still blows a lot of valuable MP on attack spells. He does manage to cast one Healall, but the second times he tries it he has emptied his MP pool and the hydra takes the opportunity to finish him off.
When Lia makes it to him, the hydra is gone. Ortega is to wounded to even see Lia and can just tell her his final words. He asks Lia to find Lia and tell her that her wretched father failed to achieve peace. Lia still would have preferred if he told her why he didn't take a warp wing back home even once, but at least he admitted he didn't do a very good job of being a father.
In the same floor Lia also finds a Sagerock, the most powerful treasure she ever seen.
Down another floor, the battles begins. The party encounters Zoma who reveals that they are standing on the sacrificial altar. He then summons the King Hydra who's apparently supposed to sacrifice them. Unfortunately for the hydra, he's now up against four guys who doesn't use a dumb strategy.
Next in the path are two monsters who calls themselves Bara-something. While there are two of them, they attack one at a time which doesn't work out to well for them. Only Zoma left.
Zoma wonders why Lia is so persistent in pursuing him. Lia wonder what reason she doesn't have. The final battle starts. The first thing Lia does is to use the Light Orb, which changes the music and apparently weakens him.
Lia who after acquiring the Ultimate Whip has the highest attack power serves as the main physical attacker with a few Thordains thrown in. Harl with his high speed is put on Sagerock duty. Mye also has healing duty and also cast Speedup whenever Zoma dispels all buffs and she doesn't need to heal. Seth was originally supposed to buff Lia and Harl, but Zoma likes to dispel far to often so instead he just spammed Blazemost. He actually ended up being the best damage dealer that way.
Between double acting, having powerful attacks and being able to dispel, Zoma could put up quite a resistance. However, the Sagerock and the fact that he lacks the ability to hose the party with a lucky confusion spell means he isn't even half the threat Baramos was. Down he goes.
Most big bad evils would now have said something in line of "as long as humans have evil in their hearts I will return". Zoma instead says "as long as there is light there will also be darkness" which seems a bit unfair. It's already bad enough when the big bad evil demands that all humans have to become 100% good, but if the only way to prevent world threatening demons from emerging is for everyone to become cruel and heartless, you can't even hypothetically win.
The castle collapses and the party find themselves in the cave of no magic. There are no enemies now though, so it's just to walk out. Daylight has returned and Lia decides to report that the threat is over to the only king in this world.
He proclaims Lia a hero, but then drops the bombshell. He says that he's saddened that the connection between the worlds are now broken. Wait a minute! Being trapped in this dull world was not what Lia signed up for! The king awards her the title of Loto and the guards blows into trumpets. Lia wonders if another demonking will show up and kill those guards, but apparently not. Everyone rejoices except for Lia who disappears. A lot of legends are spawned regarding where she went. The answer is however easy, although it doesn't make any sense.
Lia went to rest, probably while cursing her bad luck. When she woke up, she was back home for no explained reason. To make sure this wasn't just a dream, she goes to the dragon queen's castle. There is a pillar of light or something which will take a hero to the sky world. She couldn't enter before, but now she can which proves that her victory over Zoma wasn't just a dream. How this happened she doesn't know, but who cares?
Maybe she will explore the sky world and maybe she will find it within herself to allow her companions to class change.
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KotOR2: On Nar Shadda. On the brink of getting bored and not doing every sidequest OCD be damned. However, now Atton is a Jedi.
<Obsidian Fanboyism> You know, I'm really, really glad I played KotOR1. The only other WRPG I've played start-to-finish before that was PS:T, and it had set my standards a little high. Then I played KotOR1 and realized not every WRPG will have awesome characters. But I liked it well enough for what it was, and most importantly it lowered my standards for KotOR2.
See, this was nice because when I found out Atton's backstory I don't think I would have been surprised at what a well developed and believable character he was. Nor did I expect for him to say something that made me *completely* reevaluate his actions in earlier character-interaction cut scenes. It turned him from a Han Solo clone to someone who is intentionally a Han Solo clone for his own purposes.
I think I have to use him in my main party from now on just because of that.
An aside, but my main complaint about 1 was that it tended too much toward an absolutist system of morality. With 2 I was happy already because Kreia's existence alone was a step in the right direction. Atton's backstory is a much larger one. So, uh, hooray. Good job Obsidian. I still like you. maybe you can make fallout 3 sequel thing not suck but im not going to hedge bets on that or use proper punctuation why are you still reading this
</Obsidian fanboyism>
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Inspired by Crystal Gate's fun writeups I've started Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride for the NDS (because 3 wasn't for the NDS, and I played 5 pre-DS but wanted to see if it's improved).
It is still nonsensical and yet fun. Dazzle is OP.
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Diablo 2 Hardcore: This game is utterly boring and repetitive... but addicting. Me and 2 others decided to do a hardcore run set on 8 players. I was a Sorc, one was a werebear, and one was a warrior. We smashed through everything on Normal and Nightmare. Unfortunately, after a couple dozen Baal runs on nightmare with 400% magic find, we had absolute shit for items. We got bored and moved onto hell. Our dumbass warrior forgot that his resistances were not shit and he died to the first lightning enchanted boss we fought.
So... I lose half my health, half my mana (and regen) and 15% of my damage with him dead. We also lose our best tank. Kinda made things a pain. Our druid eventually died when he accidentally switched off of wear bear form during a boss fight too... leaving my poor little 83 Sorc alone. Sucks since I can't do anything more really. Sooo...
Time for some FE8 hardcore mode!
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ME2:
Rad game. Garrus is the goddamn Batman, and I love it.
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inFamous- Two story missions to go... but I can't freaking find the last two or three side missions for the Historic District. Also pissed that apparantly some of the Blast Shards are permenantly missable. How is 100% a Bronze Trophy again? Other than those and the Evil side trophies, just gotta finish off the stunts, 100 Bio-Leeched enemies and 100 High Fall Takedowns. I'll probably make my Evil side run the Hard playthrough.
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ME2:
Rad game. Garrus is the goddamn Batman, and I love it.
"Archangel? That's just something the people have started calling me, for my good deeds."
Also I got to cross that bitch reporter the fuck out.
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RANK HEAD EDITOR!!!!
I second and third and fourth this.
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RANK HEAD EDITOR!!!!
I second and third and fourth this.
Fifthed and sixthed.
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RANK HEAD EDITOR!!!!
I second and third and fourth this.
Fifthed and sixthed.
Seventhed, eighthed, ninthed, tenthed...
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ME2:
Rad game. Garrus is the goddamn Batman, and I love it.
"Archangel? That's just something the people have started calling me, for my good deeds."
Also I got to cross that bitch reporter the fuck out.
Part of the fun of playing KotOR right now is that "The sooner I get done playing KotOR, I can play Mass Effect. The sooner I get done playing Mass Effect, I can play ME2."
In other words, hate you strago
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - "BREAKING NEWS: BLACK CAPE DEFEATS RED CAPE!" was all over the local paper. Raidou is finally getting closer to the urban myth status he's always wanted.
His next case is finding the reason for some dissapearing shipments from the local store. Raidou knows if he doesn't do this then the store will close and then, where will he get his aphrodisiac bovines from?
He makes his way to the port to investigate and hears some of the new shipments have just vanished moments after he arrived on the scene. Who could have done this? Many would say a wizard but this Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army so, a demon did.
Raidou is proven correct and after defeating Red Cape he fears nothing, so the chump demons are all dealt with easily. However to his shock he finds evidence pinning Rasputin to the scene of the crime but why does he want Raidou's aphrodisiac bovines? A question he'd have to ask the russian himself.
Raidou hears much of a man called Elfman who used to be a kind man but was now evil and killing people. Seeing the plot point in front of him he found that Elfman was dead and someone was disguised as him being evil. All this is found out about 3 miniutes after going off to investigate Elfman meaning, Raidou is a pretty awesome private eye.
Raidou enters the fake Elfman's home which happens to be a church to find the villain is infact Rasputin which was quite clear at this point.
The time has come for the totally bombastic boss fight with Rasputin... who transforms into Asmodeus! I kid, Why would he want to transform into that lame star ocean villain anyway. Rasputin begins by hiding in one of three giant Matroshka and daring Raidou to find him. An easy task to be sure, but it angers Rasputin who ups the ante by using the deadly arte of Megido.
Even this can't save him and Rasputin falls.... exploding!?! Raidou finds that Rasputin the mad monk is infact...... a terminator? Send from the future to stop the one man who can stop the evil robot masters no doubt. Raidou is confused as this presents a rather large question. Why would Rasputin a russian monk who is actually a terminator, want with his aphrodisiac bovines?
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What would any hot-blooded Big-bearded walking Russian Id want with aphrodisiacs, silly?
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ME2:
Rad game. Garrus is the goddamn Batman, and I love it.
"Archangel? That's just something the people have started calling me, for my good deeds."
Also I got to cross that bitch reporter the fuck out.
Part of the fun of playing KotOR right now is that "The sooner I get done playing KotOR, I can play Mass Effect. The sooner I get done playing Mass Effect, I can play ME2."
In other words, hate you strago
I hear that. I'm already making plans for a full ME/ME2 Renegade mustachioed dude-Shepard playthrough, once my badass red-head Paragon lady-Shepard has saved the galaxy.
I'm thinking maybe that Renegade Shep will be some sort of Biotic, since so far I've only gone Infiltrator in the first and now pure Engineer (which is fun as hell) in the second.
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I'm a Vanguard and I find it quite enjoyable, though my biotic abilities (except Charge) weren't that cool until I got Slam from Miranda. Slam is fucking awesome.
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Heavy Rain Demo: Intriguing concept on the whole. Walking and camera were clunky, but everything else went pretty smooth for being, in essence, a game comprised of endless QTEs. Graphical glitch was freaky, but didn't occur on a second play. All in all, gonna pick it up out of curiosity based on the reviews thus far and the demo.
Bioshock: Started this up again since I hadn't beat it back when it was on my old compy and was in the nearly unplayable graphics range. Currently hunting for a telekinesis plasmid. Lightning Plasmid + Weapon have been pretty sufficient to deal with anything I've run into. Wrench Jockey is providing me a plasmid-less option for combat though, since I ream most things I hit, currently.
Capcom vs SNK Card Battles DS: Fuck the goddamn "trade me these cards" levels.
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inFamous- Got frustrated with blast shard hunting, beat the game. Luckily, that last swath of territory was from the story. Hunting down the last two stunts. Where will I find three enemies on a rooftop? Can't quite get it to work with the three Reapers that spawn on the train tracks. Also need to do the grenade bouncing one. Still also finishing up The Hunger and High Fall Takedown trophies as well.
I've heard conflicting reports that any of the 350 blast shards are missable. I'm fairly sure the ones from missions count towards it, but people say no. Still have 6 to go at any rate.
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Dragon warrior III (opinions and other crap): All things considered, I found it enjoyable. I do wonder though how enjoyable I would have found it without a frame-skip button and FAQs to consult. Of course, there are a lot of newer games that made me wish I had a frame-skip button.
Let's start with the story. I did not expect the game to have a good story. A big evil is threatening and you have to stop it and then no more. I will however say that the way I wrote the heroine does have parallels with how I felt. When the spice dealers daughter got kidnapped, I did not give a crap about rescuing her. I just wanted the ship. The Orochi quest could have worked for me though. The writers did a decent job with the dialogs. Parents were worried about their daughters getting sacrificed, the girls themselves being worried about getting sacrificed and so on. The unsubtle hostility from the village leader and the actual boss fights being bullshit didn't help though, the latter could have been avoided had they given the main character Healmore earlier.
Still, my only real beef was the second world. The second world I think is made to look similar to the world in the first Dragon Warrior game. Unfortunately, Dragon Warrior III had far better mapping (despite the map looking like that of our world) than the first Dragon Warrior, so I don't think trying to emulate it was a very good idea. Further, night in this game isn't very atmospheric, grass turns blue for example. As such, making the second world have eternal night just made it duller.
I found battles are rather fun for being the standard unquirky turn based system. Enemies are different enough from each other that I consider it worthwhile to choose your target and what spell the mage should cast. Offensive spells from the mage also does more damage than physical attacks, so that's a plus although enemy resistance giving the monsters a chance to completely negate a spell rather than reducing it's damage by a percentage put a damper to it. Still, just having enemies who encourages you to adjust your strategies is a concept amazingly absent in RPGs.
I really wish the game designers didn't try to make the hero equal to the rest early and awesome at the end. The hero learns Healmore at level 29 and Healall at level 33. Further, while the cleric will have the Healmore spell early enough, that spell will for a long time heal half or less of a character's max hitpoints. That combined with the hero getting it way to late meant that there couldn't be any meaningful boss battles until near end. Dragon Warrior IV did a far better job with the hero.
Anyway, I think I compile my writing sometime tomorrow rather than waiting until I'm done with the sidequests which I may not even finish.
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Are you playing the GBC or NES version?
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IIRC, the second world of DQ3 should be exactly the same as DQ1. Right down to that spiral-y basement in Zoma's castle, which is where you find a piece of Loto's equipment in DQ1.
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What would any hot-blooded Big-bearded walking Russian Id want with aphrodisiacs, silly?
Well whatever they do they can get their own aphrodisiacs. They cost Raidou 1000 yen a pop you know.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - Raidou's reporter friend finally got the big scoop she's always wanted, a big cheese army man wants to cough up some info on strange goings on. Tae (the reporter) is afraid the army might find out though so she needs a bodyguard and Raidou being the slayer of not one, but three Red Capes is the perfect man for the job.
On the way though Raidou's pride is dashed a bit when he finds out the army defeated a forth Red Cape. Oddly this is the only Red Cape with "The" in front of its name when people refer to it. Maybe its the final boss or something because that is fishy as hell.
Anyway Raidou arrives at the army base but finds the army man isn't there so he messes about with a cannon for a bit. Pulling pranks on the army by using demons is a pastime close to Raidou's heart. Unbelievable as it seems Tae is kidnapped when Raidou is away, she simply vanished. Raidou is no fool and he sees the pattern quite clearly, when someone vanishes into thin air then the dark realm is to blame, or russian men one of the two.
Warping in he finds the big cheese army man stright off, Moleman. Before getting the chance to talk some weak Zombies from three chapters back make an appearance or well. After saving his live Moleman simply isn't inpressed enough to spill the beans and says he'll only tell me if I do a fetch quest for him.
Raidou was trained in the subject of fetch quests so its a snap. Moleman now inpressed tells me about the army building a..................................SOULLESS ARMY!!!!!!!!
Moleman says these guys are near unbeatable but Raidou wiped them out easily enough three chapters ago so this guy might be overeacting a tad but anyway, Raidou gets his next mission: Storm the armies underground island fortress.
It has awesome music at least because the storming isn't very....well stormy, the base just has a lot of breakable walls nothing special really. Raidou does at last find the missing girl from chapter one though, tied in some bondage rope (while blindfolded) soaking up her blood while some old army general leers over her.
Raidou does the math though and attacks the pedophile who counters with some well placed minions. who for all their talk aren't very strong. Raidou has at last saved the girl but what awaits him now?
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ME2- WHY WON'T THE YEOMAN LET ME FUCK HER? If I don't bang her she won't feed my fish.
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Are you playing the GBC or NES version?
GBC.
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So in my first game, I let Conrad Verner get wasted because he was too dumb to live. But this time, he's alive and I met him in a bar. He explained to me what it takes to be a hero.
"Well, normally I just walk up to people looking like I want to talk. Most of the time they just tell me their problems, and sometimes I go in their houses and search their stuff for money."
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ME2- WHY WON'T THE YEOMAN LET ME FUCK HER? If I don't bang her she won't feed my fish.
Gotta wait until the game's over. ME2's one of those games that lets you keep playing a clear save.
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Crisis Core- Final dungeon (I think) I have found a LIGHT materia :P L40 ok for this area?
Oh and I bought Healing Wave, Lucky Stars and Rush Assault DMW materias =-)
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Buy all the DMW Materia; they make getting Genji Armor a lot easier (obviously, you equip one of them for a while until you get all the DMW scenes, then swap as you need things!)
Level 40 is fine, for that matter; heck, I think I beat the game at like 33 or some such. Levels don't matter much though, Materia builds are more important. levels do matter...when in massive bulk. You'll typically gain the levels you need for optional stuff by just casual fighting, such that you'll be over 90 by the time you fight Minerva (assuming you're dedicated enough.)
And if you found a Light Materia, yeah, final dungeon. BEWARE THE POWER OF PLOT MATERIA THAT IS JUST A FANCY NAME FOR KEYS!?
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Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - Completed.
As mentioned earlier I missed Tiki. I did get the Falchion, and knew the trick to get to 24x anyway, so I used that. Probably a good thing I did. Marth got doubled by Medeus and my plan to one-round him with a forged Wyrmslayer fell through when he was strangely not weak to them. 'sokay though, Nagi did 80% of his HP in one hit so none of his other scary stats really mattered. I could probably have managed anyway with Catria + Athena + two staff users but Nagi made things pretty easy.
Game time was 26 hours or so, got all the sidequests except 12x (curse you, Arachneian knights, I should have slaughtered you all in the chapter you joined). 26 hours is short for FE given I played the entire game with animations on + watching all scenes + my usual fairly long time in battle preparations. Maps are shorter than the norm which overall I am inclined to welcome? I do like some epic maps in FE (might have been nice to see this game try one or two at least) but multiple consecutive battles of 50+ enemies do get tiresome and I was glad to see this game dodge that. Longest battle in terms of time was Chapter 4 at 1:25 but I suspect I left the game on while doing something else here, otherwise the longest battles topped out at around an hour.
Kill leader was Caeda at 94 followed by Abel at 90 and nobody else was particularly close, Athena and Barst were the distant 3rd/4th in the 60's.
Overall, I've covered the game already. The plot is laughable, but that's FE1 for you. This has a trickledown/related effect that hurts gameplay as there are just way too many characters and you have no reason to care about most of them. Even FE6, the game in the series which suffers second most from this, does a far better job about it. Getting back to the plot, yeah. Game really fails at making you care about the sympathetic villains (I honestly don't recall hearing about Michalis until the battle you fight him, but the game implies that I should have...), only one serious villain has presence (final notably does not), PCs have no presence because they might die (and Marth and his advisors are cardboard cutouts). Just kinda bad on this front!
Gameplay-wise, well. I miss shoving and rescuing, they add a lot of options to the gameplay and the game was worse for lacking them. (Warp Staves being very usable makes up for this a little, but not enough.) No Canto (even after trading) either, which while balanced is probably annoying. Evade was... basically not an option as a reliable strategy since evade is literally half what it is in other games, plus weapons are more accurate in general (e.g. 100 hit Iron and Silver Swords).
Sidequests... well, part of me really likes the fact that it was very obviously aimed at the MUST NOT LET ANYONE DIE players to try to break them of the habit. Of that I approve. However killing off your own people is a bit silly. Put in a "Dismiss" command (as in FFT) and make the sidequest requirements more clear and I am fine with it.
Otherwise though the game had a whole bunch of neat ideas which were either neat experiments or things I'd like to see implemented in other Fire Emblem games.
-PCs who die drop their inventory into yours at the end of the battle. It's bad enough you're losing a PC forever, don't take their valuable swag too! This change fixes that. It makes perfect plot sense to boot. And it makes me much happier about this game's sidequest stuff. Might be my single favourite change, honestly.
-Mid-animation skip that still shows you changes to HP gauges. Hell yes.
-Enemy phase display skip. So yeah, you can now basically skip everything that doesn't involve you entering commands.
-Ballisticians were cool, and, I think, reasonably balanced in their implementation.
-Map design. I really liked the stuff connected with Gharnef (particularly him chasing you across the desert), the ballistician swarm map, and a few other things the game did. Definitely this is something this game did better than any other FE except 10.
-I think this version of forging made a bit more sense and was more flexible than FE9-10's. It would probably be better paired with only 2x might for weakness though.
-Reclassing was at worst a neat experiment. Opened up some new avenues for how to raise characters, but was reasonably balanced by how the game handled...
-Weapon levels. They matter a lot since they affect performance with weapons, not just what you can use. They raise slowly but not tooo slowly. Well done guys.
Usual FE experience beyond all this, which is fine. Fairly pretty in that FE way (animations were crisp, character portraits were good), music was quite listenable if not something I'll turn to outside the game much. 6/10 probably. Could rise if the multiple difficulty mode thing ends up impressing me a lot, or could fall on reflection like many games do, I have no idea.
DL-wise, the game doesn't really lend itself to the DL very well. Lack of rankable bosses, and lack of PCs with plot or that the player would be guaranteed to use. If the game ever gets players I'll probably support a Marth/Caeda/Jagen rank or something like that, could be argued on Cain/Abel but whatever. Caring is not strong here.
***
PC notes!
Marth: Well, for years FE had this thing called "Sucky Lord Syndrome" and it's easy to see why with Marth. His growths are rather good so he was reasonably solid for a bit, but he's held back pretty badly by two things. First is the fact that he needs to visit all the towns and seize the gates and he can't be rescued to speed this up, so he can't really dally to fight things and this tends him towards being underlevelled. Second is the lack of promotion bonuses, so once the Master Seals come out to play his stats just start looking bad. I noticed people who recommend borderline ignoring levelling him entirely which says it all really, even Roy didn't usually attract such comments. Helps that the Falchion is leagues below the Sword of Seals, Ragnell, the Sacred Twins, etc.
Caeda: Overall MVP. Winged Spear (forging it for even more fun) + flight destroyed worlds for too long, she promoted well before everyone else (and Dracoknight is an awesome promo for Str/Def/Move) and continued destroying worlds. Fell off a bit in the last few chapters as her low Str finally caught up with her but she was always a perfectly adequate combatant even then, and outright godly against cavalry and knights. The storebought Wing Spears was quite an unexpected boon.
Abel: Also pretty awesome. All of the initial Cavs are on paper, since Cavalier is an awesome class and they have the Myrmidon option if they need more speed, and their stats are all good... but Abel turned out the best for me. After promotion he even had access to Dracoknight, though I used that less than I should have... didn't want to give up his sword rank but increasingly I ignored that for his lances anyway. This may have been a mistake too! Pretty sure I didn't raise him the best way possible as such but he's still good which says it all.
Cain: Also used him quite a bit. A bit behind Abel because he couldn't use Javs at first, but that just made the Myrm option more tempting. Ultimately decided to let him go for basically no reason, there's some biblical commentary there I'm sure.
Barst: Axeman. Mainly used him because I figured I would want one. While the weapon triangle isn't a good enough reason for this, having a lategame Hauteclaire user is. Probably. Also Hammer/Poleaxe in the meantime. Before promo he's a bit unimpressive, 6 move + middling (though not bad) speed. He does have the Merc option but that gives up axes, though I took it for a map or two. After promo, much better, goes Hero, keeps axes, gains move, gains speed.
Lena: Initial staff user! Thanks to the C she's good at this, but eh. Classed her into Mage since I wanted one, and while she was good at first, 20% speed growth murdered her, so I dropped her midgame.
Merric: Hey look it's a mage who actually does get speed! Also HP. Very refreshing. Competent and capable the whole way through but the move (no promo bonus to move was sadness) held him back from dominating.
Wolf: Oh my god the bases were hideous (game-worst along with Sedgar, sub-JAGEN). I used him at first anyway because I figured maybe I should raise an archer and Horsemen >>> unpromos. However he had a couple bad levels so I dropped him. Too bad, his growths are crack on paper (to make up for the bases, like FE9 Shinon but not stuck in a shit class and joining underlevelled). Another playthrough.
Wendell: His growths suck, and yet I used him the whole game and never regretted it for an instant. Why? 1. Prepromo, so initial move boost, etc. 2. Great base speed. 3. Base staff level. At first I used him as a Dracoknight because he doubled reliably and so was a good mobile striker, but as his Str became inadequate I switched him back to filler staff user and used him as one the rest of the game. Not having to burn time in 5 move Curate or use a Master Seal makes him damn good at this job, he could at worst always survive (was only doubled once or twice very late), and always counter for some effectiveness.
Athena: Her base HP and Strength are excellent for a Myrmidon, which covers the class' usual weaknesses beautifully. Her base Speed could be better but the growth takes care of that, making Paladin a reasonable option for her post-promo (she waffled between it and SM depending on map). So yeah, very overall solid, clearly a reward for getting that first sidequest.
Bantu: I really wasn't impressed by him, and was pretty annoyed you need to keep him for 12 chapters to get Tiki.
Jeorge: Used him briefly as filler as a second failed experiment at having a good archer. Why do I waste my time? Screw bows. His Str just sucked.
Minerva: Great filler, on the other hand. Hauteclaire out of the box together with the awesome move + Dracoknight defence. Eventually other people promoted and her stats became garbage but that's fine.
Linde: Has her own tome which gives her offence, but her stats didn't turn out that great for me, and she was typically Merric-. When she did die around Chapter 21 I didn't restart the chapter for her.
Beck: Ballista dude. Bad move, balanced by hitting anywhere. Limited weapons prevents true abuse of him, but this can be mitigated by the Starsphere (granted, a fought-over item) which conveniently you keep until the very chapter you get storebought ballistas. Actually thinking on it you should totally keep the Starsphere anyway, Falchion isn't worth it.
Catria: I heard about the stat growths in advance. They did not disappoint. She's underlevelled, but not by enough to be a liability, and is worth catching up because she was just a death goddess late. All stats above 20 except Luck/Res + 10 move + flight? Game cries. Gave her the Iote Shield and she could go anywhere and kill anything. Kinda took over Caeda's role late but was even better at it outside killing armours, though obviously not as good overall because of playing catchup.
Etzel: Filler staff user mark 2, inferior at it due to low staff rank.
Ymir: About the only prepromo who actually compares statwise to properly promoted units. He was nothing special but was doing a fine job as filler even into Endgame.
Elice: Well, she starts with an A in staves, so she has some filler use there. Master Sealed her immediately so she could enjoy the +1 move and attacking options. Terrible stats hurt her, but not too much? Admittedly I'd have to actually use a high-Magic staff specialist to get a sense of how she'd compare to one of them.
Nagi: Hey look she one-shots every random out of the box except Heroes (Manaketes get OHKOed, non-Hero humans get doubled/owned by 18 speed/36 Atk even before the monstrous growths which, admittedly, don't really have time to kick in) and takes down the final boss with only a bit more trouble (2HKO through the regen + not being OHKOed). Has only 6 move, but otherwise is an FE9 laguz royal.
Julian and Rickard: Are thieves. You only have so many Master Keys so they are very valuable, lots of treasure in this game, fair number of doors too. Worth noting when one of my thieves died in 24x he attracted my Aum Staff use.
Annnd that's all I care to comment on. Metroid Fusion is next, although of course I am still continuing with SMW2 (current progress on that: nearly done world 4).
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Batman: Arkham Asylum - Started this up today. Following a nicotine trail.
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: ...yes, you're getting another Abridged Meeple Series WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT!!!!
*Cue some time over 10 years after ONimusha 3. How do we know that? Cause the dates match up that way...and by 10 years after, I mean 10 years by Feudal Japan standards, NOT Paris, France standards*
Shang Tsung Wannabe: Mwahahah! Tenkai, its you...and you're failing to beat me! Mwahaha!
Tenkai: Mitsunari! Your evil ways...that I don't really know what they are but I'm sure they're evil...will go punished! Now die!
Mitsunari: TENTACLE RAPE!
Tenkai: *Tenkai gets hit by a bunch of tentacles, tries to counter, falls off building* YOU WON'T GET AWAY WITH THIS *insert Coyote like falling effect here*
Mitsunari: Yes, and soon, CHERRY BLOSSOMS WILL FILL THE LAND! Hideyoshi's conquest will be complete. Yes...CHERRY BLOSSOMS! The most evil of things! PEOPLE WILL FEAR THEM, for they are...CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!!! ...oh, right, there's that Black Oni thing, I should probably be careful about him...in case he appears...but still...CHERRY BLOSSOMS!!!
NOTE: Yes, he really has a rant about Cherry Blossoms, I am not making this up.
*sometime later, a town is attacked by a bunch of ZOMBIE SKELETON DEMONS, as well as other mainstays in the series, and Kaiju-sized Samurai with HUGE CANNONS where their chests are. Little girl loses her doll or something sentimental like that, is attacked by said demons...CUE THE BLONDE HAIRED PROTAGONIST DUAL WIELDING HUGE BROADSWORDS...by huge, I mean the size of Cloud's Buster Sword, he proceeds to fight*
Female Narrator: I shall now recite a vast amount of poetry that's suppose to not make any sense, only to add flair to the Blonde Haired Protagonist kicking ass. For you see, the sword cuts through the demons and...
Blonde Haired Protagonist: Look, I know I'm not suppose to fight now, but could you just kind of shut up and let me be a total bad ass in the intro like I'm suppose to be?
Female Narrator: Fine! I won't warn you about one of those Kaiju Sized Samurai with Nipple Cannons coming from behind you.
Blonde Haired Protagonist: Who of what now?
*Large fist attacks him, he dodges, slices the guy in half...another one pops up, the Hero turns all SEPHIROTH MODE like Samanosuke could do in O3, kicks its ass, all in time to save the girl's doll, give it back to her, and watch her smile*
Female Narrator: So the Black Oni kicked some ass. After Nobunaga was defeated years ago by Samanosuke and some French Guy who looked like Jean Reno from the future.
Jacques: Hey, I'm not suppose to be referenced at all in this game, LEAVE ME OUT OF THIS!
Female Narrator: How the hell can you speak english?
Ako: ^_^
Female Narrator: ...anyway...at first, Hideyoshi's rule was all cool...but then he became a dick and a bunch of demons came, natural disasters, what have you. Long story short, shit happened, its 2 years after that intro, lets get started...oh yeah, and there were Cherry Blossoms. Lots and lots of Cherry Blossoms.
*some desolate village that looks a lot like God Hand's opening*
Big Red Demon Samurai Guy: Aha! We must get this to-...wait, why is the road blocked off? WHO THE FUCK WOULD DO THIS!?
*shift to indoors*
Blonde Haired Protagonist: Zzzzzzz...
Freak of Nature that is Gender Ambiguous: SOKI!!!!!!
Soki: AH! What the hell are-...er...I mean, hi Minokichi.
Minokichi: There's an evil guy out there, he's got a cherry tree!
Soki: TO BATTLE!!
*outside*
BRDSG: Ah, so you're here, I thought no one was left in this town.
Soki: Yeah, well, I'm here...can you tell me your name so I know who I'm kicking the ass of?
BRDSG: I am...DANEMON!
Soki: Ok, Danemon, lets fight.
Danemon: FOR LORD HIDEYOSHI I WILL DEFEAT YOU!
Soki: Um, ok? Can we fight yet?
Danemon: YOU BLUE DEMON DO NOT STAND A CHANCE AGAINST ME!
Soki: Wait, you mean you know who I am? So...why aren't we fighting again?
Danemon: ...good point, lets just start this *summons some Zombie Skeleton Demons*
Female Narrator: One man, wielding two great broad swords, decided to fight against the Genma! He is known as THE BLUE DEMON!!! He wields the power of the Oni! He goes by...
Soki: Look, are you gonna do this EVERY TIME we start a new chapter? I mean, it was cool in the intro, but now this is just a boss fight!
Female Narrator: Well excuse me for just reading the damn script!
*Soki beats Danemon*
Danemon: GLORY TO HIDEYOSHI! *drops dead*
Soki: Well, I sure hope he's actually gone...
Minokichi: So you going to burn that Cherry Tree?
Soki: Who of what now? *there's a huge tree on fire behind him*
Minokichi: ...nevermind.
*Meanwhile, on a near-bye rooftop*
Male Cryptic Ninja: So THAT'S the Blue Demon, eh?
Female Cryptic Ninja: Its him after all, eh?
MCN: You know him?
FCN: Sort of. Does it matter?
MCN: No, not really...
*next scene*
Girl in Pink: This town looks deserted. I wonder if there's anything there...wait, why is this area blocked off?
Random Brigand #1: hey look! Its a girl!
Random Brigand #2: Don't get any idea, she's too young!
Random BRigand #1: Too young? She's at least 15! That's plenty old for us.
Random Brigand #2: On what grounds?
Random Brigand #1: This is Japan, duh! NOTHING is beyond our standards!
Random Brigand #2: Oh, right!
Girl in Pink: Look, guys, I'm not for sale, so...*pulls out sword* PISS OFF!!!!
Random Brigand #1 and #2: OH GOD HELP US! *the run*
Girl in Pink: That was...a little too easy *she sees Zombie Skeleton Demons* ...oh...maybe that has something to do with it...
*in Soki's house*
Minokichi: HEY SOKI! THERE'S GENMA HERE!
Soki: ...eh, screw it, I'm taking a nap.
Minokichi: Why?
Soki: Look, if there's no Cherry Trees, I don't care, just easier to nap.
Minokichi: but there's also a person here, a KID!
Soki: ...THAT CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!
*he RUSHES OFF TO SAVE THE DAY, going through the most round about way possible cause there's debris and shit in the way...mostly to make for more gameplay, meanwhile, Pink Girl kills a few ZOMBIE SKELETON DEMONS! Soki reaches his destination*
Soki: Hi there!
Girl in Pink: You! YOU'RE THE BLUE DEMON! HAVE AT THEE!
Soki: Um...ok...
*they fight, Soki wins*
Girl in Pink: Damn it, how'd you beat me? I can't die here!
Soki: Can you give me a reason why NOT to kill you?
*Bunch of Zombie Skeleton Demons appear*
Girl in Pink: Cause they're gonna do it first! Stay back, you can't beat them! Ordinary Weapons can't hurt these-...
*Soki slices a ZOmbie Skeleton Demon in half effortlessly*
Girl in Pink: ...guys...
Soki: Yeah...you were saying?
Girl in Pink: ...my name is Jubei, can we just call a truce til they're all dead? Being an enemy of the Genma, you must clearly be a GOOD GUY!
Soki: Ok...
*They win*
Jubei: Now then, I told you my name...TELL ME YOURS!
Soki: ...I don't have one.
Jubei: Yes you do! DON'T LIE!
Soki: no! I don't! I swear...though, people randomly call me Soki...so uh, yeah, I guess call me that if it makes life easier.
Jubei: ...fine. So I'm gonna sort of tag along with you cause that castle over there is probably in danger.
Soki: Just thinking the same thing! Lets get to this!
*many boring Survival-Horroresque puzzles later...not the game is NOT a survival horror, but it pretends to be*
Soki: Well, that was annoying.
Jubei: We would have been there sooner if you didn't fall down that hole!
Soki: Hey! YOU fell down first! I was merely...uh...following to help you out!
Jubei: You also broke the ladder so I couldn't follow!
Soki: no I didn't! THat was a freaking demonic catapult that happened to hit the latter right after I got up!
Jubei: YOU TIMED IT SO THAT WOULD HAPPEN!
Soki: ...I'm not gonna even try to say what's wrong with that statement. Lets just press on.
Jubei: *to herself* How can he fight the Genma? Only my sword should be able to! Is he...ONE OF THEM!?
Soki: Hey, Jubei, WE HAVE A BOSS FIGHT COMING UP!
Jubei: Oh, right sorry!
Female Narrator: And so, the duo fights their huge over-sized bug boss, which is annoying and stupid, and so they move onto the castle...STAY TUNED NEXT EPISODE FOR...
Soki: Damn it, YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSE TO SPEAK HERE!
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Yeah, this episode sucked, I know, I'll hopefully get more interesting material in the future, but considering this is Capcom Action Game plot, I figure an Abridged SEries is appropriate.
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SRWK - Jesus Christ, 9100 power on the last Jeeg combo? 9100 power?
In other news, I capped Gundam Stargazer's weaponry, EN, Defense and Mobility and now Voiture Lumiere is a 5000+ power 1-5 Range C attack. Oh and it also has a Land Module S because I like overkill. Odds are Selene's getting 100 kills before the game ends. <3 Stargazer.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - Episode 6 is short I must say with no action at all. Anyway...
Raidou being the cool guy that he is recruits the girl he saved. He and she are from rival schools so if this isn't a recipe for romance he doesn't know what is. Anyway nothing really important really happens on their date really, they meet some weird people and have a generally nice and pleasant time.
Well they would have if Raidou's lady friend wasn't infact a freedom loving demon. I call now that YHVH is somehow to blame in all this because if people aren't rebelling because he's a dick, then they're rebelling because he might one day decide to be a dick.
I very much doubt he'll make an appearance as I would have heard on a forum somewhere or those most anti religious games lists. However I think we can all agree the perfect dipication of 1930s YHVH would be him in a top hat voiced by patrick stewart.
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FE8 Medium Skill Hardcore Mode with an added twist- Whenever an enemy casts the spell stone, my emulator crashes! This only occurs on 3 levels, but it adds a nice challenge to the final level. (In fact, it would have been impossible to beat with my party if it weren't for warp + dance. Finally got to warp someone in, dance my healer, and warp someone else in.)
Deaths! (Might be 1 level off on some, but close enough)
3: Ross died, didn't bother to get Garcia- Didn't really care about getting either one of them.
5: Vanessa- I was drinking, playing poker, and playing FE on Saturday. I blame Vanessa's death on that!
5x: Forde- Didn't care, he comes back.
6: Colm- Stupid of me... this one actually hurt since chests are good. Ran bad on evade, but in a HC game gotta prep for that.
9: Tana- Another one that hurt, she was gonna be my main air. Enemy had a hand axe equipped that I didn't pay attention to.
9: Amelia- Did not care at all.
13: Joshua- Had him in the back of the level, a shit ton of reinforcements came and surrounded him. Damn.
13: L'Archel- Sacraficed her. Said reinforcements were going to off someone else too. I forgot that you need her to get Rennac, so yes... I played this game thiefless.
15: Duessel- Used him to weaponless tank any and everything, he eventually fell, didn't care.
16: Myrrh- So first time I did this level she killed most everything and got to level 10, but game crashed via stone in 19. Had to restart at 15. Second time around someone musta hit a weakness because she died to a non promoted mage despite her insane resist.
17: Syrene- Didn't care! Took her weapons and sent her at Lyon for fun.
Now for the heroes who saved the day! (I did 1 tower run, figuring that was about right for a normal playthrough.)
Eirika- 20/13- Was risky using the only one who could game over me... I just made sure not to get cute with her at all. Standard sword crushing for her.
Natasha- 10/4- Healer, upgraded for movement.
Gilliam- 20/16- Tanked everything. I also used only axes when he upgraded since I'm not a big fan of fighters. Garm smashes shit. Def my MVP late game.
Lute- 20/12- Evade whore who got a bit scary later on since 34 HP is absolutely nothing.
Marisa- 20/17- An evade whore that also had 50HP... she was my secondary MVP, but I didn't feel quite as safe letting her tank 10 people in case a couple 10-15% hits got off.
Tethys- 16- Without her couldn't have done the final level on this emulator. Glad I never got her killed.
Cormag- 20/11- I was gonna use Vanessa, then Tana but those didn't work out. Once he got Fili he was good for the quick kills of whatever I needed killed.
Ephraim- 20/9- I thought I used him more than this, but guess not. He did what he needed to do though.
Innes- 20/9- Meh, I never use archers a ton. He got like 3 of his levels killing eggs on that Gorgon level.
Kyle- 20/6- Got promoted way late. Was my early game MVP, but I only got 1 Knight Crest + 1 Master seal all game.
Forde- 20- Used him early, but could never promote. No thief + no doing over levels that I missed crap on = 1 seal. Oops!
Those were my heroes! I think Imma do hard mode now with Ephraim's saga instead after doing the ruins once.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - Episode 6 is short I must say with no action at all. Anyway...
Raidou being the cool guy that he is recruits the girl he saved. He and she are from rival schools so if this isn't a recipe for romance he doesn't know what is. Anyway nothing really important really happens on their date really, they meet some weird people and have a generally nice and pleasant time.
Well they would have if Raidou's lady friend wasn't infact a freedom loving demon. I call now that YHVH is somehow to blame in all this because if people aren't rebelling because he's a dick, then they're rebelling because he might one day decide to be a dick.
I very much doubt he'll make an appearance as I would have heard on a forum somewhere or those most anti religious games lists. However I think we can all agree the perfect dipication of 1930s YHVH would be him in a top hat voiced by patrick stewart.
You are technically right, but the YHWH that is to blame is the one couple hundred years after in the time of SMT2.
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ME2- WHY WON'T THE YEOMAN LET ME FUCK HER? If I don't bang her she won't feed my fish.
Gotta wait until the game's over. ME2's one of those games that lets you keep playing a clear save.
I had already beaten the game. Having replayed it, apparently my problem was not hitting on her enough just ONE TIME. For such an easy lay (doesn't even mind me having my old girlfriend's picture looking at us while we bang) she is very precise in her requirements.
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You are technically right, but the YHWH that is to blame is the one couple hundred years after in the time of SMT2.
As in the fake YHWH that Saint Michael worshiped?
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ME2- WHY WON'T THE YEOMAN LET ME FUCK HER? If I don't bang her she won't feed my fish.
Gotta wait until the game's over. ME2's one of those games that lets you keep playing a clear save.
Eh? I got her feeding my fish after recruiting the Asari, just tell her she is prettier than the Justicar and she will feed your fish all night long as long as you have been hitting on her.
On STALKER for Trips, agree with your assessment, but did you consider it worth playing? It is one of those games I think is bad but is interesting enough to look at the ideas it has. Modding it helps dramatically with the bullshit with carry weight and item durability. Makes it much more generic shooter, but honestly that is what it really needed.
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Yeah, it was worth playing. I appreciate what the designers were trying to do and it is a unique game, I just wish they spent more time ironing out the bugs and refining the inventory system and such. It's even more inexcusable considering how long it took for the fucking game to come out in the first place.
Fact it was 5 bucks on Steam helps too.
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Playing some good ole Chrono Trigger (DS) action at the moment!
~
About to get my hands on a nifty wingless time machine!
...
Is it sad that I can't remember every exact location of magic tabs (now capsules) and other hidden gems like I used to? Or is it sad, that I had this game (Like most of my snes rpgs) memorized to the point where I didn't need a guide to get everything?
Either way I know I missed some tabs and I am just plain sad.
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Yeah, it was worth playing. I appreciate what the designers were trying to do and it is a unique game, I just wish they spent more time ironing out the bugs and refining the inventory system and such. It's even more inexcusable considering how long it took for the fucking game to come out in the first place.
Fact it was 5 bucks on Steam helps too.
Pretty much. There is a reason the lead designer for that long haul was so dirty with it say 3 months before release and quit. The new guy came in, stripped some stuff and shovelled it out the door.
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Arkham Asylum: Have played this almost non-stop for seven hours. Now in the sewers, to go looking for a plant.
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Good news, everyone! Blast shards are not permenantly missable. Bad news, still 4 shards short and the entire Neon District to search. Mrf. At least I got The Hunger today. If only I can finish off the stunts... thank god I found a building that I can make 3 enemies spawn on.
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Is it sad that I can't remember every exact location of magic tabs (now capsules) and other hidden gems like I used to? Or is it sad, that I had this game (Like most of my snes rpgs) memorized to the point where I didn't need a guide to get everything?
Either way I know I missed some tabs and I am just plain sad.
The second one.
KotOR2: Not much progress. Went to Dxun, just got off. Mandalore is voiced by the same guy who did Canderous and I appreciated the continuity nod. In other news my god KotOR combat is boring light side. Not because it is harder, but because I have to kill enemies one by one as a Jedi, whereas as a Sith in the first game I killed entire rooms in two hits. Bosses are easier because Myi'Chell Auobbamz for Godlike but dungeons take forever.
EDIT: I just got it. KotOR combat is basically MMO combat but with pause. No wonder it is so dull (yet so slightly tolerable because of the pause).
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You are technically right, but the YHWH that is to blame is the one couple hundred years after in the time of SMT2.
As in the fake YHWH that Saint Michael worshiped?
Yes
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Grandia III: Picked this up again, randomly. Started in the Verserealm, and got up to just before the fight with Emolicious. Instead of abusing egg fusions, I've decided to go for physical twinking - maxed-out Berserker skills and warp movement on Ulf and Yuki, plus Shadow Warrior and Flash, with Dahna's homing criticals to launch enemies on command, yields roughly 13,000 damage on a full, 30+ hit combo. Fun.
Miles Edgeworth: Ace Attorney Investigations - is a PW game. Takes a bit longer to get rolling than the others - the first two cases kinda felt like going through the motions - but the third had me completely hooked, like a PW game ought to. Good stuff.
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Is it sad that I can't remember every exact location of magic tabs (now capsules) and other hidden gems like I used to? Or is it sad, that I had this game (Like most of my snes rpgs) memorized to the point where I didn't need a guide to get everything?
Either way I know I missed some tabs and I am just plain sad.
The second one.
KotOR2: Not much progress. Went to Dxun, just got off. Mandalore is voiced by the same guy who did Canderous and I appreciated the continuity nod. In other news my god KotOR combat is boring light side. Not because it is harder, but because I have to kill enemies one by one as a Jedi, whereas as a Sith in the first game I killed entire rooms in two hits. Bosses are easier because Myi'Chell Auobbamz for Godlike but dungeons take forever.
EDIT: I just got it. KotOR combat is basically MMO combat but with pause. No wonder it is so dull (yet so slightly tolerable because of the pause).
Mandalore isn't JUST voiced by the guy who played Canderous...
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Thanks for killing any surprise I might have had at that one.
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Uh, they point it out to you like ten seconds after he gets introduced when he starts talking about how "the Mandalorians still live. CLAN ORDO STILL LIVES." Emphasis his.
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FF7: Finally beaten this replay!
The entire final dungeon got crushed...like, really badly. Ended up just using Tifa and Barret cause, well, why not? Tifa was doing 9999 a physical more or less (Cursed Ring + Premium Heart has this effect), which since it Mug + Added Cut, 19998! Barret was using Double Cut, Cloud was Miming, both did roughly 12k (didn't have enough Materia to realyl twink Barret out, it was enough to raise him to acceptible levels).
End result? Lets just say Safer SEphiroth's fight ended something like this:
*Sephy Flies up*
*Tifa punches ground*
*5400~ damage*
*Sephiroth dies*
Yes, he died before he got his first turn aireborne...didn't use a Single Limit, or any action that wasn't a physical except for Big Guard, one casting of Regen by Cloud which was paired with Ultima, and a double casting of Comet 2 from Cloud. Ok, to be fair, Tifa also got a single Counter Attack in, but geez <_<
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Uh, they point it out to you like ten seconds after he gets introduced when he starts talking about how "the Mandalorians still live. CLAN ORDO STILL LIVES." Emphasis his.
Huh. I guess I missed that.
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Found the last 4 shards in Neon. Were all in that southwest corner. Mrf. Tried a bunch for the last two stunts but couldn't get them. Got the Get Off My Cloud trophy at least. I think I'll shelve the game until I'm feeling up to my Hard mode Evil playthrough.
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Is it sad that I can't remember every exact location of magic tabs (now capsules) and other hidden gems like I used to? Or is it sad, that I had this game (Like most of my snes rpgs) memorized to the point where I didn't need a guide to get everything?
Either way I know I missed some tabs and I am just plain sad.
The second one.
KotOR2: Not much progress. Went to Dxun, just got off. Mandalore is voiced by the same guy who did Canderous and I appreciated the continuity nod. In other news my god KotOR combat is boring light side. Not because it is harder, but because I have to kill enemies one by one as a Jedi, whereas as a Sith in the first game I killed entire rooms in two hits. Bosses are easier because Myi'Chell Auobbamz for Godlike but dungeons take forever.
EDIT: I just got it. KotOR combat is basically MMO combat but with pause. No wonder it is so dull (yet so slightly tolerable because of the pause).
It's completely viable to spam Force Storm as Light Side. Even as a Guardian/Weapon Master.
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Yes
Odd they'd use a mostly unimportant villain again.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - This chapter opens up with what may be Raidou's toughest tasks as he looks at the mess demon girl made. I mean were there even vacuum cleaners in the 1930s? Picking up all that rogue hair would be a nightmare.
Thankfully moleman busts in with a filler mission to excuse Raidou from the cleaning. His mission if he chooses to accept it is to rid the curse plagueing the Navy big cheese and invoke it on himself.... meh beats playing a stupid cleaning minigame at least.
I would go into detail but this chapter is 100% padding that serves no purpose. Not even a new area to explore.
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It's completely viable to spam Force Storm as Light Side. Even as a Guardian/Weapon Master.
Only at the end of the game and even then it is still questionable. That said, Force Wave is still broken and is neutral. If you are going to be doing the AoE spam you play Consular end of story. There is more than enough combat buffs to not really run out of them as Guardian/Weapon Master to really justify branching out into AoE skills that are just going to be resisted for half damage anyway. KotOR combat is easy, but specialisation is still king by miles.
Now Consular with the same styled prestige class? Yeah you go full light side and spam Force Storm for about 10 minutes without resting anyway.
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Yes
Odd they'd use a mostly unimportant villain again.
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - This chapter opens up with what may be Raidou's toughest tasks as he looks at the mess demon girl made. I mean were there even vacuum cleaners in the 1930s? Picking up all that rogue hair would be a nightmare.
Thankfully moleman busts in with a filler mission to excuse Raidou from the cleaning. His mission if he chooses to accept it is to rid the curse plagueing the Navy big cheese and invoke it on himself.... meh beats playing a stupid cleaning minigame at least.
I would go into detail but this chapter is 100% padding that serves no purpose. Not even a new area to explore.
Isn't this the chapter with Mara? You can't just skip the chapter with Mara. >:(
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Unfortunately no Mara. There is some lame plant man that TAlkS LikE ThIs INsTeAD.
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It's completely viable to spam Force Storm as Light Side. Even as a Guardian/Weapon Master.
Only at the end of the game and even then it is still questionable. That said, Force Wave is still broken and is neutral. If you are going to be doing the AoE spam you play Consular end of story. There is more than enough combat buffs to not really run out of them as Guardian/Weapon Master to really justify branching out into AoE skills that are just going to be resisted for half damage anyway. KotOR combat is easy, but specialisation is still king by miles.
Now Consular with the same styled prestige class? Yeah you go full light side and spam Force Storm for about 10 minutes without resting anyway.
Specialization is king but why on earth would you get the same prestige class style as your starting class? Guardian doesn't offer much to compliment Weapon's Master, not as much as Sentinel makes up for one of their largest weaknesses, and Soldier/Guardian -> Consular/Lord sounds like it's the only way to get a consular with sufficient feats to not just die.
Probably less of an issue with the Exile since Guardians really don't get that many feats and yeah I guess you'd have enough FP and powers to spam every spell ever but it really just seems superfluous when all you really need are a couple of buffs, Stun, and Lightning. Maybe Plague but I don't know how useful that would be in 2.
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KotoR-Somebody help a brother out here. Game keeps crashing randomly, even more often than S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. I have a Dual-Core CPU and I recall Monkey or somebody saying disabling one of the cores while running it would help stability. How do I do that? Is there anything else I can do?
Also what are some good Skills to invest in? Keep in mind I'm going for Light-Side this time around.
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Unfortunately no Mara.
I'm afraid you'll need to wait for Devil Summoner 2 for Boss Mara.
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Dragon Warrior III: Sidequest time. At this point Lia finally allows her companions to change classes. Mye changes from a cleric to a fighter. Seth changes from a mage into a thief. It's usually better to change from a spellcasting class to a fighting class than the opposite, so Harl is a bit trickier. After some consideration, Lia gives him a Zen book and he gets the honor of being a sage with good speed. This raises a second problem though, Harl is macho and being macho is not really useful when you're a sage. Lia could give him the Int specks, but she wants him to use the Starry ring, so instead she shows a Smart book right into his face. While at it, Lia also gives her other companion personality changing books.
Next step is to hunt Metal babbles until the party is back to high levels. While doing this Lia becomes as strong as she can possible get and realizes that being Valiant is now a waste. However, when it comes to something as important as herself, she doesn't want to change anything permanent, so she dons the Int specks.
Time to travel to the sky world. The sky world is an island with the only thing of interest being a cave. Some people went trough the trouble of raising a large amount of land mass into the sky just so that they can then live underground. Actually, the residents can claim they live both below and above ground. Still, the novelty of that should get old fast.
Even worse, the residents apparently didn't know how they wanted to design their caves and instead opted to copy other caves and building from the world below. The monsters however are of new design and some are quite nasty.
Traveling downwards, the party eventually ends up in... an arena, in the dark world nonetheless. So, they have been taking the long way. Anyway, a monster stands there and talking to it leads to a battle with no less than Baraevil. Well, it could have been impressive, but the party already fought no less than two at the same time as a random encounter.
After beating Baraevil, the party finally makes it to civilization. It's Zenith castle which has a few residents and a path to a temple. In that temple is a big dragon which the party skips for now and also some good lot. Zenith castle also has a man who hides lot elsewhere and then gives Lia clues to where it is in form of riddles.
The most important loot is the Wreck whip, a whip that's far stronger than any previous weapon and a Sagerock. A second Sagerock is never as good as the first, but it still ranks as the second best treasure. Anyway, time to visit the dragon.
The introduces itself as Divigon and promises Lia a wish provided she can defeat it. That's a new situation. Lia is used to fight others to prevent them from doing something, but this time she fights to make someone do something.
Divigon is tough, but the Sagerock duo makes the party even tougher. He also seem strangely uninterested in dispelling the Twinhit cast on Lia despite being perfectly capable of doing so. So, wish time.
She could unlock a Parchi track which would allow her to make her arsenal even bigger. Nice, but not really needed. She could gain access to the sexy book which changes her personality to sexy. Between money and a hero reputation, this just doesn't seem necessary at all. There are also two wishes which are related to unlocking even more dungeons, but Lia asked for guidance first and knows that it's going to involve making one of the wishes thrice for four wishes in total and hunting for a lot of medals. Alright then, let's wish back her father.
Ortega is brought back and transported home. Lia heads there.
Her mother is of course overjoyed. Ortega says that he still wants to travel, but that he won't leave his wife anymore, so he stays. Well, that's all nice, but it would have been even nicer had he made that decision for fifteen years or so ago when Lia kind of could have needed a father. On a second thought, chance is her not needing him anymore is the reason he decides to stay home now.
Well, Lia has no desire to hunt monster medals to unlock another dungeon so this is it. Time to find something else to do.
To be honest, it wasn't just that the game wants me to hunt monster medals, the game stopped being fun after class changing. Four fighter/spellcasters makes random encounters monotonous and the main strength of this game was that this used not to be the case.
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KotoR-Somebody help a brother out here. Game keeps crashing randomly, even more often than S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. I have a Dual-Core CPU and I recall Monkey or somebody saying disabling one of the cores while running it would help stability. How do I do that? Is there anything else I can do?
Launch the game, then hit CTRL+ALT+DEL. Right click the swkotor.exe process. A menu pops up, at the very bottom is "set affinity." click that, and disable one of your cores, doesn't matter which. You'll still crash but it'll be every few hours instead of every few minutes.
You have to do this every time you launch the game.
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Unfortunately no Mara.
I'm afraid you'll need to wait for Devil Summoner 2 for Boss Mara.
Oh sweet, they use the real Mara in 2? I was just talking about Mishaguji, you know, that OTHER SMT Penis demon.
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Dragon Age: Playing the alternate route at the Landsmeet to get the splitpath PC so I can level them to 20 for stat topicness.. He actually has some fairly decent lines.
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Oh sweet, they use the real Mara in 2? I was just talking about Mishaguji, you know, that OTHER SMT Penis demon.
Oh yeah, forgot about that. Is he one of the somewhat challenging bosses, or am I thinking of something else?
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: I'm afraid to announce, I have to back out of doing an abridged series of this. There's more going on in this game than I expected...by which I mean too many japanese names to keep track of, and there's like actual character interaction and such and...yeah, its hard to explain, but its not quite ridiculous in the way O3 was to do an abridged series of, more just typical Capcom shenanigans!
THAT SAID, just got Tenkai, the manly spear wielding Samurai of...manliness. Also, for a girl whose suppose to be like the most unlady like thing ever...Jubei has a very effeminite voice, by which I mean she really sounds like a 15 year old spoiled rich girl. Kind of makes it hard to understand Soki's whole "You really don't act like a girl at all!" claims cause the voice says otherwise!
Also...
Wizard of Oz: Started this. Pyro can put down the bazooka. THe game is so far basically Dragon Oz Quest.
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Unfortunately no Mara.
I'm afraid you'll need to wait for Devil Summoner 2 for Boss Mara.
Oh sweet, they use the real Mara in 2? I was just talking about Mishaguji, you know, that OTHER SMT Penis demon.
Technically, 2 has Louie with his entire legion of demon lords, all at once.
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Trips: Depends on what class you're going. If you're going Guardian/Soldier then I'd recommend focusing on Treat Injury, Awareness, and maybe some repair. If you're focusing on skills (Scout/Sentinel/Scoundrel kinda?), Computer Use, Repair, Stealth and Security are all great options. Consulars should probably put a few token points in Treat Injury, then focus on Comp Use/Repair/Security.
You may or may not want points in Persuade. Unlike 2, you can do just about everything with Force Persuade/Dominate Mind and be able to avoid Dark Side points.
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I went Scout, haven't even gotten off the first planet yet so I haven't decide on what Jedi class my character, TOTALLY NOT REVAN, will take. I've pretty much been doing exactly what you recommend so I guess I'll just keep that up.
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AAI: Case 4 was pretty great, and any misgivings I had about the ending were erased by the epilogue. Also: Best. Witness. Ever.
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Vandal Hearts: Check.
The story got weird, but there were occasional flashes of brilliance in it. Like there was a bunch of writers and one of them knew something about how the world actually works and tried to fit that into the script when the others were busy dreaming up time travel plots and insisting that all the villains needed maniacal cackles.
Ending was kinda cool despite that.
Gameplay was... boring. The map design was amazing, but I just didn't care. VH Map Design + WAXF everything else = good game. *begins waiting*
Got Vandalier Ash, which has stupid requirements, but whatever, I have no qualms about FAQing a 10-year-old game. The broken-ness is overwhelming. Makes a cool Godlike. Would like to see him get more matches. Also, I'll see if I can pick up a VH Japanese guide that has some of the artwork from the ending so we can stop using the ugly-ass sprite art for their DL portraits.
FF12RW: Still playing this, the battles are pretty fun. Stylus controls work nicely for this kind of Tactical game. Far more intuitive than mouse controls. I could never get into PC ones because of this. Still working on the stat topic. I've got almost everything translated, I just need to figure out the formula for healing spells. If my guess is right, then this is one of those games where a target's MDEF reduces the effects of Healing. >.>;; *sigh* But maybe I'm just missing something in the guide.
If I finished translating all the Esper data, then I could publish a BMG at this point, but I don't know if I have the patience for that.
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Arkham Asylum: Beat, with 75% of Riddler Challenges clear. Final boss was downright pathetic (but I was playing on Easy, so yeah...), though the Ivy fight more than made up for it. I'll still be playing to get 100% completion, though.
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I went Scout, haven't even gotten off the first planet yet so I haven't decide on what Jedi class my character, TOTALLY NOT REVAN, will take. I've pretty much been doing exactly what you recommend so I guess I'll just keep that up.
A couple more things. One, since you're not a soldier (who would lose a lot of feats), if you feel like having too many force powers later on, don't level !NotRevan up past 5. You become a Jedi pretty quickly on the next planet, and you can easily rely on Mission for skills and Carth/Zaalbaar for battle until then. If you do this, then by the time you hit the cap, even if you're not a consular you'll have just about every force power you could reasonably need.
Also, since you're going light side, going Consular is probably a bad idea unless you have absurdly high CHA. All the good attack powers are Dark Side, and high CHA lowers the penalty for breaking alignment.
You probably shouldn't go Consular anyway if you hold your level at 5, since there's not enough force powers in the game to make that worth it.
EDIT: Incidentally, naming your character Darth Revan makes every scene better, especially toward the end. I've probably said this before but it bears repeating.
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Ah, damn, I already leveled up to 6. Ah well one level won't make much of a difference.
Game's still crashy as hell, though, but I finally got the fucking serum passed around and will give the journals to that one old guy afterwards.
I am using Carth and Mission right now, and they both are doing far better than TOTALLY NOT REVAN, who I decided to do with dual-swords because I am a wanker. Though I did swipe Missions Vibroblade whose nifty hit bonus should help me actually strike things now.
I..think I put a decent amount of points into CHA, I'll have to doublecheck. But I'll keep in mind your advice for not going Consular.
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Sc2 Beta is out, I'm supposed to download the client and lose my life to that game, but...
CTDS
I'm confused, was the Sunken Desert always up right after you save that sprout in Zeal? Because for the life of me, I seem to have thought it became available much later like after Chrono goes bye bye or did they change that in the DS version?
Either way, I was enjoying a nice TP boost since those monsters are hell of a lot higher then what I am supposed to be fighting. Plus the equipment in their is leaps ahead of what I can get now too! I also got the Guardian Hat which makes Chrono a walking tank of pure pain!
I just beat the boss in the Sunken Desert. he was dealing around 300 damage with his AOE while my team had around 450 HP. Not a fun fight, had to replay it twice. Oh, but the bastard is dead now, gonna go save Lucca's mommy now!
edit: I know This came later in the game, because I remember magus hanging around in the background leaning on a tree looking all sexy and what not.
I think I'm just going crazy. ?_?
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It was always available. In fact, IIRC, doing that side quest ASAP is more or less required to beating Ocean Palace Lavos on a Non-NG+ File, cause it nets you Vigil Hats early, which are End-Game defense helms and let you live through Destruction Rains from Heaven if your HP is high enough.
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Consular works just fine as light side actually. As I have said Force Wave is Neutral and covers all your attack needs at level 15. Leading up to that, Dark Side doesn't really excel at attack until high levels anyway, until that point it is mostly about control, which lightside brings just fine with the line that ends with Stasis, if they can't move they die just as easy as if you shot them with lightning (quicker even in some cases when you are running with a well constructed group) and Light Side absolutely dominates any droids you fight, Destroy Droid is absolutely broken where you can use it.
If you level squat a Consular from a low level you have enough FP that the double cost of Storm is something you can wear fairly comfortably and just destroy everything anyway. That is one of the benefits of level squatting, it isn't just the extra powers, it is you get mostly a regular Jedi's FP with your free 50 FP feat thrown on top of it.
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Bioshock 2: Started, played through the "amusement" park. The animatronic Andrew Ryans are destructible, glee. First real Big Sister fight is much like the first Big Daddy fight: kicks your ass and almost totally burns through your resources. Pain.
Kind of doubting anything in the story will be as engaging as Bioshock 1 just because, well, we watched Rapture fall apart once already. Sofia also has kind of a mad scientist vibe and lacks Ryan's VA of ultimate win. Oh well.
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: I believe I have met my entire team. To recap...
We have our Protagonist, the Blond Haired Samurai wielding *2* Broadswords (except he never uses the second one, for some reason...is it just for show? THE GAME'S PLOT EVEN SAYS HE USES TWO DAMN IT!), with the option of wielding a Greatsword instead (changes his fighting style.)
We have the Female Lead (?), whose a Tomboy Ninja with a DEMONIC EYE which gives her awesome powers
Then the Cryptic Monk with a large Lance (that the game claims are merely staves) whose so old, he's lost count of his age.
Followed by a Timid, Allegiance Confused, former best friend and clearly has a crush on the protagonist, who wields large guns. Note that when I say large guns, I don't mean simple flintlock rifles like you'd expect in this era, I mean stuff like Machine Guns, Automatic Rifles, and Grenade Launchers. Oh yeah, she ALSO has demolition bombs for walls, and a Batman style Grappling Hook.
Then we have the Spanish Martial Artist (remember, this is Feudal Japan), who has glasses, and an awesome hat.
...is it safe to say I have a team that would fit perfectly into a jRPG? Cause the game CLEARLY isn't already trying to pretend its a jRPG as is!
That said, pity Ohatsu hasn't joined permanently yet; she was by far the most fun to play as.
So far, fun value of characters would be Ohatsu (GUNS!!!) > Jubei (Ninja!) > Tenkai (STAB STAB STAB STAB STAB!) >>>> Soki (Just...kind of...generic...) Can't speak for Roberto cause I've very limited experience with him.
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Mordin Solus is officially the best character in ME2. It's going to take some work to pass him up for Character of the Year. Who else is going to suggest I swing by for a checkup after I rail the fuck out of Miranda? Not because he thinks she has communicable diseases, but because he's concerned she will take the opportunity to plant a bug.
They could be anywhere.
Anyway, only achievement left to get is to do an Insanity run. Not sure if I want to do it as a Vanguard or go with something else. I hear Infiltrator makes it easy, and of course the assault rifle Soldiers get on the Collector ship is out of control badass.
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TvsC: Beat will all characters. Final one I used was Kaijin no Soki, for the Meeples.
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I am currently trying to play through Insanity on my Engineer from my first run through and it is pretty fucking brutal. I am not sure if it is the enemies are scaled to me having all the upgrades as I am now level 30 or if it is just ball bustingly hard now and only going to get worse. Finished Mordin's clinic bit and having to fight the upper side of 30+ guys with rocket launches, flame throwers and shotgun Krogan mixed in is fucking brutal with no chances to save. When basic assault rifle/SMG guys 4 shot you and everything has armour or shields out the arsehole it is pretty ridiculous sometimes. I mean this is Heavy Overload with all the power boosters I have available at the start of the game (so 2/3 strength it would have been at end game and missing shorter recharge) takes off 3/4 of their shield. Incinerate still makes fairly good work of most armour until you get a Krogan (and they WILL kill you if they get into melee). I am spending far more time swearing than I am having fun and just not sure if I want to continue at all. I love the combat system but I don't want to burn myself out on it since Alpha Protocol is likely to be fairly similar.
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Also, I'll see if I can pick up a VH Japanese guide that has some of the artwork from the ending so we can stop using the ugly-ass sprite art for their DL portraits.
Thats half the charm!
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I am currently trying to play through Insanity on my Engineer from my first run through and it is pretty fucking brutal. I am not sure if it is the enemies are scaled to me having all the upgrades as I am now level 30 or if it is just ball bustingly hard now and only going to get worse. Finished Mordin's clinic bit and having to fight the upper side of 30+ guys with rocket launches, flame throwers and shotgun Krogan mixed in is fucking brutal with no chances to save. When basic assault rifle/SMG guys 4 shot you and everything has armour or shields out the arsehole it is pretty ridiculous sometimes. I mean this is Heavy Overload with all the power boosters I have available at the start of the game (so 2/3 strength it would have been at end game and missing shorter recharge) takes off 3/4 of their shield. Incinerate still makes fairly good work of most armour until you get a Krogan (and they WILL kill you if they get into melee). I am spending far more time swearing than I am having fun and just not sure if I want to continue at all. I love the combat system but I don't want to burn myself out on it since Alpha Protocol is likely to be fairly similar.
Doing it as an engi had never crossed my mind. Science is Miranda's job, until I get Legion. Then it is Legion's job when he is not blowing the fuck out of things with his kickass AMR.
Was thinking Sentinel because tech armor is ridiculous. It is RIDICULOUS.
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Only doing it because that is what I started as yeah. Thank fuck I picked Assault rifles on my first run through, I have no idea how you would deal with that shit as Engi with just your pistol and SMG.
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I am currently trying to play through Insanity on my Engineer from my first run through and it is pretty fucking brutal. I am not sure if it is the enemies are scaled to me having all the upgrades as I am now level 30 or if it is just ball bustingly hard now and only going to get worse. Finished Mordin's clinic bit and having to fight the upper side of 30+ guys with rocket launches, flame throwers and shotgun Krogan mixed in is fucking brutal with no chances to save. When basic assault rifle/SMG guys 4 shot you and everything has armour or shields out the arsehole it is pretty ridiculous sometimes. I mean this is Heavy Overload with all the power boosters I have available at the start of the game (so 2/3 strength it would have been at end game and missing shorter recharge) takes off 3/4 of their shield. Incinerate still makes fairly good work of most armour until you get a Krogan (and they WILL kill you if they get into melee). I am spending far more time swearing than I am having fun and just not sure if I want to continue at all. I love the combat system but I don't want to burn myself out on it since Alpha Protocol is likely to be fairly similar.
They are scaling to you. The beginning of an insanity run is way way easier if you start with a level 1 character.
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Hmmm, will still have to give it a think over whether to restart or just not bother with Insanity at all. Guess I will see how I go for the Archangel recruitment that I started before shelving it for a night yesterday.
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It was always available. In fact, IIRC, doing that side quest ASAP is more or less required to beating Ocean Palace Lavos on a Non-NG+ File, cause it nets you Vigil Hats early, which are End-Game defense helms and let you live through Destruction Rains from Heaven if your HP is high enough.
No, I did it before the Ocean Palace.
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Yes, Scar, that's my point. Its available the instant you reach Zeal. Its scaled such that you're suppose to take it on during the Fated Hour (like all other Side Quests), but its doable any point before then. Think its the only Side Quest you can do that with cause its the only one that doesn't require flight (I'm betting if you could get Flight BEFORE the Ocean Palace, for all that some issues may erupt like Geno Dome forces Robo into your team, but pre-Ocean Palace, Crono is forced, so uh...there might be some sort of glitch that happened if you tried to hack an early Epoch in there or something <_<)
Either way, you could always do the Desert stuff rather early, and doing so gets you Vigil Hats are at a ridiculously early point, as well as other goodies that are less important (Well, I think you can charm another Elemental Mail, giving you 3 people immuning one element instead of two, but honestly unsure.)
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Miles Edgeworth- Beat this friday morning. Probably my favorite Ace Attorney game (mind, I haven't played PW2 or 3). Moving out of the courtroom helped smooth the gameplay out (since, from the beginning, the goal is to form a theory of the crime, they can get to the meat of the usual gameplay with less distractions), and in general I felt like the logic of the puzzles flowed more naturally and with fewer cases of the player outguessing the game and presenting evidence too early. Though Case 5 did feel needlessly long and dragged a bit, and the game was kinda busy, with some puzzle styles that were underutilized and cameos upon cameos. Though... well. I also can't argue against Case 5's cameo. Win. Probably an 8/10, at a guess? Just fun throughout.
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I am currently trying to play through Insanity on my Engineer from my first run through and it is pretty fucking brutal. I am not sure if it is the enemies are scaled to me having all the upgrades as I am now level 30 or if it is just ball bustingly hard now and only going to get worse. Finished Mordin's clinic bit and having to fight the upper side of 30+ guys with rocket launches, flame throwers and shotgun Krogan mixed in is fucking brutal with no chances to save. When basic assault rifle/SMG guys 4 shot you and everything has armour or shields out the arsehole it is pretty ridiculous sometimes. I mean this is Heavy Overload with all the power boosters I have available at the start of the game (so 2/3 strength it would have been at end game and missing shorter recharge) takes off 3/4 of their shield. Incinerate still makes fairly good work of most armour until you get a Krogan (and they WILL kill you if they get into melee). I am spending far more time swearing than I am having fun and just not sure if I want to continue at all. I love the combat system but I don't want to burn myself out on it since Alpha Protocol is likely to be fairly similar.
They are scaling to you. The beginning of an insanity run is way way easier if you start with a level 1 character.
That seems surprising to me. I'd think that the scaling would be counterbalanced by having way better weapons. I guess a big part of that is whether or not you picked up a Collector weapon. My Krogan Shotgun destroys shit, after all.
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Bioshock 2: Shot a crazy preacher in the face. Rocket spears are kind of awesome. You get to watch people run around with these big honking flares stuck in the side of their head before they explode. Also, the Atlantic Express route reminds me of a Wily castle map. Sure, there's a giant skull/Fontaine Futuristics waiting for you at the end of the line, but there's also this glaring empty space after it that you just know is going to be the finale.
Anyway, initial assessment is holding up. Game really feels like it doesn't know or isn't concerned about what to add thematically to the original. It's diverting enough so far but there's not much reason to care if you didn't like Bioshock 1.
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ME2 - Beat it for the first time. Veteran difficulty, which did kill me quite a few times. Lady Engineer, Kara Shepard, full Paragon with about 25% for good window-pushing fuel-tank-shooting measure. No One Left Behind, huzzah! Oh, and everyone recruited and everyone Loyal, which seems like a giant "no duh" to me. Why would you not? Also romanced the heck out of Garrus, because: he's Garrus! I enjoyed the banter, there, though I wish there had been a bit more dialogue with him. He was always freaking calibrating those cannons. More along the lines of how much you could talk to Thane or Mordin, that would have been nice.
And since we're on the subject? Mordin is fucking rad as hell. Starts as a vaguely-amusing comic relief character with somewhat nefariously amoral undertones, and ends up having some really tough decisions to make. And makes them interestingly and without any whinging. Plus sings Gilbert & Sullivan. That alone, damn.
It's a good game. Better than Dragon Age in a few ways, definitely lesser in some others. Both leave me salivating for the sequels, though. I do want to play ME2 again as a Renegade character, possibly male, but:
A) I have a hard time letting Wrex be dead, and corollary:
A.1) I have a hard time playing ME1 again; I've been trying, even managed to will myself through all the Citadel stuff and into the Bioware-Four-Hubs sandbox. Started Feros, but as soon as I hit the Mako section something inside me died. I'll give it some time.
B) Mark Meer's VA is just straight-up inferior to Jennifer Hale's, in the humble estimation of this one. Sorry, Rob. I want at least a modicum of emotion -- shit, no, I want a modicum of inflection from my protagonist. I can't hear Meer as a hardened badass vet, I can only hear him as an extremely wooden slightly-too-high-pitched nobody.
So yeah, maybe a ways down the line I'll do a Renegade playthrough. For completion's sake, particularly where it concerns getting to see all the Renegade interrupts; the few that I did see were unadulteratedly badass. Not that Paragon didn't have some good ones, too. I liked the way Paragon Shepard got Zaeed's loyalty over the course of that mission, in particular.
I'm thinking I'll play Jade Empire next, since I bought it around Christmas and never touched it. Also I need to beat Torchlight one of these days. And play KotOR 2. I really wish I could grab that on Steam. Ah well.
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I am currently trying to play through Insanity on my Engineer from my first run through and it is pretty fucking brutal. I am not sure if it is the enemies are scaled to me having all the upgrades as I am now level 30 or if it is just ball bustingly hard now and only going to get worse. Finished Mordin's clinic bit and having to fight the upper side of 30+ guys with rocket launches, flame throwers and shotgun Krogan mixed in is fucking brutal with no chances to save. When basic assault rifle/SMG guys 4 shot you and everything has armour or shields out the arsehole it is pretty ridiculous sometimes. I mean this is Heavy Overload with all the power boosters I have available at the start of the game (so 2/3 strength it would have been at end game and missing shorter recharge) takes off 3/4 of their shield. Incinerate still makes fairly good work of most armour until you get a Krogan (and they WILL kill you if they get into melee). I am spending far more time swearing than I am having fun and just not sure if I want to continue at all. I love the combat system but I don't want to burn myself out on it since Alpha Protocol is likely to be fairly similar.
They are scaling to you. The beginning of an insanity run is way way easier if you start with a level 1 character.
That seems surprising to me. I'd think that the scaling would be counterbalanced by having way better weapons. I guess a big part of that is whether or not you picked up a Collector weapon. My Krogan Shotgun destroys shit, after all.
Scaled up enemies get better firepower and durability, while you just get better firepower. Your weapons and their armor about cancel out, but you die so much easier.
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Kotor-Okay, even with Monkey's suggestion the game refuses to run for more than 20 minutes at a time. I give up! Too bad, game seemed like it might wind up being pretty good.
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: Roberto is weird to play as, but still fun!
Finally figured out how to deal with Sakon and his barrier bullshit too.
Also, Sephiroth mode seems gimped compared to Onimusha 3, for all that I've only had one fight with it.
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FE8 - Screw this game, screw this series, I don't care if I'm getting paid to play it anymore, I'm going to go play something actually FUN... Which isn't hard to do; even Beyond the Beyond qualifies as more fun than FE in my opinion.
Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - In the aftergame at this point. I love the charm this game has, and its gameplay is fairly solid. I've gotten the Blue Gem ranking on all the stages except worlds 5 and 6, which I have yet to attempt. I've done a perfect Gem Count run in less than five minutes, with just a stage clear in less than four.
Brave Fencer Musashi: Y'know, I actually forgot how fun this game was, what with Samurai Legend Musashi wanting me to forget everything about these games. I wonder why I ever wanted to forget this one?
Other games: back burner now.
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They are scaling to you. The beginning of an insanity run is way way easier if you start with a level 1 character.
That seems surprising to me. I'd think that the scaling would be counterbalanced by having way better weapons. I guess a big part of that is whether or not you picked up a Collector weapon. My Krogan Shotgun destroys shit, after all.
[/quote]
Scaled up enemies get better firepower and durability, while you just get better firepower. Your weapons and their armor about cancel out, but you die so much easier.
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Yeah the enemies are using the same guns as me since I am an Engineer. Only Soldier gets something on the Collector ship, all the other classes unlock a new weapon type to use instead, so thus Engineer with Assault Rifle.
And if you feel like fiddling a bit more with the game Trips, this quote on the Bioware forums suggests something might be in the graphics settings.
I had problems with my ATI card and crashes as well.(HD 4670) I found that disabling framebuffer and soft shadows fixed the problem mostly. It sounds like everything is well with your other PC though. Enjoy.
Try stripping those out (OH NOES NOT LOSING SHADOWS IN KOTOR) and maybe generally fiddling with graphics settings and see how that works out.
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FE8 - Screw this game, screw this series, I don't care if I'm getting paid to play it anymore, I'm going to go play something actually FUN... Which isn't hard to do; even Beyond the Beyond qualifies as more fun than FE in my opinion.
I can't say that this was unexpected...
That said... you should try it on emulator! Savestates and RNG abuse will probably make you happy if you want to break it in half.
Speaking of SRPGs that are more trouble than their worth...
Eternal POIZN! - I finished the four main chapters - Thage, Ashley, Olifen, and Rondemion. But when I started the game up, I really didn't have any intention of playing it all the way through, so I was just fucking around for most of the first chapters. Well, I fell in love with the gothic fairy tale aspect of the game, and there's a pretty decent story and fun character work going on. But the gameplay did not inspire the amount of multiple playthroughs that the game demands to get the whole story, and I'm just not willing to go through it again to unlock that last bit.
So, I youtubed the last chapter and ending. Man, that was a really cool twist that I wasn't expecting. There were a lot of twists, but I'm specifically referring to the stuff revealed in the 4th-wall breaking portions towards the end. The game just has stylish storytelling points all over, kind of a shame about the lackluster gameplay.
Mini-Review!
Thage's Chapter: Really good intro. You can conceivably start with Olifen or Ashley, too, but Thage's chapter just seems better designed for bringing the player into the gothic fairy tale with its atypical characters and teasing mystery plot. Thage herself carries the whole chapter, both in plot and gameplay, and she's very memorable and good at defying expectations. Her cohorts, with their mix of odd loyalty to Thage, animosity to eachother, and questionable motives make them a really synergistic group in plot scenes. Most of the plot scenes in the first chapter as very good at revealing key bits of information without letting on that they are key bits until much later, and mostly seem to serve as character development. Once the game realizes that if it gives any more vital information pieces away that the player is gonna figure it out, the chapter throws it all at you at once and the chapter ends suddenly, but oddly satisfactorily. Really, you could stop playing the game here and have had a good experience. It's also about the length of time that the battle system's worth can support itself.
After going through the mysterious shape-changing realm of Besek once, you've really had most of the fun that you can out of EP's gameplay, but the story is told across multiple chapters, which are all fairly entertaining in their own right, but the demands of the gameplay can make it drag.
Ashley & Olifen's chapters: Idealistic Priestess and Idealistic/Emo Soldier-engaged-to-a-Princess. You can do these in either order. I did Ashley's first. Both of these chapters are more about world-building than mystery-building (or mystery-revelation, for that matter). They do a good job developing their characters, though neither chapter has quite the chemistry that Thage's team did. But the world-building of Besek is pretty cool. Definitely a setting that I'd like to see utilized in RPGs more often, especially when given the gothic fairy tale treatment.
Gameplay was a little tougher here without Thage, who destroyed worlds. But the added challenge just made it more tedious to me. It's a fairly solid SRPG base, there's just not a lot to make it stand out. The recruitable mercenary characters are kind of fun to play with, and you -do- have the option of putting adorable, backwards-speaking Teddy Bears in your party, but... the experience is just too slow overall, even with animations turned off. And overkill system for capturing Majin gets tedious or frustrating, depending on your strategy. I've yet to find a strategy that makes it 'fun'.
Rondemion's chapter: Yes. You have to beat at least one of the other chapters to unlock this one. I played all three first, and it's good that I did. While Thage/Ashley/Olifen had to hold back some secrets due to their setup, Rondemion is the 'spoiler' chapter. Rondemion himself is pretty awesome, being a retired war hero who ends up not being so retired when he ventures into the home of the Majin, Besek. This chapter feels free to toss around bits of information the player would already know from the other chapters, as well as begins building it's own intrigue between Rondemion and his allies, one of the whom is ever-present Count Duphaston that's been showing up in every chapter to offer cryptic advice. The game is pretty genre-savvy and starts throwing Red Herrings at the player based on previous chapters to throw the player off. I have to say that it worked, as I was expecting a certain reveal, but then the game revealed just enough of something else that I abandoned my theory... only for the game to spring it on me after all. Nice.
Ronde is a beast, but this chapter is still fairly difficult compared to the previous ones, which gave the play a lot -more- overpowered units to play with. I stopped playing after finishing this chapter. The reason? Apparently you have to capture every Majin in the game, including bosses, to unlock the final chapter. Considering how not-fun this was, and how I wasn't paying much attention to this mechanic from the start... Yeah, I just can't be bothered to do that.
Final chapters: If you decide to Catch 'Em All, then you get access to a condensed chapter. You only play one-third of the full trek through Besek in this chapter, and you can -only- fight with your summoned Majin, making it fairly difficult. However, the story is finally ready to make it's revelations. Every battle is followed by a brief, often 4th-wall breaking conversation with the player about the goings-on of all 5 chapters up to this point, and things are getting tied together. In a refreshing change of pace (I just played Vandal Hearts, after all), the plot is pretty good about -not- beating the player in the face with its twists, though sometimes it can make things a bit vague (Hint: if you're confused by anything, play/watch the Thage chapter again, there's a lot of pieces of information there that's meaning becomes much clearer after the ending).
After the short 5th chapter, there is a big Final Battle sequence involving the 5 Leader PCs from each chapter. Their levels carry over, so it's worth pampering them. Final Battle looked pretty cool to me, but alas, I can't speak from experience.
Despite the battle system being lackluster, it did manage to produce some interesting duelists, so I wouldn't mind seeing this game ranked if it ever got any playership in the DL. As it stands, it makes a fun board tourney name, and Tal's stat topic is amazing.
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The final battle was pretty cool, Djinn. Made you use all of your PCs to take down the tentacles and then you went up against the MT damage slinging final boss. And I don't think you have to capture every Majin, just see every single one. I know I didn't capture that elephant thing in Ashley's part 1.
I've been toying around with a browser-based Flash RPG that I actually found quite fun. A cute customization system and summon system.
http://www.kongregate.com/games/fairypoet/ge-ne-sis?acomplete=ge.
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SRWK - Beaten! Man, that was an annoying final battle.
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FE10- Completed! This time I decided to favor Soren, Pelleas, and Aran/Danved. I used four Lance users in the final dungeon (Aran, Neph, Danved, and Oscar), Soren, Pelleas, Nolan, Brom, Cain and Naesala. I didn't actually get to utilize Alondite which is really hilarious and didn't get to use the Double Bow either. I gave Brom the Urvan and let Nolan use Tarvos; Nolan doubles the world~ Brom is a very good tank and he was pretty RNG-blessed. Brom was my kill leader in the game; he had Provoke and just took fuckloads of damage the entire game. He's great if you actually use him, but Gatrie is just better.
Soren is pretty disappointing. I just feel like you can't really use Rexcalibur unless you Arms Scroll him and his staff level is quite low, so there isn't very much reason to use him over Bastian since Bastian starts with SS Wind and B in Staves. Sad day. Pelleas ended up being really cool; I decided to bless long range tomes with both Pelleas and Micaiah since they spend most of the time healing. They ended up murdering a lot of dragons, and Pelleas can double spirits with Fenrir if he sits next to Nasir in the last two battles. He ended up with six stats capped; only Skill and Luck? were not capped.
Aran is a pretty good tank and does pretty good damage as well. He's decent throughout the game but not outstanding.
Other than that, I <3 Lance users. I forged a bunch of Silver Lances with super power and they were pretty cool.
FE10 I could probably immediately play again if I wasn't willing myself to play other games. It has a couple of notable flaws (the skill descriptions are embarrassingly bad, there are people like Lyre and Kyza who don't exist in plot at all and have no real reason to exist, some of the plot, especially the game's hero worship of Ike, is kind of ridiculous). I really like a lot of the interesting ideas they do with the plot and I really like the multiple scenarios that you switch to. It reminds me of Suikoden III with worse plot and better gameplay. I find that it's much easier to replay than S3 though, which is why I like it better overall.
Next is MK2~!
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Next is MK2~!
Which, from the moment the playthrough starts, will be dubbed "Ciato Employs Senseless Violence On The Universe: The Game".
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Why would I ever do that~?
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How -else- do you expect to get your diploma from Al Revis?
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How -else- do you expect to get your diploma from Al Revis?
Not have Flay be the one in charge?
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She'll be doing Ulrika path, so no Flay for her. She gets Goto instead. Watch out, Elf! She shall be wooed!
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How -else- do you expect to get your diploma from Al Revis?
Not have Flay be the one in charge?
And make everything less fun along the way? Screw that.
Also, Excal is dead wrong. Flay is about as present in Ulrika path as he is in Raze. That and it's not like Flay doesn't run the place regardless of your main anyway. >_>
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And if you feel like fiddling a bit more with the game Trips, this quote on the Bioware forums suggests something might be in the graphics settings.
I had problems with my ATI card and crashes as well.(HD 4670) I found that disabling framebuffer and soft shadows fixed the problem mostly. It sounds like everything is well with your other PC though. Enjoy.
Try stripping those out (OH NOES NOT LOSING SHADOWS IN KOTOR) and maybe generally fiddling with graphics settings and see how that works out.
I thought the problem was that Kotor can't handle being run on a dual-core, but I do have a ATI card so maybe that's it. I'll try it and see.
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She'll be doing Ulrika path, so no Flay for her. She gets Goto instead. Watch out, Elf! She shall be wooed!
Speaking of which I just beat Ulrika's path on MK2. The game is pretty fun overall. The grow book system gets less interesting as you go farthur into the game, but the gameplay really picks up when the grow book starts to loose its novelty. The characters are all unbalanced and their isn't much overall plot. but the game doesn't really need one to be entertaining. Randoms were usually pretty easy, but the bosses provided a good challenge and were especially intense when you hit their limit point and they started acting multiple times.
Anyway, character evaluation time!
Ulrika: Generally solid all around. The elemental barrier skill and healing time sphere skill were very helpful and made her pretty useful as a support character. Also Cannonball and her AoE support attack were very good for random battles. She got the killing blow on the final boss with Mana Guidance (her finishing strike) which was also pretty funny.
Chloe: Definate MVP. World of Book is always good damage and Demon Lord Summoning is really good against bosses. Near the end of the game I gave her an accessory with Vortex and Tornado and she smashed randoms to bits. By the end of the game Vortex was doing about 2400 to all enemies and Demon Lord Summoning was doing about 2600 to one.
Pepperoni: He kind of lags until he gets his final upgrade to his support attack. Once he got it I put him in the back and used him to clean up whatever was left over after Chloe used Vortex. Gamebest hp meant that he was never in any real danger of dieing.
Enna: His big advantage he had over the other characters were his time sphere abilities. Aside from that he wasn't much more than a warm body. He did get a nice endgame boost when I gave him a weapon that had a pretty good delay effect on it.
Goto: I didn't really notice it until late, but he actually had a pretty good HP and SP pool. Unfortunately, he didn't have Chloe's magic stat so he couldn't one round randoms, but he could still unleash some good MT. He was also fast enough that he would usually get a turn immediately after he was brought in which was extremely helpful for finishing off enemies. Stealing was also pretty nice.
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Yeah the enemies are using the same guns as me since I am an Engineer. Only Soldier gets something on the Collector ship, all the other classes unlock a new weapon type to use instead, so thus Engineer with Assault Rifle.
It's a little different. You have the option to train one of three new weapon types. If you can already train one of those weapon types you get a custom gun instead. Thus, soldier gets to pick three guns. Infiltrator and Vanguard can pick between a gun and training. The other three classes have to pick a new weapon training.
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Djinn rant
I think the best thing the game has done is to make Thage THE evil mastermind of everything. The scene where she directly out evil St. El=Stella is simply amusing.
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Mordin, you are my favorite character ever (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QS8cWUKliYk).
So glad someone finally put this on YouTube. It's very sad that Mordin will be almost certainly be dead if Mass Effect 3 takes place more than a year after ME2. Salarians age like jRPG characters.
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Djinn rant
I think the best thing the game has done is to make Thage THE evil mastermind of everything. The scene where she directly out evil St. El=Stella is simply amusing.
St. El? Stella? Whut?
I played it in English and I have no idea who those people are. I'm going to guess it's the name of the Goddess of the Majin, who was called Izel, Atona, or Lenarshe, depending on who was speaking.
Kind of loses the pun when they translated it, I guess. Probably for the best. English speakers would have picked up on the mystery connection far too quickly otherwise. Would have ruined the mystery flavor.
And while I agree about Thage's twist being the best one, the game did a lot of cool things with its story.
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Yeah the enemies are using the same guns as me since I am an Engineer. Only Soldier gets something on the Collector ship, all the other classes unlock a new weapon type to use instead, so thus Engineer with Assault Rifle.
It's a little different. You have the option to train one of three new weapon types. If you can already train one of those weapon types you get a custom gun instead. Thus, soldier gets to pick three guns. Infiltrator and Vanguard can pick between a gun and training. The other three classes have to pick a new weapon training.
So the things I have read were a bit off, good to know, more reasons to play through as Infiltrator then.
Also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXiU6kiq_Ms&NR=1 This link has better audio quality just to give the voice actor a bit more credit. Also a bit more male Sheppard VA to give an idea of how jaded he sounds. Barely even bats an eyelid at that. It honestly does kind of fit the character, especially for like 7 of the 9 character background permutations, but even with the more positive choices you can have by the time you reach this point in Shepards career he has seen and done almost everything you can imagine in the galaxy, nothing is new and nothing is shocking, the man has already died once.
And multicore is part of it, there is probably a mix of flakey drivers and unsupported multicore shit happening there with KotOR Trips.
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Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army - The time for confrontation is finally at hand, Raidou's mission is to storm the new radio tower the army is in control of. Doesn't sound like something a detective would handle does it? Well Raidou takes special cases so storming enemy bases is his line of line of work.
The first thing a detective does for such a mission is scout the area out first, see what possible entrances there may be, the guards on duty and if the target is infact on site. However Raidou gets a shock as he sees that the army have built what appears to be a radio tower in the shape of a robotic penis(!?!). To what end Raidou ponders, but he gets a hunch as speaking to nearby women reveals she has become entranced by the new tower, and has proclaimed the tower is her new lover!
That evil scum Munakata seems to be using the tower to attract women or maybe demons, Raidou just isn't sure. To further investigate he goes into the dark realm to see the tower there but gets an even bigger shock. Munakata has turned his giant robotic penis of a tower..... into a fleshy robotic penis!
With this the limit has been reached as Raidou finally storms his way into the tower, in his way is the soulless army, countless Red Capes and Hindu Ninja. They matter for naught as Raidou smashes through every single one like if they weren't there.
After the long climb Raidou finally confronts Munakata who summons the god of the mountain MISHACOCKJI! Raidou's new happy friend boasts that no human can withstand his "emissions" and that his "bolt" will Penetrate Raidou. The sick fuck goes down quickly for even suggesting such a thing but before Raidou can anything else someone paralizes him. It is none other then the lovemachine Rasputin! The bearded Russian then covers Raidou in some gooey liquid and everything goes dark.......
Star Ocean the last hope international - Just beat the second planet.
The Bad - Finding a couple of missions are lost forever if you beat the second boss, thereby having to start again.
The Tedious - Lizard Commanders are a rare enemy who appear in one area and are gone forever when the second boss dies. 100%ing them takes ages.
The current bad character - Edge. Fine at the start but is now flairing up every now and then, also his speachs suck.
The current good character lymle - How could I not like her? The "Kay Sir" line made my heart melt.
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Front Mission -
Beat the OCU campaign. Good fun. Final was a joke. Although difficulty as a whole started on a downwards trend around halfway in - I guess mostly when people started getting skills.
Interface is, however, thoroughly atrocious. The amount of times I tried to select a unit and missed because the tile selection is finnicky, especially when there are different altitudes around, and the game decided that I wanted to select a unit across the other side of the map... Granted, that at least is mostly annoying due to broken L/R buttons otherwise I would just have been using those and sidestepped the problem.
It orders equipment lowest-cost to highest-cost, and all shops sell all available equipment, so later in the game you end up having to scroll through the whole list of equipment. For every. Single. Part slot. For every. Single. Unit. Alternately you look up the new equipment, leave the shop and go over your whole team in regular setup and write out a consignment of what you want, go back to the shop and bulk buy it all, leave the shop and go back to regular setup to equip it all. I considered that way of going about things worse so I was stuck with endless scrolling. Why couldn't equipment have been ordered from most expensive to least? When would you ever be interested in looking at the startgame equipment aside from the start of the game?
Don't really understand what the point of a New Game+ play of FM would be, aside from looking for missed EX Missions (I missed 1 and 2 and any after 4). Not planning on going in to the UCS campaign straight away. Instead going on to Edgeworth.
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Thanks again to Meeple on Crisis Core. I've been playing a lot of very enjoyable games lately (Dissidia, XF, Crisis Core) all of which are sure to suck my time away with tweak/twink potential on a replay.
In the meantime my new copy of SO3 arrived (the old one gave up the ghost a while ago =-() and I couldn't resist >.>
SO3 with too many rules challenge -
No/initial equipment (even initial equipment makes a huge difference on disc one especially with raging anger so I haven't been using it, might have to resort to it disc two depending though)
No AAA (unless by accident)
No sidestepping
No item creation except for recovery/revival
Must use lowest level EXP characters for each fight, must take lowest levelled optionals
No Triple EXP
No HP/MP boosting with SP
Optional - Limited manual control + no revival or full auto revival allowed (revive allies ASAP)
I started this years ago and then was distracted by something or other. So starting from where I left off.
Blue Dragon Zombie
MVP- Nel
Nel/Cliff/Fayt team
From what I remembered I'd been playing with the no revival rule up until this point but this fight frustrated me to the point that I just wanted to get on with it so I brought in all auto with revival instead (it's still possible to switch between PCs but since they are on AI chances are they are stuck in doing something stupid and the fight is messed up anyway) I couldn't use the main man here (Cliff) with his game breaking Hammer of Might because the dragon is resistant to elements which is part of the reason this fight was so annoying but thankfully Nel's powerful Aerial still works. Another reason this fight is annoying is because the dragon has MP damage and Cliff's MP is absolutely horrible with any MP boosts from SP even more so than his MP normally is. Fayt wasn't much better. However at least Cliff and Fayt dropping like flies pissed Nel off so she had a damage boost with raging anger. With Aerial's damage modifier this is niice. Fight still drags on however and I kept running out of revival items so I had to go and buy/make moar. Ironically the time the next time I went in the rocks rolling across the battle field took thousands off the boss, that in combination with Nel's Aerial ended the fight before the revival supply was dented >.>
Robin Wind
MVP- Nel/Cliff[/b]
Nel/Cliff/Roger team
Haet. this. boss. So.much. Once he goes into Aerial Slash mode allies drop faster than flies, it causes chaos and when you revive them they are still under the status. Ugh. Then they either die again from the chaos because it can do that, especially bad when their HP/MP is low as it is just after revival or they did from Aerial Slash again. Ughh. Not to mention he has two other attacks that can cause chaos to boot (a physical and Rising Stream) >.> Anyway this just ends up a range game with Nel's Fire Bolt, frantically reviving allies when you get the chance and hoping you get enough Fire Bolts in to get the boss into Rising Stream stage before your revival items run out (oh and watch out Nel doesn't get owned by Thunder Flare as the boss changes stages - did I mention that Thunder Flare is also annoying for everyone? >.>) Once he's in Rising Stream stage you can switch and hope he gets raging anger status as much as possible so you can finish the fight off as quick as possible with Hammer of MIGHT! I got lucky with my revival items on the winning run as Cliff and Roger trapped Robin Wind in a corner and tied him down with Whirling Heat and Hammer of Might for a while.
Strangely Crosell is turning out to be a much easier fight than the last two despite me being stuck with an all melee team for it (Cliff/Fayt/Roger) <.< Also on the bright side since Nel won't get EXP from the Crosell fights I get to take her as my first optional. Yaay.
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Brig:GE- Just been messing around with this.Nothing too serious, just playing it for the hell of it. Doubt it'll be for long though.
VP:DS- Going for the A ending. I just started C2 and did the first battle on the Camille path. It's at least quick on NG+.
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Star Ocean the last hope international - Is the robot man any good? I've just got him and he pales when compared to Lymle. I heard from a friend she was the worst character in the game but I'm not so sure about that at the moment.
Also this games jiggle physics are simply outrageous. Whoever did them should be smacked.
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He's good, but best left to AI. He's not very fun to play as and his moves are a bit unintuitive. The AI seems to handle him rather well, and he's good at sticking in the back lines and blowing shit up.
Really, most characters in SO4 are adequate at worst; Faize is the only one who stops being useful after a point, if you ask me (for good reason though.)
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Star Ocean the last hope international - Is the robot man any good? I've just got him and he pales when compared to Lymle. I heard from a friend she was the worst character in the game but I'm not so sure about that at the moment.
Bacchus has one attack in particular that is nigh gamebreaking. His dash attack fires twice in quick succession and it seems like it stuns the enemy an incredibly disproportionate amount of time, in my experience. The AI never seems to use it, but it saved my life on a disturbingly regular basis against the post-game enemies. It also has an unlimited range, so you can just slide back and forth shooting until it gets close, and then start using your dash to move in a circle around it while you fire continuously as it gets stunned over and over and over and over.
Dunnow if they lowered the stun rate on his attack, but it would not surprise me at all if they did.
EDIT: The fact you not only tolerate Lymle but like her makes me want to beat you to death.
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Star Ocean the last hope international - Is the robot man any good? I've just got him and he pales when compared to Lymle. I heard from a friend she was the worst character in the game but I'm not so sure about that at the moment.
Also this games jiggle physics are simply outrageous. Whoever did them should be smacked.
And the mages are somewhat interchangeable.
Jiggle physics? Are you referring to Reimi's ponytail? It does seem to move like it has no weight whatsoever...
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EDIT: The fact you not only tolerate Lymle but like her makes me want to beat you to death.
Just be happy with your boring badass Bacchus boy and let us enjoy Lymle. If you must direct hate at a little girl character please do so at the fanservicy catgirl.
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I didn't know I was a proponent of Bacchus in any particular way except that he's got an extremely broken dash ability. The only characters I actually like are Stephen Kenni, for being related to Ronixis, and Reimi during the time she removes Edge from command for being a bitch.
But yes, I hate Miracle too, because she looks like a child prostitute from Thailand and that's just skeevy.
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Jiggle physics? Are you referring to Reimi's ponytail? It does seem to move like it has no weight whatsoever...
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q268/Rozalia1/helicopter2.gif
Does the above jog your memory?
The fact you not only tolerate Lymle but like her makes me want to beat you to death.
Hey I normally hate child characters too but Lymle really gives me no reason to hate her.
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KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY. Also "I'm at the age of consent but I look like I'm nine."
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Rob hits the nail on the head for why she's annoying. But aside from that, I found her to be a surprisingly well-used character. Which is unfortunate, because I hate her.
Jiggle physics? Are you referring to Reimi's ponytail? It does seem to move like it has no weight whatsoever...
http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q268/Rozalia1/helicopter2.gif
Does the above jog your memory?
I honestly don't remember the breasts being that overly animated. Maybe Myuria's?
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Yep thats the one Djinn. Not really met her yet but from the looks of it she is a serious character who may just have quite a lot of scenes. Reimi thankfully doesn't have that, though she has the camera leer in on her rear at the end of battle sometimes which is slightly annoying after a while.
KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY.
VA does a nice job with it. Has had adorable moments and as long as she doesn't say, transform into Roger then I don't mind the slight annoyances.
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Yep thats the one Djinn. Not really met her yet but from the looks of it she is a serious character who may just have quite a lot of scenes. Reimi thankfully doesn't have that, though she has the camera leer in on her rear at the end of battle sometimes which is slightly annoying after a while.
I don't recall anything major Myuria does after her introductory scenes.
KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY KAY.
VA does a nice job with it. Has had adorable moments and as long as she doesn't say, transform into Roger then I don't mind the slight annoyances.
[/quote]
By the end of the game she ends every (kay). Single (kay). Sentence (kay). With it (kay).
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I honestly ended up liking Lymle cause for once we have a Little Girl character who actually acts and resembles a 5 year old girl (I know she's suppose to be 15, but lets not get into that.) I look at her, and remember her reminding me of Mandy at that age. Contrast this to other little girls in RPGs at her age, they're usually either "Disgustingly cute in ways that fiction overstates", "Ultra Annoying" or "Too mature for their age cause hey, THEY NEED TO BE TO KEEP UP WITH THE TEAM!"
Lymle actually FELT young in a realistic way, and pulled it off without being annoying. The "kay" thing was annoying at first, but whatever, got use to it. Kind of like FF10's excessive use of "You know?"
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What Meeple said is spot on. If the character is good then I can overlook the small annoyances. Especially in this case as near enough all child characters I've seen have been horrible.
That the greatest of reasons but I stand by it.
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: OHATSU IS ABSURD. Also idiotically fun, and why does she grow funnels in Devil Trigger (its a demonic power up thing, I'm calling it devil trigger!)
Soki's gotten a little more fun with his new Charge gimmick thing that characters seem to finally gain, cause how, its crowd control, and what not. His Sephiroth Form seems pretty bland though; if it wasn't for the invincibility and auto-Absorption, it'd be worse than his base form.
Oh yeah, Dark Realm is fun, and idiotically good way to get Red Souls <_<
Wizard of Oz: Beat Boom Boom Woods.
To be honest? While beyond some minor layout and polish issues here and there (Why can't I see what i have equipped or how equipment compares to my current characters in shops!? being the big one), the game doesn't do anything really major wrong...the game is also failing to grab my attention. The ideas are there, but they're not really exploited enough to really make the game engaging. I guess its better than making use of them in retarded ways but it still means the game is failing to grab my attention.
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Djinn rant
I think the best thing the game has done is to make Thage THE evil mastermind of everything. The scene where she directly out evil St. El=Stella is simply amusing.
St. El? Stella? Whut?
I played it in English and I have no idea who those people are. I'm going to guess it's the name of the Goddess of the Majin, who was called Izel, Atona, or Lenarshe, depending on who was speaking.
Kind of loses the pun when they translated it, I guess. Probably for the best. English speakers would have picked up on the mystery connection far too quickly otherwise. Would have ruined the mystery flavor.
And while I agree about Thage's twist being the best one, the game did a lot of cool things with its story.
St. El=Stella is the gate guardian boss in tier 3 light path, also the founder of Izat's church.
El=Stella: Everything is according to my schedule, JUST AS PLANNED!!!
*Thage wave Libre Vesper
El=Stella: WHAAAAT!?
Thage: Whose plan again??
Her Xanatos Gambit is on ridiculous level. After the entire mass, she gets rid of Libre Aurora that is her only threat, created a total of 5 Poison Pinks, get rid off Izat who can purify the poison, secured the host body for the Destroyer, and manipulated the player into being her pawn.
Poor Duphaston, for he thought he is in control of everything.
I really want a sequel of this with Thage as last boss, after how she sarcastically "thanks" the player in the end.
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Her Xanatos Gambit is on ridiculous level. After the entire mass, she gets rid of Libre Aurora that is her only threat, created a total of 5 Poison Pinks, get rid off Izat who can purify the poison, secured the host body for the Destroyer, and manipulated the player into being her pawn.
Poor Duphaston, for he thought he is in control of everything.
And yet, they would undercut all that with a pun name. Pun names are for goofy third-tier villains and recurring minor characters, not major adversaries.
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Hmm... I think I managed to decipher that correctly.
HUGE ETERNAL POISON SPOILERS, DO NOT READ!
Okay, so Thage, Queen of Valdia, wife of Belfour/King Valdus, was killed when Valdus got hungry for power (or fell in love with the Goddess of Majin, Izel, not entirely sure which it is). He sacrificed her to try to give Izel an earthly body. For some reason, it didn't work, and Thage was reborn in a new body. At some point, the Guardian deity of the Dark path of the 3rd level of Besek 'calls the Darkness' to Thage, and she decides she wants revenge for being sacrificed. To get revenge, she's going to destroy the world.
She decides she can do this with the Eternal Poison (the Poison Pink, apparently, in Japan), which is thought to be some kind of wish-granting artifact. It is, in fact, some kind of mystical bond that is formed between a summoner and Besek when they summon Besek to a plane of existence. The summoner's blood becomes the Poison Pink. This also keeps the summoner from being killed permanently, by causing a 'Time Echo' should the summoner die. Time resets to the moment that the summoner's killer entered Besek, and events in both Besek and the outside world can occur differently. King Valdus proves to us that the holder of the Poison Pink doesn't always remember the previous events that occurred. However, it seems that anyone who holds a Librum -does- recall the events, as evidenced by Thage and Morpheus.
I'm not sure how it helps Thage to destroy the world, but she kills King Valdus once, and watches on each time someone else is able to kill King Valdus, collecting the Poison Pinks that are created each time his blood is spilt, for a total of 5 Poison Pinks, along with the Librum Vespera. The final time that King Valdus is killed, Duphaston uses the now-completed Librum Aurora to counter the Poison Pink's 'Time Echo' effect and truly end Valdus. This destroys the Librum Aurora in the process, leaving Thage's Librum Vespera unchallenged in power. She then convinces everyone to destroy the Goddess Izel, who had been reborn in Thage's daughter's body due to Valdus' ritual.
Unsurprisingly, all of that would allow Thage to destroy the world unchallenged.
Things that don't fit in - Why does Thage care about Retica? What did Ranunculus hope to get Thage to do? Where did Thage's new body come from, especially considering that the Majin seemed to think she was Izel (like Ashley and Lenarshe), so one would assume that the new body has to have the trace of Majin blood in it too. Why does Ashley treat Thage like a childhood friend (if the relationship there is just that Ashley recognizes Thage as her mother... the timing doesn't really line up, Thage was sacrificed 14 years ago or more and Ashley was born 17 years ago... just feels like there's a missing piece there, especially given the way Ashley acts around Thage when they first meet).
END ETERNAL POISON SPOILERS
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A few thing.
Thage, Renarshe, and Parshe are sisters. Only Renarshe is a usable host for Izat so Valdus kept her, he dumped the rest. Thage got locked up, that is when the Water Dragon found her, that leads her to awaken the same power as the queen.
Poison Pink are the people bathed in the blood of Majin and reach the Holy Throne of the Poison Goddess. You are a world destroying creature when you become one. As for the Time Echo, it is actually Izat who is looping the time, to buy herself enough time to be fully summoned, and it turns out when Duhpaston is ready to end the loop, it is a bit too late.
Libre Aurora crumbled because Izat died. It is an artifact to summon Izat into earthly realm by evoking Besek into earthly realm, and Duphaston is actually the one who calls it forth in the first place, so he can kill Izat. When Izat is gone, it lose its purpose and crumble. This actually brought up the question on what is Libre Vesper. St. El=Stella refer to it as the Book of Truth and it should have not appeared within his grand schedule of summoning Izat. And it is his lack of recognition of the Libre Vesper that caused his schedule to go off track since the very beginning.
As for Retica, being a Majin/human hybrid, he is to become the Destroyer. That is why Majin consider the mixblood a taboo. Majins have created hybrids in the past hoping to create a proper host body for Izat, but it ends in total failure, what they created is a Destroyer. Thage noticed what Retica is since the very beginning thus she kept him with her.
Ranunculus is just like all other Majin, wants to summon Izat. But unlike King Valdus, he believes Thage is the proper host. But somehow Thage has demonstrated herself to be even greater than his goddess and make him loyal to her (which is resonable, even Leo Lecus favors her). That line she spoken to him in Latin that I have no idea what it means is what change Ranunculus's mind completly and give up on Izat.
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We have our Protagonist, the Blond Haired Samurai wielding *2* Broadswords (except he never uses the second one, for some reason...is it just for show? THE GAME'S PLOT EVEN SAYS HE USES TWO DAMN IT!), with the option of wielding a Greatsword instead (changes his fighting style.)
If you mean Requiem/Sword of Purification, it's used in specials (much like the super with it in TvC) and um, a rather important battle later on.
TvC: Lots of fun. Still trying to get the hang of some of the T characters and the giants, and I kind of miss a couple specials like Chun Li's ax kick, but otherwise it's been an easy adjustment. I'm pretty rusty at the all-shooters game though.
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Worst characters in the game are Faize and Myuria. Lymle's surprisingly useful, supporting your party first with Healing and then MT healing long before Myuria joins (then there's another mage or perhaps cleric is the better word in this one's case who already joins with good stuffs and only gets more) Cereberus skills are bad ass as well especially Trinity Blaze with it's ridiculous modifiers (too bad that one's post game/fire elemental) Myuria really takes a while to get going, her Faerie Light and revive spell come late unless one does extra training. Since I base characters on their innate/unique stuffs first and foremost without any item creation yeah I have more respect here in Lymle and the cleric's case =-)
What Rob said about Bacchus though however I switched to Blindside + X Claw juggle post game with Meracle. I'd definitely put him in your party at this stage (chain combo Galvantic Shock for big damages) though you don't have to switch out Lymle if you don't want to. Most would probably recommend switching out Faize or Edge. Reimi, Meracle, Bacchus and Spoiler!character are considered the big damage cannon/broken characters of this game =-)
SO3 with too many rules - Well Crosell 1 was relatively easy considering. Crosell 2 ... >.> Yeah this could take a while~
Edit: Oh yeah Rozalia try and do Lymle's PAs since you like her ^^
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Klonoa: Door to Phantomile - So. I finished this today completely. Every stage has all 6 residents rescued and a Blue Gem ranking. Normally, saying "150 gems in every stage" would be enough, since that's the minimum you need to get the Blue Gem ranking (and the maximum in a LOT of stages)... But you can get up to 153 gems in stage 5-1. I know I have 151 sitting on my file records, at least.
Billy vs. SNAKEMAN - So I suppose only people who still play this (where are you all?) would get what I'm about to exclaim here, but...
I BEAT THE ELEVEN-TAILED FOX! Third try at it and a total of ~1.8M Ryo and 33 Storm Favors spent on it... But still! The Eleven Tails is now mine, and I can now try for the Kimono of Shadows on March 11th! Still have a lot of phase fighting to do, though, thanks to Pizzawitch... Dear god Pizzawitch is expensive.
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ToDr - Hey look it's a Rutee and she has infinite healing. Also, MARY DOESN'T STARE AT THE INFINITE WHILE GETTING MAIMED 120% OF THE TIME ZOMG
But seriously, this is already a huge huge improvement over just about any Tales game I've ever played gameplay-wise, let alone the original ToD. The combo system has never been so flexible and layered, the options have more depth to them and the customizability is already kinda notable even this early. I need to pester Xer about some more in-depth stuff, though. Also, getting rid of TP somehow proved to be a cool idea.
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Metroid Fusion - Finished this. 3:25, 45%, for those who care.
Overall very impressed by the game, kicking myself for putting off playing it for 7 years. Short version: second favourite Metroid game, which says something seeing as Super Metroid is 10/10 A+ material, delivers an excellent action platforming experience while still keeping some exploration elements and having a surprisingly good atmosphere/setting/plot.
More specifically... well, the main thing it gives up from Super Metroid is that it gives up the greater part of the exploration. You don't feel like you're uncovering a ruined planet or anything like that. It's not Mario or Mega Man, levels aren't a straight line and you are sometimes expected to be creative to get past certain points, but it is not fundamentally a highly exploration-focussed game. It also doesn't try to be, so this is okay. Although... after beating the game I considered going hunting for the other items and then realised I had no desire whatsoever to do this. Two reasons I can think of this is (1) the lack of excitement in exploring the "world", and (2) no X-Ray Scope. Boo to that. I know Power Bomb has a similar function now but I find that just annoying by comparison.
Gameplaywise the game feels almost strictly improved over previous (and subsequent) entries in the series. I think the game basically found a perfect balance with how to handle health. Enemies hit much harder than in SM, but on the other hand, they have a 100% chance to drop a (small) amount of health. Dying is a much more real concern than before, and recharge stations are a much bigger deal. If you're really on top of things you'll start regaining health, but a little carelessness and it drops fast. SM combat is fundamentally not a terrible starting point, and getting rid of the run button makes it better, as does doing away with regular missiles once you get supers. As for bosses... well. The first few are embarrassingly bad, but once it starts getting serious I wiped to bosses multiple times as often as not. Bosses actually hit very hard, so the game expects you to learn their pattern and/or how you damage them. They're pretty unforgiving until you do, and once you do you still have a decent fight on your hands. I dunno if anything matches the epic aerial slugfests of Ridley in SM but he was the exception, not the rule, and I wouldn't want a whole boss cast modelled after him anyway. Definitely my favourite set of bosses from a Metroid/Castlevania/etc. style platformer. In fact, sure, why not... (note that I don't know most bosses' real names, and I may miss one... I think Wide Beam may have had a boss too but I don't recall him <.<)
Morph Ball boss: Not as good as his MMX equivalent. Works as an intro boss though.
Charge Beam boss: Oh my god you are so terrible. I guess you're meant to be a tutorial about other bosses whose final stage shoots beams at you, but still.
High Jump boss: Sub-Spore Spawn. I'm not actually sure I took damage from him. Yes, please do nothing but jump over my head harmlessly until you use your very slow attack which makes me shoot you then dodge. Only tiny difficulty is figuring out how to damage him and even that's easy.
Serris (Speed Booster boss): Wake-up call. I expected he'd be the hardest boss in the game after beating him, based on what other Metroid games had led me to expect. Not really! Still, wow, the speed.
Security Robot: Murderised me a few times before I figured out how to dodge his attack. It's simple in hindsight. Damaging him and maneuvering remains tricky enough to keep him competent afterwards.
Varia Suit boss: Okay, back to the failure.
THE SPIDER (Space Jump boss): DID HE JUST 5HKO ME?!? Fun fight, but nasty, nasty, just unforgiving if you screw up. The second phase was cute and killed me a couple times as well but that was probably mostly just panic. Reminds me of the MMX spider for causing fear. Or that DMC boss I think is a spider but is actually a scorpion.
Spore Spawn mark 2 (Plasma Beam boss): My least favourite. He killed me a couple times but that is just due to not figuring out the control mechanic of how to jump out of his man-eating flower traps. That's really no fun. Bit of a joke once I had that control down because he's so frail.
Gravity Suit boss: Disliked the first stage because I never found a way to avoid taking significant damage during it. Second stage is a fun and rather challenging fight. Whole battle needed more of that gravity gimmick, oh well.
Security Robot 2 (Wave Beam boss): Weird one. Kills you if you get too aggressive, hard to hit, but the pattern I found for beating him seemed pretty reliable, if a bit boring (stay on the ledge, destroy the missiles, jump diagonal shoot down when he gets close). Also takes forever but I don't see a way to do it faster and win? This guy is probably annoying on speedruns if I haven't missed a trick. Has that second form but it's not too notable.
Ridley (Screw Attack boss): Not actually -having- Screw Attack for the fight certainly makes Ridley more dangerous. On the other hand, being able to spam Super Missiles at ultra-high speed makes him unhappy. So he ends up as Ridley with more offence but less in-practice durability (the HP is on crack on paper, but yeah, just has no tricks to avoid taking damage whatsoever, even when he graps you you can spam missiles in his face). Fun enough homage to the original and not a terrible fight.
SA-X: Hmm, not sure if she's a little disappointing after all the plot hype or not. It's a good fight and certainly fairly tough, so objectively not too much to complain about, but seeing as she is basically the final boss I expected a bit more? (I know, I know, a Metroid game would -never- disappoint with its final boss.) The brief second stage is depressingly laughable (High Jump strategy!), although the third stage is the best of that type. Still nothing new aside from the cool first stage. Mirror match!
Omega Metroid(?): Subject of a plot rant below, but otherwise, timer boss is pretty cool, especially since its main attack is as notable for making you waste time as it is for damage. By nature it can't be a long fight, but it works well enough as a final confrontation anyway.
Guess that leaves story concerns. I basically think the game nailed its atmosphere. Sorta has some survival horror elements which are quite effective without dominating the game. You don't play the game for a scare factor, but the game is good at portraying the sense of dread, or of being hunted. Some highlights include... (spoilers!) most early scenes with SA-X, particularly the first and the one where you have to RUN RUN RUN OH DEAR GOD; and the scene where an X parasite rushes away from you, leaving Ridley's decaying body behind (oh shit). As far as general plot goes, it continues and sheds a fair deal of more light of the plot of the first three games, and delivers it effectively enough. Adam's the only real character but he worked for me. Also the Federation is corrupt, retarded, or both. I worry that the (unskippable?) scenes might slow replays but they aren't really that long, as I noticed when I had to replay the game up to Sector 5 because my save file died, and they tell the story effectively. Plot twists works for what they were, except the Omega Metroid which was pretty stupid. I didn't even realise it -was- an Omega Metroid since I'd forgotten what that looked like and though its existence is forshadowed its appearance is pretty poorly explained and doesn't really fit as a final opponent I think, given that Samus practically is part-Metroid by now. NEED IT OR THE TITLE MAKES NO SENSE?! I suppose. X parasites are much more menacing opponents than metroids or space pirates anyway. Also the birds and monkeys remain badass.
Hum de dum, need to chain-replay this game to really get a feel for it, but even if I decide it has no replay value at all it's an 8/10 minimum. Hooray.
Super Mario World 2 - Two levels from the end (I think?). SLUGGY THE UNSHAVEN is the best boss name ever, and Raphael the Raven is the best boss ever. I mean not only is he a giant raven which is inherently fucking badass he is actually a Super Mario Galaxy boss over a decade earlier and on the SNES. Genius! Totally get why I remembered him and almost nothing else about the game. World 5 was a fairly brutal experience but so far 6 has been much easier.
Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon - Decided to start this up on H3, since it's in the middle of the HM difficulties and FESD could certainly have stood to be more than a bit harder. First thing I notice: Enemies are rather scary and no prologue = you have no healing whatsoever until Wrys joins. Draug's Def is actually useful for this battle, Caeda is the only person who doubles anything, and Jagen's help is certainly appreciated. Second thing I notice: Oh dear god the C1 boss is a complete monster. 21 atk/10 speed one-rounds several people, notably Cain (6 spd) and Draug (even the Def doesn't save him!). Jagen gets 2HKOed and is the only person who does more than 6 damage to his 27 HP + 20% regen + good evade, and only has 60% hit. Ack. Range beat him and waited to get lucky with accuracy (Cain's lack of Javelins made him depressingly worthless, GORDIN however was useful) which of course happened in time but still, he's like a scary FE6 boss. Third thing I notice: I take back any Draug hype because he is worthless crap on the second map, instead of taking 3 damage once he is taking 6 damage twice, from the same enemies. 7HKOed -> 2HKOed. Wow. Fourth thing: Darros recruits himself by talking to Marth then gets doubled and one-rounded by the fighter coming up behind him. Amazing. Don't start with a Steel Axe next time, kid. Currently early in that fight.
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AAI: Beat. Very good adventure game, fun writing, great characters, play it or I hurt you, etc, etc, you know the drill. Probably my third-favorite in the series? It's almost certainly got the worst final case of the bunch, owing to the last arc being longer than it is good. Case 5 does have the most awesomely random cameo ever, though. MISSILE?! Seriously? Wow, guys. Can we count Excal as psychic for putting him in PW Mafia?
Endless Frontier 2: Started this. Having fun so far. It doesn't bother with much of an introduction, gameplaywise - enemies 2HKO right off the bat, and you have to break guard on the larger randoms in the second dungeon. You can now see a guard meter for enemies who have it before you even start attacking, which is nice. Haven't seen Forced Evasion yet, and I'm still not sure when the E. Gauge does.
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Giant Metroid Fusion Post
Does this mean there is hope for a METROID FUSION STAT TOPIC NEB?
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Idly, NEB: IIRC there's a way to lock Security Robot 2 into a really simple pattern if you position right (forget where, tho), but if you don't find it/can't get into it he's a nasty little punk. And Nightmare... Iunno, I usually die once and then don't have issues. He cycles in a very specific way, so you can pre-empt and start space jumping to lead him in a circle.
This being said you had far less room for error than I ever do there. 45%? Yow. I'm lazy and like exploring. <_<
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Most would probably recommend switching out Faize or Edge. Reimi, Meracle, Bacchus and Spoiler!character are considered the big damage cannon/broken characters of this game
I wouldn't pull Edge, not because of combat prowess but because the AI seems to be about ten times better at playing as him than anyone else. He's like the only character that doesn't need to be fucking babysat.
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VP:DS: At the start of C6. Don't think my opinion of the game has improved (I still don't like the gameplay much) but it's at least serviceable on the A path. Need to beat the final. Don't think I am interested enough in the SG to sit through it again on the B path, though double Cadacuses would murder the game. Mmm, maybe.
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Another Pokemon event reminder:
Gamestops in the USA are giving away Jirachi from Feb 27th through Mar 13th. Knows Draco Meteor for some unknown reason, and also unlocks something in HeartGold/SoulSilver.
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A few thing.
Thage, Renarshe, and Parshe are sisters. Only Renarshe is a usable host for Izat so Valdus kept her, he dumped the rest. Thage got locked up, that is when the Water Dragon found her, that leads her to awaken the same power as the queen.
Okay, good, that confirmed my suspicions about that. The English version of the game sort of hints at that, but I imagine it would have been easier to make clear in Japanese without sounding awkward. Parshe=Ashley in the US version.
Poison Pink are the people bathed in the blood of Majin and reach the Holy Throne of the Poison Goddess. You are a world destroying creature when you become one. As for the Time Echo, it is actually Izat who is looping the time, to buy herself enough time to be fully summoned, and it turns out when Duhpaston is ready to end the loop, it is a bit too late.
That sounds kind of contradictory to how it was explained in the US version. I need to rewatch the scene. The US version directly states that the one who summons Besek obtains the 'Eternal Poison'. Their blood becomes it. Although, this -would- explain Logue (Olifen's buddy who was sent by Valdus to slay the Majin Umbra, who ended up possessing him).
Libre Aurora crumbled because Izat died. It is an artifact to summon Izat into earthly realm by evoking Besek into earthly realm, and Duphaston is actually the one who calls it forth in the first place, so he can kill Izat. When Izat is gone, it lose its purpose and crumble.
Not sure why Duphaston has any reason to kill Izel from the start. His grudge seemed pretty directed at Valdus.
This actually brought up the question on what is Libre Vesper. St. El=Stella refer to it as the Book of Truth and it should have not appeared within his grand schedule of summoning Izat. And it is his lack of recognition of the Libre Vesper that caused his schedule to go off track since the very beginning.
Makes sense with what you've explained so far.
As for Retica, being a Majin/human hybrid, he is to become the Destroyer. That is why Majin consider the mixblood a taboo. Majins have created hybrids in the past hoping to create a proper host body for Izat, but it ends in total failure, what they created is a Destroyer. Thage noticed what Retica is since the very beginning thus she kept him with her.
So... what makes Retica different from Valdus or Logue or Lenarshe?
Ranunculus is just like all other Majin, wants to summon Izat. But unlike King Valdus, he believes Thage is the proper host. But somehow Thage has demonstrated herself to be even greater than his goddess and make him loyal to her (which is resonable, even Leo Lecus favors her). That line she spoken to him in Latin that I have no idea what it means is what change Ranunculus's mind completly and give up on Izat.
Simple enough to understand, and fits with the US version too.
Thanks for clarifying some stuff, Niu!
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Maybe FF Crystal Chronicle...
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Wizard of Oz: Just beat Delphi. Man, she was NOT fond of Mirror Skin. Especially funny when I cast it on Tin Man cause "Hey, Dorothy's damage is insignificant, and no one needs healing, and I got plenty of MP to last this fight, why not?" *Dorothy casts* *Delphi used Magic Focus!* *Delphi cast Earthquake!* *Dorothy barely lives, Tin Man reflects damage equal to about the same amount he did this turn*
I will give the game credit for one thing. They managed to make a character as fundamentally flawed as Tin Man...actually worth something. He really is worth the 3 turn ratio in some scenarios, most particularly boss fights or just dealing with large groups of the same enemy.
Otherwise, my general thoughts remain about the same as I said before.
Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: Munenori gets beat again, but clearly not dead cause hey, he's Jubei's rival! By laws of these kinds of games with multiple PCs and specific rivals, Jubei HAS to be the one to fight him in an epic one on one duel!
...oh, right, I got her back, and the entire dungeon I just did was more or less riddled with "YOU CANNOT GO FURTHER CAUSE YOU WEIGH TOO MUCH OR ARE TOO FAT TO SQUEEZE THROUGH THIS CRACK!" Its almost like the game is going out of their way to say "Ohatsu thinks she's too fat and thus on a massive diet." (well, she also wears Armor, which doesn't exactly help for maneuverability in tight places or weighing very little, especially compared to Jubei's Ninja garments.)
Speaking of Ohatsu, she remains completely absurd! This game was balanced for close range combat, they didn't really factor in just how much a gunner would break it. She needed a balancing feature like "Has to reload every couple of shots", to make her defenseless or something...
Though, I shouldn't complain, cause she's really the most fun character in the game to play as...and the game at its core isn't boring to begin with really.
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Excessive Trainwreck: Okay where the fuck is Dorothy's house.
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Djinn stuff
Actually the summoner of Besek don't automatically obtain the Poison Pink. What Besek do to its summoner is to grant the summoner a wish. The summoner of Besek must be the owner of Libre Aurora and Duphaston remains its rightful owner from beginning to the end. He might lend it to someone, but that didn't make the others the owner, evident how the book returns to him after every loop. In other words, English trans made a mistake, because if what Besek grants is Poison Pink, then only Dhuphaston could have become one.
Also, King Valdus made the mistake of thinking he can have his wish granted if he can take over the Besek, when Besek only specifically grants the wish of owner of Libre Aurora. In other words, Valdus has fallen into Duphaston's trap from the very start.
Also, Duphaston's desire to kill Izat is a separate issue from Valdus. As for why Duphaston wants Izat dead, you can get some hints from his conversation with Rondemion. You see how he objects when Rodemion claims Majins are nothing but blood lusting dumbass that are nothing more than pawns of their goddess. Shapeshifter has always view himself as a superior being and he is the only one who owns himself... but the reality is that Majins are just toys of a second rated goddess. There is no way a stupid bitch that can be superior to him, so it is time to remove her from power.
As for Retica, he is fundamentally different from the others because he actually have a Majin father (Death Farkus), thus not human. Unlike Vladus, who obtained his power by absorbing from other Majins, and his daughters just succeeded that power from him, which means they are still fundamentally human. Retica is doomed to be short lived due to his blood and eventually become the Destroyer.
The question I have surrounding Retica is the cause of Death Farkus's loss of memory and sanity. He was punished to become Besek's executioner for impregnate a human women. But does that punishment includs stripping his memory and sanity? Or is that just the effect of Izat's presence that had universally drove the Majins in tier 3 crazy?
ToDr - Hey look it's a Rutee and she has infinite healing. Also, MARY DOESN'T STARE AT THE INFINITE WHILE GETTING MAIMED 120% OF THE TIME ZOMG
But seriously, this is already a huge huge improvement over just about any Tales game I've ever played gameplay-wise, let alone the original ToD. The combo system has never been so flexible and layered, the options have more depth to them and the customizability is already kinda notable even this early. I need to pester Xer about some more in-depth stuff, though. Also, getting rid of TP somehow proved to be a cool idea.
Wait until you get comboable spells. This game has by far I mean BY FAR the most broken Indignation ever. And you'll actually want Sthan casting Explosion this time, it actually increase his comboability 2 folds.
BTW, is this normal version or Director's Cut?
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Director's Cut. Thought I might as well get the updated version.
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Hmm, right, I've been playing games.
SRWJ - Up to map 28, so it's been slow going. The Nadesco crew is still owning face, partially just because their ability to tank through defensive supports and sheer evasiveness is still badass, partially because they're the only unit I have that can consistantly spam their best attacks with pretty much no consequences, and partially because I'm giving them the Terrain items which are usually worthless. I mean, really, how often does anything have less than an A for land attacks? Well, the flying chick squad does, and they can use the dustproofs and A-Adaptor, while landlocked Akito gets a Flight Unit. The other one is currently going to Sgt. Sosuke, mostly just because I want to replace his mech with Fumoffu. Because really, what part of a mascot character beating up giant robots isn't amusing?
Endless Frontier - Still mostly having fun, and figuring out how all of the new moves work, and which are trash. Around Lvl. 30 and futzing around in Dulces Tomb. KOS-MOS is currently a destroyer of worlds, with Harken and Kaguya being in a race for second best, and Reiji is, well... kinda sucking. The fact that my R button is now in the process of dying means that this game is swiftly becomming unplayable until I get a new DS. Which means I'll be keeping my eye open for sales, since there's a lot of games that not having shoulder buttons makes unplayable. Ah well, you served me well for a good four or five years little DS.
Super Mario Galaxy - I'd say it feels odd that this is my major console time waster these days, but the game's mostly just fun. The physics are quirky in a fun way, and it feels like they finally got the formula for 3-D Mario games down pat. It's not the same game as the 2-D Marios, and it's so much better for it. Currently at around 95 Stars, and hating purple coin missions. Also, it's not easy being green. Hardest level I've bumped into so far, and only one I've retreated from for further training is the Luigiverse Purple Coin level. Man, that thing looked lethal even before you realize that there's a freaking three minute time limit.
Then again... given how the level works, there may be an effective three minute time limit even without the forced one. >_>
Aside from that, just a bit of puttering about on RotTK 7, and a little bit of Civ 3 play (though I may give NHL 98 a shot again after watching Olympic hockey.).
What... you guys don't believe me? C'mon, it's not like there's anything else I'd really want to play, that might have come out just about a week ago.
Oh fine...
Miles Edgeworth - Ace Attourney.
Got my hands on this on Monday, just as I started my days off. Currently on Case four, though if pressed, not sure how many of the details there I can actually recall. Am amused by the fact that Edgeworth is essentially the James Bond of the Wrightverse, if James Bond just had no idea how incredibly attractive women found him. I mean, high tech gadgets, international conspiracies, great and classy outfit, and sexy women falling for him? All he needs is for his car to show up and he's got all the aspects!
Aside from that, the writing on the cases so far feels a bit shakier than it did in the Phoenix Wright games (ie, GS 1-3) as it feels like the writer is still trying to get the feel for a different core cast. But things to like include the cameos, which for the most part are being done quite well, especially the, erm... witness in Case 3. Case 4 has actually disappointed me due to not giving you Captain Obvious as your minion du jour. Granted, he makes no sense at all for a Summon Minion button, especially compared to who they do give you, but it would just be so fricking awesome I would not care.
Aside from that, it's obvious that they're finally taking advantage of the better screen on the DS, as these graphics are improved over the GS 1-4 graphics. Well, mostly just in the character closeup sprites, but it's there. Oddly enough, reminds me a lot of the EF cut-ins when they use their frontier attacks.
So, yeah. Done gushing for now. Probably going to slow down on AAI soon just so I don't OD on it, but this should be done in a couple of weeks at most because it's top priority.
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Actually the summoner of Besek don't automatically obtain the Poison Pink. What Besek do to its summoner is to grant the summoner a wish. The summoner of Besek must be the owner of Libre Aurora and Duphaston remains its rightful owner from beginning to the end. He might lend it to someone, but that didn't make the others the owner, evident how the book returns to him after every loop. In other words, English trans made a mistake, because if what Besek grants is Poison Pink, then only Duphaston could have become one.
Also, King Valdus made the mistake of thinking he can have his wish granted if he can take over the Besek, when Besek only specifically grants the wish of owner of Libre Aurora. In other words, Valdus has fallen into Duphaston's trap from the very start.
Valdus' wish was to revive Izel because he's in love with her, or whatever, right? What is Duphaston's wish? And did he get 5 of those?
What does the Poison Pink -do-, if it doesn't grant wishes?
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Poison Pink is unrelated to the wish granting. It is just the monstrosity that the people who reached the peak of Besek well become.
As for Duphaston's wish, it was never stated clearly, though he did have the people on his to kill list permanently erased.
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ToDr -
<Atwight> hay stahn here's a new toy for you to play with
<Stahn> rerise what
<Atwight> Just break the game with it kay.
Man, so much customization. Also, A SOLIDLY PROGRAMMED AND EASY TO NAVIGATE WORLD MAP IN MY TALES THIS CANNOT BE (as an aside, game's going fine. Heading to Harmentz now)
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EF2: Oh good, T-elos is back. Whee.
On the plus side: the game now has in-battle character swap through Support Defense. Whenever a character is targeted by a single-target attack, you can swap them out for whichever back-row character is next in line for a support attack. If you do, the attack does vastly reduced damage but the new character replaces the old one in the front line, does not get to attack that turn, and starts with 0 COM.
There's also PC forced evasion! It takes decent reflexes to pull off, since it's not always available, but it's there. It also eats 50% of the Frontier Gauge, but the gauge is really easy to build up now. You get a bonus for killing an enemy with a long combo (1% per 10 hits, which means you get a decent boost just for using a full combo+Frontier finisher), you get a free 5% for every support or assist attack (and since assist attacks don't cost anything to use, they should flow like water), and finishing a fight with a support attack nets you a frankly absurd 30% boost.
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Bioshock: Beaten. Not in the mood for a long rant, so here's a shorter one.
Fun game, overall. Horrendously broken though. All attack Plasmids besides Electro Bolt are pretty much extraneous for the majority, as are pretty much all weapons that are not the wrench. Which is not to say that other weapons are not good (I often used them), just that the bread and butter zap and whack combination is so good that it is really hard to care about the guns, especially given how fast you tend to burn through ammo if you're using it with any consistency. Still, the other stuff is amusing/entertaining, so it isn't wholly without point. Just, as far as raw efficiency goes, your first plasmid and first weapon being the best for most of the game is bothersome. Big Daddies are cool, but are pretty much cake at the halfway point.
Vita chambers were a terrible, terrible idea. Death is meaningless. Hell, I probably could have saved hundreds of dollars if I just let myself be killed instead of wasting first aid kits, and I still would have been okay. Might have actually won faster!
Plot and characters were decent, although I wish some of them were a little better explored. Voice acting was solid all around, atmosphere was well done, although hampered a bit by Bioshock Difficulty. For a quick break down:
Narrator: Hands/10. He's an FPS main.
Andrew Ryan: Objectivism/10. Total jerk who has my first name. Deserves what he gets, although he has a totally excellent speech to go along with it.
Atlas: Brogue/10. His soft melodic tones were my only friend in this game. "Would you kindly..."
Splicers: Ambience/10. Their random ranting is fun.
-Houdini Splicers: FUCK YOU/10. You heard me.
Tenenbaum: Nazis/10.
Godwin'd. Big Daddies: OH SHI-/10. Iconic and cool, even if you can handle 'em pretty easy.
Little Sisters: Creepy/10. Its an angel...~
Steinmen: Boob job/10. Man should have stuck to that shit.
Tree Lady: Trees/10. I got nothing.
Sander Cohen: WTF/10. Seriously, man. Seriously.
Plot twist was acceptable even if I called half of it early. The other half has some annoyances associated with it, but you can reconcile with the game at large. Do wish a little more had been done with the characters and setting, but it worked.
Moral choice was bad.
All in all, I'd say... 7/10, to shoehorn it into a numbers system? I enjoyed the ride, had fun and I'd play it again.
Thankfully, I beat it just in time for...
Heavy Rain: Aka the game made entirely of quick time events. Started a bit slow, but has been solid. Very nice looking. Solid acting. Its kinda an overglorified visual novel, but its doing a good job of being just that. Environmental interaction is pretty spiffy. Ability to guide scenes is pretty cute.
Surprise male nudity and surprise female nudity abound. Did not expect the game to pretty much open with man ass. Did also not expect "press X to remove bra and panties."
Exciting times, exciting times.
Seriously though, having fun.
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For some reason, despite the fact that the game involves tons of nudity and a 'press X to remove bra and panties' option, and the fact that Andrew claimed to really excited about Heavy Rain... It just doesn't come off as sleazy and perverted. Because it's Andy. I can't figure out any other possible reason for it.
Andy is some kind of anti-perversion singularity.
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Well Djinn, the obvious answer is that Andy is secretly a muppet. I mean, muppets are wholesome even when they're used for Meet the Feebles.
Shale, sounds like the Frontier Guage hasn't changed between 1 and 2 with the possible exception of it carrying through fights instead of always starting at 0.
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Andy: If you were playing on PS3, the option to disable Vitachambers should be in options, I believe. I know it came with the free DLC for 360. And while I agree that the wrench is the best weapon overall, the others have situational uses (except the Crossbow, which is crap).
And in a related note...
Bioshock 2: Started with multiplayer, and after three hours I'm level 12. I play horribly, but it's still fun. On the single player side, just got the camera. Yay infinite film!
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Andy: If you were playing on PS3, the option to disable Vitachambers should be in options, I believe. I know it came with the free DLC for 360. And while I agree that the wrench is the best weapon overall, the others have situational uses (except the Crossbow, which is crap).
And in a related note...
Bioshock 2: Started with multiplayer, and after three hours I'm level 12. I play horribly, but it's still fun. On the single player side, just got the camera. Yay infinite film!
The Crossbow, for some reason, seems to be the most accurate weapon in the game. For some bizarre reason the steel bolts are WAAAAAAY more accurate than a handgun round, which just baffles me. Anyway, I used the thing like a sniper rifle. Also, trap bolts are fun.
Also: the main character's name is "Jack."
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VP:DS- Finished. Not touching the B path. A path had better storytelling/character work and worse gameplay. Burn in -hell- to both of the rescue missions on the A path.
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Wizard of Oz: First part of Autumn completed!
Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: Got Jubei and Roberto back! Roberto hits MUCH harder than I remember, like he's one shotting demons that no one else comes close to doing...its awesome. Jubei seems to have infinite combos up the ass that are trivial to pull off.
Why is it that the allies are all much more fun then the Main in this game? I mean seriously!
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EF2: Oh dear god Koma joined whyyyyyyyyyyyyy
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EF2: Oh dear god Koma joined whyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Man, what will you do when T-ELOS joins?
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Probably because I haven't actually played XS3, I find Koma more offensive than T-elos.
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Not even a note about the chemical thrower, Andy? I mean, if you're gonna talk about brokenness (and Bioshock is indeed quite poorly balanced), there has to be some mention of the weapon that lets you stunlock and kill Big Daddies from full health with just a canister of ammo.
Mostly agree with your assessment, anyway. Loved the game for its atmosphere, morality was a bad joke (will you eat babies y/n), etc.
Bioshock 2: The game stopped using thuggish splicers when I was just a sliver away from completing research on them. Boo, hate when that happens.
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EF2: Oh dear god Koma joined whyyyyyyyyyyyyy
Man, what will you do when T-ELOS joins?
Wait slutbot mk2 joins what.
fffffffffffffffff
Anyways, beat a snakegirl who borderline OHKOs you by droping candy on your head and opens up a shop that sells fairly expensive consumeables.
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Probably because I haven't actually played XS3, I find Koma more offensive than T-elos.
You saw T-ELOS'S big scene though!
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Her big scene isn't rage enducing without context.
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Was playing Bioshock on the PC. Was aware of the main's name (although I wasn't sure if it was Jack or John) but since he was a pair of hands, I didn't feel like giving him his proper name.
And I would have talked about the chemical thrower more but, like a lot of weapons, I didn't actually really play with it until endgame. >_>
Heavy Rain: Well, I'll give Heavy Rain this. It does a surprisingly good job of making for intense sequences formed completely of quick time events. The mixture of button push styles, the sheer number of commands they have at their disposal and the frequency in some sequences is pretty intense. Game seems to, at least, simulate a lot of options, although how much a difference any of them make I have no idea.
Also, a certain character's sequences are IMMENSELY cringeworthy. Hold R1/L1 and swing the controller down to cut off your own finger. Fun times.
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Her big scene isn't rage enducing without context.
More to the point, her Endless Frontier incarnation, which is the only one I have seen context for, is pretty much a generic villain. Even the stripperbot part doesn't stand out in that cast. Meanwhile, Koma is a pile of fail in all ways, from personality to being a furry.
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How about the hump your controller into your crotch to dry your hair sequence at the start Andy?
Pro-tip to anyone doing sixaxis control schemes. Moving the controller up and down for any motion is destined to suck, be embarassing and be mocked.
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Gref: The sequence is funnier when it is later repeated with the female character.
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morality was a bad joke (will you eat babies y/n), etc.
"Y. Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y." -Homer J. Simpson. Atlas said it was okay for me to do it, and like it says on the poster: ATLAS WAS RIGHT.
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morality was a bad joke (will you eat babies y/n), etc.
"Y. Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y." -Homer J. Simpson. Atlas said it was okay for me to do it, and like it says on the poster: ATLAS WAS RIGHT.
Hey, you just increased your productivity 67%!
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And I would have talked about the chemical thrower more but, like a lot of weapons, I didn't actually really play with it until endgame. >_>
Fair enough. Dedicated wrench build is pretty devastating. I stuck with that on my hard mode playthrough and it was brutally unfair to the game, only Big Daddies demanded anything different.
This is harder to do in Bioshock 2 since the melee swing is a little slower, but it's still pretty abusable.
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I need to replay Bioshock before I get to 2 I think. But yeah you pretty much can quite easilly Wrench it up in the first one until the final boss. Then it is worth swapping out tonics to max out some elemental damage and you can pretty much bypass a form or two of the last guy. Edit - Either with the crossbow or the chem thrower.
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Breast Bounce Saga EXCEED-
It kinda feels uncomfortable to have Axel revert back to be Ahoxel after watching what he has become in OGs. It is kinda creepy actually.... "Alcheime chan!" sounds so wrong. Quickly revert back to your OG self, how you speak to Alcheime is becoming unbearable.
Also, it also feels weird that despite we have a lot more milk cow this time, there isn't enough amount of joke about them, comparatively speaking.
Estopolis DS- This.... is a total make over. And my suspicion that they are trying to make Ruin Chaser in the disguise of a remake might be true....
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Wait, the script for this one isn't 110% boob jokes? Huh.
Well, regardless, I'm still enjoying not knowing what's going on more than I liked reading the dialogue in EF1.
Speaking of which, EF2: Got the band back together, finally. All ten party members present and accounted for, and I'm starting to get the upgraded finishers, which are pretty damn nice.
Edit: Fuck you so much Pete Pain. Hate boss doubleturns.
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I used the chemical thrower extensively, mostly because the electric gel made me feel like I was a Ghostbuster.
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For better or worse, chemical thrower doesn't make a return appearance. I guess they realized how broken electric gel was.
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*SO1 spoilers inside*
SO4 - Bouncy women joined me except she isn't as bouncy as before? Seems the guy who did them did get smacked like I wanted.
Plot has been iffy though due to Asmodeus. Isn't he just a super soldier? Why does a super soldier have rituals involving bringing him back to life? He is an archfiend in name only so he is infact just a human being whose above average right? Also why does his blood cause people to turn to stone?
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Estopolis DS- This.... is a total make over. And my suspicion that they are trying to make Ruin Chaser in the disguise of a remake might be true....
Oh yeah, I took a look at that the other day. That looks fuckin' awesome. A really nice ARPG, and the new PC designs are awesome. The new Sinistral designs are decent, though Erim looks weird.
Also, Lexis seems to have been made an NPC. Oh well.
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WA:XF - No plotline advancement, so no "In Which" lines, but a quick question: Is 21 too high a level for 1-14? I'm up against the drifter town fight, and I can cleanly lock down two of the three groups, but the third just keeps getting past me because my people are too slow.
Bioshock 2: Level 15 multiplayer. I like Nailgun, and I suck as a Big Daddy. Clearing up some trials to level faster - so far I prefer this to the single player, especially since I found out that there's no backtracking.
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Levels really don't matter much at all in XF. If something isn't working, question your skill setup, not levels.
In particular, for 1-14, some things which may help are Sentinel's Zone of Control skill, and their Heavy Strike to push enemies down holes; Geomancer's Shut Out, especially with Widespread, note that it lasts 20 turns regardless of who gets those turns
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I need some Wild Arms in my life. Is the 5th one any good?
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Just finished Wild ARMs 5.
I consider it the best overall in the series and, yeah, after the finale I'm inclined to leave it as "best game of the PS2 era, wouldn't quite make Top 5 in the PS1 era but would at least be in the conversation."
The Downside
Battle gameplay is slightly weaker than WA3 or 4, story is weaker than WA2, and puzzles are weaker than WA1, 2 or 3. The voice acting has enough bad performances to spoil it and shutting it off turns off the music and SFX in certain scenes, apparently due to a bug. The pacing goes south toward the end of the game. The last two PCs to join aren't as well developed as the first four.
The Upside
It's polished to a sparkling jewel.
The story is superbly TOLD, even at its weakest points (contrast WA2 where the story itself was excellent but the translation and/or script did it terrible disservice). Scenes that have never worked for me in any game or anime, WA5 absolutely knocks out of the park.
I had a series of complaints about various aspects of the gameplay. EVERY SINGLE ONE was addressed within one dungeon of my first raising it. That bit about pacing up above? Until the very end of the game, the pacing is the best I've ever seen, introducing solutions to every problem as it arises, pulling the story along without sacrificing gameplay or characterization, giving you time to explore and making it both rewarding and fun to do so.
The gameplay is the only area that's good, rather than great. Bosses generally lack the fascinating gimmicks WA4 bosses boasted, being more like WA1-3 bosses on a hex grid. The challenge is well paced (shutting off randoms ASAP and judiciously running makes bosses hard and randoms in the next area interesting) and the character customization options are interesting, if maybe a bit underused.
Despite not being done by Michiko Naruke, the soundtrack manages to capture everything she did so, so right in the Wild ARMs series. It seriously threatens for a "best WA music" crown, which is basically synonymous with "best music" (my most-listened-to track ever is the extended version of the WA2 opener).
The graphics are contenders for PS2-best. I'm retroactively less impressed by the PS3 game(!) Valkyria Chronicles because Wild ARMs 5 nailed the "3D anime you can play" look a full generation earlier.
9/10 and near the top of the 9s.
(In other news, finished Devil May Cry 4 on the PS3. Devil May Cry game I can actually complete! Easy mode that makes enemies weaker rather than gimping the controls! Woo! Probably an 8/10? Not graphically impressive by PS3 standards, the music gets repetitive, and a few of the jumping puzzles were aggravating, but those were my only knocks.)
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after the finale I'm inclined to leave it as "best game of the PS2 era
Damn. That's saying a lot, you know that, right? I'll definitely have to pick this up.
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after the finale I'm inclined to leave it as "best game of the PS2 era
Damn. That's saying a lot, you know that, right? I'll definitely have to pick this up.
I've mentioned (in a pre-finish review of WA5) that I consider the PS2 the weakest of the three Playstation consoles for quality (though not, obviously, quantity!), so understand that it's not saying as much FOR ME as it would be for some people.
WA5 would be somewhere in my top 50 games and possibly - probably? - my top 10 RPGs. But if it were a PS3 game I'm not sure it would Top 5, and know it wouldn't on the PS1.
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Different strokes, I guess. I (and a few others) felt the totally unnecessary Volsung twist at the end ruins the game with its total retardedness. Also, I can't in good conscience give a game with coatrack characters above a 7, but that's just me.
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EF2 - Crystal-destroying punchy glove get, time for backtracking for shinies.
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Different strokes, I guess. I (and a few others) felt the totally unnecessary Volsung twist at the end ruins the game with its total retardedness. Also, I can't in good conscience give a game with coatrack characters above a 7, but that's just me.
It does. Again, as I said before, I really liked WA5 and agree with most of BCB's points, but while it has a good setup, good ideas and good pacing, it's overall execution is botched. They never really go into most of the things that are very apparantly there in the writing, leaving either wasted potential or just completely awkward scenes. It feels like they took the script they got from the novelist and dumbed it down, troped it up and called it a day. Great foundation for a story and characters, but just... blargh to that ending.
I hate the ending with the level of hate only someone who loved the rest of the game could have.
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Different strokes, I guess. I (and a few others) felt the totally unnecessary Volsung twist at the end ruins the game with its total retardedness. Also, I can't in good conscience give a game with coatrack characters above a 7, but that's just me.
This.
I hate the ending with the level of hate only someone who loved the rest of the game could have.
Also this.
I enjoyed WA5 quite a bit but also think BCB overrates it. The endgame plot/scenes were utterly dreadful, in my opinion. Dean being an idiot also dulls much of the maingame's impact, for me. Music hype I can get behind, though I'd put WA3's before it.
~
Bioshock 2: Finished. Middling successor to a good game. Felt as much ten minutes or so in and it never did anything to change that impression. Diverting enough a time-waster but you don't really need to bother with it unless you really, really liked the first or just shooters in general. It doesn't have anything to offer that's as intriguing as watching Rapture fall apart in the first place and there's no standout NPC to stick in your memory like Ryan or Cohen. Thematically it seems to be aiming for a whole "rediscovering your humanity" angle but this is hard to pull off when the gameplay consists of mindlessly slaughtering every faceless goon you encounter. Sure, you can spare a few plot NPCs, but it's hard to feel like it matters when you're so numb from boring through waves of people with a drill.
Got the good ending, which is meh but at least not as cloying as it was in Bioshock 1 (not that that says much). Wasn't expecting a whole lot there, really. Final battle was a mookswarm, which I guess is a bummer but it's not like they gave us a competent final boss in the first game. At least you have the Terminator on your side here and can watch her wreck everyone's shit? It's something.
That could be spoilerish I guess? But eh. There's not a helluva lot to care about here in that regard, trust me.
Game is pretty much piss easy. No surprise there, right. I rescued every little sister and was still swimming in ADAM by the end. I died maybe four or five times? Mostly to being careless while running around at low health and getting fragged by someone I didn't see in time. Weapon balance is a little better, at least.
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Generally with El Cid on matters WA5-related. Also "huh, weird, but I can see it" to PS2 < PS1 hype and "... zuh?" to PS2 < PS3 hype. There is a grand total of one PS3-unique RPG I am remotely interested in, and I don't feel like my taste is freakishly unusual in this regard.
FE Shadow Dragon - Chapter 7 'n' stuff. Not too much to say. Bosses get so much less brutal after the first three. Forging and reclassing are awesome. Using mostly different people this time, but Caeda and Merric are an overlap so far even if I need to watch out for Merric being one-rounded. Athena may be one too, we'll see. Still a reasonably hard game of course. Also boooo FE6 style reinforcements.
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Different strokes, I guess. I (and a few others) felt the totally unnecessary Volsung twist at the end ruins the game with its total retardedness. Also, I can't in good conscience give a game with coatrack characters above a 7, but that's just me.
This.
I hate the ending with the level of hate only someone who loved the rest of the game could have.
Also this.
I enjoyed WA5 quite a bit but also think BCB overrates it. The endgame plot/scenes were utterly dreadful, in my opinion. Dean being an idiot also dulls much of the maingame's impact, for me. Music hype I can get behind, though I'd put WA3's before it.
The endgame's best part is random chatter from NPCs in towns. Also Nightburn being like "Hey I'm alive" because it makes no sense and is totally unnecessary, but Nightburn is the best character in WA5, and he looks like Xanatos with a machine gun, so having him be dead at the end and the stupid little girl getting to live is a disservice and a half.
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KotOR2 - Went from an amazing 10/10 game to something that completely fell apart at the end. Somewhere between the end of Onderon and the start of Dantooine again everything went to shit, since a lot of what happens at the end kinda relies on some of the scenes that were deleted.
Want to play the end with the restored content so badly. Are they even working on the patch anymore?
EDIT: Some googling shows that... they're done? Hell yeah. That's getting played at some point.
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: Tenkai returns, and is even more awesome than I remember! Ok, his Super Form isn't too special though I guess LONG RANGE CHARGE STAB OF IMPALTION DOOM has its merits. His Purification is pretty damn strong though, one shotting things it really shouldn't. Also some of his newer techniques seem pretty brutal. Whee, fun to have all 5 PCs back!
Yodo, meanwhile, needs to die. Maybe it was cause my ally was Tenkai, and had I gone in with Ohatsu, it would have been so much easier, but mrf. Go figure, I finally had her figured out and beat her without any items.
What kept getting me was when after doing big damage, she'd go into Absorb Esscence mode, which I expected...close up, which then she'da ttack without warning when I'm at low health and...ugh, no way to defend yourself. Alternatively, the ally would get possessed like instantly without warning and that sort of makes the fight explode from there.
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KotOR2 - Went from an amazing 10/10 game to something that completely fell apart at the end. Somewhere between the end of Onderon and the start of Dantooine again everything went to shit, since a lot of what happens at the end kinda relies on some of the scenes that were deleted.
Want to play the end with the restored content so badly. Are they even working on the patch anymore?
EDIT: Some googling shows that... they're done? Hell yeah. That's getting played at some point.
The Team Gizka guys are not done. Someone else picked up the ball and did it because the Gizka guys are a bunch of fucks. I'm pretty sure I linked the patch to you at one point in this topic, before you started KotOR1.
But yes, you can tell where the point was where LucasArts said "GET IT OUT BY CHRISTMAS." They cut out possibly the most important moment of the entire game: where HK-47 makes the greatest achievement of droidkind.
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The thing that honestly shocked me the most with KotOR 2 is the fact that they seemed to be working on it from start to finish in that order, none of the patchwork kind of all over the place stuff I tend to associate with development (which is probably more being a bit more familiar with how movies end up being shot than games get made kind of thing), so the game starts off at well I won't say starts off strong because that first area is kind of boring, but it peaks really early and the flaws don't show until BAM suddenly you are invading a space hulk with a squad of mandalorians and you aren't quite sure how that happened.
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Generally with El Cid on matters WA5-related. Also "huh, weird, but I can see it" to PS2 < PS1 hype and "... zuh?" to PS2 < PS3 hype. There is a grand total of one PS3-unique RPG I am remotely interested in, and I don't feel like my taste is freakishly unusual in this regard.
Quick clarification: I don't mean PS3 RPGs > PS2 by any stretch of the imagination. PS3 RPGs to this point don't > Dreamcast, and there were only, what, four RPGs on the Dreamcast and two of those were Evolution 1 & 2? I just mean that PS3 games overall have been extremely impressive to me - Uncharted 2 is almost a 10, a ranking I've only ever given twice, I have a much, much higher opinion of MGS4 than most here, Valkyria Chronicles is very good, Infamous, Uncharted 1 and Batman: Arkham Asylum were a lot of fun, and so on. For a young system with a small library, it's impressed the hell out of me despite having almost no games in genres I normally like. And now a flood of those is coming, so I'm stoked.
As to WA5, I agree the Volsung twist was bad, but it didn't seem... I don't know, aggressively bad. At least it was foreshadowed, which puts it above half the final boss ass-pulls in RPGs. Albeit the NATURE of what was foreshadowed was especially stupid. Other than that, I thought the resolution of the plot and the character arcs were well done.
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I'd rather have an asspull final boss that comes out of nowhere like Zeromus than some attempt to whitewash the villain because he's possessed by a ghost. It's like he's not capable of saying "You know what? I tried to be nice, but you're all douchebags so fuck you" like a normal person, he needs a goddamn ghost to make him sad. At least Zeromus didn't make me say "Okay, so not only am I supposed to now feel bad for killing someone right back for trying to kill me, they're insinuating that he's not capable of snapping like a normal person, so he's somehow better than me."
The thing that honestly shocked me the most with KotOR 2 is the fact that they seemed to be working on it from start to finish in that order, none of the patchwork kind of all over the place stuff I tend to associate with development (which is probably more being a bit more familiar with how movies end up being shot than games get made kind of thing), so the game starts off at well I won't say starts off strong because that first area is kind of boring, but it peaks really early and the flaws don't show until BAM suddenly you are invading a space hulk with a squad of mandalorians and you aren't quite sure how that happened.
It's my understanding that games are basically made in layers, rather than sequentially like KotOR2 seemed to be. Get all the world geometry, all the mobs, all the text/voice, program the combat encounters, do all the event flags, and so on. Van Buren's design documents, which are basically the only design docs I've ever bothered to read, seemed to suggest that, anyway.
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I'd rather have an asspull final boss that comes out of nowhere like Zeromus than some attempt to whitewash the villain because he's possessed by a ghost. It's like he's not capable of saying "You know what? I tried to be nice, but you're all douchebags so fuck you" like a normal person, he needs a goddamn ghost to make him sad. At least Zeromus didn't make me say "Okay, so not only am I supposed to now feel bad for killing someone right back for trying to kill me, they're insinuating that he's not capable of snapping like a normal person, so he's somehow better than me."
This. It really does cheapen the rest of the game.
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Breast Bounce Saga EXCEED-
Alice is a beast to the point of not funny. I thought no one can more broken than Aldy, how wrong I was.......
On the other hand, the newly wed Dark Knight and Alchemist turn out to be terrible hit box too small, duration is short, and hits enemy way too high. How am I going to conect anything liek that?
And poor milk cow, she has become total air and only got mentioned when the rest of the cast needs cow jokes against her will.
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WAXF - 1.14, In Which Levin Singlehandedly Kills Four People And Saves Me From Yet Another Reset. Yeah, adding Widespread to my Shut Out tactics worked - I was previously just using it on single units. Upgraded my equipment, too, which just gave me the 1HKO with the elementalist. Levin and my Elementalist basically wiped out the right side, and Labby held the line long enough to let the others clear the left.
1.15, In Which Aah!Zombies Meet Widespread Sanctify And Cry.
1.16, In Which Aah!Zombies Meet Sanctify and Cry Some More.
Interlude, In Which I Can No Longer Tell If The Percy Weasley Cosplayer Is A Man.
Bioshock 2: Got the drill dash, Level 17 multiplayer.
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It's my understanding that games are basically made in layers, rather than sequentially like KotOR2 seemed to be. Get all the world geometry, all the mobs, all the text/voice, program the combat encounters, do all the event flags, and so on. Van Buren's design documents, which are basically the only design docs I've ever bothered to read, seemed to suggest that, anyway.
Well yeah you get the engine down working first of course and implement some of the key maps and whatnot, but yeah KotOR2 really does feel like they started at the beginning and went until they ran out. Might have somethign to do with already having the engine I guess, but I still think it is really weird.
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Well, they clearly got the voice first. They had the engine.
World geometry...is there, I think, for the removed content, isn't it? Or did the restored content just remake the entire Droid Factory? IIRC I thought that was there but not the weird droid planet that barely had any info about it. So...they probably did the last few steps like combat/event/etc simultaneously, since there wasn't really anything to work on and I'd think those would be done by other people.
Then they didn't have time to finish or to go back over their work at all, so...yeah, actually, linear issues makes some sense. To boot, if say your models aren't done, but were prioritized right, everyone important got a model and you can just use less generic models, if that's incomplete. Maps....could be incomplete, at that, there's less feeling of optional areas then there was on, say, Taris.
The part that doesn't make sense is "Jesus Christ did they scrap an earlier build entirely, or did they just get like six months to do the build cycle?". Someone should be set on fire for that either way.
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I think they had either a 12 or 18 month dev cycle one of which is almost criminally short even with an engine already in place, the other just much to short for something as expansive as an RPG trying to fill the shoes of a Bioware sequel.
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Chrono Trigger DS - Just about complete! I think all I have left is to kill Spekkio one more time for his magic tab reward. Other then that I finished every side quest in the end, but I haven't found any of the new content. Is that new game plus only? granted, I'm not using a guide anyways, so I won't prolly find anything until I start up a new game.
I'm in the Blue Omen or whatever it's called nowadays with Magus, Marle, and Crono. Magus and Marle are the only teammates left with abilities to learn. Crono has his Luminare with Golden stud for spam abuse. Dungeon seems easier then before, meh.
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I'm in the Blue Omen or whatever it's called nowadays with Magus, Marle, and Crono. Magus and Marle are the only teammates left with abilities to learn. Crono has his Luminare with Golden stud for spam abuse. Dungeon seems easier then before, meh.
Assuming you're near the start of Black Omen? Yeah, it would be pretty easy if you have Luminaire then, but I know I didn't get that until pretty near the end of the final dungeon.
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You also didn't get Crono back until like 70% of the Side Quests were done. I'm use to getting Luminaire either right before losing Crono, or sometime shortly after, meanwhile (partially depends on how lucky I kill those Seal All enemies.) Branching from that, assuming you don't fight everything...you really should have Luminaire by the Black Omen unless you totally neglect Crono in the Fated Hour.
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Yeah, I never grinded in this game, but I did fight every mob that I could in dungeons which makes Crono get all his abilities eons before anyone else is close to completion.
Also, yeah, those seal all enemies on the mountain of WOAH!!!!!!!! ... help as well.
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ToV- Promising start at least. I just got Karol.
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Dragon Age: Back to this finally. After banging my head against the difficulty for a while to get back into the game, I went and grabbed Shale. Headed into Orzammar and tossed my support behind the traditionalist who the king supposedly supported. Mainly because his son seems like a dick.
Main is Mage/Arcane Warrior. Lelianna is pretty much my pure secondary, while I rotate the other two slots frequently.
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...man, you people get the ultimate skills so late. I usually have them waaaaaaaaaay earlier. Definitely for Magus at least <_<
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Main is Arcane Warrior.
You don't know it but you've already beaten the game.
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You also didn't get Crono back until like 70% of the Side Quests were done. I'm use to getting Luminaire either right before losing Crono, or sometime shortly after, meanwhile (partially depends on how lucky I kill those Seal All enemies.) Branching from that, assuming you don't fight everything...you really should have Luminaire by the Black Omen unless you totally neglect Crono in the Fated Hour.
Really can't see that for me. Even ignoring the fact that I didn't get Crono back, if I did have him, he wouldn't've been used for every sidequest, and, IIRC, Exp in Black Omen is higher than most of those, so he would have got it much earlier in the dungeon, at the very least. Could see him getting it early-Black Omen, but definitely not earlier.
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I'd generally say final techs should be picked up sometime during the Fated Hour sidequests. Before Crono leaving definitely sounds too early (although I have done it myself in a playthrough I had a lot of luck with Seal All enemies and ground a little in the Ocean Palace elevator) but late Black Omen seems late on the other hand, even as someone who rotates everyone usually. Of course, CT is a game where you choose how much you fight AND the Seal All enemies throw a huge wrench into things so really almost anything is possible.
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I'd say it's not too uncommon for Crono to get his last tech somewhere in the Ocean Palace without grinding. Marle and Lucca may get theirs also if you've kept them in the party since they've joined. For the other characters though, you would have to go out of your way to get their last techs before the Fated Hour. Usually, I grind a bit on Death Peak to get everyones' last techs because Magus OHKOs the enemy groups with a level 2 spell and they give out good TP.
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To clarify, I meant Crono getting Luminaire specifically. Other Ultimates are gotten are wildly varying times. The only Final Tech that seems reasonable for somewhere in the Black Omen would be Magus', cause he has a late start to begin with, and his moves take a good deal of TP to learn anyway IIRC, relative to others of similar levels.
Crono for me has gotten Luminaire on Mt. Woe the earliest, HOWEVER, this was in a file where I adamantly tried to buy a few things from the Medina Village Shop, so a lot of fighting in the Hunting Range occurred (Nu's are 30 TP each, after all), due to most efficient means of money being "Hunting Range -> Trade in for Arms and Swords -> Sell -> Repeat" but that's a specific power gaming moment and doesn't count! Generally, I remember often seeing Luminaire gotten right before the Golem Twins (like...literally, RIGHT BEFORE them, we're talking maybe 3 fights), though that requires some luck with Seal All enemies and what not; either way, Crono is often well on his way for Luminaire at this point, in my experience.
Other PCs are often nowhere near this, cause of cycling PCs, though Lucca/Marle/Robo with consistent usage probably could pull a similar stunt, but I've never bothered to try. Generally, Mid Fated Hour is where I see stuff like Flare, Shock, etc. kick in, and as I said, Dark Matter on Magus is much later for obvious reasons.
Either way, even with poor Seal All enemy luck, and cycling PCs, I feel you should get at least a few Final Techs by the Black Omen, Luminaire being definitely one of them unless you both have not gotten it in the Ocean Palace (Fair), AND have neglected using Crono the entire 2nd half.
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Haven't had a lot of time for games lately, but I've been slowly working on the Revenant Wings stat topic as I've been playing it, so I want to talk about that for a little while.
The game has a fairly simple skill formula. Every skill in the game has a base potency value, and then there's just a series of multipliers that are applied before spitting out actual damage.
This includes each allied and enemy unit's basic physicals, which change depending on what kind of weapon they equip. Since Revenant Wings is a RTS with FF skills, all units are primarily spamming their basic 'physicals' as much as possible, so any special attributes on the physical is extremely helpful in-game as special abilities (while awesome) don't last very long and take too long to recharge. Most units have a basic physical of 10, though there's a few weapons that do special things like 3 hits of 8. Magic units sling basic spells like Blizzard (also 10 base damage), depending on the element of their weapon. In the case of Blizzard, sometimes there's a status attached like Silence, which hits 100% of the time, but only lasts for a seconds, though it can be reapplied if the unit continues spamming his basic 'physical'. Healers spam low-level cure spells at their allies (and themselves). No Healers in the game have any ability to deal physical damage, and there are only 2 Holy-typed spells they can use for damage. Really awesome support units, though their basic spammable cure spell doesn't heal that much, so you tend to need a lot of them to be really effective.
Besides base power, there is a base stat multiplier. For every 200 points of Strength or Magick, this multiplier increases by 1. It starts at 1, and max base stats in this game hover around 500, so you're never seeing more than a 3x multiplier, and most likely you'll never see more than a 2x multiplier by endgame (stats around 300). I'm guessing this is how they tried to make tiers of difficulty. It basically only serves to make the final sidequests really really difficult without grinding your stats to 400-450.
The next multiplier is your basic divisional defense formula. Base power is multiplied by (Attacker's Attack stat / Defender's Defense stat) for either Physical or Magical abilities.
Multiplier #3 is the typing advantage, Fire Emblem-style. There's a rock-paper-scissors set of Melee > Ranged > Flying > Melee. All units fall into one of these categories (Healers are ranged) and these multipliers are set. The Ranged/Flying relationship is a bit less balanced than the rest.
Melee: 1.3x damage to Ranged; 0.45x damage to Flying
Ranged: 1.8x damage to Flying; 0.45x damage to Melee
Flying: 1.3x damage to Melee; 1x damage to Ranged
Same-type matches: 1x damage
Multiplier #4: Elemental multiplier - Defender's Elemental weakness and resist effect damage by constant multipliers. Depends on equipment for Leader units. Note that the game doesn't have any visible method of showing the difference in potency of the resists/weaknesses, so I had to look up all of them from the Ultimania.
Espers have set elemental weaknesses and resists, depending on Rank.
Rank 1 Espers take 1.1x damage from their weakness, and 0.9x from their resisted element.
Rank 2 weakness: 1.2x; resist: 0.75x.
Rank 3 weakness: 1.25x; resist: 0.5x.
Multiplier #5: Support abilities - Various multipliers from accessories, skills, buffs, debuffs, and status effects. Each of these had to be translated from the Ultimania on a skill-by-skill basis.
Now, in-game everything happens real-time, so the relatively small damage numbers compared to HP numbers aren't so bad due to the fairly quick pace. Viewing it from a turn-based perspective would make it seem like enemies take forever to kill and that healing is outright useless. It's not.
Each skill/basic physical in the game has a casting time, which is generally less than a second (all of these were found in the Ultimania), then a recovery time (the unit can act again, also short), and in the case of Special skils (Gambits), a recharge/cooldown period before the Gambit can be used again (significantly long enough to generally prevent being used again before the unit can pull off about 5x as many physicals).
This balances in-game quite well as you may very well get to use your Gambit, get in 5 attacks, and then use it again before enemies die (due to the relatively low amount of damage being dealt). In the DL view, all of this would be averaged against the other cast members and taken according to the 2.5x (3x in Tai's case) interpretation, making damage look really good. Healing gets kind of shafted though, due to not receiving that averaged boost to effectiveness, and not receiving any significant decrease in relative casting speed. Still, infinite resources, so Penelo makes a cool Light!
Stat topic progress:
I have a spreadsheet with every Leader Unit's basic and Gambit skills' base power, range, casting time, recovery time, recharge time, and special effects. Times are listed in seconds, so it's very easy to determine how fast each skill is. I also have status effect durations listed in seconds.
I have every PC's base stats and growths listed, and it was easy to derive endgame stats from that (checked against actual endgame stats).
I have all useful weapons/armors stats and abilities and elemental resists listed and default setups have already been figured into the endgame derived stats.
Accessories in this game each give a unique PC passive ability, and I have most of these translated and their multipliers listed.
Things left to do: Finish accessories, put it all together, calculate damage against average enemy stats.
Final Boss stuff is difficult to translate, so I'm just not bothering. I will try to get Mydia and Ba'Gamnan though. Espers' stats/skills would be another large translation undertaking that I don't really want to do, but I can (and may do at some point, if only for rankable Shiva hype).
Thoughts on the game itself: I'm not a fan of RTS, but this one has been surprisingly enjoyable so far, especially as a one or two maps-per-sitting project. Story is really... Grandia 1-esque. Incredibly light-hearted and cute. It's refreshing, and now that Fran and Balthier are around, being badass for no good reason other than to be badass, the plot is entertaining again. Best part of the character interaction is still the logbook arguments and confessionals.
Still, it's VERY jRPG PLOT. Not good by a long shot, just... cute, really.
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FE6- Beated. I dunno. On the one hand it's very coherent and moves from chapter to chapter in a logical way. And FE6 enemies seem unusually incompetent, so catching people up is pretty painless and even if a character gets some bad RNG luck, it's unlikely they'll become a liability for you. On the other hand the map design seems to be intentionally irritating. while the reinforcements thing is a part of this, after a point it's not really relevant. Spamming goddamned Berserk Druids hiding where you can't realistically attack them meanwhile... argn;lk.
Still, alright on the whole. Probably slightly worse than FE7, but not in an offensive way. 7/10. I can't guarantee I'd feel this way if I hadn't savestated the fuck out of certain portions of the game though.
Team!
Roy- The promotion is as stupid as advertised. Afterwords, he decided to NEVER GAIN SPEED AGAIN. He failed to double the goddamned dark dragon. What the hell boy. He was a contributing fighter before he slammed into his cap, but he was largely a liability in the back half of the game, and was easily LVP in the last chapters.
Heavy. The total defensive package is impressive, and healing, even running off his offensive charges, is good, but falls short of the 2HKO, which sucks for him.
Lilina- Smash. She felt like gaining speed, so with Roy there to make her hit things, they died. And died and died.
Hum. Light? 2HKOs, but poor durability and questionable accuracy make me hesitate to put her in Middle.
Lugh- MVP, probably. Hit promotion first, and even after that he was a key second healer, then probably trailed a little behind Miledy and Sue. Still, he was good the entire game and only in the last chapters did people really pass him.
Middle. Competent but not murderous.
Allen- Solid. Not spectacular (I decided to keep him on Lances... then he rarely gained Skill.) and generally obsoleted by Miledy, but held his own.
Middle.
Ellen- Healer! Since Sages start with a bloody E and gain weapon ranks painfully slow, the only one who could spam delicious, delicious Physic staves. Mmm, range.
Light. The fact that she routinely doubled enemies, could one-round them, and was rarely hit despite being a fairly average Ellen is one of the reasons I'm convinced FE6 enemies are offensively incompetent.
Sue- Excellent. She struggled with low strength in the midgame, only picking off soft targets, but THEN Wyvern Swarm happened. Plus of course her great promotion gains compensated her only real lack. Between that and picking off archers/mages behind walls, ultimately my highest levelled unit.
Heavy? She's basically Lyn, statistically.
Fir- Best Swordmaster in the series? Quite possible. Top notch evade, strength is alright (well, I had a strength blessed Fir, so), and FE6 crits. Yeaah. She had 80 crit using Wa Daos. Seriously. 80. What the hell.
Heavy.
Elphin- Bard. He had pretty good gains really, I'm not sure if this was RNG luck or if he's just great on stats.
Uh yeah. Bard.
Miledy- She gained Def and Strength like a Wyvern should... then gained speed and skill like a peg knight should. So basically she's Tana. Definitely took over the MVP mantle in the last stretch, she she was the team tank and took the Maltet from Allen. even bows couldn't really ruin her day. That said, it wasn't until about 3 levels before promotion that she looked like any sort of MVP candidate. Her starting speed isn't so hot.
Middle. Slammed hard into her speed cap... if I remember the topic right, this is normal. Which she hates with a fury, because it's 1 point shy of being ABLE to double average.
Dieck- Filler. He got pretty good in the home stretch, but generally seemed weak as Mercs go, never really got evade and the speed was lackluster. Cut for the final battles, though he would have made it if not for Forced Fa nonsense.
Middle.
Thany- Mehh. I used her the entire game and she never pulled her weight properly. Dodgey enough, but so bad on strength that even eating both Energy Rings I had she couldn't one-round on a double. First cut for the final maps.
Middle, I'm assuming. Doubles save her offense and she probably has enough dodge to keep from being 2HKOed too often. I think.
Rutger- He had some terrible luck on strength, so he was the last to promote. After that he tried to make a comeback, but ultimately Fir was way too far ahead of him for it to stick. Good enough against soft targets but little more, despite freaky +30 Crit. Benched for the last battles.
Heavy/Middle I'm going to go out on a limb and assume the strength he picked up to after promotion brought him back to normal, so the offense is good for DL purposes, but his evade is merely okay as SMs go.
I played around with a few other people early, but ultimately dropped any axe users and gave up on the Armads. And I already had infinite mages, so getting an Apoc or Aureola user was out. Though Karel, Niime, and Yodel got use on their debut maps, they didn't come back out. Karel probably could have, but restrictive final map slots (and of course Fir already got the Durandal).
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Alice is a beast to the point of not funny. I thought no one can more broken than Aldy, how wrong I was.......
On the other hand, the newly wed Dark Knight and Alchemist turn out to be terrible hit box too small, duration is short, and hits enemy way too high. How am I going to conect anything liek that?
And poor milk cow, she has become total air and only got mentioned when the rest of the cast needs cow jokes against her will.
The key to Axelfimi is that their moves come out really fast. The Vysaga-ish energy slash is so quick that you can wait until the enemy is actually inside the hitbox and it'll connect. The only one I've had trouble with timing on is the punch combo that ends in Byakko-Ko.
Also, Kaguya actually gets plot later! I just saw it.
Anyway, I've also gotten the punchy-glove, and would like to point out that the scene where you get it is fucking sublime. Funniest gag in either EF game thus far. Also, MT Overdrives are super ultimate cheese when combined with the game's many, many ways to boost the frontier gauge.
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EF2 - What the hell is this I don't even
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Onimusha Dawn of Dreams: Beaten. I'll have a full rant later. All I can say is "..." to who Arin and Tenkai is. I mean...ok, Arin I can see cause the nature of that character was just very...well, you couldn't apply realistic logic to it if you wanted, so yeah, whatever, but Tenkai? All I can say is "DAMN YOU CAPCOM!!!!"
That said, pretty good game, though has a few flaws, most of them present only in the end, that hold it back from being truly great. Still typical Capcom coming through with another decent game. I am almost inclined to play the first two games, but I keep hearing "NO! THEY'RE JUST OLD RESIDENT EVIL WITH SWORDS!" so uh...yeah, maybe I'll stay away from those two <_<
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Alice is a beast to the point of not funny. I thought no one can more broken than Aldy, how wrong I was.......
On the other hand, the newly wed Dark Knight and Alchemist turn out to be terrible hit box too small, duration is short, and hits enemy way too high. How am I going to conect anything liek that?
And poor milk cow, she has become total air and only got mentioned when the rest of the cast needs cow jokes against her will.
The key to Axelfimi is that their moves come out really fast. The Vysaga-ish energy slash is so quick that you can wait until the enemy is actually inside the hitbox and it'll connect. The only one I've had trouble with timing on is the punch combo that ends in Byakko-Ko.
Also, Kaguya actually gets plot later! I just saw it.
Anyway, I've also gotten the punchy-glove, and would like to point out that the scene where you get it is fucking sublime. Funniest gag in either EF game thus far. Also, MT Overdrives are super ultimate cheese when combined with the game's many, many ways to boost the frontier gauge.
It' won't be problematic if their attack are too fast, but having short duration hit box is huge problem. I have problem connecting his Vysaga based skill set due to that.
Punchy glove? You means Rare Hunter.... I think I saw that back in NxC somewhere.....
Speaking of which, Saya got even more plans, so, when is NxC2 again?
And game finished, I am totally disappointed that Lemon did not appear... I mean, how could Terada not troll us with her?
I was totally expecting the following scenario:
Lemon: W00, I am your mother!!
Harken: Whaaat!?
Lemon: Axel, you are his father!!
Axel: Whaaaat!?
Alcheime: Axel!! How could you!! This is our honeymoon!!
Axel: Wait, I can explain!!
How dare it did not happen!!!
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Just don't spoil anything about the game please. >_>
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Now playing: NOTHING! Here is why
*I turn on the ps3 and try to sign into psn*
*Error*
(Me) - How odd? Oh well it doesn't matter I'll just play some star ocean 4. With my lv 50 Faize and lv40 filler characters its time to kick shadow ass.
(PS3) - Your trophies failed to load.....*YUMMY*
(Me) Wait what? Let me try again.
(PS3) Keep trying and you'll keep failing.....*Crunch*
*I look at my trophy list to see star ocean 4 missing*
(Me) Did you EAT MY TROPHIES?
(PS3) Pretty much hahahah.
(Me) Maybe its the star ocean 4 disc I have? I'll try Dynasty warriors 5 empires.
(PS3) - More food? You spoil me. *Crunch*
(Me) Them too? Can I at least play my games?
(PS3) You can play MG4 and lets see, Disgaea 3. Anything else and I'll eat you.
(Me) Well thank you very much but I'll just play my downloaded games.
(PS3) Downloaded games? Oh I had them all an hour ago sorry.
*I explode*
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Now playing: NOTHING! Here is why
*I turn on the ps3 and try to sign into psn*
*Error*
(Me) - How odd? Oh well it doesn't matter I'll just play some star ocean 4. With my lv 50 Faize and lv40 filler characters its time to kick shadow ass.
(PS3) - Your trophies failed to load.....*YUMMY*
(Me) Wait what? Let me try again.
(PS3) Keep trying and you'll keep failing.....*Crunch*
*I look at my trophy list to see star ocean 4 missing*
(Me) Did you EAT MY TROPHIES?
(PS3) Pretty much hahahah.
(Me) Maybe its the star ocean 4 disc I have? I'll try Dynasty warriors 5 empires.
(PS3) - More food? You spoil me. *Crunch*
(Me) Them too? Can I at least play my games?
(PS3) You can play MG4 and lets see, Disgaea 3. Anything else and I'll eat you.
(Me) Well thank you very much but I'll just play my downloaded games.
(PS3) Downloaded games? Oh I had them all an hour ago sorry.
*I explode*
This is supposed to fix itself this evening. It's an internal clock bug caused by, of all ridiculous things, Y2k. Preliminary reports indicate you won't actually *lose* any of your saves, trophies or downloaded content, it just isn't available right now. :P
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So a clock bug makes it impossible to play games at all? Who programmed this crap?
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The same people that exploited and "fixed" the Y2K bug, who figured they needed job security?
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Estpolis - Well, this is decidedly different.
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It' won't be problematic if their attack are too fast, but having short duration hit box is huge problem. I have problem connecting his Vysaga based skill set due to that.
Punchy glove? You means Rare Hunter.... I think I saw that back in NxC somewhere.....
The thing is that the fast execution means you can wait until the enemy's right in front of Axel before pulling the trigger. It's more annoying with other characters because not only is there a short window to land the hit, but you have to factor the windup time into the equation. Axel's happens instantly so there's no guesswork of "I guess he'll fall in a second and ahalf..."
As for the scene, Pete Pain's about to do the usual EF boss "I don't care that you beat me, I'm just going to do what I was doing anyway and teleport away" routine when MOMO says "fuck this, STEALING MOVE FROM THE FIRST XS GAME THAT NOBODY EVEN REMEMBERS" and fishing-poles the glove right off his hand. It was just a perfect in-game use of something that (a) only ever comes up in battle and (b) is from so long ago that I think I'm the only person who remembered that it even existed.
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WAXF: 2.1, In Which I Hum The Theme From Jaws And Crush Everyone With My +2 Gear.
Re: CT Luminaire - I usually get it just at the end or right after the Mountain of Woe.
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ToV- Up to Elhemd hill.
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ToDr - Unrepentant Asshole x1 get, Swordians x2 lost. Screw you, Leon Magnus. Also, why do I find Rutee more fun to control than Stahn?
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This is supposed to fix itself this evening. It's an internal clock bug caused by, of all ridiculous things, Y2k. Preliminary reports indicate you won't actually *lose* any of your saves, trophies or downloaded content, it just isn't available right now.
I hope thats correct. Losing SO4 data is something I do not want. I already had to restart the game while 10+ hours in, to do again while 40+ hours in.... Would pretty much kill the game for me.
By the way anyone know if places like Gamestop (Online) deliver to the UK. Strange journey comes out soon but isn't coming to the UK so I was thinking of importing it. I don't think the DS lite is region locked so besides the large shipping fees it shouldn't be a problem right?
Sorry to ask here but most of those sites don't list where they deliver to and the ones that do don't deliver to here.
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wait what Strange Journey isn't coming to the UK?
...So, uhh. DS shouldn't be region-locked, so seconding the call for some good places for importing. >.>
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ToDr - Jesus Christ Leon is a lot of fun.
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wait what Strange Journey isn't coming to the UK?
Shouldn't have said that really as I could be wrong but I just don't see it likely. Vs King Abaddon didn't and a lot of companies like to save money by not releasing it here. I can see the reasons why, it just irks me.
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Hm.. I've heard nothing of a UK release, but with SMTN being released over here, I imagine Strange Journey will as well, if only 'cause it's part of the main series and on a ridiculously popular console.
Still, likely to be a limited print run, even if it does eventually come over here. Siiiiiiiigh.
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Nocturne got the PAL release a long time after the NTSC release, like nearly 12 months or so. I wouldn't hold my breath if you are using that as a yard stick.
DS Lite is not region locked. Amazon exports plenty of stuff to the UK from memory, so I would try there. Alternately Playasia or something like that. Not so good with importers to the UK, but I know a few for Oceania that are not bad (pretty sure Playasia are faaaaiiirrrlly world wide though and I know the one I used for a few games that is actually Brisbane based do ship all over the world, but probably not really worth the cost and their timing is not the greatest).
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ToDr - Rutee Katrea for Straylize Temple MVP. Ice Needles for Godlike or something. Also, PHILIA JOINS AS A NPC, THUS BEING BEREFT OF A BRIEF STINT WHERE SHE'S COMPLETELY WORTHLESS? I DO NOT ACCEPT THIS
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Vs King Abaddon didn't and a lot of companies like to save money by not releasing it here. I can see the reasons why, it just irks me.
Laaaaame. Of course, it barely came out in the states, even.
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Has anyone heard anything about the SaGa 2 remake being translated yet?
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Mega man 10: Played, Beaten Mega Man's side, will do Protoman in a bit...which I know is the same thing, just different character, but hush!
Anyway, quick run down cause, well, its Mega Man, you know the basics!
-Robot Masters are a little on the easy side barring one or two exceptions. They aren't laughable jokes, mind, but felt they were easier to figure out and get a hang on than the previous game. To give you an idea? I bustered all the Robot Masters with no E Tanks (though I had to try Solar Man at least like 6 times!) this playthrough already. Mind you, I nailed them with weaknesses on the Boss Rush (Mega Man? A BOSS RUSH!? OMG SPOILARS!!), but that was partially cause I was in a hurry (Mandy wanted on), and bustering Boss Rushes can get frustrating.
-Stage design is still cool stuff; its not quite MM9 level, but that's asking for a lot, so I'm pleased with what we did get, as there's still creativity and generally well handled. One stage I can say I openly did not like was Wily Stage 2; just filled with annoying death traps, and its kind of bland, with 2 Mini Bosses, etc. Its not the worst stage ever, but I still wasn't fond of it.
-Wily Stage 1 is made of infinite win. I'm not gonna spoil why, but if you get there, you'll figure out pretty quickly.
-The Teleporting Wily ship (...come on, they've used this since Mega Man 4, and have failed to not bring it back, YOU KNEW IT WAS GOING TO BE THERE) was cool for a number of reasons. First off, there was an obvious MM2 nod (actually, a few but lets not get into that) in the way it was presented. Secondly, an obvious MM3 nod as well. Lastly, THEY DID SOMETHING ORIGINAL with it, rather than the usual "He teleports, DODGE HIS MOVE AND ATTACK HIM WHEN HE APPEAR!" thing (they did, at least, try to come up with creative attacks in previous games, but here, it was the same spirit with a unique twist that made the fight cool.)
-Addition of being able to select the Shop between game overs without going to the Boss Select Screen was a nice convenience, on that note
-Weapons...are hard to judge. They feel almost entirely niche based, though I didn't use them a lot. They felt closer to, say, MMX4/8 style Weapons which were more Compliments to the Buster than stand alone weapons. Though, again, I didn't play around with them a lot, so take this with a grain of salt.
--I will grant that the Water Shield was cool stuff. A nice In-Between of the ludicrous shit like Jewel Barrier and the meh stuff like Plant Shield. Its like Junk Shield, only a bit easier to work with and better at stopping projectiles, etc (also has the luxury of being in a better game <.<)
-Plot is back to the old Mega Man Formula! "Wily isn't responsible for the shit going on...OH WAIT YES HE IS ACT SHOCKED!!!" At least MM9 tried something creative, MM10 was basically just rehashing MM3's plot...then again, MEGA MAN PLOT!!!!
-Ending is a bit disappointing. No, I don't expect an EPIC ENDING, but Mega Man 9's was just really cute in what they did, and would have liked to see something similar.
-Music is...eh, disappointing, I guess. Its not bad, but the themes aren't memorable, which is subpar for a Mega Man game. TO ITS CREDIT, the Victory Theme, and the Boss Intro Theme, while the classic songs, have their own redone 8 Bit style in MM10, rather than just ripping directly from MM2 like MM9 did, so it was a nice touch. To branch from that, the "Get Weapon!" song was a lot better than what MM9 used too (using MM2's Weapon Get Theme? Seriously, what were they thinking!?!?)
Overall? A decent enough entry. Its not as good as MM9 if you ask me, which was absolutely brilliant, but its a decent enough follow up; asking it to be as good as MM9 is really a tall order if you ask me, so I'm content with what we got. A new entry to Mega Man series that's fairly good, that's really all I ask for, and that's what MM10 is, to say the least.
Its similar to DMC4 in that regard, where a similar "Its no DMC3, but its still pretty darn good on its own merits" thing kicked in.
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ToDr - Rutee Katrea for Straylize Temple MVP. Ice Needles for Godlike or something.
Indeed, low level spell in this game have uses. You'll also be finding Woodrow using Wind Arrow a lot.
And she technically is better than Sthan at combo as well due to she has more spell that actually enhance your comboability.
It' won't be problematic if their attack are too fast, but having short duration hit box is huge problem. I have problem connecting his Vysaga based skill set due to that.
Punchy glove? You means Rare Hunter.... I think I saw that back in NxC somewhere.....
The thing is that the fast execution means you can wait until the enemy's right in front of Axel before pulling the trigger. It's more annoying with other characters because not only is there a short window to land the hit, but you have to factor the windup time into the equation. Axel's happens instantly so there's no guesswork of "I guess he'll fall in a second and ahalf..."
As for the scene, Pete Pain's about to do the usual EF boss "I don't care that you beat me, I'm just going to do what I was doing anyway and teleport away" routine when MOMO says "fuck this, STEALING MOVE FROM THE FIRST XS GAME THAT NOBODY EVEN REMEMBERS" and fishing-poles the glove right off his hand. It was just a perfect in-game use of something that (a) only ever comes up in battle and (b) is from so long ago that I think I'm the only person who remembered that it even existed.
It is Hamelan, not Pete Pain.
Also, indeed Axel has no guess work, but his combo requires PRECISE timing. Despite fast, his hit box is still short last and small, making timing even more important. I'd rather have a slow move, but have long lasting hit box that I can just hit the buttons early and wait for enemy to fell into it. Why Alice is so easy to combo, as well as Kaguya. Axel is ridiculously lacking in this department and controlling him quickly becomes a tiring job.
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Estpolis:
<Gades> lolololololmeteorspam
<Maxim> GRAH GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN STICK THIS SWORD INTO YOU DAMMIT
Also hurray for dodgerolling.
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AAI Edgeworth -
Terrific, as expected.
Problems consist of: there are too many presentations where they explain to you exactly what you have to present, even some in the final case; one of the presentations in case 3 is enraging and resulted in me looking it up - in fact there are certain similarities to the presentation which caused me ire in JFA, and I will have to endeavour to keep those in mind in the future to watch for the same trick being pulled again; another presentation in case 3 follows a sketchy train of thought that I can't really argue against because there is really no better possibility available at the time, but still; and Lang seems to undergo a fairly noticable personality-softening between the times he appears.
Maybe a bit too many returning faces. The Logic component was a bit weak also; there are never any pieces you don't use, and the most you ever have at once is 6 if my memory is holding out. It also feels like you have considerably more health than in the previous games, and on top of that you almost never face increased penalties.
It was good fun all round anyway. The final also stands out as considerably more savvy than any of the villains in PW1/2/AJ.
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Out of Curiousity, which presentation are you talking about in JFA?
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Ys Origin - Started this. Looks really pretty! Also, Hugo is freaking wrong. DANMAKU WHORING AND GETS A SPAMMABLE CHEESE BARRIER AS HIS FIRST SKILL THIS TOTALLY ISN'T UNBALANCED
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Wizard of Oz: in the Frozen Castle.
MM10: Started Protoman, beat Sheep Man and Commandoman. Former was about the same difficulty, maybe easier cause his fighting style really supports charge shots, latter was harder, cause the extra damage you take REALLY makes a difference in that style of fight, such that the room for error...yeah (Mega Man can take a few hits and not be in too much danger, so screwing up a few times isn't so bad. Protoman...gets 3 shotted.)
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Estpolis:
<Gades> lolololololmeteorspam
<Maxim> GRAH GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN STICK THIS SWORD INTO YOU DAMMIT
Also hurray for dodgerolling.
Kill him fast and get Gades Blade.
Ys Origin - Started this. Looks really pretty! Also, Hugo is freaking wrong. DANMAKU WHORING AND GETS A SPAMMABLE CHEESE BARRIER AS HIS FIRST SKILL THIS TOTALLY ISN'T UNBALANCED
Do you desire a full lecture on Y's Chronology?
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Do you desire a full lecture on Y's Chronology?
Board PM that to me? I mean, I'm not really much on the "care about Ys plot" wagon, but having something to read and have a vague understanding of Origin over never hurts.
Ys Origin - In which I meet and lol danmaku Epona the Furious Female Pony Fighter. I now discovered the limits of Hugo's Wind Barrier.
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Estpolis:
<Gades> lolololololmeteorspam
<Maxim> GRAH GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN STICK THIS SWORD INTO YOU DAMMIT
Also hurray for dodgerolling.
Kill him fast and get Gades Blade.
Is this a reasonable accomplishment or does it rely on the AI roulette not wanting to spam meteors every six to ten seconds?
Edit:
Estpolis - So Gades is actually a giant robot eh.
Also holy crap Gades Round 3.
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Spectral Souls- Finished Chapter 5. Did the Neverland Historical Battle. Using Illfx was cool, but finding out the Double+Triple+Quad Attack combo using Geoff IV made the battle worth it. Also kicking Anderson's worthless ass. Holy Empire are a bunch of lamers.
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Out of Curiousity, which presentation are you talking about in JFA?
It was the one during the Max Galactica case where the testimony mentioned two things and you had to complain about there having to be three things. As I remember the situation, there was no implication that the third thing wasn't present... but to me now, that would probably be enough to make it worth questioning. Either my skills at the time were deficient, or I don't remember enough of it to accurately judge what my problem with it was, but it was annoying.
In any case, that situation was at least more of me having no idea as to how to proceed compared to the AAI situation where they completely lead you up the garden path as to what your current problem with the testimony should be. Was mostly just stating the coincidence between the two as it came to mind.
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Estpolis - So Gades is actually a giant robot eh.
Is this out in English release already or are you hitting up a Japanese version also?
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He's hitting a Japanese version.
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Twil: Oooooh, yeah. I don't remember exactly, but I do recall one of the presents about Max's personal effects being complete and utter bullshit. I chalked it up to a mistranslation. Good to know that I should keep an eye out for that when I play AAEI.
Mass Effect: Okay, I don't get it. Graphics turned down to the lowest settings, except motion blur is still on so I don't get a headache playing the game. Reinstalled my GEForce 8400 GS drivers. After upgrayedding RAM I even meet the "Recommended" reqs in everything except processor and graphics card, both of which meet minimum reqs. Why the hell won't the game work for more than a few minutes at a time?! It always crashes when switching from a menu back to the main map, too.
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Well it turns out my policy of syncing whenever I get a trophy paid off as I got them all back but for the people who don't have online.... My heart goes out to them but I myself came out quite well due to the way SO4 saves.
SO4 - Cameos were handled really well surprisingly as they weren't all "HI GUYZ ITS A ME" about it. Surprised that a minor character you don't even learn the name of in SO1 is the one with the most screentime.
Also Crowe talks a really good game, I mean a damn a good game. "What there is thousands of near unbeatable enemy units surrounding us and our allies? No fear my ship will shield you all, even if the enemy is attacking from all sides and at incredible speed. What the enemy is ignoring us? But why would they attack massive transport ships instead of my tiny fighter?
Now if his ship was the Aquaelie....
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ToV- Just Found out the spoilars about Estelle. She's the princess? Shock, awe. I just beat the teleporter dungeon. Team levels are around L22. I'm using everyone but Karol right now.
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SO4 - Cameos were handled really well surprisingly as they weren't all "HI GUYZ ITS A ME" about it. Surprised that a minor character you don't even learn the name of in SO1 is the one with the most screentime.
Stephen Kenni finally explains how Ronixis and Claude got away with so much shit. "Meddle with the nature of reality and steal your ship? PROMOTION!" and "You are the only survivor of your crew because your deserted your ship? PROMOTIONS FROM ENSIGN TO CAPTAIN!" is finally explained. I mean, Captain Kirk stole a ship to travel back in time, and he got a commendation and a one-rank demotion for saving the Earth.
ToV- Just Found out the spoilars about Estelle. She's the princess? Shock, awe. I just beat the teleporter dungeon. Team levels are around L22. I'm using everyone but Karol right now.
I don't think that's supposed to be much of a spoiler, since everyone but Karol says "That's the big reveal?"
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She's the princess
Wait, what?
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Wizard of Oz: Beat it.
Don't have much to say about the game, cause there's not much to say. Like I said before, the game doesn't really do anything noteworthily wrong beyond some minor pet peeve and questionable decisions, but at the same time...I can't say they really did anything noteworthy that was right either. The game ultimately just wasn't very fun, but more in that boring sense than that frustrating kind of way where you want to throw the controller out the window. I was more often getting into this "Are we there yet?" mind set than anything else. Gameplay had potential but ultimately the game was a little too easy (beyond some early game resource issues) and too repetitive to really make use of it, and the Lion not really having much use for 90% of the game sure didn't help. I know that the game being Wizard of Oz means they didn't need to write a genuine story cause everyone knows the loose story, but that's no excuse for 0 character interaction. At a little bit of talking among Dorothy and the trio would have been nice, if only to spice things up a little.
Probably a 4/10 game or some such. Like I said, it didn't really do anything WRONG, but...didn't really do anything right either, and in the end, it was an overall boring experience.
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Endless Frontier EXCEED: Got the full set of robots. I'm thinking I'll do some backtracking to clear some wanted monsters out, now that there's a full list of which one is where.
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Bioshock 2: Game keeps crashing on me in multiplayer. Despite that, I am now Rank 25.
WA:XF - 2.2, In Which I Hate My Inability To Jump High. Beat it first time, but I nearly lost out because they still had one Sacred Slayer and everyone who could get up that high had died, but my magic users had just enough range to beat it.
Interlude, In Which CSP Farming Is Done, And Will Be Done For The Foreseeable Future.
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Actually, you'll want to hold off on that. In two maps, you'll be able to access the Woods. THere, the rare encounter is the Creeping Chaos (Crawling CHaos? Whatever). They drop CSP equal to [Damage of Killing Blow- cHP]/2, if I'm not mistaken. In other words, they are the CSP farms.
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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Replaying this! Reason? Its awesome and been a while since I played something totally awesome!
Just beat Chap 3, had a few resets already based on futz ups on my end and one case of Aran getting nailed by a 1% Crit ._. On the plus side, Micaiah has 11 Speed at level 8! Edward also seems to like gaining defense.
Also, its nice to play an FE game that's completely polished and not fear that some bullshit will come out of the corner and make me die any turn from now *eyes FE4*
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Estpolis:
<Gades> lolololololmeteorspam
<Maxim> GRAH GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN STICK THIS SWORD INTO YOU DAMMIT
Also hurray for dodgerolling.
Kill him fast and get Gades Blade.
Is this a reasonable accomplishment or does it rely on the AI roulette not wanting to spam meteors every six to ten seconds?
It is more about saving it for second cycle unless you desire to permanently lower the threshold of your patience.
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Estpolis:
<Gades> lolololololmeteorspam
<Maxim> GRAH GET DOWN HERE SO I CAN STICK THIS SWORD INTO YOU DAMMIT
Also hurray for dodgerolling.
Kill him fast and get Gades Blade.
Is this a reasonable accomplishment or does it rely on the AI roulette not wanting to spam meteors every six to ten seconds?
It is more about saving it for second cycle unless you desire to permanently lower the threshold of your patience.
So the same as usual, then.
Anyways:
Estpolis - Beat up a couple of thieves who decided to jack a tank. Also, lol Idura.
Endless Trainwreck 2 - Still playing this. Just got to Triedel (sp?) Stadt.
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Stephen Kenni finally explains how Ronixis and Claude got away with so much shit. "Meddle with the nature of reality and steal your ship? PROMOTION!" and "You are the only survivor of your crew because your deserted your ship? PROMOTIONS FROM ENSIGN TO CAPTAIN!" is finally explained. I mean, Captain Kirk stole a ship to travel back in time, and he got a commendation and a one-rank demotion for saving the Earth.
I thought that as well. Having a famous grandaddy with an awesome title does wonders for your career indeed.
SO4 - Arumat is a beast pure and simple. Crowe made a badmove trading his badass Elf Friend for Edge's Pansey one. The bosses have become massive failures for some reason also, one got klled after only two Comet Strikes and the other got curb stombed by Arumat.
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If you just got him? You have no idea. Wait till you get dragon roar. You just hit nether strike, and then chain it three times.
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Estpolis - Way to be a letdown, Amon.
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Cmdr: Actually, it's right after 2-2. Hence the long interlude. I've got most jobs mastered now from my PCs and first-run generics, but not all.
Bioshock 2: Beat singleplayer, got the good end (but I did it on easy, so it doesn't count). As far as overall thoughts... the first half was very Bioshock1-esque, and it really wasn't until Persephone that it was brought into its own. But Persephone made it all worthwhile. For weapons, the drill of course stood above all the others easily, but the level layout (especially in Siren Alley) made projectiles more important. In that respect: Speargun > Shotgun > Machine Gun > Everything Else. Multiplayer L28.
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SO4 - Arumat is a beast pure and simple. Crowe made a badmove trading his badass Elf Friend for Edge's Pansey one. The bosses have become massive failures for some reason also, one got klled after only two Comet Strikes and the other got curb stombed by Arumat.
Did you find Meracle's Hurricane Claws? =-) The boss Manifest is weak to wind. I got her 30'000, 50'000, 70'000 and 99'999 trophies off those with Comet PAUNCH =D
What Rob said about Arumat though they moved Dragon Roar to the end of the first post game dungeon for the PS3 version =/
You should be able to have Focus for both Meracle and Reimi (if you're using her) now and there's a Berserk manual in the arena if you haven't picked it up yet =-) You're using Arumat, Meracle ... Lymle?
Speaking of SO4, did another run through of the second post through dungeon. Around seven hours >.>
Levelled Myuria up a lot but she was still kind of lacking, even her spell from Santa, a bit disappointing really =/
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Since Nintendo didn't bother to mention it on the official Pokemon website anywhere, you can download a shiny event Pichu from wifi mystery gift right now. It's pretty much identical to the one that was given away at Gamestop a few weeks back aside from the OT name/number.
Hopefully this means we'll be getting Jirachi as well over wifi in a few weeks, since that's actually useful.
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Levelled Myuria up a lot but she was still kind of lacking, even her spell from Santa, a bit disappointing really =/
I ended up using her as my healer because she fills me with less hate than the other options.
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CT... did you get a DL-legal playthrough of SO4 done yet so we can stat topic stuff?
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Djinn - I'll be working on the stat topic after I get Lymle's Iseria Queen trophy yeah. Played most of the interesting games peeps gave me at the mini meet so why not~
I already gave Lymle Faerie Star so Myuria's SOL in that department too >.> In hindsight maybe I should have given it to her just so she'd have at least only godly thing (since I mainly use Lymle for the badass Trinity Blaze yaay fire doggy) but I dunno. Sarah and Lym at least seem to understand what "Stay out of trouble" means =/ Myuria's probably the best healer if you control her though~
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Did you find Meracle's Hurricane Claws? =-) The boss Manifest is weak to wind. I got her 30'000, 50'000, 70'000 and 99'999 trophies off those with Comet PAUNCH =D
But of course, theres nothing like killing a boss in two hits.
You're using Arumat, Meracle ... Lymle?
I was leveling everyone equally until the final area where I kind of said sod it so it'd be easier. My main team is Arumat, Lymle, Bacchus and Reimi all in their mid 70s, the rest are at mid 60s. Currently hunting down light chests and wondering if I should give Faerie star to Lymle.
SO4 - Finished it but still quite a few things I don't understand. Why is Spoiler the final boss? From what I gathered it all went down like this.
Lame Evil force - Sup Man, you want ultimate power?
Spoiler - Of course, those bastard Grigori killed my beloved!
Lame Evil Force - Grigori? You mean me and my frie..... Yeah those bastards. What was her name anyway.
Spoiler - ???
Lame Evil Force - You don't know?
Lame Evil Force - So you'll wipe Life out for that? I think you and me are very much alike young one. I mean even I have no idea why I want to destroy everything.
Spoiler - YES!
Lame Evil Force - Why'd your voice go deep all of a sudden?
Spoiler - BECAUSE I AM NOW EVIL!
Lame Evil Force - Okay, but the red eyes?
Spoiler - BECAUSE I AM NOW EVIL!
Lame Evil Force - You had those before.
Spoiler - HAVEN'T YOU READ THE FILE ON ME! MY EYES GO RED WHEN I'M ANGRY!
Lame Evil Force - That is the second most retarded thing I've heard. The first being your reason for evil.
I'm guessing they tried avoiding having Zeromus as the final boss but hell, at least Zeromus doesn't bullshit you around or get owned by a little girl in a conversation. Also the Eldarins, those idiot Eldarins. "We can't disturb people's evolution so lets discard all our tech" is what got me, it was a complete ??? moment for me. Why they do that when they could just settle down on Aeos? The writers have to keep the plot line intact sure but that was the best they could do?
In conclusion the game is fine besides the plot. A lot of people tell me "At least its better then SO3" but I disagree. SO3 is fine up to the twist and from what I gathered the MMO is upgraded to an actual world at the end due to the bugs in the system anyway, you know the whole reason Luther wanted to destroy them in the first place.
Also I want a Luther Cameo dammit.
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Also I want a Luther Cameo dammit.
Star Ocean 4 takes place in a different continuity where 4D space does not exist and the world is real. So sayeth the director.
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That is one of the most spineless things I've read.
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Considering that Welch is in the game, either the writers and director aren't on the same page or there's some blatant lies going on.
(Well, or something really insane. Mind, I haven't actually played SO4 yet but.)
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I'm going with "blatant lies."
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Or they'll just resort to the old "Its a different Welch! She's the Cid of the Star Ocean world!" excuse.
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That is one of the most spineless things I've read.
I'd rather that they just hack off the head of the SO3 plot twist and bury it separate from the body, but it's a good start.
either the writers and director aren't on the same page
I figure that this fits Star Ocean 4 pretty well.
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either the writers and director aren't on the same page
Most likely. You'd think with the director trying to wipe SO3 from existance he'd make sure there weren't Npcs on Roak telling you "The final battle is coming up, better get ready". Its also lazy "Shit guys, people think my game's story is retarded so lets pretend it never happened........Kay?".
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I find it vaguely hilarious that a series that broke the 4th wall is now inspiring disputes about what's on the other side. I have trouble thinking of a statement about Star Ocean continuity which is less meaningful than '4-D space does or does not exist.'
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I'll just put it this way. Missing Procedure is just a vaccine program.
I guess players starting in technologically advanced planets are having too much advantage, so the mass that is SO4 got set in motion to tweak game-play balance.
Also, if you want some 4-D related stuff, talk to a certain NPC in EN-2.
And the Welch is a different Welch.
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You mean that guy that talks about gods? I don't think its much of a relation to 4-D space. Also why is having guns an advantage. SO4 has shown that even railguns can't defeat a weak lv 1 bug.
Luther should fix that before anything else :D
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I mean the guy in the market place who has been mumbling about universe being controlled.
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I find it vaguely hilarious that a series that broke the 4th wall is now inspiring disputes about what's on the other side. I have trouble thinking of a statement about Star Ocean continuity which is less meaningful than '4-D space does or does not exist.'
Having discussed that plot twist at length several years ago, I think my issue with it can be encapsulated in the following: "Most games try to get us to care about their fictional characters, but usually they don't rub our noses in the fact they manipulated us in to doing it."
Plus, the entire universe was destroyed and they just reloaded a copy or some shit. How can you have believable peril when you know that the entire universe being completely obliterated still won't do anything?
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I mean the guy in the market place who has been mumbling about universe being controlled.
I don't remember that. I remember him mentioning there might be people more advanced that them and thus could be refered to as gods. I might be remembering wrong.
Plus, the entire universe was destroyed and they just reloaded a copy or some shit. How can you have believable peril when you know that the entire universe being completely obliterated still won't do anything?
I'm hazy on the subject but wasn't it the bugs in the system that did that.
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I find it vaguely hilarious that a series that broke the 4th wall is now inspiring disputes about what's on the other side. I have trouble thinking of a statement about Star Ocean continuity which is less meaningful than '4-D space does or does not exist.'
Having discussed that plot twist at length several years ago, I think my issue with it can be encapsulated in the following: "Most games try to get us to care about their fictional characters, but usually they don't rub our noses in the fact they manipulated us in to doing it."
Plus, the entire universe was destroyed and they just reloaded a copy or some shit. How can you have believable peril when you know that the entire universe being completely obliterated still won't do anything?
In fairness, WA3 did this and it was still pretty OK if for no other reason than the final shot before the epilogue.
ME - Game worked long enough to get off Eden Prime, hooray! Gonna speed through the story missions to get Assault Rifles, then... Vanguard, I guess? Maybe Sentinel, though Kaiden sucked ass early which is turning me off to the idea. Something with Lift is the point, though.
Also, hey, renegade path conversation options are not asininely evil. Obama Shepard is just an enormous asshole but doesn't go on and on about his POWAH. Neat.
EDIT: Oh, hey, question. Exactly what do the biography choices (Spacer/War Hero, Etc) affect? Is there a canon combination between those and alignment? Or, if not canon, are there more interesting combinations than others?
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Each of the six background items has a unique mission associated with it. Also, you can get small starting bonuses to paragon/renegade with some of them. Earthborn and Ruthless give you a little extra ren to start with, Spacer and War Hero give you para. I went Spacer just because not only is your mother not dead in that one, you actually talk to her. And Ruthless because you don't fuck with me.
As far as canonicity, not really. If you start a ME2 game without a ME1 save I just don't think they mention it. Doesn't really come in to play seriously, except for some small callbacks. For example: if you're Earthborn, in ME2 you'll hear the Alliance has founded a Shepard Scholarship to help kids who grew up in the shitty parts of Earth get out of the hood and go to school or whatever. If you're a Spacer then there'll be a news story about your mother refusing promotion to Admiral, because she thinks it's a political move or a sympathy card cause her kid got killed. And so on.
If you want to play your Shep for maximum bawwwwwww, you could go Colonist/Sole Survivor and then get as many people killed as possible. Then you're basically the pariah dog.
EDIT: In fairness, WA3 did this and it was still pretty OK if for no other reason than the final shot before the epilogue.
The plot twist in WA3 was "HAHA you are playing a video game!"?
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In WA3 at the end Nega Filgaia destroys everything but then Virginia was able to restore the universe through MEMORY!!!1!!!11111!111. I haven't played SO3 but what you were describing sounds very similar.
So, Spacer/War Hero for Paragon and Earth/Ruthless for Renegade(s of Funk). Otherwise don't give a shit. Got it.
ME: Got to the Mako parts. Ugh. ughughugh. Fortunately I was so prepared for these parts to suck that I don't really mind them. Still they do suck so hey. Everything feels really pointless because I'm just killing time until I kill 150 people with my assault rifle but whatever. I'm probably going to get that, realize there's no way to make Shepard not ugly, and then not play the game for a while because really I want to play the KotOR2 restored content mod. >_>
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Plus, the entire universe was destroyed and they just reloaded a copy or some shit. How can you have believable peril when you know that the entire universe being completely obliterated still won't do anything?
I have a PS2 memory card with a corrupted and unerasable SO3 save that might shed some light on that subject...
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I haven't played SO3 but what you were describing sounds very similar.
The twist of Star Ocean 3 is literally "you are playing a video game," though, which is more of a problem because the Wild Arms worlds are not contiguous and so the stupid ending need not apply to all games in the series, and I didn't really care for WA3.
So, Spacer/War Hero for Paragon and Earth/Ruthless for Renegade(s of Funk). Otherwise don't give a shit. Got it.
ME: Got to the Mako parts. Ugh. ughughugh. Fortunately I was so prepared for these parts to suck that I don't really mind them. Still they do suck so hey. Everything feels really pointless because I'm just killing time until I kill 150 people with my assault rifle but whatever. I'm probably going to get that, realize there's no way to make Shepard not ugly, and then not play the game for a while because really I want to play the KotOR2 restored content mod. >_>
If it makes you feel any better, you get to pick a new face in ME2, plus your ugliness will be the cool ugly and not the ugly ugly when you go Renegade.
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I will note that while I really like WA3, the epilogue kind of ruined the ending's impact. I'll grant SOME epilogue was needed, but the entire Epilogue could have just been the wanted poster. Just show that, and everything would have been fine and it'd be a neat visual image to end the game on (and fitting considering how strongly they got the point of the setting across.)
And yeah, Zenny, first part of SO3's ending is very similar to WA3's, just they also had the nerve to make it philosophical to hell...like OPENLY philosophical, to the point where the characters actually try to philosophize why things happen, contrast to WA3 where Ginny sort of just accepts what happened and the ending moves on.
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So.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story - Beaten. M&L at L40, Bowser at L33. Bowser's level would have been higher if he ever got any EXP boosters (or benefitted from the Bonus Badge whenever a battle when involve both parties.
Rant more on it later, like after my shift at work.
Next up:
Final Fantasy III DS
Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days
More Disgaea 3
More Blazblue
More Grim Grimoire
Persona 1, 2IS, and 2EP
Star Ocean 2
Xenogears
Lunar 1 and 2
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune
Spyro 3
Final Fantasy XII
Star Ocean 3
Breath of Fire 3
Breath of Fire 4
Final Fantasy I & II GBA
...That's all I can remember off the top of my head for wanting to play and that I have immediately available to me.
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SO3's plot twist is utter brilliance because it makes everything that happened in SO2 completely meaningless. More seriously, just found it fun. Oh no a game doing something that isn't 100% formulaic (at least within the genre, blah blah I'm aware the Matrix exists, etc.).
Super Mario World 2 - Beaten. It probably deserves a long rant but I beat it like a week ago and have had limited internet access and time since then. So, in brief!
The good:
-Stage design was very varied and often brilliant.
-Boss design was again, very creative, although I wish more of them were more challenging.
-Nice visuals generally, very much sought out its own style and nailed it. I'm not even the biggest fan of that style in the world but I respect what they did, here.
-Challenge level was overall pretty good. Bosses, as mentioned, could have been a bit tougher, but otherwise, game rarely mails in a total joke level the way pretty much every other Mario game since SMB3 has.
-Raphael the Raven.
The less good:
-Controls suck. This singlehandedly keeps the game out of the elite tier of sidescrollers. This was really driven home, sadly, in the final boss fight, where the boss was non-threatening enough that he wouldn't kill, but you have to jump back and forth between small pillars and Yoshi's controls are bad enough that I was sometimes missing them and falling into a pit. This is excusable early in a game as you get the hang of things, but the fact that it always happened somewhat even by the end indicates to me that the controls are definitely a bit gummed.
-Game could have done with twice as many halfway points. Levels are big, often huge, and I have no problem with that, but I dislike having to go back over five minutes when I die.
Collection stuff was kinda silly (red coins are a stupid idea) but I don't really care. The game also totally lacks any explorable map and I still don't care.
Overall a fun game, glad I finally played it in full, good experience and so on. Not exactly jumping up and down to play through it again, but that's fine. Capcom games await!
FE Shadow Dragon - At Chapter 16 or so on the H3 run.
Xenosaga 2 - About to dive into MOMO's subconscious. Gameplay is sexy, plot is very hit and miss, GS stuff is more tiring on a replay.
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And yeah, Zenny, first part of SO3's ending is very similar to WA3's, just they also had the nerve to make it philosophical to hell...like OPENLY philosophical, to the point where the characters actually try to philosophize why things happen, contrast to WA3 where Ginny sort of just accepts what happened and the ending moves on.
Which is why the "Marry My Daughter" ending is the best one. ::Nodnod::
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ME: In the corporate building on Feros. I'm honestly enjoying the gameplay in this game, which is kind of a first for a non-Tales RPG. And since my main goal with Obama Shepard is to get rifles this makes the gameplay waaaaay more interesting than the story, which I won't care about until I start a real character. All my squad mates are kinda gimped because I haven't put any thought into building them, but the game is easy enough that this hasn't mattered aside from it being annoying to unlock chests.
Also, holy hell the Mako has a canon. I wish I had known that when I was bumming around the sidequest worlds.
Man, I certainly feel like I've murdered 150 enemies already, but apparently the game thinks otherwise. Mph.
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Also, holy hell the Mako has a canon. I wish I had known that when I was bumming around the sidequest worlds.
I wish I knew that for my first encounter with a Worm.
Ace Combat 4: Picked this up because I needed a time waster because I'm sick of falling asleep at 8pm out of boredom. Anyways, up to mission 11 or so. Just destroyed the superweapon despite having 90% damage on me while fighting the Aces. Spiffy. Also my first death in-game was due to flying into a goddamn crane, despite grazing water and mountains three times earlier.
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The problem with the SO3 twist isn't that it breaks formula, or even really that it subverts the series' world- and character-building (although I'm not a fan of that part) it's that it's (a) done unsatisfyingly and (b) done halfway, mixed with the standard RPG conventions of a final-boss throwdown with the main villain (who in this case should be able to kill you all by pressing a button), the human spirit overcoming all (even when the "humans" aren't, never mind the part where they're nothing mystical about format c:\) and so on.
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ME: In the corporate building on Feros. I'm honestly enjoying the gameplay in this game, which is kind of a first for a non-Tales RPG. And since my main goal with Obama Shepard is to get rifles this makes the gameplay waaaaay more interesting than the story, which I won't care about until I start a real character. All my squad mates are kinda gimped because I haven't put any thought into building them, but the game is easy enough that this hasn't mattered aside from it being annoying to unlock chests.
Also, holy hell the Mako has a canon. I wish I had known that when I was bumming around the sidequest worlds.
Man, I certainly feel like I've murdered 150 enemies already, but apparently the game thinks otherwise. Mph.
Feros will really jack up your kill count, assuming that the Rachni Workers count towards it (I do not see why they wouldn't).
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The point of SO3 is to teach the moral "Be nice to your toys/video game avatars, because you never know when they'll get uppity and come for revenge."
Also, SO3's plot twist makes SO1,2, and 4's plots so much more understandable. When the gods are teenaged MMO-players, plot twists like Faize and Mu make a lot more sense.
At least SO4 finally gave you a ship and let you travel freely to other planets. Phantasy Star has been doing that since before SO1, took them long enough to make it to the party. :<
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ToV- Just thwarted Cumore in Helios. Game's still good, not much else to say otherwise. I will generally second the Yuri hype and the game has excellent party chemistry overall.
Yuri reminds me of Seifer in a way. He couldn't cut in the group Flynn's excelling in and his taking his band to fight other things. Unlike Seifer he isn't written by someone freebasing nuclear waste and his choices make sense.
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Just got to the Scarlet Forest zone in Wizard of Oz, and the graphics are really impressive here. Technically it's limited by DS 3D rendering, but artistically the work is just amazing. Nice music as well.
Need to gather my thoughts more before commenting on the battle system, and nothing else in the game is really interesting enough to be worth discussing. For instance, the trackball movement interface takes some getting used at first, but there's nothing really wrong about it (or conversely, right about it) - it's just different from more conventional games.
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FF2 PSP: Started this up, and made little progress cause...wow, Arcane Labyrinths are available this early? Yeah, doing them for fun, at least to get Minwu's Staff of Light.
The idea behind the Arcane Labyrinth is pretty neat. Dungeon based entirely around the Password system, and its even handled in such a way that you only need to complete each Floor of a word once. The exit can be accessed pretty much instantly (just requires finding it), but there's often a puzzle on the floor which if completed, gets you another Password (one not used in the main game), which gives you access to another floor.
What words you use, when you use them, what category they fall into, etc. all plays a role in this, primarily based around what enemies you fight, what rewards the chests have, and what the ultimate reward you get is. No, the chests are NOT randomly generated ala the Soul of Chaos Dungeons either; its pre-determined based on the above factors, something like 3 potential outcomes (a "Good" "Normal" and "Bad").
Basically, the end result is that while initial runs of a floor can be lengthy, going through it again (you'll have to do this due to how the dungeons are handled) is much faster.
Conceptually this is neat, but execution is a bit off. Mostly cause EVERY floor has random encounters and the encounter rate is higher than typical FF2. Furthermore, the early floors *LOVE* Magicians who love to spam shit like sleep and love to ambush you. This makes doing just one floor a chore.
On the upside? Anytime you complete a floor, you can choose to leave the dungeon. This makes no progress in the dungeon itself (meaning you still have to do the x amount of floors required for that Arcane Labyrinth) *BUT* it lets you keep whatever rewards you got, including the Passwords, so you can just get through already completed floors so redoing things isn't so bad.
As far as the SUPER ULTIMATE WEAPON!!! rewards go, which you get for completing all 3 dungeons and then talking to the guy in the 4th place? They're set up such that its impossible to get certain rewards until certain points. Minwu's and Josef's are apparently available immediately, Leila/Gordon happen somewhat later, and the rest are all late game.
Gordon's is the only really useless one glancing at things though (I'm assuming you are NOT abusing the Minigame for Masamune); Firion, Maria, Guy and Leon all get their weapons available for the entire final dungeon sequence so useful there, and better than stuff available in the final dungeon, Masamune aside. Ricard, Minwu, and Josef all seem to get theirs with actual time left *AND* PSP version still has Soul of Rebirth, so they can transfer the weapons to that and make use of them there, and Leila's the temp with by far the most playing time, so she's around long enough to justify picking it up. Gordon...it would be worthwhile if it was available on his INITIAL recruitment, but as it stands? A weapon for Palamecia Basement alone = meh.
Oh, and as you'd expect, doing these dungeons means your characters get...comparitively much stronger than they should be at certain points in the game, especially since FF2's Run command is as worthless as ever, yay! Honestly annoying cause I hate powerleveling in FF2 for a number of reasons, but seems like if you want to do the Arcane Labyrinth, it comes with the package. At least its not quite as dull and tedious as FF1's Soul of Chaos dungeons.
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FF3DS - Wow, Giant Rat doesn't suck! Well, he didn't in the original either, but I thought he'd be trivialized by an all-mage party with two healers. Guess that wasn't all that right. Still nothing too bad. However, Djinn -did- massively suck in spite of having offense. Yay barely avoiding one-rounding versus an Antarctic Wind.
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Oz- Beat. The wizard himself is one of those 'just right' bosses. Makes you work and really use the system available to you without being outright gimmicky, frustrating, or ball-breakingly hard. This also drives home how nuts some aspects of the game are. I mean, towards the end of the fight I was doing things like four Dorothy turns, in which she defended, healed and Power Boosted Tin Man, then used her attack spell as a giant finger to the whole thing, since Battle Wind was going to kill him next turn anyway (it turns out he buffed and evaded half of it, but that just let him live one more turn.)
There is no story, so jumping straight to DL notes.
Dorothy- Y'know, if I went for defending in the DL, she'd make Godlike. She'll have to settle for being merely the terror of Heavy instead. Although some testing might be in order.
Strawman- Evade whorage! With other useful things. Loathes being forced into a straight slugging match, but otherwise golden. Sorta an improved Arnaud.
Dorothy and Strawman are fairly equal for most of the game. Early skills in general aren't things you use much (Plunder's about the only regular use thing from the first two dragons really), so they're all about the 1 Ratio spammage. Helps that Ghosts and Aquatic are the most common enemy types, and most untyped things are fairly frail. Later, they instead use this ability to defend whore, which is a thing of beauty. Both get useful end skills (Power Boost and Purifying Wind), though Dorothy's attack spell is an interesting option so she wins out.
Lion- Weird. Middle I guess? He sucks for like 90% of the game, but having a targettable attack skill is useful for Oz at the least, and he has the HP to sponge damage for a turn or two while he's at it.
Tin Man- Light. He's not unlike Kongol, trading the healer busting for some raw damage. Which is a shame, he's good at what he does in-game; hang out in the back, then come out for boss fights and Axe Them In The Face. Battle Wind just means he gets a lot BETTER at it.
Bosses- They start at "Winning Heavy" and improve linearly to "Solid Godlike", with Delphi being the borderliner. Holly's the better fight in game ("Faster than Strawman" and "OHKO Strawman via weakness" do that), but Protea has stronger variety and the superior element, so I tend to think she'd be more successful.
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EF2: Going into the home stretch. Just dealt with the beastman trio once and for all, and characters are learning their final spirits and mentalities. Boss fights are definitely more of a challenge than endgame EF1, which is good.
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ME - Yeah, as soon as I slaughtered all the colonists, Obama Shepard got his 150th Assault Rifle kill.
And thus did rise, Cunnilingus Obama Shepard. Back at the Citadel now, taking my time doing the quests this go around. A final couple questions then I think I've got all I need to just play the game: 1. Is there any penalty to taking renegade points when a paragon option isn't available? 2. Are you able to do a same-sex romance plot with any of the characters, or just the Asari jit? This is important because a lesbian romance is the only way the name Cunnilingus Shepard is amusing.
Also, re: Shepard's VA. Both sides of the argument are stupid. Both actors did a good job and seriously "the voice doesn't match the character!1!1!!!"? It's the main in a goddamn Bioware RPG. By virtue of the player roleplaying the character saying that is just goddamn stupid. You people are retarded.
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1. Is there any penalty to taking renegade points when a paragon option isn't available?
No. The only point you might think it's a penalty is in ME2, where paragon points make you look like a normal person, and renegade points give you glowing orange face scars and terminator eyes, and thus, playing both sides makes you have only a few awesome glowing orange scars and no Terminator eyes.
Also, re: Shepard's VA. Both sides of the argument are stupid. Both actors did a good job and seriously "the voice doesn't match the character!1!1!!!"? It's the main in a goddamn Bioware RPG. By virtue of the player roleplaying the character saying that is just goddamn stupid. You people are retarded.
I didn't think there was much of an argument. I even stated my distaste for FemShep's VA is mostly based on other roles I associate with her. Plus, most of these tools are too busy playing games where they get lead by the nose everywhere.
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I didn't think there was much of an argument. I even stated my distaste for FemShep's VA is mostly based on other roles I associate with her. Plus, most of these tools are too busy playing games where they get lead by the nose everywhere.
Forgot that, and was really more directed at... whoever it was saying that the male Shepard VA was entirely inappropriate to the character. Forgot who. Still stupid either way. But most things are.
EDIT: Completely unrelated, but I need to find a way to get the president to name his next daughter Cunnilingus. I'm thinking extortion.
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Forgot that, and was really more directed at... whoever it was saying that the male Shepard VA was entirely inappropriate to the character. Forgot who. Still stupid either way. But most things are.
You sure you haven't played Mass Effect 2? You're talking exactly like Mordin Solus.
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Is... is that a good thing?
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Mordin Solus is AWWWWWWWWESOME. He gave us this.
This is even better if you get blind drunk first! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uXiU6kiq_Ms)
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Picked up my old file of FF3DS.
All four characters have are character level 12, have JL99 in Freelancer and Monk, and have JL64 or 65 in Thief (Luneth), Black Mage (Arc), White Mage (Refia), and Red Mage (Ingus).
Giant Rat was a giant joke. It got killed before it even got a turn thanks to two Fira spells. Luneth even got to steal an Antarctic Wind before it died.
At this point, I just wandering around, kinda lost. Maybe I'll either go back to Ur and grind more job levels... Or try to barrel through the game towards the Water (or Earth) Crystal for the Black Belt job.
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Vinsfeld: But who can intelligently refute my resolution?
:-\
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Darksiders - This game is Zelda TO THE MAX. Not in a good way. It is a straight up Zelda rip off, right down to getting your pony that you can whip to ride faster with 5 carrots to use up before they slowly regenerate. The only thing that isn't ripped off from Zelda is the (gimped) Portal gun from Portal. It even rips from Wind Waker in taking a fucking eternity to gather the first 3 (4 in this case wooo!) wing wongs to get the sword (YOU DON'T KNOW YOU ARE GETTING A SOWRD THOUGH UNTIL YOU GET IT!!!!) to fight the big bad guy, but! Then you have to go get 8 other things (in this case pieces of the sword) from around the world map.
Oh and the art style as stated is The Adventures of Prince Arthas, Space Marine. It is like modern Warcraft art direction raping Warhammer 40k (or like Warhammer and Warhammer 40k having incestuous relations if you want to be snarky). You run around chopping things in half with your sword and then a guy gives you a gun, it is a revolver, but it has UNLIMITED AMMO.
Anyone that likes Dragonforce should play this game, because it is fucking retarded as well.
It is just excess, pure and complete and total excess. It isn't just the art style, it is all the dungeons as well. There is no travel around a world map for you. There is just dungeons to get into your dungeons which take 3 hours to beat. I am 14 hours into the game or so and am almost finished. You might not think that is very long, but that is the game's four fucking dungeons. All I have left is running around and collecting the Triforce and then teleporting to the final boss and killing him. These aren't just long fucking dungeons though. They are long fucking REPETETIVE dungeons. You normally get your new special weapon that solves all the puzzles in the dungeon and owns the boss 3/4 of the way through just like you would in Zelda. But not for the last dungeon. Oh no that is where you get the portal gun. You get that straight away. And it solves -everything in the dungeon-. You get 3 hours of really bad Portal knock off, you know about as long as Portal its fucking self is. Except it has all the puzzles of one level of Portal. And you can't stick it on any surface, you have to find the designated points you can stick it to. So you have 15 minutes of puzzle crammed into 3 hours. And the puzzles solve themselves. It is painful how often they repeat the same puzzle. Hey guys, guess what, I have to shoot this portal point onto a moving platform so that I can shoot another moving platform through that portal and then jump to the next platform. It isn't in the first of 3 wings to the dungeon (1 hour each! yay!), but they still manage to use the fucking puzzle 5 damned times. This is just me ranting about the most FRESH example. The other 4 dungeons leading up to the final (which does not contain the final boss) are just as bad in one way or another.
You know what I just realized? It is like what you would get if you tried to make Brutal Legend but took it deadly seriously. Except even that might be able to generate some kind of joy.
This game is just bad. I am going to beat it because that is what I do. Beat bad games. It isn't like Twilight Princess where I am just ambivalent and don't care, this is actual honest to god BAD rip off. Uninspired everything done the wrong way to do a Zelda game.
So if you are retarded and like stupid things, check out Darksiders.
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ToV-Just cleared the ghost ship. The only annoyance there was trying to control Judith or Karol (That went poorly).
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I found that Karol's not too bad if you keep in mind that a) he's not a standard fighter, don't try to chain his Artes like he is (Mighty Charge is generally more workable) and b) Really, he's a pocket healer/support mage at heart.
My impression is that Judy is very aerial and has incredibly technical timing on her everything, so basically she's for insane people who are really good at these games. So yeah, best off not using her.
That said, you... might be far enough for Light Magic to show up. Once you get that you can control Rita quite painlessly. Even if not, spamming Fireball is actually viable for human control in general, even with Heavy Magic. Worth getting a good setup on her and used to her timing early, since once Overlimit Rita Spam is pretty well the boss fighting strategy of choice in the back half of the game.
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You should be able to use some basic combos with Judy normally. Set up skills, knock something in air, use a base arte->Arcane arte. The godly infinite nonsense is for crazy people, normal people can squeeze her for an averagish Tales fighter just fine.
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Considering that I'm not one of the crazy technical people but I found Judy pretty easy to use and often swap between using her and Yuri now, yeah, she's not that bad at all. Controlling Karol was painful, I'll agree. Raven wasn't too bad, but Yuri/Judy > him pretty clearly.
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Dragon Age: Finished up the recruitment quests, and am now rounding out with a bit of sidequesting. Finished Morrigan's quest, with the boss being a bit of a pain in the ass, but Wynne managing to finish it off right before she herself was killed. Gonna round out another one or two, then advance to the Landsmeet or the thing that precedes the Landsmeet. Whichever you consider it.
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2. Are you able to do a same-sex romance plot with any of the characters, or just the Asari jit? This is important because a lesbian romance is the only way the name Cunnilingus Shepard is amusing.
No, you can only do same sex with the Asari. There was a Kaiden/Ashley same-sex romance originally but it was cut for some reason. They're on Youtube if you really care, though the Kaiden/Male Shepard one is weird because Male Shepard turns into a woman during the night of passionate pants-on hugging and then back into a male again with female lines during the cuddle talk. The Ashley/Female Shepard one is pretty much intact though.
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SO4 - Currently facing down the team arena top dogs. I must be doing something wrong here though because Lymle is contributin 99.99% of all damage done at this point. As in she does 200K with a rush combo and everyone else does near nothing.
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I don't have much interest in learning Judy or most other character, Yuri and Repede are fine to control. Was caught off guard by the party split nonsense and it forcing both of the characters I control into one team, though.
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I believe from here on in, you'll have Yuri in your party the rest of the game, so that won't be an issue.
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I believe from here on in, you'll have Yuri in your party the rest of the game, so that won't be an issue.
That one little section is the reason Yuri can't have 100% party usage, sadly.
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I believe from here on in, you'll have Yuri in your party the rest of the game, so that won't be an issue.
That one little section is the reason Yuri can't have 100% party usage, sadly.
You can Holy Bottle your way past it.
But there is one forced battle later that does make it so no 100% Yuri.
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Used Judy from pretty much the moment she was available. Yuri does fine on AI, Judy less so, and I wanted my physical beatdown team. I ran most of the game with Yuri/Judy/Karol/Raven. Occasionally used Repede.
Oh, and of course I swapped in Rita for bosses, because that's just far too efficient.
Anyway, Judy's game doesn't get broken-fun until near endgame when you can finally get the Aerial Dash/Backdash/Cancel/Insta-landing skills. Basically, once you can put Judy anywhere on the screen with the control pad, she ends up far more versatile than Yuri. Also, the fact that ToV's auto-targetting is actually -good- doesn't hurt.
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DQ8- Just kicked Marchello's ass. I liked the whole "No, Rhapthorne, you's my bitch" part of the whole thing. Way to go Guv. Not that Rhapthorne wouldn't have found a way anyway. So glad to be nearing the end of this game. Despite how much I like it, it's just felt like a slog all the way.
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FF2 PSP: Just saw the Dreadnaught fly off, which means I lose Minwu soon! Before that, I got the Staff of Light which is incredibly hax (+50 Int, Agility and Spirit and better power than the Mage STaff? HOLY CRAP!), also you get ass loads of gil from this due to selling Beserk Tomes and such. The Arcane Labyrinths go much faster when you don't do puzzles, for all that Wizard is still a pain; don't think I'll ever have to do Wizard again though, since it looks like its only really useful for Minwu's weapon.
So anyway, so far so...OOOOH! FF13!
Final Fantasy 13: Just got to the first "WOULD YOU LIVE TO SAVE!?" prompt. Happened about as early as expected, figured it'd be a good stopping point cause its late. So far? Game's style FF7 like only jacked up about 20 notches in terms of action. Also, I can already see why Niu was calling Snow a moron, for all that he hasn't done anything really stupid yet, the potential to go down the path of idiocy is exceedingly there.
Battle system...despite controlling only the leader, its rather engaging, and yeah, actually feels like Auto Battle on the Allies may add to it cause of just how fast paced it is. May be a first that a Non-ARPG feels justified in having forced AI PCs, but well, we'll see how things turn out.
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Good to see you understand, Meep.
I found that Karol's not too bad if you keep in mind that a) he's not a standard fighter, don't try to chain his Artes like he is (Mighty Charge is generally more workable) and b) Really, he's a pocket healer/support mage at heart.
My impression is that Judy is very aerial and has incredibly technical timing on her everything, so basically she's for insane people who are really good at these games. So yeah, best off not using her.
That said, you... might be far enough for Light Magic to show up. Once you get that you can control Rita quite painlessly. Even if not, spamming Fireball is actually viable for human control in general, even with Heavy Magic. Worth getting a good setup on her and used to her timing early, since once Overlimit Rita Spam is pretty well the boss fighting strategy of choice in the back half of the game.
Rita is very usable after you have Rhythm and Wonder Symbol. Spamming low level spell is quite easy at that point. And once you have some alternate arts with magic combo, everything is even easier. Fire Ball->Eruption or Rock Break-Riot Horn are the most handy things.
And... you can actually Karol, just his combo style is about mopping enemy on the floor instead of fighting them when they are standing.
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Three random comments.
The first is vain fist shaking at Meeple. Though, honestly, I'll get around to playing FF XIII some day, since it looks interesting.
The second is a note that while under the influence of Berserk Staves, Roy's ladies are far, far more vengeful than Minato's could ever dream of being.
And third, as odd as it may seem, Growlanser 2 is the story of a boy and his robot. This has also become my game of choice when just randomly hanging with Elf and Ciato (as opposed to D&D sessions with them and others) due to the snark value the game provides. Got as far as a random catgirl ambush, which has killed me. Expect a more comprehensive post later, as Wein's World needs to be more fully mocked in front of a large audience.
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Front Mission
Played through the UCS path.
I think that the plot flowed better than the OCU path, although it does rely on you having played the OCU path first rather heavily. It's somewhat aided by being far less follow-the-dots-across-the-island than the OCU path. Kind of stalls at the end, however. Also random movie around a third of the way in. I don't remember the OCU side getting a movie.
Because interface complaints never get old, I will append to my previous ones annoyance at the slowdown that happens while scrolling through the Buy list in shops. Especially since 99% of the time anything you want to buy will be at the bottom, and you can only see what items are new in the Buy list and not in the Setup list. And scrolling through the setup list can take any scrolling you throw at it despite it bringing up a picture of your whole wanzer with the equipment you currently have highlighted whereas the Buy list only shows the individual piece of equipment.
Also perturbed that two thirds of my save slots are now filled with essentially useless clear saves. Theoretically I could not care about them I suppose but that risks missing out on some actual point to playing a newgame+ that I'm not currently aware of.
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EF2: Point of no return. I'm wandering around taking down wanted monsters before jumping in. Just dealt with Monster O (the final one), who was a total pain in the ass. Not because he was strong - nobody died at all, which is unusual - but because he has the best block strength in the game and is some kind of freakish ultra-heavyweight. Dear God was he a pain in the ass to juggle.
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WA2 - So how long until this game actually provides something in the realm of being a challenge?
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WA2 - So how long until this game actually provides something in the realm of being a challenge?
...challenge? In a PS1 WA game? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!
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WA2 - So how long until this game actually provides something in the realm of being a challenge?
...challenge? In a PS1 WA game? BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH!!!!!
Good to know that I'll get to enjoy watching Brad nuke the fuck out of things for a looong time.
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Take on Ragu ASAP! There's challenge! ... kinda. >_>
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Even though she played to two of my turn-ons at once, that mom who totally telegraphed her death in FF13 deserved to die for what she did to her son. It's like she wanted a daughter so when she got a son she just pretended he was a chick, and that's fucked up.
Also, hilarious black guy stereotyping. Good for you, Japan.
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XS2 - Pretty sure I could have done over 2x Level 4's max HP in a single chain there. Maybe 3x? Yo dawg I heard you like taking 1000 damage per hit so I cast Thunder Sword on everyone so they could hit your thunder weakness while also hitting your slashing/piercing weakness. <3 elemental chains.
Anyway, subconscious domain is excellent, has some of my favourite scenes in the series (most of the Jr./Albedo flashback stuff is pretty golden, they do a good job of building Albedo up as a total nut). The series is as schizophrenic as ever on plot, though. Shion is completely insufferable to me now given that I know her bitchiness is never really going to be addressed beyond everyone going "we love and trust Shion she is so smart and works so hard" wait she doesn't do ANYTHING besides whine and be a bitch and be stupid. At least SC domain lacks much Shion. On the plus side I like Canaan a bit better than I remembered (fuck you XS3), while he is boring much of the time some of the deadpan lines he delivers are pretty funny.
Gameplay is what it's all about, finding that perfect balance between preparing (stocking and occasionally buffing), healing, and actually attacking in randoms is a lot of fun. Been paying pretty close attention to who works best in which randoms now, which does help a fair deal. For the most part, for instance, I liked Ziggy/MOMO/KOS-MOS in much of the SC domain (hard hitters, and there's some notable fire/slashing weaks in there for Ziggy to prey on, while MOMO with an appropriate sword ether cast takes out the near-physical immune golems effectively), but then switched to Shion/chaos/KOS-MOS for the infected URTVs (weak to both thunder and aura and frail enough to reward chaos and Shion's quick kills, while KOS with Thunder Sword cast is mean), and then finally the traditional MOMO/Jr./KOS for the boss so I could sword everyone (sadly that party is usually pretty hard to argue with for bosses unless fire is your go-to element). I do need to try to fit attack ethers into my plans more often but I find it a bit awkward.
FE11 or whatever - 17x. The manaketes in Altea Castle where insane on H3. 21 speed what the fuck.
Sedgar has definitely paid off now that he has good enough stats to actually be a Horseman again.
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FFXIII initial review- About 3 hours in
Characters
Snow: Honestly, FF male leads all annoy me. Snow/Van/Tidus are all annoying jackasses. Snow is no different. So far, he might actually have been as much harm as good.
Lightning: Feel like I could like her, depending on the path they take her down. She definitely gets style points and points for being an FF main that doesn't think anything through.
Token Black Guy: Agreeing with Rob here... this guy is THE stereotype for black people. He's like the token comedic black guy, the token hip black guy, the token hiphop black guy, and every other token black guy rolled into one. That said, he is decent comic relief so far.
New Rikku/Spazzy Orange hair chick- The hyper energetic (jailbait?) character. Unlike Rikku though, she might have something actually going for her in terms of substance. They've dropped some foreshadowing so we'll see how that goes.
Whiny Son- Okay I get it, your life sucks. But why is a kid who was willing to fly one of those crazy contraptions willing to let his mom go off alone because he didn't like guns? You fail kid and so far you're annoying.
So... 3/5 characters I'll end up liking so far probably, not awful considering FF male lead is typically an auto 0/1.
Battle
I must say... I'm not a fan of the auto AI, but it's working so far. The real issue is how well it'll work once we actually have more than 1-2 moves each. Everything has been so easy so far that I haven't looked into it much, but I haven't leveled/gained skills/anything yet... which will get old real quick.
Plot
I feel that I've just passed the long intro phase and I don't wanna spoil anything. Besides, I'm largely undecided on how I'm going to like it.
Effects
THIS GAME IS FUCKING PRETTY. I've played 10-12 PS3 games and they all look like shit compared to this one. Plain and simple. The music has been underwhelming, but not awful so far. Nothing that I remember hating, but nothing that I remember loving.
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Sadly, I think the Jerry Bruckheimer Black Dude is somehow also the best character. Lightning is like they took all the awful Renegade options from Mass Effect and then made a character out of them. Snow is like anti-Albel, instead of thinking he's the villain, he goes around calling himself the hero, but not in a way with panache like Balthier did. The hyper chick makes me want to choke her eyes out of her sockets, and Ladyboy deserves to die by inverted crucifixion.
Bruckheimer Black Guy got major points when Ladyboy was bitching about his father didn't care about him because he couldn't go on vacation with him and his mom, and Black Dude told him off.
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Token Black Guy: Agreeing with Rob here... this guy is THE stereotype for black people. He's like the token comedic black guy, the token hip black guy, the token hiphop black guy, and every other token black guy rolled into one. That said, he is decent comic relief so far.
Let me know if he ends up being killed off.
Picked up FF13 to play next week on my week off work. Got stuff planned for most of this week.
Darksiders - Finished this. The ending sucked as much as expected. Snooze final boss. Romg the douches that are douches betray you so you betray them right back and cause armageddon to summon the other 3 horseman and then there is no resolution and you can't really tell what the fucking point was and everything was failfailfailfailfail.
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He hasn't even screamed "BOOTY!!!!" yet, so I don't know if the Japanese are THAT up on their black guy stereotypes. They tend to be about 30 years behind us, so he's much more likely to eat a plate of chicken and waffles and then hop in his Caddy and head to the dojo for some Kung Fu.
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I love how people completely forgot that "Token Black Guy" is completely Non-standard to the jRPG Genre in and of itself, and for this reason alone, Sazh kicks ass (even if he's a walking Hollywood Stereotype)
Anyway...
FF13: Just beat Garuda Interceptor. Game's been fun so far!
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I love how people completely forgot that "Token Black Guy" is completely Non-standard to the jRPG Genre in and of itself, and for this reason alone, Sazh kicks ass (even if he's a walking Hollywood Stereotype)
Anyway...
FF13: Just beat Garuda Interceptor. Game's been fun so far!
I'm not laughing at the fact they're using a token character, I'm laughing at how the Japanese are doing it second-hand.
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I love how people completely forgot that "Token Black Guy" is completely Non-standard to the jRPG Genre in and of itself, and for this reason alone, Sazh kicks ass (even if he's a walking Hollywood Stereotype)
Anyway...
FF13: Just beat Garuda Interceptor. Game's been fun so far!
I'm not laughing at the fact they're using a token character, I'm laughing at how the Japanese are doing it second-hand.
The guy does a mini moonwalk while shooting badguys with his gun held sideways. He IS win.
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I am not too sure if non-standard makes the matters any better. I saw his "token-ness," in trailers and quite frankly am not surprised.
Playing SO First Departure on the PSP!
Need to get back to Kingdom Hearts 358/2.
Gunna beat Lost Odyssey soon, I swear~
Last Remnant currently has a 2/10 rating so far for super fail.
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ME: Cunnilingus Shepard is a Spectre, and I think I've finished most of the quests now. Maybe it's just me but a lot of the lines so far seem to be the same between the paragon and renegade paths. Not all of them, mind you, but enough that I was worried that the game had glitched for a little bit. I suppose, thinking on it, most of those are where it's irrelevant what you say anyway because the scene can only go one way (council hearings, etc.) Didn't take Wrex in to deal with Fist because I'm pretty sure it net me more paragon points. Gonna finish up the citadel and then find the Asari jit. Not going to finalize a party juuust yet, but she's going to have to be pretty good for me to swap out either Ashley or Wrex. Garrus and Kaiden are waaaay less useful now that I'm a not-Soldier and actually have some biotic/tech skills.
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Garrus is still awesome, just not so much. Overload and then sniper rifle pretty much owns.
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ToV- Just beat up Zagi again. Loser, etc. Want to finish the game before really commenting, though I will say that ToV needs to put less puzzles in the dungeons. It was doing so well up to Hercles!
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DQ8- Finished this today. Started it April 2007. Glad to finally be done. Liked the ending. 69 hours all told, felt like triple that. Every step of the game felt like a slog, despite liking the game as much as I did. 8/10 all told, but it was a coinflip between 7 and 8. Might have been a 9 if not for the slog.
BoF5 next!
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WA2 - So how long until this game actually provides something in the realm of being a challenge?
Anglomois... WA2 has his most ridiculous incarnation.
.hack//link- I don't know why I am still playing this, but torture is not enough of a word to described how mass up this piece of my sister's dirty shit is. They don't even allow us to think they are wandering AIs to make everything that happened is not true......
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FFXIII- Going along smoothly... liking plot and gameplay for the most part, but since liking things is boring... this is what is bothering me so far.
1. Too much 2 person fighting. Fighting with 2 people is a lot slower and a lot more boring than fighting with 3. I'm assuming this will go away eventually, but for not it's a nuisance.
2. The trash mob fights actually take time in this game (some run 2 mins on average) so having to do 10-15 of them between semi-important events is ehh.
3. People keep hitting Snow and I'm annoyed that I can't.
Other than those minor issues the game is pretty good thus far.
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FFXIII - The intro is looooong but I've played S5 so it didn't faze me very much. I'm up to the point where enemies are actually forcing me to switch paragisms or however you spell it.
Though I must question something. Why does a machine you wreaked and blew to pieces come back 10x stronger? Its like the army have valiant cast on their machines or something.
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Despite Last Remnant currently being a boring game with worse character animation than Legend of Legaia, it does manage to do one thing. I can pretty much save anywhere. Good shit, since I can't play the game for too long at the moment. Granted, I just made it to the second city, so maybe the game is starting off extremely slow. Anyway, the battle system reminds me of Suikoden III except there's a larger battlefield, the ability to roam with some sRPG maneuvering elements. Getting the impression it is including randomized troops you can hire to help you with areas, IE, a tactical game. Haven't seen how well it's gone yet though. Battle system is fine - nothing spantastic about it. Tendency to lag in-between moves which sucks for the connecting combos. Music in-game is five times better than listening to it on the comp.
Star Ocean First Departure - left Portmith. Thinking I need to level up a bit as randoms are taking out too much on ILIA. Actually, that would be a great idea because I need to get some more Skill points as ILIA is the only person with a special right now. Not too excited by auto-target because it makes my main sometimes run around in a circle. I'll play around with the options. Storyline is as expected from its notoriety in the series. They added SO3 elements and contracted some of the original stuff (skill allotment) buuuuut, it's still a fine game.
Ubermarici. Weird name for a Remnant. I'd have prefered. . . ubermanci.
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FFXIII - The intro is looooong but I've played S5 so it didn't faze me very much. I'm up to the point where enemies are actually forcing me to switch paragisms or however you spell it.
Though I must question something. Why does a machine you wreaked and blew to pieces come back 10x stronger? Its like the army have valiant cast on their machines or something.
Naturally to our untrained eyes, all machines look alike.
It's like if I'm from a planet that has never seen a Brazilian person. I could beat up a Brazilian and think, "man that was pretty easy." Then a day later I see Royce Gracie and think it's the guy I already beat up. 30 seconds later when I'm on the ground crying, I'm gonna be wondering what happened.
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Endless Frontier EXCEED: Beat. Final party, inasmuch as you have fixed parties in boss fights, was Axelfimi, Aldy, Haken and Kaguya. Reiji, KOS-MOS and Neige also saw heavy use, while Suzuka, Aschen and Xiaomu were thrown to the wayside. Last boss was...okay? First phase took a while, but the second fell pretty quickly, even with his extremely scary uberspirit. The way you kill him was stylish as all hell.
Overall, the game's a pretty solid 8/10. Every change they made from EF1, gameplay-wise, was good. Solid ideas, good implementation, the works. The new characters play distinctly, the new mechanics fit, and I really can't think of anything to complain about in the changes. Game is still pretty breakable, but more of that breaking is now dependent on you being good at it - for instance, you can now use screen-clearing Overdrives in every fight and recover double-digit SP after a battle, provided you can also string together three-digit combos on demand. It rewards you for combo skill while enemy guarding and Forced Evasion are still there to punish you for sucking. Support Defense forces you to use everyone in big fights, another nice addition. I can't rate the story, obviously, but judging from the first EF that's a point in its favor.
The only complaint I have is the NG+ content. It's a 34-stage extra dungeon, but it's scaled for an endgame party, and you start NG+ back at level 1. So you have to go through the 25+ hour game again, with most of the challenge gone because you've got all your old cash and equipment, before you get to the new stuff. Bleh. I don't think I'll be doing that for a while.
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FFXIII - The intro is looooong but I've played S5 so it didn't faze me very much. I'm up to the point where enemies are actually forcing me to switch paragisms or however you spell it.
Though I must question something. Why does a machine you wreaked and blew to pieces come back 10x stronger? Its like the army have valiant cast on their machines or something.
FACT: Robots are like Dragon Ball Z characters. If you almost kill them they get way stronger, which in turn begs the question on why they bothered training at all instead of just taking turns blasting each other in the chest with rockets.
Anyway, even the jungles in this game have fucking corridors.
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What you mean Vegeta losing to the second weakest Ginyu member, getting beat up 4-5 times, and then beating Freiza's 3rd form doesn't make sense? Blastphemy. DBZ plot is not to be questioned!
And yeah, just beat the forest and thought the same thing. The buildings are all poorly designed and seem to be super long walkways, the jungles too. Buuut... it's an RPG and it's damn pretty so I'm letting it slide.
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I remember being pretty annoyed by the ridiculous linearity of the early game (although there are decentish setting reasons for some of the odd environments). I mean, it's no worse than many others I've played, but FFs tend to have a bit more exploration early on.
I can't bring myself to hate early game Sazh as much as I probably should because that goddamn chocobo is unbearably cute.
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What you mean Vegeta losing to the second weakest Ginyu member, getting beat up 4-5 times, and then beating Freiza's 3rd form doesn't make sense? Blastphemy. DBZ plot is not to be questioned!
Actually, Vegita NEVER beat Frieza's 3rd form; Frieza just sort of got pissed at Dende keeping everyone healed, went form 4, then Vegeta went all "HA I'LL BEAT YOU!" Vegeta then got his ass kicked badly. Oh sure, it seemed like he was doing well at first, but that's cause Frieza was literally just toying with Vegeta, as once he stopped playing defensively, fight sort of just became massively one sided.
Also, DBZ is pretty consistent...until the Buu Saga...on the fact that Saya-jins getting injured -> Healed = Massive Power Boost. IT has to be a genuine injury though, like getting beaten within an inch of his life. Also, from what I understand, the difference in power between Recoom and Baata/Jeice was...rather minor (unlike GUldo whose a weakling and Ginyu whose twice as strong.) Only Saya-jins and Cell (who has Saya-jin Cells in him, so he inheritted the trait) ever show this off. The humans just become useless regardless where they are, Piccolo just gets stronger by either fusing or some massive training, Villains usually just find some bullshit halfassed power up like most RPG final bosses have.
Does this make sense? No, but DBZ is actually consistent about it, so it does deserve at least that much credit.
I know, I just analyzed DBZ plot, but people immediately assume random shit about DBZ and...uhh...yes, its the Poster Boy for Cheap Shonen Anime, but that doesn't mean it fails at everything everywhere.
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Well, not saying it fails at everything everywhere. I enjoyed it through the Cell saga. But regardless, the Saiyan power growth was pretty damned random. If it was good as it was duying the Frieza Saga, Vegeta would have been having minions beat him to within an inch of his life and then healing in one of those cool tanks his entire life. Sure it took a week or so to heal, but in a year you'd be stronger than anything.
Not that I really care. There isn't an Anime out there without silly plot holes like that when they try and put an actual number on strength. Just poking fun at it. (For that Yu yu Hakusho comes to mind also. 6 fighters all train under the old bitch and end up with powers like 4k within each other... when initially there was a decent difference between their powers.)
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Naturally to our untrained eyes, all machines look alike.
It's like if I'm from a planet that has never seen a Brazilian person. I could beat up a Brazilian and think, "man that was pretty easy." Then a day later I see Royce Gracie and think it's the guy I already beat up. 30 seconds later when I'm on the ground crying, I'm gonna be wondering what happened.
Thats possible but there only seems to be one of that kind of robot. Why the army would invest in a one of a kind robot is anyones guess.
FACT: Robots are like Dragon Ball Z characters. If you almost kill them they get way stronger, which in turn begs the question on why they bothered training at all instead of just taking turns blasting each other in the chest with rockets.
Its quite an impressive robot then considering it lost both its arms and its ability to fly yet still tracked me down after falling from massive heights. Then again the robot is Guard Scorpians cousin....
But regardless, the Saiyan power growth was pretty damned random. If it was good as it was duying the Frieza Saga, Vegeta would have been having minions beat him to within an inch of his life and then healing in one of those cool tanks his entire life. Sure it took a week or so to heal, but in a year you'd be stronger than anything.
I always gathered it was % based as it would otherwise make little sense. Thus the higher your base power level the more you gained from the ability.
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Well, not saying it fails at everything everywhere. I enjoyed it through the Cell saga. But regardless, the Saiyan power growth was pretty damned random. If it was good as it was duying the Frieza Saga, Vegeta would have been having minions beat him to within an inch of his life and then healing in one of those cool tanks his entire life. Sure it took a week or so to heal, but in a year you'd be stronger than anything.
Well eventually his minions wouldn't be able to hurt him and stall out his growth.
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True but what would stop him from blasting himself?
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It'd be easy enough to hand wave and make it something like "SAIYANS ONLY GET MORE POWERFUL AFTER BEING INJURED IN BATTLE!1!!!!111" or something like that. It's not like DBZ plot is anything complex.
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I think the logic is simply the battle thing; Saya-jins are a warrior race, Battle to them is higher on the tier of importance than Sex (no wonder their race got nearly extinct; screw the "Planet blew up!" excuse!), so naturally everything related to them is battle.
DBZ plot is pretty simplistic for the most part, cause hey, its Shonen anime and meant to be all about BIG AWESOME FIGHTS!!!!! and what not. Its pretty easy to make an excuse without having to come up with genuine logic when its just "Warrior Race -> They have bizarre advantages in building muscle mass!"
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Well, not saying it fails at everything everywhere. I enjoyed it through the Cell saga. But regardless, the Saiyan power growth was pretty damned random. If it was good as it was duying the Frieza Saga, Vegeta would have been having minions beat him to within an inch of his life and then healing in one of those cool tanks his entire life. Sure it took a week or so to heal, but in a year you'd be stronger than anything.
Well eventually his minions wouldn't be able to hurt him and stall out his growth.
Well, you could always have a couple of your minions growing strong with you. Not strong enough to be a threat, but strong enough to beat you down. I mean Krillin vs Vegeta is pretty laughable, but Krillin was still able to beat Vegeta up when he allowed it.
But getting back on topic. Major plot twist in FFXIII RAWR. It makes very little sense right now, but I'm assuming it will down the line.
Also, this plot is feeling a lot too FFXish with some FFVII mixed in. Makes sense considering what people think of those 2 games though...
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Toriyama was clearly making everything up as he went along with DBZ, considering how wildly it veered from the early Dragonball chapters. The anime version also suffers from some really lame filler they threw in to buy time.
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SRWJ - I'm getting to the point where I'm beginning to wonder why I leave the battle display on, and then I get Bonta-Kun, and I remember why I like that feature. As of right now, on Map 35, almost done beating up the Layzner goons. Finding, oddly enough, that the God Gundam is slightly worse than the Shining Gundam. Damage isn't really any higher, and it feels less evasive. Though part of that could just be the enemies finally starting to get better. Also wondering why original mech upgrades get any hype, since I have a rough idea of how long this game is, and we're starting to hit late for a Chapter 2 mech to upgrade, and in about four maps, this will hit stupidly late. Especially when the freaking Mazinkaiser came ten maps ago, and it's been two or three since it got its absurd Sword upgrade.
On a side note, Mazinkaiser is rocking worlds. Only real flaw so far is that it is a one pilot super robot, so it doesn't get extra SP in exchange for being constantly hit. But its defense is so crazy that... I honestly don't even care to pull out the defensive spirits against most bosses right now.
Also, is it just me, or is Bonta-Kun actually worse than the Arbalest. I mean, I'm not going to replace it just yet because game's still easy, and the animations are still kickass. But, seems like the secrets aren't that good. (Granted, not going for IWSP or Zeorymer Mk2 this playthrough, so who knows. Those could be worth it.)
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God Gundam is a pretty significant improvement in mobility over Shining (90/135 -> 100/150, + DoubleImage clone) so you must be having bad luck. Either that or fighting stronger enemies.
Bonta-kun is pretty clearly weaker than Arbalest, yeah; it would make no sense whatsoever plotwise for it to be stronger. It's there as an entertainment option.
Best non-Great Zeorymer secrets are Tekkaman Rapier (moreso for the insane combo attack with Blade than as an individual unit) and Layzner MkII. IWSP is really only slightly better than mediocre, it's just a huge step up from the other Strike Packs which are downright awful lategame.
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Also, I believe in that game the God Gundam is B in Air? If so, make sure you land it to get rid of that, it makes a pretty big difference.
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Hmm, Layzner Mk II hasn't been so hot so far, but I'll admit that could just be that it never seemed like much more than filler before either. As for the God Gundam, yeah... the few maps since then have involved too much time over water, which means there's a B rating either way. That'd do it.
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A Modules are your friend.
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Layzner MkII has a 4000 power V-Max, which is better than any Real can pull off in J except for Blade/Freedom/Justice/maybe Rapier. Oh, and God Gundam if you count that as a real (it gets more weapons later on). It also has some really insane potential movement in flight mode, V-Max stat boosts, and enough mobility to dodge everything if you invest in it. Also Layzner Formation upgrades to ~6000 power or something impressive like that, for all that it requires using Baldy and Babel so most people won't ever see it. With all that said it's still merely a solid unit and not anything incredible, but it's a clear statistical winner compared to IWSP and Gai's Aestivalis. The less said about X-Aestivalis or Balzack the better.
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Well, you could always have a couple of your minions growing strong with you. Not strong enough to be a threat, but strong enough to beat you down. I mean Krillin vs Vegeta is pretty laughable, but Krillin was still able to beat Vegeta up when he allowed it.
DBZ has stated that characters can power down at will, thus make themselves significantly weaker. Obviously, Vegita dropped all his guard and lowered his power down to the point where Krillin could significant damage to him. Besides, considering the scenario wasn't exactly normal. Strongest guy in the universe, you get stronger when you're near dead *AND* there happens to be a kid with super awesome healing powers, it was a gambit (one that failed miserably granted.)
Branching from DBZ, cause people are looking too deeply into this instead of just saying "Its a freaking action based Shonen Anime/Manga, just take things for what they are!"...
FF2: Dreadnaught time!
Josef's Unique weapon is...a Dagger. Um, ok, I guess its better than going in with not-adequate Fist levels, especially cause of Shield Compatibility, in Soul of Rebirth, but its kind of insulting considering he has no levels in Daggers, and you've probably been raising him purely as a Monk due to 3 levels in Fists initially, and they hit much harder than weapons at the time, not worth raising him in other weapons. Still kind of a dick move cause every other character gets something logical (well, not Leon, he was more "Firion gets a sword, Guy gets a Axe, lets give Leon the Lance!" but Leon's Lance levels are at least adequate enough.) I guess they went with logic of "Cat Claw = Dagger, LETS MAKE DRAGON CLAW TOO!"
Honsetly, they should have made it a new weapon class being Claw, which functions on Fist levels, and works as an alternative to Unarmed, ubt whatever. It'd give Josef a Niche instead of basically saying "Give him Excalibur in Soul of Rebirth eventually, cause he gets no super awesome unique."
Also, not bothering with Gungnir; Gordon really sin't worth it. Dancing Dagger, when I get Leila now? Yeah, would bother with that.
FF13: Lightning and Hope are a lot more fun than Sazh and Vanille. I guess its just the fact that Lightning as a Commando > Sazh as a Commando, for how fights flow.
I awnt to play this game more but something keeps coming up, be it school, random shit with parents, Brother Deciding He Wants to Hog the TV For Some Movie He's Already Seen BUT WAIT HASN'T SEEN THE DUB, etc. So yeah, only 10~ Hours in despite enjoying this a lot.
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FF13 - In chapter 10 messing around with the teams and considering all the choice I don't quite know who to take. Lightning, Sazh and Hope are who I'm running around with at moment but not sure all round.
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FF13 - In chapter 10 messing around with the teams and considering all the choice I don't quite know who to take. Lightning, Sazh and Hope are who I'm running around with at moment but not sure all round.
Gonna need a Sentinel and a Saboteur in there, I think.
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FF13 - In chapter 10 messing around with the teams and considering all the choice I don't quite know who to take. Lightning, Sazh and Hope are who I'm running around with at moment but not sure all round.
Is there much of a difference in the way characters play?
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Each character can fill three roles, until you hit Disc 3 and then all six open up for everyone. Though, the three new jobs that open up for each character are as expensive to start as your last tier of skills are in the jobs you already have, so that's basically an after-game thing, and the game's not really set up for it. It's kind of like FFX. Yes, until a point in the aftergame.
In other news: Yay, I'm finally done with the introductory sequence and can get taken off these rails. What do you mean the game's almost over?
Honestly, getting to Gran Pulse and running around should have happened like, five hours in. This is actually pretty fun, running around and exploring and seeing all the different types of monsters roaming the land (and sometimes, fighting each other, which is cool). And most importantly... OPEN SPACES.
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FF13 - In chapter 10 messing around with the teams and considering all the choice I don't quite know who to take. Lightning, Sazh and Hope are who I'm running around with at moment but not sure all round.
Gonna need a Sentinel and a Saboteur in there, I think.
You almost always need 2 Commandos, 2 Medics, and 2 Ravangers with a Sabeteur for dispel and Sentinel for tanking. Defaults the best party to Fang/Lightning/Hope. Sazh and Haste are bitchin but lack of medic means Lightning gets hit with anti-spell and you're fucked.
Anyways, I finished up the first 4 missions of Grand Pulse. Wow, why did the game take so long to get here? The first area I saw was freaking huge with a large variety of monsters including collosal dinosaur that competely rapes your ass. Holding Up and X was tiring after the first 15 hours.
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Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days - Up to the hardcore levelling spot (4-3).
Bioshock 2: Rank 38 multiplayer. Bought the multiplayer pack. Love the new burst fire Nail Gun.
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I'll try what everyones saying for a bit. Current paras are agression, evened odds, soldanity, delta attack, protection and scouting party. Party leader is Hope because the AI loves to spam cure when I want a cura.
Should I make a balanced lightning for this set up though? She is currently a physical powerhouse with average magic.
FF13 - Just beat Mr Big arm. He may have half the hp the last guy did but damn is he harder.
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You almost always need 2 Commandos, 2 Medics, and 2 Ravangers with a Sabeteur for dispel and Sentinel for tanking. Defaults the best party to Fang/Lightning/Hope. Sazh and Haste are bitchin but lack of medic means Lightning gets hit with anti-spell and you're fucked.
I like seeing this; it indicates to me that, as I'd kinda suspected that there were a variety of ways to play this game tactically. My workhorse party for the second half of the game was the pure offense of Lightning/Hope/Vanilla (or Lightning/Hope/Fang later on as I realized how much better a Saboteur Fang was); didn't have much use for Sentinels except in the face of the occasional ridiculous offense enemy, never really bothered with a second medic until the aftergame, which is also when I started to learn pure simple the joy of multiple commandos. Always relied on items for status healing.
Anyways, point is, I like that the game seems to have some flexibility in how to play it.
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FFXIII strategy talk! I've done like 9 missions in Pulse and gotten lost about 7 times. Here goes! (Disclaimer, Snow/Hope annoy me, thus non if at all possible)
Was using Lightning/Fang/Vanille. A lot of AOE trash mobs and Com/Com/Rav was really nice for the dual AOE + Magic to up the combo. For bosses I'd switch to Medic/Sab/Sab to start. Fang/Vanille each have different spells there currently so it worked. Good slow/debuffing and I stayed at full life to start fights. Against beefy mobs I'd go Rav/Com/Rav to get them staggered or Rav/Com/Med when needed.
However... Sentinel sucks. I've found maybe 3 fights all game where it had an actual use. (OMG ENEMY CHARGING GATLING GUN!) Every other time it just causes you to lose score. Sooo, ditching Fang for Sazh currently.
Still going Com/Com/Rav to start. Still have Com/Rav/Medic. My boss start is now Medic/Buffer(damned if I remember name)/Sab. Still get Com/Rav/Rav if I want too. On rare occasions once I've hit the enemy with Commander I'll switch to triple Rav to get them staggered super fast... but Com/Rav/Rav usually works fine.
Here is my 1 problem. Sazh's buffing is pretty awesome, but only Fang has slow... which is broken against some bosses. I could swap out Fang for Vanille, but then my only healer is Lightning and she doesn't have Cura. So for now... I guess no slow. Not sure what Hope has, but yeah... screw Hope, he's too whiny.
Soo... Com/Com/Rav/Rav/Rav/Med/Med/Sab/Buffs are my 9 options. Com/Com/Rav, Com/Rav/Med are clear MVPs for trash mobs with Med/Sab/Buff and Com/Rav/Med being boss MVPs.
DONE! Now plot.
I didn't mind the linear 15 hours or whatever it was. I just wish they'd a found a way to let you play 3 people way more. 2 person fights were boring as hell. Com/Rav, switch to Com-Rav/Med. Over and over. Original! (With some debuffing for bosses naturally.)
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I think I mentioned in some other thread that my feeling is that the first 8 or 9 chapters or whatever it is is an extended tutorial, forcing you to use various job combinations and characters, before turning you loose on the real game. I think it goes on too long, but it is worth noting that the game doesn't punish you at all later on for not using characters (me, I never used Sazh; I like being able to do damage), so there's some balance there.
For bosses, saboteurs and synergists rock out like nothing else, but I often found they slowed me up too much in randoms... Then again, I often had trouble with "big" enemies (see: *%&# King Behemoths), and I suspect more skillful use of status (& Sentinels) might have helped there.
Sentinels make up for their early game mediocrity later on. Aftergame bosses reward skillful use of defense, yes they do. I know for the final mission, I ended up doing something like JJD/DDD/EEE/ABH/HHH/EHH (Jammer, Defender, Enhancer, Attacker, Blaster, Healer being the japanese job names), which amazes me given how offense-oriented I was for most of the game.
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Sentinels are nice as they can be used as an e-brake. You don't regularly use it but it's important that it is there. Plus, there's some 6+ mob fights that are unwinnable without them.
The thing that frustrates me, though, is my inability to make my characters move. If I'm having my sentinel tank a boss that does sweeping attacks, he'll park himself right next to my other group members, or even worse, they'll move to stand right fucking next to him.
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Definitely. I find that really annoying too; one of the strange oversights of the system, since position really does matter quite a bit.
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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.
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Gladiators wore skirt things sometimes. It could work.
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Well, maybe. (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7c/EiennoFilena-vol4.jpg) If she otherwise does a good job of covering up.
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Sentinels are nice as they can be used as an e-brake. You don't regularly use it but it's important that it is there. Plus, there's some 6+ mob fights that are unwinnable without them.
The thing that frustrates me, though, is my inability to make my characters move. If I'm having my sentinel tank a boss that does sweeping attacks, he'll park himself right next to my other group members, or even worse, they'll move to stand right fucking next to him.
Agreeing with the annoying sweep attack positions 100%.
So far... every giant mob I've run into dies to CCR before they can kill my people off. There have been a couple units as of late that sentinel might have been nice for if not for the sweep issue. (Juggernaut being one.)
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Sentinels aren't half bad to me as they allow you to beat several of the Gran Pulse bosses quite easily and early on (Killed 14 thus far). Also is Com/Com/Rav really that good? I've been prancing around with Rav/Rav/Com so it'd be nice to know if there was a better alternative.
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Well, the two commandos will attack different targets, which is sometimes nice and sometimes not. Against single enemies, the tradeoff is more ravagers break the enemy faster, but more commandos will kill faster afterwards, so Rav/Rav/Com will be a bit more defensive (get the enemy broken and up in the air faster), but Rav/Com/Com might mean you only need to break a high-HP enemy once. The difference gets exaggerated at higher job levels, too. Ultimately, of course, the way to go is Rav/Rav/Rav until the enemy's broken & at 800-900% and then Com/Com/Com for the kill, but if you need elaborate defensive formations as well you might not be able to spare the slots for both.
I experimented a while with having a saboteur in my default offensive set, and it actually works pretty well, since you still have 3 characters racking up the combos, and the negative status can actually result in more damage too, plus possibly nerfing enemy offense too.
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I experimented a while with having a saboteur in my default offensive set, and it actually works pretty well, since you still have 3 characters racking up the combos, and the negative status can actually result in more damage too, plus possibly nerfing enemy offense too.
I started doing this once I got Endanger-ga or whatever it's conjugated as. Vanille pops it first thing and it makes it so much easier to stagger enemies.
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Sentinels aren't half bad to me as they allow you to beat several of the Gran Pulse bosses quite easily and early on (Killed 14 thus far). Also is Com/Com/Rav really that good? I've been prancing around with Rav/Rav/Com so it'd be nice to know if there was a better alternative.
I switched to Com/Rav/Rav for my default. Com/Com/Rav is best suited when their are large groups. The two Coms won't focus the same baddie, but if they're both AOEing it doesn't matter. But... since I'm using Sazh now instead of Fang Com/Rav/Rav makes a lot more sense since he will just AOE Rav the same groups.
And yeah, going C/R/R to put enemy into Stagger and then switching to C/C/R adds a bit more damage... but I haven't noticed a great need for it outside of a few fights where that little extra damage matters. (Laziness trumps winning 3-5 seconds quicker.) I wills say... Haste is completely broken as of now. Medic/Syn/Sab to start boss fights is great. Used it on pretty much every boss in the broken down tower except for the groups with minions. (CCRed those to avoid being overrun and then MSSed it)
But... I'm also wondering if Sent woulda let me beat the Juggernaut guarding that chest. If so, I missed out on a treasure!
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I use Sent/Syn/Sab on most fights, personally. Don't usually need the medic early on.
Also, I've finally figured out something I like about Snow. Usually unarmed combatants are like, monks or karate masters or wrestlers or boxers or whatever and fight with some kind of discipline or fighting style. Not Snow. He just runs at someone and starts throwing crosses and elbows. He needs to open with a front kick to the sack to keep it truly accurate, though.
Also he was in this. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nG_Z0rd7eK0)
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Well to throw a curve ball, here something not FF13 related!
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Mega Man 10
This game....is...fun....
I've tackled (and by I've I mean me and my friend) three of the robot masters so far. Two with just the Mega Buster, and one with a weapon weakness! The stages and background are awesome and Solar Man some pretty sweet music too.
I think the game is a tad easier then MM9, but that's ok!
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So a week off and I am going to be playing FF13 all week was the plan. Up to the start of Chapter 4 and I am not sure I can see that happening. So far for 2 chapters I have mashed X a lot. Now Chapter 3 gave me access to jobs and stuff. So I mash X and then hit L1 down mash X L1 Up Mash X repeat until everything is dead. Hooray interactive combat system. For something that was hyped up as fluid and fascinating this shit is plain fucking boring.
The game opens up with the main character doing backflips and shit, stealing an SMG and blasting a bunch of guys with it and a pistol. AWESOME! Alright, now it is my turn for combat. Good thing she dropped the guns and has a sword, that would almost be fucking interesting. Then you go through a sequence with Snow who proceeds to give away LIKE A MILLION FUCKING GUNS and then proceeds to punch things when I get to fight with him. So you see Vanille get given a gun, which she promptly drops 3 scenes later. Hope gets a gun which he promptly drops 5 fucking senconds later. Seriously, fuck you guys.
Except for Sazh, he may not get an SMG, but fuck at least the guy is trying and didn't just you know throw his guns away. I am going to make this short and say, Sazh is the only thing redeeming this game right now. The Chocobo is annoying gimmick and the black dude stereo types bite, but underneath that all? We have the only relatable character in the cast. Lightning has no fucking character other than broody stick up her arse, Snow is just stupid (Second most likable in the cast and insantly hatable because he THROWS AWAY A MILLION GUNS), Hope's emo is understandable other than that weird side plot about where he is a performance artist trying to mimic the biggest vagina in all of history, Vanille just creeps me the fuck out (why is she the narrator?) but that is mostly the strange way her accent drifts around, is it some kind of mix of Brittish and Australian? I dunno random words here and there just sound out of place and what does sound Australian is far to broad. FANG of course I haven't seen any real character work for yet, but her accent doesn't drift, but I can't place it either, it sounds like the bastard child of New Zealand, Australian and South Africa that has been living in the UK for way to long after geting famous in Neighbours and getting a record deal over there.
Oh and so Snow passes out and gets into some weird freaky supernatural bondage with two ice chicks in front of his frozen girlfriend. One beats him up and the other one proceeds to heal him. This impresses the pair so much that they decide to turn into a motorcycle and then Snow passes out and gets taken on board a ship.
I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IS GOING ON IN THIS GAME.
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Rondo Of Swords-
Just finished the Elmer level.
This game. This. Game. Is trying for the crown of player-unfriendliness. I don't think it gets it, but this should in no way invalidate its attempt!
So I'm walking people through slow terrain with no enemies around and the initial movement grid says that they can move to yea square. I cannot click on this square or just move the cursor over there. I have to map out the exact route they're going to take even though 90% of the time I don't care and 25% of the time the 'correct' route is not the most direct one as that goes over harsher terrain than an indirect one which I then need to waste time determining.
So the ZOC skill, which terminates movement of an opposing unit through the skillholder's square, is pretty dandy and knowing whether an enemy has it or not is a complete necessity. Do they provide some sort of way of telling instantaneously whether an enemy has ZOC? No, you need to double-A them to bring up the menu, hit down to select the Info option because the menu has no default selection despite Info being the only option on there, A into the info section, and then R into the Skills section. Then triple-B to get out. For. Every. Enemy. Using the stylus is arguably worse because you still need to double-tap to get to the menu but the first tap centres the damned screen on the enemy completely throwing you out of alignment for the second.
I was attacking an enemy that I didn't realise had ZOC earlier and was in a state of annoyance that my guys had both bounced off it which I initially put down to being countered. After that happened again I looked into it and found it was ZOC at fault. This would have been avoided (aside from if ZOC was map-visible in the first place) if they actually made a different animation for ZOC-bouncing than counter-bouncing on the map. To be fair there _is_ a different animation if you watch the animated attack sequence, but those got old spectacularly fast.
Also with regards to ZOC... I'm not strictly sure if it functions as extra defence against regular attacks or not, because I've only seen it on people that are already pretty defensive so far, but it certainly gives off that impression. To get around ZOC you need to use indirect attacks or people that hold the Null ZOC skill. But you can't look over the map before you enter battle, so you can't tell whether you're going to need to have people with these abilities or not. And you send the rest of your team off on errands which you can't cancel once set. So either you save after setting errands and find that you've sent people you were going to have wanted away with no way of getting around this, or you set errands back up every. single. time. you. restart. Currently I have taken to saving errandless in the first slot and erranded in the second slot. Too bad if I wanted to use that other slot for a more worthwhile reason. And if the game keeps clear saves, it goes right out the window for subsequent plays.
So some units have bows that they can attack at range with. Does it tell you how much range they can attack with? Of course not that would be silly. So after determining that some enemy archers had a range of 6 squares I was completely blown away to find that my own archer has a range of 5 when I tried to make him attack something from 6 squares off. Truly, I am just not mastertactician enough to have foreseen this.
So I wanted to run an enemy mage out of MP. Along with the game not allowing me to see what sort of range (and area of effect) his magics have, I find that they also don't show me the enemy MP costs. Kind of an overly optimistic thing to expect at this point really.
So I sent Sasha off to sell some gold bullion while I was in a level. Her aptitude at shopping-class errands is 'happy-face' so this should end well, right? I finish the level and find that she managed to sell them for the grand total of nothing. I suspect that the game played out a grand sitcom-esque tale behind the scenes where she was tricked into spending the money on some triviality she wanted only to end up losing it in a tremendously fitting chain of events that learned her a life lesson for the ages that we will never get to see.
So in the first villager escape map I have found out through my previous attempts that once all the villagers leave your goal will change to leaving yourself. So this time I get ready for just that occasion and keep my people close to the exit as much as possible. And it's come down to two villagers left. One of the villagers can reach the exit if he moves his maximum range and the other is one square closer than him. All good, right?
Into the villagers' turn... the close villager moves to the exit and leaves, as expected. The far villager moves towards the exit but at the last square instead of going on to the exit section it turns off and stands in front of one of my characters that I have waiting amid the exit section. This on its own was headdeskworthy. But okay. There's nothing my team can really do here because we can't leave until all the villagers have left and the goal changes. I have everyone else that wasn't already close at hand run back and end turn. THE VILLAGER SPENDS ITS TURN JUST STANDING THERE. DESPITE A ROW OF 10-ODD SQUARES AVAILABLE TO EXIT THROUGH, IT WANTED TO GO THROUGH THE ONE THAT MY CHARACTER WAS STANDING ON AND WAS NOT GOING TO DEIGN TO USE ANY OF THE OTHERS. Then I get slaughtered, restart, and next time ensure that I have no-one standing at any point along the designated exit zone so as to not hurt the poor villagers feelings.
This is not to talk about how stupid they are in general. They have no team coordination whatsoever, and a number of times moved into squares that prevented other villagers from moving their full distance. In some respects the game is a masterwork for accurately portraying reality! Also, you're supposed to be saving them at this point but the game doesn't seem to care if you let any of them die, which is good because I really have no idea how you're supposed to save all of them. And I was using a full team! I'm looking over an FAQ and see that they recommend using only half your team at this point so that you can send the other half on errands!
The modus operandi of any NPC unit that you have turned friendly is to run off and get themself killed within the next two turns. Fortunately they doesn't seem to stop them from joining your team afterwards. Without even being thrown into the negative status that your units are supposed to get if they get killed.
So I need to recruit this guy Owl so that he will turn all his men to friendly otherwise I'll have to fight through them in addition to the main enemies of the map, which is really not something I would enjoy trying. To recruit Owl you need to use your most fragile character. In a game where the name of the game is not being able to protect people by surrounding them with other units as the enemy just runs through the whole lot. Plus said character starts off with an annoyingly high MC, which is reasonable when looked at from the whole kill-the-medics-first mentality but does NOT WORK WELL IN THIS STYLE. Fortunately, my Margus has ZOC, and I am generally able to punk the enemies out into attacking him first and getting blocked before they get a chance to hit her. Unfortunately Owl picks up Klein syndrome and spends the majority of my tries running away. At this point it seems fair to mention that unlike Klein, where your healer has as much move as him if my memory is right, Owl here has twice the move of our healer.
And when I say 'the majority of my tries', I mean 'the majority of my tries where I didn't move Marie around the corner which results in the main enemies showing up giving me no chance at all of reaching him at a worthwhile time'. The first few times that happened I assumed that I was just misremembering what turn they showed up on. I was not.
So I recruit Owl in a sense (he becomes a friendly NPC at this point, not a fullfledged team member) and he and his team subsequently all die within the next two turns to the main enemies. Because that is how friendly NPCs in RoS roll. Meanwhile my entire team is hiding behind Margus and barely manage to escape and HOW IN THE HECK ARE YOU SUPPOSED TO DO THIS LEVEL IF YOUR MARGUS DOES NOT HAVE ZOC YET
So I suspect that I can get Selmer to recruit Elmer. So I also suspect that Elmer can one-hit Selmer because really there isn't anything that can't one-hit Selmer. So I pump up Serdic's MC and send the two of them over towards Elmer. Who goes ahead and one-hits Selmer. Restart.
So I have MC-pumped Serdic in range of Elmer and Selmer very much not in range of Elmer, intending to run Elmer out of MP. He goes ahead and attacks Ansom, at least not one-hitting him. At this point I am thinking that he is set up to not attack Serdic for some reason. But no! On the next turn he attacks Serdic when I was least expecting it. He was just being a prat the whole time and not following the MC rules. Oh that wacky Elmer.
I have since found out that the game appears to have an egress-alike mechanic. If so I may start abusing this.
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Fang's VA is apparently the American child of two Australian parents, or something. Vanille's VA is apparently someone who has taken blunt force trauma to the head.
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FF13 - Up to 17 side missions done. Number 16 made the rest look like jokes though due to the sheer numbers that they pull out on youso yeah, not fun. After being smacked down like five times I came up with this.
1- Enter battle with 5 tp.
2- Use a shroad to ambush them.
3- Use Quake twice.
4- Summon Alexander.
5- Enter Gelsalt mode stright away.
6- Soften them up with a few moves.
7- Use Divine Judgement.
OHKO to all of them ;D. Don't know why a lot of people say summons are useless, they rock pretty hard.
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FE8- Beat it again. Fourth playthrough complete~ Tana is hax.
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Everyone is hax in FE8. I almost don't enjoy the second half of the game, it feels kind of like being a schoolyard bully.
FF13: I remember mission 16 well, couldn't do it without a full complement of smokes when I got it, and even then it was a scramble; the big summoner frogs have just enough durability and the little ones have just enough offense to make your life miserable.
I suspect it's doable straight, though, with something like maybe Hope/Snow/Fang, syn/sent/sent -> med/sent/sab -> rav/sent/com <-> med/rav/com until you get it under control, though you definitely wouldn't be able to five star it that way.
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FF13: Pretty sure I got to a spot that allows me to enter the final stages of FFXIII. I turned around so that I can do the missions. Might need to pick up the guide book because there are a fuckton of them and I get lost a lot. I also ended up with mission 52 or something like that and proceeded to get OHKOed while in Sent mode.
I've done like... 20 of them, but a lot were plot missions.
FE8: JAD has it about right... that's the easiest FE by a good margin. I'm actually kind of curious to play the game on the East setting someday to see exactly how silly it becomes.
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Garcia is the polar opposite of broken
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Alright. This might be the best place to ask on playing imported PS2 games?
Should I go through the trouble of trying to emulate via laptop? I've got the older fliptop slims that work with Swap Magic, so I was considering finding that online somewhere since it's not the sort of thing you can easily borrow from someone, but if other mod techniques are easier/cheaper and still reliable and safe my ears are open.
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Swap Magic is extremely easy to use and pretty cheap - just get a youtube video to walk you through the process of blocking the sensors so your PS2 can't tell when the lid is open, and you're set. There's also a program you can install to your memory card that lets you play specially burned games, but it doesn't work with retail discs, from any country. I don't know if that's important to you.
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Swap Magic is extremely easy to use and pretty cheap - just get a youtube video to walk you through the process of blocking the sensors so your PS2 can't tell when the lid is open, and you're set. There's also a program you can install to your memory card that lets you play specially burned games, but it doesn't work with retail discs, from any country. I don't know if that's important to you.
Mine's one of the ones that you can pop the lid open and close it and keep playing, if that makes a difference.
Thanks.
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I'm actually not familiar with that variant. The test I'm used to for whether the PS2 is sufficiently messed-with is to see if the laser stays in the center of the drive tray when you open the top with no disc loaded. If it doesn't move, the system can't tell that you've opened the lid.
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I'm actually not familiar with that variant. The test I'm used to for whether the PS2 is sufficiently messed-with is to see if the laser stays in the center of the drive tray when you open the top with no disc loaded. If it doesn't move, the system can't tell that you've opened the lid.
I'll uh... try to check this without melting my eyes then!
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Just don't put your eye directly above the lens and you should remain safely unmelted.
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Fang's VA is apparently the American child of two Australian parents, or something. Vanille's VA is apparently someone who has taken blunt force trauma to the head.
That would do it, her accent is to broad for a local, but has grown up around it so kind of speaks like that. And yeah just .. yeah. I have no idea what is happening with Vanille.
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Fang's VA is apparently the American child of two Australian parents, or something. Vanille's VA is apparently someone who has taken blunt force trauma to the head.
That would do it, her accent is to broad for a local, but has grown up around it so kind of speaks like that. And yeah just .. yeah. I have no idea what is happening with Vanille.
Vanille's accent gets better later on. Either that or I just got used to it and started ignoring it. Me, my brother, and my roommate all noticed her ridiculous changing accent at different times early on. Haven't noticed it lately. (She still giggles too much.)
Just completely Mission 16. I might be a higher level than Rozalia because I didn't find the fight difficult... I just walked up behind them for preemptive. Com/Rav/Com AOEd the 4 little garbage guys and then just switch to Rav/Med/Com and FFed the others one at a time. I doubled back though in the game though so I probably should have fought these guys a little bit ago. (A later boss gives 100k xp, which is naturally nice for leveling.)
1-17 completed and 10 between 19-34 completed.
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A word of advice on FF13: Do missions in post game, where the grids are filly unlocked. Don't dream about beating some of the high rank mission without it. Also, abuse Vanille to grind on the Admantite Tutrle. They have high SP and drop important item for weapon upgrade.
The Vanille abuse involving knocking the turtle down with her summon at the start of the battle and spam ID. It works really well, especially in post game.
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SRW Alpha 2: Was gonna have to wait until I bought Swap Magic, or I can skip the 'buying crazy discs to fool my PS2' nonsense and just play it on my laptop.
...still probably gonna buy Swap Magic anyways just because it runs like ass on my laptop, but hey, first Zengar level was cool - Zankantou debut was snazzy, though supers are definitely a bit frail feeling here.
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A word of advice on FF13: Do missions in post game, where the grids are filly unlocked. Don't dream about beating some of the high rank mission without it. Also, abuse Vanille to grind on the Admantite Tutrle. They have high SP and drop important item for weapon upgrade.
The Vanille abuse involving knocking the turtle down with her summon at the start of the battle and spam ID. It works really well, especially in post game.
I took that as a challenge to beat them all! Although... based on how ridiculously hard 53 was to beat... I doubt I'll be able to beat all of them.
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A word of advice on FF13: Do missions in post game, where the grids are filly unlocked. Don't dream about beating some of the high rank mission without it. Also, abuse Vanille to grind on the Admantite Tutrle. They have high SP and drop important item for weapon upgrade.
The Vanille abuse involving knocking the turtle down with her summon at the start of the battle and spam ID. It works really well, especially in post game.
I _believe_ all the missions except 64 have been shown to be doable in chapter 11, although luck, patience, and grinding for equipment is necessary for the really brutal ones (51, 55, 62)... Many of the mid-range missions, though tough, are pretty plausible even for sane people.
Instant death on the adamans works, but it's hardly the most efficient way to kill them, particularly in the aftergame when you've got enough damage even at relatively low levels to take them down with a summon plus full-bore offense. Personally, I've never gotten their rare drop, though that might just be bad luck. Platinum ingots (their common) are worth it, anyways, plus the xp.
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Done through mission 38. Also done a few Titan missions (cleared once, 5 to go...) and a few of those 8 missions in the main area. The tougher ones still to come though. Nobody has finished the grids I have open though so my people still have room to get stronger. I can also almost afford a Trapehezordisdjoosdaj and get myself a better weapon.
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FF13 - Finished Chapter 4, had lots of ranting in chat about it already, so I will cut it short. THe combat system is still boring me. Lightning is a bitch who can't make up her fucking mind Sazh is still the only likable character. Snow is stupid, but no one like goes out of their way to tell him shit (Not Lightning at the start, not Fang and Cid now, they are just being mysterious and implying shit without telling a clearly stupid person the obvious thing that they need to be told). Vanille has no character yet other than obvious paper thin mystery. Hope is emo because the universe has laid in the boot so OBVIOUSLY this justifies everyone to lay in the boot wherever possible.
Boring plot and bad gameplay that I just don't see ever resolving to something good (and with this many hours put into it the game can't honestly be redeemed to the point that it is worth recomending at the current price and it certainly isn't a reason to buy a console).
There is some things that I can see enjoying, but this is very not for me. I can see where they are trying a lot of things. It is like they have tried to streamline your standard JRPG. It is similar to what they did in Mass Effect 2. But you know how I have said Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games I have played in years and it manages to streamline all of the worst parts of Mass Effect 1 out? Well FF13 failed. It degenerated to mashing X or even worse tedious menu hopping than your normal JRPG interface has.
And the autobattle AI? Yeah it isn't picking good moves so far. That is the thing that really could have carried this gameplay. It just happens to fast and spammy to give you tactical control, but to slow it down just makes it horrible and tedious dragging fights out forever. It is the failure of a battle system that works best with a lot of fast inputs in a very short timeframe followed by waiting for more animation to happen. There are things I can think of that might fix it, but it isn't worth the time to type them out (Unless anyone is interested in specifics).
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I'd argue about FF13 some but I find this stands out a lot more than anything you said about it.
But you know how I have said Mass Effect 2 is one of the best games I have played in years and it manages to streamline all of the worst parts of Mass Effect 1 out?
What the fuck, man?
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Errr what exactly is the problem there? Mass Effect 2 is something that I consider really good. It cuts a lot of the bullshit out. No Mako, the planetary exploration feels at least useful and you can quickly identify which planets you want to look for. The combat is fun and actually works better as an action game than Mass Effect 1 did. Inventory being gone is a good thing for the game. I am confused as to what is what. I consider Mass Effect 2 a great game, it is something they worked really hard on and it is an amazing example of progression in a sequel, the jump from ME1 to 2 is way bigger than from BG1 to BG2.
Final Fantasy 13 is nothing like that at all. It isn't engaging and for every point it moves on from FF12 it brings its own problems. There just is very little there for me.
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They ditched the inventory? I can't believe I'm saying this about an RPG, but thank god. At least in KotOR, while the menus were terrible and the equipment mostly ignorable, you could improve your characters quite a bit by bothering to slog through the system. The vibe I get from ME is that you can't ignore the equipment at all but the bonuses you get from changing equipment amount to little more than "you go back to dying as quickly as you were in the last area." Which I guess is what equipment normally does, but the menus are so terribly disorganized that that's stupid.
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I beat Raze's path on Mana Khemia 2. Overall, I think Ulrika's path is the more interesting of the two because the plot is a little more spread out and Ulrika is just more likeable than Raze. Additionally, aside from some of the Lily/Whim and Et scenes the character interaction wasn't as entertaining. I do like Raze's workshop music more though.
PCs thoughts
Raze: Generally solid, he had lots of hp and was a ST damage dealer throughout.
Lily: I'm kind of curious for whether she's going to be ranked as Lily or Whim when/if we rank MK2 because Whim is the one doing all the fighting but they give Lily the battle portraits. For this playthrough I gave her Chloe's old accessories and she was the magic smasher again. Her magic wasn't as good, but she made up for it with better mp regen and Frozen Cannon which was good for killing off weaker groups of randoms. Probably the MVP.
Et: Et Circle Waltz is really good and I set it up for bosses and tried to keep it up throughout. She's the best character in the game at setting up time spheres. Also, her character quest class is rediculous. Starting the battle with 50% unite meant that a Lily MT spell followed by a Yun support attack would fill it up all the way.
Yun: Like Pepperoni he kind of sucked until he got his last support attack upgrade. Then he was okay because it also delayed the enemies turn. His fire bomb attack came in handy a few times but unfortunately he only had the mp to use it once before switching out.
Puniyo: A solid backup spellcaster to Lily. I think she ended up with more Magic than Lily, but Lily still had her beat for mp regen. I gave her an accessory with Heaven's Rebel and a light boosting property and it worked alright. Her double casting skill was really nice for bosses, but it's a late pickup and it's overkill for randoms. It helped me smash my old damage record, though. I think my old record was around 13000 and I did over 20000 against some wanted poster boss who came with two allies. Her one big issue was durability.
It's interesting to see how the two parties compare with one another. Raze's group is definately more blitz oriented and has lots of timesphere skills and MT suppport attacks. Ulrika's group ends up with more status effects and support options and is generally more well balanced. I played a bit of the aftergame and it looks like my party is going to be Raze for durability and timespheres, Et for the unite guage boost and time sphere abilities, Lily and Chloe for magic smashing, Pepperoni for his support attack and durability, and Ulrika for all around suppport. I fought the wanted boss at Windy Field and completely crushed him once he became vulnerable to magic.
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ToV- FInished. The final few dungeons restored my somewhat negative opinion of the game going into the final arc, they had decent design, most of the boss fights were at least sort of challenging and they were pretty. Final boss was a curbstomped joke, I don't think he would have killed Yuri even once if I had bothered at all to heal instead of just spamming Azure Edge.
It's a pretty, largely polished game. Combat flows smoothly, the world map isn't glitchy like TotA's and the translation/VA is spot on. It's what you expect for a flagship RPG for the 360. The dungeons are varied- I don't think you get any real repeats like TotA, and they're for the most part enjoyable. The most part.
PC cast was generally outstanding. No complaints here. Flynn had good characteriazation in spite of not having nearly as much screentime as a PC. The whole 'we'll fix things in our own way, in our own paths' that Yuri and Flynn did isn't new to RPGs, but they A: succeeded on pretty much every front. B: Worked together and fed off each other. C: Cleaned up after each other's messes so it wasn't one sided. D: Didn't kill each other or hate each other in the process. The question about the good or evil of the empire was resolved in a fashion I liked- there was corruption and good mixed in. It worked as a major early theme, and the resolution of it late was neat. Granted, that resolution required a bloody purge.
Yuri is excellent and likable as a main from beginning to end (mostly), but Luke is probably the better character? They are such polar opposites in both style and substance. Entire cast is good. The plot... it varies. The basic beginning is generic enough, but it works. Just exploring the world and chasing after people's an RPG staple for a reason; because it works well, as does the questions posed about the empire. Then the plot gets serious, loser A shows up and has his evil moment in spite of zero camera time and acts like an incredible wanker. Loser B is around far more screentime wise, but fails beyond belief, not that you need a hint. Hearing a line of his VA and his 'interaction's with people is insufferable. "I have turned my back on humans." It gets worse every time he speaks. Almost no one besides your PC crew and to a lesser extent Flynn get any real camera time, and they all suffer tremendously from it. Ioder is a Ion remix, but you can't tell since he is gone for the vast majority of the game. Same goes for the non Don guild leaders.
The boss of the Baction ruins and the stuff surrounding that. Blah. Raven's betrayal wasn't surprising, but it was botched very badly.It was literally night and day. He probably should've died in the ruins.
Spoiler stuff again, this time for Yuri. His killing Ragou? That was a good scene. He and Flynn pretty much went over their options beforehand, what they could legally do and what they couldn't do. He made a rational, cold blooded choice to kill Ragou. I can live with this. The scene where he killed Cumore bothered the living hell out of me. It cheapened Ragou's death and was just horrible. He kills Cumore for being scummy, yes. He just decides to do it in the middle of the night instead of making him face justice, which Ragou did. He also fucked up in the sense that Cumore would've ratted on Alexai and would have blown up that entire scheme before he could've summoned that giant whatever the fuck it was. What makes it worse is that by and large the party just shrugs off Yuri executing someone and moves on as if nothing happened. What the hell? The game does eventually beat Yuri with the stupid of his choice and the way he did it later on. Phaeros repeats his line and his defense of his actions at Yuri word for word when he talks about killing Estelle, which Yuri of course rejects. The game does eventually redeem Yuri in that regard, but the scene annoyed the hell out of me when it happened. Oh well.
Combat is Tales; I liked it for what it was. If you don't like TotA's stuff, you won't like ToV. Mostly controlled Yuri.
Some bad: Puzzles. For the most part the game is fine here. You get one fairly annoying puzzle early on in Rita's first dungeon, then nothing for ages, then you get three or four areas in row with *nasty* puzzles that require a lot of time or sitting in front of it with an FAQ. Some of those have monsters intertwined that regenerate, so if you take too long in solving it you have to dodge fights or blow all your holy bottles on it. Also, taking away your healer for as long as they did? Fuck you, ToV. That's a dick move of the highest order. Mercifully the puzzles stop when you get said person back.
The villian cast could honestly rival your average XS game for terrible. I don't think I have a positive word to say about any of them. The obnoxious loli minions aren't even close to the biggest failures there, and that's a bad sign.
The game was a ton of fun overall. It's a shame it lags so much around the two thirds mark. Probably an 8/10 game. Could go up to 9/10 depending on my final thoughts on it.
Oh yeah, Repede also owns.
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ME: So, not wanting to spend a couple hours finding out which planet I need to go to myself, I FAQ'd it and arrived on Therim. Got up to the point where you leave the Mako and start fighting the Geth on foot. After 5 tries, I rage quit. Sniper Rifles (or whatever the beam of light that keeps OHKOing me is) are BS and I kinda wish I had built Ashley towards them instead of Shotguns so I'd be able to counter it. I guess it's not too late to do so but it certainly won't help me finish this planet yet. Bleh.
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Just completely Mission 16. I might be a higher level than Rozalia because I didn't find the fight difficult...
Must have been yeah. I used the same set up an just couldn't take out the summoner guys fast enough.
FF13 - Now back in cocoon, finished 28 missions. Proudclad gave me a gameover when he unleashed his big move together with the beam spam at hope. Hope being the guy with the least HP went splat.
I am wondering how the boss (How do you spoiler tag?) is alive though. Wasn't he killed off? I mean the scenes so dramatic and he gets shot up and then he appears like nothing happened. Plot hole?
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SRW Alpha 2 - Two levels each of Ibis and Zengar routes.
Ibis is, as I was informed, preeetty underwhelming early on - good thing Altairion is an awesome fucking mech. Kincaid is a beast in the X-1 though, and Umon is actually pretty damn competent. Zabine's a dick and leaves later on so I'm considering teaching him Support Defend, giving X-2 to Umon, and making Zabine into Ibis' personal meatshield until he leaves all while laughing at his misery.
Zengar is brutal, though the lack of range is a pain and he will need some SERIOUS EN upgrades as soon as I can manage. His tanking isn't as good as I'd like either, though having Great Mazinger and Gaiking around make things a bit easier seeing as how they're both powerhouse supers at this point with some good support units coming with them - not that they'll all be working together all that much with Zengar's tendency to rush after Kukuru.
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Sniper Rifles (or whatever the beam of light that keeps OHKOing me is) are BS and I kinda wish I had built Ashley towards them instead of Shotguns so I'd be able to counter it.
Sniper Rifles tend towards being a bad investment in ME. Their use is to restricted because so much of the game takes place in enclosed spaces (and the AI just isn't great with them). Counter sniping is better handled through creative use of terrain for outdoors sections and getting in close to the barricades (taking out everything on foot grants a ton more cash and exp up front and is quite doable on Normal difficulty outside of early game Geth Armatures and Destroyers) or the few actual forced on foot encounters with them being a problem in most situations you can normally get their attention and pull back to a more covered position. Some at least will follow which lets you thin the numbers. Snipers don't tend to one shot you and their threat factor goes down a lot when they are alone or only one of them can take a shot at you without the backup to clean you up.
Edit - To clarify, on the Mako sections if you dance around the fortifications you can get almost all the time you need to recharge shields and just generally use hit and run tactics all you want. Armatures by themselves are not to hard to handle, but they tend to come with backup. There is one particular set of missions where you have to take out geth bases in a few systems and near the end here is a part where a mothership comes in with 2 Destroyers and an Armature with assorted trashier Geth that come to mind. This tends to be one of the earlier missions I have done. Can clear up to that part with just a pistol and guerilla tactics. At that point Armatures will strip your shields instantly if you mistep and Destroyers do a fuckton of damage with hitscan weapons (one of the only Geth to do so! And one of the only realy competent enemies with them) that just mow you down so fast it isn't funny. That tends to be where you run back to the tank.
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LFT: Started, did the first fight. Lucked into a set of four generics who all have good faith, good brave(ry), or both, so I've got Ramza, two Squires, a Chemist and a Wizard at the moment. Nothing too different from regular FFT just yet, but I'm already loving innate Gained JP Up.
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BoF5- Started. Picked up all the party members, but stopped with a temp save. I had to restart pretty quickly (nearly died in the first danger room), but I chose a SOL Restart instead of Restore by accident. I've been getting a ton of SOL scenes, so I'm sort of glad I did it. It's nice so far. Once I got used to the combat system it was fun.
My one complaint is that the game is too damn dark. I already keep my TV on a pretty high brightness, I had to turn it up even more to make sure I saw anything in this game. In contrast, I had no problems with games like Silent Hill
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ME: Oh all that trouble I was having was because I was playing on Hard mode to make the intro mission less boring. Ha ha. Yeah OK things make a lot more sense now. Got Liara, going to go do some side missions and then Noveria next.
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BoF5- Started. Picked up all the party members, but stopped with a temp save. I had to restart pretty quickly (nearly died in the first danger room), but I chose a SOL Restart instead of Restore by accident. I've been getting a ton of SOL scenes, so I'm sort of glad I did it. It's nice so far. Once I got used to the combat system it was fun.
My one complaint is that the game is too damn dark. I already keep my TV on a pretty high brightness, I had to turn it up even more to make sure I saw anything in this game. In contrast, I had no problems with games like Silent Hill
There's a lot more SOL Scenes than you'd think, some of which are...completely random. Generally, they exist to keep the game from spoiling itself, so as you unlock more of the plot, the game will reveal points earlier (in this case, for a simple example, you probably saw the scene with Bosch and Zeno, where he talks about wanting to move up in rank and show's that; we don't know this side of Bosch until later on the train, so the game would have "spoiled" that early if we didn't see that.)
As far as random ones go...there's stuff between Ryu/Lin/Nina that I didn't understand why it was an SOL...may have to rewatch these scenes though.
Just noting that if you like the SOL stuff, it might not hurt to replay the game once you've finished it. Replays do go by faster even with new areas unlocked afterall (transfering over equipment and Party XP makes you kind of SMASH the early game, let alone the new shiny Dragon Blade available.)
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Problem with it is that even if you SOL Restart from the very first moment you get control in the beginning, you'll STILL get the SOL scenes unlocked by restarting for the entire rest of the game. I'm aware there are more based on stuff like D-Ratio, but just reporting what I've seen so far.
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That would indeed do it Zenny, it doesn't take much more damage over normal to turn snipers into retarded brutal taking out all your shield and a chunk of your health as well.
FF13 - Just finished Chapter 6 and I am still not seeing the appeal at all as chat has copped today. Lightning is still being shown as Bitchy McBitchBitch, SHOCK VANILLE PLOT TWIST ROMG DIDN'T SEE THAT TELEGRAPHED A MILE AWAY (Note, it is still being implied/beaten around the bussh and not outright stated yet), Sazh continues to be the only person worth anything and still totally relatable (saw some stupid tears about why did he try to run away at the start if he was there to fight anyway?!?!??!? on Gamefaqs, but that is Gamefaqs and you know, full of stupid not taking into account that this is a pretty logical response to "what the fuck have I got myself into" situations and then hey he is there, so he fights). No Snow scenes today! So no Fang or Cid either. Hope is there whinging and being kicked around and just generaly kind of mind fucked.
For the record, if Eidolon's are supposed to like help guide people mentally or whatever and find inner peace, if you are going to pull that shit you could tell us. And even with that it doesn't change the fact that Lightning is bitchy bitch bitch and kept flip flopping over her choices before she got Odin anyway. You can't do that shit before AND after and expect me to have any fucking respect for the character. She is setup as GRIM DETERMINATION YO and she has no fucking conviction whatsoever but that doesn't stop her from spiteful jabs at people and making them second guess all the shit they are trying to do. "You told me you are getting married ON MY BIRTHDAY? WORST BIRTHDAY EVAR!" Biiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiitch.
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Persona 3: Finally got round to continuing this, having put off a Baten Kaitos stat topic before the end of the first dungeon, yesiu. Met Mamoru, who is freaking awesome. Got Aigis and Koromaru, who are both pretty awesome - Koro's annoyingly weak with both his magic and physicals, but I'll still use him for DOGLIKE. Gonna be starting PC S-Links soon!
Since I'm not gonna be able to finish all S-Links during this run, any specific ones that're good to finish? Gonna try doing Yukari's, Mutatsu's, the old couple's, Yuko's and Mamoru's, at least, and I've already finished Kazushi's.
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Tales of Radiant Mythology - Wow Luke is a prick to Tear. Favourite Tales characters so far are Arche, Tear and Rutee. Raine is growing on me, the Orphic Maze ruins section was hilarious. I definitely like her moar now that she's deigned to join my party more often! I find myself quite drawn to Kratos and Lloyd/Chester/Reid/Stahn are all likable enough. Oh and Garr's pretty cool. Leon is another prick but kind of stylish to fight as. I want to use Tear ;_;
Sticking to the Warrior class for now. I started out with that, switched to Fighter for a while later and then back to Warrior for more levels. Been running it for a while, I like axes ^_^
FFXIII I want to get this because Vanille seems like prime CT bait but if she's not that good in battle I guess I can wait (and Grefter makes me think waiting for a price drop for FFXIII overall might be a good idea) >.> Guess I'd probably like Sazh and Hope as well with Lightning being the least CT baitish but eh =/
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SRW@2 - Two more of Ibis. One of those was Daitarn 3, Daimos, and Roux and Four piloting Zeta and ReGZ against a bunch of Crossbone enemies. Daitarn is still super-tanky as always, and Daitarn Hammer stands out as an awesome weapon - 3200 power, 1-5 range, no cost. Daimos pales in comparison, with more morale requirements to do any good, and not as much range OR tankiness, though it does have the barest hint of actually being able to evade. Not making up for the durability though. Zeta is once again a very nice unit, and Roux's not a terrible pilot; ReGZ with Four is good backup. The enemies on that map weren't all that bad, except for the boss, Giri - Daitarn and Zeta made short work of him using the regen spots to their advantage though.
The next map teamed those guys up with the Crossbone crew and Ibis. Daimos ended up just sitting back and watching everything - including Umon in a grunt unit and the battleship - being more useful than its frail ass. Not that being out-usefuled by the Mother Vanguard is all that bad. Got some more kills for Roux, Banjou, and Ibis, and Kincaid is still tearing shit up in X-1.
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Tales of Radiant Mythology - Wow Luke is a prick to Tear. Favourite Tales characters so far are Arche, Tear and Rutee. Raine is growing on me, the Orphic Maze ruins section was hilarious. I definitely like her moar now that she's deigned to join my party more often! I find myself quite drawn to Kratos and Lloyd/Chester/Reid/Stahn are all likable enough. Oh and Garr's pretty cool. Leon is another prick but kind of stylish to fight as. I want to use Tear ;_;
The best scenes are ones involving Arche and Reid interacting. My favorite is still the one where he eats her cooking.
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FF13 - So Chapter 7 finished. It takes from Chapter 1 to now to get a full party again. Fuck that shit. So full party combat system gets better or something? I still pressed X until I won. This is all without using the Upgrading system yet (would probably make it much easier if you know what to use where for optimal levelling, I know there is a good strategy for end game upgrading so you should be able to milk a decent amount from stuff so far. Nothing much has changed. Lightning is still being bitchy and then resolving all tension the next scene and then making up some more the next. Snow apparently had a bunch of stuff happen off camera that hasn't been fully explained yet, just implied (what the fuck exactly happened between him, Cid and Fang? You see one scene with them implying that they want to help and him being too retarded to get it then bam, 2 chapters later with 0 scenes at all you are instantly friends and Fang is helping you with... no back up it seems?). A few chapters without Sazs/Vanille 2 player team is nice gameplay wise, but that is like winning a kick in the balls instead of 2 kicks in the balls because you go other party gameplay instead and no Sazs plot which is majour lose. Fang is alright and hey finally big reveal about Vanille brought forth, SHOCK SHE IS AN EARLY BRENDAN FRASER MOVIE WITH PAULIE SHORE IN IT. I actually didn't expect Fang to be as well, but so it goes. What else is there. Hmmmm nope, nothing else really new. Chat continues to be barraged with streams of hate spew. Lightning really really pisses me off. Snow continues to be stupid but understandably so, the good guy version of Seifer continues to hold up. His Romantic Dream is to Save Everyone. So how does he go about doing that? In the most stupid ways possible. Just like Seifer (HEY GUYS I HAVE A ROMANTIC DREAM I WANT TO BE SORCERESS KNIGHT SO I WILL JOIN UP WITH THE EVIL SORCERESS AND NOT SWAP SIDES WHEN THERE IS A GOOD OPTION AFTER THE OLD EVIL ONE WAS DEFEATED AND NOW I WILL FLY AROUND IN A FLOATING BATTLESHIP AND BE A VAGUE THREAT TO THE WORLD. ROMANTIC. DREAM.)
Hope is still hope. His dad actually looks pretty pimping and has a sweet pad before spec ops go and ruin it for him.
Oh yeah the disconnect between in gameplay power and plot power is really weird in this game. Because the whole Shiva is a 2 chick motorcycle thing -comes up in cutscenes- but is completely ignored where it would you know be useful. So instead of gameplay and plot segregation it is more like there is AWESEOM FX and plot segregation.
Oh and I have to take it back about Lightning throwing away her gun at the start of the game. Apparently her sword is also a gun and no one corrected me on this. Of course I should have known that she had a collaspable sword/assault rifle (????) that just makes sense.
It seriously is frustrating and annoying to play. The gameplay problems I have covered fairly fully at this point, but plot, well it is really character driven and you can see quite clearly I hate most of the cast or they have no actual character whatsoever other than "This person is in this situation, they respond generically". Fang looks like she won't be shit? So that leaves Vanille still to have anything remotely close to a character to show up.
For anyone thinking about not picking it up, look for some gameplay footage videos before my bile sways you one way or the other. This game is specifically designed in every minute way to piss me off, so I am going to be very loud and vocal about this one. Edit - On this point I cannot stress how important internal consistency is to me, the split between the actual plot and WE CAN TOTALLY HAVE A WICKED CUTSCENE HERE LOL WE CAN IGNORE THAT PEOPLE CAN LIKE FLY AND HAVE MAGIC HORSESLOL FOR THE REAL PLOT is really incredibly grating to me.
If all you can find is Japanese videos, note that the top option on the battle menu is the auto attack option. I know there is plenty of good resources of that since Split Infinity has a visual walkthrough up for that version.
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Oh and I have to take it back about Lightning throwing away her gun at the start of the game. Apparently her sword is also a gun and no one corrected me on this. Of course I should have known that she had a collaspable sword/assault rifle (Huh??) that just makes sense.
If you check her weapon descriptions, they specifically call them "Gunblades." At least FF13 takes a slightly more logical approach to them, just saying "Weapon that can swap between Sword and Gun" making it some sort of elaborate, high tech, one handed musket, which while still kind of silly, is better than the "Hey, its literally a Sword that has a GUN FOR ITS HANDLE SO YOU CAN DO BOTH AWESOME AMIRITE!?" Basically, at least Lightning can use hers like a freaking Gun, instead of just "EXPLOSIVE SWORD!!11!1"
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LFT: I have to worry about monsters killing me what the hell is going on.
Up to Dorter. Ramza's a Knight, the rest of the party is Squire/Archer/Wizard/Priest.
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Yep, isn't it great?
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Hope is still hope. His dad actually looks pretty pimping and has a sweet pad before spec ops go and ruin it for him.
His dad, unfortunately, only shows up once, and you have to check the Codex to figure out what happens to him (not that your characters would know that).
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I was bothered by the fact that they tied him up so that the military wouldn't think they were aided by him, then they get saved by the military and he just gets left there, so he will be presumably purged like everyone else who has come in close contact to the L'Cie, but that is logical and internally consistent so I assume that doesn't happen.
And Meep yeah it tells you in a description against an item that you have to actively look at to know that when you are on a screen where you are most likely to be actively checking the stats of the item and not the description. Just the fact that it was all there in the game and no one pointed it out when responding to all my other nitpicking suprised me.
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I noticed it but it didn't seem important to mention as she hardly uses it. Also:
so he will be presumably purged like everyone else who has come in close contact to the L'Cie, but that is logical and internally consistent so I assume that doesn't happen.
Datalog says he wasn't purged because the Cav guys saved him. Thats pretty much all you hear involving Hope's dad. Sad as I quite liked him.
<Spoiler involving minor character. Doubt anyone cares but just incase>
FF13 - Final bosses second form is fricking powerful however for some strange reason he isn't immune to poison.....yeah I beat down 6 million health with poison, surely one for the record books. Final form is more or less a plot fight so it wasn't a problem.
Ending was a bit whack all round but you know what stood out to me? Where the hell is Hope's dad? Everyone else gets a happy ending and then when Hope believes its going to be his turn, nothing.
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FFXIII I want to get this because Vanille seems like prime CT bait but if she's not that good in battle I guess I can wait (and Grefter makes me think waiting for a price drop for FFXIII overall might be a good idea) >.> Guess I'd probably like Sazh and Hope as well with Lightning being the least CT baitish but eh =/
Vanille's decent in battle, just the Sazh/Vanille combo you're forced with early on is terrible. Her early debuff skills are quite good and she's got good magic damage. Really, no one in the game is bad in battle, just certain combos work less well than others.
Though she's not one of the people in the "optimal" team I've found, but she is one of the people in a team I found that's better at dealing magic damage, which might be useful at some point.
And I think the game is more your style than Grefter's, but yeah go look up some gameplay vids or something since those should give you a good idea of how the gameplay works.
Top option on the battle menu can be switched between Auto-Battle and Abilities, so it may not ALWAYS be Auto-Battle, but that's the default so it's more likely.
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Final Fantasy XIII - Up to Chapter 11 now, still liking the game. I do find the gameplay generally engaging, because I actually input some of my commands to fit the situation. The AI only takes the current state into account when choosing actions (and doesn't always seem to select the best ones even then), so it's sometimes less efficient than actually doing it yourself. I am kind of tempted to move battle speed to Slow to give me more time to input commands but I think battles would take too long then. Will deal with it if it becomes a problem later I guess.
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OH it changes the top option to Ablity if you switch that in the menu? I had assumed that it just changed the starting position of the cursor to maintain the logical flow of the menu rather than swapping spots. Edit - meaning Auto, Ability, Technique, Item is a fairly logical menu flow. Swapping Auto and Ability kind of shifts it a bit off balance.
If you pay attention then I guess attacking that is done with one click and then picking a target is the autobattle playing out if you want to watch movies and be sure.
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LFT: Grefter is a one-man army. He nearly won the Sand Rat Cellar battle by himself, OHKOing basically everybody on the field with awesome Zodiac compatibility and ridiculous PA. Damned noble-kidnapping communists!
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SRW@2 - Two more of Ibis. One of those was Daitarn 3, Daimos, and Roux and Four piloting Zeta and ReGZ against a bunch of Crossbone enemies. Daitarn is still super-tanky as always, and Daitarn Hammer stands out as an awesome weapon - 3200 power, 1-5 range, no cost. Daimos pales in comparison, with more morale requirements to do any good, and not as much range OR tankiness, though it does have the barest hint of actually being able to evade. Not making up for the durability though. Zeta is once again a very nice unit, and Roux's not a terrible pilot; ReGZ with Four is good backup. The enemies on that map weren't all that bad, except for the boss, Giri - Daitarn and Zeta made short work of him using the regen spots to their advantage though.
Zeta Gundam is kinda meh in @2, actually. No competent ALL and unimpressive weaponry/stats? No thanks. Kamille is a great pilot, though, so you should at least find a decent mech that makes use of those stats to slap him into. Daimos is actually a very good unit, though: twink it up for Mobility, it actually dodges and Kazuya's Sword Cut levels let it cover some more evasion. It also gets like three new moves, and it's a wonderful, cost-efficient P-move whore. If you feel the lack of ALLs is a problem, you can fix this by setting up an ALL-friendly subleader: I put Gundam Heavyarms as the ALL whore subunit for Kazuya's squad and it worked wonders. Don't undersell it. Daitarn's also a good unit. Don't find Roux terribly awesome as a stand-alone pilot, but Four is rather efficient - Four in the F1 Gundam, off that ALL, does quite well against randoms.
The next map teamed those guys up with the Crossbone crew and Ibis. Daimos ended up just sitting back and watching everything - including Umon in a grunt unit and the battleship - being more useful than its frail ass. Not that being out-usefuled by the Mother Vanguard is all that bad. Got some more kills for Roux, Banjou, and Ibis, and Kincaid is still tearing shit up in X-1.
I twinked the -hell- out of the X1, since Kincaid's Kouji-level melee is too good to let it go to waste and basically no other Real mechs can put it to good use. Be sure to FAQ the X1 upgrades, since they'll bring Kincaid's melee to full usage. Cape form is better at range and randombusting (yay 6 range shot-based attack), but capeless form has a finisher and will end up superior at P-whoring once you get Wire Attack. If you do twink the X1's weaponry, you'll end up using the capeless form in the lategame. Also don't forget to FAQ for the Hi-Nu Gundam requirements: they're not hard, but you don't want to miss out on one of the game's most awesome Reals. Also, being out-useful'd by Mother Vanguard says absolutely NOTHING - Vera and the MV are complete badasses, and you totally should twink it for evade. *Nodnod.*
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Or give her the Shield Block skill and make it super tank.
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I did both -and- Nine levels of Prevail. Overkill durability is overkill.
EDIT: Although having the Guardian Dogs in the last stage have like 4% hit rates on Vera with a full HP Mother Vanguard was funny.
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More LFT: Through Zirekile falls. Had a reset on Dorter 2, and another on a random battle where I got hit with Don't Move, confusion, charm, berserk and triple-digit damage (combined, from two sources) in the first round. Fuck you too, Piscodemons!
Current party is Ramza as a Geomancer, male Thief with Basic Skill, female Archer with Battle Skill, female Summoner with time or white magic as my whims decide, and male Oracle with Black Magic. Breaks being ~100% really change things up in a few fights, and, in accordance with the law of unintended(?) consequences, have led me to be a bit higher-level than I usually am at this point, because I keep backtracking to towns to replace the armor and helms that get broken, and fight random battles along the way.
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NSMBWii.
Beat the game (in terms of defeated the final boss). Umm...I think that might well be the most epic final boss in any Mario game ever. Well...mario platformer, anyhow.
Funny thing is, it was reasonably hard, so I wanted to criticize it in some way, like calling it contrived and predictable, but it's...not. Which is not to say random, mind you. I mean, it's predictable in the same sense that a streaming attack in Touhou is predictable, but in this case the attack going off shakes things up so much that exactly where it hits can completely change future strategy. The time I finally won was one of those "oh OH, I didn't even think about trying to go that route" moments.
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FESD - At Chapter 24x. Game's not -easy- late or anything, but things are still going reasonably smoothly.
XS2 - Beat Ormus Stronghold. Orgulla is a biitch. Took me 27 minutes when nothing else in the game has taken me more than 11 (and that 11 belongs to a couple randoms rather than bosses <.<), was afraid I would die but didn't, it's cool. Just mostly notice that she puts way too much pressure to effortlessly build up to a combo the way I could against Level 4 and Albedo, and survives one combo anyway unlike them. Makes sense, the Disc 1 bosses are balanced for people still finding their way in the game. Mech fights... meh, not a fan so far. They do get better at least, and there haven't been many.
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Edgeworth Investigations - Dear lord, those final cameos... Granted, one was practically contractual, and the other was the most efficient way to cause Edgeworth pain. So, yeah, kinda hard to avoid. Final suspect... yeah, should have laid down and died a lot sooner than he did. Though, yeah, I can see why it went on for as long as it did, since they sure took a roundabout way to finally lock him down.
Generally pretty good game, though the logic system didn't feel like it was used to its full potential, and the game had an odd tendency to hand hold in places. Also feels better writing wise than anything else in the series aside from Trials and Tribulations (that's 3 for those who don't care for titles).
SRWJ - Still doing a bit of puttering here. Just finished the Peace Negotiations route, and got the stealing the Nadesco episode. Find it kinda nifty the way they used the FMP units to augment the Aesti's, especially the way the SEED grunts went "Is that Bonta-kun? UAAAAAAGH!" which is more stylish than when it is said about Gundams, winged or otherwise.
Nothing else really going on right now, except realised that I still haven't finished Demon path (got kinda discouraged after realizing I had somehow managed to beat two maps and not save, and also noted that, well... I don't actually care about Demon path. It's been kinda lame so far, and Penn is a poor substitute for Danette. Hell, all of the PCs I've been getting have been less interesting than their main game counterparts, and the combo attack mechanics are also effectively gone, which while it isn't all that important, is annoying because I kinda liked them).
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Finished FFXIII. Won't go into a ton of details so as not to spoil anything. Should be a safe read for all!
Music: Meh, almost nothing really stands out here. Granted my speakers have been having issues which hurt the bass a bit, but didn't seem to offend the songs so much as explosions. Lacks the memorable songs that pretty much every FF have had. (Even 8.) 3/10
Plot: Okay so... if you just read all the chapter reviews, the plot is pretty straightforward and solid. The problem is, they don't explain the plot well with the actual words. The ending also... doesn't make a ton of sense. (Not the end end, but right before the final boss end.) Still Vanille/Fang plot and Sazh plot were good... I just wish someone with a brain had written the dialogue because it could have been a pretty awesome concept. 5/10
Characters: Sazh is awesome. Vanille/Fang end up being pretty damn cool outside of voice acting that I learned to live with. Lightning/Snow aren't too offensive. I know Gref would disagree with that, but I dunno... Lightning seemed to be pretty damn human. She got angry instead of being rational, she changed her mind often, but usually with at least some reason. (Although a couple times it was annoying.) Neither were great characters... but they weren't awful. And then Hope. Hope was the character who didn't need to be in the game. After his initial issues he became the Rikku of the group. GO TEAM WE CAN DO IT. Still, I'll give them a pretty solid. 8/10 (Once again, real writers to fix the Lightning/Hope dialogue would have helped a ton. I *should* have really enjoyed this cast.)
Battle: Started slow. Most games give you an intro area, but this one was a bit long. Not pre chapter 11 like people have been saying, but still... yeah. Also, 2 character battle got old too fast. It was fun once I got to 3, but that was only for like 60% of the game. 40% is a long time to be using a not full party. So 3/10 for 40% and 8/10 for 60% is... 6/10
Bad guys: The 3 main human bad guys were all pretty cool, but... they all seriously lacked screen time. The big bad boss dude had screen time, but lacked the cool factor. Also, this game threw way too many fucking "giant robot/giant monster" bosses at you. I mean, games will have random bosses, but this was ridiculous. Of the 6973409 bosses in the game, maybe 3 or 4 would be rankable. Too much time for random bosses + not enough plot for the badasses = 3/10 for bad guys.
Side Quests: Missions is... not as cool as the Monster Arena. The Chocobo game is also kind of lame compared to some of the others. Also, the rewards from these quests are 94.3% garbage, which is never good for side quests. I will probably beat the missions eventually, which says something good, but mainly because I'm hoping it unlocks more Sazh/Chocobo plot. 5/10
Weapons/Accessories: I like how they do weapons in this game. There is no GOD weapon for each character. You actually have to... you know... make sacrifices/choices. The downside is that it's ridiculously hard to tell which weapons will be good late game without Gamefaqs/Guide. The accessories is pretty generic. It was kind of nice not having to store 8 kinds of armor for each character, but the lack of variety in accessories is a bit dull. The hidden bonuses is a cool idea, but doesn't play much of a factor. (Except for autostagger, which is all kinds of random win.) 6/10 for this area.
So... despite these somewhat low scores, my overall rating is going to be a 7/10 I think. I was critical of each aspect, but to be honest, it's the first RPG since Disgaea 3 to hold my interest for any time period. That says something even if no particular area of the game amazed me outside of the pretty graphics.
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FF3DS - Hein, you loser. I know you had an overkill Blizzara on Geomancer Arc, but that doesn't excuse the failure elsewhere. Also, Geo is freaking hax.
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Hope was the character who didn't need to be in the game.
Hope gets the most attention out of all the characters by a long margin so if I didn't know otherwise it would be very easy to say he was FF13's main. Which is fine as I found him quite a good character who unfairly too many people hate, especially the script writers.
Of the 6973409 bosses in the game, maybe 3 or 4 would be rankable.
There is a grand total of 3 rankable bosses, well 2 if you disallow mechs. Out of the three I am most looking forward to <Spoiler> being ranked as winning through guarding is pretty unusual.
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FF13: Non-linear section gotten too. Game decides to start pull the consistent ass kickings here and make you actually care what enemies you run into instead of the general "Fight everything" Mindset I had before. Good show, FF13.
Mega Man 10: Protoman Mode, 6 Robot Masters down!
Protoman takes way too much damage, I said fuck it and started using E Tanks, as well as Beat to get through a few areas. ON the upside, the Protoshield is absurd; it can block just about any projectile, and reflects a bunch too. Strikeman was actually pretty tame since I didn't have to worry about the bouncing ball most of the time; just block with Protoshield, dodge his bounce, shoot at him. Nitroman was also easier once I stopped being stupid about his fight.
Just Solar Man and Blade Man left.
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Yeah, Protoman is a bitch to use. We started the game with him and got worked. We are at end level area 2 right now with the blue bomber.
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MBAC: Grinding combos (courtesy of Lurker's link in chat). I'm getting W Len's long ass bread and butter down well enough that I can now do some on-the-spot improvisation. Also worked out a hefty punisher combo for her - reaching 4900 damage! Entire chain works out to be:
j2c, jc, 2b (2hits), Swan Lake (623a), 5c (2hits), Ex Snow Flurete (236c), 2[c], Swan Lake, 5C (2hit), j.bc, dj.bc, Airthrow.
Could probably reach 5k with it if you used Snow Ballet at the end (and cancel that into Ex. Snow Ballet but it costs additional metre and would deal like 100 extra damage, so no to that). Airthrow is more consistent though. Next up: Effectively learning some mix ups with her as well as her mind traps.
SFA3: Xer got me set up with this. Fun stuff. But none of you are playing it online :(. Get is so I can play more of you! (Also, Xer kicks my ass :|)
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LFT: Stopped before Golgorand. Goug rooftops gave me a reset thanks in large part to a Thief with Power Break - taking 6 PA off my only ranged attacker doesn't make for a very fun battle. Steamrolled on the second attempt, though. Now I'm trying to decide who to make into a Mediator, and playing around with Mustadio as a Mime, since he comes with the job unlocked.
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FF13 - I just got up to Chapter 11 and this game can continue to get fucked. Here is a cool tip. When you are going to give the characters airships they can actually just land them sometime.
Edit - It isn't that Lightning's responses aren't human, it is that they are stupid and bitchy. You can have an incredibly human character that makes me want to take a knife to someone's throat and hate fuck them to death with it. I want to do this because some people are dick heads that aren't fun to watch or do anything with at all. These are the people that go from 0 to bitch in half a second.
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FFXII: I am attempting to ignore any hints of plot this game throws out. Gallavanting through Salikawood when I should be halfway across the map IIRC.
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Hope was the character who didn't need to be in the game.
Hope gets the most attention out of all the characters by a long margin so if I didn't know otherwise it would be very easy to say he was FF13's main. Which is fine as I found him quite a good character who unfairly too many people hate, especially the script writers.
Of the 6973409 bosses in the game, maybe 3 or 4 would be rankable.
There is a grand total of 3 rankable bosses, well 2 if you disallow mechs. Out of the three I am most looking forward to <Spoiler> being ranked as winning through guarding is pretty unusual.
Eh... in the second half of the game Hope just becomes a cheerleader. I'm trying to think of a need for him, but Fang/Vanille are obvious, Sazh has his son, and Lightning/Snow have Serah. Hope just... is there saying GO TEAM! In the first half of the game his entire plot is just a side plot, it has absolutely nothing to do with the actual game itself. You could remove every scene with him and Lightning/Snow and other than a bit of development for those two, nothing would really change.
And yeah as rankable for bosses I was thinking Giant Blue Arm, Giant Dude Form 2, and Giant Picassox2 with the possibility of Giant Grenade Man (depending on the mech issue.)
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NOTE: Some mild spoilers to FF13 related stuff below. No major plot revelations, but it does give away some very vague details, read at your own discretion!
Eh, Hope serves SOME purpose in the first half of the game, mostly just helping bring out certain aspects of Lightning that would never have been portrayed before. Like the fact that it does portray how she does soften up a bit over the course. Remember she is all "Look, you're useless and slowing me down, just stop following me" at first and in a later scene, she's got that Big-sister-like hug going for him when she finds out he's alright.
This would have worked better if I didn't feel that FF13 character development feels rushed and forced in general. I don't really mind the characters, but the characters develop a little too fast and abruptly, which hurts the cast. In the above scenario with Lightning, the shift from "Go away" to "Are you alright!?" was only in a manner of a few scenes, which just isn't enough to make that believable, unless you're really selling a major time jump, which FF13 very clearly doesn't, as everything is happening in a sequential order (well...once you get to Pulse, its implied that there's something of a Time skip, but I'd wager its no more than a week or so. The game suggests the team has been doing at least SOME traveling between Chap 10 and Chap 11, as they seem to have grown at least a little use to the idea of being on Pulse, but are also getting tired of wandering.)
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Warming up to Infinite Undiscovery's battle system. As I previously said, it was like Suikoden III, except it is different in a couple of better respects. Learning skills can happen during and/or after battle similar to SaGa learning. It's not randomized. Interface is a bit better, blockading, flanking and intercepting or raidlocking are good elements to the battle system. Despite the equipment and level your characters have, you can STILL get raped depending on if you pay attention to who you're attacking, who may flank you for increased damage, etc. I'm not too fond of my teammates wanting some good ass loot from battle to increase their equipment with (because you can recruit a great amount of troops whose stats differ in later parts of the game - later recruit = better stats), but I'm realizing that the majority of loot they're currently wanting is unnecessary in items I want for Rush.
Storyline is thickening. God Emperor is, and looks, fucking badass. Plus he's hot and eye candy is an added element to enjoying the game. I'm not on Disc 2 yet. I'm taking my time. Plus I need to re-walk some environments for digging, preparing for this war that David is supporting against the God Emperor (for now, he's too awesome to want to actually fight . . . right?) because of the Gae Bolg being quarantined basically to Celepaleis. Wondering what relation/skill Rush has from the such and such because he is badass and Rush's mom has t--SPOILER--he same skill as a certain lady. Not too much of a spoiler. Anyway. Um. Yeah. Music is frickin' awesome by the way. Battle themes changing during battle is a good thing too. It gets rid of the redundancy. And am actually liking this game. So far it's average, but my mom has been watching me play and is commenting on plot stuff, so maybe that's why? I was looking at forums and people were saying that the game is so difficult and that they hate it because they always die. Man, you see what happens when games add a minutia of strategy to it. . . . I've died a handful of times, specifically when I was in partnership with only ONE other teammate, but that teammate rocked so hard I shouldn't have. Yeah.
Character animation still fucking sucks. Some of the voice acting sucks, but overall, very good tones and sounds applied to specific characters.
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You could remove every scene with him and Lightning/Snow and other than a bit of development for those two, nothing would really change.
Funny considering if not for him Lightning would have suicided herself. Its hardly a side plot when he has major interactions with Lightning, Snow, Vanille and his father. Hell besides the Sazh and Vanille sections all the plot up to that point is based on him, it isn't a side plot in the slightest. Well you could say the L'Cie thing is the main plot and thus Hope's "Arc" shall we say is a side plot but really, the main plot is barely there at that point.
Hope just... is there saying GO TEAM!
He falls into the background for a while admittedly but honestly all the main characters are in the background at some point or another, some more then most. Sazh, Fang and Vanille are just there for most of the game).
His scenes after his arc are some scenes with snow and vanille, mostly to show how he has put his hatred behind him and thus offer some conclusion to his arc.
I can't deny he acts like a cheerleader in chapter 12 but he IS mocked for it so I'm sure a lot of people won't mind it.
the shift from "Go away" to "Are you alright!?" was only in a manner of a few scenes
Odin cleared things up for her. I'm pretty sure the deal with them is you see sense or you die so its safe to assume Lightning had an epiphany of some kind. You could say thats a handwave to explain certain characters (Fang is proberly the biggest offender) changing their minds just like that but I think thats why the summons are there. They could have added several more cutscenes to make it more legit but people from what I've seen don't like storytelling being done in 20 min cutscenes. Not that I agree with them because these are the same people who hate the datalog because it should have been all there in the cutscene, you know the very thing they hate.
And yeah as rankable for bosses I was thinking Giant Blue Arm, Giant Dude Form 2, and Giant Picassox2 with the possibility of Giant Grenade Man (depending on the mech issue.)
Giant Blue Arm - Okay
Giant Grenade Man - Okay
Giant Dude Form 2 = Final boss form two? That might be out as it is clearly a plot fusion, third forms a headache and the first form isn't even him.
Giant Picassox2 = Main villain who loves to transform into giant mechs? First form might be better.
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The Odin thing is a pretty half assed way is the thing. The game tries to say "Hey, Eidolons come to help us make a decision", but honestly, that's a bullshit plot device. Its sudden revelation crap like this which is not good character work, and it feels forced and rushed.
Hope's character is a coming of age story, contrast to Lightning whose more just "we learn more about her, and she comes to understand the truth of shit better, and adjusts accordingly." Lightning is a bit more static than Hope, as a result, needs a little less direct focus. Also, Hope tends to be a whiny little bitch at times, so he seems like he's being more important than he is. Everything Hope does in the game is either a plot device ("Hey, we're like Fal'Cie pets!" triggering Lightning realizing what she had to do. This does not make Hope important cause it was a throw away line that accidentally triggered this in Lightning, its a pure plot device, and it could have been replaced by Lightning realizing it through some other means), or its something related to a side plot. Its all about his coming of age, and coming to grips with himself, his father, etc. None of this is totally relevant to the story itself. He's mostly just there to help Snow and Lightning develop more.
Your saying "Without Hope, Lightning would have suicided!" (which I honestly don't even remember this scene) is just further evidence of our point, not contradicting it at all; you're saying that Hope served as a plot device for Lightning to realize something, congrats! Why not show how Hope ties into the main plot overall, not just one event, rather than saying "Its all based on him!" cause its clearly not; don't go hurling blanket statements like that.
Its cases like this that people will overstate many character's purposes. For example, cause I've argued it a lot, people will say "Locke is important in FF6 cause without him, Terra would have died in Narshe!" Statement is true, but what does that do to make him the Main Character? There may be a legit argument for Locke, but its certainly not "Terra would have died." All that proves is that Locke was important FOR THAT MOMENT cause of that particular Plot Device. I fail to see how Hope is any different.
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I dunno if Lightning woulda suicided... she may have just stayed a bitch. But like I've said before. This game is more about Sazh/Vanille/Fang than Lightning/Snow.
Spoilers below for anyone not at Chapter 11ish.
Vanille is the one who decides to renegade on her focus. Fang is the one with the power to make Cocoon go boom. Sazh's son is the one who started the whole thing with Serah and them (because of Vanille and Fang of course.) Lightning and Snow are along for the ride because of Serah. Hope is along for the ride with those two because of his mom, but... what does he accomplish? Okay, he helps Lightning become less of a bitch, but even that doesn't come without Odin and even Light being less of a bitch isn't a huge issue of the game.
I dunno. In every FF, the game clearly revolves around Cloud/Tifa, Squall/Rinoa, Zidane/Garnet, Tidus/Yuna, Noclue/noclue. In this one there isn't a clear cut main 2, but Vanille/Fang or Vanille/Sazh seems to be the best argument. The others have their goals... then decide not to achieve their goals, and then decide that Vanille is right.
Maybe my boss names were too obscure.
I was considering Giant Dude Form 2 as his end of Chapter 11 form. It's a real fight whereas his third form seems kind of like "kill me so you can fight Orphan, but I will throw the obligatory AOE spells out that you can heal through easily."
Picasso was Orphan. I cay say this now since I added spoiler warning! Orphan's final form is... weird yeah, but the first form at least is pretty doable. Low HP + Poison is brutal, some normal damage in there, IIRC debuffing and buff removal. HP/Stagger makes it tough to guage, but the HP is definitely there. They also discuss Orphan the entire game so it's not like a Necron fight.
Final form Orphan could be similar to Berle? Invulnerability until staggered. Staggering is just weird in the DL in general.
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Your saying "Without Hope, Lightning would have suicided!" (which I honestly don't even remember this scene) is just further evidence of our point, not contradicting it at all; you're saying that Hope served as a plot device for Lightning to realize something, congrats! Why not show how Hope ties into the main plot overall, not just one event, rather than saying "Its all based on him!" cause its clearly not; don't go hurling blanket statements like that.
Its cases like this that people will overstate many character's purposes. For example, cause I've argued it a lot, people will say "Locke is important in FF6 cause without him, Terra would have died in Narshe!" Statement is true, but what does that do to make him the Main Character? There may be a legit argument for Locke, but its certainly not "Terra would have died." All that proves is that Locke was important FOR THAT MOMENT cause of that particular Plot Device. I fail to see how Hope is any different.
Setzer is the main character cuz without him they never could have gotten to Vector!!!
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I see a misconception.....
Daisley is not Fal'cie=Orphan. Fal'cie=Orphan's first form really also isn't a plot fusion.
You can say Daisley "composed" Fal'cie=Orphan, though.
Also, discussing who is really the core of all this is futile as well. The only thing that might be able to provide an answer is the Ultimania Omega that may or may not came out.
But personally, I think Minerva is the core of all this.
BTW, I recommand Daisley's form three. His Thanatos's Scorn+Ultima double cast is pretty much an overkill to most characters who are not from real time battle system who can heal through it during the tarnsition of the attack animation.
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Boss move spoilers etc
Was that a low HP double cast or something? He used both on me... but not close enough together to only be healing during the animations. That seemed like his least tanky form of the 3 because of the ridiculous experience that the final dungeon gives you. His damage is impressive in that form against a non healer, but mediocre 2HKO damage is nothing new in Godlike unless there was a true doublecast that I never ran against.
Orphan Poison/LowHP combo seemed a lot more deadly, especially since it seemed like a low HP move was auto triggered at 50% health.
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Pokemon Ecks Dee: Finished the Cipher Base. Wow, got a ton of Shadow Pokemon here, I must be near the end! *looks at list of all shadow pokemon* 37 more... *dies*
Blast Works: I'ts Touhou x Katamari Damacy. Obviously avoiding streaming bullet fire from bosses is much harder when you've grown to their size.
PWI: dicking around at level 92. Got Sage Fist Mastery, woo. Go go 90% bonus damage.
Heart Gold: I actually never played Gold/Silver/Crystal, so this is a new experience for me. I mean, outside of being like every other Pokemon game made in the last 14 years. Graphics are worse than Platinum's, and I can't decide if I like the bottom-screen interface or not. Falkner was fail with Pidgey and Pidgeotto, despite having Roost. Bugsy on the other hand, holy fuck. LEVEL 17 SCYTHER WITH U-TURN. Granted, he only has Metapod and Kakuna to back that up, but still Scyther with U-turn is just insane at this point in the game.
Love the Pokewalker by the way. It's small enough to keep in my pocket while working, and plenty of Watts accrue during the course of a day. Kind of scary how much data is stored on such a small device.
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<Spoilers regarding what was discussed, also a mountain of text>
Hope's character is a coming of age story
I guess it could be put that way but I'm not so sure its that clear cut. He has a good enough reason for his revenge, sure he is a bit childish about it but snow hardly helped himself (Not his fault mind).
Also, Hope tends to be a whiny little bitch at times, so he seems like he's being more important than he is.
I hear this a lot regarding Hope. I mean the kids lost his mother and has suddenly become what he hates so he whines. What a little bitch for showing emotion instead of being a stoic hardcase right? His whining actually stops for quite a while though instead being replaced with revenge, though he does come of a bit of a whiner at that point. If thats the period of time you're talking about then fine valid point, if you're talking about early game then I'd argue he should be given some leeway for that.
Your saying "Without Hope, Lightning would have suicided!" (which I honestly don't even remember this scene) is just further evidence of our point, not contradicting it at all; you're saying that Hope served as a plot device for Lightning to realize something, congrats!
Lightning plan was basically attack Eden by herself which is a akin to suicide. Hope doesn't just cause her to give up on the idea later on but he's the reason they aren't shot up stright up because he knew a secret entrance. I guess you could say thats two plot devices but seriously I don't find his actions to be so simply put. Him and Lightning work of themselfs well in that section and are both on equal footings in importance. Hope makes Lightning realize some things but she in turn does the same thing for him, even if it all heads down a path she didn't exactly want.
Why not show how Hope ties into the main plot overall, not just one event, rather than saying "Its all based on him!" cause its clearly not; don't go hurling blanket statements like that.
I just stated that if I didn't know any about the game you could very well believe he was the main character with the sheer amount of screentime he gets in those sections. Anyway how have I shown he only has one event? Lets see he has the going with lightning scene, he makes her snap out of her bitch mode, makes her swear off her suicide ploy, struggles with the anger regarding snow, has a heart to heart with snow, meets his father and has a heart to heart with him. These scenes are all back to back (I think there might be a sazh scene in there somewhere but thats not important here). Are you telling me he is the secondary character for all of that? Out of all those periods of time he is a secondary character for half of one of them.
I fail to see how Hope is any different.
I have played like a 1/4 of FF6 so I can't exactly argue this. My arguement would be something about how Hope is more important in his section then Locke ever is but I haven't played much of FF6 so yeah not going there.
I was considering Giant Dude Form 2 as his end of Chapter 11 form. It's a real fight whereas his third form seems kind of like "kill me so you can fight Orphan, but I will throw the obligatory AOE spells out that you can heal through easily."
Might be wrong but I don't think his first form can be staggered unless he's charging his big move. That would make him far more durable then his second form.
Picasso was Orphan. I cay say this now since I added spoiler warning! Orphan's final form is... weird yeah, but the first form at least is pretty doable. Low HP + Poison is brutal, some normal damage in there, IIRC debuffing and buff removal. HP/Stagger makes it tough to guage, but the HP is definitely there. They also discuss Orphan the entire game so it's not like a Necron fight.
To me thats a fusion right there. He is wearing two other beings as armor/Skin/flesh not to mention he never even speaks as Orphan is the thing in the middle.
Final form Orphan could be similar to Berle? Invulnerability until staggered. Staggering is just weird in the DL in general.
Invulnerability for 3-4 turns before its open to attack and then is OHKOed easily. I really don't see much of a way to rank him.
You can say Daisley "composed" Fal'cie=Orphan, though.
You could take it in that direction but honestly I really aren't sure. I'll have to replay the fight sometime soon to recall it clearly but isn't Orphan Silent the whole time with the two people fused into him doing the talking.
But personally, I think Minerva is the core of all this.
Could you enlighten me here. Is Mineverva that owl? Besides that I don't see who it could be.
Boss move spoilers etc
All the people listed for ranking besides grenade man have doom, just saying as most people won't see it. I'm more intersted in Blue arm man. Doom + Guard autowins against Pcs and Guard in general is quite good if the enemy is below average speed. The speed plus high 2HKO damage is also quite respectable if you don't see guard as uber (I do personally).
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FF3DS - *Blood Sword get.*
Bwahahahahahaha.
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Pokemon Ecks Dee: Finished the Cipher Base. Wow, got a ton of Shadow Pokemon here, I must be near the end! *looks at list of all shadow pokemon* 37 more... *dies*
About 1/3rd of those Pokemon are gotten in the last 3 fights of the game. I'm not kidding at all. The final boss has 6 Shadow Pokemon, preceded by a lone Shadow Pokemon (should be obvious who it is), preceded by some guy wielding 4 Shadow Pokemon, one of whom is an evil Salamence :(
Other than that, just about every trainer in the final dungeon has a Shadow Pokemon, some multiple, and then there's Shadow Dragonite who is after game only <_<
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Pokémon Heart Gold- Up to Mt. Silver. In mentally reviewing Red's team, I'm pretty certain I can't beat him even with significant item usage, meaning I'm going to take some time to figure out new Pokes to raise before bothering with the whole thing. Listing current team before commenting on the rest of the game, because... well, you'll see how it ties in in a moment.
Scyther (L55, Technician, Wing Attack/U-Turn/Double Hit/X-Scissor)- Badass. I caught one in the bug catching contest, and it was by a wide margin my MVP. Having used a Crobat in Platinum's mid-game, I didn't even think that Wing Attack OHKOing everything in sight was odd until I was doing it to Clair's subordinates, at which point I saw Technician and smiled. But yeah, faster than about anything you see besides Electrodes and Aerodactyl, Wing Attack is kinda ridiculous off STAB and that level of Attack WITHOUT Technician, and while U-turn wasn't a huge deal it was a nice option. X-Scissor mostly OHKOs Psychics.
Typhlosion (L39, Blaze, Lava Plume/Swift/SmokeScreen/Blast Burn)- Honestly? Jeigan. Typh has this MONSTER move drought between levels 16 and 34, give or take, and due to HGSS's lowered level curve this amounts to nearly have the damned game. Once it catches up it's good again for a time, but definitely wasn't up to snuff for the E4 and at that point the level gap made it mostly useless against the Kanto gyms. If I'd thought ahead to "oh, yeah, I'll be using Ho-Oh" and knew I'd pick up a Scyther, I'd have taken Meganium.
Gyarados (L45, Intimidate, Ice Fang/Dragon Dance/Waterfall/Surf)- Mostly around for requisite water HM uses. That said, given that I needed significant Revive chains against Lance and Blue, Intimidate was a life saver. I also had this idea of using him against Blaine, which sorta worked out I guess.
Ho-Oh (L47, Pressure, Extrasensory/Brave Bird/Fire Blast/Sacred Fire)- Man, Brave Bird was TOTALLY worth that Heart Scale. Ho-oh was mostly a tanky reservist in Kanto, but the E4 did not like the 120 STAB'd off Uber Attack move. Sacred Fire... I dunno. I feel like they could have gone higher on the Burn rate.
Togekiss (L50, Hustle, Aura Sphere/Charm/Fly/Sweet Kiss)- I hate you so much HGSS. You deny me Shiny Stones the entire game. Okay, sure. I end up having to farm the minigame for one in the aftergame, because otherwise I can either smash Rocks all damn day or wait until I BEAT ALL THE KANTO GYMS to get one. What? And then it turns out that, whether because the mechanics changed or because Togekiss specifically hates you (I honestly don't know), it doesn't get it's evolution moves upon, y'know, evolving. No, you have to get more Heart Scales. This again can be achieved with the minigame. Hey, at this point I'm pretty good at it. Ah, but wait, you can only buy Heart Scales on certain days (hurray DS clock abuse) and... only one per day. The one per day rule is NOT circumvented by clock abuse. in fact, I'm not sure you can ever get more because the game may just hate me that much. So yeah. I hate you so much for this game. Oh, also the wrong ability, just for added salt.
Furret (L17, Keen Eye, Cut/Rock Smash/Strength/Whirlpool)- Useful in Whitney's gym (it was, uh, pretty much the same level there). Otherwise you can guess.
Butterfree (L39, CompoundEyes, Silver Wind/Sleep Powder/Stun Spore/Psybeam)- Ultimately retired for Kanto, since I needed my HM Slave and wanted to keep Ho-Oh around. That said, pretty useful right up until the E4. The offense is pretty usable in the first half of the game, and after that it's enough to batter around status'd opponents fairly well. Every Rival battle was fairly trivial because Feraligator just can't take a little sleep.
So if you'll notice, this team is HILARIOUSLY unbalanced. And you know? The game only really punished me for it against like Lance and Kanto. I had to level up against Janine because at THAT point Typhlosion was Quilava and didn't know Lave Plume. So basically I couldn't do jack against her Steelix. After that though it wasn't so bad. The oddity is that all the Johto Gym Leaders have this weird quirk where they basically have one man teams. Oh, they pretend to have more, but uh... Kakuna/Spinark/Scyther (or was it Kakuna/Metapod/Scyther? Whatever). This is typical, not an exception. The Kanto leaders are a little better, and tend to have four man teams with two unevolved dead weights, but yeah. Aside from Lance, Blue, and Red, I swear all the bosses are basically "maim puny mortals, have real fight with one pokemon, profit".
Weird game. Much improved from the original (despite the quirky design, the one good pokemon is ACTUALLY good for every boss but maaaaybe Falkner), 7/10 range.
Really not sure who I want to train up to fight Red. Scyther and Togekiss can stay, otherwise I'm still mulling.
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Use a Luvdisc.
FFXII: Does it say something about the game that I'm hunting down the rare monsters to fill out the bestiary instead of going ahead with the plot?
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That silly "upgrade everything" flash game: http://armorgames.com/play/3955/upgrade-complete
Did three SCCs for the three weapon types (still allowed myself to use magnets and speed panels as they're utility.
Lightning SCC--as near as I can tell, is incapable of beating the game. Just flat out does not seem to have the firepower for level 18, even with all 12 ship parts being level 5 lightning. Optimum setup seems to be to place all the lightning bulbs as far forward as possible.
Gun SCC--Can beat the game, but it's hard. Seriously struggled with level 18 for ages. Optimum strategy seems to be to spread the guns evenly along the bottom, and tap left and right a lot (and use a speed panel--moving helps more than additional shots, since extra damage doesn't register if too many shots are clumped together).
Missiles SCC--Beat the game with the average missile upgrade being level 4 >_>. Really quite easy, it just has the problem that if all the launchers target the same enemy, they waste a lot of time, and...missiles really like targeting far away enemies and not the enemy that's threatening to sneak past you. Optimum setup seems to be to buy lots of launchers instead of upgrading at first, and space them out vertically and horizontally so that they each track different targets.
So...Missiles are obviously worth the money. Gun probably is too, costing 1/2 Lighting and 1/3 Missiles. Lightning...ugh, it feels really handy in game, but...ugh.
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Typhlosion (L39, Blaze, Lava Plume/Swift/SmokeScreen/Blast Burn)- Honestly? Jeigan. Typh has this MONSTER move drought between levels 16 and 34, give or take, and due to HGSS's lowered level curve this amounts to nearly have the damned game. Once it catches up it's good again for a time, but definitely wasn't up to snuff for the E4 and at that point the level gap made it mostly useless against the Kanto gyms. If I'd thought ahead to "oh, yeah, I'll be using Ho-Oh" and knew I'd pick up a Scyther, I'd have taken Meganium.
Couldn't you buy a Fire Blast TM for it in Goldenrod? Low PP yeah, but it helps for major opponents at least.
Togekiss (L50, Hustle, Aura Sphere/Charm/Fly/Sweet Kiss)- I hate you so much HGSS. You deny me Shiny Stones the entire game. Okay, sure. I end up having to farm the minigame for one in the aftergame, because otherwise I can either smash Rocks all damn day or wait until I BEAT ALL THE KANTO GYMS to get one. What? And then it turns out that, whether because the mechanics changed or because Togekiss specifically hates you (I honestly don't know), it doesn't get it's evolution moves upon, y'know, evolving. No, you have to get more Heart Scales. This again can be achieved with the minigame. Hey, at this point I'm pretty good at it. Ah, but wait, you can only buy Heart Scales on certain days (hurray DS clock abuse) and... only one per day. The one per day rule is NOT circumvented by clock abuse. in fact, I'm not sure you can ever get more because the game may just hate me that much. So yeah. I hate you so much for this game. Oh, also the wrong ability, just for added salt.
You can get Heart Scales from Rock Smash. That's probably the best way, even if it is kinda tedious.
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More of the stupid "upgrade everything" flash game:
Did a "maximum 6 ship parts" runthrough. Final setup was 5 Missiles and 1 Lightning (Lightning does have a use!) Although replaying the final level with 5 Missiles 1 Gun seems to do the trick just fine as well (or at least, beats level 20, which might not be the hardest). Hmm...*replays* actually, 4 Missiles 1 Gun also seems to get past level 20 (and 4 Missiles 1 Lightning definitely does not). I swear switching to lightning made things easier in the midgame...maybe I need to go back and do a 5-ship-parts playthrough.
EDIT: yeah, Max 5 parts (4 Missilses 1 Gun) gets through the entire game just fine; in fact the final level caused me the most trouble requiring several tries (which surprises me as it usually hasn't been the hardest in the past, and I already knew this setup could win here).
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Upgrayedd. Why did you have to link that stupid game. That's the 9th time I've played it. Ugh.
CONGRATULATIONS FOREVER.
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I'd read about Rock Smash heart scale farming, but after trying for ten minutes or so and not getting any (admittedly, got some other prizes including at least one Max Revive) I decided to try the next method on the list. Since I'd already gotten my Shiny Stone from the Pokethalon and had a sense of how best to abuse that, I probably got my points faster than I would have found scales rock smashing. Then I found out that the timer on its prize purchases is actually run internally by the game rather than through the DS clock. I've since purchased another one, so at least I have Air Slash now. I don't think I'll need another major "need multiple Heart Scales at once" incident, so if I need more I can probably go back to the Pokethalon.
(Admittedly, if the items available from rock smash vary by location, it's possible that was the issue since I was just using some rocks at the entrance to the Alph Ruins.)
Decided to go ahead and train up a T-Tar. That takes care of Charizard. Scyther should mangle Espeon and Venusaur, and I think Togekiss can slug down Snorlax. Pikachu is a matter of having T-Tar take the hit, so that leaves Blastoise. Whether I should raise an electric type or just go the lazy route, use Ho-Oh, and item abuse through that bit I dunno.
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Items from Rock Smash vary by location (serebii.net has a list). I doubt you'll be surprised to learn that there are no Heart Scales at the Ruins of Alph.
T-tar is a good choice for Red, as it screws up the Hail that he tries to abuse with three Blizzard spammers.
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You know, for some reason I decided that I didn't do enough of STUPID UPGRADE FLASH GAME. I don't know what's wrong with me, but without further ado...
No-lose challenge. This is actually kind of hard, as some of the levels are balanced assuming a few losses here and there (which ends up meaning significantly more cashflow). So...after some experimentation, the strategy early on was....lots and lots of magnets; like, earlygame there's nothing wrong with five or six magnets (leave most of them at level 1). Past that, 4 Guns, 4 Missiles, 4 Magnets carried me through the midgame/lategame (keeping Guns and Missiles at similar levels).
And in even more insanity, stat topicing of "Upgrade Complete"
First, some of the raw damage comparison tests:
Level5Gun ~= 3xLevel1Gun damage (or some of my tests have said more like 2.5x)
Level5Missile ~= 4xLevel1Missile damage
Level4Lightning > 4xLevel1Lightning > Level3Lightning (Level 5 Lightning is maybe a bit above 5x--I didn't have a good test case here).
Level5Lightning deals...it's hard to compare across weapons, but probably about as much as Level1Gun.
Level5Missile...I think a solo one might be similar damage to a solo Level5Gun based on some tests, and this matches some of my tests on level1 Gun vs Missiles, so...in theory damage looks something like...
Lightning:...1-5 damage
Gun:..........5-12 damage
Missiles:.....3-12 damage
Though notably gun damage stacks poorly due hit detection issues. In particular 12x all-Gun is able to beat wave 20 (just barely), but 6x all-Missiles is also able to beat wave 20 (again, barely). And along the same lines, 12x Gun wins by changing targets rapidly to get less hitbox overlap.
Prices are (including all upgrade costs)
Gun:..........L1 $1,000, L2 $3,000, L3 $7,000, L4 $13,000, L5 21,000
Lightning:...L1 $2,000, L2 $6,000, L3 $14,000, L4 $26,000, L5 42,000
Missile:.......L1 $3,000, L2 $9,000, L3 $21,000, L4 $39,000, L5 63,000
Gun shoots straight forward (though tilts with you when you move left or right, so aimable).
Lightning hits the nearest target.
Missile hits the furthest target within range.
One additional mechanic: lightning's range starts out very low, and increases every upgrade by an equal amount. At L4 it's about equal with Missile launching range, L5 is higher range. L1 range is...painful. Though yes: this combined with "your damage is HOW LOW??" makes L1 lightning really, mind-bogglingly painfully bad. (L5 lightning is okay; not that much less damage than L5Gun due to gun-glitch, and lightning is homing. In a normal game this would probably be the better weapon, but in this game...as long as you're shooting in an upwards direction, you're probably hitting enemies, so often L5Gun is worth more. Never mind that it's half the price...).
EDIT: And some extra insanity: what's the least expensive team that can beat level 20? So far I'm down to $36,000 (6x L1Missile, 6xL2Gun).
EDIT2: Okay, got it down to $30,000 (4xL1Missile, 5xL2Gun, 3xL1Gun). I'm not inclined to try to push this line any further, but...still, it's fun to see setups that can win and also cost less than some individual pieces of equipment.
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FESD - Finished the H3 play. After the first 3 chapters and their hax bosses the game got a bit easier, but generally maintained a certain bite to it, a bit easier than FE10 NM but not too much? Pretty good area for challenge of a FE game to me. Definitely liked the multiple Hard Mode settings the game had, great idea. Think I chose well, and H3 was just a guess!
Final map got super-buffed, though, definitely one of the harder FE finals out there. Enemies were entirely outfitted with Brave and +5 forges, which is kinda hax. The mobile 36-atk Pachyderm ballisticians may have been the real threat, though. Medeus himself is kinda psycho, 30 speed/50 atk is brutal. I planned out a strategy to beat him but made two errors, in forgetting his throne bonus (27 def instead of 25 def = whoops) and some untimely reinforcements which forced me into a panic. THAT SAID, the combination of both Tiki and Nagi is hax, so I could sacrifice one and together they 2HKO. If I'd missed things could have seriously gone south, but so it goes. The FE6 style reinforcements are really a bit much, least favourite thing about HM.
Kill leader was Caeda, reprising her role from last game, again with the same 94 kills! The Coyote trio of Hardin, Sedgar, and Wolf came next, in that order. PC notes...
Marth: Gave him Boots. This makes him notably better, but I didn't realise it at first (didn't think of this until I got the boots) so I let him get too underlevelled again. No big, he loses one of his main niches (fighting Medeus) on HM because of lol30speed.
Caeda: We know the story here. Winged Spear is even more valuable on HM, you really need its oomph, particularly on someone as mobile as Caeda. Made her a Paladin for a few fights where flight wasn't needed so she could avoid arrow weakness... just great options for her.
Lena: For what it's worth, I was wrong about holding onto the Starsphere being worth it. This is because Hammerne is ridiculous. Game gives you a bunch of stuff worth repairing - A rank weapons, Divinestones, the Pachyderm, ANYTHING you forge. And at 12 shots you can do it all. This singlehandedly vaults Lena into top tier to me, but even without this she's still the best staff level (initial Warp!) you have.
Merric: Only other person I used all the way through to Endgame in both files as a combat unit, besides Caeda. Easy enough to see why, probably the best mage statistically and best suited to fighting Gharnef.
Hardin: Probably the best cavalier? Technically his stats are slightly below Abel/Cain/Frey, but he wins because of weapon levels. B/D where the others start at D/E... yeah. Can use Jagen's Silver Lance initially (not to mention Javelins, damn you Cain), can class over to Myrm and have Steel, and later into SM and use Silver (was close to Mercurius DESPITE my mainly using lances for him) or into a Dracoknight to fly. Just awesomely versatile. My final boss strategy involved him attacking Medeus because he was the only person on my TEAM who could take a hit and do real damage back as a SM, although this ended up not mattering.
Sedgar: Starts bad, but once he gets some levels in him he starts rockin'. Nice def, decent otherwise. I had him as a General at first, even though I hate Generals and they suck, because it helped him at least survive while he levelled. After about 6-10 maps I made him a Horseman again and he started kicking ass. Fell off a bit at endgame, his speed just couldn't keep up, but always had some Def, and made a reasonable bow user.
Wolf: Somewhat less impressed. Probably just RNG, he's similar enough to Sedgar and went through the same pattern. I made him into a Hero and he basically stayed there to be my axeman, which probably wasn't worth it, Hauteclaire isn't THAT badass and it was final chapter only by which time Wolf's stats had fallen off some. Main thing that bugged me about him is I noticed that 20/1 Palla had better stats than 20/11 Wolf in like everything, kind of a bummer.
Palla: Because I used her instead of Catria this time to be different. She's no Catria. She does have massive Strength, but Speed's just not good enough. Means that after promo I had her go SM, which meant dropping to C, but... she did get back to B and then she hurt things pretty well. Low speed for a SM only really hurt her against the final boss.
Horace: Oh yeah, Horace rant time. Anyway, I missed 12x last time, got it this time. I was pleasantly surprised; the scene at the end of 12x is, without a doubt, the best in the game. Basically Horace is being all emo about being an honourable knight and that you should kill him for betraying his (your) country, and Nyna basically bitchslaps him and tells him that dying would shame all his soldiers who fought and died believing he was doing the best thing (which he was, Dolhr had threatened to raze his lands if he didn't cooperate), not to mention ensure that they would be remembered as followers as a dirty traitor, instead of someone who found redemption. It was actually rather powerful by the game's (Very, very low) standards. Surprised it was Nyna because she's so worthless in all her other scenes, but there you go. Anyway, after this I decided I was using Horace until endgame. At first he was pretty good, better than Wolf as a Hero, although the low weapon levels sucked, I burned an Arms Scroll on him (And shouldn't have, those are too valuable). Bad growths caught up eventually and he was definitely the Endgame LVP.
Jake: Other ballistician. For all intents and purposes they are clones, with Jake being a couple maps earlier but harder to recruit (and you need to recruit Beck anyway because he has the only Thunderbolt).
Tiki: Best manakete in the series that I've seen. It's her or Nagi. Though she was a liability at first, she wasn't -that- big of one, and after a couple maps (of a modest number of kills, not a killfeed fest like Nino needs) she started holding her own just fine. Then in Chapter 23 she is great because of her monstrous Res, then in 24 she is EVEN BETTER because hey manakete central and she has 54 might on them, lulzOHKOed and manaketes are monstrous bastards (26 speed, IS? Really?) so this is great. Endgame well she and Nagi are by far the best killers of the final boss, and although in H3 they are nowhere near as good offensively (way more enemies they don't double, or don't 2HKO in the case of ballistas and generals, although manaketes still get raped) they are very effective tanks (Sedgar has similar Def, but lacks the Res and Luck) while having said offence. Just wish they had more Move. Tiki's a bit better than Nagi if levelled, for what it's worth, a bit more Strength and Luck.
Nagi: See above basically. Using both at once is basically cheating (and needs you to burn your Aum Staff on Tiki, but this is quite fine!).
Castor: I should mention him because he showed promise with his Str/Spd and HM is less archer-unfriendly (more tanking) but he was still clearly tending towards LVP in my party so eventually I made the move to make Sedgar an archer and sacrifice him instead.
BAntu: Oh dear god he's bad. What the fuck is up with those growths? Needing to keep him alive until you get Tiki is just rude (although worth it).
Julian: Note to self, raise him as a combat unit sometime. Wait, I don't actually plan to replay the game.
So yep. Enjoyable enough experience but I'm definitely done, all the other FEs I've played are better and now that I've basically experienced FESD to completion (H5 sounds like the same as H3 just with better enemy stats, no map redesigns) I don't plan to return to it any time soon if ever. 6/10 can stay.
XS2 - I love Vanderkam. Why didn't I nom the Naglfar Cannons scene in Meeple's topic?
Ace Attorney Investigations and Mega Man 10 are next, as promised by Capcom stuff earlier!
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FF13 - Barely played today, did some missions. I know people are sick of me ragging on this by now, but wow, the map for getting around this section is fucking horrible. Makes me so glad the rest of the game was on rails. I would seriously frisby the game if the map was this bad all the time.
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You know, for some reason I decided that I didn't do enough of STUPID UPGRADE FLASH GAME. I don't know what's wrong with me, but without further ado...
No-lose challenge. This is actually kind of hard, as some of the levels are balanced assuming a few losses here and there (which ends up meaning significantly more cashflow). So...after some experimentation, the strategy early on was....lots and lots of magnets; like, earlygame there's nothing wrong with five or six magnets (leave most of them at level 1). Past that, 4 Guns, 4 Missiles, 4 Magnets carried me through the midgame/lategame (keeping Guns and Missiles at similar levels).
And in even more insanity, stat topicing of "Upgrade Complete"
First, some of the raw damage comparison tests:
Level5Gun ~= 3xLevel1Gun damage (or some of my tests have said more like 2.5x)
Level5Missile ~= 4xLevel1Missile damage
Level4Lightning > 4xLevel1Lightning > Level3Lightning (Level 5 Lightning is maybe a bit above 5x--I didn't have a good test case here).
Level5Lightning deals...it's hard to compare across weapons, but probably about as much as Level1Gun.
Level5Missile...I think a solo one might be similar damage to a solo Level5Gun based on some tests, and this matches some of my tests on level1 Gun vs Missiles, so...in theory damage looks something like...
Lightning:...1-5 damage
Gun:..........5-12 damage
Missiles:.....3-12 damage
Though notably gun damage stacks poorly due hit detection issues. In particular 12x all-Gun is able to beat wave 20 (just barely), but 6x all-Missiles is also able to beat wave 20 (again, barely). And along the same lines, 12x Gun wins by changing targets rapidly to get less hitbox overlap.
Prices are (including all upgrade costs)
Gun:..........L1 $1,000, L2 $3,000, L3 $7,000, L4 $13,000, L5 21,000
Lightning:...L1 $2,000, L2 $6,000, L3 $14,000, L4 $26,000, L5 42,000
Missile:.......L1 $3,000, L2 $9,000, L3 $21,000, L4 $39,000, L5 63,000
Gun shoots straight forward (though tilts with you when you move left or right, so aimable).
Lightning hits the nearest target.
Missile hits the furthest target within range.
One additional mechanic: lightning's range starts out very low, and increases every upgrade by an equal amount. At L4 it's about equal with Missile launching range, L5 is higher range. L1 range is...painful. Though yes: this combined with "your damage is HOW LOW??" makes L1 lightning really, mind-bogglingly painfully bad. (L5 lightning is okay; not that much less damage than L5Gun due to gun-glitch, and lightning is homing. In a normal game this would probably be the better weapon, but in this game...as long as you're shooting in an upwards direction, you're probably hitting enemies, so often L5Gun is worth more. Never mind that it's half the price...).
EDIT: And some extra insanity: what's the least expensive team that can beat level 20? So far I'm down to $36,000 (6x L1Missile, 6xL2Gun).
EDIT2: Okay, got it down to $30,000 (4xL1Missile, 5xL2Gun, 3xL1Gun). I'm not inclined to try to push this line any further, but...still, it's fun to see setups that can win and also cost less than some individual pieces of equipment.
Christ, girl. Damn. I don't know if I'm impressed or horrified.
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FF13 - Barely played today, did some missions. I know people are sick of me ragging on this by now, but wow, the map for getting around this section is fucking horrible. Makes me so glad the rest of the game was on rails. I would seriously frisby the game if the map was this bad all the time.
Please, rage some more. Seriously. I'm putting FFXIII on indefine backlog once I got to the end of chapter 11. Up until that point, the game was fairly easy on the grind factor. Mobs were challenging but not overwhelming and bosses were cool. But fuck, chapter 11 brings bosses with millions of HP and take fucking forever unless you seriously sit down and CP grind for hours. Take too long and they cast Doom on your leader. Completely screwed! You have to pick your mobs too since straight from chapter 10 you can only handle enemies that give a pathetic 2000 CP when at minimum need 4000 for stats. I only did 6 or so Ce'ith mission, not including the forced ones. I'm completely stuck on the boss and I can't backtrack to the center of Grand Pulse. My only option is to grind on low CP randoms or fight this fucker that takes 10 minutes to kill.....for 4000! CP. Yeah, I need 10,000 for a megar 100 HP.
Good thing Resonance of Fate and Infinite Space don't suck ass!
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Disgaea 2: DHD - Starting Chapter 6.
Luxor 2 - I hate odd number achievements.
Bioshock 2: Finally reached L 40 in multi.
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Good thing Resonance of Fate and Infinite Space don't suck ass!
Those are the songs in the game? Eh I muted it a while back to listen to some podcasts. Much rather listen to some remix of Legend of Zelda theme redone as a Surf tune that someone found.
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It's a game, Grefter. Infinite Space's pretty wonky. MISSILE DESTROYER CAPITAL SHIP, need to grind money from randoms. It's only 40-80 randoms. >>;
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I'm completely stuck on the boss and I can't backtrack to the center of Grand Pulse. My only option is to grind on low CP randoms or fight this fucker that takes 10 minutes to kill.....for 4000! CP. Yeah, I need 10,000 for a megar 100 HP.
What boss is this? As long as you keep up with the stone missions you shouldn't have any problem. The millions of hp are balanced out by you being able to take half of it out after staggering them once.
FF13 - Have done 61/64 missions, still can't beat those dinos without death though :'(. Missions left are:
Mission 51 - Currently grinding before facing him but I'm sure I could beat him now anyway. Has a lot of hp but not very threatening.
Mission 62 - Who thought of this mission because it shouldn't be this hard. Basically you have to face one of the hardest enemies in the game again except now theres two >:(.
Mission 64 - The big bad superboss. I've heard there is a method to easily beat him. I'll try myself but I'll proberly end up looking for help on him.
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ME: Got through most of Feros, thought I saved, reloaded after a shitty round of combat, found out I hadn't saved since before doing the Feros sidequests. Blah. I continue to enjoy the game but I'm becoming less and less impressed as I play. I tried to do some sidequests that required me to go to uncharted worlds buuuut that's just too annoying to not FAQ. I....... may do them, but probably not. Perhaps when my party's stronger.
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FF13 - Have done 61/64 missions, still can't beat those dinos without death though :'(. Missions left are:
Mission 51 - Currently grinding before facing him but I'm sure I could beat him now anyway. Has a lot of hp but not very threatening.
Mission 62 - Who thought of this mission because it shouldn't be this hard. Basically you have to face one of the hardest enemies in the game again except now theres two >:(.
Mission 64 - The big bad superboss. I've heard there is a method to easily beat him. I'll try myself but I'll proberly end up looking for help on him.
I think 62 is the hardest in the game to 5-star, probably the hardest in the game fullstop. 64 is tricksy rather than difficult, I feel, and 51 just doesn't quite dish it out like he needs to (needs less negative status vulnerability). The Neochu are pretty brutal, too, the death vulnerability aside.
Got the last couple of trophies a few days ago now. Pretty content with the game, overall. Cautiously optimistic about DLC; the longui are tough, but they could definitely be tougher (I ended up beating one with seriously subpar equipment, not sure if I'm okay with that in my ultimate optional bosses)...
Started Valkyria Chronicles, though papers mean I haven't had much chance to play yet. Ch. ~2 so far so good, and it's the only game I've played these past few months that doesn't look ugly compared to FF13, which is nice. Not sure I dig the levelling and item management system... I like to micromanage and I like character individuality, and the system doesn't really seem designed to encourage this.
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FF13 - Missions are dull or just plain annoying (HERE GUYS I HEAR YOU LIKE TO FIGHT GUYS LOL 12 ENEMIES AT ONCE). The map continues to suck horribly, if I didn't have an online map I would not even bother with this shit at all (Seriously, I was ready to punch someone when you get directed to "North blah blah" on the plains and the map constantly rotates with whichever direction you were facing and there is no compass (If you zoom all the way out on the map so you can't see anything you get a reference point of Cocoon which is north), seriously horrible fucking map design and that is all the side questing is. Running around on the map trying to locate what arbitrary one of 64 statues has animated after you beat the last fight (It does show you active ones that aren't finished on the map! Assuming it is in the same area as you and not far enough away that you can't see it). Fuck this game.
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LUNAR Silver Star Harmony: Nall's voice is not squeaky! Voice-acting's not the best, but not terrible either. I like the new opening, lets you get used to the combat system early. Also showcases Lemia's powers, which are... exactly the same as Lemina! Ghaleon has his four elemental spells and a bevy of healing spells.
Ramus sort of got upgraded? Superior in all stats on level 1. Sadly he doesn't seem to get stats from leveling. Except HP. Graphics are nice, loading times are a bit mrhfh but it's PSP so I guess that's a given... combat system's nice. Mix between GBA and PS, dare I say it? You have the gauge special moves from the GBA and the movement based system from the PS.
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Running around on the map trying to locate what arbitrary one of 64 statues has animated after you beat the last fight
The location where you beat a mission should have nearby the next numbered mission. This is true for like the first 30, the next 8 are in the same area (The circle of stones) and the next 16 are again all together in a small area. There is actually only about 5 stones which they give no clue to.
and the map constantly rotates with whichever direction you were facing and there is no compass
I have to agree with you as it is just bad design. I found it best to use the objective mark as the compass as it always points in the same direction.
FF13- Completed mission 51 with five stars. As I'd heard the guy is underwhelming as his damage just isn't good enough and anything without AOE attacks suck in this game. His damage seems a bit random though as he was causing 1500-9000 damage but even he caused 9K with every hit he'd still be easier then his bastard brother in the final area. Next mark is 64 because fuck spawning the hell beasts by beating 62. Is maxing out your character's grids needed though? From what I've seen they give tiny boostes at best.
Dynasty warriors 2 Gundam - Played this with a friend. He was what seemed to be Gundam's version of Lu Bu with the burning Gundam. When I had to pick a character I was underwhelmed at the selection as they all seemed rather lame and girly so I ended up picking the only selectable women character (Who sounds more male then most of the other guys). Her mech while nothing fancy is quite good and her quotes are by far the best (The WHITE DEVIL is my ANGEL!).
All the other guys are lamers with their commanting on war beeing bad or we should all be friends or some crap.
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and the map constantly rotates with whichever direction you were facing and there is no compass
I have to agree with you as it is just bad design. I found it best to use the objective mark as the compass as it always points in the same direction.
Me too, but agreed too.
FF13- Completed mission 51 with five stars. As I'd heard the guy is underwhelming as his damage just isn't good enough and anything without AOE attacks suck in this game. His damage seems a bit random though as he was causing 1500-9000 damage but even he caused 9K with every hit he'd still be easier then his bastard brother in the final area. Next mark is 64 because fuck spawning the hell beasts by beating 62. Is maxing out your character's grids needed though? From what I've seen they give tiny boostes at best.
One complaint I have about the aftergame is that you can't get back through the final dungeon. Feels like such a strange oversight, since there's tons of unique and difficult enemies through there, and it might be the best way to grind for CP (possibly even Gil, since the Jabberwocky/Bandersnatch drop pretty expensive items pretty frequently)
Maxing out the secondary jobs is more about the job levels than stats, I think; I'm not sure, but I suspect the hell beasts' ultima isn't terribly survivable without Sentinel/5. The stats do add up, too, but I'm sure you could get away without maxing out everyone in everything. That's sort of my complaint about the long gui; they're difficult, but there's room above them, difficulty-wise.
Even after you do unlock the long gui, there's still one adamantaimai (or whatever they're called) wandering around the main area, and you can still fight the one in Cocoon too. And you can always refight 63 for an adamantortoise if you're so inclined for some reason.
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As I thought, I'll be maxing everyone's Sentinel before facing him then. Meanwhile I'm going to be working on everyone's weapons. Fang was easy (She gets Taming pole) but Lightening and hope are much harder as choosing between Lionheart or Axis blade is a hard choice to make. Everyone keeps telling me to use the axis blade but I'm not so sure because having to give up four slots to make the weapon good isn't very appealing.
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Superior in all stats on level 1. Sadly he doesn't seem to get stats from leveling. Except HP.
This is exactly how Ramus worked in Silver Star Story Complete.
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My copy must've been different then, I recall him gaining stats until the Meribia sewers at the latest, before he leaves your team. And he never stood out as a good character, but in the PSP remake his hits are more damaging than Alex's.
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The location where you beat a mission should have nearby the next numbered mission. This is true for like the first 30, the next 8 are in the same area (The circle of stones) and the next 16 are again all together in a small area. There is actually only about 5 stones which they give no clue to.
http://twobrothersandasister.com/wp-content/images/2010/march/ffxiii/guides/maps/11gp.jpg
Just to make this clear to people, I am talking about the stuff around Mission 10ish here.
Mission 12 ends about where you see Mission 52 is, Mission 13 ends up close to mission 17. Things like that. They are about a minute or two walk from where you just killed the boss and they are definitely not within your field of view when you beat the last boss. You can see them on the map (maybe). Oh and the game differentiates them from completed missions by making bright blue icons flash white periodically.
All of this without telling you that this is how it works.
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My copy must've been different then, I recall him gaining stats until the Meribia sewers at the latest, before he leaves your team. And he never stood out as a good character, but in the PSP remake his hits are more damaging than Alex's.
Were you playing Lunar Legends? Cause in that game, Ramus gains actual stats upon level up, just less than what the other PCs get.
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My copy must've been different then, I recall him gaining stats until the Meribia sewers at the latest, before he leaves your team. And he never stood out as a good character, but in the PSP remake his hits are more damaging than Alex's.
Were you playing Lunar Legends? Cause in that game, Ramus gains actual stats upon level up, just less than what the other PCs get.
I played the GBA version only briefly. ...
Wait, Ramus stops gaining HP past a certain level, doesn't he?
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I believe that's correct, although for me at least that level came after Ramus left. It's unlikely to impact him significantly unless you powerlevel early.
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Ramus caps out at 85 HP.
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... I cede that I may just have remembered him gaining HP every time and mixed memories with the GBA version, if he gained stats there.
I... don't remember Ramus being distinctly better than Alex in the stats department but I'll take your word for it.
Right now, Alex does ~30 damage to Slimes, Luna does ~25 and Ramus does ~33. Ramus is my top physical attacker, which is why I thought he was superior to the PS remake.
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FF13 - So technically finished with Chapter 11. Going to put off decding whether to jus finish this piece of shit or do some of the Skinner box grind quests for another day. So this chapter is really long and full of all the sidequests. It is also entirely fucking worthless plotwise. So you got absconded and teleported down to Pulse ostensibly by the the Big Bad/Not Bad/Jesus Pope. You walk around for a while and the character focussed plot development happens while you are on your way to Vanille and Fang's hometown. All of this happens on the way to the village, so when you get to the village the character driven plot for the chapter is already resolved, so there is no point to even go to the village. So by nature of it being character driven this could have happened anywhere. Then hey since you are all done with some (lame) plot Big Bad/Not Bad/Jesus Pope turns up and gives you a plane to fly back to Cocoon.
Which makes this entire part fucking stupid and pointless. There is no reason to even go to Gran Pulse other than to have an excuse for sidequests (which don't even unlock plot and are "Go here, kill this dude" but give you good rewards! GOGO GS SYSTEM FROM XS2 WITHOUT THE BENEFITS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WITH NO VARIETY AT ALL) and my other complaints still stand, the map sucks and they are all about running around the map.
I have played games with roadkill that were more engaging than this. The bosses can kill you sure, but mostly only if you are looking away and don't pick a defensive party before/after their big attack. Snoooooooooooooooooooooooooze. Oh and yeah bosses HP just got fucking huge, there is 2 in this chapter and they have health pools that are magnitudes bigger than the last. Also both of them resist all elements ^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^__^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^__^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^
This game is so boring.
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DMC3: Rat reminded me that I had this, I figured what the hell. Started a new game since I didn't remember the controls at all, played up through Agni & Rudra. As far as I can tell, the winning strategy there is: mash triangle until you knock away one's sword -> mash triangle more until that one dies. I got worn down when I tried anything fancier.
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Actually, that strategy is likely to get you killed if you just do that. A better strategy would be alternate between the two, such that when you kill one, the other is mostly dead. This will avoid their evil little Solo Phase, where the two swords combine. Alternatively, you could attack one til its near dead, then shift to the other...just don't let one be alive with too much health.
(Did it that way in case you don't want to be spoiled on how to approach the fight, dunno if you want hints or not)
The knock sword out of hand part, mind is actually a sound method, though might I recommend you try Helm Splitters (diving slash move with Rebellion)? Seems to be better at repelling the sword, and I think it doesn't force you into those deflection locks like basic attacks do.
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I actually did beat the fight doing just what I described, but it was fairly close. Solo phase is indeed evil.
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FF13: About where Grefter is. While I can't really argue about the plot, I crushed the boss' 5 million HP in 1 stagger chain and a few nonstaggered hits. Goooooooo Imperil/Deprotect/Deshell. Combined with Curaja being good MT healing to prevent you from getting actually killed and the fight was much easier than the prior one (which spammed MT knockdown magic. Now THAT was a whore).
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It took me two good stagger phases to get it down (First one uh didn't count because I did in fact look away from the TV for a good 30 seconds since my brothers were talking and eating dinner while I was playing), probably could have done it in one and a bit if I had used Shrouds, I am pretty bad at remembering to use them.
Just to reiterate, doing it in one stagger or two, both are damned boring.
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Finished FFXIII while I was hung over.
The ending seems like it would set up a sequel that might actually be interesting or something. Also people live thanks to deus ex machina. And of course the Cavalry survives because they are the one part of the government that is 100% uniformly not evil. I'm pretty sure like 99% of all people are now dead, but I just didn't care that much. I didn't really feel any affinity or affection with anywhere except the main field on Pulse so the fate of all those faceless people is totally immaterial to me.
As far as the final dungeon goes, holy shit it actually felt like a Dungeon instead of a hallway with a boss at the end.
The game still would have benefitted greatly from having Gran Pulse be the majority of the game and start up like five hours in, but Nomura is the dumbest man ever.
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Na they all died. The soldiers in the ending are Psicom elites with some of edens Guardian corps, the cav guys aren't there.
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Na they all died. The soldiers in the ending are Psicom elites with some of edens Guardian corps, the cav guys aren't there.
Good thing I don't really care about them either, then. I guess that's what an inability to invest the player in the characters or game world will do.
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This game is so boring.
At last I find another person who think this way.
Flame this game more, Grefter, I beg you.
The game still would have benefitted greatly from having Gran Pulse be the majority of the game and start up like five hours in, but Nomura is the dumbest man ever.
This is an overstatement. The game is done by a man even worse, the very same person who did FFX-2, also the plot writer of Bahamut Lagoon. In other words, this game is done by the person who came up with idiocy that is Sendak and Matalite.
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How is that an overstatement, then? Seems to me you're only affirming that Nomura is the epitome of all things that are causing the wasting death of the jRPG genre.
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How is that an overstatement, then? Seems to me you're only affirming that Nomura is the epitome of all things that are causing the wasting death of the jRPG genre.
My bad, I was trying to say understatement.
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I find it hard to call Matelite and Sendak "idiocy" in the way Niu is describing cause they were obviously made primarily for comic relief; Bahamut Lagoon was not a game that took itself seriously for the most part.
That said...
FF13: Just got to Orphan THrone Room thing of massive trippiness.
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Clearly not. They stopped doing that right around the time someone pitched the idea, "Hey, so what if we made this game good?"
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For those interested, an English patch for the SNES Slayers game has been released (http://dynamic-designs.us/).
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Uh, Rob, as much as I like to rag on JRPGs you realize Nomura only does the character designs, right?
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Who directed that pile, then?
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Kitase I think. He seemed to always be in any news regarding the game (Defending it, saying its great and so forth). Then again he could be a special effects man or something for all I know because I'm terrible at remembering details :D
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Motomu Toriyama, the man responsible for those shining gems of quality, FFX-2 and FFXII: Revenant Wings.
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Yeah, Kitase was just the producer. Motomu Toriyama was apparently the lead game designer.
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Revenant Wings is actually not that bad of a game, at least gameplay wise; plot...I guess its inoffensive? That does not make it good mind!
RW feels like a game that was made to be its own unique little thing at first, like its own separate game, but Square realized somewhere along the way that this could be a commercial failure, and its not a big enough release to merit advertising it to hell, and its a niche game, etc. So they do the logical thing, slap "Final Fantasy" on the title, and tie it in with their latest game by shoving all the characters back! I don't know if this is actually what happened, but I really wouldn't be shocked if they decided to make it an FF12 Sequel/Spin-off was an afterthought in order to boost sales. Kind of like what happened with Godzilla vs. Megalon; suppose to be Giant Robot fights evil lightning Beetle, but no, that won't sell; time to shove Godzilla and Gigan into this, to make people almost give a shit about it!
Difference is, FF12RW has actual half decent qualities; Godzilla vs. Megalon is pure crap once you pass the age of 6, and aren't watching the MST3k Version.
And yeah, if the game isn't Kingdom Hearts, Nomura doesn't do much more than character designs. Even Dissidia, where he's called the Creative Producer or whatever, he actually apparently didn't do much besides draw the characters. From reading interviews, it sounds like he mostly directed by just being the guy who gave stamps of approvals to ideas, and Arakawa really did most of the work (worth noting that Nomura DID come up with the idea behind Dissidia, though he didn't actually work a lot on it, Character Designs aside)
Not to mention Nomura's actually one of the few sane people left at Squenix; if nothing else, I refer to Nibelheim from Crisis Core. Notice how it was very accurate portrayal based on what we saw of FF7? From what I understand, if it wasn't for Nomura, it'd be a massive retcon mess.
In short, Nomura tends to get more blamed on him than is actually justified. Kind of like how people blame bad translations like FF2us on Woolsey even though he had NOTHING to do with it, and a lot of his "Screw ups" weren't that, either hardware limitations, NoA Censorship nonsense, or, wouldn't you know it, bullshit fan claims to make him seem worse than he is.
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The list of who to blame:
Kitase- FF7 Compilation in its entirety, he is the very person who comes up with the idea: "let's retcon FF7 for the hell of it"
Nomura- FF7AC specificly and 90% of Cloud related stuff in general. Nomura himself is a Cloud fanboy of impossible degree. Also, he had already promised us for more Cloud related nonsense in future.
Toriyama- FFX-2, FF13
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So Kitase and Nomura have each done something to justify their existence (assuming Kitase deserves credit for the overall package of Crisis Core), while Toriyama is a waste of hair and organs. Gotcha.
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Nomura- FF7AC specificly and 90% of Cloud related stuff in general. Nomura himself is a Cloud fanboy of impossible degree.
Funny considering the more he adds on the worse Cloud gets. What possessed him to take Cloud down the route he has is what I want to know.
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Waaaaait. Wait, wait, wait. I haven't watched AC or played Crisis Core or whatever else but... Cloud got... Worse? He was already a pretty shitty character to begin with. BROODING DOES NOT A GOOD CHARACTER MAKE.
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FF3DS - Well, Ninja Luneth isn't nearly as awesome offensively as Warrior Luneth, but he's gotten to the point where he's good enough. Dragoon Refia is fine too. Now, to finally climb Crystal Tower for realsies and mock Xande.
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Waaaaait. Wait, wait, wait. I haven't watched AC or played Crisis Core or whatever else but... Cloud got... Worse? He was already a pretty shitty character to begin with. BROODING DOES NOT A GOOD CHARACTER MAKE.
From what I remember of AC beyond "ooh pretty visuals", Cloud basically does just that. A whole lot more brooding.
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Lets clarify what happens to Cloud each game after FF7, ignoring blatant cheap cameos like FFT.
KH: Has the whole "Sold my soul to Darkness for Power so I can find someone!" nonsense, angsts, what have you. The first hint of Emo!Cloud...
This applies to KHCoM too which mostly just retold the exact same story <_<
FF7AC: This is where the Emo thing really took off. All he does is fight or basically angst and brood about how his life sucks. He doesn't smile pretty much the entire movie until the end, and it basically ignores all his development, claiming he'd regress to something based on manners that he very much dealt with in FF7 (he even went out of his way to acknowledge that he's done with them, being part of his big End Disc 2 speech and all.) It really ignored everything that happened with his character.
KH2: Emo!Cloud appears yet again, this time going all "Watch out for Sephiroth" but then Sephiroth comes and...basically mocks him for everything Cloud told Sora to watch out for, pretty much saying "Cloud, you're an idiot, I'm not the loser whose brooding in darkness, you are." It says something that Sephiroth shows more personality and was friendlier to Sora than Cloud is. I would say that about Squall too, except that KH1 did go out of its way, in his bio, to state that Squall changed his name to Leon specifically to disassociate himself with his former self, so we can attribute the change to that, if nothing else (Leon is a lot more likable and friendly than Squall.)
Dirge of Cerberus: mostly exists for an action scene, has a generic chat with Vincent, etc. Yeah, probably doesn't really count.
Crisis Core: Cloud's more just kind of modest and shy here, rather than Emo. He doesn't really come off as being recognizably Cloud, beyond the design, but then, its actually justifiable here; its Cloud Pre-Nibelheim, after all, someone we never actually saw and only had vague hints what he was like, so yeah; and he's different in a way that's not "UGH HATE" like AC/KH Cloud is.
Dissidia: Oh look, they FINALLY did their homework and FINALLY realized that Cloud isn't an Emo little bitch, just rational and more duty driven. He actually shows signs of being friendly in this game, and looking out for others, rather than just going "my life sucks." Not a perfect representation of Cloud, but then its hard to do so with a character like that in a manner of a half hour worth of cut scenes, so frankly, I'll take what I can get, as far as accurately portraying him.
So yeah, in short...
Crisis Core he was different, but for justifiable reasons. Dissidia, he was about as good as you'll get in that, as to accurately portraying him. Advent Children and Kingdom Hearts? He will make you hate yourself there.
EDIT:
Oh yeah, from what I understand regarding Advent Children...
The movie was mostly made just on the concept of looking damned cool and visually awesome; basically, emphasizing the ACTION more than the MOVIE. Which, being an Action Movie, isn't such a bad thing, and the movie is fun to watch if you turn your brain off (which if you haven't done already, there's something wrong with you.) The plot was mostly just a thin BSed thing to attempt to make some coherent sense other than just explosions and nothing going on, cause you kind of need something in the movie, but uh...Nomura isn't a writer, as we know, so what'd you expect? It sounds like AC: Complete does fix up some of AC's blunders, but I honestly can't speak for that.
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I heard the biggest change in AC: Complete was they gave him an actual reason for all that brooding. Doesn't excuse the permentant sadness that Cloud has throughout 99.5% of the movie but its a start.
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DMC3: Beat up a Vergil, then got beat up in a cutscene. Boo, cutscene vulnerability. Anyway, easy fight by this game's standards.
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I remember, many years ago, at a friend's birthday party, we had AC playing on a constant loop in the background. I can't make heads nor tails of the entire thing, and can't tell what happens before what, but each scene was damn bad-ass. It was like everybody was Dante, without the writing. (Or good looks)
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Yep, that's AC in a nutshell. Story? Characterization? Fuck that, it's all about the fight scenes and shiny CGI.
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Chrono Trigger: Beat! Final levels were around 52ish. Lavos went down pretty easily after I remembered which ball to target. Had to beat him twice because I did something end game which didn't save me beating Lavos...
Mega Man 10 - Beat! Wily's Castle was fun, level 2 gave us the hardest time and the boss rush mode was awesome. Great game. Now onto MM9 because that game mocks me...
Pokemon SS - Purchased...but have yet to start because I forgot I STILL haven't picked up all the Legendaries in Diamond and Ruby... Cresselia and Mesprit are mocking me as I write this...
=( (Just gonna say fuck it and Master Ball one of them.)
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The damning part of that is Mespirit just so isn't worth the effort of catching a Runner. Cresselia... well, Gen 4 hates tanks, but it could be worse.
The nice part about Crisis Core's treatment of Cloud is that they remembered to keep him in proper continuity (that is, in his younger days Cloud was introverted and had a marked self image problem, which is why he was so fucked up by the Hojo Mindrape Jenova Fun Ride in the first place) WITHOUT making him broody and emo and unlikable, which was the whole problem with what, uh, things that weren't FFVII were doing.
But enough fanboy rambling, it's time for fanboy rambling.
Sam and Max: Beyond Time and Space- finished up Episode 2. While Episode 1 I worked through at a good pace, in the second episode I just completely missed the logic of the teapot puzzle (or, rather, completely neglected the teapot and didn't even think to use it as a solution to that puzzle), and after that I was just completely flatfooted and did a shameful amount of FAQing. Otherwise, um, it's Sam and Max. There's nothing not awesome about Sam and Max. Why don't more of you play Sam and Max?
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Because they're pathetic sacks of meat who hate joy. Obviously.
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Oh wow....
So I just caught both of those assholes...
Figured out what I was doing wrong. Max Repel won't let you fight them if the first pokemon in yer team is a higher level then them...
Gawd Dammit!
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So Kitase and Nomura have each done something to justify their existence (assuming Kitase deserves credit for the overall package of Crisis Core), while Toriyama is a waste of hair and organs. Gotcha.
The biggest irony is that FF7CC could have sucked big time if Kitase did it himself. As a lot of good ideas in CC came from Nomura, who originally wasn't a part of CC until Kitase pulls him in.
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FFXIII:
Partner AI that doesn't suck. Auto-X is pretty limited compared to Manual though, particularly with the non-"hit it till it dies, k?" roles. Roles themselves are a bit overspecialized for my tastes.
Scenes are shorter than an FF8 summon, and most can be skipped.
I do wish some of the out of the way spots weren't just "ooh, treasure' or "lolambush." Rinear schminear, Reona Rewis blows up townz, and I don't care what animes the VAs were in.
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Revenant Wings is actually not that bad of a game, at least gameplay wise; plot...I guess its inoffensive? That does not make it good mind!
RW feels like a game that was made to be its own unique little thing at first, like its own separate game, but Square realized somewhere along the way that this could be a commercial failure, and its not a big enough release to merit advertising it to hell, and its a niche game, etc. So they do the logical thing, slap "Final Fantasy" on the title, and tie it in with their latest game by shoving all the characters back!
There was a time when these fools were smart enough to realize that putting out a good number of unique, on their own side games enriched the company!
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When was that? When they put out stuff in the SNES era and rebranded it to be Final Fantasy or Secrets of (ANUS) games? Or in the Playstation Era when they made sequels for those games?
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There's nothing not awesome about Sam and Max. Why don't more of you play Sam and Max?
Obviously they're all lame with their stat topics and their level grinding and their Jell-o pudding.
Speaking of which...
Disgaea 2: Level grinding, and eating away at the stocked Felonies. Storywise, I'm at the end of the Etna's Nail chapter, but I'm trying to unlock CoO4 and just don't have enough good fighters to outlast those darn chickens.
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K. So I can finally seem to try to empathize with those who say that The Last Remnant is a difficult game. I only noticed it during the spike on the second-to-last boss Gates of Hell on Disc 1. The whole issue of me dying about five times is that I wanted to support multiple unions of 4 rather than 3. After seeing if anyone else was having difficulty, I did see that someone suggested using only three unions. They were also talking about battle rank, but that differs per enemy and aggregates in dungeons, so I didn't pay that much attention. Anyway, my whole weakness was that my fourth union that was a mage troop kept dying by Gates of Hell pretty much after I destroyed all of its four-five minions three rounds before he opens his pit. But they had low HP. I assimilated them into my stronger parties, ultimately increasing the HP per troop even more and everyone was able to rejuvenate or bring teams back to life. Only one group died once, brought them back to life once . . . it sorta became honky dory after that. I raped him. It was long due for how I was boggled with how my teammates were supposed to survive the majority of his attacks.
Duke Heiermein's arc was kinda . . well, the second to last scene shows the voice actor's best before Disc 1 is over. Originally it was pretty lackluster. Disc 1 ended on a "Hmm," as far as storyline is concerned.
Anyway, it was great gaming for a bit, but I need to buckle down on my research because all my classes end this end of April. Hurr. (: Gradumuation.
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So Kitase and Nomura have each done something to justify their existence (assuming Kitase deserves credit for the overall package of Crisis Core), while Toriyama is a waste of hair and organs. Gotcha.
The biggest irony is that FF7CC could have sucked big time if Kitase did it himself. As a lot of good ideas in CC came from Nomura, who originally wasn't a part of CC until Kitase pulls him in.
This is one of the reasons I can never hate Nomura. If he can fix up compilation related shit and make it coherent and actually good at times (CC's plot = bad, but it had an occasional well done scene, mostly cause it had oddly good character work...and there's the ending of course), then the guyt has to have some idea what he's doing.
From what I understand, one of AC's problems was that Nomura was stressed out and didn't like directing the whole thing as a result, as it was the first major thing he strong armed the entire way (sounds almost like Kingdom Hearts he kind of just wrote a bunch of ideas down and said "Make a game out of this, please?")
Honestly, if AC is the only real strike against your name (well...ok, he has the "Lets fuck up Cloud's character" thing, which is pretty bad), that's really not that bad. AC wasn't exactly brilliant work, but it had SOME good qualities (shiny action scenes!) Contrast to the stuff we blame Kitase for, its something we can forgive <_<
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K. So I can finally seem to try to empathize with those who say that The Last Remnant is a difficult game. I only noticed it during the spike on the second-to-last boss Gates of Hell on Disc 1.
I have friend stuck on that exact boss fight :) for 2 weeks now and before that he was stuck on Mr Catapult and Mrs human ammo for a couple of months. Hell he brought a guide due to it. I personally like hard gams but LRs style of hardness is unappealing from my observers standpoint.
SO4 - Ashlay finally manned up and allowed me to face him. Party were all level 96 and consisted of Lymle/Meatshield/Meatshield/Meatshield. Method of attack was have Lymle hit for 400K while the rest took hits and crapped out shitty damage (10K? What the hell game).
Trinity Blaze must have some insane multipliers on it because damn thats a lot of damage. Lymle has like 40 times the damage everyone else has (WTF?).
FF13 - *Yawn*. Killing turtles and farming Cp isn't exactly the most exciting thing. When I'm maxed out I'll try facing the superboss who beyond his "Lols I Liek kill u allz" attack has some pretty crappy damage. Oh yeah traps haven't dropped at all yet >:(
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MM10: Beat Protoman mode! This mode reminds me why I hate MM7 and all things related to it. It might make some sense to you if you've played MM10!
Protoman Mode is definitely harder than Megaman. While all the fun little gimmicks like the Shield, Charge Shots and Sliding are awesome...the extra damage you take just really makes things so much harder. With Megaman, it often felt like you could take the hit until you got down to about 5 health or so, and that's when you start worrying. Protoman? When only 1/3rd of your gauge left, you start freaking out cause you fear that the next hit WILL kill you. It was like half the enemies were Elecman :(
Also...
The World Ends With You: Finally got around to starting this. On Day 3. The game is...uh...not really appealing to me. Don't like how the stylus really feels in this, and its style just isn't really meshing with me well. Also not fond of constant j-Rock as like the only style of music in the game. Maybe I just don't like games that take place in a Modern Japanese Setting <_<
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Miles Edgeworth:
Ahh...Phoenix Wright games. Where having a mountain of evidence against you is a sure-fire sign of innocent, and cleavage and spiky hair are both strong reasons to be suspicious of someone.
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What if they have cleavage, spiky hair -and- a mountain of evidence against them?
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Thankfully PW games don't take themselves serious.
Tai: obviously a red herring meant for the final case for full-on trainwreck.
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Where having a mountain of evidence against you is a sure-fire sign of innocent
<major PW spoiler> Matt Enguarde </major PW spoiler> though yes they deliberate PLAY with their established trope even in this case so it really only makes your point stronger. <_<
Also started AA:I, finished the first case. Digging it so far, case writing seems to have stepped back up from AJ, Edgeworth himself is delightful, and the music is so far series-best which says nothing coming from me but hey. Still too early for more substantial judgement obviously.
MM10 - Also playing this, but don't like talking about MM games until I'm at least done with the robot master levels.
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FF3DS - Extensive foreknowledge of what to do: handles even bad design. CoD conquered with no resets, although I never went down my toes. Killed both tentacles to be completely safe even, and oddly timed Curagas could've easily spoiled my day even so. All well and good in the end, though!
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When was that? When they put out stuff in the SNES era and rebranded it to be Final Fantasy or Secrets of (ANUS) games? Or in the Playstation Era when they made sequels for those games?
And you call yourself a Vagrant Story fan! But yeah, Playstation era Square for the win. Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Brave Fencer Musashi (Think that was them), that game with Mint in it, Saga Fronteir (And that's just off the top of my head). All new games/series, if standalones.
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Saga Frontier had other games in the series, but they didn't come out in the US.
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Yeah, the entire Romancing SaGa Series was skipped in the US, which was the SNES follow up of SaGa which did actually come here as Final Fantasy Legends.
I think Final Fantasy Adventure technically wasn't a total name change; IIRC, the full title of the game in Japan was something like "Final Fantasy: Seiken Densetsu" or so I heard, which is why there's stuff like Chocobos and Moogles in the game (Moogles managed to stay in later games, Chocobos...not so much.) They just removed the "Final Fantasy" in the title when the 2nd game came out, and just released that one here as "Secret of Mana" making the fact that the two games were of the same series confusing in the US! At least the "Mana" title stood consistent...
I think its also worth noting that FF12RW came out after a time that FF Sequels were not unheard of; before FFX-2, the only sequel was...that FF5 OVA, which apparently had almost nothing to do with FF5, outside of establishing it as being the same world, some ridiculous number of decades later so the relation is purely a setting one. So in reality, the idea of a true FF Sequel was indeed unheard of before FFX-2.
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When was that? When they put out stuff in the SNES era and rebranded it to be Final Fantasy or Secrets of (ANUS) games? Or in the Playstation Era when they made sequels for those games?
And you call yourself a Vagrant Story fan! But yeah, Playstation era Square for the win. Xenogears, Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve, Brave Fencer Musashi (Think that was them), that game with Mint in it, Saga Fronteir (And that's just off the top of my head). All new games/series, if standalones.
I really enjoyed PE when it first came out, but FUUUUUUUUUUCK it is hard to play now. Lots and lots and lots of unskippable dialogue.
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It can't be THAT much, the game's all of three hours long once you achieve "OHKO all enemies" levels. Well, three hours 35 minutes, but anyway.
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It's another of those games where scenes take forever because the characters have to go "Scroll all text. FULLY EMOTE. Next scroll of test. FULL EMOTE."
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Ah, the legacy of early polygon animation. Yeah, that gets old fast.
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Parasite Eve badly needs a remake. There is so much that is cool in the game, but man it really shows it's age.
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FACT: Aya doesn't need a weapon because she can cut people with her highly angular face.
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FFXIII- Chapter Nine. Three things -
*Sazh is the man!
*Dajh is adorable
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
*
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*Vanille is Aeris(Nt)!?
Probably going to end up with Sazh, Vanille and Snow for my party and stick to their specific roles since missions/new roles sound like a grindfest from the way people have been talking. Might also just forge right ahead to complete the story for that reason as well and leave optional stuff for later but I dunno. I tend to become rather unbalanced when I discover a shiny to become stupidly overpowered with >_> I heard it's not possible to return to the area in Chapter 11 so I might end up stopping there for a while at any rate <_<
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You can return to Pulse don't worry, also due to the locking of the grid there is never a point you'll feel overpowered. If thats good or bad is up to you.
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It may be worth it endgame to take Fang (or maybe Vanille if you are going to get lots of CP) into Synergist. They get the buffs better than what the others get.
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K. So I can finally seem to try to empathize with those who say that The Last Remnant is a difficult game. I only noticed it during the spike on the second-to-last boss Gates of Hell on Disc 1.
Woah. That's a while.
I did not have an issue on the God Emperor's duo besides not being able to clearly see the troops I was attacking. IE, first battle I ran straight into the fray, second battle I ran straight to the woman and died. Best strategy, I think, is to realize that the extra troop you have guides you in the proper direction to the duo's support troops. The duo doesn't attack for the first couple of rounds and spend a round having to march towards you in the plateau area. That way, hopefully you can kill off all the side troops in 3-4 rounds, the woman in the 4th-5th and then the HUEG guy in the 5-7th. Granted, I went in to the battle after having done plenty of sidequesting and I invested in the 19k dollars worth Caedmon who becomes pretty valuable because of the stat affecting skills he has. Good damage, good defense and so far the best leader if you want a 4th union, which I had until the Gates of Hell.
Emma did 20K on the Gates of Hell with her Hundred Flowers attack. Yeeeeeahhhh. (: Perhaps he needs to battle for stronger techs to take the boss out faster, and do some questing to different areas so his troops can get better equipment from battle booty!
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Psykoden - Just started. In this game, everybodytalksreallyreallyfastandit'shardtomakeoutwhatthey'resayingsometimes, but then you get to Tally-chu andhereallyreallyreallytalksreallyfastlikeyoudon'tknowuntilyoutryright?
Also, I named the hero Tally-chu because the game refused to let me name him Milhouse -or- Memehouse. Sorry, man.
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DMC3: Beat up a succubus. Who then turned into an electric guitar. That fires bats at people. Yeah.
(Seems like a pretty impractical weapon gameplaywise, sadly.)
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The Nevan is actually the single best weapon when it comes to Crowd Control and playing defensively. At the same time, the weapon is 100% Technical, contrast to the Rebellion and Agni/Rudra which are pretty straight forward *SMASH* and Cerberus which is just "Rapidly Press the attack button." Its not a beginners weapon, in any event, but it does have plenty of potential and apparently comes a lot in handy on higher modes if learned.
I'd use it more, except I still haven't figured out the proper way TO use it. The Electric Slide move is about the only thing I know how to do, which while bad ass, is still situational.
(its kind of crappy at boss fighting granted, but that's why you use two weapons! A&R or Rebellion are generally good fallbacks due to ease of use and flexibility)
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That way, hopefully you can kill off all the side troops in 3-4 rounds, the woman in the 4th-5th and then the HUEG guy in the 5-7th
He must have not have had enough offence because it took a lot longer then that for the fight to end. The troops and the women weren't a problem to him, it was the massive guy OHKOing him whenever he felt like using his massive damage move. He only beat them when he discovered he could actually revive his unions, something he still doesn't know how to to make appear in the commands window.
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The best strategy in TLR Nest of Eagles battle is to first take out the support troops, -then the big guy-, then the female general. While this may seem counterintuitive at first since the big guy gets multi-deadlocks, does massive damage and has a lot more HP, I know which one I'd rather have unlock Overdrive from having their ally die.
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FE:SD - JAGEN
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TLR had an indicator that someone is about to die, right? The theoretical best approach is to whittle them down evenly and kill them on the same round. It's not like they're dangerous enough without overdrive to punish you for trying that.
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That way, hopefully you can kill off all the side troops in 3-4 rounds, the woman in the 4th-5th and then the HUEG guy in the 5-7th
He must have not have had enough offence because it took a lot longer then that for the fight to end. The troops and the women weren't a problem to him, it was the massive guy OHKOing him whenever he felt like using his massive damage move. He only beat them when he discovered he could actually revive his unions, something he still doesn't know how to to make appear in the commands window.
K. Your friend needs to press the X button whenever he can input commands. If he presses X, he's able to see which particular move a troop is going to do, and it helps explain the usage of AP which refreshes every turn anyway. The massive guy is the hardest part, but only because of his ranged attack that later enemies in the game will be doing. He does not do enough damage to OHKO a team without any support troops or the girl who he specifically does a connecting move with that has the potential to OHKO MULTIPLE troops. If he does, he just needs to battle more and increase HP. Do moar quests.
Anyway, normally "save them no matter what!" or "bring them back," means that a teammate will use a rejuvenating item/spell. If it is a spell, no other troops do anything unless they have similar moves, and if it is an item, perhaps a teammate will use a healing item after they revived to get them off of borderline dying again. If none of his troops besides Rush know anything like that, yeeeeeah he's shooting through the game a bit too fast and reviving a team will become a NECESSITY. Anyway, he should make sure he's using troop leaders to head groups for access to their special/ultimate move - IE David should have his own troop, etc.
The best strategy in TLR Nest of Eagles battle is to first take out the support troops, -then the big guy-, then the female general. While this may seem counterintuitive at first since the big guy gets multi-deadlocks, does massive damage and has a lot more HP, I know which one I'd rather have unlock Overdrive from having their ally die.
I'm just going to hop out and say support troops -> female -> massive guy is ultimately the easier tactic because a) the female is much faster than Bubba and can put a lot of teammates within a Raidlock which is super rape. Deadlock isn't necessarily bad because your teammates would have a chance to counterattack and NULL the damage or reflect damage though reflecting damage is n/a for this battle as I've learned by doing such. Plus she has significantly less DEF, so she is the easiest to take down. Going for the big guy first will for someone with really low stats means running into the bad event of multi-deadlocking + their team attack which makes your face go :o PLUS her cheap combo move that takes out about 600-700 damage if all hits go through. Bubba alone is ineffective and you can successfully mutli-deadlock him and have multiple troops avoid his ranged batting moves because they're not sitting ducks on the battlefield. That is all.
Edit* and yes, the avatar window for the enemy normally bleeps red that they are nearing death. This isn't exactly something someone should use to go for all or nothing, because I vividly remember rare enemies on the battlefield bleeping red for about 10k-20k HP left. You do NOT want both Bubba and Bubba-ette being around together. Might I cite (wiki'd their names) the Roeas and Castanea BOTH have overdrives giving them 2+chain moves and a group attack that can take out 1000HP+. I did a great majority of quests, had . . . mm, 3-4 troops in a group and the max HP I had was around 1300. Not good. Especially if you choose to really HEAL yourself, you'll have to break your deadlock and get rid of any defenses you have.
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FF13: Finished. I guess this means I have to rant about it, don't I?
Well, since its a BITCH trying to figure out what's a spoiler and trying to avoid them, etc., assume the rest of this post has a BIG SPOILER WARNING attached throughout it! At least until the last line where I just do the usual "Game is this good" generic nonsense that says nothing specific <.<
Anyway, overall, the game was pretty darn good. Not the best in the series, but its about time we had a decent follow up after FF10 in the series. Let me note that while I liked FF12, the game was niche, and really, was a very weird way to follow up; the game felt way too distant as an FF game to be mainstream, unlike FF13 which while retaining its own unique style, had very FF-like aspects to it, and felt like an FF game in ways more than just "FF game cause its called that!"
The battle system was like the second time I've seen such team oriented combat exemplified so much; the first was Xenosaga 2. What I mean is, some games version of "Teamwork" is mostly just "people do a bunch of generic things and enemies are too good to solo!" like Grandia 3; yes, differences existed, but in the end, its style of Teamwork felt like "Ulf's getting a turn, he can cancel that guy attacking Yuki!" which wasn't unique to Ulf. FF13, you had to take advantage of character's specific uses and exploit them, and find genuine synergy, similar to Xenosaga 2 where everyone had their own defined use and just using the same generic tactics regardless of team would get you killed. And some games don't even do Teamwork at all; Shadow Hearts 1 comes to mind, where its idea of a Party is "Yuri SMASH, everyone else just does stuff to make sure Yuri can continue to SMASH!"
FF13? Suppose Fang is your primary offensive PC. Ok, cool...but just relying on her, and going Sentinel + Medic or some such means the fight will take forever, and has lots of room for error. Now, suppose you threw in someone in Ravager to compliment her? Suddenly, not only are you adding the Ravager's damage to Fang's, you're adding the big fat Chain Boost as well, thereby increasing Fang's own damage as well, so its really a dual factor. The 3rd PC can even add to this by diverting all hits such that the two can play offensively, or what not.
Furthermore, when a PCs, unless the fight was near the end already, you REALLY felt the hit on your team, and want to revive them ASAP. Yes, there's no penalty to winning a fight with dead PCs, but then that's cause the penalty for someone dying is that its a huge blow to the way your team works and what strategies you have. In many games, losing a PC = They don't get EXP, or something, and its really not that big a deal unless the game is a whore about revival; you can often just muscle things out unless its a boss fight, and you only feel like you lose the contribution that PC had, so unless it was an especially important role, you could do fine. FF13, one PC's contribution can really make or break the overall net worth of the team, and you want to hurl that Phoenix Down before things get out of hand.
The battle system was cool for that reason, though would have been nice if you could micromanage the AI some; mostly only mattered for Buffs and Debuffs, but it wasn't TOO bad there, just they'd make questionable decisions ("wait, you're favoring Veil over Bravery when the enemy's only status is Poison because...?".) Alternatively, some form of FF12 Gambits, not necessarily as in depth, to give some sort of priority to abilities like that would have been nice. Still, the game felt like the AI was appropriate at least. Additionally, wasn't fond of "Main PC dies = game over." To FF13's credit, its NOT SMT, so this wasn't as much of a pain as it could have been. Reasons?
-FF13 lacks SMT's bullshit hax factor is the big one. Enemies don't ambush you (but you can do it to them), so you always have time to prepare, and there's little randomness in the way of Crits and such.
-FF13 lacks Instant Death for almost the entire game; what Instant Death there is has a sad hit rate, and you get ID Blockers before its even around. To branch from that, one of the enemies who uses Instant Death does so only after so many turns, which gives you plenty of time to either kill them first, or have your Sentinel bait them out (unless your Sentinel is the Leader.)
-Furthermore, FF13 lacks Auto-loss status like Petrify and what not; while it makes the choices of status enemies can hurl at you less varied, it was probably the wiser decision cause dying to an enemy just petrifying you before you could get your Sentinel to bait them out = argh.
-Also, FF13 lets you change your leader after a point, so you don't have to worry about, say, Lightning's "low" HP being a factor, as you can put Sazh or whoever in that place instead, and put their better HP as your limiter.
-Game also has a nice "Retry" option setting you right outside the fight you lost, and if its a plot scene between it scene skip exists (even nice enough to give you access to the game's Menu that you didn't have before...why they didn't do this to begin wtih I don't know), so dying doesn't really have any penalties, so you can just keep trying until something works; contrast this to many other tough RPGs where its die -> START BACK AT SAVE POINT! Naturally, a SMART game (which most FFs are) have a save point right near the boss, so that's not a big deal, or games like Wild ARMs have their own limited continue methods...SMTs do not have this and are such "UGH" whenever you die as a result.
Its still an annoying Gameplay mechanic outside of SRPGs or games like VP that gave you Grace Periods, but FF13 did handle it much better than things like Persona 4, or branching from away from SMT, Okage, games where you could lose the Main Character and there's NOTHING you could do about it, and you had like a bajillion ways to revive him too.
The Dungeon Crawling did get a little tedious but the linearity actually helped I felt. People tend to forget that many jRPGs have this scenario, which FF13 universally avoids pretty much the entire time (sans that one tower):
Come to a fork in the road, which way do you take? One way leads to a locked down, often that being the more obvious route, the other leads to nothing but a switch, down an insignificant part of the dungeon, just to open that one door.
Basically, a useless thing to inflate the length of the dungeon. FF13 said "bollocks to aspects that deserve to be kept in Survival Horrors!" and just gives us straightforward, linear dungeons. It still gives you some exploration merit as checking that little protrusion off the path can yield a chest, no matter how slight it might seem; just this kind of exploration takes all of an extra 20 seconds instead of a good 5 minute derailing. The lack of Random Encounters (in favor of the "You can see enemies on the screen" thing) certainly helped the flow of things.
And personally, I LIKED Gran Pulse's first section; while the navigating was annoying, just the scope and atmosphere really put FF13's graphics to work (I played the 360 version mind, so I can only imagine what's it like on the PS3.) It was a lot like FF10's Calm Lands, only bigger, prettier and felt like there was more to do.
The Crystagrim (SP?) system was a interesting extension of SPhere Grid, and even handled in a way to make "Grind = Win!" not work by actually limiting your levels based on story. The game actually forced you to figure out the battle system and learn how to do strategy to at least some degree, which I support. The game was even appropriately difficult the entire way through I felt; pretty easy early on, but gets gradually harder, and by the end, you go in expecting at least competent fights from everything, but nothing was frustratingly annoying (though, there were enemies that I really hated fighting if only cause setting up to kill them could take a while, and then the actual killing of them took a while too. Sanctum Templars stand out to me for example.)
Paradigm was also cool system...actually, the whole gameplay can be summed up as a branch of FF10's Development with a better handled version of FFX-2 and XS2 spliced together, in a way that meshes well together. Basically, FF13 succeeded pretty darn well in gameplay, and unlike FF12 where it mostly kind of clicked and I can't fathom why, FF13's actually feels objectively well made.
Also, I must say this; whoever says FF13 is a grind fest needs to be punched. I didn't grind at all, barring one moment where it was to get enough CP for Vanille to learn Death, but that amounted to all of ONE EXTRA NODE. On the flipside, I did very few optional missions (all of like 3?), and didn't really run into any trouble that couldn't be fixed either by approaching the fight differently, or just re-adjusting my team cause the one I was using was unsuited (or alternatively, they were freaks like Behemoth Kings on Gran Pulse which are basically "DON'T FIGHT THEM UNLESS YOU HAVE THE AMBUSH OR ARE IN A 3 WAY!") I never had to resort to "GRIND MOAR!!!"
Outside of being stubborn on some fights like Behemoth Kings early, the only boss fights that really were hard for me were the first Proud Clad and first Orphan fight, and that's cause both of them took on a style meant to counter "Stagger -> WIN!", at least if you go immediately for it. I might have had under-developed weapons relative to others, but I could only take off about half health in both fights with a stagger. Staggering them means they start whipping out nasty things; I know this is definitely the case. Why?
-Proud Clad, when I stagged it, once it broke free, it's ALWAYS use this big healing move that buffed it and spammed high powered moves that'd overwhelm me even in Sentinel. When I fought it by just chipping at it with Commando (and some Ravager hits early on to boost Chain Gauge), and just going with Medic/Sentinel (rebuffing with Synergist) defensive strategies, staggering it at the end to take off the last bit of HP, it never did that.
-Orphan Fight #1 I kept having problems with (one time wasn't my fault though; batteries ran out of controller, FF13 unlike MOST games doesn't auto pause when that happens, and it happened at a delicate time and I couldn't grba the other controller fast enough and shift to my defensive Paradigm...yeah...), figured it was an HP Trigger...so I decided to try and blast past most of his HP just before the trigger is hit...after failing a few times cause of his BIG MT GRAVITY + CHAIN GAUGE TO 0% move being timed at worst possible moments, I started to notice...he wasn't changing his strategy much beyond a few new moves. Like, yeah the annoying but not-costly status move was used, but he never did his BIG MT DAMAGE MOVE OF "USE SENTINEL OR DIE", nor did he do the Instant Death move. I figured out eventually that he was a stagger related boss. Sure enough, he started using a few new tricks at really low health after being staggered...never the MT damage move; I'm thinking that he uses that after a Summon?
The boss fights did get a little overboard on HP, but...honestly, 6.8 Million HP sounds more intimidating than it really is. You rip through HP really damned fast once your offense gets going, so the bosses actually kind of needed HP That high to not get curbstomped entirely; they may have gone a little overboard, but yeah, it didn't feel too horrible. Contrast this to SO4's Final Boss who has 8 Million HP, stacked onto an idiotic defensive gimmick, right after a boss and a potential boss rush, and he's constantly attacking you thus making your offense lower...ugh. FF13, yes, your offense is limited cause you have to heal, use Sentinel, etc., but generally you can often keep someone on Commando or Ravager a majority of the time, and at least get SOME damage in, so the fight never feels like you're not going anywhere (though the psychological BoF1 Late Game Boss effects do start kicking in!)
Again, I have to mention this; I did very little that was optional on Gran Pulse. Only about 3 missions, and the extra encounters done for fixing that Robot Dog...well, and a few minor extra fights in the Tower cause I kind of lost track of what I was doing, but honestly, I rarely found a moment where I'd hit my Crystarium limit and have all this excess CP, or when I did, it was often right before the Crystarium boost was up. I also stayed pretty much entirely to the main 3 Roles the characters have, thinking about some minor expanding early on (gained like one or two levels in a few characters on one role, then realized it really wasn't worth it cause sticking to the main roles led to better Abilities and MUCH better stat boosts.)
Summons were also nice; its what FF12's SHOULD have been, but weren't. Its nice how summons are starting to act different than spells and actually exist alongside you now, only FF13 makes them actually cool Limit Break style things instead of total novelties that suck like FF12, or Overpowered Freaks of Nature like FF10. I didn't use them much, mind, cause I was conservative on TP, but just using one every now and then to nukify things was fun.
The forced PC sections for the first like 70% of the game? Well, it was annoying not being able to use some characters, and how you only had 2 characters for a while in a game that really promotes team work can get grating, but...the game was balanced well enough around this...at least for Lightning/Hope. Those two worked well together, such that Hope does things that keeps Lightning alive, Lightning just bitch slaps things til they die.
Sazh and Vanille, meanwhile? DId not really work well. Sazh's offense is much worse than Lightning's, you basically had to stack their Synergist and Saboteur abilities, then rely on a worse PC synergy (didn't help that Lightning gets her 4th ATB gauge early, while neither Sazh nor Vanille get theirs until much later.) The enemies really felt more durable with Sazh and Vanille, contrast to Lightning/Hope where it was mostly just "SMASH."
To FF13's credit? It avoided being retarded and forcing SOLO PC SECTIONS in a game like this. Solo PC sections would be the single most assholish thing in a game like this. Yes, there were a few moments early on with Snow where it was solo, but they were really short lived (or in the case of Chapter 2, before the game really had much of a battle system beyond "Hit things, they die"), and don't really count.
Having 2 PCs is at least enough to make SOME use of the battle system, for all that the game only really shows its colors with 3, which it takes a while to get back to.
I think I've talked enough about Gameplay, but yeah, that's definitely FF13's best trait, ignoring the whole "Game is pretty!" aspect. It was fun pretty much the entire way through, and well handled and balanced. Now, onto other things!
Music...my friend said the game was disappointing here. For the most part...I agree. I liked the Battle Theme, the game's main theme had a nice melody and the versions on Gran Pulse and that forest where Hope/Lightning were I liked, and Cocoon De Chocobo...Cocoon De Chocobo <.<. Otherwise? Songs all kind of meshed together.
Plot...well...
The story itself at its core really isn't so bad. Kind of liked it, and what was going on. I also liked how FF13 avoids the usual jRPG problem of "WE MUST KEEP EVERYTHING MAIN CHARACTER-CENTRIC!", remembering that FF6 and FF9 actually benefited by showing the game from multiple perspectives, diverting attention away from the main...heck, even FF8 had some benefit from this, just they sort of did NOTHING with the parts that diverted from Squall other than be filler. You know, something that pretty much ALL OTHER FORMS OF MEDIA do at some point? I'll let FF10 get away with it cause the whole "Tidus is telling the entire story" sort of makes it hard to divert attention from him. Ok, so Vanille tells FF13's story, but she's more just speaking for the cast as a whole. Basically, the difference between the two is Tidus was saying more "I", where as Vanille was more "We", so diverting attention away from Vanille was somewhat easier.
ANYWAY, what hurts FF13's story, however, is its pacing. At first, not much happens after a point...but once Snow rejoins after quite a while, the plot suddenly starts to feel rushed. Note that the GAME isn't rushed, as the gameplay feels reasonably paced and the length isn't too bad, but in terms of things going on, yeah, definitely poorly paced. It tried to cram most of the important plot elements of the story into the last 15 hours or so. The character work suffered as well; I don't mind the direction the characters took for development, or really the characters in and of themselves, but their development I found a little unbelievable and rushed. One moment that stands out to me was with Lightning and Hope's relationship; Lightning went too quickly from "Hope, you're useless and just slowing me down" to "HOPE!? ARE YOU ALRIGHT!? I was so worried!", Suddenly-Is-Like-an-Older-Sister-to-Hope scenario. Snow's development COULD have worked well, but after his HEROIC!!!! re-entrance, they rush the whole "Forced to admit weakness, then decide how to deal with it!" thing in a manner of like 3 scenes.
Honestly, felt like FF13's story may have been better if it was split across like 3 long movies or an entire drama series, where they could apply the pacing somewhat better, rather than be forced to find a perfect balance between gameplay, writing, plot, etc. Again, FF13's story in and of itself, I have no problems with, but the execution could have been much better.
Its a lot better than FF12 in this regard, mind, cause at least FF13 is consistent about having a plot. While the pacing jumps from "not much happens" to "A LOT HAPPENS QUICKLY!", at least the game continues to have plot scenes throughout, so you know there's a story going on. FF12, after Raithwall, you kind of reach a point of doing a lot of side stuff and dungeons and then go "Wait, right, there's a plot isn't there? What am I suppose to be doing again? Did I ever get that sword? Oh, right, its in my inventory...wait, what was I suppose to do with that again?" and you'd get lost if FF12 wasn't nice enough to have an indicator of where to go next every time you checked your map. FF13, outside of getting REALLY into doing stuff in Gran Pulse, you constantly knew there was plot going on. Now, if you could KEEP TRACK OF FF13's plot, that's a different story, cause once it gets going, it really moves fast and you kind of forget stuff. To FF13's credit, it has the Datalog, and a quick summary of things that just happened when you load the game, so just referencing quick terms and characters to remind yourself in case you forgot helped keep things coherent.
(Oh, right, FF13 deserves props for a compass that always points you in the direction of your destination to finish the dungeon as well, for that matter; that way, for the rare instance of a genuine fork, you KNEW you were going the wrong way, or alternatively, in case you turned around (like to fight a random from behind or something), it made it easier to know which was the right way to go and which was you backtracking like a moron.)
But regardless, there is one part of the plot that got to me: The ending. Look, ok, I can take a rushed plot, and then having arbitrary scenes just for random explosions and fun shit like the beginning of Chapter 12, which while completely pointless, it had fun eye candy and thus was entertaining...there was no excuse for an ending like that. They basically just said "um...shit...where do we go from here?" The game suddenly contradicts itself with the team's actions on Orphan, where they're all like "WE MUST PROTECT ORPHAN CAUSE THAT WILL FUCK WITH THE FAL'CIE PLANS!" and then Orphan appears...and they attack it instantly? Did I miss something here? Aren't they doing the EXACT OPPOSITE of what they've been saying they'll do since the beginning of Chapter 12? Following that, felt like they had no clue what they wanted to do, cause just having a simple "And there was much rejoicing!" ending wasn't good, NO! WE MUST BE EPIC! How can we be EPIC!??!?!
...TRAINWRECK THE DAMN THING! Lets give Vanille and Fang arbitrary absurd plot powers that we only loosely hinted at, force Fang to suddenly do something she KNOWS is horribly wrong, falling for "Idiot Good Guy Syndrome" of "Clearly saving one person is worth sacrificing the entire fucking world and ALL YOUR OTHER FRIENDS over" and sort of handwaving everything bad that was going on as "Oh, just Fal'Cie fucking with our minds; its an illusion, lets ignore and KICK ORPHAN'S ASS!" After that? MOAR EXPLOSIONS!!!! PLOT BULLSHIT! DEUS EX MACHINA!!! ...and they all lived happily ever after, except Vanille and Fang...oh, wait, no, they're not dead, just asleep, apparently completely nude, in crystal form, but that's cool, cause Fang is totally a lesbian, and there's nothing hinting that Vanille is not either. Just give them about 500 years and they'll wake up nice and happy!!!!
...seriously, fuck you ending. No, its not XS3 level horrible offensiveness, but it left a sour taste in my mouth, and was a poor way to end the game on after it had a pretty strong going thus far (if mostly for gameplay.) If the game just had a generic ending, I'd go "meh, anticlimactic, but whatever." The Shit the ending pulled was basically just...ugh. I don't think its enough for me to dock a point from the game, but it was just bad. SO3 had a similar case, only it had better writing before hand (I LIKED SO3's big spoiler, thank you very much), and it was more just "*Facepalm* *Headdesk* *facepalm again*"philosphical bullshit rather than "TOTAL TRAINWRECK! But it has EXPLOSIONS! Everyone likes that!?!"
FF13's little "Characters speak while running through dungeons" thing was a nice touch to help give them a little more personality, and some extra character interaction at least; did make me wish they'd take more advantage of it, and add a little bit more "useless" conversations for flavoring. I was expecting more after the fun early game stuff, but eh, I suppose some interaction is better than none.
Now for characters...first off, some NPC stuff.
FF13 had a bunch of worthless NPCs I felt. Yeah, Snow has his Fujin and Raijin equivalents with the "2 other guys" but...they exist for such a short period of time. Rosch for example was very obvious what they were aiming at, and could have been interesting, as we're just having a guy whose fighting for what he believes is best, and even knowing its corrupt and flawed, is willing to accept the "Ends justify the means" thing, but then he...disappears for a while, finally reappearing and you go "Oh, right, there was that General of PSICOM guy."
Cid Raines I thought wasn't half bad for what he was though, and actually felt that he really was stuck in a Catch 22 scenario, cause no matter WHAT he did, he was screwed, and the end result was something he wasn't going to be satisfied with. Though, did they really need to make his battle form a combination of Seymour and Sephiroth in design? I mean...seriously?
Barthandelus/Dysley is a pretty laughable villain. EVIL POPE!!! ...we certainly haven't seen THAT before. Basically just a "Ha, I've been manipulating you guys from the start!" except all he's really been doing is twiddling his thumbs, and hoping things fall into place, then mocking the team at inopportune times. Come on, I know you can make a more intriguing villain than that. Or were they that desperate to take an FF6 Esper-type character and say "IF Espers were FF6's villains, they'd be kind of like this guy!" ...except I highly doubt they'd be THIS lame. I guess the game did explain why he couldn't just go through with his plans on his own well enough by basically saying "Fal'Cie lack total free-will; they can only act according to their purpose" hence the creation of l'Cie. I guess its a cheap explanation, but eh, I'll go with it, mostly cause a more elaborate one often leads to confusion and hate.
As far PCs go...
Lightning: Female Protagonist, yay! Anyway, kind of liked her overall. She was human, so while rational, she actually showed emotion and did things that would say "No, she's not perfect." And unlike many "Female Soldier" types, while she was strong and "tough as nails", she definitely didn't mind showing vulnerability, just she herself wasn't very thin skinned to begin with. She could have been really good if not for, well, you know, FF13 writing. To her credit, she's stylish, and looked bad ass in battle, and has a Gunblade that's actually semi-logical unlike Squall's. I will give her credit for actually coming off as a leader, despite never being officially declared one like Cloud or Squall were; heck, there were times Cloud didn't really feel like a Leader, more just "Guy who was there." Lightning felt like the one actually calling the shots and keeping things in line, even was the one talking down the final boss despite how Fang and Vanille had the whole BIG PLOT NONSENSE SHENANIGANS before hand and had more plot relation to it.
IN BATTLE!? Best overall offensive PC; while not best at Magic or Physicals, she was rather good at both, allowing her to never really be walled. In addition, she made a decent Ravager, and Army of ONe was really quite excellent at building the Chain Gauge later on. Her HP could use a little work, but beyond early game, never felt quite low enough to make her a hinderance, even as Party Leader. She was often my Commando mostly cause she could take advantage of all forms of damage buffing (where as Fang loses a lot of damage if forced to go Magical, for example.) Having Medic as well allowed for some flexibility, letting someone like Hope or Vanille go to a support class while Lightning kept the team alive. Also, she had some pretty good weapons; Blazfire Sabre was a good balanced damage weapon, a weapon that boosts Ressurection, and she had a weapon that boosts Staggering potential as well as one with ATB Gauge helping. Nice flexibility and what not.
...really, Lightning reminded me of Terra, in terms of gameplay, only more balanced relative to her cast. She was good at just about everything that wasn't being support, but never quite STAND OUT at it beyond a few minor segments. Well, that and she's missing Terra's absurd equipment selection, for all that Lightning has a good draw on weapons (FF13 has no armors, just universal accessories, though accessories can have unique effects on PCs to be fair.)
Sazh: TOKEN STEREOTYPE BLACK GUY. Comic Relief, with some decent serious stuff. Actually, while I slam FF13 for rushing stuff, Sazh was probably pulled off about as well as you could get, as things felt appropriately timed, and there wasn't much more you could do with someone like him. Also, he has a Frocobo. I do want to note that no, Sazh is NOT in running for a Protagonist. He has his reasons for being there, yeah, but the son thing stops mattering pretty damn fast, and that's really just his motivation. This is contrast to Lightning/Snow's motivation based off Serah and how it keeps constantly getting brought up even when its not important, and we still see more of Serah in flashbacks, or Fang and Vanille's plot which...well, yeah. Mind you, Sazh is still more important than Hope, cause at least Dajh was a significant character unlike Hope's Mom, who was really just a catalyst at best.
IN BATTLE!? Felt like Lightning, having some buffs in favor of...worse everything else barring HP (which without Sentinel, didn't feel to handy), and no healing. Really losing Trade. offensive Buffs are cool, but honestly, they sometimes take a little too long to get going, and defensive ones are far handier considering enemies are dangerous. Also, his offensive stats were sad; I don't mean "Lightning's were better." What I mean is, specialists like Fang and Hope were actually beaten by Lightning at some points in their main stat, though eventually got a firm lead that Lightning never caught up too, but after that, Lightning was still able to keep up with them, and fill in those holes in offense well enough. Sazh? Not so much; really, the only reason to use him was for Haste, and Bravery/Faith...I suppose Vigilance is good, but never found it too necessary, and when Hope learns Haste, Bravery and Faith, Vigilance is quite literally the only thing Sazh has going for him, outside of the HP. And I don't mean Sazh's damage wasn't a little low; he was clearly game worst in offensive stats. Sazh was just breaking 800 in Attack (with like 700~ in Magic), when Lightning was already well into 4 digits in both stats, while Fang, Vanille, Snow and Hope were well into the 4 digits with their main stat (often higher than what Lightning had...well, I think Snow may have had lower Attack.)
So...in the end, Sazh felt like LVP. Even for the brief stint when he's finally available and is the only one with Haste, it wasn't enough to justify him. Pretty sad too, as he's a pretty awesome character.
Snow: Starts the game off annoying and a whiner and...to be frank? That was perfect for him. Why? Cause I really felt like the whole point of Snow was meant to piss you off cause he's so obnoxious and full of himself early on, and he's suppose to earn your respect as the game goes on by slowly diverging away from this and basically rationalizing it up. And honestly? He did exactly that. Snow I view in two ways; one is "A different take on Locke", the other is "Seifer that you're suppose to eventually warm up to cause he stops being a fucking moron." Both fit in their different ways; Snow's definitely got the FAILURE KNIGHT syndrome over his lost loved one that drives him that Locke has, ultimately learning to move on (though never forgetting about Serah), while the Seifer things comes from this obsession of his dreams and goals that he has and being a stuck up asstard, ultimately learning to lighten up, and try to do things for the team rather than obsess over himself. By the end, he worked well as the kind of guy whose just keeping the team on track; Lightning's calling the shots, but Snow's there to remind everyone what they're fighting for, and to keep spirits up, and to have that kind of weird optimism a team needs (his intro into Chapter 12 was just fun, for example, with the whole "And the hero saves the day!" followed by the whole people seeing his brand then going "...oh, whoops, probably should cover that up.") So yeah, I ended up liking Snow in the end, but I won't deny there was a lot more that could have been done with him. Again, FF13's character's and the direction of their development, etc. is fine, its just the execution that isn't.
IN BATTLE!? Snow is bar none the best Sentinel; a kick ass HP Score, and...really, that's all you need to be a good Sentinel. He makes a good Commando, and could fill the role of Ravager. Also, he got nice defensive weapons to help make the whole Sentinel thing work well. I really can't stress how useful Sentinel is for survival, so having this was nice, as he was one of two PCs that had it. He had more HP than Sazh too, by a significant amount I wanna say, and cause of Sentinel, he actually felt like he was making use of it. Basically, he was Lightning, shoving the Magic Stat into the HP (though keeping Magic JUST high enough that he doesn't totally fail at Ravager), and had Sentinel instead of Medic. Overall losing trade, but he's someone I often ended up using.
Hope: Little whiny brat who becomes TEAM CHEER LEADER end game. Seriously, his emo phase got annoying; I can understand WHY he was in it, but he took the "I HATE YOU SNOW!" thing too far. The whole Father relationship thing was stupid too (though I will admit his father was a pretty decent fellow, just...wow, he needed more screen time. Or at least appear in the god damn ending.) Also, no, he is NOT the main. Hope was a total plot device, and became completely useless after Palumpolum. It felt like there was more focus on him than the others cause Hope is the single most dynamic character in the game, so the changes were more obvious, but he really didn't contribute much. Just helped Snow and Lightning develop a little, and was basically just a 6th PC.
IN BATTLE? Best Ravager *AND* Synergist in the game, and has Medic to boot so he can run the role of healing if need be, though gets Raise a little later than I'd like. Still, he was pretty much exactly what I needed in a support PC, ESPECIALLY after he gets offensive boosting spells; Protect/Shell are more important than Bravery/Faith, so him getting those early contrast to Sazh stands out, and he was good at Crowd Control due to that awesome magic stat combined with Ravager spells nailing weaknesses. He did have one really notable flaw though; the HP. Its really bad. Using Hope without a Sentinel at some point is really suicidal. At the same time, however, Hope + Sentinel makes your team nigh unkillable, so yeah, not only does a Sentinel cover Hope's flaws, it compounds and actually compliments the buffs beautifally making Hope even better. Ended up being in my team constantly as a result.
Vanille: Starts the game being nothing more than a Genki...like, one who is OVERLY happy. I really can't stress this; she's smiling the entire damn time, even when she should get upset. Then we learn about her past, and suddenly she goes from "token Genki" to "DEUS EX MACHINA CHARACTER OF MASSIVE IMPORTANCE!" Pity its not really focused on much until Chapter 11 where you end up on Gran Pulse, where they blow this stuff out of proportion. This is why I can't really respect her as a main, just merely a "necessary supporting character" like, say, Aerith in FF7 (Aerith wasn't even the female lead of FF7 (Tifa was), but its hard to deny that she's important and the plot wouldn't work without her; clear example of an Important Supporting Character, but still one nonetheless.) Well, she IS the narrator, but she really feels like an odd choice of one until very late where finally she starts gaining some importance. Also, after you get off Gran Pulse she...takes backseat again until they pull off Operation: TRAIN WRECK to force Vanille to be important again. In any event, I can't say I was very fond of her cause once her plot is revealed, she becomes totally bipolar, and the whole PLOT BACKSTORY thing felt a bit redundant with Fang around. I know, the use of two characters was there for some better character interaction, but FF13 really didn't emphasize that enough, and it more just came off as "The two are lesbian lovers!" Oh yeah, her accent is also unnatural and inconsistent, so it made it hard for me to take her seriously even later on.
IN BATTLE? Deprotect, Deshell, and Poison were all things I found useful (yes, I found FF13 Poison useful; it actually does significant damage, you just don't notice it cause its gradual.) Also made a decent Ravager, and unlike Hope, had an actual HP score (it was Lightning-esque), so she could get away without using Sentinel a little better. Deprotect/Deshell, despite not being perfect and not working on everything (but it works on A LOT) I found more useful than Bravery of Faith. A few reasons would be because they do damage, which while the damage sucks, its useful for Chain Gauge purposes (either adding too it, or just keeping the gauge built up), and the usual "A debuff on the enemy is like a buff for the entire team!" factor. Lastly, had Medic too, so yeah, good healer. Didn't use her a lot, but she was fine when I did.
Fang: The "badass" female who kicks things asses and is MYSTERIOUS!!! Also has Deus Ex Machina related nonsense, and is very blatantly a lesbian (I'm sorry, but with lines like "I'd do anything, so long as she's safe!" said with such passion, its hard to take Fang as anything BUT that. And unlike Lightning's relationship with Hope which felt more like a "I'll protect you, don't worry!" and nothing more, hence the Big Sister vibes, it felt like she genuinely wanted to just make out with Vanille at any given moment.) Now, what's the problem with her being the main? I dunno, I have a problem with introducing the main character when over 50% of the game is done, and its suddenly all "SHE'S UBER IMPORTANT!" Basically, you know Xenosaga Jr.? Yeah, XS2 he's the lead, but XS1, its more like he's just super important, but Shion's still the main. Fang is very much that; I actually felt she was more significant than Vanille (despite Vanille having he Serah thing), cause Fang was doing shit, and didn't require the Narrator thing to say "Oh, yeah, she's important." Though, Fang is completely responsible for the ending nonsense; seriously, what the fuck? You given into the villain's demands that easily? When you KNOW that nothing good is going to come of it and that Vanille is likely GOING TO DIE AS A RESULT OF YOUR SHIT ANYWAY? ARGH!!!! FUCK YOU FF13'S ENDING! On the plus side, she gets Bahamut as an Eidolon, which is cool points in my book.
(Sorry about the Main Character Tangents, but I feel people are too easily to label characters as mains when there's problems like "uh, Fang doesn't exist for a large part of the story" and people forgetting you CAN be important without being the main. Again, XS1 Jr. is a very good example of this.)
IN BATTLE!? Fang was some sort of hybrid of Snow, Lightning and Vanille. She has Saboteur though it was different than Vanille's at first (Slow is very useful, mind), she felt like she could replace Lightning as a Commando (while Snow's attack wasn't as good, he felt...I dunno...clunkier than Lightning?), and had Sentinel. Thing is, she didn't obsolete any of them; all 3 had Ravager, Snow had oodles more HP than her, and both Vanille and Lightning had Medic. So what is she in the end? Just a plain vanilla good PC! Ended up using her as my 3rd with Hope and Lightning; was using Snow for a while, but wanted to take advantage of Saboteur, so it was either "Drop Hope, use Vanille" which means I lose Synergist, so it was between Lightning and Snow...felt a second Medic > second Sentinel (for all that a second Sentinel doesn't hurt for flexibility), and Lightning's ability to adapt to whatever damage type available with minimal losses, in addition to Army of One's absurd chain building, felt more useful than Snow's HP. Fang made a good enough Sentinel, if inferior to Snow, but could cover other niches and...yeah. Also, she was obviously suppose to be the game's Dragoon; I mean...dresses in Blue (though she looked almost like a skanky "bad-girl" Rinoa in design...NOMURA!!!!!!!!!), wields a lance, rides a dragon, unique attack is called "Highwind"...ok, I'll shut up.
So...uh...guess that's the end of the rant <_<? Uh, yeah. Anyway, despite the general lackluster aspects of writing and what not, I still enjoyed the game a lot. 8/10 to me; there were definite places for improvements even in the gameplay, and it has its flaws, but the flaws aren't too major to stop it from being a genuinely good game. It was certainly nice to play something that I actually had fun doing (despite how Real Life kept saying "No, stop playing it!" for all the various reasons...god damned reality, I hate you sometimes!), unlike Wizard of Oz where it didn't really do anything innately wrong, just sort of failed to go above the raw basics and ended up being boring; no, FF13 kept the gameplay engaging and kept making new enemies with gimmicks etc. So yeah, 8/10, even though I JUST SAID THAT! MWAHAHA!
(Yes, I purposely avoided talking about the DL, cause frankly, when I play a game, the first thing that comes to mind isn't "How good is this character in the DL!?" I learned long ago that playing games for the DL is a bad thing, and you should just completely FORGET about the DL while playing the game, instead enjoy the game for its actual merits, not factoring in "OOOH! THIS CHARACTER WILL BE AWESOME IN THE DL!")
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DMC3: Beat up a Vergil again. PLOT ensues. Betrayal! Oh noes!
Mission 11 boss was annoying, mostly for feather darts of argh and pain which I was completely unable to dodge, and getting hit by one generally meant getting hit by all the rest due to being staggered. I am pretty much always in Trickster mode for bosses for mobility and even dash spam couldn't get me out of the way of the whole barrage. I mostly just stayed the hell away and wore him down with E&I. Bleh.
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I believe the feather darts are only slightly faster than you are while running? So if you begin to run straight to the side, then time a dash so that it dodges the last of them, you should be able to dodge all of the first barrage, while being ready to dodge the second barrage. Though yes, I know the pain of which you speak. It is terrible. (Really didn't feel like they should have been a boss that you needed to wear down with E&I so much)
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Meep, when you say the FF13 ending is a deus ex mechina, do you happen to know it literally is one?
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Like...Optimus Prime dies for your sins?
That suddenly makes FF13 sound AMAZINGLY KICKASS
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Meep, when you say the FF13 ending is a deus ex mechina, do you happen to know it literally is one?
Yes, I'm aware of that. Doesn't make the scenario any less stupid though.
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It was like the end of a Dragon Ball Z movie.
"We're really in trouble what are we going to do? Time to use the new hidden power I didn't have thirty minutes ago AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!"
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That's not what I mean by literally.....
What happened is actually far worse.
The ending happened that way because a god, who has absolutely no screen time, happens to divinely interfere for no particular reason.
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SQUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARE
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That's not what I mean by literally.....
What happened is actually far worse.
The ending happened that way because a god, who has absolutely no screen time, happens to divinely interfere for no particular reason.
Functionally it is absolutely the same thing. The hidden power that wasn't there thirty minutes ago and was never mentioned before this is just a diety instead of a new level of Super Saiyan.
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Finished Sam and Max Season 2. For some reason the puzzles in episode 4 just didn't click with me at all. Episode 5 was better, and generally pretty awesome. Episode 3 I played yesterday, I'm not sure I'd have ever thought of giving the monster the Soul Mater on my own, even though it makes sense if you approach it from "I'd need to be as fast on the draw as Jesse James!" But I'm not sure why you WOULD.
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FF12RW: Still a pretty cute little RTS. The novelty of destroying things with a Swarm of Shiva-lings hasn't worn off yet.
Even better, I'm about to unlock Swarm of Raiden-lings.
I'm just sad that you can't summon more than one Level-3 Esper.
Carbuncles are win.
When I actually beat this game, I'll post the Stat Topic.
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Heart Gold get! Playing Hatbot style for some fun and originality. Haven't got 6 Pokes yet, so haven't had to lose anything. On my way to Falkner at the moment with Zenny the Chikorita at Lv 10, then Koterpie, Tai the Sentret and Meepidgey at Lv 3 each. Training Meepidgey in the hopes that I can keep
him her around for Bugsy.
Liking the subtle changes so far, and forcing myself to use the stylus to play manages to make it seem that little bit more original. >.>
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That's not what I mean by literally.....
What happened is actually far worse.
The ending happened that way because a god, who has absolutely no screen time, happens to divinely interfere for no particular reason.
Functionally it is absolutely the same thing. The hidden power that wasn't there thirty minutes ago and was never mentioned before this is just a diety instead of a new level of Super Saiyan.
Ragnarok was mentioned the entire game. Fang was purposely suppressing it. Now her going emo at the end and deciding "fuck it I will be Ragnarok" was kinda random, but her power didn't come from no where. The game specifically mentions that last time she destroyed a massive section of pulse.
Now maybe them turning into the giant crystal savior of saviorness was a bit random, but shit we never saw the Ragnarok from centuries ago so whose to say that isn't how they destroyed a large chunk of Cocoon.
Not defending the ending by any means, it was fairly stupid, but saying that Orphan or Ragnarok came outta nowhere is... meh.
(Now the entire team pulling a 180, Fang just giving up, and all that good stuff is borderline as hell.)
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Heart Gold Hatbot Style: Okay, screw you. I got a Bellsprout (Kilga) and Sopkodude to finish off my team (along with Magic Rattata, but that ended up staying on the PC), then went through Bellsprout Tower, levelling Meepidgey as I went. Left the tower and thought "I'll go exploring before fighting Falkner!" That was the intelligent side of that thought. The more stupid side was "I'll catch some Pokemon while I'm at it!"
So, Meepidgey and Sopkodude were replaced by Hoppip (Neph) and UNOWN (Aiel). Time to go fight Falkner with three Grass Pokes and a Bug, yay! Poisonpowder then stall strategy works, and two Potions keep Aiel alive long enough to win the fight. Beat Falkner with only UNOWN left. yesiu.
On the way to Azalea, I catch Ephkarp, Tallybat, Djinnshrew and Onix (Tide). And what does it give me? OH YEAH. Replace Zenny, now a Bayleef, Sentret (Tai) and Koterpie with Ephkarp, Tallybat and Tide. safdasfdgfda.
After some training against randoms, Ephkarp and Kilgasprout are still Lv 10, Aiel J at Lv 9, Tide at Lv 7, Tallybat at Lv 6 and an EGG. And I'm meant to be either going into the well or fighting Bugsy. wait what.
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Guys, some of us do plan to find ways to play this game. Just haven't been able to go out, get the game and beat it ASAP. So please, if you need to discuss the ending in detail, please either shrink the font, or go talk about the spoileriffic stuff in the FFXIII topic in the Discussion forum which is pretty cleanly a FFXIII free for all area right now.
Edit: Meeple, if you could copy/paste your rant over there, that would be love. Not because I have any objections to it here you see, but because I want to read the thing after I beat the game (whenever that is) and it'll be a bitch to find here, while it will not in the other topic.
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FE:SD - Caeda is fucking awesome. Also, I should have sacrificed Jagen, since I've not been needing him as a meatshield much. Cain and Abel are solid, but I seriously want to get them to other classes for the sake of better strength, since I've been getting blessed with Speed.
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Regarding ending there and how apparently random it is did you guys play the rest of the game and pay attention to it? The shit you are complaining about it pulling there is the same shit that I have been complaining the plot does with its characters all the damned time. BIG DECISION TIME OH SNAP I FLIP FLOPPED AGAIN. YOu spend the start of the game switching between LETS DO OUR FOCUS, FUCK OUR FOCUS LETS GO SHOOT SOME DUDES, MAYBE WE SHOULD JUST GIVE UP AND DIE, FUCK OUR FOCUS SHOOT SOME DUDES LETSDOOURFOCUS. Of course you get to the end of the damned game and it changes its fucking mind at the last goddamned minute.
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So FFXIII is John Kerry, and it approves this message?
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Ah, American politics. Where changing your mind, ever, is a bad thing.
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Changing your mind is fine. Changing your mind constantly back and forth every 5 damned minutes after each and every single party member is supposed to have had a life affirming encounter with the magic spirit inside their head is not so tolerable.
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Pokemon Soul Silver: Just got to Golden Rod.
Curren team:
Quilava: Starter! played Gen 2 twice, once with Cynda, the other with Chikorita. So I decided to go with the Fire starter cause I like Fire types and finding them is harder than Grass types generally. Yes, there are only two starters in Gen 2.
Onix: Decided to use one for once since you can get him early and he's a nice Jeigan; plan on getting him to Steelix so he's competent the entire way through (will just trade with little sister once I get Metal Coat.) Giving him Rock Smash helps him deal with Rock types and beat up other Normal types faster than before, and Rock THrow = yay Zubat Counter!
Gastly: Got him early as well, but he really sucks early game; Lick is bad damage and misses half the early game Pokemon since they're all damned Normal types. Hypnosis is cool, and he just got Curse, so he can kill things a little faster now providing he's not nearly dead. Should get better later when he gets ACTUAL MOVES, evolves into Haunter, etc.
Bellsprout: Early game Grass type, can use Flash and Cut, which helps out a decent amount. He also butchers Rock types.
Magikarp: HE JUST LEARNED TACKLE! Ok, more seriously, yeah, finally gonna use a Gyarados since Gen 4 Gyara is pretty cool, and if I replay Diamond, I'm gonna use Piplup as my starter, which means "no" to using Gyara there (don't like using more than one of the same type unless its something like Flying that's ludicrously common to find dual typed.) AMUSINGLY, he managed to "kill" a Gym Leader's Pokemon and get full EXP! Specifically, Bugsy's Kakuna. How? Gastly used Curse on a turn when Scyther U-turned it, he BARELY survived (he got Critted), used Curse, the Kakuna got the "Status" and Gastly fainted in the process. Magikarp just tanked it from there.
Hoothoot: I've used Pidgey and Spearow plenty, figured I'd actually use him for once. He has Hypnosis which is cool...except that Bellsprout has Sleep Powder and Gastly ALSO has Hypnosis, so I'm not sure how useful that's going to be! Though, Noctowl fails less in Gen 4 from what I remember, so figured I'd give him a go now, since if not now, then its never really seeing use!
...I might just ditch it entirely once I get a slightly more competent flying type that's interesting. Like I hear this thing called "Lugia" is pretty good, maybe he's better than Noctowl.
So far, the game is nicely polished and what not, a respectable remake to Gen 2. Lacks Gen 4's issues too, at least relative to DP (heard Platinum fixes a lot of DP's issues); battles don't take forever, for example, as animations were changed, pretty much all of them simplified to go faster, though still pretty enough to not look like they're just being half assed.
ALSO...
God of War 2: Finally started this. So far it...feels pretty much exactly like the first game. Same general combat system, Quick Time events galore, same gimmick climbing nonsense, etc. Meh, a lot of the stuff that I didn't like; I hear this game does a few things the first one didn't like "hey look, more weapons!" which could help...and the addition of Kratos getting a Bow for some ranged combat was certainly nice (even if it uses Magic), since hey, why not do something that isn't just melee or big AoE Magical nukings for once?
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Pokemon Sapphire: All the pokemon talk finally made me break down and start Sapphire. In honor of Meme Mafia, I chose Mudkip. Hovering around the first Pokemon Center building up my stable. Got level 5-6 Zigzagoon, Poochyena, Wurmple and Lotad along with Muddymudkipper. Anything else I need to grab before I actually proceed?
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Pokemon Sapphire: All the pokemon talk finally made me break down and start Sapphire. In honor of Meme Mafia, I chose Mudkip. Hovering around the first Pokemon Center building up my stable. Got level 5-6 Zigzagoon, Poochyena, Wurmple and Lotad along with Muddymudkipper. Anything else I need to grab before I actually proceed?
Raltss can be a bit difficult to find and struggle until they evolve, but they get psychic relatively early and their final evolution can destroy most of the gyms with calm mind stacking.
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That's not what I mean by literally.....
What happened is actually far worse.
The ending happened that way because a god, who has absolutely no screen time, happens to divinely interfere for no particular reason.
Functionally it is absolutely the same thing. The hidden power that wasn't there thirty minutes ago and was never mentioned before this is just a diety instead of a new level of Super Saiyan.
Ragnarok was mentioned the entire game. Fang was purposely suppressing it. Now her going emo at the end and deciding "fuck it I will be Ragnarok" was kinda random, but her power didn't come from no where. The game specifically mentions that last time she destroyed a massive section of pulse.
Now maybe them turning into the giant crystal savior of saviorness was a bit random, but shit we never saw the Ragnarok from centuries ago so whose to say that isn't how they destroyed a large chunk of Cocoon.
Not defending the ending by any means, it was fairly stupid, but saying that Orphan or Ragnarok came outta nowhere is... meh.
(Now the entire team pulling a 180, Fang just giving up, and all that good stuff is borderline as hell.)
That still didn't excuse Etro though, who pops out of nowhere and still not being there.
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Quick question to the people playing the new pokemon games. Do they feature Sandslash? The last pokemon game I played didn't have him and with him being my favorite pokemon I was disappointed. I hope its early game too because then I can put it as my main pokemon stright away ;D
Persona 1 psp - The game is very much like SMT2 but well its flaws are far more clear to see. I played SMT2 with a fast forward at the ready so the game went nice and smooth. Encounters every five steps didn't matter at all so I believe I rate SMT2 a bit too highly. Anyway persona 1 doesn't have a fast foward option so everything takes forever (Skip animation helps but not enough).
Thus far partywise its been rocky with the main character being 3 levels behind Maki and 5! behind everyone else. Currently grinding to buy everything in the black market because enemies are starting to get nasty.
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Rozalia: Sandshrew info (http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-dp/027.shtml) from recent games. Looks like he's aftergame in HG/SS, and both aftergame and requires a LG cart in DPPt. Kinda uncool, though you could always find someone who would trade you a low-level one early on.
He's available in all Gen3 games except for Fire Red, around the same time as he was available in RBY, so early midgame.
*high fives for having Sandslash as a main in one's first ever run of the game!*
AAI: Onto 5-3. This case is a bit of a slow starter so far, but I really dug the first two. Definitely prefer this game to Apollo Justice, PW writing is back and glorious.
MM10: Got up to the final level. Scattered thoughts:
-I can beat all the robot masters except Chill Man and Solar Man (oh god Solar Man :( ) with the buster, now.
-Oh, and the archive boss fights were fucking badass.
-The GROUNDCRAWLER is one of the best weapons in this game? what
XS2 - Margulis was a wuss. All maingame GS campaigns done. Time to kick down the final dungeon.
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Aftergame? Um, nope. I got a Sandshrew on my team early in HG. You can catch them in that tunnel before Azalea town(Union Cave, iirc), though they don't pop up often.
Awesome to see more Sandslash hype though! It's been my favorite pokemon since Gen 1 as well~
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Oh, how'd I miss Union Cave there. Yeah. Needs to be HG.
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Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgement: Three battles to go, I think? This could have been quite a good game if it had been paced like a normal Tactics/RPG. There wasn't enough time to develop either the gameplay concepts or the characters, which is a shame because both seemed like they should have been interesting. 5/10 if the final battles are cool, as low as a 4/10 if they aren't.
NBA2k10 (PS3): Lost something like 40 hours worth of Rookie of the Year, Sixth Man of the Year, one man away from being NBA Finals MVP, "My Player" data because another player in the house screwed up and manually saved over it. In a game that autosaves and I repeatedly mentioned how there's no reason, ever, to manually save, under any circumstances.
So yeah.
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Also, is this where I taunt both the Elf and Rozalia with my shiny Sandslash I got in Ruby(and have since moved to Diamond)?
/me taunts, flees~
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Pokemon Emerald - Beat!
My final party cheesed its way past the E4 with Revives and Full Restores. The last fight was one of the easier I think my team had the most trouble with the ice bitch.
My team was Ninjask 44, Swampert 61, Breloom 42, Magneton 47, Tailow 45, and Heracross 45
As you can see half of my gawd damn team was weak to ice moves!
But, I was only playing this game for the legendaries....and they are all caught except for Rayquaza which I already have...but I want him again to see if I can get a better Nature....
~
Now, after I do all that I'ma go find a second DS and start transferring all of my Pokemon from Diamond over to SS. The I can start a Pokemon game with all the babies and make my starting party that way for a change!
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FFXIII- Boss battles in Chapter Ten were intense. Both Fang's Eidolon and you know who kept me on my toes. In Fang's case it was more that I hadn't been using or mantaining her so it was a case of WTF!? as her Eidolon totally reamed my party >.> Then I had to figure out how to fill the Gestalt bar while keeping my party alive - even after building Fang up this was still close. However it was nothing compared to you know who. I'm still not quite sure what happened there but I managed to win in the end <.<
Also I hope the enemies in this new chapter give tons of CP because I noticed new stuff for characters was starting to become expensive at the end of Chapter Ten.
Thanks for the advice Pyro =-) I think I'll go SYN for Vanille's fourth role. Any suggestions for Sazh/Snow?~
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Sandshrew can be found in SS in Celadon Game Corner and the Johto Safari Zone. It's later and less convenient there, but still not aftergame.
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Heart of Iron 2- Netplaying this with Hal. I'm Scandanavia, he is Germany. We're in late July of '39, about ready to start the war. I'm handling the naval aspect and some of the air, he is doing most of the ground fighting. The scandnavians have some pretty terrible default ministers. If I can swing over to Paternal Autocrat it'll get much better, but that'll take several years of slider moves. Oh well.
It's pretty fun. It lends itself well to netplaying, since you can focus on different branches of the research tree, and having an ally worth a damn is fun. The plan is to smash Poland, then hit the low countries/France, then knock out the UK home islands by early 41. Pretty standard Axis tactics.
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Breaking out of ordinary roles doesn't mean much in the end. It might be a good idea to grab Sentinel class for "CRAP BIG MT MOVE SWAP TO 3 SENTINELS" situations and you would probably want Commando+Ruin on Vanille/Hope for when you have boosted something's chain gauge high enough and just want it dead, now. You would only do this after maxing out the 3 main roles though, or on the 9th tier. The trade you make in stats to get those abilities otherwise is painful.
At the verrrryyyy endgame Fang makes a good Synergist on account of getting the 4 superior buffs (Faith/Brave are *1.4 damage, Faithda/Braveda are *1.8, Protect/Shell are *2/3rds damage taken, Protectra/Shellra are *1/2). This is horribly expensive outside of endgame however.
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Also, is this where I taunt both the Elf and Rozalia with my shiny Sandslash I got in Ruby(and have since moved to Diamond)?
You know I don't believe I've ever had a shiny pokemon :(. *Crosses fingers and hopes luck changes in this game*
Anyhow I have now brought myself a Heartgold copy of pokemon. There were like 20-30 copies of it left and no soulsilvers at all. When I asked about it they told me while soulsilver sold out only two people (with myself three) purchased heartgold.
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Shit, seriously? I know most people I know have SS, but I figured there wasn't that much of a split. (Possibly because I'm a Phoenix, and by extension Ho-oh, fanboy, though.)
Oh, on the shiny thing? I've only had one before, and that was a Geodude. Golden Geodude is awesome, I think, but Golem would be better! So I evolve it. Except shiny Golem isn't golden, it's some kind of lighter brown. fail.
Heart Gold Hatbot Style:
Went through the well, leaving after near enough every fight to heal OnixTide. Aiel J becomes my highest levelled Pokemon for quie a while, until OnixTide overtakes with ease against randoms around Bugsy's Gym. Bugsy himself takes a while because of U-Turn, but I finally get a Rock Throw in where he used LEER instead. With Scyther down, I switch around for Exp against the Kakuna before claiming a Rock Throw victoly.
On the way to Goldenrod, I catch some more Pokemon, but nothing that's relevant now, before... I get beaten by the trainer outside. The policeman who only fights at night? Yeah, OnixTide was dead and my next best Pokemon was AIEL J. hell. no.
Go back through to Goldenrod in the morning, not having to fight the cop this time, and catch a Smashzee along the way, who replaces Aiel (finally!) Voltorb Flip hooks me completely and I spend a few hours playing, getting Elftini and Carthsnake there and some extra coins to be spent on items... later. (Elftini and Carthsnake replace Kilgasprout and a Hoothoot I'd caught.) Somewhere back in Azalea, I think, my Togepi hatched, so I have this Lv 1 piece of crap in my team too.
Off to Whitney's Gym now, and my current team is:
- Lv 17 OnixTide
- Lv 15 Carthsnake
- Lv 15 Elftini
- Lv 11 Ephkarp
- Lv 10 Smashzee
- Lv 1 Togepat (named after someone on a different site)
...I'm screwed, aren't I? Relying on using Dratini's awesome moveset combined with Onix resistances and Screech to take out this gym, methinks...
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Damn, I need to get HeartGold, too. :c
I had a golden Noctowl. When I saw Ash catch one in the anime I was like "WHAT!"
But I lost my cartridge.
Went to the shops for HG today but "derp you need to order by phone"... hahahano. Guess I'll wait until it ships into stores here~
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FF13 - Finished. Battle system continues to be boring. End game weapons powered up to max of Tier 2, stuff still takes far to long to die (4 minute or so randoms? Fuck you giant tank guys). I actually had less Retries in the last dungeon than the rest of the game because of all the talking up it got I actually looked at the TV while playing instead of loading up the next Podcast to isten to while playing or something.
Character analysis stuff can burn. In battle there is some basic combat sets you want access to, but however you make those up will work. You want some way to have a Synergist, a Saboteur and a Medic seperately at any given time, you can fill out the rest of your party however you damned want, who you use doesn't matter, you just are going to be pressing X and sipping a drink the whole time anyway. I used Lightning, Fang, Hope because fuck why not. They covered that.
The combat system is really really stupid in essence because they whole setup is less to kill you and more about trying to get 5 stars to get better loot from enemies. So you hit boss fights and there is no real reason to try and get the 5 star rating because you get no loot there. So you can just play really conservatively and you will win (I did not do this, I wasn't looking at my TV enough to do that before someone says that is why I found the game boring, I played very offensively oriented). Oh except for the last boss fight, but do you know what the last boss does? The final boss has even less offense than Sin final boss fight. Sure there is no Perma-Revive there, but he is just as likely to kill you. 5 star trophy for it got first try.
THe ending did the same this the rest of the game did just as expected. If you didn't see that stupid ending bullshit coming from a mile away you just plain were blind to the shitty main plot nonsense through the whole game.
Pretty much every character disappears off the face of the world after they get their Summon. They just get generic set of lines go here LETS SAVE COCOON, WE ARE ALL FRIENDS LETS HUG, LETS NOT MAKE A WISH OR PRAYER LETS MAKE A PROMISE. AND WHEN I SAY PROMISE, I DON'T MEAN, LIKE, AN ACTUAL PROMISE, BUT I MEAN IT LIKE THE WAY BLACK EOPLE USE IT. WHICH IS MORE MEANINGFUL I THINK. And then the plot does something stupid and you end the scene with some illogical disconnect from the already established reality or situation from the last cutscene. So even if there is characters that I don't hate? They also don't have much character. Sazs was the best from begining to end and that is still because the whole game he is doing things for fairly logical intelligent reasons and he isn't a gigantic douche the whole time. Go him, that puts him on par with great characters like most of the cast from Shining Force.
So to wrap it all up, this game from start to finish is horrible. The gameplay gets less grating like 20-30 hours in (depending on how much you just get fed up and walk away from the game while it is running) where it stops being painfully aggravatingly boring to become painfully mind numbingly boring. The plot stops making ou violent a few hours before that because the plot just keeps getting retarded and you just stop caring about the dumb shit that they are saying and how it is completely counter to what they just said the last cutscene but matches up perfectly with the one that was 2 scenes ago (ad infinitum). It does one single thing right in all its $100 AUS glory, it is very pretty. There is not a single thing here that I would like to see carried over to a new game. The job system lacks diversity of previous ones, the Sphere Grid knock off is entirely linear and not even remotely interesting (you have 3 jobs per character in essence and you will max them all out just before you unlock new things). The plot is vapid and stupid with no sense of pacing or interesting characters and the setting is frankly not that fucking interesting.
There is no choice in this game. The dungeons are straight lines, the character building is all predefined for you, your immediate responses to any given situation in battle are right there with a simple priority system which the AI will handle the finer points for you. You want to Bufff -> Debuff -> HP>50% attack -> HP<50% change to healer. Game fucking over. While you will eliminate that entire first step on anything difficult by buffing before the fight starts with buffs that last like 5 damned minutes in game and there is like what 10 fights that should take longer than that? Is there even any enemies that dispel in this hunk of shit? Ultimately you can CHOOSE to do side quests or you can CHOOSE to fight inefficiently. THank you game I had plenty of ways to choose to waste my fucking time while playing you without you handing those two options to me. Oh and even though they streamlined everything? Yeah this is still a 40+ hour grind to get through. Because those corridor dungeons with enemies you kill in about a minute each? Yeah they are overflowing with enemies, it will take you hours to run what is effectively like a few street blocks in this damned game. It puts XS2 to shame for its longest and most grindy dungeons in the game and fuck at least XS2 dungeons had engaging combat to get through. Streamlining gameplay and then bloating the game out with filler grind is a failure of concept.
In short, this game is bad and I think less of you as a person if you like it. There is nothing good here. If you want to spend your time playing a game that streamlines a fairly well established genre then you want to play Mass Effect 2 which as an added bonus for all its streamlining ACTUALLY MANAGES TO MAKE THE GAME FUCKING SHORTER. Square need to stop making games and go back to what they are good at, making shitty movies that are blissfully over after 70 minutes.
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Sapphire: Currently running Mudkip, Shroomish, Nincada, Ralts, Lotad and Beautifly all around 10-12
Beat the first gym. Mudkip got OHKO'd by an opening critical Rock Throw from Roxanne, which was >.> So Shroomish just went in with Stun Spore/Leech Seed/Absorb combo to clean up the gym.
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FFXIII- Boss battles in Chapter Ten were intense. Both Fang's Eidolon and you know who kept me on my toes. In Fang's case it was more that I hadn't been using or mantaining her so it was a case of WTF!? as her Eidolon totally reamed my party >.> Then I had to figure out how to fill the Gestalt bar while keeping my party alive - even after building Fang up this was still close. However it was nothing compared to you know who. I'm still not quite sure what happened there but I managed to win in the end <.<
Also I hope the enemies in this new chapter give tons of CP because I noticed new stuff for characters was starting to become expensive at the end of Chapter Ten.
Thanks for the advice Pyro =-) I think I'll go SYN for Vanille's fourth role. Any suggestions for Sazh/Snow?~
Enemies start giving CP in the thousands in C11. There's an abusable fight in there that gives 6.6k for about a minute of work early on (~20 seconds later).
Like Pyro said, grabbing Sentinel for everyone is a good idea. Commando/Ravager maybe too. Getting the first skill takes like 15k CP minimum which is not much at all (a little over the price of one node in the highest endgame tier). Not really worth it to go past that.
So yeah, grab SEN for Vanille and Sazh. Maybe COM for Vanille if you want (at least up to Ruin if it's early) but that's less important. Focus on main roles other than that.
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I'm with Elf and Roz. Sandslash was a member of my first game beating Pokemon Red/Blue team way back when. (I forget which was which. I got Sandslash and my brother got stuck with Arbok.) Sandslash/Alakhazam/Starmie/Charizard go!
Oh, and screw Sentinel. All that skill does in the non missions fights is make things take longer! There's like... 2 mobs in the late game that I found it useful for and only Fang needed to Sent up anyway. Blitz blitz blitz!
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Square need to stop making games
Pretty much. Wonder what they're gonna do when they can't make their graphics any better, since that's the only thing they're really using new technology for.
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So to wrap it all up, this game from start to finish is horrible.
Say more, Grefter, say more!!!
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Sapphire: Up to Slateport, still using the same party, though a few evolved. Marshtomp, Nincada, Beautifly, Ralts, Lombre and Shroomish. Wiped once to the Fighting gym leader. Shouldn't have attempted him at ~13. Leveled to 15-16 and it was much easier. Nincada is developing into my HM mule. Beautifly has started to fall off in use, probably will be the next cut once a good typing comes in. Don't feel like using Aron, Makuhita or Sableye. Maybe once I get an Electric type I'll stick it in there.
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Branching out to grab other stuff is pure postgame side mission stuff. If you just want to get from start to finish you are just fine sticking wih the main skillsets for characters rather than branching out into ones that you won't use. You will get more stats from one end game node than you will from picking up all the ones on the way to get a shitty little skillset for another role you won't use.
Besides to use Sentinel properly you need to watch the screen. That isn't what I would be playing FF13 to do.
Edit - Chrono Trigger - I have actually been playing the DS version of this while going to and from work while playing the abomination. This is possibly part of why I am so harsh on FF13 because CT is superior in every way that I care about. Seriously great game to replay and the updated translation is nice, doesn't change much but just makes the dialogue a bit better really (and has people drinking actual alcohol). Character names in order of recruitment were Hello, SATAN, Satan, satan, S4T4N,Satan (with some accents on the As I can't remember which ones) and Stan. Mostly done so the dialogue goes absurd and because I wanted to call Magus Stan just to make the dialogue even more surreal which only works with everyone else called Satan. (Note this is from someone who has played through the game 10+ times at any given point, I need something to keep me occupied during the same conversations). I am up to The Fated Hour with just the Trial part of the Rainbow Shell side quest left to do and then it is whatever those extra things that were added for the DS version and the Black Omen to go. Actually trying a few different parties than normal and for all the Heal Beam hype I have seen I am not overly impressed. Currently it heals for 250. Slurp Kiss heals for 450 with an underlevelled Frog. For about that much healing I could just be throwing Lapis with anyone and Cure Beam is a good 150 HP weaker than third tier Potions (X-Potion? I don't think the are called that). Some other stuff I could go on about, but eh. It is Chrono Trigger. It still holds up as a great game. Not big on depth but compelling with a fun, albeit pretty easy, combat system. Very much greater than the sum of its parts, mostly because of the high level of polish gone into the game.
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Pokemon Soul Silver: Whitney is an RNG Cheating whore. No, I don't mean "The AI Cheats", I just mean she was much harder than she needed to be cause RNG kept rolling in her favor. Seriously, Stomp flinched Onix 6 times in a row...then Allure said he couldn't attack...2 more flinches from Stomp...finally gets a turn! ...Screech Misses (85% accuracy remember.)
I did say screw it and used a few items on her, cause geez, that level of hax was just obnoxious. Even more insulting was when the Miltank finally died, her Clefairy (which she swapped out of), uses Metronome...SURF!!! Onix dies. Out goes Quilava, Metronome...AQUA TAIL!!!
...seriously, that's gotta be some of the worst luck I've ever had in a Pokemon game. The Miltank finally died when I swapped Onix out (to get rid of Attract) when it started using Rollout, carefully manipulated such that Gastly could squeeze out one turn for Curse, then it died. Quilava managed to outslug the Clefairy thankfully, especially since it decided to MIMIC EMBER AND USE IT, so yeah. Still, ugh, harder fight than it needed to be.
Granted, having Magikarp still part of my team didn't help, but I should be able to work that away soonish...I hope...
God of War 2: Just got the Golden Fleece. This game could really use Boss Health Bars. Its just nice knowing just how much damage you're doing and what not when you're attacking, so you can judge what's effective and what's not.
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Resonance of Fate:
Got this with my three games of doom (Pokemon HG and ToV). Booted it up because it looked cool. This game can be described in the following ways.
In one word: Unbalanced
In a more descriptive manner: Shoot some dudes
Longer and more meaningful description:
This game is such a Rob game if Rob enjoyed JRPGs. Cross Valkyrie Profile 2 except add guns and you pretty much have RoF gameplay in a nutshell. There's no soul crushes or anything like that, but there is a Hero Gauge (hereby referred to as the Rob Gauge) where you are invincible and run down a line and shoot some dudes. If you run out of Rob meter, then you become weak and feeble and you die in like 3 hits. Where as before, things will take at least 6-7 hits to kill you since they have to completely drain your Rob meter.
As much as I tell myself that this game shouldn't be fun, it is strangely satisfying. And fun at that. Maybe its because you're shooting some dudes. Maybe its because I liked VP2, I dunno, but the concepts actually come off pretty well together and there's enough thinking to do in every battle due to the way the system works.
See, the Rob gauge is used for both offense and defense. You only take Recoverable damage (called Scratch in game), from most enemy attacks (that I have seen anyway. Not that far in). However, if the amount of scratch damage you take reaches up to your maximum HP count, then you will lose meter from the Rob gauge. You can't restore it unless you kill something or break some parts, so you have to effectively manage this. The concept of using Scratch damage before using direct damage is also kinda neat. Scratch damage has the advantage of being able to pile up in bulk a lot faster than direct damage. But just like on the PC end, scratch damage doesn't kill the enemy. Your direct damage is puny, unless you use thrown items which are limited in supply early. So you often have to consider where you want the PCs to be and to make sure that the Scratcher deals as much damage without sacrificing too much of your Rob gauge.
Oh also, the graphics are damn nice. Yes, the flips and jumps and various running and gunning shots they make actually looks cool.
As for story and plot, most of it so far has just been doing various quests that the guild requires you to do. You typically have one main mission quest and then a bunch of optional ones which you can complete. You don't have to complete the main mission immediately. In fact, you can screw around endlessly if you want to >_>. It's a little freerange in that sense (although still Linear since there doesn't seem to be any branching paths yet). Vashryon is a pretty cool and laid back guy. Zephyr is kinda emo. We don't know why! But he is. And Leanne is the girl who is basically learning the art of gunplay from Vashyron and Zephyr after being rescued by them. That's pretty much it. Will see if opinion lasts over time.
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To clarify: it's not that I don't enjoy any jRPGs, it's that the genre is mostly stagnant and I don't see a future for them. And also that they're usually terribly written.
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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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It starts out rather quirky with the main character being a cross dressing gladiator as well as having two prostitutes as party members.
FFX-2: Paine Edition? >_>
Pokemon HG: Started this up this morning. Party is Caterpie (Margarine), Falcon (Pidgey), and TikTok (Totodile). Decided that I'm going to go with pun names for all my Pokemon this time.
Borderlands: The result of a drunken one-night stand between Diablo 2 and Fallout 3. I'm on the mountain on my way to the vault. Nothing can possibly go wrong. L 35 hunter focusing on Sniper Rifles.
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DMC3: Boss Ruuuuush. Why did I have the most trouble with Nevan redux there. I don't know. Anyway, will probably finish this up today.
Lady or Shadow Dante for easiest boss in the game? I dunno, it's a tossup.
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FF13 in Japanese: Well, this oughta be fun. Chiaki hasn't played it yet, so I bought the game and we're gonna give it a go. Hopefully my Japanese is good enough to keep up with the story and I'll be able to make meaningful commentary on that. I popped it in today to test that the secondhand game worked and it was easy enough to following the opening bits and the battle system seems pretty self-explanatory so far, so hopefully Chiaki can help translate anything I don't catch.
Initial impressions for posterity: Shiny? The graphics don't really impress me as much they probably should. The character designs work fine so far, though I've never actually seen the 2D artwork that Nomura must have drawn for them. Scenery so far is Zanarkand mk II.
Snow is an idiot, but I like the archetype so far. Hope's mom seemed badass and should have been a main character. Lightning and Sazh just felt kinda there.
I think it'll be interesting to see how they develop into the things that people have been talking about so far.
I like the battle theme at least.
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FFX-2: Paine Edition? >_>
Nope, the prostitutes are properly dressed.
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Heart Gold Hatbot Style:
Okay! Whitney's Gym was FUN! Basically blitzed the entire thing with OnixTide, who ended up at stupid levels as a result, with some backup from Carthsnake, surprisingly - Glare is amazingly useful. <3 Miltank fell to that strategy after PAAAAIN. See, my Onix was faster than it, unlike Meeple's, but Attract really screwed me over, so I decided to turn her strategy around. Headbutt -> Flinch works from Onix led to... ohsomany Milk Drinks. argh. Eventually took me switching Onix out after getting three Screeches in to remove Attract, healing a bit while Ephkarp got killed and then switching back for Headbutt lols.
On from there, I... got caught up at the Pokeathlon. For about 6 hours. Man, that thing is addictive! So much fun~
Anyways, from there, went off to get Sudowoodo. Forgot to save and only had 3 Pokeballs, so it was Glare -> chip with Bite/Poison Sting. Carthsnake eventually died, but it was on barely any health, so switched in Smashzee and hoped for the catch. Got it on the 3rd. :D Stelowoodo didn't get put into the party, though - dammit, Hatbot. :(
Off to Ecruteak now. Can't help laughing at the trainer who goes "Look how terrible it is when your Pokemon are asleep!" and then proceeds to face my Insomnia Smashzee. His Drowzee was a level higher, still got owned, yay~
Current Team:
- Lv 21 OnixTide
- Lv 16 Carthsnake
- Lv 16 Elftini
- Lv 12 Ephkarp
- Lv 16 Smashzee
- Lv 5 Togepat (named after someone on a different site)
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So I'm kinda mad right now.
I got all my pokemon onto my Diamond cartridge and I was ready to start trading them all over to SS so I can finally start that game up, when I noticed I couldn't seem to find my Latios.
I had purchased Ruby right whe it was new and used my Masterball on him because I freaking hate running pokemon. Well, I also picked up Emerald because it was super cheap and used and I wanted to get Latias as well.
Seeing as how I just beat Emerald and I had also caught Latias recently, I was happy I had pretty much all the Legendaries I could catch without using cheat codes.
But, now I can't seem to find Latios in any of my games and it is quite infuriating. I see that he is registered in my Diamond Pokedex so I must have traded him over already, but he's no where to be found!
Son of a bitch!
~
But yeah, looks like I am going to have to start a NEW game in ruby or Emerald just to get Latios again. Kinda lame, but whatever! Also, to anyone that may know is there any way to catch all these legendaries that aren't in the games or will I have to result into using a cheat or AR code or somethign to catch the likes of Celebi, Darkai, Giratina, Regigigas, and all those other silly pokemon?
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Mass Effect:
Side missions are boring as hell (WTF game, making me search 4 colonies of monkeys just to place the one I need to find in a goddamn dungeon? Egh) but yield good items so I guess that's a plus. Finished up Feros, moved on to Noveria. Just about to go find a way to still get Paragon points while getting out of the base after talking with the Synthetic Highlights exec and... the elevator glitches. Way to piss me off, game.
Game keeps bringing back KotOR flashbacks, some good some bad. The plot keeps reinforcing the "It's the same Universe as KotOR!" conspiracy theory with the Asari nonsense and the gameplay keeps reinforcing it by having my allies get stuck on walls halfway back through a dungeon. -_- I really like the game but it does so many things to just piss me off.
EDIT: Also, am I not supposed to be able to use my Electronics/Decryption skills to skip over the stupid hacking minigame without having to waste Omnigel? The game implies so but attempts to do so have yielded nothing.
KoL: Started ascending again, finished up Oxycore Turtle Tamer. Moved onto Oxycore Disco Bandit. Saved up a bunch of turns for mysticality day since why not play on a stat day, and... find that I not only don't have a ten leaf clover to get my Epic Legendary Weapon, but the hermit isn't selling any today either. Son of a bitch. I am not questing with nothing but a goddamn disco ball and only being able to get accordion thief buffs for 5 turns. Oh well, guess I'll just bide my time til rollover.
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DMC3: Done. Final Vergil is harsh. Gave Bloody Palace mode a go on a whim and made it to 1199 before dying (guess who put a stop to that? Fucking Beowulf).
Apparently something special happens if you kill 100 enemies during the credits? I killed 99. Dammit.
How long is Vergil mode?
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It's the same stages as Dante. Vergil plays completely differently though.
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Is it really that hard to kill 100 demons? I know that I cut it decently close, but uhh... the only real problem with it I can see is if you haven't learned mob control or aren't very good at boss
killing slaying.
Anyway, yeah. Vergil mode is a different opening scene, and then same stages, but COMPLETELY different playstyle. Though... I still need to beat it, myself. >_>;
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You probably missed the part where I suck at the game. Didn't know the kill count mattered for anything until I checked a FAQ afterward too, so I was really just screwing around.
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Ahh, yeah. That could do it. Easily. >_>; (the not knowing part, I mean) Well, it's nothing that's actually too special anyway, so don't feel bad about missing out.
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Vergil mode is identical on stages, yeah; it has 0 plot though outside of the intro which is basically just some stuff that happened a little before the game related to Vergil, then no plot scenes after it. Vergil also starts with all his weapons he'll get throughout the game, though, not all upgrades. Its...best you just try him out and see; he's a different enough character to give a go at DMC3 again compared to Dante.
For the 100 Demon kill...
You want Kalina Anne and Agni/Rudra at least. What style...I forget, I think Swordmaster works? Beowulf is good too. Agni/Rudra just cut through things quickly, and Kalina Anne tends to one shot the demons, while having splash damage as well. Beowulf comes in handy against the Hell Vanguard.
Getting 99 is trivial, the hard part is 100 cause its a Hell Vanguard vs. the 99 basic demon failures you're fighting before that. This is where Beowulf really comes in handy cause it can dish out damage like nothing else.
Getting 100 Demons with Vergil is a joke; its basically "Spam the Flash Slash from Yamato" until the Hell Vanguard appears, then "Beat the shit out of him with everything you got", pity you get no bonus points for that.
Regarding the extra scene, its...going to be wasted on you El-Cid. It exists purely to help tie DMC1 and DMC3 together. It'll make little sense to you if you never played DMC1.
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Sapphire: Just finished the third gym, it was no match for the combined might of Marshtomp and Shroomish. Replaced the Beautifly in the party with an Electrike, just to get an electric in there. Been a pain raising it, but the stats are starting to go up in a better way with the Macho Band on it. On the other hand, I used it to win a Coolness contest. Grabbed Rock Smash and getting ready to move on though.
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But yeah, looks like I am going to have to start a NEW game in ruby or Emerald just to get Latios again. Kinda lame, but whatever! Also, to anyone that may know is there any way to catch all these legendaries that aren't in the games or will I have to result into using a cheat or AR code or somethign to catch the likes of Celebi, Darkai, Giratina, Regigigas, and all those other silly pokemon?
You're in luck with Latios, check the bottom of this page: http://www.serebii.net/heartgoldsoulsilver/legends.shtml
Celebi will be a wifi event soonish. Giratina and Regigigas are available in Diamond. You're screwed on Darkrai - there's already been a Diamond/Pearl and a Platinum giveaway for him, not going to be any more in the near future.
HG: Chuck was actually fairly difficult, as in handed me my first loss in the game. My usual strategy of sleep everything dangerous doesn't work on Primeape. Ended up going with an unorthodox method of beating him using my lowest leveled pokemon who were all weak to the attacks used by Chuck's. Yeah Onix versus Poliwrath for the win.
Jasmine was fail despite me not having ground attacks on my team. Magnemite ate Embers from Magby, and Steelix doesn't like Surf from Croconaw.
Pryce was even bigger fail. Piloswine ate Surf and died, and Dewgong had no attacks that can do significant damage to a water type.
Team is currently Magmar, Onix, Weepinbell, Togetic, Croconaw, Dunsparce.
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There's savefiles available for Pokémon Pearl to get Darkrai, as well as Arceus, Shaymin and more. If you don't mind traversing Ye Olde Pirate Seas, you could get them by transferring from Pearl that way.
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Oh wow, Captn K yo just saved me a boat load of time! Much appreciated!
and also, how do you get a savefile for a DS game?
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Shit, seriously? I know most people I know have SS, but I figured there wasn't that much of a split. (Possibly because I'm a Phoenix, and by extension Ho-oh, fanboy, though.)
It seems a lot more people want SS for some strange reason because when I talked to some people I know who don't yet have a copy they all said they'd be getting SS. When I asked them why most of them replied with "lugia rocks", not in those exact words of course.
Pokemon HG - Pokemon are (Not including failish filler) Sandshrew L19, Quilava L21. Just got my second badge.
Rival oddly didn't give me any trouble....well he beat me once but that was because he crit with watergun TWICE! damn bastard.
One thing thats bugging me is the move "Dig", Sandslash can learn it and I remember it trashing Lance endgame but is it actually any good?
Its current moves are Swift, Defence curl, Poison spike and Rapid spin. I think I'll keep Rapid spin as I know those guys online just love throwing those statuses at you but the rest of the moves seem safe to get rid of right?
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Pokemon SS: Did nothing but beating up trainers, minor backtracking for MOAR POKEBALLS, and...uhh...stuff...yeah, nothing significant, go me!
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I haven't beaten a Pokemon game since Red, but when I beat that one, I actually took the time to get all 150 pokemon in my dex. And it was really unsatisfying that I didn't even get a congradulations message or anything.
Out of curiosity, I'm wondering if future Pokemon games actually reward the player for collecting all 5 million pokemon or so?
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Pokemon HG - Pokemon are (Not including failish filler) Sandshrew L19, Quilava L21. Just got my second badge.
Rival oddly didn't give me any trouble....well he beat me once but that was because he crit with watergun TWICE! damn bastard.
One thing thats bugging me is the move "Dig", Sandslash can learn it and I remember it trashing Lance endgame but is it actually any good?
Its current moves are Swift, Defence curl, Poison spike and Rapid spin. I think I'll keep Rapid spin as I know those guys online just love throwing those statuses at you but the rest of the moves seem safe to get rid of right?
Dig used to be 100 power, which was insanely good considering when you got it. It's 80 power now, which is still pretty solid, and very rarely will the AI exploit the windup turn.
Rapid Spin is useless in-game as the computer will never use entry hazards effectively. Feel free to delete it (and every other move currently on your Sandshrew) when you get something better.
I haven't beaten a Pokemon game since Red, but when I beat that one, I actually took the time to get all 150 pokemon in my dex. And it was really unsatisfying that I didn't even get a congradulations message or anything.
Out of curiosity, I'm wondering if future Pokemon games actually reward the player for collecting all 5 million pokemon or so?
Sadly, the answer is "hell no". IIRC Nintendo has actually dropped the old "Gotta Catch'em All" slogan, in large part because actually filling out a Pokedex is such a byzantine process these days. Well, unless you trade for everything annoying like I did, but that's still quite a bit of work.
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Eh to collecting the Pokémon in Pokémon besides building a solid, fun party. Just play the game and wear comfy shorts, profit. The gameplay dynamics are the reason to play Pokémon extensively anyway~
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You know what the nice thing about Pokemon is?
Its got a shit load of options...that are actually valid! The cast is diverse, big, and lots of valid options (Granted, limited by version, but you don't wanna be overwhelmed.)
Its proof that Radiata Stories really failed it up with its oversized cast! </cheap shot>
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And it was really unsatisfying that I didn't even get a congradulations message or anything.
Untrue! If you go to the nondescript tower in Celedon and talk to one of the developers, you get a certificate!
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Man, that might have made my childhood better for a whole hour. If only GameFAQs had existed sooner! To think of that lost hour of happiness is torturous indeed.
*looks at Meeple's post* Clearly... Radiata Stories just needed a 20-element typing system!
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Yeah I finished my Emerald Pokedex at DLCon3, and got the lame certificate. Pretty close to finishing it on Pearl, but yeah, laziness.
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Man, that might have made my childhood better for a whole hour. If only GameFAQs had existed sooner! To think of that lost hour of happiness is torturous indeed.
*looks at Meeple's post* Clearly... Radiata Stories just needed a 20-element typing system!
I bet being able to control more than one PC would have helped the appeal of a large cast!
HGSS sounds cool, I'm getting into the mood to play Pokemon again!
XS2 - Finally got killed, died once to Inversion because I manged to have the worst setup possible for him and made a couple key errors. Also beat the ULTIMATE PUZZLE~ which eluded me last playthrough. Then died again to the purple horseman Ortu right before the final bosses because I grossly overestimated my damage and he did his low-HP counterboost Apoptosis attack which raped my party. :( Still, almost done the maingame!
MM10 - Beat. This needs a rant, but it's too late for one.
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HG: Falkner falls before the might of Android, my Mareep with Thundershock! Margarine finally evolves into Butterfree! I catch a Sandshrew! My mom steals my money to get an item that I don't know what it is! And I get through Union Cave! Huzzah.
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Thanks Tal~
FFXIII- Taijin Tower. First two missions were relatively easy but I'm stuck on the Ambling Bellows. I've fought him a lot and managed to get him down to under 80'000 HP once but ... yeah. I think switching Sazh out for Fang would be a good idea, I can feel that he's started to lag now =/
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You know what Civ 5 has gotten me psyched for?
PLAYING SOME MORE CIV 4.
Only going to turn on one victory condition: culture/diplomacy/conquest. Pick one.
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Diplomacy.
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Diplomacy.
Edit: Blame Hatbot for that.
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Minor justification: diplo takes the most effort, IMO, to actually pull off. Culture is pretty easy to early-game set up for and kinda lock in for, as it's very very hard to build up enough counter-momentum to get a win in that against someone else late. Conquest is always -fun-, but common. So go diplo.
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Heart Gold Hatbot Style: In today's session, we beat two Gym Leaders and fail against two more! And Pryce is one of them! D:
So. Morty, haha. After seeing Hinode mention in chat that Morty can effectively be beaten by a Lv 1 Togepi, I decided to try using my Lv 5 Togepi to beat his Gengar. After 5 Sucker Punches failed to get through Charm, I started using Metronome and Extrasensory. Metronome repeatedly hit sleep moves, which was quite funny when combined with his Hypnosis, but led to a long fight. Eventually ran him out of PP and then chipped him down with Extrasensory/recoil. The other ghosts mostly fell to some Confusion from Smashzee or Dragon Rage from Elftini.
Moving on from there, I got to Olivine after grabbing Surf, the Dowsing Machine and random items from around the town. Cleared the lighthouse - 3D section in a Pokemon game?! <3<3<3<3 - and went over to Cianwood, getting a Tentexcal added to my team along the way, replacing OnixTide (who was MVP to that point! Again, the best one is replaced! And it was ONIX!). Forgot to save before fighting Eusine, lost. Whoops. Doesn't screw me out of anything, I hope. >.>
Chuck... asddsgfdg. I lost to him a few times, yeah. Lost to random trainers there, actually. Chuck HATES Elftini, apparently - tried fighting him 3 times with Elftini out first to Thunder Wave the Primeape, and every time, he got Focus Punched down after a few turns of Double Team. Managed to kill the Primeape in one of these before Poliwrath finished me off.
Fourth try, I put Carthsnake at the top and try to hit with Glare. Second turn, it goes through and I proceed to switch to no end, going to Togepi to confuse with Sweet Kiss, back to Carthsnake for Intimidate, then Tentexcal to put down Toxic Spikes, back to Carthsnake, back to Togepi, back to Carthsnake... Then to Elftini, who immediately gets Focus Punched through Paralysis and Confusion and dies. :v Poliwrath was "Smashzee sits and gets healed while poison does its job." :)
I have nothing in my team that can fly, so I surf back to Olivine and get the potion to Jasmine. Knowing she was freaking evil before, I decide to go over to Mahogany now, and catch a Goldeen (named after another friend) and a MareepFire along the way, replacing Togepi and Elftini (no more Dragon Rage ;_; ). Get the shiny Halados from Lake of Rage (yes, Hal is a Gyarados, it seems to work well that Hal is shiny and powerful), but he's not added to my party. ;_; Sweep the radio station, grabbing some experience for EphKarp in the double battle and an Electrode along the way, who soon replaces... Smashzee. aasdsgfdshgfd. Did I mention both Carthsnake and Smashzee evolved? Yeah, he was my best at the time, and got kicked. gah. 4th time now!
Went through Pryce's gym and... wut. Yeah, I lost to Pryce. Well, lost to a random trainer there first, but then lost to Pryce twice as well before deciding to go back over to Olivine to fight Jasmine. Which is where I am now!
Hopefully soon I'll grab something that can use Fly, but in the meantime, my party is:
- Lv 27 Tentacool (Excal)
- Lv 20 Goldeen (Kaspar)
- Lv 26 Electrode (Jadeica)
- Lv 13 Mareep (SnowFire)
- Lv 23 Arbok (Carthrat)
- Lv 17 Magikarp (Ephraim)
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QUESTION TWO:
Map type?
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Puzzle Quest - This is made of crack. Also, the AI fucking cheats.
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Uhhhh
Because I feel like it Archipelago your call on size
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Puzzle Quest - This is made of crack. Also, the AI fucking cheats.
Yes to crack. Pretty sure it doesn't cheat, though. It definitely doesn't always choose the best move available, and based on personal (obsessive) experience, I can't really say that it feels like it gets better stuff in the top row than the player does.
VC chapter 7 - still fun, and pleasingly challenging. You get next to no information about a map before committing your forces, though, which leads to a strange challenge hiccup, I guess you'd call it; if you fail a map and restart things tend to be much, much easier, because you make much better troop choices.
This isn't so much a complaint, since it's realistic enough, but it feels like the "best" way to play the game would be to deploy a bunch of scouts, play a turn, and then reset, which is a bit strange; it wouldn't be so marked if they at least showed you where enemy units visible from your camps were when you were choosing your troops.
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Oooooooooh it definitely cheats. For one thing it sees pieces that haven't fallen yet. For another it knows when it's getting a so-called "random" extra turn and changes tactics to suit.
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I knew it.
The game's still crack cocaine in portable videogame form.
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I think it says something about the game's addictive qualities that learning this does not decrease my affection for it one jot.
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The game's still crack cocaine in portable videogame form.
Fuck yes it is.
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Sapphire- Just beat the 4th gym, which did an annoying amount of damage to Marshtomp. I was equal leveled, but eh. Also had the REALLY annoying tendency to hit the enemy to within 1 or so HP and get Hyper Potioned. So it goes. Walking around with the Egg in my inventory. Still running Marshtomp, Kirilia, Electrike, Shroomish, Lombre and Ninjask. Getting more used to things, figured out what Natures do. Yay Relaxed Ninjask, Boo Jolly Kirilia.
Should probably start building up Skarmory and Numel. Will need a Flying and Fire poke soonish, I'm guessing. Spoink is really tempting to use, but I have a Psychic already.
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Puzzlequest was awesome. The space puzzlequest that came out absolutely blows though... I'd a just been happy with the same game that had new moves, bad guys, and plot.
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Civ 4- I just clapped up Sitting Bull and now I feel like a real douche.
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White guy sails boats, kills Indians. In other news fire is hot.
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HG: Scyther is a horrible, horrible creature. Barely wore it down with my four Pokemon, then walked out of the the gym and my egg hatched. Mary (Togepi) is still level 1. I'm about to take on Devil Cow.
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HoI2- Sealion is a go. As expected the UK Navy doesn't go near my transports when I have a large fleet of destroyers to protect them. I land in southwest England and was spreading somewhat successfully to to the southeastern part when I get a game crash. Going to spin off puppet Scotland and hopefully finish in time for barbarossa.
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White guy sails boats, kills Indians. In other news fire is hot.
There were no boats involved.
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Heart Gold Hatbot(ish) Style: Today, I learn that flipping coins/rolling dice IRL gives me worse results than Hatebot!
After failing to paralyse Jasmine several times, I finally give up and explore. Some games of Voltorb Flip and the Pokeathlon later, I... realise the Rare Candies being sold are mostly useless, but grab Flamethrower - and discover that nothing here can use it. Then, Bug Catching Contest nets me a Scyther which is added to the party almost immediately.
After that, I bring over some Pokewalker Pokes and... both are added to my team. Psyduck (Lv 10) and Slowpoke (Lv 8). HELPFUL. They replace the Goldeen and Electrode, leaving me with two half-decent Pokemon. >.<
Thinking "Hm, I need to train more," I head off from Goldenrod to Cianwood, fighting anything and everything along the way. It's here I suddenly remember that, hey! The Safari Zone exists! They'll be high level randoms, right? (I also caught a Seel on the way over. EPHKARP IS GONE YESSSS) Safari Zone Session 1 nabs me a huge range of things, like Tauros, Kangaskhan, Koffing, Grimer, Larvitar, Lickitung... Of course, the only things that end up in my team by the end of it all are Kangaskhan, Koffing and NidoranF. By this point, my entire team has changed completely, and everything is hideously underlevelled. >.<
Back to Goldenrod to name stuff and grab some more TMs/items before trying more training and then Jasmine again, methinks! (Jasmine's gonne be easy to beat with two POIZN types, RIGHT?!?! >_>)
Oh, did I mention all my levels are gone? My highest level now is my Lv 20 Seel. YESIU.
Current Team: (Blame Hatbot for the names, guys! Well, 'cept Kappa.)
- Lv 15 Nidoran F (Shale)
- Lv 16 Kangaskhan (AndyRogue)
- Lv 10 Psyduck (Nitori~)
- Lv 14 Scyther (OblivionK) (Stupid OK and his long username. >.<)
- Lv 20 Seel (Glen Veil)
- Lv 16 Koffing (Tonfa)
Fun Fact: My entire team is female! Again, sorry guys. ;)
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Sapphire: Failed my first attempt at Norman. Was pretty underleveled though. Almost done getting the team up to speed.
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Puzzle Quest - Fireball is awesome and I love it.
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Sapphire: Beat Norman. Hax Slaking is hax. I shot it with 5 or so accuracy downs before I realized they weren't working. Oh well. Aron (Subbed in for Lombre) and Skarmory (Subbed in for Shroomish) took good care of the gym. Managed to get Kirlia evolved into a Gardevoir too.
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FFXIII- Start of Chapter Twelve. The thing with the Eidolons was cool, the thing with a certain NPC ... would have been better if they hadn't already pulled something like that earlier. The NPC's buddy was cool though.
I managed to defeat the Ambling Bellows. Thunder instead of Thundara worked wonders. Took out one of the little dudes then focused the overall assault on the bellows~
The boss at the top of the tower was a bit daunting but I found my party could survive his super moves if Sazh had buffed us up with the Bar moves. So that while I debuffed with Vanille and then Relentless Assault to stagger then Aggression. Took two staggers and a bit of normal damage after the second before he went down. Still yaay for extra damage from hitting elemental weaknesses~
Fixxed Vanille's dog in Oerba and obtained some veeery nice shinies as a reward as well as the Pulsian Pioneer title. Well that was a relatively painless and rewarding sidequest =-)
Managed to clear a hunt in Oerba too. Ambused the mark, summoned with Vanille, used a Librascope and then crushed the fight with Gestalt mode >.>
The boss at the end of Chapter Eleven was something else. It's status dealing/buff removing shenanigans near had me pulling my hair out =P Eventually I ended up boosting a Star Pendant to a Starfall one, maxxing that and equipping it and another one to Vanille for over 70% poison resistance plus a recover from Poison quick factor. This so my Medic wouldn't be frantically trying to Esuna her status as well as allies in addition to keeping everyone healed up. I also sold some of the shinies that the dog gave me for $$$$$$, upgraded Snow's Umbra and Sazh's Spica Defenders to max, then levelled Vanille's Malboro Wand to L32 because why not.
The boss still took a while to go down and I had to make another modification to my tactics - buying status cures for the Daze status - but eventually I managed. I found it better to have Vanille near constantly in Medic mode, with a bit of SAB on the side rather than much ravaging fun but oh well. Tireless Charge with Snow and Sazh while Vanille healed is what worked.
Oh and to answer Gref's question, yes enemies are capable of dispelling your buffs. That one had a move that removed all positive buffs on the party and debuffs on it.
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Fixxed Vanille's dog in Oerba and obtained some veeery nice shinies as a reward as well as the Pulsian Pioneer title. Well that was a relatively painless and rewarding sidequest =-)
I think it's the only other sidequest in the game outside hunts, now that I think of it.
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Pokemon HG - Hadn't played this for a while due to Strange journey being so addicting. Glad I picked it back up as Sandshrew was a complete badass against the third Gym leader.
This Gym leader was the one I was dreading as Miltank is an absolute bitch to fight. Quilava's Firewheel that was OHKOing everything else was near useless as itput on no pressure and Miltank could easily heal it away.
After a long crueling fight it all stood like this.
Sandshrew L22 at 38 hp, Quilava at L25 at 7 hp and me sitting on one potion. Miltank's berry had already been used up and it was at full health.
My friend who was watching while playing Soulsilver told me I was screwed but I saw a chance. I buffed up my defence up with Defence curl before using Poison needle which poisoned in one. Normally this wouldn't work due to Miltanks healing but its useage of the move "Rollout" meant it couldn't do anything else. On the forth turn it was dead and Sandshrew had bested an enemy Quilava had no chance against.
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Oh and to answer Gref's question, yes enemies are capable of dispelling your buffs. That one had a move that removed all positive buffs on the party and debuffs on it.
Chapter 10 boss also did that, and I found it more annoying there!
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Resonance of Fate - On chapter 3 now. Did all the arena stuff and missions so about ready to start the plot stuff. Around level 17 for all.
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Hatbot Heart Gold: In today's episode, Shalequeen and Andykhan tear shit up (with some help from GlenSeel), and we learn the values of items in Pokemon games.
So, I repeatedly lost to Jasmine. Again. So went off to train. Again. Then went to fight Pryce. Now, this actually came close! His Seel took out way too many of mine the first time, but second try, I went in with GlenSeel and used Encore. No matter what he used, I had some counter, be it using Glen to lower speed (Icy Wind) or just tank (Rest). Eventually managed to Encore a Rest and switched out to :psykappa: who used Tail Whip repeatedly to lower its defences. From there, a quick switch to Andykhan who Mega PAUNCHED it down in one. Piloswine, similar strategy, but with much, MUCH more healing - items, yay! Then, Dewgong. This took ETHERS. Seriously. I ran out of Revives and all but Glen were down. I used a few Ethers to bring back Rest's PP, since he couldn't 3HKO me, and then just tanked with Rest. Another Ether, same again, and it Struggled itself to death. Haha.
Off to Jasmine, who's Magnemite fell in one Double Kick from Shalequeen. Steelix took a single Revive on Glen to have it back for Surfing, and then it fell. Other Magnemite took some work from Tonfing, Andykhan and Shalequeen, but fell pretty easily. Whee~!
Then, Goldenrod, where I own Rockets who use shitty Pokes in place of the decently challenging stuff I've been taking out for the last however long. Oh yeah, rival fight was in there, hahaha, he sucks. Anyways. Lots of POIZN around here, so Shalequeen owns stuff with double resistance. Currently in the fight against ARCHER at the top of the Radio Tower. Team is:
- Lv 29 Kangaskhan (AndyRogue)
- Lv 19 Koffing (Tonfa)
- Lv 12 Psyduck (Nitori~)
- Lv 17 Farfetch'd (Laggy)
- Lv 32 Nidoqueen (Shale)
- Lv 24 Seel (Glen Veil)
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At the end of Chapter 10 in FFXIII. I have hardly used any of the buff shrouds, and in those instances it was because I hadn't gotten Haste yet. Enemies seem to have gotten a bit miserly at the same time Crystogen is getting more expensive but otherwise in good shape.
So far as least Sentinel >>>>>>>>>>>>Medic. Curative spells seem to have the worst multipliers of anything unless you're all critical and have been good since last Christmas. Less of a hit to party damage/chaining as well. Fang's rope a doping n00bs left and right. It'd be downright absurd with Snow as he has about 1k more HP than she does +the option of Paladin or Umbra.
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Puzzle Quest - Now with riding a giant rat and flaming skulls. This is like the best crack of everything ever.
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At the end of Chapter 10 in FFXIII. I have hardly used any of the buff shrouds, and in those instances it was because I hadn't gotten Haste yet. Enemies seem to have gotten a bit miserly at the same time Crystogen is getting more expensive but otherwise in good shape.
So far as least Sentinel >>>>>>>>>>>>Medic. Curative spells seem to have the worst multipliers of anything unless you're all critical and have been good since last Christmas. Less of a hit to party damage/chaining as well. Fang's rope a doping n00bs left and right. It'd be downright absurd with Snow as he has about 1k more HP than she does +the option of Paladin or Umbra.
Sentinel and Medic aren't really the same uses, for all that one can supplement for the other. Medic is more about keeping your team alive, being a battery such that you don't run out, where as Sentinel is about keeping the team from taking too much damage at once. Basically, Medic is better against a bunch of smaller hits that add up over time, but Sentinel is better against the big scary move of doom as it'd bait the attack away and lessen the damage.
In truth, you want to use both; Medic + Sentinel tends to be nigh unkillable combo for a good part of the game, of course the flaw is that you won't do damage, but that's what Paradigm shift is for!
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Mega Man 10 - Beat this.
Overall I find myself less enamoured of it than MM9? I'm not entirely sure why, the obvious reason is that the weapons are just less fun, though. Otherwise the stage design is certainly pretty good, as is boss design (Wily boss design less so, outside the archive bosses and the first stage of the Wily Machine). So it's good overall, but I sorta feel it's more around MM1/4/5 level than the MM2/3/8 level I was willing to put 9 on. On the other hand it does have more options than those (thinking of Hard Mode, Proto Man, challenges...)... but less fun weapons? Eh. Well. For other things, plot is a step back from 9 (but MEGA MAN PLOT), needed boss Roll. Music is okay, nothing special overall.
On the weapons, ranked by how useful they are!
The good:
Wheel Cutter: WTF, the second coming of the weapon of the legendary WHEEL GATOR, not to mention the game's freaking groundcrawler (how often are they any good?) is the game's best weapon. Anyway, it's solid and versatile: reasonable damage and cheap, can be used as a shield and is good at getting things up walls or below you.
Triple Blade: Well, maybe this is the best. Only real weakness is the one per screen limit; otherwise it gets solid wide coverage and decent offence for only 1 WE.
The okay:
Chill Spike: Freezes things so you can kill them safely. Works, and what it does to hoppers in particular is enough to merit its #3 ranking here. Also killing that annoying groundcrawler which no other weapon does.
Rebound Striker: The directability of the weapon is handy, but the power:price ratio is low enough to make it rarely a mainstay. Still, invaluable in a few situations.
Water Shield: Not exactly the best shield in the series. Its method of firing is interesting but ultimately not too useful, and besides that it isn't overly damaging and dissipates as piecewise as it is hit. Still, it serves its job as a shield well enough, it's just not a killing machine like Jewel Satellite and Leaf Shield.
Solar Blaze: Really didn't need to be 2 WE. Kinda boring otherwise, goes forward, then eventually back and forward at the same time, decent size and piercing at least.
Commando Bomb: Crash Bomb which HAS to not be a direct hit to do anything approaching real damage. Except you can direct it. Obviously a losing trade, but it's not useless or anything.
The "at least it's not Hyper Bomb":
Thunder Wool: lulz. 4 WE for a weapon that deals sucky damage unless you're willing to wait for it to turn into a thunderbolt which is just way too cumbersome.
Bosses as far as bustering goes, since I've gotten them all now...
Solar >> Chill >> Nitro > Commando > Sheep > Pump > Strike. Blade fits in... somewhere. He's probably the easiest one to me now but I had a lot of resets on him at first, just need to figure him out and he's ultra-patterned after that, but figuring him out isn't easy.
Not much else to say, about 3 hours on second playthrough, 55 minutes on second. 7/12 challenges so far, will nail the others soon enough no doubt. Hard Mode soon, then maybe Proto Man eventually. Or something.
Ace Attorney Investigations: Onto 5-4. 5-1 and 5-2 were both rather brilliantly plotted, and I'll forgive 5-1 bringing back Maggey because it had Jacques Portsman who is my hero. 5-3 was... not so brilliantly plotted. I liked the core ideas of the case but they really bungled the execution, it felt like the case kept pulling pieces of evidence or soap opera twists out of its ass to keep going and the ultimate chain of events was possibly the least believable thing since 1-5. Oh well, at least it had some awesome characters, and Lang ended up making a hell of a lot more sense than I expected (kinda funny making an antagonist out of a sentiment the player was probably feeling rather strongly in PW1!). 5-4 is looking good so far but I'm early.
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HG: Making my way through Gym 8, I realize my pokes are seriously underleveled compared to the other trainers. But I forge ahead anyway and fight Dragon Girl. I pump Feraligator full of X-stat boosts and use just about every single potion in my inventory to win.
Then Kimono Girls. OUCH. Umbreon is bad enough, but that Espeon is rape in concentrated form. I go level up a while and then manage to get by it (luckily the remaining three eeveelutions are fail).
Ho-oh fight is forced in order to advance the game? Yuck. Wanted to spend some time soft-resetting for a good one with either +Speed or +Attack nature. So, eh, I just go for it and get a Hasty one with 29 speed and 28 attack on the first try. Good enough!
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Sapphire: Bumming around mostly, going to the new Surf-enabled places. Did Abandoned Ship and picked up Voltorb and Magnemite from New Mauville, as well as a Jiggly from 115. Probably will go fishing with the Good Rod later. Needs me a Sharpedo (Who can say no to a Shark Torpedo?). Got through most of 118 before turning back and stopping. Tossed Aron and Skarmory out during this time to bring back Lombre and Shroomish. ~30 for everyone now.
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At the end of Chapter 10 in FFXIII. I have hardly used any of the buff shrouds, and in those instances it was because I hadn't gotten Haste yet. Enemies seem to have gotten a bit miserly at the same time Crystogen is getting more expensive but otherwise in good shape.
So far as least Sentinel >>>>>>>>>>>>Medic. Curative spells seem to have the worst multipliers of anything unless you're all critical and have been good since last Christmas. Less of a hit to party damage/chaining as well. Fang's rope a doping n00bs left and right. It'd be downright absurd with Snow as he has about 1k more HP than she does +the option of Paladin or Umbra.
Sentinel and Medic aren't really the same uses, for all that one can supplement for the other. Medic is more about keeping your team alive, being a battery such that you don't run out, where as Sentinel is about keeping the team from taking too much damage at once. Basically, Medic is better against a bunch of smaller hits that add up over time, but Sentinel is better against the big scary move of doom as it'd bait the attack away and lessen the damage.
In truth, you want to use both; Medic + Sentinel tends to be nigh unkillable combo for a good part of the game, of course the flaw is that you won't do damage, but that's what Paradigm shift is for!
Medic-Sentinel is like a hand brake on a car.
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The difference between running a medic and a Sentinel in trash is that you really need someone to stay being Sentinel to be worth shit. Medic you can swap between that and Ravager and lose next to nothing. I cycled between Com/Rav/Rav, Com/Rav/Syn, Com/Rav/Medic and Com/Rav/Sab where applicable fairly universally and you will 5 star the vast majority of the trash out there. More specific trash fights will need other setups, but 5 starring shit isn't even that damned important. Last two slots are usable for defensive stuff so you can recover if you didn't look at the TV for 30 seconds and the fight still isn't over so you probably need to heal.
Have I mentioned that this game sucked and was boring?
I know enemies can debuff you and remove buffs, but I meant does anything really dispel? There is like one boss there so far? Maybe 2? There is like... at least 10 bosses in the game after you get Synergist (let alone Shrouds)? Yeah. See all my other complaints and bashings of the game. Edit - You want it to be a dispel, because removing Protect or Shell but leaving up Haste, Bravery, Faith, Barelement, Element applying buffs and whatnot fails to make anyone threatening. Like the worst debuff you can really get is Slow and even that is kind of meh.
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Pokemon HG- Just beat the Ghost guy and did the Lake of rage. Battles have been mostly easy but team building is always diffcult for me. I've got my eyes on a team consisting of Typhlosion, Sandslash, Gyarados, Scizor, Magnezone and as for the last spot I have no idea (Need help with this).
Me using a friends DS to trade over my pokemon from Plat shouldn't be a problem right? My little brother wants to start a new game on my Plat so it'd be nice to be able to bring over my pokemon to HG.
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Sapphire: Winona's entire gym got solo'd by Manectric and Thunder. Good times. Tossed out Ninjask for a bit to stick Fly onto Skarmory and raise it up a bit. Also got Swampert in the meanwhile, though aside from Manectric and Swampert (36), the rest of my party is around 32-33.
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The difference between running a medic and a Sentinel in trash is that you really need someone to stay being Sentinel to be worth shit. Medic you can swap between that and Ravager and lose next to nothing. I cycled between Com/Rav/Rav, Com/Rav/Syn, Com/Rav/Medic and Com/Rav/Sab where applicable fairly universally and you will 5 star the vast majority of the trash out there. More specific trash fights will need other setups, but 5 starring shit isn't even that damned important. Last two slots are usable for defensive stuff so you can recover if you didn't look at the TV for 30 seconds and the fight still isn't over so you probably need to heal.
Have I mentioned that this game sucked and was boring?
I know enemies can debuff you and remove buffs, but I meant does anything really dispel? There is like one boss there so far? Maybe 2? There is like... at least 10 bosses in the game after you get Synergist (let alone Shrouds)? Yeah. See all my other complaints and bashings of the game. Edit - You want it to be a dispel, because removing Protect or Shell but leaving up Haste, Bravery, Faith, Barelement, Element applying buffs and whatnot fails to make anyone threatening. Like the worst debuff you can really get is Slow and even that is kind of meh.
I'm actually with Grefter here. I got almost no use out of Sentinel the entire game. Some of the mini bosses had RAWR 10K DAMNAGE ST, but most of the guys during the game had nothing that Medic couldn't heal through easily. Medic also could cure MT and removes debuffs, which Sentinel cannot. I really think Sentinel only saw action in half a dozen or less fights throughout the normal game and in a couple of the Eidolon. Com/Rav/Med, Com/Com/Rav and Com/Rav/Rav definitely saw the most action, with Com/Sab/Syn seeing some at the beginning of boss fights.
Now in the Mission game... Sentinel gets some more use. The birds that throw down 10k attacks on the reg are good. Also that lightning guy inside the tower was good to have a Sentinel against because of his debuffs and speedy damage. I'm sure some of the last ones that I didn't take on would require a Sent as well. But main game... meh
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I think the problem is actually very simple. The game simply didn't have enough the enemies that has enough offense to make defend commands worth using. Why bother defending when you can stagger the enemy 20 seconds faster??
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Sapphire: First off, woo! Caught a Shiny Roselia while leveling my Numel.
To Lilycove, just wandering around and getting pokes/items though. Got Skarmory and Camerupt completely caught up though, so I'll probably run those two plus Manectric, Swampert, Lombre and Gardevoir. Ninjask and Shroomish can sit on the sidelines for now. Will probably make a few Safari Zone runs before really moving on.
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Sakura Taisen V: Yes, I got this. Don't judge me.
Chapter 01 complete. Synopsis of characters and gameplay so far:
Shinjiro Taiga: Nephew of the hero in previous games, Ogami, he was sent there in place of his uncle, who was requested and expected. Personality in part is potentially defined by the player. Notable actions performed so far in this playthrough that are not plot-required:
-Complimenting his commanding officer on her appearance within seconds of meeting her (and her introducing himself as his superior officer, even)
-Being distracted from his current funk by Sunnyside's japanese-style garden.
-Refrained from staring at his commander's breasts or stroking her hair. Instead admired her clothing. On her.
-Being way too enthusiastic about service in the Star Division
-Creeped out Sagitta by smiling way too much for one period of time.
Combatwise: Has initiative. Is unremarkable otherwise, so far.
Mr. Sunnyside: MAIN MONITOR TURN ON! Uses gratuitous english. Randomly has a japenese garden at his mansion in New York. Accused of violating child labor laws. Like a boss. Your boss.
Gemini Sunrise: Energetic redhead from Texas. Has a massive thing for samurai and hot-bloodedness. Keeps a horse in her apartment. Is a janitor. Wears a paper-thin disguise as a horse-riding samurai vigilante who hunts down bank robbers and then almost gets you arrested. Hilariously easy to get good results for, it seems.
Sagitta Weinberg: Angry black lawyer woman. Hates Shinjiro. Really hates Shinjiro. Also thinks Shinjiro is a prepubescent boy. Creeped out by constant smiling. Also, pilots the black robot. I kid you not.
Combatwise: Crappy trust bonuses are bad enough. TAKES FOREVER TO TAKE A TURN. Base stats imply she's a tank, and her attacks have a decent range (reminiscient of spear users in SRPGs normally, with a decent radius-AoE attack for her special) but trust bonuses can change that easily. LVP for now, may change in later chapters pending on potential trust bonuses.
Subaru Kujou: Other Japanese person in the group. Dislikes Shinjiro because he's not Ogami. Really hard to read. Refers to herself in third person in the translation. Is walking death, or something, to boot.
Combatwise: Well-rounded base, and then I ended up getting a chain of good trust bonuses for her. Best ATK in the group, alongside her attack pattern (wide-area radius around her. This is insanely good.) and movement (She can phase through enemies, and likely obstacles, with her robot. As if she needed more bonuses). The only real problem is that her special has obnoxiously short range. Clear MVP as of Episode 1.
Ratchet Altair: Commanding officer in the Star Division. Is potential victim of perverted things that you can do. Wears a blue suit. Expects you to be a good soldier. Her robot has throwing knives. A lot of them.
Combatwise: Has range and speed. Her other stats are definitely subpar, but those two are solid. And then drops out two turns into the first battle.
Commentary on the battle system later.
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Pokemon: 6 Gyms down, as is Mahogoney town done. Got a few trade evos with my sister.
Team is currently Quilava (if this was ANY OTHER GAME, he'd be Typhlosion, DAMN YOU JOHTO LESSENED LEVELS!), Steelix, Scyther, Murkrow, Gyarados, and Grotle.
...oh, yeah, forgot to say my friend traded me a bunch of level 1 starters from other Gens (Torchic, Squirtle, Marshstomp (yeah, he leveled it up a bit, he isn't sure why either cause he has a Swampert elsewhere) and Turtwig), decided this would be the best chance to make use of Turtwig, so went with it. Also cause I fucked up my Weepinbell, giving it two HMs, making me have to decide between STABs and...ugh, MOVE DELETER DOESN'T SHOW UP FAST ENOUGH! ...ok, fine, I've also used Weepinbell too many freaking times, so good change of pace!
(still gonna need him leveled up for catching Entei though! Raikou's already asleep.)
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Sapphire: Did the Safari Zone real quick. Managed to clear everything in 5 tries. Woo.
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Hatbot Heart Gold: GRIIIIIIIIINNNNNNND.
Archer, lol. Anyways, off to Mahogany and through the Ice Caves. During this section, I catch a Swinub and a Jynx. Both end up in my team, replacing AndyKhan and Laggyfetch'd. Welp, I didn't have Fly for long there, did I? Anyways, I push my way through the trainers in Clair's gym and get destroyed by her several times, then go off training. South. Over the ledges.
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So, I now have a long walk back to Blackthorn. To kick it off, I catch a Gligar, though, which replaces Tonfa! It's 5 levels higher than he was, so this is good news. It can't Fly, though. =/
Once I hit the Ice Caves on my stroll back to Clair, I decide to train. Everything other than Shalequeen dies pretty quickly, and Shalequeen expends almost all of her PP killing randoms and reaching Lv 40. Yay!
So, off to fight Clair. Shalequeen hits Gyarados with a Thunder OHKO, and then Glen Seel dies in one Dragon Pulse to the Hell Kingdra. Fine, I'll cut to the chase and send out Shalequeen. Body Slam, oh, dead first. DAMMIT. Time to send out Psykappa~ so I can heal up Shalequeen. Send out a lot of weaklings in the hopes of lowering stats, they all get owned, Shalequeen eats another Hydro Pump. Reset.
Time to buy items? Time to level up something other than a Nidoqueen? Probably. What am I gonna do? Buy items and hope I can get paralysis on a Body Slam! >.>
Current Team: (As usual, unrecognisable names are from other friends/sites.)
- Lv 23 Jynx (Tukari)
- Lv 21 Swinub (Alida)
- Lv 13 Psyduck (Nitori~)
- Lv 24 Gligar (Terajin)
- Lv 40 Nidoqueen (Shale)
- Lv 24 Seel (Glen Veil)
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Dear lord it's been a long time since I last posted. Mainly due to drama going on someplace else.
Etrian Odyssey 3:
I'm doing a mini event thing for this game. It is quite nice so far, I am liking the atmospherics greatly. I have tried out one of each class and I must say I am enjoying the destructive power of warriors a lot more. Also lol Ninjas. Still mapping out the first floor of what I assume is the first labyrinth, as there's a 1F and then an R1F.
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Spent most of yesterday
abusing glitches gaining levels in Borderlands, so I'm now a L61 Hunter with a freaking badass bird who 1HK0s pretty much every opponent. Other than that...
HG: SuperCow wasn't so super this time. Whitney used up her potions before Milktank came out, and I hit it with PoisonPowder and outlasted it after a few Sand Attacks. Now I'm taking part in the Pokeathalon and losing at everything.
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BWAHAHAHA. Quick update from the previous one. Went training in Dark Cave, caught a Lv 25 Wobbuffet which replaced the Jynx. Went and fought Clair with this. OHKOed the Gyarados with Shalequeen's Thunder, then Wobba's Quick Claw failed to kick in, but Kingdra missed, so... DESTINY BOND. Easy win with Body Slam paralysis h4x from there. <3
Off to the Dragon's Den or whatever they call it~
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Huh I've personally found SEN very useful for taking the heat off Vanille when she needs to stay on top of healing. Snow's helped me recover from a lot of critical situations <3 Maybe it's because I've only had Cure and Cura for most of the game and more recently Curasa but not Curaja but yeah.
I've mainly used RAV/RAV/COM, MED/SYN/SEN, SAB/SYN/SEN and RAV/COM/COM but recently I've started using Tri-disaster (RAV/RAV/RAV) which seems to fill the stagger gauge like mad. Even though I only have a Tier II weapon for Vanille (apparently I don't have what I need to upgrade Snow's weapon =-() I'm still five starring most of the randoms in Chapter 12 thanks to that. With ambushes all but that freaking turtle that otherwise falls through the floor. That can't be ambushed and it probably wouldn't have mattered if I could have gotten the drop on it anyway. I wanted that darn treasure though!
PSICOM's baby was a piece of cake when I decided *not* to stagger it. Tireless Charge again once Sazh put all the buffs up, had to switch back to Protection from time to time but yeah. Eventually did stagger it once it's HP was low enough.
I'm saved before the second encounter now~
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Sentinel is for groups of 5 or 6 competent randoms who kill almost anything they're smart enough to gang up on, not for bosses. They tend to be tough enough that you can't blitz them and take the heat off with quick kills, so you need to stall and set up buffs under the protection of a sentinel.
Lightning/Sazh/Hope is the boss fight party
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PW3 SPOILERS!
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Phoenix Wright 3-2. Complete! Ron DeLite is wonderful. Dessie is pretty hilarious too (and surprisingly irrelevant overall), but otherwise I am not a terribly big fan of the case. Luke isn't bad but I don't think he's close to the most compelling villain because he is so bloody obviously the villain and I don't find him especially endearing otherwise.
Problems:
1. I find blackmailing due to blackmailing someone else a really improbable reason to kill someone. The game never bothers to make the connection of why this was so important to Luke that he was set up an elaborate murder/framing plan in order to kill Kane Bullard.
2. "WHY WOULD HAVE THE KILLER POSSIBLY PRESSED THE BUZZER?" I mean, really? Godot and the Judge both seem confused about this to the max despite the fact that it is really really obvious that framing is occurring. Phoenix acts like it's a big secret, like someone PRESSING A SECURITY BUZZER to frame someone is really shocking or something.
3. Godot is a total moron. I get that maybe he's supposed to be totally bloody incompetent but I feel that it really ruins the dramatic effect of going against the prosecutor. I feel like Ron was the best prosecutor in the case. And then Phoenix. And then Luke. All of the constant incessant blathering of meaningless garbage is also really irritating; it's not funny and it doesn't contribute to the case. It feels like his dialogue just stuffs up the actual content of the case. I feel like, regardless of their intentions with Godot that he fails to make an impact on me at all other than "Can this dumbass stop talking now?"
Maybe this isn't a problem, but I think I may have missed something: What the hell happened to the Sacred Urn anyway? Did Ron steal it at some other point in the day or something? If this wasn't explained I think that that is a problem too.
The case is also really easy and the hardest part is not the murder trial itself.
Overall I didn't really enjoy the case all that much, I felt like the murder mystery was much less interesting than 3-1. Also, the conclusion doesn't satisfy me in any meaningful way because figuring out the case was so easy, as well as the fact that you aren't standing against someone who can actually prosecute. >_> Give me Winston Payne back, at least he doesn't blather~
Next is 3-3, which hopefully will be better~
THE MAN BEHIND THE BENCH WAS... THE IMPOSTOR.
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Lightning/Sazh/Hope is the boss fight party
There is a distinct lack of debuffing in this party. Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil are Godlike for boss fighting.
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Lightning/Sazh/Hope is the boss fight party
There is a distinct lack of debuffing in this party. Deprotect/Deshell/Imperil are Godlike for boss fighting.
Yeah, that was the first thing that stood out to me in that team. A "Boss fighting team" that lacks Sentinel I can see, a Boss FIghting team that lacks Saboteur = wait what?
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Sapphire: Finished Mt. Pyre, spent about a half hour/45 min or so trying to find a damn Chimecho. Not a total loss though, as I leveled my team up pretty hardcore. Ready to move on from there at least.
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God of War 2: Trying to beat that Lava Minotaur in Atlas. I'd have beaten him by now if...
A. Game didn't randomly decide to make me jump off the wall instead of side jump like I intended, cause fuck Wall Climbing controls
B. Copy of the game and my PS2 didn't not get along, such that when I die in this area, sometimes I go to an indefinite loading screen forcing me to reset the game, and just getting the game to load is a chore in itself!
Ugh, seriously, though, that fight just isn't fun. Those Lava Minotaurs are bland "HIt, dodge back" style fights, then they throw that gimmick rock throwing section which just stalls it more. I understand trying for a unique challenge, but anything in God of War relating to "Climbing Walls" pretty much automatically equates to "not fun" as far as I'm concerned, since it only slows the game down.
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4 1/2 hours later, and I have a Ho-oh. Fuck that fight. On a better note, though, got Adamant first try, so am gonna make it a Phys. Sweeper, most likely! (Sorry about the luck there, Cap'n. ;))
Off to transfer some stuff from Diamond, with help from a friend, before tackling the Elite Four. Team hasn't changed, outside of Glen Seel gaining a few Rare Candy levels and going up to 33.
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Rondo of Swords -
Slowly making my way through. I would just like to add to my previous complaints that the zoom out function is thoroughly useless, which I forgot to mention at that time.
Also it turns out that you _can_ cancel errands if you go into a map and then retreat. That's great. If you're going to allow errands to be cancelled via a stupid method, game, why don't you let them be cancelled via a friendly method. I'm just afraid that there will be maps where you aren't allowed to retreat, so I'm going to keep using both save slots regardless.
Also looks like people that get killed off get off without falling into Hurt status if you retreat, which is just bizarre. It is seeming more and more like the game was built to be retreat-whored.
Railroads -
I don't think I've said anything about Railroads yet. I put it on to have a break from Rondo and OH GOD WHY DOES IT KEEP CRASHING
Oh I see, there's an update for it OH GOD IT DID NOT HELP
Internet says to patch the executable manifest to mark it as allowing large memory addresses. On the one hand it has not crashed since I did that, but for a variety of reasons I have only played it the once since I did that, so I may have just been lucky that time.
Good fun in general at least. It is missing some of the charm of Railroad Tycoon such as the bridgebuilding animations, but it's fine.
My trains tend to have some problems with routing... One train refused to run directly down a track without going through a loop that started halfway and ended up back near the beginning each time. This was all single-tracked.
Another time I was scrolling past a town and saw a train coming up to it which wasn't supposed to be there. The track in queston ended in this town. The train just drove off the end of the track, disappeared, and ended up back at the station it started from. At which point it went straight back to this town instead of the place it was supposed to be going to which it had a clear path to.
The double-tracking system feels more complex than Railroad Tycoon's, but I've never played either on any mode where multiple trains per track is a problem so I may have missed out on some subtleties of Tycoon's way of going things. But when I double a set of station lines and part of the track coming in to the station, and slap some cross-lines between them, what I don't expect is for a train - which is already on a line to a free spot in the station - to cross over onto the other track, delaying a train which was on that track, then immediately cross over back onto the first track. I am sure that I am probably doing something wrong here.
During my most recent play I abused double-tracks to segment my railway into a number of mini-railways instead of attempting to use them to optimise traffic, and that seemed to work fairly well, at least.
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Quake 1-Yes, I have not played this game until recently. Beat in about 3 days. Short, fun game.
As primitive as it is, this game is wonderfully designed and programmed. It's simple, fun, and to the point. Weapons are good, monsters are good, stages are challenging and interesting, and even the terrible D&D fanfiction after every episode adds a funny touch. It's just a good game, plain and simple. It's a shame that Romero and Carmack eventually split up, because between the two of them they made some of the best FPSs ever made...and then went on to make Quake II and Daikatana. Just blows my mind.
I guess I'll give the mission packs a try and then I'm done
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Design may be law but John Carmack sits on a Throne as the right hand of God.
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AAI:ME - Hell yes the cast of 5-4 ruled. Not as technically good a case as the first two, but still fun and sets up a hopefully epic 5-5. Game in general seems to be sliding nicely between JFA and T&T.
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PW3-3- This case is f'ing sweet.
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Pokemon HG - Reached the building before the E4 and Lance. My team is:
Ho-Oh Lv45
Magnezone Lv45
Typhosion Lv45
Sandslash Lv43
Gyarados v46
Scizor Lv34
8-) I don't believe I'll have much of a problem with such a finely tuned team.
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FFXII: I got to Archades! This town is stupid. Insert witty editing of comment here.
Thus far, character worth: Al-Cid > Fran's face > I guess Balthier/Basch/Ashe vaguely aren't objectively terrible >>>>>>>> dung >>>>>>>>>> everyone else. Gameplay wise...
well, I deliberately ignore the main plot 'cuz it's stupid. Sorry. I really really really dislike the plot, Ashe was obviously supposed to be the main yes but then Vaan got shoehorned in and the entire thing is just discombobulated and shitty. This means I mainly just do all the marks first and try esper fights and go kill shit instead of advancing plot, so I've got endgame level HP going into Draklor Labs. Yeah.
Pretty much using all six chars, cycling in-out so levels stay about equal. Basch/Penelo get the Sword/Shield combo (currently Diamond Sword/Shell Shield/helmet/Shielded Armor/Bubble Belt), Fran/Ashe get Zodiac Spear/helmet/Shielded Armor/Bubble Belt, Vaan/Balthier get Fomalhaut/Silent Shot/helmet/Shielded Armor/Bubble Belt. Bubble/Protect/Shell/Haste trivialize a lot of fights.
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HG: So Sudowoodo doesn't like water, boo hoo. Gets caught rather easily and becomes my new 5th/6th Pokemon, DramaMajor. Took part in the Bug-Catching Contest, and caught a Scyther (Magus) but didn't even place. Played a couple of Pokathelons, and in one of them, I didn't finish last! Yay! Now in Ecruteak right after getting Surf.
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PW3-3 -- Victor Kudo is my hero. He is like Wendy except different and still awesome. I'm doing the Day 2 investigation right now, I am hoping to get back to the trial soon~
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well, I deliberately ignore the main plot 'cuz it's stupid. Sorry. I really really really dislike the plot, Ashe was obviously supposed to be the main yes but then Vaan got shoehorned in and the entire thing is just discombobulated and shitty. This means I mainly just do all the marks first and try esper fights and go kill shit instead of advancing plot, so I've got endgame level HP going into Draklor Labs. Yeah.
Close, only it was Basch who was suppose to be the main, not Ashe. Vaan being shoe-horned as the main resulted in Ashe becoming the effective main character cause now Basch's role is somewhat lower, and Vaan sure as hell fails to do anything remotely significant plotwise after Basch enters the picture for most of the game, and once Ashe does appear, pretty much every plot point until Cid appears is about her (even Basch related stuff is mostly about "I must defend the princess!" IIRC), Cid being a slight divergence to "lets give Balthier a purpose in the story other than a smart talking bad ass with a good Voice Actor!"
I think Vaan's character was also always intended to be in FF12, but as a supporting character.
Still, in the end, yeah, Ashe pretty much comes off as the main, even though she was never suppose to be more than "female lead." This is mostly cause she was always important and never had her role compromised, I guess, where as Basch was suppose to be the main...wait, people hate him, LETS REDUCE THE ROLE A LOT, then they tried to force Vaan as the main in a game that's clearly NOT about him, without either adjusting the story such that he is the main or taking the FF10 route and making him the narrator thus a character whose mostly just kind of telling someone else's story from his PoV (instead, ONDORE is the Narrator, what the fuck?)
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Basch was supposed to be? ...feh. Yeah, could see people shying away from him, but would lean toward making Ashe the main as a result, not Vaan. Bleh.
Also FFXII Queklainn for Godlike.
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I REALL need to get back into FFXII. Story was good so far, but you know I'm early into the game and had been focusing on hunts for most of my time.
SS - (and other pokemon related news) - So I started trading over all my pokemon from diamond which is going to take FOREVER! I traded over a scyther with ametal coat for some early game scizor false swipe action to help speed up the catching process.
Only thing is, was that the bitch would;t obey my commands! So I had to beat the first gym with it, which was a breeze because you are so not supposed to have a steel type this early in the game. Scizor even without listening to me took out all those silly bird brains. the gym however, was pretty bad ass at least in design.
Crazy thing, they chanaged the badges a little bit. Instead of having pokemon up to level 30 obey me, they lowered it to just 20....and that's kinda lame. Won't be able to use a lot fo the traded pokemon for a long time.
So needless to say, I don't have anything leveled really. Scizor is level 18, but that's as high as she will get. She is needed to capture a bajillion sentret/pidgeys/ratatas for trade purposes. Plus those low level shits only hit her for 1 damaged each time!
Oh! Forgot to mention, I caught Regigigas and Giratina in Diamond so I guess I have all the legendaries I can get in that game. I can't give up on Diamond just yet though, because there are still some pokemon I can only seem to get via the GTS. Hopefully someone will give me a celebi!
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Basch was supposed to be? ...feh. Yeah, could see people shying away from him, but would lean toward making Ashe the main as a result, not Vaan. Bleh.
I personally would have wanted Basch to remain the main on grounds of "hey look, a middle aged jRPG main!" for once, and there were unique approaches they could do with him due to that. I do agree, however, that if Basch was removed from being the main, they SHOULD have just elevated Ashe to being the main, as a good part of the story is already about her, just some rewriting of the early game is needed, and she would have been a genuine main. Going down the route of Vaan was just dumb, as FF12 shows.
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If you don't have either a silent/self-insert or a 14-21 year old male as your main you are doing it wrong and nobody will buy your game, duh.
AAI:
*second investigative section of 5-5*
... yesssssssss
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NEB: I'd argue with you except argh average RPG players. -_-
DQMJ: Speaking of silent 14 year old males. Finished Tutorial Island, working on Desert Island/Fuck You We Have Defense Island.
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Starcraft 2 beta: Okay so I've been playing this enough now to rant.
First off, the long wait. Blizzard has been delaying SC2's launch (what a shock) mainly for the implementation of Battle.net version 2, which I have to say... is completely justified. The new matchmaking system is miles better than what we used to have for B.net.
Essentially, when you first start multiplayer, you play a series of placement matches that determine which league you fall into. I'm not sure on the specifics of who it decides to match you up with, but it's presumably random. After this, you're placed into one of four leagues (Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze) and a division. Each league has hundreds of divisions, and each division contains a pool of 100 players. All normal matches are ranked on this ladder and you move up and down in ranking (and in league, if you manage to do that well or fail that badly) and your games henceforth are always found with someone of as near a skill level as possible.
Games actually denote on the loading screen who's favored (which is a feature I have mixed feelings about), at least in terms of ladder rank. The amount you move on the ladder is determined by how good your opponent is relative to you, so beating someone who's considerably favored above you will get you that much higher and vice versa. Note that you still will get matches with players outside of your division (and also presumably out of your league if you're on one of the extreme ends of the division).
What this all boils down to is that it greatly neuters the issue of skill level disparity. SC1's greatest obstacle to a lot of people who would have otherwise been interested in playing is a massive skill gap to be remotely competitive with the 'average' player. This is in no small part due to the game's age, but Battle.net's game setup offered absolutely no idea on how good your opponent/teammates were other than a nebulous win-loss record. In addition, that whole issue of joining lobbies and watching a dozen people join and quit in the process is now in the past. Finding a game is literally one click and wait. You can even state map preferences so that you can avoid matches on maps that you dislike, if possible.
As for the gameplay itself, it really comes off like a modernized version of SC1, doing away with some quirks that some people may miss, but most will prefer. For example, the nightmares of unit pathfinding are no more - the AI for movement and unit grouping now is almost impeccably good to the point where you don't really need to micromanage your armies anymore. Little touches like being able to rally workers directly to the mineral resources so that they start auto-mining instead of having to individually assign them to harvest keeps some APM pressure off of players who can focus their attention on the actual strategy of the game. Things like rally points don't suck anymore (units actually engage enemy units en route rather than getting shot down like idiots), and you can (FINALLY) group more than just 12 units when highlighting them! It's even easy to effectively micromanage a large group of mixed units with different abilities because you can tab through each unit type in a group to access something, like setting a bunch of tanks into siege mode and then tabbing over to stim your marines. I have little issue with the interface, although new hotkeys require adjusting to and it does take a bit to recognize the new art, buildings, etc.
As a result of all of this, I feel like the game rewards overall economy and macro considerably higher than individual unit micro and tricks that SC1 lended itself to. Attack-move tactics, while not 100% optimal, still pretty much do the job most of the time, although you still need to control things like casters and abilities in general to get the most out of units. You can also get away with playing a lot more defensively, although it's still not ultimately a winning strategy (can't defend your way to victory, after all), although it's also much much easier to do things like "drop army into opponent's main" due to a number of new options made available to all the races.
The game also runs amazingly easy and is not remotely spec-heavy. I know friends who manage to run the thing on laptops (albeit on the lowest settings), and my four-year old PC can run the game on maximum settings with absolutely no issue.
The races themselves are, although the same in spirit, pretty changed in execution from what they originally were in SC1. This is probably a bit out of scope for most people reading this but I'll get into a bit of it anyway to give an idea of what's different:
Terran - arguably the easiest race to play now in a complete reversal to their SC1 counterparts. Bionic builds are solid and have a place in almost every matchup (TvP and TvZ in particular, while TvT still lends itself more to mech/air play), despite Marines not getting a single base boost. This is because groups of marines aren't retards that go off and get themselves uselessly killed anymore due to the new improved grouping and pathfinding. The Marauder, another Barracks unit that replaced the Firebat, is also solid and is almost universally used in any infantry group. Meanwhile, tanks still exist, they have the most versatile air options of all the races (an anti-air flyer that can transform into a ground attacker, a medic transport, cloakable air-to-ground harassers, etc.), and they're still probably the most efficient race in resource:unit potential overall. Their unique macro mechanic, MULEs, are basically super-SCVs you just fire and forget from your Orbital Command.
Zerg - is probably now the most complicated race to play. People either love or hate Roaches, the new T1.5 unit that bridges between lings and hydras. They have a lot of units that require good micro (roach burrow, baneling targeting, infestors) and still emphasize flanking armies like nothing else since all the familiar zerg traits are still there, like ling speed. Rather than hatchery spam left and right, Zerg now utilizes Queens built from hatcheries that can accelerate larvae production, which is their unique macro mechanic. Overlords no longer detect (lol), as it's now a Lair upgrade that requires morphing them into Overseers. Creep mechanics were greatly expanded on - all Zerg units run much faster on creep (significantly so for some units) and spreading them is no longer a matter of just building hatcheries and colonies, but Queens can actually produce Creep Tumors (which are self-propagating, and can make more of themselves) and Overlords can generate creep as well. This also comes with Nydus being T2 rather than T3, which can lead to hilarious cheese potential.
Protoss - Cheese, cheese, cheese. Protoss got a serious change in the form of Warp Gates, which are a Gateway upgrade that's accessible once you research the tech at the Cybernetics Core. Warp Gates work like this: instead of queuing and building a unit normally, the Protoss player can instantly warp in the desired unit into ANY location on the map that's currently in range of a Pylon power grid (with a 5 second warp-in time), effectively eliminating build wait time. Instead, the Warp Gate then has to go through a cooldown that's equal to the build time of the unit that got warped in. Essentially, it frontloads unit production by giving them instantly but making you wait to make more. It's the ability to have them appear literally anywhere next to a Pylon that's full of BS potential (to make it better, their transport can temporarily generate a Pylon power grid, which means you can fly one over into an enemy base and warp in an army that's only capped by how many Warp Gates you have built). Or proxy pylon, or any number of various things. Their macro mechanic is Chrono Boost, which is a caster ability off of the Nexus that speeds up unit production/research/whatever's being worked on, on any building of their choice. The most basic use of this is to simply pump out more Probes ASAP, but it of course also speeds up army production or getting critical techs you want done immediately.
In summation: I highly recommend anyone who even vaguely enjoyed SC1's gameplay to pick this up when it comes out (it is a Blizzard product and you should do that by default anyway, but this bears saying). The skill ceiling has been lowered considerably and the multiplayer is now vastly more accessible regardless of how good you are at RTS games. All the normal issues that plague beginners (forgetting to build/idle workers, pathfinding, unit grouping, AI in general, etc.) have been readily addressed, while there's still plenty of depth and the overall metagame still flows like the original Starcraft. It's also faster paced to get going, which is a good thing since most SC1 matches tended to last 5 minutes minimum just to get to the point where you could actually mount any offense other than a rush. Blizzard has gone out of their way to make sure even people who think they suck at RTS to have a fair shot at each other, and consistently playing against people on your own level makes the game immensely more fun.
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So is it still your standard god-awful micro-managefest, or is there actual strategic-level combat going on now? Cause what I really want is not to have my infantry ambush a tank column and have armor swing around and destroy them in a flank attack, but to have to keep telling that fucking reaver that yes, I want it to continue making ammunition for it's only gun.
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Hatbot Heart Gold: In today's episode, Hatbot does fuck all and I learn about type advantages the hard way!
So, Victory Road. Because hahaha like the routes leading there have anything interesting for me to talk about.
Victory Road consists of randoms slaughtering my entire team outside of Nidoqueen and Glen Seel. Learning this pretty quickly, I reset, put Glen Seel to the top of my list and start making my way through, running from Golbat/Donphan since they get attacks in. A few Gravelers/Onixs later and Glen Seel evolves into Dewglen! Whee~!
I run around grabbing items before...
Rival fight! Sneasel falls in one hit from Double Kick from Shalequeen. Not even a full Double Kick, just one damn hit. Speshulz. The rest of the fight consists of Nidoqueen tearing shit up (What's that, Kadabra? One Strength is enough? Ouch.) and Dewgong gaining a little more experience from his Typhlosion.
Now, on to the Elite Four! I rest up, restock and march forward confidently... and get owned. Fuck you, Psychic types. Having Shalequeen as my best is now majorly backfiring as I struggle to hit with Thunder against the Xatus, fail to kill anything in one hit and end up relying on Wobbuffet to take out his Exeggutor. Lost the first fight, am redoing now. Blaaargh.
Current Team:
- Lv 48 Nidoqueen (Shale)
- Lv 15 Psyduck (Nitori~)
- Lv 27 Wobbuffet (Reay)
- Lv 27 Gligar (Terajin)
- Lv 22 Swinub (Alida)
- Lv 35 Dewgong (Glen Veil)
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Mass Effect - Beaten, got Light Side or whatever ending. 7/10 or 8/10. When the game wasn't being bullshit it was amazing, but there was so much bullshit. So much bullshit.
Anywho, great game. I was beginning to have my doubts after Noveria, but it turns out that that planet just sucks ass. Also the game is kinda glitchy on my PC but whatever. Sooo, yeah, solid stand-alone game, but also a good launching point for a series (or trilogy or whatever).
Plot was okay, and I thought Saren was pulled off well. My only complaint is that there's no motivation whatsoever for the Reapers--sure, the exposition bot tells Shepard "Why do you care? You just need to stop them, not understand them!", which is a fair enough motivation for your party, but it really feels like the writers had no idea what the motivation could be. This... is not acceptable. I'm assuming that, if not explained by ME2, ME3 will clear things up.
Oh, yeah. I thought Shepard was supposed to die? Which is the whole reason you get to make a new appearance for Shep2 in ME2? It certainly looked like it up until she did the whole "I got better" thing. I'm assuming that this is affected either by having more Paragon or Renegade points, or whether or not you tell the Alliance to save the council?
In any case, I think I'm going to have to replay it just so when I DO play ME2 I can see how the vastly different (Council alive or dead, Shepard alive or dead, whether or not humanity gets a council rep, whether it's Udina or Anderson as humanity's council representative, etc) endings affect the setup of the next game.
Other things... For 3 fucking games I've been dumping a lot of points into Persuade or its analogues, and this is the first one where doing that affected the game in a meaningful way. Hooray!
I think that thanks to being able to tell quite obviously which conversation paths are which path kind of puts a damper on the whole roleplaying aspect, and was certainly worse at it than KotOR 2 (before that game fell apart, of course). However, as a game, it's miles ahead. Nice combination of FPS and RPG, and it seems all the points I could bitch about (stupid inventory, godforsaken bullshit-ass designed-by-people-who-had-never-fucking-played-HL2-or-some-shit Mako, repetitive exploration) get fixed up in ME2.
Oh, yeah. Do I have to create a whole new career in order to have a separate ME2 transfer file, or will I have separate transfer files from running the same career more than once? Can I even DO that? The FAQs seem to imply that but the FAQs are also stupid.
Finally, PC gamers: I'm assuming that if I can run ME at lowest settings, I can probably run ME2 at lowest settings? I'd rather hate to have to play that on an X-Box without the transfer data.
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stuff
I'm not really sure how they could explain the Reapers motives without it being wild mass guessing that somehow turns out to be right or having a massive information dump. And of course the Reapers aren't going to bother explaining themselves to us puny organics.
As for your spoiler text, Paragon or Renegade points do not affect the ending in any way, all the other stuff does though Shepard survives no matter what you do, but you can get a cool little side conversation if you let the council die where you admit to Udina that you let 'em burn on purpose to be even more of a racist dickbag
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stuff
I'm not really sure how they could explain the Reapers motives without it being wild mass guessing that somehow turns out to be right or having a massive information dump. And of course the Reapers aren't going to bother explaining themselves to us puny organics.
As for your spoiler text, Paragon or Renegade points do not affect the ending in any way, all the other stuff does though Shepard survives no matter what you do, but you can get a cool little side conversation if you let the council die where you admit to Udina that you let 'em burn on purpose to be even more of a racist dickbag
There's a huge difference between the characters not knowing and the writers not knowing the motivations of the antagonists. The former fits into your argument, but this felt waaay more like the latter.
And it's not as if Bioware's above huge information dumps. There's been one at the end of just about every game of their's I've played--the hologram that explains what the Star Forge was and who the builders were, the Prothean hologram at the end of ME that explained what the Conduit was, fucking Kreia but I'll chalk that up to the end of the game being way too rushed. Hell even some speculation as to the purpose of the mass extinctions would have been nice. Instead we get the writers blatantly saying "We will not address this!"
It's a minor point against the game but still irritating nonetheless.
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Sapphire: Cleared out the Underwater Cave, Cave of Origin and the last gym. Caught Kyogre. All it took was 1 Ultra Ball! He was at about 20% and paralyzed too. Dunno what all the fuss is aboot!
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after gen 2 they actually raised the catch rating on Legendaries above "retarded". That said, Kyogre's just alright in-game, despite the objectively obscene Hydro Pumps (or Surfs for that matter)
Now, Emerald? Rayquaza? Game does not know how to deal with it~
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Kyogre murders the E4 Dead pretty well though. Teach him Thunder over Body Slam, give him Surf cause its better than Hydro Pump (Kyogre does not need more damage, so Reliability and 3x the PP is an especially big win here), all he needs to do is Calm Mind a bunch of times, and sweeping E4 happens! One thing he needs to be careful of is Sheer Cold from Glacia, due to level factors and what not, but after that, he's pretty much sweeping!
Ruby Groudon's not nearly as good at this for a number of reasons I won't get into. This isn't to say he's bad, just...doesn't have the "Solo E4" aspect Kyogre has.
Emerald Rayquaza...uh, yeah, not really a fair comparison! Being level 70 with typical uber stats tends to have that effect in game. Catching him without the Master Ball is not an easy thing to do though.
Kyogre/Groudon, mind, have a catch rate only SLIGHTLY above most Legendaries, so they're still hard to catch, Rayquaza's a typical legendary in that regard, and being level 70 makes him kick your ass several times over (it doesn't help that he has Rest, IIRC, and Outrage confuses him so he could accidentally KILL HIMSELF). Really, its just Palkia and Dialga in Gen 4 who are nice, having a pretty standard catch rate instead of an abysmally low one.
Anyway...
Pokemon SS: Claire is an evil, evil little bitch. Adding Gyarados to your team when I lack Electric damage was cruel, let alone as your openner! Did not see that coming. The Kingdra, as always, is brutal. I pretty much expected this level of competence, though, considering she was leagues ahead of the other GSC Gyms in the original *AND* her gym had competent trainers, instead of typical road kill to get you use to fighting that type of opponent.
I also caught Lugia, Raikou and Entei! Lugia was surprisingly easy (though fuck you Whirl Islands *shakes fist*), Raikou I caught on my first ball thrown at him, after lots of False Swipes and putting him to Sleep, Entei...was less than co-operative; took me about 6 Quick Balls til he finally got caught. Well, at least I don't have to worry about Chasers any more...until Latios...yay...
Also subbed in Lapras for a while, cause I took Surf off Gyarados since he's already running Strength and I need a Waterfall user and he makes an ideal choice for it. I also needed a Whirlpool user, so...yeah, not gonna waste a slot on Gyarados for a 3rd (shitty) HM, let alone fill his entire skillset out with HMs, so I just decided to use Lapras as a Surf/Whirlpool Slave; the fact that, once leveled up a bit, its actually competent as a fighter didn't hurt. Heck, it did most of the damage in my Lugia fight due to Confuse Ray and Ice Shard, combined with Lugia having Wild Pokemon AI, making him actually hurt a Hydro Pump at Lapras despite Water Absorb <_<
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Since it happens in the opening of Mass Effect 2 it isn't much of a secret that Sheppard dies, it is like in the first 10 minutes or so. Everything after that though, is yeah probably spoiler worthy.
Really not sure on how it will run, I don't know the spec differences between the two is, but they use the same engine and ME2 hasn't been overly upgraded graphics wise. I find it hard to think about doing another run of ME1 after playing 2 though, it really smashes the shit out of the first out of the water gameplay wise.
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Most Legendaries have a capture rate of 3, which is pretty bad. There's a few easier ones though. Luckily Heavy Balls exist in HGSS.
HG: Also at the Elite 4. Which didn't start well due to my highest level pokes being level 39. Also Psychic opener is a bad matchup for my team. So I went and leveled a bit and did some other things. Wanted a Leaf Stone to evolve my Weepinbell*, so I went back to the Pokeathlon. Got all the rooms opened up there and now have 8 crowns. Then went back to Elite 4 and beat everything until I got to Dark chick's last poke. Fuck Nasty Plot Houndoom. Fuck it hard.
*I forgot how horrible Weepinbell's moveset is. Doesn't learn any good attacks until level 47. And they only added that (Leaf Blade) in Platinum+. Seriously, look at this: http://www.serebii.net/pokedex-dp/070.shtml Razor Leaf at level 39? TM selection is poor also. Way to make Unown's moveset look good.
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Really not sure on how it will run, I don't know the spec differences between the two is, but they use the same engine and ME2 hasn't been overly upgraded graphics wise. I find it hard to think about doing another run of ME1 after playing 2 though, it really smashes the shit out of the first out of the water gameplay wise.
Which is exactly the reason I'm going to probably do a ME1 Renegade playthrough and possibly a ME neutral playthrough before moving on.
Spoilers or not, I'm sizing this down. Anti-Niu~
Okay, so if Shepard dies, then what the hell is with the Shepard surviving in each ending? I expected it to be something interesting that ME1 did with its ending (killing the protagonist? Sure, ASoIaF did that, but I can't name an RPG that's done it), not some lame ass off-screen killing. Ah well.
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Sapphire: Beaten. Kyogre (mostly) solo puny game. Manectric came out for a bit of Galcia, but otherwise it was Kyogre's game. I wasn't even intending to win, just wanted to test it to see what to expect. Oh well.
Kyogre is Kyogre. Went from 46 to 49 all told through the E4-Steven fights. Didn't even get him Thunder yet to use.
Swampert (45) - Water/Ground is really fun, especially with the dual STAB options. Mud Shot was damn good for most of the game, making a dedicated Ground pokemon sort of pointless. Surf, etc also good.
Manectric (45) - My MVP for normal game (sans Kyogre). So many water pokemon flying around, fast Electric type makes short work of so much of it. Despite being 44, OHKO'd two of the four Galcia pokemon I sent him against with Thunderbolt.
Skarmory (44) - Steel is good times. Not much else to say. Great tank, saved my ass in Norman's gym. Fly is just a bonus.
Gardevoir (43) - Awesome. Psychics are always fun, especially ones as powerful as this. Fell off a bit once I hit Victory Road since it's pretty frail, but still good.
Ludicolo (43) - Surprised me that it was still in the team in the end, but the Mexican duck has game. Water/Grass is good typing, but with Swampert and now Kyogre he felt redundant but still a better Grass option than Shroomish/Breloom.
Honorable mentions (IE, stuff I used but didn't make the final cut):
Absol - Cool, though a bit frail. Built one up for the psychic gym and it ground it into the dirt mostly.
Ninjask - Usable for most of the game, but... felt useless after a while. Eventually it was just around for Cut. Speed is nice though.
Shroomish - Absorb and turtle got me through a bunch of early game, but it fell off thanks to Lombre/Ludicolo filling the Grass niche.
Lairon - Also helped me with Norman, and a servicable Rock Smash mule.
Camerupt - Love this thing, but never got to really use it in any serious situation, which docks it points.
Award for Best New Design (so far): Sharpedo. Seriously. Shark torpedo. What else could you want?
8/10 overall? Pokemon is still as addictive as ever and still fun. Probably will do the aftergame as well. Didn't do too badly on the Pokedex front. 160 seen, 110 caught at endgame.
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PW3 spoilers!
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PW3-3 is complete! Fairly easy case overall, although I got stuck on a few points.
1. Godot is practically invisible in this case. <3
2. Victor is pure love. He is like a variant on Wendy Oldbag except a little more well-intentioned (weirdly).
3. Tigre is awesome. Viola is also really effective at being creepy.
4. I think that the framing is pretty clever and not too weird as to not be believable like in some of the other games in the series.
I overall find the case really hilarious and it seems to go back to the fun antics that were present in some of my very favorite cases. It reminds me of a worse version of 1-3, not that that says too much about its quality. It's definitely in the top half of cases in the series. It's definitely better than: 1-1, 1-2, 1-5, 2-1, 3-1, 3-2. I'm still debating whether I like it or 2-2 more; 2-2 has a much more intriguing mystery(you clue into 3-3's pretty early) but Victor is better than Lotta by a lot and both defendants sort of suck and are damselly. 2-2 I think was also more challenging, which I'm not sure how much I weigh past a certain point since both challenged me in some ways.
Now for 3-4~ The case loved by all~
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Pokemon HG - E4 prove to be scrubs as usual with only Lance himself proving any challange. His poke's movesets seem to have changed though because he completely trashed Sandslash (Something that didn't happen in the original). Anyway I am now in Kanto.
Lt. Surge - Joke fight. Sandslash rendered all his offence useless and OHKOed all of his pokes with Earthquake.
Sabrina - Scizor OHKOed them all before they got a turn except for Alakazam who died right after anyway.
Grass women - Lol Grass types.
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Hatbot Heart Gold: And, again, I have (almost!) the exact opposite luck to Cap'n K. Almost!
'Almost' because Will is a bitch to my team too. When a Nidoqueen and Dewgong are my best and his Exeggutor is evil, Will is most definitely not fun. Thunder takes out a Xatu, Jynx gets a Psychic in before 2 Strengths kill, and Slowbro... didn't die to Thunder, so met up with Wobbuffet instead. Took me a few tries to realise Thunder would -never- OHKO it. Exeggutor eventually took Destiny Bond to the face, and Shalequeen was revived in time to thunder the other Xatu.
After that? Koga fell to a few Earth Powers from Shalequeen, Bruno went with a few Earth Powers/Surfs/Counters from 'ffet. Karen... So, Umbreon and Houndoom both met Double Kick. The Houndoom got a Flamethrower in, but that was about it. Vileplume was hit with Destiny Bond, Murkrow with Thunder, and the Gengar was paralysed by the first Thunder, was chipped down, had a Full Restore and was paralysed by Thunder again in the same turn. Hahaha.
Now, I didn't expect to make it to Lance. I was resetting every time I lost to Will because I wanted to beat him, at the very least. Now I'm on Lance and refusing to lose - especially since I realised I had no Hold Items throughout the entirety of those four fights. So, Magnet on Shalequeen to ensure Gyarados is OHKOed by Thunder, and the second Dragonite is a bitch. Dewglen is given a Quick Claw so I can hope to holy hell that Blizzard hits - in one of these attempts, I managed to get Quick Claw -> Blizzard -> Frozen Dragonite! ...I then switched to Shalequeen, it thawed out, used Blizzard and froze me. >_>
Aerodactyl eats Thunder and... 'Zard. Uhm. Surf, maybe? That'll work. Another team update to come soon with levels from post-League. ;)
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It isn't off screen, it is right up front, it is kind of the opening motivation for going after the villains until they can expand on the plot a bit to give really solid motivations. It is pretty effective way of establishing player motivation to say the least.
No point playing through ME as Neutral, it is pretty straight one or the other. Torment is preeeetty much the only thing with morality where neutral is its own unique thing in PC RPGs. Arcanum kind of works, but Tech vs Magic scale is far more pertinent to the plot there than good or evil for all that there is a clear "Good" and "Evil" path.
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Team Update. Because 'Zard fell to a few Thunders. ^.^
Lv 52 Nidoqueen (Shale) w/Magnet (for Thunder h4x)
Lv 36 Dewgong (Glen Veil) w/Quick Claw (for Blizzarding Dragonites)
Lv 29 Wobbuffet (Reay) w/Quick Claw (for Destiny Bond)
Lv 15 Psyduck (Nitori~) w/Choice Scarf (because why not)
Lv 28 Gligar (Terajin) w/Muscle Band (because pure physical)
Lv 23 Swinub (Alida) w/Brightpowder (for evasion lols + Endure)
Off to Olivine. :)
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stuff
I'm not really sure how they could explain the Reapers motives without it being wild mass guessing that somehow turns out to be right or having a massive information dump. And of course the Reapers aren't going to bother explaining themselves to us puny organics.
As for your spoiler text, Paragon or Renegade points do not affect the ending in any way, all the other stuff does though Shepard survives no matter what you do, but you can get a cool little side conversation if you let the council die where you admit to Udina that you let 'em burn on purpose to be even more of a racist dickbag
There's a huge difference between the characters not knowing and the writers not knowing the motivations of the antagonists. The former fits into your argument, but this felt waaay more like the latter.
And it's not as if Bioware's above huge information dumps. There's been one at the end of just about every game of their's I've played--the hologram that explains what the Star Forge was and who the builders were, the Prothean hologram at the end of ME that explained what the Conduit was, fucking Kreia but I'll chalk that up to the end of the game being way too rushed. Hell even some speculation as to the purpose of the mass extinctions would have been nice. Instead we get the writers blatantly saying "We will not address this!"
It's a minor point against the game but still irritating nonetheless.
They actually get to the Reaper's motives in the second game, by the way.
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No second DS at the moment, so no way to transfer over all my glorious Pokemon. By the way, what are your friend codes? I have pretty much every pokemon and once I get to the breeder I can start handing out anything you guys want...for the most part.
Since most of my pokemon are level one, I have been spending some time in the first area with my two exp spares and trying to get some of the pokemon I want to use through the game to at LEAST level 10.
I think I am going to try and make a balanced team and just use that for the game, and afterwards worry about EV training some select few pokemon. I never did the whole EV training, so I should probably look into that before starting and screwing up the pokemon I wanted to use.
I'm thinking having these guys as my team...
Lucario - Seriously, my favorite pokemon.
Scyther - Because he looks cool and has False swipe.
Golduck - Old personal favorite.
Houndoom - Because he looks awesome.
Electrivire - To fill the need for an Electric type.
Last spot could vary. I am leaning toward a Sceptile or maybe a Espeon. Hmmm
~
anyways, that won't happen for awhile anyways! I want to get all my baby pokemon transfered over first and foremost.
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PW3 Spoilers!
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3-4: Finished. Bleeeeeh.
Biggest problem: Could have been alluded to in 3-1 and elaborated on (Diego specifically) in 3-5 and not been a case at all. I don't think it justifies its own existence.
Other issues:
1. The case is deadly serious. I mean, wow. The only really amusing part is Edgeworth Von Karma, and that only carries a case so far.
2. The murder mystery is not intriguing at all, it's pretty bland by PW standards, and there's not really any decisive proof that the killer actually did it. I think a bit of the mystery is also ruined by the fact that as soon as you see the witness you know she is guilty.
3. The logic puzzles are a pretty big stretch even by Phoenix Wright standards. I feel like a few of the logical leaps are just really unintuitive and that a lot of the case is solved by randomly guessing instead of using actual logic because there isn't any.
4. Gross misogyny from Diego. Oh boy~
5. The ending is highly unsatisfying and I feel like there would have been a larger impact if Mia had just, you know, lost.
The good:
1. Edgeworth von Karma.
2. I think that the time-travelling type aspect of the game is pretty cool. It gives you a glimpse into what happened before the game.
3. Dahlia is the same old Dahlia, but I felt like she wasn't quite as good as she was in 3-1.
Overall I feel like the case was a waste of time but it was quite short so I guess I forgive the game. After about halfway through the case I just starting FAQing it out of shear boredom and it's like an hour long, which is a bad sign. >_>
3-5 next~~~
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PW3-5: LAURICE DEAUXNIM!
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HG: "Margarine learned Psybeam!" Goodnight, Morty.
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Completed Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth.
Wow.
I have very little bad to say about this game. The series has been in decline for me, with AJ in particular being the least impressive entry to the series in my eyes. I went into this game with a "hopefully that trend will be reversed". It was, and then some. AAI injects just enough much-needed change, while bringing back and further developping some of the series' best characters, and having a nice, satisfying set of cases overall to work through. There's no real stinkers, and if no one case completely blew my socks off, well, that's fine, since 5-1, 5-2, 5-4, and 5-5 all rate as excellent. No other game manages FOUR cases of this level of quality. And then 5-3 isn't terrible or anything! Sooo yeah.
Character-wise, the game leans heavilly on returning characters. Arguably more than it should. I don't find myself too bothered overall, although the game doesn't produce too many compelling new characters and I guess that's a strike against it. Kay and Lang are both solid enough, but neither really pushes the envelope of their archetypes, although I will give them props for Kay being more generally likable than Maya (if less than Trucy) and for using Lang in about the correct number of cases (he'd be tiring if they tried to use him in 4 cases or something) and having a convincing motivation for being the way he is. Though, did I rather liked two of the villains (Portsman and *spoilers*, see later) and since villains are super-important to me in PW games this is good! Back to the old characters, though, this game definitely elevated Edgeworth and Franziska to new heights for me, and I already liked both a lot. Edgeworth is a lot of fun to play as, he's smart (he visibly figures out things before the player does, like PW3 Phoenix but unlike other mains) and his thoughts are delicious snarky, but this is balanced by the extreme pain the hilarious people he has to deal with cause him. Franziska basically operates as his evil bitch sister/assistant/superior (it varies) who is responsible for either being a sounding wall for Edgeworth's cleverness or inflicting pain on those who deserve it. Gumshoe, the third returning major player, is hilarious but fundamentally the same as always. Not that this is bad.
Music is the best in the series. Easily. No f'ing contest. They finaly got some composition quality to go with their melodies, since a couple old melodies worked a hell of a lot better in this game and the new tracks are solid enough. I suppose I should look up track names so I can actually elaborate on this.
As far as overall plot goes it... the cases all tie together a lot, but many can stand on their own, at least? Thought it worked pretty well. I also liked that the cases were clearly tied together chronologically instead of being random events separated by a few months. It's something. More details need case spoilers of course.
Gameplay... well, I don't really give a crap about PW gameplay and I like it best when it isn't interfering much. I could see FRUE PHOENIX WRIGHT GAMEPLAY FANS being unimpressed by this entry because it does hint/point at what you should do more than the previous games, but this doesn't bug me at all. It's easier than previous games on the whole (last case definitely steps it up though) but this fits plotwise, as Edgeworth is far less of an underdog because he isn't a defence attorney in the PW universe. Anyway, the game largely cans the useless pixel hunting and "can't advance plot until presenting item X to character Y", guiding you much more in investigations where such things might otherwise be required. I approve of that at least. But yeah, basically, gameplay doesn't factor into my rating of PW games as long as it doesn't actively tick me off.
Case spoilers! You've been warned! I am keeping this to a large enough font that it the sections should be individually discernable but small enough that accidental spoiling won't happen~
5-1: Best introductory case in the series? Possibly. It introduces the characters and game nicely, and uses, I think, the Logic system the best of any case, since there were some trickier connections in there. Jacques Portsman really carries this case because he is just so hilariously silly yet has a bit of a nasty streak to him, too, and hints at the darker major plot to come. The case does have Maggey, which is ugh, but she's less bad than before for some reason? She doesn't spend quite as much time apologising for how worthless she is. The two-thieves twist was pretty solid.
5-2: Another one I dug overall. I am a bit of a sucker for the Mimi Miney routine of "pretend you're a total ditz to avoid suspicion" since the transformation is always so fun. This game's villain didn't really push the envelope of that archetype, but I did like that the murder turned out to be an unplanned reaction she did because she was scared. Pretty badass framing job too on paper, and turbulence's disruption of it, while improbable, only made things more interesting. Possibly had the most "aha" moments of any case in the game, and that's always fun. Ninjaing both the time and the lociation of the murder worked well. Also yay more Franziska.
5-3: Definitely the weak entry, despite some awesome cameos. The main problem here is that the murder is just stupidly implausible. The game never really elaborates on whether the killer acted in self-defence or it was all planned. If the former, then he had to concoct an immensely convoluted plan that relied on many unlikely things in literally seconds between when he commits the murder and when he starts on the ridiculous chain of "mug Edgeworth, disguise him and tie him up and show him off all while hoping he doesn't regain consciousness, THEN send Lauren out with the prop gun (until now useless!) and make her shoot him with it (instead of just running or whatever) and yeaaah this was stupid. If it's planned it's still stupid, but at least we don't have to worry about him concocting all this in about 6 seconds.
Also the stupidest "logic" puzzle in the game. THREE CHAIRS + THREE CUPS = ?!?! Yeah, this was not the highlight of that system, it was reather insulting to my intelligence actually. <_<
The case does a bunch of small things well, at least. One trivial one jumping to mind is the killer's "damage" animation, it rules.
5-4: So yeah, there's this case called 3-4. Ciato just talked about it. It sucks and is one of the worst cases in the series and 5-4 is the game designers realising that because 5-4 is what 3-4 wanted to be. It's set in the past and sets the stage for the next game but it tells its own, unique mystery, shows both Edgeworth and Franziska in their more formative years, and their interaction with Manfred (hell yeah Manfred cameo). I really dug the interaction in this one. The identity of the killer totally caught me off guard too because (a) I had her pegged as "the one seeking to most annoy the player" trope like Victor Kudo or Wendy Oldbag or Ben/Trilo and those are always innocent!, and (b) there are never two female villains in a PW game!
5-5: The first half of this case is pure gold. I mean. THE CAMEO. Larry/Edgeworth/Franziska interaction mark 2... well, it pretty much runs with my favourite part of PW3 again. Unoriginal? I don't fucking care. Edgeworth needs some Larry in his life to cause him maximum physical pain (hey, it's half the fun of the game!) and the ways they did it were delicious. Then you get down to the actual confrontation with the villain and that is terrific too. I really liked her, it's quite a plot twist but makes way too much sense once you take the time to study her two portraits side by side, and she's portrayed as competent enough for it to be believable. I may have wanted a bigger fight here given this one was in the cards for three cases, but oh well. If Portsman isn't my favourite villain, she is; her dark demenour was quite compelling. No compelling personal motive would normally bother me more, but her last scene sells me on her just being a dark, unapologetic, manipulative tool for the big bad.
Second half... hmm. It's not as good and it can't be, just because the villain didn't have the same screentime throughout the game as the previous. But overall I think it is still among the most satisfying ends to a PW game. 1-5 and 4-4 are both unmitigated nonsense, 2-4 just dragged too much, and 3-5 post-Dahlia was brutal anticlimax to an otherwise excellent case. 5-5 avoids the worst anticlimax, though there's still some of the unfortunate dragging. The challenge definitely ramped up here to make you feel like you were really working for something, and while at times the villain bordered on insufferable with his "luzl I'm just going to walk out on your investigation", Agent Lang stepped in with some massive awesome so we could finish the case without having to put up with THAT any longer. Besides that... mm. Guy reminds me a bit of Redd White or Damon Gant, which is a horrible thing, but he's so much better. His motivations are crystal clear and sensible, and his "immunity" leg to stand on is far more believable (diplomatic immunity >>> I CONTROL EVERYTHING!!1), and he himself avoids descending into whining, putting on a decent facade until the end. Not really my favourite because fundamentally I dislike that archetype of villain but he does it much better than his predecessors do and had enough presence to leave me satisfied with nailing his ass for all the shit he had caused (aka the whole damn game). Also LARRY TO THE RESCUE is so amazing, the present that foils his final testimony was beautiful (I wish they'd wrapped the game up more quickly after that because it was so perfect, but there's the dragging coming in).
I have a lot of trouble ranking the cases of this game. Aside from 5-3 < the rest of course. None of them quite crack the ranks of my absolute favourite PW cases, and I'm not sure why... I guess because no villain is on the level of the last two in JFA? But they're all good, all solidly in the top half of the series' cases, and all were a lot of... fun. In the end, that's the best thing I can say about this game: I always had fun playing it, something I can't say about... any of the four previous games, although JFA does come close at least. I think the fact that I beat it in about half the time I beat the others and my having more on my plate in my life now than I did then alludes to this! I still can't rank it the best in the series because I do think 2-3 is just that brilliant and 2-4 is just that important (i.e. still the only case for which the entire SERIES suffers if it gets removed) but hell, it has me thinking about it. So, updated list!
JFA > AAI > T&T > AA > AJ
Game is probably something like an 8.5/10 if I do that. Hard to get much better than this without actually having good gameplay; PW writing has delivered in spades once again, and I am happy.
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Pokemon SS: My team really sucked for taking out Lance. The first 4 fights, I handled fine, but then Lance came and...yeah, I was like "wow, I am totally not prepared for such an occasion". Rather than going through the entire E4 again, I said fuck it and just item spammed; I just wanted to get to the after game damn it!
God of War 2: Just rode the Phoenix to...yet another temple! I think I'm getting...somewhere near the end of the game?
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Arctic Adventure -
Jumping controls are fairly atrocious, although problems tended to happen at points when I needed to jump and I had little problem jumping around at points where I didn't need to, so it may have just been me failing it up. However there were numerous times when I was killed because the jump cut out halfway up and this is not a game with controllable jump height, so I can take solace in the fact that those were not my fault at least.
Part 4 has one point where it can purposefully cause you to put the level into an unbeatable state with no telegraphing of this. Bad form.
All up, I beat the four parts with little trouble outside of my jumping problems. When I was a young lad, I couldn't beat the shareware part. Which only goes to show that games these days are too easy.
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Resonance of Fate - Up to Chapter 3 or 4? I have to go to a forest and fight some pixies or something. Gauging from the Arena round 5 this is going to be kind of hard. Want to get to chapter 6 already for unlimited money. Kind of burned out on the game, but it was fun for a few days.
Gets bonus points for having the most Tri-Ace style art and general aesthetic for a good while (Forget what Infinite Undiscovery looked like...), but areas and menus remind me Valkyrie Profile a lot, more so than VP2 did even. Really nice if you are into that.
Tales of Vesperia - I still haven't finished this I remembered, so wanting a break from the ball busting the above was doing I decided to go back to that for today. End game sidequests. 100 man Melees done for Yuri, Repede and Estelle. Had forever to spare on Yuri, Repede was annoying, doing this without Glory is a pain. Estelle was slow but invincible, close but thankfully her final 10 can easilly be Holy Rained down.
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So, Resonance of Fate should go on my 'someday when I have a 360' list?
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I honestly don't know, it kind of yoyos around the place (SHOCK A Tri-Ace game that is all over the shop?). At heart it is stupid, but it is fun with it, it doesn't take itself really seriously unlike FF13. The gameplay is easy at the start and it is getting harder (enemies getting more health, more of them and my damage hasn't reallllly gone up much. This might be alleviated with a bit more weapon customisation. When stuff gets really rough Grenades (which are a primary weapon type!) are great, they do good damage, but I can't buy them yet, so eh. Essentially the gameplay is all about dudes doing flips and shit and shooting some dudes. You take out armoured foes with hand guns after you weaken them with an SMG.
I dunno if you really like the art style of the Clockwork Tower from Valkyrie Profile (Chapter 3 hard mode only dungeon with the sliding square rooms maze) then maybe? It is really only specific parts of VP aesthetic so far and probably not really the prettiest ones (Certain no Asgard from the opening sequence here). It is something I myself quite enjoy though.
There is better games I would reccomend for the 360 for an RPG fan most certainly though, not necessarilly so much on the PS3 though (which is what I am playing it on), it is probably one of the few PS3 RPGs I have really enjoyed of what I have played, but I have not played a great deal (It is probably worse than Valkyria Chronicles) and the PS3 still shines for other genres.
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Right, well. I haven't played VP anyways, so I can't compare that, but it sounds like it might get SOMEWhERE on the list at any rate. I'll almost definitely be getting a 360 before a PS3 assuming I can get a decent job for the summer, unless Namco shocks the world by giving us the PS3 version of ToV (probably my biggest tie-breaker). I've got plenty of ideas already lined up for games already, and I just happened to see 'oh hey, a gun-heavy RPG on the 360 made by a respectable studio' while milling around a GameStop.
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If the gun factor is a big thing I cannot praise Mass Effect 2 enough. RoF is not real time controls and you have no actual gunplay on your part, it is just shoot some dudes stuff. If you want a game with good actual gunplay RPG stuff then ME2 is the place to stop. But yeah if you are more just after something outside of the fantasy setting which is pretty well represented on the X-Box out of what RPGs there is.
You should totally check out VP sometime though, it is around the place if you are into emulaion and if you got a PSP version then VP:Lenneth is pretty respectable other than some minor annoyances with the equip menus (You can't cycle through characters and have to back out to the main menu each time, minor problem they fixed in the US release of the PSX version and not ported over to the PSP version). It is still a pretty unique game even for one with 2 sequels (both drastically change the combat system), some fun albeit easy platforming and personally I find it absolutely gorgeous.
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Pokemon HG - Just beat Upgraded Lance with the team being:
Ho-Oh Lv56
Magnezone Lv66
Typhosion Lv56
Sandslash Lv55
Gyarados Lv59
Scizor Lv52
Lance was a total beefcake but Gyarados showed him levels aren't everything because After 4 dragon-dances Gyarados was dishing out OHKOs at mach speed. I'm going to keep playing because I've got a rival in a friend playing SS and I want to beat him, I've already won 4 times but he has only trained 3 pokemon (1 is lugia) while I have six. We did play some 3 vs 3 to make it fair but I won there as well. The best moment was where my Lv50 Ho-Oh smacked down his Lv50 Lugia without a problem. Anyway he is building a full team now with the purpose of beating mine however he doesn't know types that well so he doesn't know the pokemon he has chosen all have weaknesses I can exploit ;D.
Quick question to Scar and anyone else who'll know these things. I have platinum and was thinking of bring over the legendary birds but they exist in Heartgold so will me trading them over make them go poof?
If so could I then get two by getting them in Heartgold then trading them over from platinum?
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PW3-5: So motherfuckin' awesome. I just started the Day 2 trial.
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So apparently while ME1 works fine on a PC with a single core processor, ME2's min sys reqs require a dual core.
I... am sad.
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God of War 2: Completed. TIme for a rant!
To be frank? It was just GoW1 with different spells, 2 new weapons replacing the Artemis Blades, and new dungeons. Yeah, I know; Mega Man does the exact same thing every game, but Mega Man is a simpler game and that's the entire formula you need to keep the series good; good levels, decent bosses, good weapons, bam! Decent Mega Man game. God of War, however, has a lot that could be added or fleshed out, but honestly, feels like they didn't.
First off, Combat. Its...still generic. The enemy variety really pales in comparison to that of Devil May Cry...it was about akin to Onimusha enemy variety, thing is, Onimusha has more simplistic gameplay, so you can't get TOO creative with enemies there, so whatever. God of War? Not so much. That's what really makes DMC vs. GoW battles different; DMC gameplay is rather dynamic cause the enemy variety is all over the place, and things stay fresh. God of War feels like a generic hack and slasher, and its more just "weak enemy vs. big fat durable enemy vs. agile enemy." Also, you had too many "fuck you" attacks for groups of small things. Be it "Spinning Chains of Death!" after upgrading, your magic attacks (especially Atlas' move), or the simple "Push Circle to rip Zombie in half".
Also, I definitely prefer the Lock on and dodge manually style rather than having a dodge button; Bayonetta has a dodge button, but let you use the Lock on + Jump for dodging, and dodging was a lot more fluid and spammable there, and doing it felt more rewarding (WITCH TIME YAY!), but here...dunno, felt like the only dodge was a back dodge for big elaborate moves. Well, blocking was certainly handy, which brings the Onimusha parallels back! Aerial Combat was also bland, not that there was much of that, but also the fact that juggling enemies wasn't as fun...yeah.
Really, just the combat system got monotonous, and was too polarized, and there was enough variety in it that they could have done so much more. That's what makes GoW fights pale compared to DMC and Bayonetta fights; the latter two actually make full use of their combat systems and make you try out all your options, rather than resort to "Attack things til they die."
Having more bosses was nice, having most of them be gimmicky was not. The Fight with Atropos and Lakhesis was cool until I realized there was a gimmick attached to beating them that I couldn't figure out. The fight with Clothos, meanwhile, was less than cool, cause you had to rely on weird visual cues and trial/error until SOMETHING worked. And then Zeus is painted like a standard one on one fight, but it seems to have specific triggers for when he does what (that or Rage of the Titans ups damage a lot more than I give it credit for, but its hard to tell.)
Oh, yeah, NO HEALTH GAUGES was another bullshit thing for bosses. Its nice to know if you're actually making progress on a boss for somethings with vague visual damage cues (I guess you could use your Combo meter to compare), and how effective certain moves are. I mean, DMC games, yeah it's hard to tell if Ebony and Ivory are actually being blocked or doing legit damage, but the game has a health gauge and when the enemy is hit by ANYTHING, it shakes as though to show "They're taking damage, EVEN IF AN INSIGNIFICANT AMOUNT!" I guess with gimmick style bosses, its hard to have a health gauge, but its still something that would have been appreciated. And frankly? Bayonetta had similarly styled bosses, and it had health gauges, so...yeah.
I know comparing Bayonetta to GoW2 isn't fair cause Bayonetta came out years later, but I just can't stop the comparison cause the things Bayonetta did different from DMC often felt GoW-like, just they were handled so much better...except for Quick Time Events; GoW2 was definitely more lenient just cause it gave you enough time to SEE THE DAMN BUTTON; I've stated that Bayonetta's biggest problem was probably how not-lenient its QTEs were.
But then, Bayonetta handled the "Kill Boss" QTEs better. See, in Bayonetta, when you kill a boss, and have to QTE him to death, once you start it, you've won; what the game instead lets you do is try to get a bigger bonus in terms of rewards by performing the QTE properly (its always a rapid button push or spin circle.) In GoW2, failing one means you take damage, and have to start over again; its kind of obnoxious to go through an entire boss fight, but then have to restart it cause you failed the QTE.
The game also had obnoxious puzzles, climbing sections, and platforming scenarios (though they weren't as annoying as in GoW1 at least.) I ranted in Okami how Block Pushing Puzzles suck ass and should die as a general rule, and praised Okami for, depsite being a Zelda Clone, more or less lacking them, the closest it had was a rare Ball Pushing Puzzle, which are MUCH faster and there were so few and far apart, they didn't hurt things much.
So why is God of War, which is primarily an action game...so obsessed with using them? THEY'RE NOT FUN DAMN IT! Nor are they mentally stimulating; they're tedious, and they make the game artificially longer, NOT HARDER! Devil May Cry got it right by having its "Puzzles" basically be the most basic Resident Evil style plot progression, which is to say just Emblem Fetch Quests, which while not ideal, its not offensive. I guess DMC4 had the rotary blade puzzle, but there like 3 of those the entire game and they were easy to figure out and done within 2 minutes instead of 10 (plus more stylish *AND* those rotary blades could actually be used in Battle for some unique kills.)
I know, God of War =/= DMC, I'm aware of that, but that doesn't mean I can't help but stand by that DMC just feels like such a better handled action game, mostly cause it lacks a lot of factors that detract from action. DMC focused on action above all else...well, that and COMPLETELY OVER THE TOP RIDICULOUS STYLE! This isn't to say that God of War isn't stylish; it most definitely is, just more of a "We're gonna impress you!" style rather than "...physics? What's that? *has Dante ride up a tower with a motorcycle*" Not trying to bash God of War here, just noting that DMC was more entertaining cause it pushed the style to its ridiculous limits, rather than being merely fancy.
That brings me to plot. Honestly, I know, ACTION GAME PLOT and all that, but...God of War 2's plot is something that I feel honestly negative about. I know, I haven't said much good about GoW2, but its plot really annoys me.
See, GoW1's plot was mostly just a vehicle for the gameplay and it worked. Ok, so Kratos is a dick and a sociopath, that's fair, though I don't like him...but at least I can side with him cause Ares is a bigger dick, screwing Kratos just for the shit of it, so whatever, lesser of two evils, that's fair. I can route for Kratos there for that reason.
GoW2, I didn't get that feeling. Kratos was more or less falling into the same damn trap he freed himself from in GoW1, and it was so blatantly obvious, so its like they didn't care and just went "people liked him cause he's a sociopath, lets go with that!" They tried to justify Zeus as being worse, but I didn't buy it. The ending made it especially clear that Kratos was not the one I wanted to win; he gets the scenario explained, and what's he do? He pretty much blows it off just to destroy everything with 0 justification, and sides with the group that...is very clearly JUST USING HIM. Well, I guess if they're trying to make Kratos out to be a Bad Guy Protagonist, then congrats, you succeeded; pity I still don't like him. Sociopaths can be well done, but Kratos is just angry and homocidal. Its especially bad since GoW1 showed shades of depth in him, so I was able to accept it more there; here they sort of blew it off, only making him go all "VENGEANCE!"
I guess I could go on, but whatever; I don't care if GoW2 got like the 15th best game out of GI's 200 best, I don't care if its one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, I don't care if I seem like a whiner, GoW2 just isn't very impressive once you get past the stylish cutscenes and what not. I guess the game is good at all those "Shallow" qualities, but doesn't really do it where it matters. I dunno, is there something I'm missing here? The combat system is generic, the plot is poor, the non-combat gameplay aspects are just boring...seriously, I've never been so questioning as to why a game gets so much hype.
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HG: Beat the Elite 4 and Champion. Got extremely lucky on Dark Chick and switched my Feraligatr in at the same time she switched her Houndoom in. Waterfalled it while it used Nasty Plot for the kill. On Lance I just said screw it and used all the stat boost items I had left on Feraligator while Gyarados sputtered against it. Swept the rest of his team easily. Only one Dragonite got a turn, and it decided to spend its time using Safeguard. Did I mention the AI in this game is the worst I've seen in a long time? D/P/Pt was fairly decent, but this game just picks random crap most of the time. Way too many enemies relying on Double Team/Minimize also.
Final team: Level 45 Feraligatr (Crunch, Ice Fang, Agility, Waterfall), level 36 Onix (Screech, Sandstorm, Strength, Rock Throw), level 39 Togetic (Fly, Extrasensory, AncientPower, Wish), level 39 Dunsparce (Headbutt, Rock Smash, Roost, Yawn), level 45 Magmar (Faint Attack, Flamethrower, Smokescreen, Sunny Day), level 43 Victreebel (Razor Leaf, Cut, Flash, Acid).
And now... I'M ON A BOAT MUTHAFUCKER! T-PAIN!!!
It's a big blue watery road, taking me right back to Kanto
Believe me it was wrong... when I fucked a Dewgong!
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Mission Pack 1-Pretty good. Nicely designed for the most part. New weapons weren't really necessary or useful, new monsters were barely used, but the core gameplay is still the same.
Mission Pack 2-Starts out okay, quickly becomes tedious and annoying. Goes on for too long, with 16 grindfesty levels. It has new ammunition instead of new weapons, which basically amounts to a palette swap that does more damage. Multi-rockets were great though. New enemies were pains in the ass and mostly served as bullet sponges. New zombies....who do the exact same attacks and take slightly longer to kill. A new ghost enemy...who's a watered down Vore. Electric Eels...which have a painful AoE attack underwater, where they can easily be way above and below you. In a game where looking up and down is something it considers a luxury only bestowed on the fortunate. Ogres with multi-grenades, because they didn't have enough annoying spam already! Guardians...which are slowly moving plasma spamming Egyptian things that don't do a whole lot but take a bunch of rockets to kill. Is it too much to ask for a fucking Shambler now and then? At least they were fun to fight.
And this doesn't even go into the many, many dick moves the maps pull out. Oh hey have a random lava pitfall hope you save recently champ! Oh yeah round a corner and there's like 5 fucking fiends in your face well time to replay the whole level again. There are several times when picking up a key item causes an enemy to spawn directly behind you and immediately start attacking, which means you take damage no matter what you do unless you already know it's coming.
Oh shit I almost forgot the final boss. The boss himself isn't that bad, just your standard "hit me a million times and dodge my attacks" FPS boss. But there's this whole 'ground shaking' effect during the fight, which translates into your character moving randomly around like he's wearing roller skates and somebody waxed the floor. This wouldn't be a big problem but the entire arena is full of inescapable lava pits that kill you in like 3 seconds. It also throws off aim really bad and even with the game aim assisting you basically just have to spam a bunch of shit and hope it hits. The fact that all the bosses attacks have knockback doesn't help either. Finally I just spammed Plasma until the fucking thing died sitting in the corner so I couldn't get knocked into a pit through no fault of my own. gj boss designers
Well whatever Quake 1 is done for now. Maybe go play through again on a harder mode? Nah. Played the shit out of Quake II back in the day, have no interest in revisiting it or playing the map packs. Maybe I'll try Wolfenstein 3D...
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HGSS- So I nabbed the Yellow Road Saturday, and spent most of the weekend a) learning how the system for items/pokemon off the walker really worked and b) employing this to get a Surfing Pikachu. The after a few days on part a, half an hour of dedicated spending Watts gets me a Surfer off a !! encounter! Naturally, it's Jolly. I'm levelling it up anyway, to see just whether the SAtk's really unsalvagable or not. No Light Ball yet, despite putting several hours into that, but given the cost gap involved and seeing as I have to level up the pikachu anyway, no big there.
Otherwise, not much left to the game. I may end up trying for the Quiet Cave path and mucking about for Feebases, depends on how long my "I want to play pokemans and ignore other games" streak goes on.
Current Team:
Scyther (Technician)- Wing Attack/U-Turn/Swords Dance/X-Scissor- Has cracked level 70. Essentially solos the three of the UE4 at this point, though is fairly useless against Lance of course.
Tyranitar (Sand Stream)- Crunch/Earthquake/Surf/Stone Edge- L62 or so. Uh yeah. She actually can outfight most of Lance's team (I've been trying to level against the UE4, if it wasn't obvious) but having Sand Stream up makes the Garchomp kinda... not... doable.
Togekiss (Hustle)- Charm/Air Slash/Aura Sphere/Fly- L65. Not so bad, but not great either. Mostly around to fight things when Scyther or T-Tar bite it.
Latias (Levitate)- Dragon Breath/Mist Ball/Ice Beam/Recover- L62. Still in development; I haven't been eager to spend TMs since I'm not sure where this team is going, and in a few levels it gets some STAB support so Dragon Pulse/Psychic would be a waste. Sadly, Lance's Salamence and Garchomp still survive Ice Beam, and I need Choice Scarf to get the drop on 'mence. Draco Meteor would solve that problem, but given I got a -Atk nature, it'd be counterproductive.
Pikachu (Static)- Surf/Thunderbolt/Thunder Wave?/????- Still in progress. I may have to catch another one with a better nature (-_-), beyond THAT I'm not sure where to take the moveset. They come with the above list of moves, but... given it's Pikachu durability T-Wave may be a waste, and I'm not sure what the heck should go in that last slot. If I don't replace this one, probably Strength? Unless I have a Return TM sitting around.
Still playing around with ideas for that last slot. I had a Sceptile half raised until I got to looking at it and realized that beyond Leaf Blade it had, well, NOTHING that wasn't redundant, so I dunno. On the other hand, it's not like I'm raising the team FOR anything, so hey.
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Pokemon HG - Just beat Upgraded Lance with the team being:
Ho-Oh Lv56
Magnezone Lv66
Typhosion Lv56
Sandslash Lv55
Gyarados Lv59
Scizor Lv52
Lance was a total beefcake but Gyarados showed him levels aren't everything because After 4 dragon-dances Gyarados was dishing out OHKOs at mach speed. I'm going to keep playing because I've got a rival in a friend playing SS and I want to beat him, I've already won 4 times but he has only trained 3 pokemon (1 is lugia) while I have six. We did play some 3 vs 3 to make it fair but I won there as well. The best moment was where my Lv50 Ho-Oh smacked down his Lv50 Lugia without a problem. Anyway he is building a full team now with the purpose of beating mine however he doesn't know types that well so he doesn't know the pokemon he has chosen all have weaknesses I can exploit ;D.
Quick question to Scar and anyone else who'll know these things. I have platinum and was thinking of bring over the legendary birds but they exist in Heartgold so will me trading them over make them go poof?
If so could I then get two by getting them in Heartgold then trading them over from platinum?
I can't be certain since I am not there yet, but you could usually fight the legendaries with another version of themselves caught from a different game and still catch them. I don't see why they would change that. They are in the game's registry to be at those points to be caught.
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FFXIII-Defeated the final. POIZN! and Vanille's Death (damage) saved the day >_> Also SEN was absolutely vital for things like Ultima and the other super/special attacks the final run of bosses used <_< My PCs just died otherwise!
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FFXIII-Defeated the final. POIZN! and Vanille's Death (damage) saved the day >_> Also SEN was absolutely vital for things like Ultima and the other super/special attacks the final run of bosses used <_< My PCs just died otherwise!
Poison works on the final boss? Really? That's just awesome and would have been exceedingly helpful cause of how much I was on the defensive in that fight.
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PW3- Finished~~~ Spoilers
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PW3-5: Finished! This case is fabulous.
The good:
1. Larry vs. Edgeworth vs. Franziska. God. Like. This is the best Day 1 ever.
2. The mystery is really great and has you trying to figure out who the killer is pretty late in the story.
3. Day 1 investigation is also awesome because of Larry.
4. GRAVY ROAST
5. The look on Dahlia's face as you speak with her and the reveal that she didn't in fact kill Maya and Mia curbstomping the bitch.
6. It ties up a lot of things nicely; Morgan Fey and Dahlia and Godot in particular.
7. The ending makes Godot slightly less unredeemable. I think that they did a good job at being convincing with his motives.
8. Fran and Edgey and Phoenix and Larry playing off eachother in non-trial settings is quite fun.
The bad:
1. Godot still blathers misogyny and makes me wonder why the hell Mia would date him. His motivation for hating Phoenix Wright is still way stupider than it should have been (Dude, I'm not Mia's bodyguard, I'm her pupil.). To me, it would have been more effective if Godot had just resented Phoenix for taking his mantle as a lawyer or for hanging out with his girlfriend while he was in a coma.
2. The post-Dahlia Day 2 trial was pretty anticlimactic. After you figure out that Dahlia played an integral role, the case lacks the ooomph needed. I find it really hard to conceive how they could have written the case to be dramatic at the end as it stands, but that's their fault. >_>
3. The Day 2 investigation is also a little droll at points. Bikini is not a compelling person to speak with although she has her moments, and Iris/Dahlia is pretty boring. Fransizka somewhat saves these though.
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So with that said, I think that overall, 2 > 3 > 1 when it comes to PW games. I spent a lot of last night comparing 1 and 3 and 3's cases are overall better (except 3-4 which is better than nothing except 1-5).
Overall, my opinion on the cases looks something like this:
2-4 > 1-3 > 3-5=~ 2-3 > 3-3 > 1-4 > 2-2 > 3-1 > 1-1 >> 3-2 > 2-1 > 1-2 >> 3-4 >>>>> 1-5.
I would put anything below 1-1 in the category of "would not do over if I were replaying some cases", possibly with the exception of 1-2 which I barely remember. All these cases except 3-4 and 2-1 made me quit playing the games for a non-insignificant time.
The middle tier is from 3-3 to 1-1. All of these cases I think are quite good, but overall lack the same oomph needed to make it a truly wonderful case. 3-3's pretty close, but I don't think it's quite funny enough.
The upper tier is from 2-4 to 2-3. These are all cases I really like and would actively argue for.
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FFXIII-Defeated the final. POIZN! and Vanille's Death (damage) saved the day >_> Also SEN was absolutely vital for things like Ultima and the other super/special attacks the final run of bosses used <_< My PCs just died otherwise!
Poison works on the final boss? Really? That's just awesome and would have been exceedingly helpful cause of how much I was on the defensive in that fight.
Poison also works on most of the superbosses so for once it isn't a sucky status. Using Poison is vital for killing that mission 64 bastard.
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The difference between running a medic and a Sentinel in trash is that you really need someone to stay being Sentinel to be worth shit. Medic you can swap between that and Ravager and lose next to nothing.
Eh, Light and Vanille are much better on offense, and in the latter's case, debuffing the hell out of things. Hope instead of Fang would be introducing a character with half the HP and considerably less damage mitigation.
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Heart Gold: Picked up the third badge and dicked around at the casino until I earned enough coins for Dratini and Abra. Party is currently Bayleef/Flaafy/Furret/Geodude/Dratini/Kadabra. Going to have to keep an eye out for replacements for Kadabra, since I can't evolve the thing. Same with Geodude, but it'd be replaced anyway.
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FF13 - Hey, played and finished this in Japanese. I'll keep it short because it's been discussed to death. Overall, I liked it. The game had a lot of polish over a solid battle system and generally avoided a lot of the things that are annoying in RPGs. It had some issues, like the Crystarium being a bit tedious to navigate, especially as the layers stacked up, but this was generally outweighed by the good, such as battles basically being unloseable. Game seemed like it was easy, but I found enough challenge in it to keep me interested. It could just be I suck at games (or that trying to read tiny Japanese text on my tiny Japanese TV made it hard to select commands), but I died often enough that I didn't feel like it was a cakewalk. Optima Change system is really cool - AI is intelligently programmed, and the enemy difficulty is simply increased to keep up with that. Changing the AI through the Optima Change system was just really intuitive and fun, so I'm definitely happy with how this part of the game was balanced.
Story was... a mixed bag. The concept of l'Cie was cool enough, and Cocoon had some decent world-building, but the execution of the ending was really fumbled. Characters were interesting to watch, though I didn't grow very attached to any of them or really empathize with their plights. Sazh and Snow ended up being the most likable in the end to me. I was pretty ambiguous to Lightning for most of the game. My feelings for Vanilla were up and down. She started off as a kind of curiosity with her perky attitude in contrast to the whole setting, then she started to really grow on me while everyone else was being emo, then she started getting really depressed too and it stopped being fun to watch her, then she got all lesbian-y with Fang and that was fun again. Fang is a lesbian, so it's in my contract to like her. Hope can die in fire over and over and over again. Fuck you Hope and fuck your development and your angst and your voice. How coincidental it is that his Mom has the same name as Snow's vigilante group. Hope made everyone else look better in comparison, at least. Villains existed even less in this game than previous games... awesome. The only thing I really understood about the far'Cie was that they're an entire race of gods with Sephiroth mommy abandonment issues. ...awesome. >.>;;
In the DL!?
Well, the game seems like it would translate into the DL well enough. Speed is kind of weird, since it depends on which ability the PC selects instead of 'how fast their turn comes up'. I'm leaning towards taking all PCs as average speed when using a full ATB meter, since a full ATB meter is the usual amount of damage one PC does in one 'turn'. Additionally, if they decide to use less a full ATB meter, then they could take their turn quicker (by a factor of X/5 of average, I suppose). This -does- present the problem of allowing PCs to use 1-ATB moves very quickly... though that's representative of how it is in-game, so I'm personally fine with it.
Lightning: Attacker, Blaster, Healer. Probably one of the better mixes for the DL, she gets solid physical and magical damage, though she'll probably lean more towards Attacker for everything by her Scene Drive Limit. Also, solid, infinite healing~. If she gets enough TP, she can play with Odin, too.
Snow: Attacker, Blaster, Defender. Not sure how to interpret Defender... but it seems like a losing role in the DL, unless you simply allow Snow to stay in Defender except when he 'gets a turn', then switches to Attacker, which would probably triple his durability? Shiva has healing, too.
Sazh: Attacker, Blaster, Enhancer. Sazh gets the offensive buffs, so his damage is probably better than Lightning's in practice, since he can use 1-ATB to quickly buff with Haste and Faith, and then switch to Blaster for Desperado.
Hope: Blaster, Enhancer, Healer, Whiner. Last Resort's usefulness doesn't translate to the DL, but gamebest magic stat is good. So is infinite healing. Don't think he gets the offense buffs, but increasing his durability with a partial ATB bar is a viable strategy.
Vanilla: Blaster, Jammer, Healer. Jammer is nuts. Damage + Debuffs is good. Infinite Healing. If you allow the FF13 cast to start with TP, Hecatoneir gets a 6-ATB bar. Only PC with ID! 2nd-best Magic stat. My kneejerk is that she's awesome in the DL, but I'd have to see some numbers (particularly durability).
Fang: Attacker, Defender, Jammer. Jammer, but with the speed manipulation stuff and gamebest attack. Highwind doesn't translate to the DL unless someone can think of a way to implement the Chain guage for opponents that don't have stats for one? I suppose if you took an average of all endgame foes, you could come up with something. Probably loses the most in translation? Bahamut isn't even all that special.
Vanilla > Sazh > Hope > Lightning > Fang > Snow for rankings? Their stats may balance them out more than I realize from just their skillsets.
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FF13 generally avoided a lot of the things that are annoying in RPGs.
This... is the most confusing thing I have ever read. FF13 is almost everything that is annoying in jRPGs encapsulated very neatly in the first thing you see: "Press any button to continue." The game barely wants you to play it.
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The battle system is entirely about timing and strategy switching, with a little bit of resource management and weapon-upgrading. The fact that it's more streamlined to hit 'Auto-Attack' when you were just going to select Attack 5 times anyway seems like complaining that Link's Boomerang comes back without you -telling- it to come back...
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Plenty of game playing lately.
Pokemon Sapphire- Been raising up the Metagross you get from Steven's house (woo Rash nature). Up to level 30 with that so far, as well as picking up the last of the wild pokemon I need to fill out the Pokedex. Met up with Latias once, but it ran immediately.
Sonic's Ultimate Collection- Picked this up in the GameDays sale, spent two hours playing Space Harrier after unlocking it. Also Streets of Rage 2. Good times. Started up a game of PSIV out of nostalgia. Man is Igglanova pathetic. Alys' portrait is wierd though, as it has two random black pixels making it look like she has a mustache.
Mega Man 10- Also picked this up, didn't get very far. Just beat Chill Man before putting it down.
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The battle system is entirely about timing and strategy switching, with a little bit of resource management and weapon-upgrading. The fact that it's more streamlined to hit 'Auto-Attack' when you were just going to select Attack 5 times anyway seems like complaining that Link's Boomerang comes back without you -telling- it to come back...
The core problem isn't just that most JRPGs boil down to mashing X. Making you only hit X once fixes that problem in the most superficial and asinine way but misses the fucking point. Gameplay should be more engaging than just hitting a button and then watching pretty things. Making you hit the button less often does NOT address that problem.
EDIT: In fact, it just highlights the problem. Once you take away mashing X, there's... nothing else. Take your example about the boomerang. Yes it would be shitty if you had to select the boomerang, tell it to come back, and then return to the battle. However, that example sucks because LoZ isn't just flingin' boomerangs--if you had to make the boomerang come back you could just as well keep playing for a while before doing so. When you take out all the repetitive attack selecting in a JRPG what you get is... playing with the AI every few seconds and then staring at the screen.
Yawn.
EDIT2: stupid fucking can't play mass effect 2 on my pc, stupid fucking conversations about the shittiness of jrpgs reminding me of that stupid fucking fact grumble grumble grumble.
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NSMBWii
Okay, I have to admit 9-3 and 9-4 are downright awesome. They're hard, but they're hard in rather creative ways that encourage me to use strategies I'm not used to using (9-3 puts me on the aggressive hunting down enemies which I could hypothetically just run past; that's very rare for me in a Mario game. 9-4 is...well 9-4 is mostly "that's a lot of Bob-Ombs"). And furthermore, they're not hard in terms of "you must be really, really precise because we're making all your ledges super narrow"--they're actually very non-rigid as far as challenging stuff goes, which is impressive from a game design standpoint. (Usually when something is tricky, there's an obvious "right" answer).
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The core problem isn't just that most JRPGs boil down to mashing X. Making you only hit X once fixes that problem in the most superficial and asinine way but misses the fucking point. Gameplay should be more engaging than just hitting a button and then watching pretty things. Making you hit the button less often does NOT address that problem.
EDIT: In fact, it just highlights the problem. Once you take away mashing X, there's... nothing else. Take your example about the boomerang. Yes it would be shitty if you had to select the boomerang, tell it to come back, and then return to the battle. However, that example sucks because LoZ isn't just flingin' boomerangs--if you had to make the boomerang come back you could just as well keep playing for a while before doing so. When you take out all the repetitive attack selecting in a JRPG what you get is... playing with the AI every few seconds and then staring at the screen.
Yawn.
EDIT2: stupid fucking can't play mass effect 2 on my pc, stupid fucking conversations about the shittiness of jrpgs reminding me of that stupid fucking fact grumble grumble grumble.
Yes, it's entirely about playing with the AI every few seconds. Very rapidly in some cases. And when you aren't playing with the AI, you're selecting either specific commands from the buffing/healing classes, or you're timing how long to wait between attacks to keep a Chain going in the attacking classes. It's a pretty well-designed cycle, and works on top of the usual things that make jRPGs fun - character/party customization and pre-battle setup planning. It has the added layer of AI combination setups to further add to customization. You could argue it's all mashing buttons, but you could argue that of a lot of genres. I can mash buttons almost entirely at random, and if I do it long enough, I can beat God of War eventually (anecdotal). But I could also learn the correct method for beating different enemy types and get through the game more quickly/efficiently.
It's a simple core design with a few complexities added on when you look at it more carefully, which is pretty much what you want out of gameplay.
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So, "jRPG combat isn't very fun by its nature, so let's not have the player interact with it very much" is a better solution than "let's make combat engaging?"
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My point was that twitchy button mashing and focusing crosshairs are not the only ways that games can be fun.
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Of course not. FFXIII is all about button mashing and it's not fun at all.
When your designers have given up on making most of the gameplay fun and simply decide to automate it so the player isn't bothered to deal with it, that's a very bad sign for the game's direction in general.
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My point was that twitchy button mashing and focusing crosshairs are not the only ways that games can be fun.
Which doesn't negate the fact that navigating menus and watching battle animations ISN'T fun. Yes, there are other ways to make games fun--EDIT: Platformers, Puzzle games, Adventure games (which are really just a sub-genre of puzzle I guess), rhythm games, and the like are all great fun and aren't GoW/DMC type action games or FPSes Nice strawman but no cigar.
Anyway, JRPG gameplay hasn't been one of those for quite some time. Now, I haven't played FF13 at all but from the sounds of it, it just takes FF12's gameplay to the next level of not doing anything during battles. Which, as I said previously--it TECHNICALLY solves the problem but only technically. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'll hedge my bets and just avoid the game completely.
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Of course not. FFXIII is all about button mashing and it's not fun at all.
When your designers have given up on making most of the gameplay fun and simply decide to automate it so the player isn't bothered to deal with it, that's a very bad sign for the game's direction in general.
I think of FFXIII as a small-unit tactics type of game, where the basic unit of control isn't really the character but the formation. I guess Ogre Battle would be another example (maybe not a great one, though I kinda liked it). The point is, yes, if it were a standard ATB RPG then inputting command after command would be tedious. Luckily, that's not how this game works. I think it flows pretty snappily, and I think there's a pleasing amount of skill and reflexes in setting tactics and shifting from formation to formation to manage damage and healing and status and so on.
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jRPGs and wRPGs are both all about hitting buttons that make strategies go.
jRPGs take less buttons and have less strategies. This makes them simpler and more accessable. I've seen so many people turned off by needing fifteen million buttons and spells and skills to do anything and failing to do so makes them often dead.
(I love WRPGs, but this is still true, and some of them have been actively hampered by options-IWD1 for example is hosed over because it has tons of worthless offense spells cluttering the game up when a few of them are ridiculously good and balance is special and etc, it's not a bad game or anything but the options didn't help it a lot.)
If you don't like having strategy make a game go, RPGs have issues, but the point is that's mostly a taste thing. Yes, it does often boil down to mashing X as you know the strategy, but FPSes often boil down to mashing left click with the right movements as a strategy and have eight options or so and are fundamentally simple beasts as well.
Fighting games often boil down to a few given strategies for a given matchup and distance and mashing a few motions.
Puzzle games often boil down to mashing a button or two and knowing basic strategies in the case of the more action-y puzzle games like Tetris Attack, or in the case of something like Myst, using writing deconstruction skills(what, it's not like they're realistic puzzles. You just think like the writer instead.), which is admittedly standout for how different it is from normal for games but fundamentally would get old fast. And by "get old fast" I mean let's face it it got old halfway through Myst for most people.
Rythym games are all about mashing a few buttons in the right order. Platformers, basic strategy and mashing a few buttons.
Let's face it, gaming by and large is strategy+few buttons. RPGs just don't have the action element(in general). I can't see that it matters too much either way, except as personal taste, anymore than using motion controls instead of button mashing.
Oh, and as to watching animations? Meh, yeah. Games need animation skip. :| Granted, there's fighting games that have needed that too, objectively. and god knows there's been some damn puzzle games. why no I don't want to sit through some long animation every time I want to go through a hallway or something without skipping it(I wish I could remember a specific example of this. Loom maybe? I've played more puzzle games than I think, but I can't remember which one annoyed me for this.). That's more of an issue with the genre in general still lacking polish-somehow-than anything.
Eyecandy is always of subjective worth, but repetitive eyecandy is something that needs a skip option universally.
Edit:
Although I will state that it's probably an element of games really *loving* that hell-spawned "HOLY HELL MILLION HOURS OF PLAY" number they can put on their boxes to justify the 60-70 dollar investment in the game as being way better than 20 dollars into two hours of movie. It doesn't actually count if you make three times the content and then make someone watch it ten times over, guys.
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Even barring the fact that the game's battle system not only prohibits you from actually doing things, but also greatly handicaps your ability to decide what to do, FFXIII is all about railroading the player down a slow-motion version of the Death Star trench from cutscene to cutscene. If Suda51 made it, it would be a deconstruction of the way these games play out, and it would also have better writing.
It doesn't WANT you to play it, it wants you to look at it and grudgingly allows you some small amount of participation, like you might to a kid.
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Which doesn't negate the fact that navigating menus and watching battle animations ISN'T fun.
Oh? Technically I think they can be on a basic level. Even something like a main menu. I remember the first time my mother touched a Wii, she spent a long time on the main menu, just experimenting with moving the cursor over the different items. For that matter, and this pertains to animation, I've definitely had moments when I just sat back and watched the Demo Loop of the main menu. And these can be creative--see SSX on tour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFF3Eq4ApnQ), Metroid Prime (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Zsw77_Nas) etc.
Think about it--why do most videogame menus make little sound effects every time you move your cursor? They don't need to (Windows doesn't bother!) but they do. It comes down to an action-reward paradigm. Why do some games do visual tricks like circular menus instead of keeping all menus in a blue rectangle? They're competing for menu mindshare.
Don't get me wrong, if you want to keep someone entertained for 40 hours, you're going to need more than clicking sounds and looping animations; most menu tricks are on a more-like 3 second gratification time scale. But RPGs do the "depth" thing pretty effectively--I'd wager it's why a lot of us like them.
Adventure games (which are really just a sub-genre of puzzle I guess)
I dunno about that--puzzle games are typically mathematical in nature. Adventure games are typically focused on the literary and the exploration. Actually, I tend to associate "Adventure" as a genere more with the exploration and backtracking half, just because the "Action-Adventure" genre tends to have exploration and absolutely no literary thinking. But then...Phoenix Wright games get classified as "Adventure" games too, despite being 100% literary thinking. Hmm..."Adventure" may actually need to split because it covers such a broad range of ideas.
Not that it'd be the first time genre's were divided up weirdly; I'm still weirded out that "First Person Shooter" and "Third Person Shooter" are considered completely different genres.
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Which doesn't negate the fact that navigating menus and watching battle animations ISN'T fun. Yes, there are other ways to make games fun--EDIT: Platformers, Puzzle games, Adventure games (which are really just a sub-genre of puzzle I guess), rhythm games, and the like are all great fun and aren't GoW/DMC type action games or FPSes Nice strawman but no cigar.
Anyway, JRPG gameplay hasn't been one of those for quite some time. Now, I haven't played FF13 at all but from the sounds of it, it just takes FF12's gameplay to the next level of not doing anything during battles. Which, as I said previously--it TECHNICALLY solves the problem but only technically. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I'll hedge my bets and just avoid the game completely.
It wasn't meant to be a strawman, just a subset of the genres that seem the most opposite in nature to what jRPGs are.
I guess the basic disagreement here is that you think 'navigating menus and watching animations' is inherently not fun, no matter what form it takes or what other pieces of the game exist. Honestly, I feel that most modern RPGs have streamlined the menu-based combat to the point that it -can- be fun, especially as a non-reaction-based expression of strategic play based on preparations. FF13 does a pretty good job of leaving the traditional RPG system in place while focusing on the tactics-changing aspect and uses automation to streamline how the time element was introduced.
And again, yeah, there's no penalty for dying against randoms, so conceivably you could just mash the attack button mindlessly and -eventually- you could win in most situations. But this applies to most reaction-based genres as well. The part that is entertaining is overcoming the game in a skilled/efficient manner, not simply making it to the ending. (Although, I suppose that is just my opinion too. Some people might very well only play FF13 to watch the pretty cutscenes. I don't really feel that's the best way to go about it, but obviously there are people who have this view.)
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I heard you found pressing buttons to cycle through lots of things in menus was boring, so here, we automated that for you and made it so you only have (Can) do it for one character, now all you have to do is pick "Now go back home, girl, and do whatever it is that you do!" over and over again, but hey we thought that might be boring so we gave you another menu to pick stuff from when you push a button. Just to keep you occupied you will have to do this every three seconds. Oh and it will stop to animate that second menu choice every single fucking time. This is the exciting interactive combat system that flows well.
So in short. FF13 is "Hey man, I heard you liked automation and menus, so I added automated menus with a side order of menus that let you select kinds of automation from".
Alternately just to be snarky. FF13 is a small unit tactics game that is all about positioning where you have no direct control over positioning and 2 characters are pretty much entirely motionless.
Have I mentioned just how amazingly horrible this game is lately? It doesn't do anything it sets out to do well at all. Sure it is different in its own way, but that doesn't mean they were good choices. Sure the game has a lot of polish, but the production value is so fucking high that if it wasn't that polished after that much money then some people would have a lot of explaining to do and a lot of dead hookers to be dumping. Different ideas don't make a game good. Polish doesn't make a game good. Polish makes a good game great, but it doesn't stop shit from being anything other than a shiny piece of shit.
Edit - Oh and for all that I have said that the game is boring I don't necessarilly mean that it is entirely ridiculously easy, it can and probably will kill you sometimes, but it the very generous retry system culls most of the threat from a loss (here comes Risk vs Reward stuff again but from the other side of the coin in that there is absolutely no risk involved here other than a few minutes, which I honestly can't come down overly hard on because it meant this shit was over and done with sooner). The game can kill you and make you change your strategy (to use defensive mechanisms that it gives you which are even MORE boring than the regular xxxxxxxxxxxxx attack gameplay). That does make the game harder, but it doesn't make it interesting either.
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Oh? Technically I think they can be on a basic level. Even something like a main menu. I remember the first time my mother touched a Wii, she spent a long time on the main menu, just experimenting with moving the cursor over the different items. For that matter, and this pertains to animation, I've definitely had moments when I just sat back and watched the Demo Loop of the main menu. And these can be creative--see SSX on tour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFF3Eq4ApnQ), Metroid Prime (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Zsw77_Nas) etc.
It's not quite the same thing, but managing information can be plenty fun too, even if all you're really doing is scrolling through menus. Those of you who know me know that I can happily spend hours tinkering in FE10 menu screens (Suikoden 3 and FF12 also spring to mind); notably, I guess, none of those games have really inspired menu trees so much as good enough to not get in the way.
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And that is exactly why FE series is good at what it does when it works best (The series fails badly when you have to do more than cursor over a unit to know what it is capable of). It is also exactly what is wrong about FF13. You don't have any information or need any information. You have a big flashing red light that tells you when to stop and heal, otherwise it is attack, buff, debuff, rinse, repeat.
Edit - I mean it keeps you active, but it is not engaging. Stopping myself from falling over all day keeps me active as well, but I don't pay attention to it and I sure as shit barely paid attention to what was happening on screen when I beat the game (Did about half the missions as well for reference).
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My point was that twitchy button mashing and focusing crosshairs are not the only ways that games can be fun.
Which doesn't negate the fact that navigating menus and watching battle animations ISN'T fun.
/me points at Pokemon
Yes it is. Like everything else, it's all in the presentation and the mind control crack waves that are beamed into your brain via radiation. I'm not going to get into the whole FF XIII debate, being that I don't own it and have never played it, but I just had to mention that some of us were dropped on our heads when we were young actually like that sort of thing, Zenny.
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Pokemon is presented as walking around and competing in blood sport and whatnot. That is the essence of the combat system. FF13 most certainly not an overarching plot of of pressing X over and over.
Also in Pokemon you are picking what to do. In this you are pressing Auto Battle. The difference is astronomical.
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Derailing the derail with no real regrets...
VVVVVV: Beaten. Awesome little indie game. FLIP FLIP. I suck at it (1000 deaths+!) but hey, that's my playstyle (reckless as fuck if the option's available). Would definitely recommend for platformer fans, pricetag's a biiiit steep but fuck, the music's awesome, gameplay's pretty sweet, game's just overall quite nice. Sooo.
DQM: Joker: Finished Madame Rummy's Island Of Stupid. Interesting game conceptually, have the feeling it's building up to a Caravan-level "well, what now?" style letdown. Current team is a Phantom Fencer, Green Dragon, Dragon Slime, and Cluboon!Incarnus. Rank Incarnus, idly. Awesome skillset options, good stats.
FFXII: Still avoiding main plot. Act shocked.
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You will learn to regret it Captain Toro.
Chrono Trigger - Dimensional Vortex is a bit snoozish, but better than the other new dungeon. The new post game loot is still silly with Magus armour and whatnot. About half way through the thing.
ToV - So done most of the sidequest stuff I could be bothered with, starting on the final dungeon. Just beat second last Secret Mission. Is kind of sad that it has taken me this long to get around to finishing this, it is really good and it is going on 12 months since I bought it...
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Oh? Technically I think they can be on a basic level. Even something like a main menu. I remember the first time my mother touched a Wii, she spent a long time on the main menu, just experimenting with moving the cursor over the different items. For that matter, and this pertains to animation, I've definitely had moments when I just sat back and watched the Demo Loop of the main menu. And these can be creative--see SSX on tour (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFF3Eq4ApnQ), Metroid Prime (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5Zsw77_Nas) etc.
It's not quite the same thing, but managing information can be plenty fun too, even if all you're really doing is scrolling through menus. Those of you who know me know that I can happily spend hours tinkering in FE10 menu screens (Suikoden 3 and FF12 also spring to mind); notably, I guess, none of those games have really inspired menu trees so much as good enough to not get in the way.
Well, right, and this is why having some depth to your game beyond making a "boop" sound when you move the menu cursor is a good idea.
And definitely there's streamlining that can be done. For instance, the human brain can only weigh about 7 options simultaneously. Pokemon is well-streamlined--when you're selecting a move you have four options; when you're changing Pokemon you have 5 options. Fire Emblem also does this in places--like if I'm not mistaken you still carry 5 items. When selecting supports, there's usually at most 7 support choices (note that using 7 itself is often slightly borderline--the brain is probably considering the back button as one of its 7 options). When making a custom weapon, you can choose to modify 4 aspects. If it's using the same weapon system, there are 8 weapon types to choose from (4 magic, 4 physical, so magic/physical split probably keeps us from going over the 7 cap), and within each of those weapon types, there's 4-5 different metals (bronze, iron, killer, steel, silver?)
So...yes: there is also informational design that goes into Fire Emblem menus to make them more fun (unlike the Start->AllPrograms menu in windows).
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Right, I occasionally play games.
Recently tried Dragon Age. Did the Human Noble beginning, or at least most of it. Ended up stopping because the company that was expected arrived, and there were better things to do at that point. I could see myself playing it, but it seems like yet another WRPG in the Bioware/Bethesda model. I know most of the battles I was in mostly consisted of smashing A a whole heck of a lot. Maybe it gets better, but I'm not inclined to think so. Especially with the ever present commentary I was getting from the fans that I was not playing a mage, and therefore was playing the game wrong. Then again, the anti-fans cancel them out, so yay neutrality?
Also got in a brief unmentioned Blue Dragon session. I like this game more than Dragon Age, but for some reason I can't make myself want to play it for anything more than brief sessions. I suppose this is technically a good thing, but it feels like a flaw. Especially since later on I know it'll turn into not wanting to play it at all. And I can't put my finger on why. Probably something to do with the battle system, which feels like a cross between FF3, 5, and 10, and poorer for it. Toriyama art also does not help, since... yeah. The guy can't draw anything different to save his life, and the guy's overdone. Then again, not being able to play more than once in a blue moon may also be part of it.
Now for things which I am actually playing as opposed to just sampling and tossing out thoughts on!
RotTK7 - For those who don't know, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a strategy game set in the same time period as Dynasty Warriors (came first, though seems to be far less popular). Bought this ages ago, but finally got on a kick to just up and beat it. So, for the first time ever, I did do just that. I think the option to skip fights that your character isn't personally involved in does a lot to speed things up when you get to the point where victory is a foregone conclusion. (China is big. And when you own 3/4 of the map, nothing is going to stop you, but there's still a lot of map left to get!) Started up a new game where I actually try out starting as a ruler, because some of the new ruler mechanics are interesting, but working your way up usually means you get to that stage way too late for them to either still be in play, or for them to be feasable in any way except as fine tuning the automation they give you.
Which does bring me to the main reason why I prefer this version to the others in the series. Seeing as it lets you play as a specific officer, they need to give officers autonomy as well as have ways to make you have to rely on your officers when you have power. What does this mean? It means that when you rule, not only can you not give every officer you rule orders, but you don't have to. They will actually do things on their own if you leave them be. While you just focus on getting the big things done. So, if you set the right orders along, then your people will do their thing and you save a lot of time in telling Blow Joe to train his troops, again.
Also helped that recent playthroughs helped me learn some of the aspects of the system I had never run into before, which gave me a bit more appreciation for the combat itself. In some ways, this makes the early bits far more enjoyable, since now if I'm having issues, it's because I'm being an idiot and I know how to fix it, or at least mitigate it. Though, it does mean that later on, combat becomes boring, since the CPU has lost its only edge.
Growlanser II - The Scent of Justice
After a short stint of barreling through this, it got derailed briefly by the dual threat of Three Kingdoms and Mega Men. Currently at this annoying battle that comprises magic spam and dissolving floors. That said, my last try almost beat it, and I suspect it'll only take one more push to get through. Only really notable character is Hans, who seems to have gotten a proper Working Designs treatment. Wait, right. Whatshername died, and there was much rejoicing. Fortunately, the potential wangst got rapidly smacked out of Wayne, and it will hopefully stay that way.
Megaman 10
Yeah, playing through this. Only beaten around half the bosses, and having issues with figuring out which weapon works on which boss. Figure this will be necessary given that I'm having issues with the patterns so far. Oh well, at least I can beat most of the levels that aren't Commando or Solar in nature now.
SRWJ
What's this about being consistant about what I play? Anyways, just beat map 47, on the Earth Route, because I always choose the Nadesco route when these things present themselves. Not really much to report, except that the Mazinger pair is stupid on damage, and the Aestis are a good secondary source now that they all have combos. Though, to be fair, those are also among the units with the most cash pumped into them. I would like to apologise to all those who said the B. Brigandi's MAP attack rocked, and I scoffed. I mean, it's no Psybuster, but it's close. And it at least comes on a unit with EN Regen. Another neat thing I've noticed is that the random attack the Aestis gained ignores barriers. I'll need to see anyone else comes with stuff like that, but it's a nice quiet upgrade. That said, so looking forward to actually just beating this thing so I can shelve it until the translation patch comes out.
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Hatbot Heart Gold: Because I hadn't been screwed over enough!
So, it seems my luck decided I was getting too used to not having Fly and it needed to screw me over in more creative ways! The best way to do this? Coming back from fighting Blaine, I head north from Pallet and this is nothing to worry about since I already have Rattata and Pidgey, right?
Lv 2 Poochyena.
Oh.
Lv 71 Nidoqueen is replaced.
OH SHI---
Sigh. I have a Snorlax. This'll be fine. So, I get slaughtered a few times by Mt. Moon rival, train more, train against him, go east to Cerulean to train more and find Zapdos. Zappy's not there yet, so back to Diglett's Cave and--
Wait, what do you mean Nidoqueen had Cut? More importantly, what do you mean my current team CAN'T FREAKING LEARN IT?!
asdaryf47itruielsf483cfebgks./
Current Team:
- Lv 17 Mankey
- Lv 30 Swinub
- Lv 53 Snorlax
- Lv 21 Pikachu
- Lv 24 Psykappa~
- Lv 14 Poochyena
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HGSS- So I nabbed the Yellow Road Saturday, and spent most of the weekend a) learning how the system for items/pokemon off the walker really worked and b) employing this to get a Surfing Pikachu. The after a few days on part a, half an hour of dedicated spending Watts gets me a Surfer off a !! encounter! Naturally, it's Jolly. I'm levelling it up anyway, to see just whether the SAtk's really unsalvagable or not. No Light Ball yet, despite putting several hours into that, but given the cost gap involved and seeing as I have to level up the pikachu anyway, no big there.
For those trying to figure out the wacky randomness of Pokewalker, take a look at this instead: http://www.serebii.net/heartgoldsoulsilver/pokewalker-area.shtml
HG: Forgot to mention that my Togetic got Pokerus, which is the first time I've gotten it in any game. Yay obscure game feature.
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Oh, missed CK's post about that. I think I got hold of about 3 Light Balls, so I can send you one over at some point if you want/are able to. Just poke me in chat about it.
I, on the other hand, use up over 550 Watts trying to get a Flying/Surfing Pikachu and got neither. If I didn't have the Battle Revolution Surfing/Volt Tackling Pika, I'd probably be a little annoyed.
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I was lucky enough to get a Surfing Pika on the first !! patch that I caught successfully on day one of Yellow Forest release. Timid too, albeit with lowish IVs. I stopped at that point since that was lucky enough and I don't care about Flying Pika.
I also got a Light Ball, which is frankly useless since I'm not using Pikachu on HG and I have infinite cloned Light Balls in Emerald that I could import whenever I want.
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Heart Gold: Crossing the sea, and fighting Chuck. He got a few Focus Punches out that managed to kill, but I was never in any real danger as Ampharos basically outpowered him. Gave Fly to my HootHoot, went around to catch up on some upkeep (Apricorn balls, picking up eggs from Pimpy and Bill's Eevee, Apricorn getting), and I'm about to get some hardcore training done at the Lake of Rage.
Party:
L26 Pidgeotto (Falcon)
L26 Sudowoodo (DramaMajor)
L27 Butterfree (Margarine)
L28 Croconaw (TikTok)
L30 Ampharos (Android)
L8 Hoothoot (Tootsie)
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Recently tried Dragon Age. Did the Human Noble beginning, or at least most of it. Ended up stopping because the company that was expected arrived, and there were better things to do at that point. I could see myself playing it, but it seems like yet another WRPG in the Bioware/Bethesda model. I know most of the battles I was in mostly consisted of smashing A a whole heck of a lot. Maybe it gets better, but I'm not inclined to think so. Especially with the ever present commentary I was getting from the fans that I was not playing a mage, and therefore was playing the game wrong. Then again, the anti-fans cancel them out, so yay neutrality?
If you're not playing a Mage, you're not going to end up as the game-breaking Arcane Warrior, but I'm personally okay with that. I wouldn't say it's the wrong way. I found the Rogue (Duelist/Assassin) to be more fun to play as anyway, since it's the only class that gets to throw salt in people's eyes and then kick them in the dick/vagoo.
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The people saying "JRPG gameplay sucks" crack me up because by putting the J in front of it you are implying that WRPG gameplay is somehow less repetitive, when in my time watching Dragon Age I have just watched the player repeat the same combat action over and over. And in general the WRPGs I have played feature fewer strategic choices, often due to controlling fewer (one) PCs, or just being a highly simplistic D&D knockoff, or both.
The better JRPGs for gameplay (FFT, FFX, G3, etc., other people can sub in the ones they like) are far above this and reward intelligent use of different party members and their skills at appropriate times. Some of us find this very fun. If you don't like the genre as a whole, that's pretty reasonable as all of us have genres we dislike gameplaywise (RTS for me) but belabouring the point at every opportunity on a site (and particular a forum thread) that basically revolves around JRPG gameplay is rather tactless. I mean, I think Starcraft is a pile of crap, but you don't see me going to Battle.net and voicing that on a once-per-week basis.
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And the better WRPGs for gameplay tower over BioWare's garbage anyway.
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Honestly, Elf, I'd peg wRPG as a genre for which you'd not have much love period. Even the ones I like, and enjoy the gameplay for, I doubt you'd like since they're essentially single person affairs where you still need to roleplay or otherwise pick dialogue. Oh, and yes, they involve the NPCs having voice acting, but never the PC.
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The people saying "JRPG gameplay sucks" crack me up because by putting the J in front of it you are implying that WRPG gameplay is somehow less repetitive, when in my time watching Dragon Age I have just watched the player repeat the same combat action over and over. And in general the WRPGs I have played feature fewer strategic choices, often due to controlling fewer (one) PCs, or just being a highly simplistic D&D knockoff, or both.
Gameplay is more than just "how combat works." If FFXIII had the best combat system ever, it's gameplay would still be subpar because of the parts of gameplay that aren't fighting. You know, like exploration, NPC interaction, alternate methods of accomplishing goals (stealth/diplomacy/sabotage/outright bribery/whatever), sidequesting, and so on. It is, after all, a "role-playing game" and not a "power-levelling game."
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Even D&D gameplay (ie combat mechanics) is pretty shitty too. 4th edition managed to streamline everything, but also make it incredibly boring. 3rd was disorganized but slightly more dynamic. The gameplay plusses from D&D all come from the freeform RP aspect.
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And there's some people where that kind of stuff isn't interesting. If that doesn't appeal to you, then jRPGs don't carry the significant flaws you're assigning to them. I mean, wRPGs typically have weaker combat, but make up for it by having everything outside of combat be a lot more flexible. jRPGs have what's outside combat be a lot less flexible in order to have a story that happens in a certain way, and compensate for this with combat systems that are somewhat divorced from the rest of the game, but which also tend to be a lot more innovative and interesting.
So, yeah. It's understood that jRPG mechanics do not appeal to some of the people here. Please accept that the rest of us are not blind to the fact that the genre has deficiencies, but simply that they are not things that bother us. More to the point, we don't need you guys hanging out on the forum that is mostly devoted to fans of the genre and constantly bitching at us that we should not like the things that we like.
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EDIT: Honestly, Excal said this better than I was going to. Posting anyway~
Exploration and sidequesting I just don't give a fuck about in general. I guess they're gameplay but whatever to them, RPGs have gotten better since toning down on it. Alternate methods of victory are cool enough, yes, though too often are probably going to be arbitrary. Taking bribing, for instance... either the game designers have decided "Bribe" works, or it doesn't. Or it's based on a random d20 roll. Neither option is especially appealing. An interesting dialog tree to avoid combat could be good, but again, just feels like too often it will boil down to "FAQ the correct choices". Basically these are things that I find intriguing but I have yet to see done in a way that impresses me. If you're impressed by it, cool, more power to you. I just don't consider it a major weakness to force things into combat (WHY CAN'T MARIO TALK TO THE GOOMBAS?!?). Forcing things into combat isn't exactly a good message to send to children, but within combat there's a huge amount of stylistic decisions the player can make for how to put together a party and achieve victory.
NPC interaction overall files clearly under plot to me, and there's no reason a game that features WRPG style NPC interaction couldn't have fun combat. They just tend not to. Combat is pretty much the focus of most RPG -gameplay-, even most WRPGs. So it should damn well be done well and be interesting, whatever other design decisions the game makes. To simply dismiss it as "it sucks, let's focus on other things" is ensuring you are going to design a bad game from a pure gameplay perspective, and while such games can be worth playing (Torment, Xenogears, whatever) they should not be a design goal.
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If I want alternative dialogue options and flexibility, I will play D&D, personally~~ It's kind of the same thing except you can interact with human beings instead of a computer. My problem with the alternate options in the WRPGs I've played is it seems like a lot of them are the hur hur I can be EVIL!!! and do BAD THINGS!! If you do this in D&D you will get a swift boot in the ass from the person who is your DM.
I mostly came in here to say that I really disagree with Sopko in that I think 4th Edition is super-fun gameplaywise~ So many positioning tricks and strategy and all that and you can make the field in so many different ways, and most of the characters are balanced and actually fun to play as. As an SRPG fan, I really think it adds a lot to the system.
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Oh no! Different people have different opinions on things! The world, it is ending~
But seriously. Different people will not only like certain things in games, but also look for different things. 's how it goes. If you don't like something, avoid it. If you do, look for it. I dunno. Seems kinda simple to me, really.
As for games I'm playing: Just started Edgeworth Investigations, and I know why people say they hold your hand. Also not liking the new characters at all. They're all just massive douches, who need a boot to the ass and out the door. They're not even funny in how they do it, either, which is a shame. Hopefully it improves, as I'm only just past the first investigation of 5-2. Do like the new mechanics, though I'll admit that I'm not able to make some of the jumps Edgeworth is, but hey: Phoenix Wright universe. Nothing makes sense there.
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If I want alternative dialogue options and flexibility, I will play D&D, personally~~ It's kind of the same thing except you can interact with human beings instead of a computer. My problem with the alternate options in the WRPGs I've played is it seems like a lot of them are the hur hur I can be EVIL!!! and do BAD THINGS!! If you do this in D&D you will get a swift boot in the ass from the person who is your DM.
BioWare's dumb like that a lot of the time, yeah. Play you some Deus Ex. It's... basically the greatest game ever.
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I'd argue the good/evil thing is pretty pervasive in wRPGs in general, and that the ones that avoid that trap are the notable exceptions. But, eh. At this point you're getting into the flaws that might not be inherent in the genre but might as well be because so few people avoid them (kinda like little/no NPC interaction in jRPGs) .
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I don't know, people ragged on BioWare so hard for it that they replaced it with a "good cop/bad cop" meter for Mass Effect and removed it all together for Dragon Age. It's a fairly widespread criticism among the base.
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If I want alternative dialogue options and flexibility, I will play D&D, personally~~ It's kind of the same thing except you can interact with human beings instead of a computer. My problem with the alternate options in the WRPGs I've played is it seems like a lot of them are the hur hur I can be EVIL!!! and do BAD THINGS!! If you do this in D&D you will get a swift boot in the ass from the person who is your DM.
BioWare's dumb like that a lot of the time, yeah. Play you some Deus Ex. It's... basically the greatest game ever.
Deus Ex has a different issue altogether, if you can call it an "issue" (this is more lack of a better word; I do not mean to put down Deus Ex in any way, shape or form, please do not take this the wrong way.) That being that its a Cross Genre game; its an FPS combined with an RPG. This very obviously will NOT appeal to people, me being one of those.
I can acknowledge Deus Ex for what it is and what not, but I look at the game and I say to myself "can I ever see myself playing this game?" and the answer is no. Reason? I'm not a fan of FPSes. It may do the RPG thing really well, but its still got FPS gameplay, which makes it really hard for someone whose not into the genre at all (like myself) to enjoy.
So yeah, Deus Ex maybe good for what it is, but its also gonna be well received by totally different people too.
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Thinking about this stuff leads me to a realization about Valkyria Chronicles that's kinda been bugging me; its menus are terrible. They're slow to navigate, buttons map differently depending on where you are (looking through troop profiles in headquarters, pressing circle gets you more information; in the field, pressing circle activates the unit), and worst of all you don't get all the information you should everywhere (most egregiously, in the command room where you select your units you don't see class potentials, which are arguably a character's single most important feature).
Still enjoying the game a lot (Chapter 11), but the menus are definitely weak.
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I never really noticed the menu problem myself, but I'd believe it on reflection. There are a lot of small problems with VC in that regard (I think it was you who mentioned that one of the best things to do is blitz a map, see where enemies attack, and rest). Sega did so much right with the game in terms of gameplay that I'm willing to ignore those. If only the scoring system wasn't so bad. And Maximillian wasn't a wanker.
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Well, right, and this is why having some depth to your game beyond making a "boop" sound when you move the menu cursor is a good idea.
And definitely there's streamlining that can be done. For instance, the human brain can only weigh about 7 options simultaneously. Pokemon is well-streamlined--when you're selecting a move you have four options; when you're changing Pokemon you have 5 options. Fire Emblem also does this in places--like if I'm not mistaken you still carry 5 items. When selecting supports, there's usually at most 7 support choices (note that using 7 itself is often slightly borderline--the brain is probably considering the back button as one of its 7 options). When making a custom weapon, you can choose to modify 4 aspects. If it's using the same weapon system, there are 8 weapon types to choose from (4 magic, 4 physical, so magic/physical split probably keeps us from going over the 7 cap), and within each of those weapon types, there's 4-5 different metals (bronze, iron, killer, steel, silver?)
So...yes: there is also informational design that goes into Fire Emblem menus to make them more fun (unlike the Start->AllPrograms menu in windows).
You are sort of brushing past grouping. You can have an amazingly complex whole so long as each individual part of it sums up to something simple on the layer above. Working with say 7 choices at a macro level, drop down to each of those 7 things having 5 things you can do with it and then 3 on the third level down, you still have a fairly complex system with a lot of permutations of choice there, but you can manage it fairly easilly with by grouping results. Of course natural in game balance issues (or design) will cut down the number of good choices you can make even smaller than that which helps hugely to making large systems easy for people to use.
To keep hating on FF13 as example, the problem there is you have for the most part 6 variables (Of which you pick 3) with a set of 3 options beneath them which you mix and match then underneath that a pile of say 10 (this is being nice) options underneath it that the game just decides is far to cumbersome for you and it will look after that shit for you. Then it stops you having to worry about any of that shit at all for 2 of your three original picks. So your majour choices are all decided at a macro level before you have any data then when you get to the meat and potatoes of the combat system you deal with a minor part of the most cumbersome part of the combat while shuffling between a set of options you picked earlier.
And out of all the parts the game you have the most choice over (which characters you will use and their party make up), the game is so inflexible that the basic choices are all predefined for you. You want to always have quick access to someone in Commando. You want as many people available as Ravager as possible at any given time. You want to heal sometimes, you want to debuff and you will probably want to buff. Rarely you will want a defender. So you jam that into your six slots you can build your party into and almost all of your decision making is done for you. You either won the fight half an hour ago because your default setup will beat it or the game cock blocks you by going LOL YOU HAD NO IDEA THAT WAS COMING and makes you play defensively once every hour and a half, but you will need to run into it and die to get any data. By the time you are dead you know what to do (but you can't do much about it until you have). Your choices for the next fight are finished about 30 seconds into the last one.
This fails to be compelling.
This is what I mean by FF13 tries to streamline things and goes about it the wrong way. They streamlined out the actual interesting choice. Mass Effect 2 on the other hand took out he choices between 80 different kinds of gun that do the exact same thing and replaces it with a cast of about 8 characters spread out over about 5 different basic jobs which each does one or 2 well to varying degrees, the game controls these for you but you can issue direct and targetted commands at any time (including positioning) and then gives you the main character who you have full control of the system over, you have at most 5 skills, one of which is passive. At the end of each skill tree you get to make a choice between 2 slight variatons on the skills.
You see the difference? FF13 is a starts about the right width, cuts in sharply and then spews out to nearly twice the size of the original choice and knows you don't want to deal with its shit so tells you not to bother.
ME 2 starts fairly broad, but groups it into a smaller subset that is easy to juggle then tapers down reducing complexity as you go. Far more streamlined and leaving the player in control the whole time.
Edit - No I am not sure why I keep talking about this when no one else is talking to me. I guess I feel the need to lecture people or something.
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Yay Pokewalker! Uploaded Pokes from yesterday earlier - got both Surfing and Volt Tackling Pikas. On my actual file, I'm repeatedly losing to a random trainer near Vermillion. Yay lack of decent levels. -.-
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Heart Gold: ARGHLE GHOST GYM. I made the mistake of sending in Furrett, which has only Normal moves, against the leader's Gengar so I could heal up the rest of the party while immuning his super-annoying Shadow Ball. So naturally he stopped spamming Shadow Ball and Mean Looked at the Furrett. So Furrett can't hurt Gengar at all, but is also immune to its only good damage, and using all its shots of Sucker Punch still wasn't enough to kill. So I got to just sit there spamming Defense Curl in between Hypnosis shots until it used up all its PP and killed itself with Struggle. Whee.
In case you're wondering why I didn't mention the rest of the gym it's because every other fight got murdered to death by Kadabra.
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The people saying "JRPG gameplay sucks" crack me up because by putting the J in front of it you are implying that WRPG gameplay is somehow less repetitive, when in my time watching Dragon Age I have just watched the player repeat the same combat action over and over. And in general the WRPGs I have played feature fewer strategic choices, often due to controlling fewer (one) PCs, or just being a highly simplistic D&D knockoff, or both.
The better JRPGs for gameplay (FFT, FFX, G3, etc., other people can sub in the ones they like) are far above this and reward intelligent use of different party members and their skills at appropriate times. Some of us find this very fun. If you don't like the genre as a whole, that's pretty reasonable as all of us have genres we dislike gameplaywise (RTS for me) but belabouring the point at every opportunity on a site (and particular a forum thread) that basically revolves around JRPG gameplay is rather tactless. I mean, I think Starcraft is a pile of crap, but you don't see me going to Battle.net and voicing that on a once-per-week basis.
Well, I'm putting J in front of RPG because while I garner no joy whatsoever from playing JRPGs anymore, I still find WRPGs to hold some novelty and fun value.
You're right, though. Games like KotOR and presumably Dragon Age have shitty combat. It's easily the least fun part of those games. The options for character building and making dialogue sequences less of a passive experience, however, still amuse me. Although that probably won't last long, in fairness.
EDIT: Meeple is right. NEB doesn't deserve that kind of name calling, and I apologize to him for it. I'll save it for less respectable characters.
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You are sort of brushing past grouping. You can have an amazingly complex whole so long as each individual part of it sums up to something simple on the layer above. Working with say 7 choices at a macro level, drop down to each of those 7 things having 5 things you can do with it and then 3 on the third level down, you still have a fairly complex system with a lot of permutations of choice there, but you can manage it fairly easilly with by grouping results. Of course natural in game balance issues (or design) will cut down the number of good choices you can make even smaller than that which helps hugely to making large systems easy for people to use.
I think she brushes past grouping because after a certain point, you're using too many levels of complexity and you have to navigate through 5 layers of menus to use a Potion.
So your majour choices are all decided at a macro level before you have any data then when you get to the meat and potatoes of the combat system you deal with a minor part of the most cumbersome part of the combat while shuffling between a set of options you picked earlier.
This is not a flaw. In games where characters all have unique skillsets, the 'majour choices' are selecting a party, which is usually done 'at a macro level' before combat. Preparation has always been one of the main parts of JRPG gameplay, FF13 just uses 'sets of strategies' instead of 'unique character skillsets' as its focus.
How Grefter plays the game.
This fails to be compelling.
Well, my reaction to this passage was 'Congrats, you found a strategy that works for beating the game... but if you're not having fun with it, play around with different strategies.' This is generally my reaction to most of the games you complain about. If you complain that a game's options are pointless because you found a viable, but boring, strategy, it doesn't mean that there is no way to have fun with the game. In fact, I would bet that in most cases, there are a number of viable -and- interesting strategies to tackle the game with.
As for you ME2 example, sounds cool. I want to play ME2 when I get a chance.
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I know I shouldn't say this, but it seriously needs to be said, cause that last thing just pissed me off:
Zenny, your antics and bullshit are not always appreciated. Trolling people and calling them "Condescending cocksuckers" is basically just being one yourself, and shows that you really can't handle arguments above a 5th grade level of "Name Calling", except you can use swears so you can be far more inflamatory. Seriously, you can either type what you say in a civilized manner (the rest of your statement could have been said WITHOUT the insult, and you'd have gotten the same point across), which not only gets people to listen to you more, but also makes you look like a more respected individual (and you have the gall to start mouthing people off in chat too), *OR* you can just shut up and end the argument if you can't keep things civilized. I don't care if I'm adding fuel to fire; that statement had no place here. You can slam someone's tastes if you want, but just calling someone a 'condescending cocksucker' is not appropriate, and you know it. No, going "oh, it was a joke!" won't work here; you can't just brush off calling someone a statement like that as a joke, and use that as a shield, and just saying "You should expect this of me!" won't work either; that statement was completely uncalled for in any sense of the word, and you know it. Maybe Elfboy's line did cross a line, but he at least didn't degrade to the level of a 5th grader who just learned how to swear.
Also, if you guys wanna give me a "chill Meeple" warning or whatever, and cover this text up, whatever, I don't care; I just felt this really needed to be said, cause its starting to reach a point of "I CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING!" which no, that kind of shit isn't appropriate here and you all know it; my statements might not be handling things properly, but I still feel it needs to be said.
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Starcraft 2: Been playing against comps lately just for fun, but it looks like I will have access to the Beta soon. I'm be running either Terran or Protoss. My brother is rank 1 in Platinum using Zerg, so I definitely don't want to try and copy that.
Not sure if anyone pays attention to SC2 yet, but right now Terran seem to love their MMM (Marine/Marauder/Medivac) attacks and Protoss are sticking to Sentry/Zealot/Stalker with some colossi thrown in at times. Since that sounds boring, I'll probably be trying out mech for Terran and fun stuff for Protoss like Sentry/Psi Storm. We'll see if I can even crack the Platinum division rolling around with silly strategies.
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Hearts of Iron 2- Still fiddling with this. Picked up a Japan '36 setting and utterly crushed the Chinese. I knew China had issues (Both from playing as them and watching the AI steamroll the country) but man. They somehow made Chiang Kai-shek more incompetent in the game than he was in real life, and that is impressive.
FFTA2- Started this up today. The polish in some areas (LET ME TURN OFF THE STUPID DIRECTIONAL ARROW CONFIRMATION DAMN IT) is a bit lacking, but the gameplay is fun enough. No real complaints.
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Starcraft 2: Been playing against comps lately just for fun, but it looks like I will have access to the Beta soon. I'm be running either Terran or Protoss. My brother is rank 1 in Platinum using Zerg, so I definitely don't want to try and copy that.
Not sure if anyone pays attention to SC2 yet, but right now Terran seem to love their MMM (Marine/Marauder/Medivac) attacks and Protoss are sticking to Sentry/Zealot/Stalker with some colossi thrown in at times. Since that sounds boring, I'll probably be trying out mech for Terran and fun stuff for Protoss like Sentry/Psi Storm. We'll see if I can even crack the Platinum division rolling around with silly strategies.
Ugh, there's already acronyms for cookie-cutter unit compositions? Even WoW didn't have words like "spriest" and "retardin" until AFTER it hit retail.
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Starcraft 2: Been playing against comps lately just for fun, but it looks like I will have access to the Beta soon. I'm be running either Terran or Protoss. My brother is rank 1 in Platinum using Zerg, so I definitely don't want to try and copy that.
Not sure if anyone pays attention to SC2 yet, but right now Terran seem to love their MMM (Marine/Marauder/Medivac) attacks and Protoss are sticking to Sentry/Zealot/Stalker with some colossi thrown in at times. Since that sounds boring, I'll probably be trying out mech for Terran and fun stuff for Protoss like Sentry/Psi Storm. We'll see if I can even crack the Platinum division rolling around with silly strategies.
Ugh, there's already acronyms for cookie-cutter unit compositions? Even WoW didn't have words like "spriest" and "retardin" until AFTER it hit retail.
Well, it's a pretty obvious ripoff of MM in SC1. Only now instead of Marine/Medic you also have Marauders. Most of the lingo from SC2 Beta is just taken from SC1, with slight changes for the new units.
I must say, I'm liking a lot of the new spells and units. Different types of AOE, ground units that can he bit by A2A, new types of macroing for ever race, better maps layouts, and so on.
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Sapphire: Caught the three Regis. Regirock pulled that whole Kyogre luck and I caught it with one Ultra Ball. Woohoo. Registeel was the most annoying, with 25 Ultras to catch. Regice I kept accidentally knocking out, but once I finally got him within the area it took 11 Ultras to catch.
Started up hunting for Feebas. Made a map of all the fishable areas on 119 in Excel in preparation. 15/452 panels down!
MM10- Commando Man, Sheep Man and Strike Man fell today.
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I know I shouldn't say this, but it seriously needs to be said, cause that last thing just pissed me off:
Zenny, your antics and bullshit are not always appreciated. Trolling people and calling them "Condescending cocksuckers" is basically just being one yourself, and shows that you really can't handle arguments above a 5th grade level of "Name Calling", except you can use swears so you can be far more inflamatory. Seriously, you can either type what you say in a civilized manner (the rest of your statement could have been said WITHOUT the insult, and you'd have gotten the same point across), which not only gets people to listen to you more, but also makes you look like a more respected individual (and you have the gall to start mouthing people off in chat too), *OR* you can just shut up and end the argument if you can't keep things civilized. I don't care if I'm adding fuel to fire; that statement had no place here. You can slam someone's tastes if you want, but just calling someone a 'condescending cocksucker' is not appropriate, and you know it. No, going "oh, it was a joke!" won't work here; you can't just brush off calling someone a statement like that as a joke, and use that as a shield, and just saying "You should expect this of me!" won't work either; that statement was completely uncalled for in any sense of the word, and you know it. Maybe Elfboy's line did cross a line, but he at least didn't degrade to the level of a 5th grader who just learned how to swear.
Also, if you guys wanna give me a "chill Meeple" warning or whatever, and cover this text up, whatever, I don't care; I just felt this really needed to be said, cause its starting to reach a point of "I CAN GET AWAY WITH ANYTHING!" which no, that kind of shit isn't appropriate here and you all know it; my statements might not be handling things properly, but I still feel it needs to be said.
8=======D
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How Grefter plays the game.
This fails to be compelling.
Well, my reaction to this passage was 'Congrats, you found a strategy that works for beating the game... but if you're not having fun with it, play around with different strategies.' This is generally my reaction to most of the games you complain about. If you complain that a game's options are pointless because you found a viable, but boring, strategy, it doesn't mean that there is no way to have fun with the game. In fact, I would bet that in most cases, there are a number of viable -and- interesting strategies to tackle the game with.
As for you ME2 example, sounds cool. I want to play ME2 when I get a chance.
I don't know what else was I supposed to do? Play the game without debuffing the enemy? Without buffing? Using Commandos only for my offense? Using only Ravagers? The only changes you can really make to the way you play FF13 is to hamstring yourself. Neutering myself in a game I am hating is a horrible way to get enjoyment out of it. Setting yourself challenges in games you like is fine and all well and good (to an extent), but in games you are just trying to beat? Well yeah I am going to use the basic systems the game gives me since it you know, kills things and gets me the 5 stars that the game setup as my challenge in the vast majority of fights. It is also no secret that the things I enjoy the most in games is dismantling their systems piece by piece and to find the most effective way to go about victory. The fact that this is Commando + Ravager and whatever support role you need mixed with level up weapons by throwing shit a them until they cap out (there is a better way to do it of course) kind of leaves me drawing a blank as to what exactly I should have changed to try and make this fun. Should I have played without using emergency defensive paradigms? Should I have fought with the menu to try and use items for healing when it is faster and far less lethal to just shift to something with a Medic? Manually navigating through the menus that I hate to hand pick the skills I don't care about? Hitting Repeat instead of Auto Battle over and over?
For the record I did change party members after everyone is rejoined. I actually did use everyone at some point other than Snow (who just didn't slot into group make ups as well as others), there was certainly some cornerstones like Lightning and Fang who were in most of the parties, but I did get good use out of Vanille, Sazh and Hope (for the record I used Hope at the end of the game, not even really the most optimal choice, I favoured the more defensive focussed buffs he brought). I fiddled with the system, it just was boring.
I did specifically go out of my way to find things that I enjoyed while playing the game, but they were things like listening to Comics podcasts or Wil Wheaton podcasts. I found things to have fun with the game. Critical analysis of the plot and the game design. I certainly have got my $100 worth from being able to engage in debate and discourse about the game (and just being a snarky arsehole) for like a month now. Bad games just keep on giving in ways that good ones cannot.
And yes preperation is a huge part of console RPG type games. The timing and scope of the decisions is different though, be it you are stuck with that party for longer (FF13 is fight by fight you can change it pretty much barring end of chapter/start of chapter stuff) this... is probably one of the highest frequency party member choices I have seen short of an SRPG. What you have each character do is restricted by basic requirements of the combat system, it just straight up doesn't work properly without Com/Rav being applied at some point at least. Character development, FF13 you will pretty much cap out all the characters primary job paths by the end of a chapter whether you use them or not, the Crystarium is so streamlined that it is a pretty transparent illusion of character development choices, you have short term ones of "Which one will I build up right now" that last all of 30 minutes at a time really. In combat you are pretty much faced with the choice of "Do I attack it with this element it is weak to or this OTHER element it is weak to?" or "Do I buff offensively or defensivey", each other role has even more paper thin choices than that (Saboteurs debuff and then use the next one down with basic priority which the AI honestly handles just fine. Commando has Attack or Ruin, which the AI usually handles just fine for which is appropriate (Stupid Sazh stupid fighting stupid melee resistant enemies not using Ruin) sometimes you might AoE I guess. Sentinel uh defends? Medic is which one of these ways do I want to heal and who should I heal). This is all high frequency highly limited choices that are generally prety meaningless or paper thin by the games design. The closest game I can think to it is really FF7. It doesn't matter who you pick in your party really, it matters which materia you apply, which you can chop and change each fight if you want, but you probably won't because pressing X will kill the things pretty much anyway. Yet even still, FF7 manages to be more compelling. How so? Well partly because which materia you picks matters, building them each are mutually exclusive and has a long term effect on what you can and cannot do. It is a choice with a long lasting effect. It is a compelling choice. In a game like FFT you have high frequency short term effect choices (just getting through the fight being your main goal at a given time) and yet each choice is far more compelling, how? Because in most cases what you do will have far greater effect than FF13, what your moves can do is more diverse, what it will cause the enemy to do is more diverse and some of the short term decisions you made to get you through a fight stack up to be your long term character development, each action is a small choice that rolls into a small part of a larger thing which again, makes for a far more compelling game.
So rolling back to the old argument. FF13 is low risk with constantly low reward in most points of its design. This is rare that you will hear me complain about that (normally my issues with risk vs Reward are the stakes being way to high for the reward), but that is mostly because I have been actively avoiding games that promote that kind of choice (Don't worry, you will get more soon, I have a copy of Fable 2 lying around waiting for me to play, then you will get to see me bitching about low risk high reward scenarios). You know what else is low risk:Low reward? Going to work. Well for most of us. Some of us fly to other countries and work high stress jobs for little pay, but then some of us play Demon's Soul for fun as well. So okay. Djinn you get a free pass for liking FF13 because you must just enjoy the chance for something so mundane. That doesn't excuse the rest of the people in Japan though.
Edit - Rant rant rant. I am glad I decided to end that on a joke, that went way longer than I intended it to.
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FFXIII- Missions. Done three or so on the Central Expanse so far but haven't received any particularly interesting shinies yet. Also while exploring Gran Pulse I came across a Vanille/Hope scene that I didn't catch while playing through the main story but apparently there are also two other optional scenes on Gran Pulse that I missed. Probably about Fang/Vanille I believe >.>
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I think the only risk I really remember in Fable is when my guy drank like eight beers (I was playing online, and me and a friend wanted to do some medieval wife swapping, where we'd get drunk and beat each other's wives instead of our own) and instantly turned fat. COME ON.
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So okay. Djinn you get a free pass for liking FF13 because you must just enjoy the chance for something so mundane. That doesn't excuse the rest of the people in Japan though.
Dragon Quest is like their most beloved series. They've been in unexplainable love with mundanity for at least 2 decades now!
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Pokemon Soul Silver: Caught Suicune twice, first Rash than Hasty Nature.
...yeah, I'm gonna keep trying til I get a Suicune with a nature that doesn't suck. He's one of my favorites, I WANT A HALF DECENT ONE DAMN IT! (Ok, Hasty isn't TOO bad on him, but would rather have a Suicune that lose a defensive stat.)
Oh yeah, I have 5 Kanto Badges; fought Janine earlier than I wanted thus missed two trainers in her gym, but whatever, not important.
Bayonetta: Working on getting the Alfheims done as well as finding the missing pieces of records and such so I get MOAR WEAPONS! Alfheims make DMC Secret Missions look like cake, though thankfully there's 0 penalty to failing them and they have health independent health gauges, etc.
Man, forgot how much smoother and faster paste the DMC/Bayonetta style action games are compared to God of Wars. Forgot what its like to be able to attack immediately after a dodge and actually chain shit together...and have guns; guns are good for action games like this!
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So okay. Djinn you get a free pass for liking FF13 because you must just enjoy the chance for something so mundane. That doesn't excuse the rest of the people in Japan though.
Dragon Quest is like their most beloved series. They've been in unexplainable love with mundanity for at least 2 decades now!
Someone tried to explain to me that it was only a matter of time before gamers in the rest of the world caught on and realized why the Japanese loved Dragon Quest so much. I figured he meant the Japanese had perfected time travel and were retroactively going to introduce the series to people so they would like it strictly out of nostalgia just like everyone who currently likes DQ.
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Sapphire: Caught Rayquaza. Hucked the Master Ball at it. Fuck the Sky Tower though and it's stupid Shitty Control Bike course. At least the Banette I caught there had a Spirit Tag attached! At 174 seen/132 caught at the moment. Feebas hunting took a backseat today, only did 5 more tiles.
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So okay. Djinn you get a free pass for liking FF13 because you must just enjoy the chance for something so mundane. That doesn't excuse the rest of the people in Japan though.
Dragon Quest is like their most beloved series. They've been in unexplainable love with mundanity for at least 2 decades now!
Someone tried to explain to me that it was only a matter of time before gamers in the rest of the world caught on and realized why the Japanese loved Dragon Quest so much. I figured he meant the Japanese had perfected time travel and were retroactively going to introduce the series to people so they would like it strictly out of nostalgia just like everyone who currently likes DQ.
In 20 years time we too will buy games out of nostalgia for how good DQ8 was and recall how weird Rocket Slime was and that it was kind of cool in its own way and we will curse those damned American localisation teams for taking out the Door command in the English releases.
Edit - Embarassing Pokemon question. Did they do something to make catching Raikou and Enteii or whatever they are called less colosally retarded in this new G/S remake or did they actually think it was a cool idea to make people chase after running away pokemon only to have them reset just because they have a bad nature?
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Well I dunno if anyone would have the patience to actively sit there hunt Raikou and Entie and catch them repeatedly until they have a decent nature for the two, but I do know that Suicune isn't like the other two and he isn' hunted down like he was in Gold/Silver. Crystal made it that he was just fought in a certain place after finding him a bunch of times. No roar cheese!
I'm not going to bother with trying to get a good nature for those damned running pokemon. Then again I don't try for good natures with any of my legendaries.
*shrug*
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Heart Gold: LOL fighting gym. That was a joke. Next up is....the steel gym, which might be less of one, since I've only got Rock Smash and Magnitude for moves that hit weakness on steel, and they're both attached to a steel-weak Graveler.
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Suicune is in a fixed location in HGSS; however it is in Kanto this time around, so you can't get it until after the Elite Four.
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Yeah, it was Entei and Raikou specifically that I was interested in, mostly because they were to much effort for anyone to really give a shit about in the original game and I am trying to gauge how little anyone will care now.
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Pokemon HG:
I've been playing this for a few days. I'm in Kanto now and I've beaten Lt. Surge and Janine so far. Team is currently Arcanine, Ampharos, Dewgong, Tangrowth, Gengar, Yanmega.
Arcanine: He was a Growlithe until just recently. I wanted to learn Flare Blitz so I had to wait until level 48 to evolve him. He was level 40 by the end of the E4 and I trained him up a bit on the ship and then dumped a bunch of rare candies on him. As a result he's a bit overleveled and I haven't gotten to use him that much, but the stats are nice. He definately lagged a bit for a while but intimidate was immensely helpful. I don't think I could have beaten Lance without him because his Aerodactyl and Dragonites did too much damage without it. I gave him Dig and that has really helped him as well.
Ampharos: Does good special damage and can take a hit decently. Static is also helpful and I've relied on paralyze to get me through some of the tougher battles. I did what I usually do and leveld him up on the water route to Cianwood so he helped Smash Chuck's gym.
Dewgong: I was actually going to use a Starmie instead of a Dewgong, but I realized that most of Starmie's good TMs required game corner and I wasn't willing to grind coins. The deciding factor was that Starmie couldn't learn Shadow Ball and as a result Surf would be its only reliable special move. Dewgong's ice moves are pretty helpful since a lot of the E4 hates ice Surf is also pretty good damage and he has rest for emergencies.
Tangrowth: I decided to try him since I had never used him before. So far his movepool is pretty mediocre, but the EQ TM really helped him. He has really nice defense and I was surprised to learn that he has good special attack. I'm looking forward to when I'm able to get some better moves on him.
Gengar: It's interesting how his role has changed since he picked up Shadow Ball. Before he was a pure status whore, but now he's really come into his own as a sweeper. Curse really ruined the early gyms since Bugsy and Whitney only had one really threatening pokemon. The 3 immunities make him pretty tanky and there are a suprising amount of pokemon who can't hit him with anything. Also the poison resistance is really nice.
Yanmega: He's another solid sweeper, but right now he's kind of frail. His main offence right now comes from the Shadow Ball TM from Morty, but I'm hoping he will pick up once he gets Air Slash and Bug Buzz. He had a suprisingly high amount of hp as a Yanma though.
Other pokemon I used:
Bayleef: He get's a lot of good moves at good times. Razor leaf and Synthesis are both really early and pretty helpful. I could have used him, but I just felt like using another grass type this time.
Geodude: I used him as I usually do in G/S. He's great for the first 3 gyms because of his type, but after that the type matchups are less favorable and so I dropped him.
Sunflora: This is who replaced Bayleef and who was replaced by Tangrowth. Leech seed is really nice for gyms and some of the nastier fights involved leech seeding the opponents best pokemon and waiting. The main reason I replaced him is that I found out that Tangrowth had better special attack than him and special attack is supposed to be his best stat.
Pidgey: Mainly there for fly. He came in useful when I was trying to catch Ho-oh because he knew sand attack. Ho-oh is now who I use for fly.
Some Gym leader thoughts:
Whitney: I didn't know that Miltank had Scrappy so I was suprised when Stomp hit Gastly. It didn't make much of a difference because Gastly was able to use Curse, but it was still and unpleasant suprise.
Morty: I was worried about him since I didn't really have any pokemon who could do a lot of damage to ghost types, but Sunflora saved the day against his Gengar. I Leech Seeded it and then got luck with GrassWhistle and was able to keep it asleep as leech seed killed it off.
Jasmine: I was also worried about her since I didn't think Growlithe could beat the Steelix. Fortunately, Steelix no longer knows EQ so Sunflora leech seeded it. Without EQ it couldn't really do anything to Ampharos because Ampharos resists Steel so Ampharos just tackled it until Leeech seed wore it down.
Claire: She gave me a little trouble but Seel had recently evolved and did a decent job of taking down the Dragonairs. Ampharos laughed at the Gyarados.
Kimono girls: Okay, this fight sucked since you can't go back and heal between them. Honestly, this fight could be harder than some of the E4 fights and it was definately more challenging than the pre-E4 rival fight especially since at this point you don't have a legendary bird to abuse.
Bruno: This fight was kind of funny. After the first two pokemon were down he sent him Hitmonlee and I sent in Tangrowth. He used Swagger and Tangrowth proceeded to 2HKO the rest of his team with EQ.
Karen: This fight is mainly uneventful except for the Houndoom. That is an evil pokemon and I can see it being a major roadblock for some teams. It would be alright if it didn't have fucking Nasty Plot. When I got to the E4 I had fought all the trainers I could and I got there at level 36 and I grinded until I got all my pokemon to 40. At this level Dewgong could 2HKO the Houndoom. This lead to Houndoom using Nasty Plot and sweeping my team. The second try went much better. I paralyzed it with Ampharos and it decide to just attack instead of using Nasty Plot. I manipulated its hp so that Dewgong could kill it and Karen wouldn't Full Restore it and won that way.
Lance: I came into this fight with about 9 revives or so and I was concerned. It turned out I had a good reason to be because I used up all of them and won with 2 pokemon left. I do not think I could have beaten this fight without Growlithe. Ampharos, Growlithe and Dewgong were able to take out his last few pokemon once I ran out of revives.
Janine: I just thought it was interesting that now that they upped the power of the Kanto gym leaders, Janine is now better than her dad. Other than that it was a fairly easy fight.
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Yeah, it was Entei and Raikou specifically that I was interested in, mostly because they were to much effort for anyone to really give a shit about in the original game and I am trying to gauge how little anyone will care now.
Those two are the same random Legendary nonsense, and as usual, they ALWAYS run on their first action unless you use Mean Look, Arena Trap, etc. to make them unable to do so, so its still kind of annoying, HOWEVER, HGSS has a few means to make this far less retarded:
-The instant you activate them, they appear on your map, with unique icons each; they still have the same mechanics, but you can follow them immediately, so its more just patience and persistence rather than "PRAY YOUR LUCK DOESN'T SUCK UNTIL YOU RUN INTO THEM ONCE!" Actually, DP (and I assume Platinum) did this too with the Poketch, albeit that didn't distinguish Mesprit or Cresselia, but flipside, more convenient since it was just "Check bottom screen" instead of "Constantly reference map".
-Their Run action seems to have an 'Always goes last' tag (based on my observations anyway; a level 23 Weepingbell should not outrun a level 40 Raikou, which is how I managed to put him to sleep.) So you can pretty much always nail them with something like False Swipe and make SOME progress running into them, instead of "Throw Ball, hope for best, which probably isn't happening" when you're lower leveled if you run into them by accident.
-Shit load of awesome balls exist. Dusk Balls, LEvel balls, Quick Balls, etc. all exist making life a lot easier against them, as they're better than Ultra Balls.
So basically, its the same annoying nonsense, but the convenience factor has been upped dramatically, such that catching them is more just standard issue annoying then "STAB SOMETHING WITH A RUSTY SPORK". From what I understand, Latios/as in HGSS are the same deal as Raikou/Entei, thus appear immediately on your map the instant you activate them, etc.
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Alternatively you can just clone some Master Balls in Emerald, import them into DPPt and trade them over. Or get someone on wifi to give you a few free cloned Master Balls. Voila, no more running legendary bullshit.
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From what I understand, Latios/as in HGSS are the same deal as Raikou/Entei, thus appear immediately on your map the instant you activate them, etc.
That's true, but the "Always act first" doesn't seem to apply here, unfortunately.
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Okay, yeah, Steel gym was pain. Steelix laughed off every attack I had except Magnitude, and he OHKOed Graveler. I ended up tossing in Flaaffy for the Steel resistance and stacking six Growls on him. That got Iron Tail down to a 4HKO, and Magnitude did the rest. Kinda of a tight race between my damage and Iron Tail's defense debuff to see which one would end the fight first, but Graveler pulled it out.
Now to go to.....the Safari Zone, I guess? Also found the way back to Kanto and oh dear Christ this game has Waterfall. HATE.
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Waterfall actually has use on some pokemon now though....
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Yeah, Waterfall is Physical, so it has uses on things like Gyarados, instead of being "Crappier version of Surf."
Whirlpool is the real UGH HATE HM, but I think beyond facing Lugia and a few random side things, its overall unnecessary.
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SC2, after ages of fucking around with everything I finally got it working. I might not have mentioned on here before that I hate Vista, but I do!
Anywho, the Beta is pretty weak right now. I hadn't played at all and won all 5 of my matching games with Terran to get into the Platinum league. Then played an awful game and beat some dude in Platinum too... messing around with Terran mech and air mainly.
Hellion- Fun harass, they're the new vulture. They murder lings and when a zerg fast expands I can murder loads of workers. They do okay... against the other races, but decent players can stop the harass.
Tanks- BLOW! SC2 is too fast paced for these slow ass units than need to unsiege and siege. Also, Terran totally lacks a good unit to support tanks like Goliaths did in SC. I won some games with them, but only cuz the opponents were garbage. There is ONE MAP where you can nicely ledge an opponents main and block the tanks off with turrets/depots, but even then... I think a good opponent could just counter your wide open main.
Thor- Fun as hell, problem is they are giant... they move slow and only one can fit up a hill at a time. Nonetheless, they do well against zerg earlygame since they one shot hydras, 2 shot roaches, and crush mutas. (With hellion support to deal with mass lings.) They also 2 shot most toss units too... TvT they have little use though.
Vikings- First tier Terran air. They are A2A or G2G, kinda cool. They transform into a ground unit and can only fight ground, but... the transform is kinda slow and the G2G is kinda weak. They absolutely dominate A2A fights though. Don't see a ton of use as an overall unit.
Medivac- FLYING MEDICS! They are dropships + healers. Cool... but since I have sworn not to use the standard Biobuild I lose a lot of use. They are fun for drops still though and healing SCVs that come along to heal my Thors in fight.
Scie... Raven- Not got to play with them much. Detectors with some spells that don't seem as good as irradiate and EMP.
Banshee- FUN UNIT! Only used these in my last game, a silly FFA with friends. But they are A2G and CLOAK Also, since they are only A2G their ground is pretty brutal. Pretty sure my next game is going to be a 2 Banshee rush with cloak to wreck workers. Should be a fun unit.
Battle Cruiser- Got about 18 of these in my FFA. Yamato still wrecks and they still pewpew shit down.
Now, I'm not actually some kinda savant. I played my friend Vince twice and he massacred me twice. The competition is just that bad even in low level Platinum.
My problem with Terran is that they lack a good unit to make Tanks/Hellions/Banshee any good in the late game. Zerg can pair Hydra with anything and have good Air and ground damage. Protoss can do it with Stalker/Sentry. Terran units that can hit air and ground
Marine- Roflbabies
Ghosts- Late game... could have some fun uses actually with Snipe, but ehhh expensive and squishy
Battlecruiser- LOL at using in single player
Viking- Need to transform... slow and annoying
So basically you have marines. Hence why everyone goes Marine/Marauder/Medic. Laaame. (Every race has their issues, but meh in the fast pace SC2 the tank/turret/hellion push isn't a viable option.)
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Heart Gold: Despite having four out of my six Pokemon weak to ice, Pryce was an absolute joke thanks to his secondary types. The seals got Thunder Punched, and the mammoth got Surfed. Now on the way to free Goldenrod from the oppression of wearing black before Labor Day.
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Fire Emblem 7 - Decided to replay this a while back, recently got around to beating it. Final team was Kent/Lucius/Rebecca/Oswin/Raven/Fiora/Nino, though Sain, Erk, Priscilla, Canas, Legault, and Pent got a lot of use, though Erk/Canas were largely filler. Started the final chapter around 20/10-13 for non-filler people, with Hector and Priscilla being the underleveled ones (Hector at 20/8, Priscilla at 20/6).
Eliwood - Think he ended up with slightly below average strength, but made up for that with good speed. Ended up a little below average on concrete durability too, I thought, but again, good speed/luck to the rescue there.
Lyn - Lyn, meanwhile, decided to act like she had Hector's Str growth while keeping the good speed. MVP of the playthrough, most likely.
Hector - Had a somewhat rocky start but bounced back into average Hector territory.
Kent - Actually decided to gain strength this playthrough. That and the HP edge he had over Sain (helped in part by the Angelic Robe that was given to him in accordinance with the wishes of the bot) made me take him over Sain for Light.
Sain - Turned out largely as expected. Offensive powerhouse, not so great on at durability.
Erk - Turned out decidedly mediocre. Mostly used him for filler.
Lucius - Not a whole lot to say about Lucius, other than he felt like capping Mgc early. That and he got the Afa's Drop, for all the difference that made (probably none).
Rebecca - Rebecca decided to be a Res tank this playthrough. Little stronger than average, too, but got a little shafted on speed.
Oswin - Not a whole lot to say, aside from the fact that he decided on picking up the slack offensively lategame.
Priscilla - Turned out slightly below average until late.
Raven - It's Raven. What's there to say, really?
Canas - Also turned out average.
Fiora - First time I've had a peg knight turn out awesomely (or hell, even decently) in FE7. Wound up capping strength and I don't think she turned out below average in a single area.
Legault - Used him for stealing stuff, mostly. Was pretty lame as a combat unit due to 8 Str but then again I don't expect much from FE7 thieves in that regard.
Pent - Was pretty awesome (shock), though wasn't used for Light on the grounds that I used him for Light last time I played.
Nino - Turned out awesome after being fed a shitload of kills in Night of Farewells. blahblahreducingaveragelevelbecauseofthat well I probably would've used the filler more if I didn't use her anyways because that's how I roll so it wouldn't have made a huge difference for me.
Not much else to say, really, other than the playthrough reminded me of just how badly regular FE7 NM enemies suck, but eh.
At any rate, other stuff!
Strange Journey - Been playing this off and on for the last few weeks. Currently in Bootes, trying to kill Mitra.
Etrian Odyssey 3 - Cleared the 2nd stratum, got subclasses. Main team is currently Princess/Pirate/Monk/Zodiac/Balista.
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Hahahahaha. Pokemon Sapphire, Feebas hunt over after only 24 squares checked. Life is good.
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In addition to training my Alakazam on my challenge file, I've been looking at some teams to train for Ubers. Alongside my new Adamant Ho-oh, it turns out I have Mild Azelf and Jolly Rayquaza, both without EVs so far and without any resetting or specifically trying. Whee~
Choice Band or Scarf for Ho-oh? I'm thinking Scarf to get off a quick Sacred Fire will be better.
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ToV - Beat final boss, Fell arms version. He hits hard in that last version, but nothing you can't handle even without Divide Alll. All secret missions done. Tons of side stuff done, but not all of them (Seriously how the fuck do people master all the cooking on one character let alone all of them?).
Trying to think of jokes I can make about the ending, but nohing is full forming enough to make me think of fitting in more than a joke per sentence, so meh. Duke lives so he can continue to grace the world with his chiild bearing hips, elegant long neck framed with purple ruffle shirt open down to his chest to flash come cleavage and wow, those legs that just keep going and topping it all off with a flowing head of hair that any woman would kill to have. What was I talking about again? Oh yeah Yuri formed his giant feather and stroked the Adaphaggots to death.
Stuff.
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Rondo of Swords -
Up to the final level of this route.
I had Ansom feather the final a little. Turns out that he currently does slightly more than the final's regeneration. Terrific. Writing that off for the time being, I turned Ansom's attention to tasting the final's range (re: game bastardly not telling you spell ranges). Turns out he has a range of 9 squares. Turns out that he one-hit-kills with this range.
At this point I would like to introduce the fact that the highest movement any of my characters has is 10, so even if they were stationed just outside the final's range, they would not be able to attack it because you need to run through enemy units to attack them. At least one of these has the capacity for 11 move if I grind them up a bit, in which case they will be able to attack the final for a low amount of damage and end up in a perfect location to be one-hitted. There is rescue teleportation available, but I am not sure offhand whether it can reach the required distance from outside the final's range and there is always the chance that the character will end up on one of the sides of the rescuer that is inside the final's range. To say nothing of the inhospitality of the terrain for this.
I would like to believe that I will be able to eventually kill the final with Ansom/Marie shooting/rescuing combination, but it is going to take -forever-. There is also the possibility that damage won't overflow from one bar to the other. If this is the case, then things become trickier; currently my plan for this situation is to hope that when it gets to that point, the final won't have the capacity to use any spells regardless of its regeneration and I will be able to send someone else in . But I can't know this exactly because the game does not let me know how much the spells cost. Forgetting to check how much his big spell had eaten while aghast at Ansom dying also does not help in this matter.
I'm not understanding the point of having three tiers of classes. The last three sets of quests I was able to do each gave off an item necessary for one person to hit their third tier, and each person (each person that can even get to third tier anyway) has their own unique one. So... only three people get to move to third tier. Except it's actually only two, because you don't actually get a chance to use the third one. I would like to think I am missing something here.
On top of that, the two people were Aegil and Igraine, neither of which are particularly spectacular units. Igraine's third-tier class gave her access to the Null ZOC ability, and I thought back to all the times I wished I could have Igraine run through ZOCcing enemies WHICH WAS NEVER BECAUSE SHE IS A LOW-MOVE FRAGILE GIT THAT SHOULD NEVER BE ANYWHERE NEAR ANY SORT OF ENEMIES
Aegil goes one further and gets access to ZOC itself BECAUSE THE BEST UNIT TO USE AS A BLOCKADE IS THE THIRD, FOURTH LEAST DURABLE UNIT IN THE GAME AM I RIGHT
see
I could vaguely understand Yumiluna getting ZOC
because she has ludicrously high defence for god knows whatever reason that at one point was second best in my team, although her position has slipped since then
and even then her HP is horrible anyway
AND EVEN THEN IT WOULD BE A TERMINALLY STUPID ABILITY TO GIVE HER
I do not believe I have complained about purchasing items yet, only selling them. So you assign particular categories of items to buy to the unit you are sending shopping, and you then assign them a total budget. As you assign the total budget the game randomly assigns the budget to the categories in question. So say we're going for HP Items and Amulets. Say we set 500 gold as the budget. The game might assign this as 2 50-gold HP items and 1 400-gold amulet. Change the budget up to 501 then put it back to 500 again. Now the game has assigned it to 1 200-gold hp item and 1 200-gold amulet. What the heck game. What is the point of this tomfoolery.
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Heart God: Completely revamped my team after the Safari Zone, getting rid of a few monsters that either can't reach their final form or just weren't working out. New team is:
Bayleef
Mantine
Togepi
Farfetch'd (mainly holding the place for a flying type that can be viable at endgame, but that is some nice power off Swords Dance)
Magneton
Larvitar (Spawned without Bite, annoyingly, but it was the only one I could find so I'll get a Heart Scale somewhere)
Annoyingly, Bayleef is the only one here that can learn Strength (I was counting on teaching it to Farfetch'd), and nothing that can learn Cut wouldn't have to ditch a better move for it. I figure if I need them I'll bring Furret back in and dear Christ I hate HMs.
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For what it's worth, Strength is probably in the running for Bayleef's strongest attack right now anyway, so no real reason not to teach it to him. Magical Leaf and Razor Leaf are comparable, but of the three, I'd keep Strength and Magical Leaf so you can hit both defences and hit two different types, while keeping the other two attacks for tanking or whatever (Reflect + Synthesis?).
I'd teach Cut to Farfetch'd since you're planning on dropping him anyway and he gets STAB on it, so it's an okay filler move at worst, though probably a downgrade on whatever you'd be kicking out for it.
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He's got Swords Dance, which is his main selling point, Fly (not dropping, obviously), Aerial Ace (solid STAB move, infinite accuracy, good when I don't want to use a two-turn move just to hit Flying weakness) and Slash (higher power, accuracy AND crit rate than Cut, also STAB). Not really seeing much to drop there. And yeah, Bayleef has Magical/Razor Leaves, Reflect and Synthesis.
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For what its worth, Slash (and any Crit Rate move) is not what it use to be. Gen 2/3, they were 25% Crit Rate; now they're 12.5% Crit. Normally, moves have 6.25% Crit Rate. Yeah, its a bit of a laughable upgrade now, instead of an unreliable but worthwhile niche.
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Cut only has 5 less accuracy than Slash. You're losing power, yes, but given that your giving up his third best attacking move I don't consider it a huge loss. You may also prefer to drop Aerial Ace if you value its ITE less than Slash's power, but eh, Fly is the power move anyway. Unlike the Bayleef situation (where Razor Leaf is really doing nothing that Strength and Magical Leaf don't) you are losing something, but still not a major loss and better than benching someone for Furret.
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Heh, right after I post that, Togepi evolves, taking WAY less time to get to maximum happiness than I thought, and gives me that other Fly user I wanted.
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I found that after the early parts of the game cut isn't used that much until you get to Kanto so you could probably get by without it until after the E4. Unfortunately in Kanto cut is needed almost everywhere.
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Pokemon HG - So I talked to a few guys about beating Red and they all told me I should grind to 70-80 before I would even stand a chance. Imagine their surprise when I flattened Red with my Pokemon in the 60s.
Lv56 Sandslash Vs Lv88 Pikachu
- I don't see why everyone is scared of Pikachu. Even with a 32 level difference is still got destroyed by one earthquake.
Lv66 Magnazone vs Lv80 Lapras
- Two Discharges and BAM Lapras was down. Well it would be if it didn't run away but eventually when it got called back in it went down.
Lv 61 Gyarados vs Lv84 Charizard
- Sadly Gyarados was no match for Charizard but it did some damage which allowed Sandslash to claim victory.
Lv61 Typhlosion vs Lv82 Venusaur
- Lol grass types. One Eruption and it was down.
Lv66 Magnazone vs Lv84 Blastoise
- Magnazone Outspeeds and OHKOs Blastoise. Man thats pathetic to be outran by Magnazone.
Lv60 Scizor vs Lv82 Snorlax
- Sword dance x3 shortly followed by a OHKO. Snorlax this time round has such shit damage it couldn't do anything to stop my buffing.
Overall its been my best run in a pokemon game. My pokes don't have the best movesets or natures but regardless I'm happy of how well they've done.
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So I talked to a few guys about beating Red and they all told me I should grind to 70-80 before I would even stand a chance.
No offence to those guys but ahahaha.
Metroid Fusion - Wow, learning you can power bomb to expose a ladder above Security Robot 2 makes him much less evil. Beaten again, only died to a few of those nasty midgame bosses (Yakuza through Bot 2); Ridley was a chump and I beat SA-X's first form with 5 HP left, then proceeded to perfect the second too, which was amusingly tense. 1:34, 21% this time. That percentage seem awfully low but that's what happens when the game doesn't count all the forced upgrades I guess. Not sure what'll I do next with the game.
Xenosaga 2 - Beat this again a couple days ago. I don't think I intend to do the aftergame this time. Fun game, I still dig the gameplay and the Jr./Albedo plot but my opinion of all other things plot-related dropped a fair bit, no shock there I am no longer at all impressed by this style of storytelling which talks a lot and says nothing. Probably should drop the game to an 8/10 or something. Which also means taking XS1 down a peg too but I'm fine with that.
Mega Man 10 - Beat Hard Mode. A bunch of stuff here was way nastier, both the levels and some bosses. They did nothing to improve the last two Wily forms that I noticed, though, so that was kinda anticlimactic. Still fun overall.
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Sounds like you want to get yourself a Crabby for Cut and Waterfall duties Shale.
Rock Band - So I suck enough to know that I am probably not going to play Guitar on Expert, but I am doing alright on Bass which is honestly all I really care about anyway. So been practicing lately, finally got Flawless Groove acheivement playing I Think I'm Paranoid because well frankly Garbage are awesome.
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Rondo of Swords -
Up to the final level of this route.
I had Ansom feather the final a little. Turns out that he currently does slightly more than the final's regeneration. Terrific. Writing that off for the time being, I turned Ansom's attention to tasting the final's range (re: game bastardly not telling you spell ranges). Turns out he has a range of 9 squares. Turns out that he one-hit-kills with this range.
At this point I would like to introduce the fact that the highest movement any of my characters has is 10, so even if they were stationed just outside the final's range, they would not be able to attack it because you need to run through enemy units to attack them. At least one of these has the capacity for 11 move if I grind them up a bit, in which case they will be able to attack the final for a low amount of damage and end up in a perfect location to be one-hitted. There is rescue teleportation available, but I am not sure offhand whether it can reach the required distance from outside the final's range and there is always the chance that the character will end up on one of the sides of the rescuer that is inside the final's range. To say nothing of the inhospitality of the terrain for this.
I would like to believe that I will be able to eventually kill the final with Ansom/Marie shooting/rescuing combination, but it is going to take -forever-. There is also the possibility that damage won't overflow from one bar to the other. If this is the case, then things become trickier; currently my plan for this situation is to hope that when it gets to that point, the final won't have the capacity to use any spells regardless of its regeneration and I will be able to send someone else in . But I can't know this exactly because the game does not let me know how much the spells cost. Forgetting to check how much his big spell had eaten while aghast at Ansom dying also does not help in this matter.
A certain dark knight has insane range with his special as well as doing big damage. Have a lot of drugs, and you can at least make him snip three times.
Also, the final is not going to attack if you are within a certain range, or you can just use Elma's mdef buff. Once the boss's buffer hp are gone, just have Sedric run ahead for a kill.
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Sounds like you want to get yourself a Crabby for Cut and Waterfall duties Shale.
For some bizarre reason Krabby can not learn Waterfall.
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Metroid Fusion - Wow, learning you can power bomb to expose a ladder above Security Robot 2 makes him much less evil.
...
Ahahahaha oh -wow- I didn't even think about that of course that'd be why you found him so tough last time! ... Damn, props, NEB, for beating him without that beforehand.
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Sounds like you want to get yourself a Crabby for Cut and Waterfall duties Shale.
For some bizarre reason Krabby can not learn Waterfall.
The fuck? Man sometimes Game Freak just hate on pokemon to an amazing degree.
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ToV - Beat final boss, Fell arms version. He hits hard in that last version, but nothing you can't handle even without Divide Alll. All secret missions done. Tons of side stuff done, but not all of them (Seriously how the fuck do people master all the cooking on one character let alone all of them?).
Carrying over cooking skill is like... 10 grade. I think that's how you do it. That's how I did it with Yuri, at least. Not going to even consider doing it with anyone else.
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Parasite Eve: I play old games. Graphics are laughably dated, but the game holds up in all the important places. Even the fake science is fun! I admit that I was intrigued by the basic idea of the human body rebelling against itself - it seems like a really good place to start a thriller from. The rest of the fake science was so silly that it took away from the horror aspect of the game. Luckily, the story and characters were just good enough to keep the interest flowing to finish this up in a day.
Chrysler Building can suck it, though.
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GameFreak has been known to hate on people and do things that make their lives painful. Like 5% catch rate on Dittos :/ And contant running legendaries. Even when asleep. lolwhat.
Resonance of Fate:
Finally completed. Long ass game, especially if you do all the sidequests (I did, so...). 92 hours clocked is my end game time and have most of everything completed (World map fully cleared, most red hex battles done). Only the sekrit dungeon and lol50stararena is left but I don't think I'm about to do that yet. I want to work on other games, either FF13 or ToV is next up. Would take suggestions from people with reasons explained much appreciated.
So final thoughts, comments on the game - Tri-Ace game basically at its best when focusing on the stuff that makes Tri-Ace games good: Silly plot, and the battle system. I'm kinda amazed at how this turned out though since the core formula itself again, is really simple but they manage to put enough situations in it such that you're forced to try different tactics, set ups and equipment. I mean, fundamentally, you're not learning game breaking skills at some point, and the things you learn early carry you through to the end. But maybe that's what makes it good. You're constantly being tested and reminded of core fundaments, but you have to adapt the fundaments to different situations in order to come out ahead whether because of terrain, enemy formation and what you're equipped with. Game also has its fair share of gimmicks here and there, which is weird of course, but nothing you can't take care of.
So let's start off with what's bad about the game and what could be improved on. There are some complaints I have. Most of it is just poor polish issues which keeps the game from going higher. There are four main issues that I can basically list which plague the game and keep it from an 8 to me:
1) Enemy hit boxes. Especially the big enemies have really weird hit boxes. I'm not just referring to you shooting them. I'm also referring to when you go into Rob mode and try to maneuver around them but OH SHI- you bump into them when the path clearly is at least several metres away from where they should be. It's not even that they walked into your path - it's just weird hit boxes. And its frustrating sometimes since you could have a run route planned but lolzno and you run into the enemy and take 2HKO or OHKO damage. I remember one case where I jumped behind the enemy and then came to an abrupt halt for no apparent reason. It didn't make me reset, but its frustrating nonetheless. Is it really so hard to keep enemy hit boxes exactly as they look? Well I guess based on Homogenius series, the answer would be a yes.
2) Coloured Hexes. Now this one leaves me puzzled and I dock points for it. Why can't you exchange one coloured HEX for another coloured HEX? I mean seriously Tri Ace/Sega? You want me to fight level 4 enemies at end game just so I can finish paving my coloured HEX path from terminals? I don't get it. What's the value in this other than raw grinding? It just shuts out a raw gameplay feature away from the game for way to long.
3) This also leaves me puzzled. Why isn't there a remove all feature from gun customization? I have to tediously remove each part piece by piece. What value is there? You don't even have to scrap the current lay out. You just add an extra button or option or something that dismantles all the parts that are currently equipped. I don't believe for a second that this is difficult to implement.
4) Enemy targetting and field surveying could be better. You can tell who might be attacked based on the symbol on the bottom right (goes from yellow meaning targetted to red meaning will be attacked) but it doesn't tell you which enemy is locking on to you. I mean, one of the things that was cool in VP2 was that you could see the attack ranges. This is like like covering up the attack range essentially. Yeah, you know they're going to attack you, but you don't know who they're aiming for. Now, it's not a huge hinderance at all times. But there are certain terrain maps where it definitely helps in making better decisions. The terrain could be covering a shot from someone who's hiding and the gauge would be red for example.
Other than that. Tri Ace plot. When it tries to be serious, it's a mess. I've played through the whole game and I can confidently say that if I hadn't read Kouli's plot summary I still wouldn't understand what the deuce happens during the game. It's that awesome. On the other hand, when the game doesn't try to srs bsn, it's alright and kinda amusing in a way (more on this later).
The gameplay could be improved if the characters had more differentiation in combat, but for what its worth, it's okay standalone. Early on, there'some notable PC limitations due to the weight restrictions, but the farther you get in the game, the less and less difference there is between the PCs. That's kind of a downer. In addition, that comment about HEX colours? Yeah, one of the neat things about RoF is that it has a similar sealstone type system with terminals. However, due to the tediousness of getting certain HEX colours, you could be barred from setting up HEX effects for a while which kinda limits the strategic choices you are making other than grinding. That's obviously not good design.
On the other hand, the crux of the game is handled very well. You've still got some interesting choices to make. For example: You get certain gun models throughtout the game (5 Pistols/4 M.Guns) and their base stats differ enough that you might not want to customize one over the other. Further adding to that, you have two weapon slots. You can choose to dual wield, which ups your firepower/stun chances but you lose utility value from equipping a box (Grenade/First Aid/Magazine). Certain set ups also work better than others (Magazine case should never go with the pistol) and there's some choices for equipping accessories too. Finally, those terminal effects are double edged - any bonus applied also benefits the enemy. So if you're heading to an area that might have some fire damage and you link Double Amp and Fire damage boost together, well the enemy using Fire also gets x4 mult to their attack. There are definitive ways of mitigating it so the enemy can't benefit off as much as you (Heat Protectors/Shields), but that's the set up choices and strategy choices you end up making.
Overall, I'm fairly impressed with the game. The character interaction is always pleasant, and focusing on that saves the story a bit. In fact, if the game kept the same story telling style for the first 7 chapters as they did with the rest of the game, the core plot would be like 50x better. The first 7 chapters gives us some pretty good insight on the each character's past and how they're trying to live out they're regular life despite some of the troubles that have haunted them before. It's when the game starts reaching chapter 9 and onward and tries to be serious that it really starts falling apart since there is no heads or tails of what the shit is going on. Barring that, the game's probably 7.5/10 for me overall. It's decent enough to warrant a try, but most likely not everyone's cup of tea.
Other thoughts...
Gun Models and the like...it's definitely clear that some of the guns are better than others. Leanne's starting gun (the B-N84)is trash. Bad customization ports and it specializes in RAPID FIRE of all things (FYI, this is a stat that only matters if you run out of Rob metre, which is something you should never be focusing on). The pistol that Vashyron starts with though (1191.45 Auto) is pretty decent since it specializes in gauge breaking - an effective form of stun - and lasts thoughout the entire game and it generally has better expansion and customization options. The SG-B226 is meh. It's bases aren't that impressive and specializing in magazine size for a pistol is terrible since they deal low damage. Decent customization port options though so it might see some mid game use. The LP-09 when you get it, is probably the best overall gun based on availability and bases. Highest charge time and its base acceleration is actually decent. It loses out on...RAPID FIRE. Oh noes. Yeah. Great model and you should focus on buying this over the SG-B226. The Z-40 is also really good, specializing in charge acceleration with a decent base charge time and good custom ports to boot. You get it way too late though and you need to do a huge fetch quest for it. That's still better than the MI50A which requires tedious arena grinding and is likely never seeing the light of use. Best base model however at least, so you're doing the work for something.
Overall rank here would be: LP-09 > 1191.45 Auto > Z-40 = SGB226 > B-N84 > MI50A.
For M.Guns, well, you only have one (SMG-05) for a long time. And thankfully, it's got good customization options. Default bases suck though, but the custom ports really save it from being junky. That and good usability. You can get the PDW-XN.V2 next at around C.7, but it's overall not terribly good. Due to the design and custom ports, it ends up being the least customization on the most important M.Gun stat. So I pretty much ditched it when a better model was available and didn't use it for much longer otherwise. Now, the NP-05.C is the deal. Great custom ports, specializes in the most important stat for a machine gun and decent bases all around. This thing is beastly. 300000 grand though and only available in C.13. Regardless, it's well worth the buy. The last model (PDW-XN.V3) is servicable but not great. You get it with only 2 chapters left and it can't be customized nearly as well as the SMG-05 or the NP-05.C
Overall rank here would be: SMG-05 > NP-05.C > PDW-XN.V3 > PDW-XN.V2.
The cases offer some interesting options over dual wielding. The biggest trade off is losing extra firepower from having two guns. However, having two guns makes that character 1 dimensional and you basically lose utility options you get with the cases. The biggest debate is usually over the Magazine case since it just seems like dual wielding M.Guns flat out beat it. It probably does if you ony compare raw power. But the Magazine case can also boost its bullets with terminals. Connect something like Fire boost and all of a sudden, that incidenary round is doing 2x more damage than a regular bullet and easily makes up for a lack of dual wielding. You do need good spread and a large charge acceleration in order to make it worthwhile though. The Magazine case also has some retarded good cheese in there. Like Armor Piercing. Some of the hardest enemies in the game are hard because they have so many layers of armor. Armor Piercing goes lolz to them. They also have Percussive rounds. Yo Dawg, I heard you liek gauge breaking, so we included a gauge breaking round into your M.Gun so you can gauge break while you go Rob. It's a playstyle choice mostly. Dual wielding is better for general randoms since you don't have to equip the right ammo type to get better damage, but it doesn't maximize your output obviously. The Grenade case is awesome early on since Grenades just have so much more power for direct damage compared to hand guns. Especially the EX. versions. Later on though, it's not really worth swapping over since the gauge breaking on pistols is just too valuable to lose. I guess you could go Smash grenades there, but they're not spammable without arena grinding. First Aid kit is always nice to have since it can Heal, use Escape Hexes (This is arguably the most important) and they have Anti items to reduce damage. Enemies rack up damage pretty noticably and you either use some physical resistance accessories (Hi-Polymer Padding) along with Anti items to reduce damage or you feel the pain pretty quick. Overall, all the cases are useful. Although they vary for usefulness depending on where you are in the game.
For gun stats, this is pretty simple. Rapid Fire is a garbage stat for stated reasons already. Weight is also usually not a concern once you hit around chapter 4-5 or so. So it's pretty much the other stats competing for each other. Charge is obviously the most important. You need a good charge in order to attack. Good charge also lets you attack faster so you can interrupt an enemies charge. Or if you tie them, you still come out ahead since during the animation of the attack, PCs are psudeo invincible (some attacks will just right out whiff). Good charge is also needed to get the acceleration going. So yeah. No brainer most important stat here. Charge acceleration is pretty useless in the first few chapters. Once you hit around chapter 9 though, it starts becoming critical because enemies just start having a lot more health and their attacks are deadlier. You need a good charge acceleration on your M.Gun to get good damage mults. And you want a good charge acceleration on pistols to stun enemies. Spread is important especially over long distances and if the target is small. Larger targets and close range attacks reduce spread's importantance. Magazine size is always good to have (especially for M.Guns) but never critical like the above stats. I should note: Charge does eventually have a optimal point though. 100 charge is basically enough to snipe things to death and anything above 100 is sorta wasted.
So: Charge > Charge Acceleration > Spread = Magazine size > Weight > Rapid Fire.
PCs/Bosses in DL
RoF is sort unrankable since its one huge massive interp headache. PCs can't actually kill unless they can deal direct damage. They can't do relative damage without M.Guns. Oh and if you give these options to them, everyone becomes the same, so the end. If you stick with starting options (Tal and I have discussed this), it sorta becomes a more rankable idea but still kinda weird.
Vashyron: 1191.45 Auto/Grenade Case are his initial equips. I've gone over both already so it should be easy to imagine what he has in a duel. Stun + grenade status ailments. Grenades in particular are pretty devastating since they deal a lot more relevant direct damage over hand guns, and their only flaw is not pronounced in the DL (can't spread damage so you never know which part of the enemy you are hitting). It should be noted that gauge breaking and then dropping HP past the break point recovers lost Rob meter in game. So if you allow that, he can probably start with smash grenades or the pistol and then swap over to something stronger (like Hand Grenade EXes) and then bomb away to recover Rob metre. Possibly the best PC because of this. Pistol really doesn't have much use in the grand scheme of things but it's range and charges faster than any thrown weapon. Approx. max twink potential stats: 110 charge, 61% acceleration rate, 9 bullets per attack, 97 spread (shots should hit dead where they are). Would be lower in DL since some of this requires hard grinding, but yeah. Most likely some flavour of Middle.
Zephyr: SMG-05/Magazine case. He can't deal direct damage ever. In order to win any duel he basically has to drop the Magazine case and use his melee attack (...). Sorta a shame since the Magazine case would be interesting otherwise. Simple strategy. Rob mode and charge up a huge attack mult. Then move in and strike physically to win. I should note that the melee attack in game is garbage since you have to dead close to the enemy and they end up having really quick charge times to the point where you're often at best tying them to attack (so he definitely takes an attack back in return). Scratch damage heals over time though, so despite the fact that he can aim to snipe, he might not want to if he wants to make damage stick permanently. Approx. max twink potential: 107 charge, 59% charge acceleration rate, 18 bullets per attack, 84 spread (mediocre but not horrible). Same comments as above applies. Also likely Middle.
Leanne: B-N84/First Aid kit. Uh....Mint mk.2. The pistol deals sad ass damage. However, she has boatloads of healing under this interp. So she can stun lock for like 20 damage, and keep doing this. If the enemy breaks out of stun and deals damage, she can heal it and resume stun locking. YESZ. Block or resist stun (no enemy in game does this, although the stun tolerance is different for every enemy) and she's SOL pretty much. Some form of Light.
Now for boss... (SPOILERS)
Boozehound Priest aka. Lagerfield: First notable boss character in game and he's a gimmick! Fights Zephyr alone. How much credit you give his gimmick is up to you - he basically has perfect frontal evasion. You can only hit him if he's either attacking or by running past him in Rob mode and shooting him in the back. His durability blows, but he's got good damage otherwise if you trigger his gimmick (counter teleport knifing for 2HKO damage). So...some iteration of a Lambda redux I suppose only more trainwrecky. If you give him some credit at least for the gimmick (which you might since he's the first gimmick boss you fight in game and you're likely to fall for it at least once), he's probably Heavy since perfect evasion + 2HKO counter attack is pretty nasty. If you don't he's probably Light. Never recovers from Scratch damage in game so yeah. Did I mention his durability sucks?
Crazy Artist aka. Giligano: I have no clue. I killed him before he could attack him. That should say enough
UOM: Also no clue. See above.
FE7's Hungry Cavalier aka. Rowen: Uh...how good he is really depends on how you interp some of the mechanics in game. He's kinda weak for damage (lol 6HKO damage but upgrades to GT 3HKO once he's lost like 25% of his health!) but his durability is nutsy. 100000 RoF HP is at least 3x better than UOM. You can't just Rob mode him and he dies. Oh he also has several armor parts covering him so he can absorb some punishment initially before they get blown off. Also, if you give support credit, he gets better. The most notable being the Assault guys since they deal around high 4HKO damage as well. With 4 of them spawned, he can drain a weaker PC down to nothing and then some. AND he can summon an infinite number of them although only 4 on the field at once. What makes him notably worse is the levelling mechanic of RoF. You don't level up at the end of battle. You level anytime you deal damage enough to bring you up to a level. This causes him to unable to make damage stick since thanks to his HUEG HP, its possible to level up off him at least once or twice, allowing you to full heal. If you consider that into the equation, then his WHOAMG awesome durability becomes less awesome, but still pretty good. Just not nutsy anymore. Some form of Heavy I wager.
Other lesser rankable people...
Not commenting on everyone, just who I remember
Electric Tortoise: Weakish armor plating. However, his damage is 3HKO and it inflicts Slow. Slow is pretty nasty in RoF since it cuts away your charge speed noticably. Armor plating might let him live past one attack. Other wise, you get some Metal Rounds here and they deal increased damage against him, which makes him fall pretty quickly once his armor shell drops.
Nutjob aka. Gelsey: Well he can status you with low 5HKO damage! ...uh yeah. Probably some form of Light. He's notably frail since he has no armor covering and his support dies quickly. POIZN is a nasty RoF status though, however much credit you want to give him for that. Past that, he can also inflict RoF's version of slow. Yay?
Truckasauros: He has GT OHKO damage. Yeeeah. Also several layers of armor plating. He would be incredibly scary if his AI wasn't garbage. He doesn't tend to use his OHKO damage unless at close range and sometimes he just wanders around because he's not within range to do much. Rob mode around his ass in game gets him killed although it takes a few shots to do the trick. Mmm...Heavy? Godlike? Dunno
Turret Swarm: Pretty nasty in game since all of them together 2HKO easily and its hard to run and shoot the leader down. Downside: In the DL, the main leader can get outsniped by having good charge times in game. So uh...you can outkite him fairly easily and I've never seen the main cannon attack because of that. No clue as a rank.
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The fuck? Man sometimes Game Freak just hate on pokemon to an amazing degree.
(http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/article/821/821119/flareon.jpg)
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ToV - Beat final boss, Fell arms version. He hits hard in that last version, but nothing you can't handle even without Divide Alll. All secret missions done. Tons of side stuff done, but not all of them (Seriously how the fuck do people master all the cooking on one character let alone all of them?).
Carrying over cooking skill is like... 10 grade. I think that's how you do it. That's how I did it with Yuri, at least. Not going to even consider doing it with anyone else.
There's no need to do it with anyone else. Only one character needs to master everything to get everyone's cooking titles. Of course other characters will probably end up mastering things in order to learn new recipes and :headdesk:
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Wait what? You only have to master them on one character for that? I thought the title was for mastering all recipes (Did not FAQ it other than that it existed). That is okay then. I was going to say I had been working on Yuri almost all game and he still only just mastered all the base recipes and I am focussing on unlocking the other ones now...
For reccomendations, I obviously say play ToV over FF13 Tide, of the two FF13 is the most similar to the way RoF plays out gameplay wise, so you might want a break from it. Either way though I have gushed enough about how good ToV is for Tales fans and said my part on FF13. Either game you are going to get into a battle system that is a lot of doing the same thing over and over though. Both fairly long as well.
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Parasite Eve: I play old games. Graphics are laughably dated, but the game holds up in all the important places. Even the fake science is fun! I admit that I was intrigued by the basic idea of the human body rebelling against itself - it seems like a really good place to start a thriller from. The rest of the fake science was so silly that it took away from the horror aspect of the game. Luckily, the story and characters were just good enough to keep the interest flowing to finish this up in a day.
Chrysler Building can suck it, though.
I have to say, I couldn't play through. EMOTE SPEAK EMOTE SPEAK EMOTE SPEAK made scenes take an intolerably long time.
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Metroid Fusion - Wow, learning you can power bomb to expose a ladder above Security Robot 2 makes him much less evil.
...
Ahahahaha oh -wow- I didn't even think about that of course that'd be why you found him so tough last time! ... Damn, props, NEB, for beating him without that beforehand.
Yeah you were probably scratching your head at my comments of him being "too durable" before. More like one of the frailest bosses in the game. <_<
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Parasite Eve: I play old games. Graphics are laughably dated, but the game holds up in all the important places. Even the fake science is fun! I admit that I was intrigued by the basic idea of the human body rebelling against itself - it seems like a really good place to start a thriller from. The rest of the fake science was so silly that it took away from the horror aspect of the game. Luckily, the story and characters were just good enough to keep the interest flowing to finish this up in a day.
Chrysler Building can suck it, though.
I have the book that started the series. The guy that wrote it during his college years (hence it's very science-based). Book starts off really slow, but gets darker and better as it goes on. I only got the book after playing the game. Movie is sh*t though.
As for Chrysler...don't get me started...the ************************ roaches... *rocks back and forth* The horror...
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Chrysler... from memory, I feel like it's actually scaled for like a fourth playthrough, not a second. It's retardedly long and boring even then, but mutilating the peons on the way takes some of the suck out of it.
Of course, the real reason to do the Chrysler Building is for the second credits music, which nowadays you don't really need to play games to get at.
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I did it on the 3rd. While it is possible to do it on the second playthrough (using the level up trick in the museum to hit 99), I normally wait until the 3rd one to beat Chrysler.
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Megaman Powered Up:
Got this and I've played through most of the robot master stages on Normal. In order:
Cutman: Easy stage, easy boss. He's not as completely wretched as before, but he still goes down like a chump. At least he tries now. Obviously captured him since I did him first.
Gutsman: Man, what the fuck was with that stupid jump midway through the stage? It's something I'd expect in a romhack and doesn't fit at all. Not only is there a dead-end lower platform, but the upper platform requires surprisingly quick and demanding jumping or you'll never make it. Gutsman himself was a pushover, though I didn't capture him since apparently you have to buster-only bosses. I tried the Rolling Cutter on him once, oh well.
Bombman: I don't remember the stage 3 hours after playing it and I near- perfected Bombman on the first try with the buster. Failure and an easy capture.
Iceman: Stage wasn't too easy but not close to hard. Iceman himself is nerfed, with his ice slashers being much easier to avoid. The varying patterns and icicle drops don't make up for it. Easy boss and an easy capture.
Fireman: His stage is almost hard, though I had a few distinct bits of bad luck as I went through. Fireman himself isn't noteworthy and got steamrolled with the buster.
Oilman: Stage was bland enough and easy, boss fight wasn't hard once you got the hang of how to manipulate his shots. Yet another capture, too.
Stopped early in Elecman's stage, didn't have the desire to keep going right now. Overall it's easy besides a single hangup in Gutsman's stage, but I guess playing romhacks keeps your skills sharp. It's fun fluff but nothing more than that. I'll have to try Hard Mode once I clear this as well as mess with the other robot masters. I get the impression they're each one-dimensional gimmicks, though.
Lunar: Silver Star Harmony:
Started this and I got through the prologue. I don't know why the hell I bought this. Maybe I'm jonesing for some fluff?
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The fact that this is Commando + Ravager and whatever support role you need
Commandos are a lot more situational than they appear at first. "I haz moar dmg?" is an OK default, but when it's not boosted you tend to be wasting time or pushing an enemy towards a "I do this at X% HP" that you'd rather put off or avoid.
don't buff?
Most buffs provide a lesser bonus than their debuff counterparts. Similarly, because of the cries for each character to be a speshul snowflake, character X may not have the buff you would like.
don't debuff
I see a lot of people trying to stick everything on enemies with non-fail resistance and wondering why they are having so much trouble.
Stupid Sazh stupid fighting stupid melee resistant enemies not using Ruin
Physicals are more likely to interrupt and extend chaining; both of which are arguably a good tradeoff for slightly more base damage. Sazh's physicals are also somewhat quirky with his dual guns.
sometimes you might AoE I guess.
They aren't just palette swaps or "Fire with more spellpower" anymore.
Sentinel uh defends?
Potent counters with a chain effect comparable to COM and SAB (although if you rely on AI or auto they'll almost never get a full set off) Self-healing. Evasion.
FFT
FFT has little in the way of multimode skills. The good skills almost universally cost trivial JP and don't require going up the tree much. You might switch up dorks for compatibility issues and favor certain jobs for stat gains, but for the most part the good stuff is handed to you on a silver platter. Having a bunch of skills in game != game has higher % of good skills.
blah blah "alternate methods"
These have a tendency to be a million times more abusable than combat. Boosting them also tends to involve stupid pet tricks no different than "power leveling" or "grinding."
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Metroid Fusion - Wow, learning you can power bomb to expose a ladder above Security Robot 2 makes him much less evil.
...
Ahahahaha oh -wow- I didn't even think about that of course that'd be why you found him so tough last time! ... Damn, props, NEB, for beating him without that beforehand.
Yeah you were probably scratching your head at my comments of him being "too durable" before. More like one of the frailest bosses in the game. <_<
Yeaaaah, I was kinda wondering if you were hanging out somewhere where his pattern was catching you full force or something. Now I know!
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Rondo of Swords - Beaten
Before committing to The Slow Plan, on a whim I had Izuna taste the boss's damage only to find that she survived it quite handily. Ansom is not exactly a slouch in the HP department (5th highest of my endgame characters) but it seems his low magic was more meaningful than I had realised. Which is especially amusing since he spends the majority of the game as Mage Killer In Residence.
Anyway, applying a couple of HP rings I had lying around to Izuna got her pumped up enough to withstand two shots from the final. This let me change my plan to having her sit around baiting the final into wasting his barrier health and alternating having Ansom shoot and get rescued with healing Izuna. Much much quicker progress.
Then his barrier runs out, and I make a mad attempt at finishing him off quickly and fail, and he uses a consumable to fully refresh his barrier. Which I expected to happen, so it wasn't surprising. What I hadn't expected to happen was that his army which had spent the entire time just standing around would decide they had probably bummed around enough and should get to attacking. After getting the heck out of there I found that my expectations were further shattered when the final realised that it could move also :'(
SO! Restart and do things much the same way, except this time I have Marie give the central army a good dose of Oratorio Laser while meandering past them. By now she wasn't getting any experience from it and they were making no attempt to move anyway, so I hadn't done this before due to impatiencery. Less sudden enemy stampede = Izuna able to stand her ground = Final resumes wasting his barrier against her. And he thankfully has only the one of that consumable, and his other method of mass-recharging takes him a while to get access to and only gives off around a third of it, so he runs out and goes down fairly snappily after that.
Cue inane ending conversation where the final effectively tries to threaten the main with a situation which the main just said he was striving for. Um. Okay.
MVU would be Ansom. Shooting is just that useful. More specifically, shooting with him is just that useful as he has the strength to one-hit most mages in the game. Shino's general weakness lets the whole set of shooting people down despite her having better range.
SMVU would be Margus. Because ZOC is just that useful >_>. But not as useful as destroying mages.
TMVU... not sure. Probably Marie. Because inherent MP regeneration is just that useful >_>_>. All the other magicusers take forever to get access to MP regeneration if they even do manage to get it, and it's not as useful near the end of the game as it would have been near the start as they've all gotten ludicrous pools of MP by then but are extremely limited early on. Also, doesn't take up a skill slot. Be nicer if she got Oratorio earlier though.
So now I can play a New Game + except I am not completely insane so
A certain dark knight has insane range with his special as well as doing big damage. Have a lot of drugs, and you can at least make him snip three times.
Also, the final is not going to attack if you are within a certain range, or you can just use Elma's mdef buff. Once the boss's buffer hp are gone, just have Sedric run ahead for a kill.
Well, the game did not allow me to see the range of his special. It does say that it is based on his movement but there is only one place he can be positioned in order to hit the guy with it without being within range for black death on the enemy turn, and that's down amongst the big army which to be fair did not end up happening but wrote it off at the time. The skill description also gave off the impression that after using the skill he would end up at the opposite side of the range, so I was assuming that even if I did get him in place to use it he would just end up next to the guy and eat black death anyway. It turns out this wasn't true, but whatever.
In fact I did manage to get a hit of it in during my successful attempt; I had him in the general vicinity keeping archer reinforcements off Marie/Ansom/Izuna and sent him over to help out after the final became helpless and Marie was freed up to laser the archers. It did 140 damage from memory, so it wasn't that spectacular (but then again high-strength Izuna was doing 50-odd damage off regular attacks, so I'm probably being deluded by his insane defences here).
If the final doesn't attack within a certain range, that would have been an enormous flaw in him but I don't understand why he wouldn't? I can't say anything about the range of his long-range spell, but I had his low-range spell on a couple of units and I don't remember it having a minimum range, and he was more than willing to use it at mid-range; never got the chance to see him use anything at short-range, so I can't confirm or deny what you're saying. It'd be bizarre if he didn't use it though.
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Okay so incomplete quotes of stuff I said a few days ago is going to make that kind of hard for me to respond to, but the general gist of the argument is that you generally don't want to just debuff the enemy and only buff yourself. The key to victory in FF13 is to do all of them. Debuffs are stronger, but Protect/Shell lets you trivialise bosses as a threat far more than debuffing them since they will block the debuffs that would neuter them. You want to do all those things. Soooooooo, again I go back to what other methods to you want to employ to play the game? You WANT to buff up, it lets you kill things better, you want to debuff them, it lets you kill them faster, you WANT to Paradigm shift, it gets you turns faster, you want a diverse set of paradigms, so short of running a set of Com/Rav/Rav and Rav/Rav/Rav (which is a limited party choice variant) you are going to have spend some time with someone as something else in there and Sentinel is horrible at killing enemies in a timely manner (That 5 star kills goal the game sets for you). So you are going to be spending some time in Medic, Saboteur or Synergist. Like all things these work best by far when you mix things up. Debuffs may be better than buffs, but Haste kicks the shit out of debuffs and so on. And you don't need a Commando in every Paradigm setup, but you need them SOMEWHERE which was my entire point. Without Commandos slowing the Chain gauge depletion you are just straight up not staggering most of the stuff you are coming across. See your statements about benefits of Sentinel giving about the same boost on the gauge as Commando and Saboteur, which is to say, you need ravagers to get that shit going anywhere other than chipping the enemy. There is just flat out no room for "Variant play" in FF13. There is a core basic recipe that you have to adhere to no matter how you go about it. I was responding to Djinn saying that it is once again a case of me tearing open the game, finding what works but is not fun and then no changing things to mix it up and make it fun. So again, to reiterate the point of my argument, there is no reasonable room for variant play styles in FF13. You can just mix up the ingredients to the recipe in whatever order you want.
Sentinel is good at what it does and yeah it can dish out damage while doing so, but it is entirely completely and totally counter to the "Kill the enemy as quickly as possible" the game gives you. They are good at what they do and when you need them they are indespensible, the things they do are slow and they are not needed for the vast majority of the game.
FFT
FFT has little in the way of multimode skills. The good skills almost universally cost trivial JP and don't require going up the tree much. You might switch up dorks for compatibility issues and favor certain jobs for stat gains, but for the most part the good stuff is handed to you on a silver platter. Having a bunch of skills in game != game has higher % of good skills.
FFT may have a few good skills that can be bought for very little JP that will get you through the game. These are also represented over 20 different jobs with skillsets being able to be applied in tandem with innate ones presenting a far more dynamic skilll system with varying different degrees of synergy that is capable of being applied to your 3-5 characters you bring into combat. So while there is a subset of "Good cheap skills" there is also such a large range of them that can be applied in such a varying amount of ways that the comparison here is quite frankly a laughable strawman. You may be able to find 3 people in a pool of 20 that played FFT roughly the same, but I can give you a pool of about 20 people that have played the game more than 3 times and not played it the same way once. FFT is not a giant of hyper balanced gameplay, but it gives you a varying number of choices to make and those choices are fairly compelling. FFT I may need a healer, but I have 2 Primary healing skillsets that I can apply and 3 with varying degrees of consistent but less diverse healing to choose from if I want to trade in some Healing utility for a bit more damage. FF13 lets me have a healer or I can have TWO healers OR MAYBE I CAN MAKE EVERYONE A HEALER. But that is the solution to your problem. You need healing? Make sure you have a party with Medic in it. Sure you could build a party with no Medics in it. Sazh, Fang, Snow party, rad, you can have 2 Sentinels. OROROROROR you could sink a fuckton of skill points into Medic for one of them and have a totally gimp healer with 1/3 the skillset of a competent one. That would be sweet.
blah blah "alternate methods"
These have a tendency to be a million times more abusable than combat. Boosting them also tends to involve stupid pet tricks no different than "power leveling" or "grinding."
And there you have totally lost me, are you taking FFT still? Because last I looked you could do things like CT5 Don't Act without any grinding. Last I looked while Demi and Life Drain were functionally similar on offense the fact that they are on completely different yet absolutely attainable job sets gives you a great deal of difference in the way you apply them. Just because the standard builds you see around the place for Draw-Out require a retarded amount of grinding doesn't stop you from being able to cherry pick the tree in a very effective way and be quite formidable and again, completely different play style to someone who just went "Man Scream is awesome, I could totally one shot all the guys on this map" come Chapter 4. Last I looked people were using Physical classes other than Ninjas still. I am pretty sure people think Guns and Mediators are pretty sweet. What was that? Chemist is a usable end game healing class? But I thought everyone was just running White Mages because Holy is broken am I not right?
The number of things you can use to beat FFT without power gaming is astronomical and they are all right there for the taking. The fact that you have good skills for affordable JP costs does the game far more good than it does it bad.
If you are talking about other games, well yes, alternate combat methods in other games may very well be stupid, that would be why I didn't use them as examples. They are examples of doing it wrong. Well not just examples of doing it wrong, but examples of doing it astronomically wrong.
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The fuck? Man sometimes Game Freak just hate on pokemon to an amazing degree.
(http://faqsmedia.ign.com/faqs/image/article/821/821119/flareon.jpg)
GAMEFREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAKS!
Andrew is back doing games he hasn't beat yet.
Muramasa: Completed Kisuke's path. Found the final boss to be a pain in the ass, so I spammed Soul Power restoration and such to utterly ruin him. Ending was unexpected, but cute. Fun game. Gonna beat Momohime's path next.
Valkyria Chroicles: Blew up an invincible train. And by blew up, I mean dropped in a goddamn river. Alicia/Scouts in general is/are broken as hell with Order support. That is all.
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Okay, so much for that team. Pryce's Piloswine OHKOs everything in it except the Mantine and always goes first. Aaaaaargh.
Edit: Is Piloswine supposed to be blindingly fast, or should I focus on beefing up my levels here? I can either grind or look for a better defensive type match; I'm not expecting to get enough defense to survive his attacks, but if I can just get my attacks in first I can eat the losses and murder him anyway, because when I do get the occasional hit in from him picking the wrong attack, it does good damage.
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Piloswine should only be fast if he has a massive level edge; I believe its a rather slow Pokemon at base.
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Piloswine is base speed 50, so you're probably underleveled. My Feraligatr went before it and OHKOd with Surf. Now Mamoswine is the wacky one with a jump to 80 base speed.
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I ended up using elemental-reduction berries to kill it with no changes save the addition of a L23 Growlithe, just suicide-blitzing until I wore down its HP. MVP: L21 Mantine with Surf.
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Pokemon SS: Suicune caught with Serious Nature! Fuck it, I'll take it; neutral is better than "yar lets nerf defense for attack hyuk hyuk"; the one with +Spd and -SpA I was debating, but I accidentally ejected the game in my pocket so SO MUCH FOR THAT! Also catching Legendaries at day time is a lot harder than night time; DUSK BALLS FOR GODLIKE!
Also kicked the shit out of Brock. Good Water types kick his ass, ACT SHOCKED!
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The last model (PDW-XN.V3) is servicable but not great. You get it with only 2 chapters left and it can't be customized nearly as well as the SMG-05 or the NP-05.C
Lies!! it can be tweaked into 50% acceleration on top of at least 97 Charge.
Or better yet, 218 charge on top of 44% acceleration, things starts to go crazy after the 5th cycle.
It certainly is late, yes, but most certainly not poor when comes into customization.
Also, the true evil is MP-05.C
If you are willing to sacrifice the charge and focus everything onto acceleration... it can goes up to 80%
And heavens fall apart once you hit the tenth cycle..... especially if you lift the enemy into air........
Also, you give Roen a bit too much credit on his durability, He is actually weak against all element outside physical and can be statused. On the other hand, the emo priest actually resist all element outside physical and actually has stataus immunity.
In fact I did manage to get a hit of it in during my successful attempt; I had him in the general vicinity keeping archer reinforcements off Marie/Ansom/Izuna and sent him over to help out after the final became helpless and Marie was freed up to laser the archers. It did 140 damage from memory, so it wasn't that spectacular (but then again high-strength Izuna was doing 50-odd damage off regular attacks, so I'm probably being deluded by his insane defences here).
If the final doesn't attack within a certain range, that would have been an enormous flaw in him but I don't understand why he wouldn't? I can't say anything about the range of his long-range spell, but I had his low-range spell on a couple of units and I don't remember it having a minimum range, and he was more than willing to use it at mid-range; never got the chance to see him use anything at short-range, so I can't confirm or deny what you're saying. It'd be bizarre if he didn't use it though.
The final has insane resistance against everything that is not Sedric.
And sometime he won't attack close range because he'll option of Pandemonium at close range, but that spell hurt allies as well, so there is a chance for the AI well refrain from using it.
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Psychonauts - Beaten. Time logged: ~27 hours.
As written on the box, it's "A psychic adventure from the mind of Tim Schafer".
I heard good things about it and saw it at GameStop for $13 for the PS2, so I decided to pick it up. I am not disappointed in the slightest.
I might type up a rant later, but I don't think I could come up with a single thing that I don't like.
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I am the milkman. My milk is delicious.
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Man, I don't know how you can come out of Psychonauts with nothing to complain about, even if only about Arrow heads grinding or something in the Meat Circus. When the game is great it is out of this world, when it hits its low points they are pretty tedious (And then it lets you be a Kaiju monster and everything is perfect).
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The lowest points for me were figment hunting in the hard-to-see areas... Like Milla's Dance Party (Race area specifically), and Black Velvetopia. Meat Circus was also incredibly annoying, but less so once I figured out how to scale the tents. The Rail grinding section can go die in a fire, though.
PSI Shield + Regeneration trivialized the final boss... But it was a good story, too. I loved the humor~. I was never really hurting for Arrowheads at any point thanks to the Dowsing Rod - hell, I finish the game with over 2000 Arrowheads to spare. Only used the Dream Fluffs three times in the entire game... Yeah, I still had fun.
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Megaman Powered Up:
Elecman: His stage wasn't too hard and he was a respectable fight. I beat him with one little sliver of life left; I liked how his thunderbolts were harder to dodge and were more about anticipating them. Nice fight.
Timeman: His stage felt really long, though this was because it had up/down movement and you could fall back quite a ways. Timeman himself was a joke.
Wily 1: Short and easy. I got up to the Yellow Devil and called it a day. I wasn't really up to dealing with him, plus his spinning graphics seriously fucked with my perception.
Lunar: Silver Star Harmony:
Fooling around in the White Dragon's Lair. Nothing much has really changed except Luna is Aerith now. Go go go limit break megaelixir! Between that and full healing when you level up, resources feel like they're not going to be a serious concern.
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The last model (PDW-XN.V3) is servicable but not great. You get it with only 2 chapters left and it can't be customized nearly as well as the SMG-05 or the NP-05.C
Lies!! it can be tweaked into 50% acceleration on top of at least 97 Charge.
Or better yet, 218 charge on top of 44% acceleration, things starts to go crazy after the 5th cycle.
It certainly is late, yes, but most certainly not poor when comes into customization.
Also, the true evil is MP-05.C
If you are willing to sacrifice the charge and focus everything onto acceleration... it can goes up to 80%
And heavens fall apart once you hit the tenth cycle..... especially if you lift the enemy into air........
Also, you give SPOILERS a bit too much credit on his durability, He is actually weak against all element outside physical and can be statused. On the other hand, the emo priest actually resist all element outside physical and actually has stataus immunity.
97 Charge with 57% Accerleration doesn't look impressive compared to 107 Charge 59% Acceleration on the model that you start with at the beginning >_>. It also doesn't beat the NP-05.C since that one has something like 120 Charge with 66% Acceleration. 214 Charge seems kinda wasted, but I guess it helps on higher difficulties for sniping? I dunno. Anything past 100 Charge to me felt sort of a waste of custom ports since it didn't improve charge speed that much. That one sounds better than 97 Charge 57% Acceleration though.
Not factoring in the gold guns you get in Neverland myself since those are clearly aftergame to me. Which basically would lose all relevance for the main portion of the game. Though yes, they're really powerful for good reason.
Also Niu, you might want to refer to the final as the final. We avoid spoilers that way. Anyways, I dunno. I never checked his resists or weakness, but even using Hollow Point Incindenaries, it still took like 2 Tri Attacks + 4 Hero Actions before hand to kill him. That's pretty impressive as far as RoF bosses go sans like maybe the turrets in C.15 if they're not abusing the hell out of their gimmick. I guess if you connect the Amplifier terminal it makes him notably worst (whee x4 instead of x2 damage) but that wouldn't matter in the DL past his initial weakness since whee Double dipping.
Again, as I already noted, if you consider the level up full healing mechanic in RoF, he's notably worse since he can't make damage stick for a while and it drops his durability down. Boozehound Priest could be Full scratched I remember reading, and he doesn't recover from scratch damage ever. It makes him look worse since at least the final can recover from scratch and his large HP lets him get some relevant regen. I guess him resisting elements is relevant if you brought in grenades instead of a handgun, but why you wouldn't scratch him up before using something easily replacable like basic Hand grenades is beyond me. And due to the nature of that fight, you can't even carry the Magazine case.
The status immunity counts though for sure. I probably should've mentioned that. I remember one of the hard mode strategies reported on GFAQs involved immolating the final so he takes like 5k+ damage a second.
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No offence to those guys but ahahaha.
My reaction exactly.
SMT SJ - Up to the point where you have to choose one of the three paths. Thinking of going chaos because I want to stick it to the man and all that but I hit quite a roadblock. Fricking Commander Gore! The guy not only hits massively hard but is a complete HP god to boot. 7500 hp is a massive amount of health but guess what folks he can FULL HEAL when he drops to 10-20% health.
Storywise its nothing out of this world but its the first SMT game that made me take something other then middle of the road so congrats to it. The reason being Chaos Hero because unlike his SMT1 counterpart isn't a complete prick. I especially liked his calling out of Law Heroine on her Zombie making.
Law Heroine on the other hand is complete fail for the usual reasons. Blah Blah Join together in one soul Blah Blah Blah Kill those who do not pray to god blah blah blah GOD RULEZ!
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SRW:J - Beaten
To all of you who said this was an easy game? Oh how right you were. As it was, complex spirit abuse was not necessary, nor was the copious amount of Spirit restoring items I was given. As it was, reals spent most of the game effectively untouchable, and when they weren't, they were covered by supports and distortion fields, so it's not like they took damage anyways. The boss, besides having some cute tricks, still only had an effective HP of 300k, if that. And his 10k infinite swarm mooks were being taken out by counters, stray maps, and attacks that couldn't be directed at the boss. Oddly, the extra unit I got for the last fight was utterly useless, in that it's damage could not keep up with the party mainstays, and it joined at 100 Will while the rest of the party was kicking around 145 by that point.
Anyways, final party.
Shockingly, the favourite series picks turned out the best. So I'll cover them first.
Belzelute Brigandi - Actually pretty glad I chose this one. It's damage isn't all that great, in fact it's downright horrible, but it filled a niche I needed. Crowd control + sniper. It ended up with a great map attack that, while not Psy-Buster, was still pretty effective when it could come into play and the final ranges were up to 13 paired with Hit&Away and Orgon Cloud. Great fun in the second to last map where the enemies just wanted to sit in their little formations so I could blast them. Only real flaw with this unit is that between Katia and Kelvena there was no Strike, only Love. This meant that she got one (in the last level it became two with help) rounds of ignoring Double Images.
Mazinkaiser - Up above I noted that the Brigandi had a notable flaw. Mazinkaiser... well, it also has it's flaw, but it's just that it only has one item slot. Well, the EN reliance and the costs of everything is also up there, but using an ENGigachip to drop the costs by 30% finished that. As it is, this thing tanks well enough to keep up at endgame, can drop enemy hit rates to 40% when properly supported, and can combo for five digit damage through most barriers, before Valour. Or just use it's best attack for almost as much damage. Easily the core of my super robot attack force, and the bane of bosses. Likely my MVP, if only because it didn't need combo attacks, it just really liked them.
The Nadesco - Great sniper, and unlike most battleships, does damage worth noting. Having the ability to give it Hit&Away to use with the Y-Unit (both regular and Map) just added to the fun. And while it never could dodge things, the four item slots made it easy to slap on things like an Organic Bit (HP Regen S) or Armour, or whatever else I felt was needed. Toss in five strong Spirit pools for what is easily the best battleship I've ever seen in one of these things.
The Aesti Valis' - What's that? These aren't supposed to be good? While the units above were better individual units, the Aesti's ended up being pretty damn good all on their own merits. Akito and Gai managed to be terrors when they finally got reunited, and with Soul instead of Valour, they managed to be almost as strong against bosses as the Mazingers. The Girls kept up as well, but because they had three of them to launch group attacks with. Their big flaw is that they are frail against lategame bosses, and only three of them have surefire take a hit abilities. (Ryoko and Akito pack Alert, while Gai has Invincible. The other two need to Focus, and possibly pray) However, they have defense supports to spare, and OHKO damage gets dropped to 3 or 4 hits to kill after being halved and distorted. Not to mention, their big advantage is that unlike every other unit in the game, once they have the morale, they can spam their best stuff on everything. Also, no love for what's his nuts.
Great Mazinger - Merely alright as a unit, it'd be nothing special and likely dropped if it didn't pair up with Mazinkaiser of the absurd. But yeah, doesn't dodge as much, can't tank as well, doesn't deal as much damage, and the only thing it makes up for this with is a second item slot. Ended up giving it a large Barrier and EN Regen S, but still a lesser unit.
God Gundam - Managed to get over it's early flaws, and it's attack power was almost MKaiser level. Ended up with Nobel and Raising Gundam as filler just because I liked the combos (nothing quite like tango-ing moon generals to death). Ended up with no speed boosters but a good range booster at the end, so it also ended up notable to me as this slow unit that could reach, and hurt, a lot of things if given the chance. Kinda like the complete opposite of Layzner. Also notable in that it's the only unit not on my favourites list that I'd stick up in top tier.
Final Dancougar - Hey, look, the last non filler member of my team. Generally didn't like it as much as the units stated above, and there were other things that worked almost as well. But it managed to pretty much always be available, and could always pull its weight, so it got the job. Stepped up a bit once I felt I could spam the high end stuff a bit more, but the low end sword attack and just punching things also got the job done.
Bonta-Kun - Scrubby unit, but MVP of battle animations. And hey, who doesn't want to beat up moon men with machine gun toting hamsters?
Final Battle Filler
Archangel - Forced to use it, less useful in every category than the Nadesco.
Nobel Gundam - Combos well with the God Gundam, and holds it's weight.
Raising Gundam - Less carrying of own weight, but comes with healing and combos. And the Mazingers love their healing.
Freedom Gundam - Yeah, decided to pull out Kira near the end. Needed more upgrades.
Layzner Mk.2 - Mobile and good for triggering support attacks. Sadly, my one casualty in the final battle.
Other Notables Who I Liked But Dropped
Tekkaman Blade - You disappeared for too long man. Maybe next time.
Zeorymer - Mostly because next playthrough will be the aim for Zeorymer Mk.2 playthrough.
Bloody Kaiser - I got a better healer who also came with a shiny combo attack.
And... that seems to be it. Generally a fun game, especially the way combos have stepped up as a mechanic. The map attacks being less available also seem to encourage the use of combos. Script also looks like it could be interesting, but I won't be touching this game again until the English patch is complete so, that's something for the future.
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Heart Gold: aaaaaarghleadfoiawfhweao Clair's Kingdra. Hyper Beam, STAB Hydro Pump, STAB Dragon Pulse, and the only weakness it has is to Dragon, which of course will take double damage in turn from the aforementioned STAB Dragon Pulse. Even with berries, nothing I have survives a single turn, regardless of type matchup. Grinding time!
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Claire's always been a cruel bitch! The best I can reccomend is invest in some sort of Steel type (if that's possible) have a good water type, then play swapping game against her. I think Dragon Pulse has only like 5 shots so it could work?
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Dragon Pulse is 10 PP base, and I'm pretty confident that gym leaders have all their PP maxed out.
My suggestion would be to spam whatever accuracy, speed, and special attack debuffs you have against that Kingdra. Leech Seed would be killer here, but IIRC you don't have access to that.
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Spamming debuffs involves getting turns. So far it's a no-go on that, aside from one time Bayleef got a Magical Leaf off for negligible damage. My Steel type is Magneton, which gets OHKOed by Hydro Pump. I'm tempted to just buy 20 Revives and wait out the PP.
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...if Bayleef hasn't evolved yet, then you could use some more levels yeah. Light Screen would also help - you can buy the TM at Goldenrod.
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Yeah, I know I'm underleveled, but grinding above the mid-twenties is boring as fuck when randoms don't go above L25 anywhere I can reach.
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Trainer rematches are a much better source of exp than randoms. Sadly the VS Seeker doesn't exist in HGSS, so you're stuck with the FAQ-bait phone system.
http://serebii.net/heartgoldsoulsilver/rematch-wednesday.shtml
Note that serebii is mistaken on one point: if you call at the right time and are in a different area, getting a rematch is guaranteed.
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I didn't even know you could call trainers for rematches. I've been re-fighting as they called me, but that was it.
Edit: Also, holy shit that system is stupid. Yeah, I'm going to call my entire phone list three times a day to hunt down the ONE PERSON who will agree to a rematch at a time. Thank God emulation just checks the system clock.
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GSC had some... issues.
SONIC PLOT - Chapter 3. Holy fuck I have no idea what to make of this game.
EDIT: Also, is it just me or Tails' skillset/stat design is kind of a logical extreme of my DLDL sheet sans the speed?
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Fire Emblem 6 - Replayed this, finished it recently. Used Dieck/Clarine/Sue/Lilina/Lalum/Echinda/Ray/Miledy for the final, Alan, Lance, Bors, Lugh, Rutger, Fir, and Percival also saw use, with the occasional additional appearance of Saul and Astol. Used Lot early but he got benched since he wasn't really turning out.
Roy - Was pretty average throughout, bit above offensively, bit below defensively. Not much to say.
Alan - Started gaining a bunch of speed late, but otherwise turned out as expected. Didn't bring him to the final though as I had Miledy as the designated Malte user.
Lance - He turned out pretty much as expected, too. Not a lot to say.
Bors - Filled his role. Like Alan he got a bunch of speed late but was never that much of an offensive powerhouse. That's okay though, he was there to tank and help the Lilina murdertrain.
Lugh - Man. Had a good start and a good finish, just did not want to cooperate in the middle. Oh well, FE6 mage, you know he's awesome.
Dieck - Was fairly solid, though he lagged a bit in the middle before promotion
Clarine - Got fairly decent magic, but otherwise, it's Clarine. She heals and she dodges shit left and right.
Rutger - Turned out fairly well. Not a whole lot to say.
Sue - Had fairly decent strength but otherwise token bow user.
Lilina - Good lord what the fuck was Lilina on this playthough. Decided to gain a shitload of speed early (8 points in the first 10 levels) and wound up capping it at 20/11. Wound up as the highest leveled party member at 20/18 Turned pretty much every boss into a giant pile of lol as a result. Clear MVP of the playthrough.
Fir - Took a while for her to cooperate but once she did she turned out decently.
Echinda - Decided to gain a fair bit of strength so I went hey why not go ahead and use her. Outside of that, token axe user and recipent of 1x Body Ring.
Ray - Unlike his brother, Ray never really fell off. Not hugely impressive but still decent.
Miledy - Don't think she gained a single point of Def the entire playthrough, but I could be wrong. Oh well, was still awesome.
Percival - Filler towards the end. Still pretty good!
Clearly I should go and replay FE8 next.
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Zerg are OP, that is all.
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The last model (PDW-XN.V3) is servicable but not great. You get it with only 2 chapters left and it can't be customized nearly as well as the SMG-05 or the NP-05.C
Lies!! it can be tweaked into 50% acceleration on top of at least 97 Charge.
Or better yet, 218 charge on top of 44% acceleration, things starts to go crazy after the 5th cycle.
It certainly is late, yes, but most certainly not poor when comes into customization.
Also, the true evil is MP-05.C
If you are willing to sacrifice the charge and focus everything onto acceleration... it can goes up to 80%
And heavens fall apart once you hit the tenth cycle..... especially if you lift the enemy into air........
Also, you give SPOILERS a bit too much credit on his durability, He is actually weak against all element outside physical and can be statused. On the other hand, the emo priest actually resist all element outside physical and actually has stataus immunity.
97 Charge with 57% Accerleration doesn't look impressive compared to 107 Charge 59% Acceleration on the model that you start with at the beginning >_>. It also doesn't beat the NP-05.C since that one has something like 120 Charge with 66% Acceleration. 214 Charge seems kinda wasted, but I guess it helps on higher difficulties for sniping? I dunno. Anything past 100 Charge to me felt sort of a waste of custom ports since it didn't improve charge speed that much. That one sounds better than 97 Charge 57% Acceleration though.
214 Charge most certainly means something, it starts to matter after the 5th cycle, and it really show its worth when you attack normally. It also really helps in conserving I.S. guage in lengthy fights. Charge over 100 doesn't seem to be matter at initial cycles, but it really picks up later on.
Though, not arguing that MP-05.C is good, hell it detsroy worlds. It breaks 100 cycles easily once you air lift. I mutilated the entire after game by doing that.......
Again, as I already noted, if you consider the level up full healing mechanic in RoF, he's notably worse since he can't make damage stick for a while and it drops his durability down. Boozehound Priest could be Full scratched I remember reading, and he doesn't recover from scratch damage ever. It makes him look worse since at least the final can recover from scratch and his large HP lets him get some relevant regen. I guess him resisting elements is relevant if you brought in grenades instead of a handgun, but why you wouldn't scratch him up before using something easily replacable like basic Hand grenades is beyond me. And due to the nature of that fight, you can't even carry the Magazine case.
Emo Priest gets full scratched?? Nonono, he most certainly not. His fullscratch multiplier is zero as far as I know. Also, as a side note, the lat 3 bosses all eats status, and all status. It means they can be breezed and electrocuted as well. Though, Oil is the most notable, that quickly depletes their HP combined with Burn Bullets.
Storywise its nothing out of this world but its the first SMT game that made me take something other then middle of the road so congrats to it. The reason being Chaos Hero because unlike his SMT1 counterpart isn't a complete prick. I especially liked his calling out of Law Heroine on her Zombie making.
Law Heroine on the other hand is complete fail for the usual reasons. Blah Blah Join together in one soul Blah Blah Blah Kill those who do not pray to god blah blah blah GOD RULEZ!
HALLELUJAH!! SELENEN!!!
HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!
Jokes aside, I highly recommend Law ending though, just to see how wrong and fucked up it is. It really shows you the true essence of zealotry.
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Whee, beat Clair. Level-grinding was what I needed. A team at L32 (with the final evo for Bayleef, and Larvitar finally upgraded to Pupitar) had no problems at all with her Dragonairs, and Magneton introduced the Kingdra to the joys of STAB Choice Specs Thunder off 90+ SPA. Still took a lucky break to get in the two shots I needed, but for some reason it decided to Dragon Pulse instead of killing, and that was all it took. Clair never even got to use her items.
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No offence to those guys but ahahaha.
My reaction exactly.
SMT SJ - Up to the point where you have to choose one of the three paths. Thinking of going chaos because I want to stick it to the man and all that but I hit quite a roadblock. Fricking Commander Gore! The guy not only hits massively hard but is a complete HP god to boot. 7500 hp is a massive amount of health but guess what folks he can FULL HEAL when he drops to 10-20% health.
Storywise its nothing out of this world but its the first SMT game that made me take something other then middle of the road so congrats to it. The reason being Chaos Hero because unlike his SMT1 counterpart isn't a complete prick. I especially liked his calling out of Law Heroine on her Zombie making.
Law Heroine on the other hand is complete fail for the usual reasons. Blah Blah Join together in one soul Blah Blah Blah Kill those who do not pray to god blah blah blah GOD RULEZ!
I've always wondered if extremely religious people would choose the Law Path in any SMT game, or if they would be turned off by being associated with the character.
I assume part of the reason I wonder about it is because my disdain for religious people is so great that I have a hard time distinguishing between -actual- religious people and badly-portrayed caricatures of them from video games. Is that just me?
It's a moot point since no one religious enough to agree with an SMT Law Path character would ever be playing a video game in the first place (or if they were, it wouldn't be SMT).
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Emo Priest gets full scratched?? Nonono, he most certainly not. His fullscratch multiplier is zero as far as I know. Also, as a side note, the lat 3 bosses all eats status, and all status. It means they can be breezed and electrocuted as well. Though, Oil is the most notable, that quickly depletes their HP combined with Burn Bullets.
Well the crazy artist and UOM don't matter on standard difficulty since one Triangle attack kills them. Final is notable though since it can take several of those, which is pretty impressive for a RoF boss without coats and coats of armor plating. Maybe he's OMG durable, but he's certainly durable to me. Oil adds a x2 bonus for fire damage? Yeah, that would make him look horribly bad in game. Fire boost + Amp + Oil = x8 damage multiplier.
As for Boozehound Priest, guess I was mistaken about the full scratch mult then. Although I can't really see how you would think he's more durable than the final. Boozehound dies to 3 Rob Modes. Final takes a lot more than that and that's once you factor in weakness and terminals too.
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GSC had some... issues.
SONIC PLOT
This is a remake, not the original game, they are supposed to be FIXING that bullshit. Fucking hell, and FR/LG were so PROMISING for GSC remakes. I thought they might make me want to actually play something other than Gen1 or Gen 1 remakes. Oh wells. I care less now that I know they haven't done much to fix the obviously broken with stuff like that.
Which reminds me, I finished CT DS and fuck the ending a lot. I remember Dune being amazed at how shitty and ending it was and I was all "Pffft whatever Dune, you are just a hater. I will reserve my scorn until I play it myself" which took like 3 years to happen, but anyway, so Dune was right. This ending is shit. The bonus dungeons are shit as well. It is like a textbook example of how NOT to do Chrono Trigger almost.
Which means that I should probably go back to playing SONIC PLOT sometime and finish that.
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Pokemon HG: Currently level grinding for Red/Boosted E4. I swapped out Dewgong for a Tentacruel and Ampharos for a Gardevoir so my team is currently Tentacruel, Gardevoir, Arcanine, Tangrowth, Yanmega, Gengar all currently level 52 except for the Tentacruel who's level 41. The low level is probably due to me changing my team around because Ampharos was about level 47 when I decided to swap him out and Dewgong was 50 or so. None of the Kanto gym leaders were really that difficult aside from Blue and that was mainly because I thought his last pokemon was going to be an Alakazam instead of a high level Pidgeot. The game is still really fun mainly because there's just so much stuff to do. G/S/C already had the longest main game and they added all the stuff you can do from Emerald in the aftergame. The phone is a big step down compared to the Vs. Seeker, but the game just made so many improvements and added so much new stuff that I can forgive it.
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Heart Gold: Like a lot of people, I've hit a roadblock in the form of Claire's Kingdra. The other three of her Pokemon don't pose much of a threat anymore, but I just can't get enough to take that darn thing down yet. Then again, I haven't bought or used any items other than a few Great/Ultra Balls since the start of the game, so... average level is 37 right now. Yes, you can all start laughing now. Walking around rematching and waiting for my Eevee eggs to hatch.
Other than that, I've spent most of today playing through some old 360 titles I hadn't touched in a while to get some achievements to get 60% completion before I start on some new titles. Yes, you can all keep on laughing. Anyway...
-Thrillville OTR: While I never really got into the coaster building that is the series' forte, I liked the minigames.
-Hail To The Chimp: The game aspects are pretty much just there for me to allow me to unlock the humorous content of the shows and color commentary. Not terribly impressive but worth the $20 I spent for it.
-Assassin's Creed: I stopped playing this after reaching the first major city the first time, so I played through today to the end of the second memory sequence. Playing through to see if it would be worth getting AC2.
-Guitar Hero 2: Unlocked the location in RI.
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Which reminds me, I finished CT DS and fuck the ending a lot. I remember Dune being amazed at how shitty and ending it was and I was all "Pffft whatever Dune, you are just a hater. I will reserve my scorn until I play it myself" which took like 3 years to happen, but anyway, so Dune was right. This ending is shit. The bonus dungeons are shit as well. It is like a textbook example of how NOT to do Chrono Trigger almost.
The director of Chrono Cross oversaw the port. Contain your shock.
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Jokes aside, I highly recommend Law ending though, just to see how wrong and fucked up it is. It really shows you the true essence of zealotry.
Well that gets me interested. I think I'll go law when I finish and youtube Neutral as it seems boring.
It's a moot point since no one religious enough to agree with an SMT Law Path character would ever be playing a video game in the first place (or if they were, it wouldn't be SMT).
You'd have to be a pretty big Zealot to agree to any of the law paths besides maybe Devil Survivor's? From what I've picked up from disscussions on the matter most people choose more based on what the world becomes then the ideology of Law or Chaos. The first two SMT games showcase how the world is in those extreams and quite frankly I prefer the Chaos world. At least in that world there is choice and if you die it ultimately comes down to your weakness and not because you didn't say thanks to the big guy before you went to sleep.
SMT SJ - After Grinding two levels and setting up my demons for the battle Gore became quite easy due to his lack of variety. So my man Chaos Hero shows up and we ride to see the big bad mother of all these demons who forgives me for killing her soldiers. After a short fetch quest and I'm on the way back to see big mama I'm jumped by an angel who exclaims he is he who is slow to forgive ??? So Big Mama forgives me but a prick like you won't eh? And after I killed all those big bad meanies for them. He does destroy the elevator to big mama so I'll have to go around through the final dungeon but the egg on his face when he finds out that'll make me more powerful then he can imagine ;D
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Forgot to post stuffs about
Phoenix Wright 5 Edgeworth Investigations. Beat the game on Monday, and can't say that any of the cases really stood out to me. Except the last one. Very solid game, I feel, but the last one just ties everything up so nicely. Bit of odd logic in there that I can't say I found the same way, and it certainly felt like they purposefully ignored some really obvious things they should've done, but hey. Good case.
Also, how has Edgeworth not killed himself after that? How have I not killed myself after that? I swear, that case was made for Edgeworth to commit suicide.
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SRW:J - Beaten
To all of you who said this was an easy game? Oh how right you were.
Well, duh. >_> W manages the amazing feat of being -easier-
The Nadesco - Great sniper, and unlike most battleships, does damage worth noting. Having the ability to give it Hit&Away to use with the Y-Unit (both regular and Map) just added to the fun. And while it never could dodge things, the four item slots made it easy to slap on things like an Organic Bit (HP Regen S) or Armour, or whatever else I felt was needed. Toss in five strong Spirit pools for what is easily the best battleship I've ever seen in one of these things.
J Nadesico is goddamned broken. Five godly spirit pools and that level of concrete durability is just so stupid. Abusing the SP healing spirit was like a sport. It probably manages to outretard even @3 Battle 7 under Max's helm and definitely outretards the Mother Vanguard (i.e. the battleship with 15k base HP that can dodge like a Real and has a pilot with natural SP Regen+15 SP Guard+godly dodge and Newtype levels).
The Aesti Valis' - What's that? These aren't supposed to be good? While the units above were better individual units, the Aesti's ended up being pretty damn good all on their own merits. Akito and Gai managed to be terrors when they finally got reunited, and with Soul instead of Valour, they managed to be almost as strong against bosses as the Mazingers. The Girls kept up as well, but because they had three of them to launch group attacks with. Their big flaw is that they are frail against lategame bosses, and only three of them have surefire take a hit abilities. (Ryoko and Akito pack Alert, while Gai has Invincible. The other two need to Focus, and possibly pray) However, they have defense supports to spare, and OHKO damage gets dropped to 3 or 4 hits to kill after being halved and distorted. Not to mention, their big advantage is that unlike every other unit in the game, once they have the morale, they can spam their best stuff on everything. Also, no love for what's his nuts.
The Aesties sorta need to be used as a collective hivemind to be worth anything, but given that was your strategy, it pans out. They're not standout or anything, but solid enough as a collective mesh (not liabilities or anything). Plus, it's SRWJ. You might be able to make even trash like the M3 Astrays solid with enough upgrades and the game is so easy to begin with. >_>
Final Dancougar - Hey, look, the last non filler member of my team. Generally didn't like it as much as the units stated above, and there were other things that worked almost as well. But it managed to pretty much always be available, and could always pull its weight, so it got the job. Stepped up a bit once I felt I could spam the high end stuff a bit more, but the low end sword attack and just punching things also got the job done.
I miss @3 Dancougar. =(
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I dunno, Akito managed to work as a stand alone unit surprisingly well, in that he was probably my second best real after the God Gundam. Then again, he was probably also the unit that got the most attention/cash from me. (The Nadesco might have put up a fight, but halfway through the upgrade tree it was effectively immortal and my kill leader)
Anyways, currently fiddling about with A and OG1. One of those because, why not try the others on the GBA, and they are new, so do them in order. (Not to mention, despite having only seen two of them, I like the UC Gundam pilots for some reason that is beyond me) OG1 is mostly because I've never done Kyosuke's path before, and the followup for OG2 would be entirely for EX Hard. Main issue with A so far is that there's no way to turn off attack animations that I can see. Which is a shame, since there is very little in terms of the shiny here, and this is technology they had back in the SNES days. On the other hand, outside of Daimos and Angelg, attack animations have been mercifully short so far. OG1 is OG1. Have the Alteisen and Weisritter and stopped about there.
Speaking of got the Weisritter and Alteisen, I've figured out how to fix my ruddy DS, so Endless Frontier is go! And fittingly enough, I just picked up two more mechs. Gotta catch 'em all you know. Also finally reached Formido Heim and finished what needed to be done there. Found out who the completely shocking main villains of the game are and was appropriately shocked. Also amused at the fourth mech's identity. For some reason, I am now incapable of playing this thing for long stretches, and need cooldown time after playing for a while. I suspect this has something to do with the combat system.
Also, for a random first, a boss managed to kill three of my people from full health thanks to Soul Spam. If shields weren't so bloody common, I'd do more breaking up of chains to keep Defensive spirits high. But I think the added damage is worth more. Especially with how cheap and easy to use the items are. In other news, Kaguya currently has over 800 SP. This gets her used in boss fights.
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I dunno, Akito managed to work as a stand alone unit surprisingly well, in that he was probably my second best real after the God Gundam. Then again, he was probably also the unit that got the most attention/cash from me. (The Nadesco might have put up a fight, but halfway through the upgrade tree it was effectively immortal and my kill leader)
A good way to at least halfway mitigate unit problems in J is pumping a ton of cash into them. There's a sizable jump from base to cap, and the S ranks FUBs are so broken to boot if you reach them. It's no surprise there, really. If you gave the same upgrade attention to all the other Aesties, they'd turn up similar, I bet. It's mostly a matter of effort/benefit ratio here.
Also, for a random first, a boss managed to kill three of my people from full health thanks to Soul Spam. If shields weren't so bloody common, I'd do more breaking up of chains to keep Defensive spirits high. But I think the added damage is worth more. Especially with how cheap and easy to use the items are. In other news, Kaguya currently has over 800 SP. This gets her used in boss fights.
Man, wait until she gets Miracle. >_>
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Yeah, let's just say that in the English replay, Akito's gonna be an all-terrain unit.
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You might be able to make even trash like the M3 Astrays solid with enough upgrades and the game is so easy to begin with. >_>
No. I built everyone over the course of the four NG+ replays I did. Except them. And one or two other units.
The problem is that they have...either it was slightly better or slightly worse, I forget...stats than the Aile Strike Gundam/Rouge, and those get two alternate frames to use. So no.
(I think the most surprising scrub unit twinking for me was the Sol Tekkamen. Got cash? Toss it on them and watch them run around spamming a mid-4k base combo and not actually getting hit. Holy crap it's nearly competent. Good times.)
If you're serious about sticking with A, Excal(I do not recommend this: AP exists, pirate it on a modded PSP. Or import it. At least it rips off good PS2 animations verbatim instead. Not that AP is great either, just better.), I'd highly recommend just focusing highly on a few mechs. Doesn't even matter really what they are(good pilots really help as they'll usually keep), weapon upgrades have a notably higher effect than bases for all but the very best units(Which all tend to be obviously badass and late). Just find something with good stats. And a shield. This works for a lot of the game, until you get Shin Getter/Master Asia(if you do the rather complicated secret reqs)/Gundam Wing units.
(AP nerfing the GW cast makes AP a jerk too. :()
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I assume part of the reason I wonder about it is because my disdain for religious people is so great that I have a hard time distinguishing between -actual- religious people and badly-portrayed caricatures of them from video games. Is that just me?
Wait, so you have great disdain for the majority of the human race?
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I assume part of the reason I wonder about it is because my disdain for religious people is so great that I have a hard time distinguishing between -actual- religious people and badly-portrayed caricatures of them from video games. Is that just me?
Wait, so you have great disdain for the majority of the human race?
...What's wrong with that?
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I assume part of the reason I wonder about it is because my disdain for religious people is so great that I have a hard time distinguishing between -actual- religious people and badly-portrayed caricatures of them from video games. Is that just me?
Wait, so you have great disdain for the majority of the human race?
...What's wrong with that?
There's people not being disdained.
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SMT SJ - After Grinding two levels and setting up my demons for the battle Gore became quite easy due to his lack of variety. So my man Chaos Hero shows up and we ride to see the big bad mother of all these demons who forgives me for killing her soldiers. After a short fetch quest and I'm on the way back to see big mama I'm jumped by an angel who exclaims he is he who is slow to forgive ??? So Big Mama forgives me but a prick like you won't eh? And after I killed all those big bad meanies for them. He does destroy the elevator to big mama so I'll have to go around through the final dungeon but the egg on his face when he finds out that'll make me more powerful then he can imagine ;D
One of the best part of Chaos route is you get to see Lucifer insults Mansemat. BTW, chaos route's last boss is different from other two route, and you get to see a glimpse of the true zealotry I am talking about.
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SMT:SJ:
Just started, team at time of death was Melchom/first Vermin type/Koppa Feel Tengu. Died to a really unlucky Rampage chain. Considering the strong: phys/weak: fire armor as a result, but random Melchoms might make that IT'SATRAP.
Seems like generic but well designed SMT game thus far. Already calling a few different "plot twists" (and called a few pre-emptively), spoiler tagged for the sake of spoiler tagging SMT PLOT:
1: The Commander dies. I mean, -seriously-. Black guy? Not stereotypically black? Blam, dead in fifteen minutes. And Jimenez has already alluded that the corpse will have Nasty Stuff done to it by telling them not to bury it outside.
2: Russian chick's gonna go nuts. Which pisses me off, she reminds me of Emma who I liked. Subrule: she gets a Demonica. She kinda has to.
3: By "law of has a face" combined with "law of SMT alignment", in addition to "sublaw of the only person remaining WITH a face", Jimenez will be the other person to go nutso, though kinda frankly he's something of a dick anyway. Sorry, dude. But if you're Chaos path I might end up avoiding you -anyway- since I don't like you. Unless I can kill you and then jump onto Chaos path. I tend to like Chaos path. (For a very short moment I was hoping the Commander would be Chaos path. That would have been, at the least, creative.)
4: Given that I'm not out of the first Strata layer, banking on neither of the other ships even being intact OR the Elve being mostly intact but immobile, with the Gigantic completely annihilated 'cuz no one we cared about was on it. Yeah, this is basic twists. It's a SMT game. What do you expect, shock and awe?
5: Something infects a majority of the Demonica users halfway through, killing/driving them mad (this might influence 1's case). Arthur and... maybe a few scant others will survive on the Red Sprite, but no one else, and no Strike Team members or even most the crew. Banking on Chen over Irving, Maebe over her boss, Kato over Williams, both dudes at the deck die. Being "chosen" will save the faced characters; alternately, they're just strong enough mentally to endure it. Red Sprite stays functional but only barely, and it's mainly just clinging to you as its final hope. Actually... yeah, this has to happen, too many people alive on here for a SMT game. Either the Commander's body gets zombified and it proceeds to kill a ton of the people on board, while people won't fight back because it's the fucking Commander, or the madness hits first and possibly triggers the Commander's Demonica as well. Soooooo yeah.
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Heart Gold - Beat the Kimono Girls on my second try after not using items on the first. Went and used my Master Ball on Ho-Oh (after seven tries without, mind you) since I can just trade over some from Platinum through the GTS or cheat them on if necessary. At the recharge location on Route 26.
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Megaman ZX - finished
Nice, nice. I was playing on easy so most of the game was pretty mindless which is just what I was after.
Bosses aren't as memorable as Classic/X-series bosses. I seem to remember Z having the same problem.
Missing 7 discs, but I can't be bothered looking for them.
S&M3 episode 1 -
If I try to change resolution, it crashes, and then refuses to even start up until I restart the computer. I'm going to wait around for a couple days to see if anything is done about this and if it isn't I'll restart again and see if I can play it under the default settings. Tsk.
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MM9- Final boss! So much hate.
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Heart Gold: Think I'm just about done grinding on my challenge team to finally go and beat Blue. >.> Current team is:
- Lv 55 Alakazam
- Lv 39 Growlithe
- Lv 35 Mightyena
- Lv 32 Psyduck (Nitori~)
- Lv 17 Bibarel
- Lv 11 Ditto
And a shitload of items. This is the real winner, as I just sit there spamming revival on 'Zam while it Psychics things to death. >.>
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Crack Quest - So now I have Web. Breakbreakbreak~ (except against Silvermyr, who is a dick >_<)
EDIT:
Yeah, let's just say that in the English replay, Akito's gonna be an all-terrain unit.
Don't forget to FUB weaponry too. Woohoo S Ranks on weaponry across the board~
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SMT SJ - Finished.
*Spoilers*
*However this is SMT Chaos path so you're quite frankly blind if you consider these spoilers but whatever just in case because I know some people who get incredably pissy over such things*
So anyway I bop down into the final area with my good friends in the strike team and WHAM! Random teleport by Mastema who once again proves that Remiel is pretty much the only angel you can trust or talk with rationly...hell be in the same room with as these angels are bastards. Mastema isn't like his angel brothers though because while he still depises humans like his friends he has a much better reason for being a dick then the rest. Attention.
I mean the other angels get shiped off to Tokyo where they can have many fun times while he gets sent to the plantets hellhole. I can imagine the scene when the orders were given.
YHWH - *Reads off list* Okay you guys got that? Go to Tokyo and spread my will for about 8 hours a day. You're free to use the rest of the time for whatever purpose you wish. Meanwhile Metatron you can start doing whatever it is you do.
Mastema - What about me Lord?
YHWH - WHO THE HELL ARE YOU?
Mastema - Mastema my Lord!
YHWH - I don't recall your face. Well regardless I have a very important mission for you Mas......aaaa..........whoever you are.
Mastema - Where is it my Lord?
YHWH - The South Pole.
Mastema - ..............!?!
As for the fight itself he is laughably easy, also why is his true form merely a close up of himself? Lame. Him getting owned afterwards was pretty good.
Now that the trival Mastema was dead it was time for the final boss. Law Heroine! Who like Mastema is a ccomplete pushover. I had heard she was some almighty smiter from people but she did nothing impressive at all though looking at her skillset I could see where problems might arise. Anyway my Final Party.
Mc Lv 79 Hp 704 MP 367
ST 59
MA 58
VI 62
AG 56
LU 60
Sword attack 117
Gun Attack 189
Defence 177
Null: Fire, Lightening, Expel.
Moves: Moan Bullet, Frigid Spray, Grateful One.
Weapon: Kurikara Blade Attack 58/1-4 strikes.
Gun: Peacemaker Attack 130/1 strike.
Dragon Vest: Defence 115/Null Fire, Elec.
Nornir Ring: +1 to stats
Mara Lv 88 HP 715 MP 399
ST 59
MA 61
VI 54
AG 52
LU 53
Strong to: Physical, Ice, Lightening, Wind.
Null: Expel, Curse.
Weak to: Fire.
Moves: Tetrakarn, Charge, Hades Blast.
Huang Long Lv 78 HP 661 MP 365
ST 50
MA 54
VI 51
AG 54
LU 48
Strong to: Physical, Gun, Fire, Ice, Lightening, Wind.
Null: Expel, Curse, Status.
Moves: Megidolaon, Mahamaon, Victory Cry, Void Mind, Concentrate, Deblilitrate.
Xi Wangmu Lv 79 HP 667 MP 368
ST 50
MA 54
VI 51
AG 46
LU 51
Drain: Gun.
Null: Expel, Curse.
Moves: Makarakarn, Invitation, Fleeting Rain, Salvation, Drain Gun, Luster Candy.
Overall its been a blast and ranks up there as one of the best SMT games (Spin offs included) I've played. Its Old School but it cuts out all the issues the old games had while adding in some useful features. The Best of these being Demon Sourses which allow you to really customize your demons however you want which is absolutely great. SJ gets a 10/10 from me because it really is dungeon crawling at its finest.
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Crack Quest - So now I have Web. Breakbreakbreak~ (except against Silvermyr, who is a dick >_<)
EDIT:
Yeah, let's just say that in the English replay, Akito's gonna be an all-terrain unit.
Don't forget to FUB weaponry too. Woohoo S Ranks on weaponry across the board~
Also already done, Snow. In fact, I think he's the only one I bothered to FUB the weaponry for.
SRW:OG:EF
Just reached the SHOCKING REVELATIONS! And then in the middle of the shocking revelations, I get attacked. Which is just not cool, dudes. So I beat them down. Now I'm looting a sacred shrine of shinies. Oh, and beating down any Einsts I run into, but looting first.
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Metroid Fusion - Hmm, 1:15. A hell of a lot I can do to improve this but one hour seems like it'll be a frustrating mark to reach. Maybe I'll take a swipe at a 1% run first.
EDIT: Oh yes, and I also did get 100% on one run (not this one, obviously) just to see where everything was. FAQed the locations of everything but not how to get them, and a few of them do have some neat shinespark puzzles so those were fun to figure out. I guess I should at some point consider trying to get 100% in under 2 hours since there's a special ending for that but I dunno if I care, speedrunning + backtracking to random places = bleh.
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So anyway I bop down into the final area with my good friends in the strike team and WHAM! Random teleport by Mastema who once again proves that Remiel is pretty much the only angel you can trust or talk with rationly...hell be in the same room with as these angels are bastards. Mastema isn't like his angel brothers though because while he still depises humans like his friends he has a much better reason for being a dick then the rest. Attention.
I mean the other angels get shiped off to Tokyo where they can have many fun times while he gets sent to the plantets hellhole. I can imagine the scene when the orders were given.
Well, I would say there is still Gabriel outside Remiel in being sensible angels.
Also, your joke on Mastema actually bares some truth, the attention part. As he's duty in actual Judeo Chrisitanism thrology is to play the necessary evil so god can be good. And got blamed more a good number of evil deeds he commited despite he is just following order. Basically, he basically has none of the praise or respect the other angels have.
Though, odd to see he actuallty lead other angels in this game. Mastema was indeed given an army by YHWH in the actual theolofy, but it is an army of demons, not angels.
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ToV - So I decided to try to do the obsessive Tales fan thing and go for the complete everything acheivement. Looks like I am going to have to do ... 2 more complete play throughs, one for the speedster one and another to save at all save points. I was on track for the former this play through until the fail that is Aurnion save points counting for each level of development of the city. Fail. Oh well, will see how long I keep up the drive to do this retarded shit.
Fable 2 is looking really tempting about now.
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HeartGold: Beat Blaine, who was easy, and Blue, who was not. Took me a few tries on him. Yay for the Dire Hit item, it is evil. Gonna have to buy some more of those. Now I have Rock Climb - just have to try and remember the 10,000 places I've already passed that needed it.
PWI: Level 93, concentrating on learning Sage skills at the moment. Have Sage versions of Alter Marrow Magical, Aura of the Golden Bell, Fist Mastery, and about to get Shadowless Kick. Also starting to do Lunar runs for gear.
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Crack Quest - So now I have Web. Breakbreakbreak~ (except against Silvermyr, who is a dick >_<)
EDIT:
Yeah, let's just say that in the English replay, Akito's gonna be an all-terrain unit.
Don't forget to FUB weaponry too. Woohoo S Ranks on weaponry across the board~
Also already done, Snow. In fact, I think he's the only one I bothered to FUB the weaponry for.
Aesties are actually pretty competent relatively if you FUB their weapons; Just slap them in OG frame(Which IIRC had AACA terrains? It's been a bit though.) and you can ignore their horrible weaponry ranks. The only thing that really makes them worse then average is the lousy power hits non-cannon/lunar frames take. Land has - on it's ultimate for air(losing...200? 300? power as it has to drop to the penultimate) while OG had B on Ground on it's ultimate(losing 10% raw power); Kinda sucks for mechs that are designed around spamming said ultimates/who don't have great ultimates to start.
Lessee, what am I playing right now...
Super Robot Taisen GC:
Up to Stage 47/48 intermission.
I have 650 turns on this save. game is too long. It's like J level reinforcements without J level suck. And 60 stages. And subscenarios. Long game is long. It's pretty fun, outside of the fact that the graphics on ultimates are essentially terrible. (Final Dynamic Special: Shin Getter and Mazinkaiser beam something generically. 38000 damage. Okay then.) Oddly, not lower end attacks. Just finishers really suffer.
Pokemon Soul Silver:
Grinding a Mareep before bothering with Falkner. I've done that stupid fight once without it. I'm not doing it again.
Tales of Hearts:
Just reached Prancel or whatever it's name is.
Very good game. Excellently designed to allow people to mindlessly combo or intelligently combo with more benefits(Many attacks link into themselves, but some don't do so very well and tend to be higher power/some do more damage in air or on the ground/some have weird cancel points.), EG system is basically a more balanced Fury(less "You have to sit around a lot" and more "You can't combo someone forever but it doesn't really break the action.", although having said that enemies tend to break combos a bit due to this in arbitrary fashions that require you to air combo them to get around.), magic works...okay, it's too bad you can't combo it like I hear you can in ToDr, but oh well.
Very enjoyable, overall. Too bad I don't understand the plot. Too bad two of the characters in the plot(Kohaku and Kunzite) don't exist personality-wise; Kohaku has a good excuse(mainly the ENTIRE PLOT OF THE GAME) but why did they put a random robot in the same game? Mystary.
Gundam Assault Survive:
Got through the normal SEED/00 chains, through 0079/0081/0087 both sides and through 0088 AEUG.
As a sequel to Gundam Battle Universe, it's hit and miss. Some of the ideas were very good; Money is a good idea as it allows you to build up cash on one mech and then build up another mech with it instead of grinding the same one. You don't have to restart repeatedly and can get all your mechs on the same file without stupid capturing(Capturing now being relegated to just getting easy unlocks of a mech or extra chunks of cash if you already have that mech). Custom characters are more interesting and ultimately they tossed out worries about what mechs you can use because there's an obscure trait you can get on custom characters that lets them pilot anything.
On the other hand they had all the restraint in making prices of a cat with a catnip mouse in front of it. Seriously, let's ignore the 50M items, which can be obtained other ways. 10M for a mech-and there are more than one this expensive, though at least it's not too many-is ridiculous in a game where I've managed to get grinding down to 250k for a minute. An entire cast(00) having all their notable mechs be 3M+? Also bad. Yeah. Money grinding is obnoxious as hell and the main complaint I have. Then again GBU had plenty of grinding it's self, so I can't be too irritated.
VtM:B:
Started this up more recently than most of this. Just got finished with the boat sequence.
You have to love how little combat is necessary for an FPS. It's disconcerting. Also it sounds like the unofficial patch made this game way better. Also the game doesn't vomit goth on me every five seconds and instead has genuinely decently creepy sequences and a huge amount of dark humor, so overall it's about as good as hyped. Very fun.
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FFTA2- Just got the airship up and working. 46ish missions done.
MMPU- I am so, so bad at platforming. So bad.
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ToV - So I decided to try to do the obsessive Tales fan thing and go for the complete everything acheivement.
You can't be serious, or are you secretly in love with ToV that much?
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If it was not obvious from tournament talk, I have abandoned Hatbot Gold. :( I need the Mewtwo, and I only have a month to get this team together, so...
Anyways, off to fight Red so I can get a Kyogre! :D
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Gone all weekend, played DS on the train.
Suikoden Tierkreis: Yeah, finally popped this in. I'd been looking forward to it before it came out, being the Suikoden nut that I am. When I found out it wasn't a proper Suikoden, I stopped caring. But Dhyer's comments about it being a really enjoyable game if it wasn't a Suikoden actually inspired me to give a shot and I just tried to ignore that it was called Suikoden.
Well, the game has more Suikoden elements than I was expecting from Dhyer's descriptions, but it's still removed enough that I can ignore the connections and try to see it for it's own merits.
And so far, those merits have been good! The characters all act logically and obvious conclusions that the player can see coming from a mile away are often picked up on by the PCs shortly after they become obvious. Things like 'Hey, we're toting around a magic book that gave us visions when we touched it... Oh HEY! Let's see if the random people that we meet get visions too!" It's nice to see PCs actually trying to -use- their random McGuffins of Power wisely. Also, I'm not far yet, but Dirk's foreshadowed betrayal through the evil chick's persuasion is actually understandable. Additionally, even though we've gotten to see the villains talking alone, none of them have broken down into evil cackling about destroying the world, but they seem to actually be trying to save it in their own (somewhat flawed) way.
So, everyone acts rationally, this is a pretty good step in the right direction.
The world-building is fairly interesting so far, as I'm really curious why the main can't travel through Gateways, and what the purpose of the randomly-appearing Forest is. The introduction to the different cultures is a little rushed, but serviceable.
Gameplay is boring as hell so far, though. No party-building, no weapon-building, actual battles are really straitforward without many options to play with. Rune skillsets are swappable between PCs, so there's some potential, but I'll probably end up leaving most everyone with their initial skillsets thanks to the DL's influence... >.>;;
Oh, the Support PCs don't suck anymore... at least, not the priestess chick I've picked up so far. That's pretty cool.
Characters: Main and Marica are pretty likable, though Marica was at her best during the stint with Marica? running around too. Everyone else is some flavor of 'Okay...', but at least no one's running around with the idiot ball. In particular, the previously-mentioned priestess chick is fairly cool, though she'll need more screen time if she's ever going to stand out beyond her big scene in her intro.
The best stuff so far has been the presentation of the Order as a fairly weird, but believable view of extreme religious fervor. The Order is presented as being able to predict the future because future is already ordained, however, they will not be able to predict everything -perfectly- until the day the whole world follows its precepts. So, they can predict floods and lightning strikes, but there are some things which they haven't predicted yet becase the Order's influence needs to expand. The more believers, it seems, the better the predictions. As a result, the people who follow the Order live their lives directly according to the Order's instructions, and we see everything from predetermined marriages to punitive action being taken against those who declare a desire for their future, since it implies that Order doesn't already know what their future will be. It's fairly scary to see people believing in this sort of thing, but there are plenty of people who believe in Fate that it rings eerily true in some places. Especially when the followers talk about how excited they are for the day when the Order can predict everything perfectly and they can rise above the 'illusion' of free choice.
I'm looking forward to see what more they'll do with this viewpoint and whether they'll be able to continue making its followers at least somewhat sympathetic even if their beliefs are weird and scary and not conducive to a productive society.
It'll just be nice to see the 'Religion is Bad' trope be used without making the Church a bunch of literal demon-worshippers or child molesters.
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Gameplay is boring as hell so far, though. No party-building, no weapon-building, actual battles are really straitforward without many options to play with. Rune skillsets are swappable between PCs, so there's some potential, but I'll probably end up leaving most everyone with their initial skillsets thanks to the DL's influence... >.>;;
Um. Skillsets are locked to PCs.
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Oh right I play games.
Pokemon Heart Gold - In Goldenrod or whatever. Did some Voltorb flipping for a Dratini, a Silk Scarf, and a Metronome, but didn't bother doing any more than that. Voltorb flipping > slots though.
Current team:
Togepi L7
Heracross L8
Zubat L9
Mareep L12
Bayleef L17
Butterfree L17
Godlike team amirite guyz. Pretty much ignoring wild pokemon battles outside of catching so my levels are low. Makes for more fun fights!
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Tales of Vesperia:
Playing this. Around halfway through and not sure what to say. I'm probably the odd one in the DL group though since from what I've played, I dislike it. It's just a bunch of minor annoyances that are making me go "fuck this shit". Very tempted to just play the rest of the game on easy just so it takes less time and I can move on to other games. Will see how the remaining half holds up, but I am not holding my breath for it.
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ToV - So I decided to try to do the obsessive Tales fan thing and go for the complete everything acheivement.
You can't be serious, or are you secretly in love with ToV that much?
No, I like the game well enough, I think it is really good, but certainly not THAT good. But doing it certainly would be something different.
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Heart Gold: Screw you, Lance. Had to burn through 20 or so Revives to take him down because he wouldn't stop criticalling my Feraligatr, which was the only one of my Pokemon that could do some serious damage to his darn Dragonites. Beat him, though, and now I'm unlocking Kanto towns before I tackle the Gyms. Might save Surge for one of the last because I currently have four weak to electric.
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Sounds like you are in a real problem and the solution is more Geodudes.
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FFTA2- Just got Cid. Taking a break from this for a bit, as the current crop of missions are annoying me.
FE9- Started.
C2- Had a reset when Boyd got killed. Not hard otherwise.
C3- Augh. Ike gained three levels here, and gained no HP or speed. This is a bit sad, since Ike is L8 and has less HP than my L4 cleric.
C4- Had a reset when Ike got swarmed and killed (Since he doesn't believe in gaining HP or defense). Used Titania has a focus and Shinon as bait.
C5- Had a few resets here. The fight got easy when I sent Titania and Gatrie to hold the point where most of the enemies were coming from.
C6- A breeze. Enemies come in small, managable waves and they don't have much offense.
C7- See above. Unless you're Boyd and getting doubled with the wrong weapon, enemies aren't too bad.
Ike: Doesn't believe in gaining HP, he went like six straight levels without gaining any. Otherwise, he's got plenty of speed and strength.
Titania: Obvious MVP to this point.
Boyd: Awful. Has the speed of Gatrie and the strength of Mia. HE DOES HAVE RES THOUGH!!! Going to ditch him as soon as I get a less bad axeman to use.
Oscar: Solid outside of not really getting strength.
Soren: Ranged damage? Good. Getting 2HKOed by random scrubs? Bad. He has use thanks to the range, but he is beyond awful on durability.
Rhys: FE staffman.
Mia: Just got her. Offense is pretty shitty at first, but hey she opened up with a six stat gain on her levels. Looks like a typical FE swordmaster.
Gatrie: Useful in a few levels for tanking, but blah to 25% speed growth.
Shinon: Meatshield+softening up enemies.
I'm enjoying the game a good deal. FE has it's problems, but it has been good about giving you different mission objectives and making the game flow smoothly.
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Boyd: Awful. Has the speed of Gatrie and the strength of Mia. HE DOES HAVE RES THOUGH!!! Going to ditch him as soon as I get a less bad axeman to use.
You, uh, kinda don't, I'm sorry to say. Titania and Keiran are the only other decent axe users and they're both mounted. Sounds like you just got RNG screwed and how with Boyd though. He's usually a lot better then that. I've had him drop the ball early like this as well and pick up steam later though, if you want to stick it out with him. Still plenty of time for things to turn around.
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Crack Quest - WEB+FLAMING SKULLS IS COMPLETELY AWESOME~~
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Boyd: Awful. Has the speed of Gatrie and the strength of Mia. HE DOES HAVE RES THOUGH!!! Going to ditch him as soon as I get a less bad axeman to use.
You, uh, kinda don't, I'm sorry to say. Titania and Keiran are the only other decent axe users and they're both mounted. Sounds like you just got RNG screwed and how with Boyd though. He's usually a lot better then that. I've had him drop the ball early like this as well and pick up steam later though, if you want to stick it out with him. Still plenty of time for things to turn around.
Largo isn't too bad though he's a total glass canon to add to that; he's also gotten late. Haar is another half decent one for filling slots though yeah, also late. Any Paladins and Jill can also work for an axe user, though only after promotion; in fact, I'd highly recommend giving Astrid an Axe should you use her. Lance vs. Axe have such minor differences that its a close call, but then you factor in how Axes let you use Steel Axe out of the gate while Lances require some training, it becomes an obvious win.
FE9 doesn't have much in the way of Axe users though. FE10 makes up for it a bit by making Jill's primary weapon Axes, adding Nolan to list of characters, as well as turning Brom's primary weapon into an Axe. Oh yeah, Gatrie/Tauroneo use Axes instead of Swords as a secondary weapon, Ike gets them upon promotion, Titania has debatably IMPROVED in FE10, Haar is flat out better...yeah, Axe's had a pretty strong showing in FE10. Then again, don't think any weapon was poorly represented there (even Bows were pretty well represented, due to Shinon and Rolf being rather strong competent PCs.)
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FE9 has Kieran who mains axes, it's not like his mountedness is a disadvantage. Boyd's generally a good PC but if he's being RNG screwed I can't see any reason at all to use him once you get Kieran.
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I meant to say that in terms of raw options, Axe users are very limited in FE9. This isn't to say what's there is bad (hard to say Titania can ever be bad, and barring RNG screwage, Kieran and Boyd are both good), just you have a small selection of them, especially before promoting.
FE10 upped the number of raw Axe users significantly, so your options were a bit more flexible. I know, FE10 upped the number of EVERYTHING, but shh <_<
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I feel like there are fewer useful lance users, but I don't feel like actually doing the homework to demonstrate this.
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Boyd: Awful. Has the speed of Gatrie and the strength of Mia. HE DOES HAVE RES THOUGH!!! Going to ditch him as soon as I get a less bad axeman to use.
You, uh, kinda don't, I'm sorry to say. Titania and Keiran are the only other decent axe users and they're both mounted. Sounds like you just got RNG screwed and how with Boyd though. He's usually a lot better then that. I've had him drop the ball early like this as well and pick up steam later though, if you want to stick it out with him. Still plenty of time for things to turn around.
*Nods* I used a speed wings on him and got him a BExp level. That plus a level where he FINALLY gained speed helped some. I did end up getting Soren killed on that map (8), but it's an FE9 mage. I'm not feeling that loss too much.
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I did end up getting Soren killed on that map (8), but it's an FE9 mage. I'm not feeling that loss too much.
/me burns Super.
You missed out. IMO, there's only one mage in FE9 worth using and that's Soren. Sure, he's frail, but he can kill pretty much anything before it kills him. I still remember giving him the spare Vantage scroll I had, sticking him out on his own in the 3rd section of the stupid 4-part chapter and... watched as he tore everything to shreds. Only reason I pulled him back is because he'd gained, like, 9 levels and was starting to gain next-to-nothing on the kills.
Pokemon Heart Gold: EV training: 1/6 Pokemon down.
One of my friends just told me the perfect trick to hatching eggs: "I've just put a cup on the DS to hold the UP button down and went to Morty's gym." As though those stupidly long routes from before weren't good enough, now we have this. XD
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Soren is pretty much generic as a Mage, honestly. Adept is cool, but that's about all that makes him stand out. Illyana's about as good, actually; Soren's faster, but Illyana has more strength which offsets it (Soren's strength is so bad, he gets weighted down by Thunder Tomes, aka the only Magic worth using. Illyana does not.) I think she also has a lead in Thunder magic, making her using Rexbolt actually reasonable without Arm's Scrolls (I think Callil can probably win it too though.)
Tormod's the best of the Unpromoted Mages pretty easily, due to Celerity if nothing else (hard to argue with +2 Move) though he's got the whole "joins a bit late, underleveled and understated" issue. Its not Nino level bad, and the existence of bonus EXP lets him catch up reasonably so with enough chapters to spare, but its still a slight nuisance.
I'd definitely place Callil above Soren or Illyana, outside of the fact that both have options for staves while Callil has knives; that honestly still feels like something shoved to Callil for the sake of not obsoleting the unpromoted mages (for all that Tormod would still have an argument, Celerity is just that good.) She's basically Pent-, when it comes down to it, which is hardly bad.
Bastian...ahahahahahaha, no. Maybe if he had Staves instead of Knives, he could fill in gaps as another Healer or something, but egads is he atrocious.
So uh, yeah, to say Soren is the only mage worth using! is something I can't get behind. Probably rate mages something like Callil > Tormod > Soren =~ Illyana > Bastian? I could be argued for Tormod above Callil.
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ToV - Almost got the low level challenge achievement. Just need another 5 minutes play, but sleep first.
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Meeple: Maybe I got majorly Speed-blessed or something then, because I can't think of a single enemy that Soren didn't double after promoting, except possibly a few bosses.
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Bastian is the best knife-wielding Sage in the game, Meeple!
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Bastian is the best knife-wielding Sage in the game, Meeple!
Callil <_<? Or did Bastian actually beat her on Strength (though I'm pretty sure she crushes him on speed)
Meeple: Maybe I got majorly Speed-blessed or something then, because I can't think of a single enemy that Soren didn't double after promoting, except possibly a few bosses.
Soren generally doesn't double Swordmasters, Dragons (enemy Dragons are actually fast in this game, remember), and probably stuff like Cats. Illyana's honestly not much different. Soren is actually not that much of a speed god, and he's certainly unspecial by Mage standards; Adept is really his only niche.
EDIT: According to Elfboy's stat topic, Soren is 1 point above average speed...not even (he's 0.8); he's not really that fast. Oh, he's by no means SLOW, but he's not a speedster like the Swordmasters, or Nephenee (at least with Knight Ward) is.
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Heart Gold: LOL Poison, LOL Grass. The only reason Erika wasn't an outright slaughter was because she did have the level advantage. Still, two Gyms down, the Train is up and running, and I have a Snorlax.
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Soren is pretty much generic as a Mage, honestly. Adept is cool, but that's about all that makes him stand out. Illyana's about as good, actually; Soren's faster, but Illyana has more strength which offsets it (Soren's strength is so bad, he gets weighted down by Thunder Tomes, aka the only Magic worth using. Illyana does not.) I think she also has a lead in Thunder magic, making her using Rexbolt actually reasonable without Arm's Scrolls (I think Callil can probably win it too though.)
[...]
So uh, yeah, to say Soren is the only mage worth using! is something I can't get behind. Probably rate mages something like Callil > Tormod > Soren =~ Illyana > Bastian? I could be argued for Tormod above Callil.
Soren's speed isn't great at all, but his power is good enough to keep his offense usable regardless (remember his Ike support + Adept + high skill, I suppose), and his durability, though never good, is abeted by his evade.
Ilyana is unabashedly terrible (not as bad as Bastian, who is basically unusable and believe me I've tried). Her offense is bad (and no, her strength does not for the most part make up for her speed, tomes don't weigh that much and forged Thunder is almost certainly your mainstay for most of the game), and her durability is arguably worse than Soren's. She lacks evade, gets doubled more, has lower RES and doesn't actually have useful physical durability despite her marginally better defense and hp. Rexbolt is a dragon-killing niche, I suppose, but it's not really that great and in any case she's not any better at getting to it than Soren or Calill. I really like her as a character, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles statistically.
Calill is definitely alright, but has availability issues and its hard to argue that she's manifestly superior statistically to Soren. I think the lack of staves really hurts her, some disagree. Access to all the ranged tomes is a pretty significant plus. Knives suck.
Tormod is statistically pretty comparable to Soren, I'd argue slightly worse due to his lower power and evade, but close regardless. Celerity is probably the best skill in the game, though, and if he wasn't so goddamn underleveled I'd have more sympathy for him. But as it is you'll have Calill before Tormod's anywhere near caught-up without significant favouritism; his effective availability's lower than hers, and he's actually a liability for several chapters previous if you want him to be competitive at all.
I'd say Soren ~> Calill > Tormod ~> Ilyana >> Bastian. B really needed staves and/or auto Rexbolt access to have a niche at all. Soren and Calill are both useful without particular effort (Soren requires caution in his early chapters but doesn't need kill favouritism or bxp), Tormod's useful with effort, Ilyana's usable but not really good under realistic circumstances, and Bastian is bad under all circumstances that are not cutscenes.
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I'm looking at the stats and Soren just stands out in Magic. Yeah, fastest Sage, but only a point above Callil, who offsets it with Strength (if you're not using Forged Thunder, which I wouldn't assume, stuff like Elthunder actually DOES weigh him down), and has better evade. Tormod's actually about even overall with stats; Soren doesn't really stand out high enough on Magic to make up for +2 Move.
Adept's rate isn't high enough to really save Soren as being this overpowered Mage God if you ask me.
And soren struggles to use a good deal of Tomes without being weighed down until he promotes, and even after, he's still struggling. His average Strength is 3.6; Thunder in itself weighs 4. This means end game, Soren can barely wield a Thunder Tome without being weighed down, and likely won't be able to use Elthunder.
Illyana isn't as bad at stats as you're making her out to be too. She's actually better than Soren out of the gate if you ask me cause Soren IS held back by his strength early on; as the game goes on, Soren works away this flaw, but he's frankly nothing special.
ALso, worth noting that Callil starts with a B in all weapon classes, which actually does matter cause raising Weapons in FE9 is a bitch. I've struggled to get them to A; Callil is pretty much insured to do this, thus can wield stuff like Thoron, which is stronger than any forged Magic weapon *AND* weighs a good amount (Callil has no problems with Weight, Soren does.)
I dunno, just don't see what the Soren hype is. The only real edge on Callil, which I will grant is a good one, is the usage of Staves. But to branch from that, Tormod about matches Soren on stats, has Celerity which is better than Adept.
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Also, I'm feeling more energetic now.
(I'm going to assume that you're not stupid and will never give Kieran, Astrid or Makalov lances)
Unabashedly good FE9 lance users: (1 pt)
Titania
Nephenee
Oscar
Marcia
Jill
Tanith
Decent FE9 lance users with good availability: (0.5 pts)
Gatrie
Brom
Decent FE9 lance users with bad availability: (0.25 pts)
Haar
Tauroneo
Geoffrey
Bad FE9 lance users: (0pts)
Devdan
Total: 7.75
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(less confidence in my evaluations of FE10 units, but anyways)
Unabashedly good FE10 lance users (1 pt)
Marcia
Haar
Nephenee
Decent FE10 lance users with good availability (or good lance secondary characters) (0.5 pts)
Aran
Gatrie
Oscar
Meg
Jill
Decent FE10 lance users with bad availability (or good lance tertiary characters) (0.25 pts)
Brom
Fiona (late bloomer = bad availability)
Tauroneo
Geoffrey
Sigrun
Tanith
Bad FE10 lance users (0 pts)
Danved
Astrid
Total = 7 pts
Unscientific, but I think it's pretty clear that, even without weighting for cast size, FE9 has at least comparable and probably more good lance users than FE10.
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I think you're underselling Danved a bit there. He's honestly not that bad. Sure, he's nothing special, but he certainly should be higher.
Also, Jill I'd consider "Unabashedly good"; she's certainly better than the Pegs, admittedly, gets Lances later, but getting her promoted isn't that hard, and raising from D is so much easier than E, it can't be stressed enough (Iron Lance and Javelin have 2 WEXP, so you get from D to C faster than E to D, and once you hit C, you're pretty good to go on a weapon since Steel opens up, and Forged Steel can last you a long time.)
I actually don't think its totally fair that assessment. For example, Gatrie I'd consider outright good, ditto to Oscar (just he looks bad compared to his FE9 self, but unfair comparison); heck, I'd be willing to put both over FE10 Marcia, whose honestly nothing special (oh, she's a decent character, but I can't see her being anywhere near Nephenee/Haar level good.) In fact, the jump between Unabashedly to "Decent w/ good availability" being half a point while Good to Bad being only 0.25 points feels kind of biased.
Really, I think the fairest way to look at it would be "What kind of viable, decent options do you have?" Decent Lance user options would be pretty much everyone who can use a Lance in FE10 EXCEPT:
Meg: Starting with an E in a Weapon = No. I explained above how much different E vs. D is, which is why Jill running Lances is far more realistic than Meg. Not that Meg is bad, but I can't realistically see her using Lances (Brom w/ Swords has a similar problem for that matter.)
Fiona: Too much of a late bloomer to really work.
Astrid: Sucks.
I could see arguing Geoffrey due to lack of availability too for that matter.
Really, I think it comes down to is that FE10 is a little more balanced overall, where as FE9, a lot of the really good characters just happen to use Lances.
...on a different note, maybe this should be moved to the FE10 rankings topic <_<
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I didn't know there was such a thing :) Done.
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I think Marcia is better than Oscar myself. The flying is cool, and she stands out in her section a lot more.
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Adept's rate isn't high enough to really save Soren as being this overpowered Mage God if you ask me.
And soren struggles to use a good deal of Tomes without being weighed down until he promotes, and even after, he's still struggling. His average Strength is 3.6; Thunder in itself weighs 4. This means end game, Soren can barely wield a Thunder Tome without being weighed down, and likely won't be able to use Elthunder.
Adept and/or critical, though, is what clinches that for me. Odds are that either is killing whatever you're facing, and by endgame, he was easily getting either of these first turn at least 50% of the time.
As for using Elthunder, Soren honestly does not need it. That magic difference and Adept/criticals are more than enough to kill anything with Thunder/Elwind.
Soren starts weak/slow, but not underlevelled - he's still able to kill things, just needs them weakened first, like most units do when you first get them. Tormod starts out underlevelled to the point that he struggles to do anything, and this is directly followed by the 4-parter, which is where the majority of lategame experience comes from (for me, at least). Unless you've been stocking BExp specifically for him, odds are he's missing most of the experience here.
Calill... I can see the arguments, but by that point, Soren's generally got the speed/skill to kill stuff, and doesn't need the higher-level tomes to do so.
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Pokemon Heart Gold - Beat up Whitney. What a crybaby!
Team:
L12 Heracross
L9 Zubat
L9 Togepi
L14 Mareep
L18 Bayleef (was L17 before the fight)
L17 Butterfree
Heracross Rock Smashes Clefairy to death (2HKOs if defense busting kicks in, 3HKOs otherwise, but Whitney wasted a Super Potion the time that happened).
Heracross Rock Smashes Miltank to lower defense, gets only one off due to being 2HKOd. Toss in Mareep. Mareep uses Flash and with luck Static would paralyze Miltank getting rid of the berry (actually this didn't happen on the winning run). Toss in Butterfree to try and get sleep hax going... and miss, of course. Toss in Bayleef, use Poisonpowder, spam Synthesis until it's near death and then smack her with Razor Leaf and let poison finish her off. Attract kind of screws with that strategy a bit though.
Bayleef MVP for that fight. Probably due to level as much as anything else.
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Heart Gold: ahahahahahahahahaha oh my god I love the AI in this game ahahaha.
So, this beats the time that Karen's Gengar had the following happen:/me changes Pokemon.
"The foe's GENGAR used Curse! It cut its own HP and placed a curse on Shalequeen!"/me changes Pokemon.
"The foe's GENGAR used Curse!"/me head-desks.
This time round?
Karen: "Don't think I'm backed into a corner just because I'm down to my last Pokemon!"
"The foe's ABSOL used Perish Song!"/me head-desks.
I'm starting to think it's not all the AI, just Karen. >_>
In other news, levelling up a Technician Scyther so that I can use it as a False Swipe whore. Just beat Karen, and it's gone from Lv 1 to 30 with the Exp Share. Having never played a Pokemon where the Gyms/E4 change before, I really love the boost these guys get. >.>
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Well, I would say there is still Gabriel outside Remiel in being sensible angels.
I'd forgotten about Gabriel due to her being part of the group of fail, but yeah she is pretty sensible in SMT2 where she never goes all judge mode on you like the other angels do.
Persona 1 - Pcking this back up now that I've finished SMTSJ and have thus far gotten up to the part where you have to go to the castle. Average game but its good to know there are two very different paths you can take which happen early.
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ToV - Did low level challenge wheeee.
Fable 2 - Threw this in just because, slow start. Snooze.
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Heart Gold: Tore through Sabrina like she was tissue paper, 1HKOing each of her Pokemon (granted, Zam was due to a critical hit, but...). Misty's Starmie got a few kills, but she wasn't that hard. And for all of my worrying about Surge, I only needed two Pokemon to off his whole team. All that's left to do is get to Blaine and then Blue, and then I can start collecting GL numbers.
Borderlands: Went though the Zombie Island DLC, hooray for sales. Decent enough.
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Crack Quest - This game has a Minololigothtaur. Are you fucking kidding me.
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A new version of FOOK is out, and that means I'm gonna play some more Fallout 3. Maybe even grab the handful of achievements I never got.
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Enhanced Platinum: Maybe I shouldn't forget that Plat does day/night and spend a hour looking for something that can't show up, Chikorita will forever haunt me. At least I hit the 1% Mankey in Oreburgh Gate without looking for it.
L14 Gible
L16 Ivysaur
L16 Charmeleon
L16 Wartortle
L16 Grovyle
L14 Makuhita
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Alone in the Dark Inferno - So Edward Carnby has to take on Satan? Pfft, Edward has taken down Ninja Pirates, Gangsta Pirates, Pirate ghosts and Zombie Cowboys so what threat could the devil possibly pose?
Anyway the game has been great thus far even though I've heard nothing but bad things about it. The Chase between Edward and the Devil is one of the most kickass sequences ever.
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Heart Gold: Man, I need to stop killing Kyogre. I don't have an easy way to deal with Aqua Ring, and I'm trying to get a good nature. About 60 tries later and I'm still here, using Spore, switch, weaken, switch, Spore, switch, False Swipe, switch, Spore, start catching. If there's an Aqua Ring in there, I have to rely on Leech Seed and pray I catch before it kills. Fun times. -.-
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Strange Journey:
...
asdf bomb status
no, you do not put Freeze status in a game with main dies=game over
not without giving him immunity
fuckers
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Deus Ex-Thank you Steam sale! Going through on Realistic, of course
So, this playthrough I'm going for a pacifist run. No kills, unless I get really frustrated at some section or another. Went Advanced on melee, Trained on Pistols. Got Trained in Computers after taking out the NSF. Probably gonna go Microfibal Muscle with the augmentation cannister.
Not sure what else I'm gonna do, besides nabbing Regen to avoid staring at the game over screen.
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All collapsible riot baton, all the time?
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no, you do not put Freeze status in a game with main dies=game over
You always go first if you use an item so it shouldn't really be a problem unless they attack you the very turn they status you. Who was it by the way that bombed you?
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Picasa, and I was indeed hit the very turn I was bombed. It was how I even -learned- what the status did.
EDIT: Or Pisaca or whatever. 4th area, toothed tentacle vagina monster.
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All collapsible riot baton, all the time?
Wait, the baton's non-lethal? I mean I know it is in real life, but I figured it would kill them anyway.
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Picasa, and I was indeed hit the very turn I was bombed. It was how I even -learned- what the status did.
They come in groups of 3-4 right? Yeah I'd skip those fights to avoid it happening again. You'll be glad to know there is only like 3 or so enemies that use bomb in the whole game. You possible to actually go through the whole game without seeing it.
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Mega Man 10 - Beat the game as Protoman, and doubled it as a buster only + no items playthrough. The boss rush level was certainly nasty, but I'm better at all of them now as a result. Wily Machine drove me up the wall until suddenly I just got in a groove against him and he became fairly easy. Final Wily isn't too impressive, although was better than usual.
Then decided to play Easy Mode since that unlocks some challenges. ... wow. This game's easy mode is amazing. First of all, everything does half damage, and well over half of pits are now covered by platforms. And there are more powerups everywhere, including two of those "fully restore all HP and WE" items from MM1 per level. But really, this sums up MM10 Easy Mode best.
<Elecman> Solar Man: projectile has a new "tiny" default size which can be upgraded to normal the way it used to be upgraded to large. He is slower, attacks about a third as often, never attacks twice per jump, and the projectile is like half speed.
<Mega_Mettaur> this isn't easy mode
<Mega_Mettaur> its Butchered mode
Metroid Fusion - 1% run! Storytime.
Samus: Well we know the beginning will be easy. Hardest part is avoiding getting an upgrade by mistake. Oops, fuck. *reset*
Arachnus: rar, you have half normal HP for me oh wait I still suck.
Large Core-X and Zazabi: Yeah us too.
Serris: RAR I AM COMPETENT. Memorise my pattern or eat 4HKO and die.
Samus: Well I've finally caught Serris down... oh fuck if I make any mistakes against his Core-X at the end I fall in the water and die.
Serris: Hahaha. Too bad there are no other competent bosses in the first half of the game!
Samus: Dum de dum, well, nothing else in this level is going to kill me, but I'll go save anyway since I'm paranoid.
Missile upgrade in pump control room: HAHAHA HAVE FUN JUMPING OVER ME.
Samus: Good thing I saved. *reset x2*
Adam: Go to PYR and get some Super Missiles so your damage with your puny missile supply will actually be enough to count. Oh, and get an unavoidable missile pack on the way there so this is a 1% run instead of a 0%.
Samus: Lame. Can't I get an energy tank instead?
Adam: No.
Security Robot: RAR.
Samus: Whatever, I've learned how to perfect you. Good thing too, you probably 3HKO me.
Security Robot: I'll be back to make your life miserable lategame! Just you wait!
Samus: Now on to NOC... wait, blue X 2HKO me? Fuck. Need Varia Suit. Hey, bitch, give that back!
Big-X: Hey I'm less incompetent than usual because getting hit by me actually matters.
Samus: Wow, never noticed you only did 20 damage before.
Big-X: Shut up. Here, have my upgrade and I'll go back to pretending I don't exist.
Blue X's: Sweet, let's chase after Samus and near fullheal her repeatedly!
Samus: Thanks dudes.
Adam: Someone set up us the bomb.
Samus: Oh shit those purple snakey guys in walls 2HKO me now, and there's no way to recover or save while shutting down the boiler room.
Wide Core-X: I still suck. But you'll face me twice because the randoms on the way back from killing me are still deadly!
Samus: Yay, my beam doesn't completely suck now. This may be handy for when I actually need to start using it in boss fights that aren't Big-X.
Adam: Here, do a bunch of stuff that doesn't involve fighting bosses.
Samus: Snore.
Adam: Okay, okay, let's get serious. Go fight some Space Pirates who need 3 missiles to die and 2HKO you. Oh, and there will be no save point between fighting a bunch of them and the SOUS.
Samus: Spiders of unusual size? I don't think they exist.
Yakuza: LOL OHKO. *repeat x5 or so*
Samus: Yay finally learned how to not die to the first form!
Yakuza: Kay I'll go all unpredictable and still manage to 3HKO you. And of course you have to fight all the space pirates and my first form to even see this! *another bunch of resets*
Samus: DIE YOU STUPID FIEND. Okay, at least I won't have to worry about another boss OHKOing me until-
SA-X: LOL OHKO
Samus: Oh right forgot about you. *freezes and runs away*
Nettori: Haha you actually have to learn how to dodge my spores in form 1 now! Bet you weren't expecting THAT! Fortunately my second form is still bad. But it takes ages since you have to use your beam, and if you screw up the Plasma Core-X fight which is easy enough but potentially deadly you'll be doing alll of this over again!
Samus: *twitch* Well, at least now my beam does real damage. And hopefully there won't be another boss who forces me into using it.
Nightmare: You raaaannnng?
To be continued. I was worried at first but this run has settled in to being suitably hard. It's good practice for the bosses too, although some of it isn't too useful in normal runs... for instance, I now know how to fight Nightmare's gravity form without taking damage (not 100% reliable at it yet, 'swhy I haven't won the whole fight) but in a normal play it's easiest just to camp under him, take the odd hit, and blast away.
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Baton, prod, Tranq darts, all your non-lethal stuff to work with. Suffice to say with those three a Pacifist Run is really not -that- much harder than normal. The worst part is probably the MIB in the lift in Area 51, and you can use Cloak to bypass that entirely.
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All collapsible riot baton, all the time?
Wait, the baton's non-lethal? I mean I know it is in real life, but I figured it would kill them anyway.
Nah, it's coded almost exactly like the blackjack from Thief, but it has a much more fun animation when you draw it.
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Picasa, and I was indeed hit the very turn I was bombed. It was how I even -learned- what the status did.
They come in groups of 3-4 right? Yeah I'd skip those fights to avoid it happening again. You'll be glad to know there is only like 3 or so enemies that use bomb in the whole game. You possible to actually go through the whole game without seeing it.
The group I died to was one of them, two Ghouls and a something. Yeah, now that I know, they're my first target. It's just... augh -what-. First major bullshit death of the game, suppose it's a SMT but still, it'd been -good- on that shit up until then!
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Baton, prod, Tranq darts, all your non-lethal stuff to work with. Suffice to say with those three a Pacifist Run is really not -that- much harder than normal. The worst part is probably the MIB in the lift in Area 51, and you can use Cloak to bypass that entirely.
Speaking of the MIB, I know that if you hit the little black thing on their neck they don't blow up and you can loot their corpses, but does that work with non-lethal stuff? I might make an exception there if not, I want the sweet sweet Augmentation upgrades.
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You can prod them down and they won't go boom. Not sure about Baton, they are a big enough threat that I have never really gone for it, they are worth the 3 or 4 prod charges it takes to bring them down even if you fuck up the sneak.
Edit - I didn't actually know you could stop them exploding with shooting them in the back of the neck as well. Neat. Nearly completey useless, but neat anyway. Cause if I could shoot them in the neck I could get them with stealth takedowns anyway.
Tai highlights yet again the stupidity of main character death game overs in games with lethal status. Spikey all over the place Risk:Reward ratios fuck things up.
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Alone in the dark Inferno - Finished in record time with 100% of the trophies. What I've heard about the game was greatly misleading. Enemies were a complete joke, the driving sections easy and the puzzles simple to solve. To be fair enemies are actually a tiny threat if you don't use the flamethrower but why wouldn't you? Devil Roots, Humanz, Ratz and Vampirez all die in virtually a second from the flamethrower taking all challange out. Of course they all do near no damage also so you'd have to suck to die against them. Overall a shame as New Nightmare had some of the biggest dicks in gaming as enemies.
The story was very movie like which is fine but dear lord the ending. "Spoilers" so if you care skip this next part.
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The Good Ending is basically this.
*Love interest is possesed by Satan*
Satan: I the great Satan have finally returned at last!
Edward: So?
*Edward walks off*
*Game Ends*
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What the Fuck! is this? This isn't even a cliffhanger this is a game ending before the final fricking boss fight. Its hard to grasp where they are going with such an ending because if they were trying to set up another game then surely they could have done better. Anyway character run down because its Alone in the dark so I care enough to do one.
Edward: For some reason Edward now drops F-Bombs constantly even though he never did in the old games. Overall while the ending is terrible it does make him into a better character. Edward has seen and faced so much evil by this point that even Satan himself doesn't trigger much reaction and Edward just walks off as the devil is nothing to him.
Badass.
Sarah: Annoying Female Sidekick that has no real reason being in the game besides filling in the one female spot in the main cast that was thrown in most likely because someone noticed it was a complete sausage fest. Her only purpose is to get in trouble and be kidnapped as her character type usually is.
Horrible.
Theophile: You have to lead him while he lives and he guides you when he dies. Tells you everything the moment he gets the chance and is generally helpful which is good. Also I like the look and the voice.
Helpful Guide.
Crowly: Looks Evil, sounds evil, is evil and well thats it. He has no motives, never poses any threat and any threats he makes are weak as Edward just tells him to fuck off. Still puting a bullet into his brain is a damn good feeling because he is just a terrible human being.
Cartoonishly Evil.
Hermes: Is Plot Device that built the most retarded security system in all of existance.
Satan: Is Evil and in his mind the FUCKING UNIVERSE!
In conclusing the game was average and while it kept me entertained I'm not sure it was worth the 10 bucks I paid for it. This might actually be the final nail in the coffin for AITD because the last two games have been reboots that failed and I'm not even going to start on the movie. Resident Evil successfully rebooted and the movies were fine for what they were, Silent Hill regardless of what some people say remains decent and I found the movie to be one of the best adaptions from game to movie. AITD meanwhile keeps falling its face but it would be a shame if it died out because even at their worst they can still pull off massively powerful scenes like 59th street.
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Picasa, and I was indeed hit the very turn I was bombed. It was how I even -learned- what the status did.
They come in groups of 3-4 right? Yeah I'd skip those fights to avoid it happening again. You'll be glad to know there is only like 3 or so enemies that use bomb in the whole game. You possible to actually go through the whole game without seeing it.
The group I died to was one of them, two Ghouls and a something. Yeah, now that I know, they're my first target. It's just... augh -what-. First major bullshit death of the game, suppose it's a SMT but still, it'd been -good- on that shit up until then!
smt game
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Valkyria Chronicles chapter 17, getting near the end. 15 was pleasantly difficult, probably the hardest maps in the game so far. 16 seemed like it would be similar, but ended up disappointingly easy. Still enjoying the game a lot; Fire Emblem comparisons are very apt (albeit Fire Emblem with a menu system that got dropped on its head a couple times as an infant). Thinking of it as an FE school of strategy game rather than FFT makes its AI more forgivable, anyhow.
I really like how it manages its large cast of generics; I feel remarkably attached to PCs who are remarkably close to statistically identical and who do not participate in cut-scenes (characters like Jane the evil florist shocktrooper and Hector the masochist engineer make me really happy). The in-battle voice acting is good in both English and Japanese, which helps (out of battle I find the English a bit hard to deal with, but most of the cast doesn't exist out of battle, so).
Systemically, though, I'm not sure I like how "developing" certain characters and unlocking new personality traits can leave them pragmatically unplayable (see: about half of the engineers who acquire terrible flaws after being used for a map or two), although I guess it does encourage you to rotate your squad around early in the game. And, to rant a bit more about the flawed menu system, it definitely shouldn't be the case that online FAQs are the least annoying way for me to glance over units I already have to see if leveling them has opened up abilities that might mitigate their awful personality disorders (the in-game alternative being to cumbersomely rotate them in in one area, then leave and enter a whole different area of headquarters to check their stats and decide if I want to use them or not).
Had an EB gift card so picked up White Knight Chronicles on a whim; I've wanted it for a while even though reviews have been somewhat mixed. So far it feels like a Fable clone, though that's not necessarily a bad thing, hopefully with a deeper combat system and more challenge. Probably won't do much with it until I'm finished with VC and its downloadable extra stuffs.
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Pokemon Soul Silver - Well finally traded all my pokemon over to this game and they announce Pokemon Black! Fuck that!
Just around the Lakes of Rage area. My team is constantly fluctuating. I have six badges and around 176 "registered" pokemon. by the time I get the national pokedex that number should shoot up to around the three hundreds or so.
My current team is...
Marshtomp - 28
Grotle - 18
Quilava - 15
Grovyle - 24
Aron - 8
Taillow - 21
Whenever a pokemon gets its final evolution it leaves my team. The team is severely underleveled, but when I need to I have a surplus supply of high level pokemon to take on the toughest of challengers. =)
What? Hey, I caught them all once, why should I have to catch them again!
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Yeah, SMT game, I know. I had just been kinda impressed since usually you know when this shit is coming and your main can easily block ID so it's not a proble- woops wait psuedo-ID status that bypasses immunities byebye. -_-
Enjoyable game anyway, but still. Just finished exploring the area, think the boss is unlocked, but I wanna beat a Enemy Search random that wiped me first.
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I really like how it manages its large cast of generics; I feel remarkably attached to PCs who are remarkably close to statistically identical and who do not participate in cut-scenes (characters like Jane the evil florist shocktrooper and Hector the masochist engineer make me really happy). The in-battle voice acting is good in both English and Japanese, which helps (out of battle I find the English a bit hard to deal with, but most of the cast doesn't exist out of battle, so).
This is ultimately one of the things I was most impressed with in VC--or at least one of the things that makes it so memorable for me. They did a really good job of differentiating your mooks with quirks and mannerisms. (Jane in particular is awesome, yes.)
Menu bitching is, of course, wholly warranted. Headquarters reshuffling. Man, what.
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FE9- Map 11 gave me a bunch of resets. It isn't hard, persay. Just a lot of minor things can throw you off- Enemies have enough offense to threaten weak units, Jill reinforcements have to be avoided, Black Knight nonsense, Zihark can frag someone if you mistime your movement in that direction, etc. I ended up beating the map with Moredachi killed. The boss had a Laguzslayer and doubled him (He had also taken light damage), so blah. Not worth redoing the map again for cannon fodder.
Dead: Soren, Ilyana, Moredachi. I think that's it. Had other units (MARCIA) die several times, but ended up resetting each time.
Soon to be dead for sucking and taking up a valuable support convo with Titania: Rhys
Mia is shaping up well, getting a disgusting amount of STR. This is offset by Marcia being RNG raped beyond belief and her benching. Kiernan and Nephenee look good, going to drop some Bexp into Neph and a bunch into mist so she isn't such horrible OHKO bait.
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Tales of Vesperia (SPOILER WARNING. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED):
Finally done. Final time clocked: Around 52 hours ish. Some idle time here and there but still around the 48-50 hour mark otherwise. Um..hm..where do I start? Well, if you've been around chat, you've probably seen me bitching about it >_>. On the whole, I'm not very impressed with it. There were some things that they did which ended up better or at least should be objectively better, but at the same time, there were lots of other little things that just annoyed me to no end. Some of it is subjective, some of it isn't.
1) I'll start with the worst offender first. ToV tried to be cute with puzzle dungeons. As far as I know, outside of WA3 territory (and even some of those weren't that bad), these puzzles are simply like the worst thing ever. I am of course speaking of Heracles, Zaphias and Zaude. First, you must undertand that except for Zaude, the first two are done with your primary healer gone for the entire dungeon. You have some other characters who can be secondaries, but for the most part, they obviously aren't as good. So items and what not become very important to manage. There's cooking that you can use to expand your healing but that's only after battle and there is still a limit here. It's not a perfect way around it. Next, each of these puzzles have problems with the way they are managed.
Heracles is around above averagish for dungeon length. The puzzle here requires you to destroy 5 switches. The first two aren't a problem. The last three though is just all kinds of hell. There is a ladder near one of the switches which you are supposed to take. However, the brightness in this dungeon is bad so it is very easy to miss this ladder. Not to mention the ladder itself doesn't stand out. As a result if you miss it, you could be wandering around the entire deck of the aircraft for 40 minutes and still know not what you need to do. Then once you do find the ladder, the last switch is just a pain in the neck, since it requires you to BACKTRACK out of this dungeon to activate another switch that activates the lift so you can drop a box on top of the switch. Oh and if you fuck up, you have to restart this. All this time with no designated healer and monsters respawning. Zaphias' puzzle involves 4 moon gates and this is a big dungeon. AND it requires you to move back and forth to activate the gates. Oh and since you most likely don't know that you need to activate the gates in certain order and the clues themselves are crytpic, have fun wandering around for hours unless you're FAQing. Zaude is better since you finally get Estelle back. But the water puzzles here are just annoying. You likely don't know which block to push or where you need to push them. And each time you mess up, the game spawns unavoidable monsters that you have to kill. You can't even run away from them since the monster sprite doesn't disappear, meaning you have to kill these assholes. Likely twice since you would probably fuck up once. The best part about this? These three dungeons are right after one another. RIGHT AFTER ONE ANOTHER. Glorious. You know, most games usually have one shitty dungeon that everyone bitches about, but this really takes the cake. It's almost equivalent to XS3's 4 hour mech dungeon with stupid bosses nonsense. Who thought this was a good idea? And what the hell were they thinking?
2) There are some minor changes that really annoy me. First, magic lens. What the fuck happened? When you used them to scan HP in TotA, the text didn't suddenly shrink to this. But that's what happens in ToV. I can't express just how annoyed I am at this change because really, why? Why would you do this? What purpose do you have shrinking this text other than to make people squint? Way to detract the item's value and forcing you to waste multiple lenses if you want to check HP.
3) Skills. So some good and bad here. The good is that skill learning is much more obvious now. Instead of hidden skills via C.Cores in TotA, the weapons in ToV show what skills you will learn. The bad news? Well, not necesary a bad thing. If you liked the crystal stones system in FF9, then its right up your alley. I'm personally annoyed by it, because some of the skills that would be nice to have just end up not getting used ever because you don't have the capacity for it. Like the scan all feature with one Lens on Repede. Or better yet, the skill that shows you the damn HP bar so you don't have to squint to see how much HP the enemy has left. Then there's also skill capacity points being unbalanced. Something that Rita has which allows her to reduce the lag time after casting on all spells costs like 5 points. Meanwhile, spell charge and holding the spell costs 16 points or something on advance spells. I can understand liking the change - I just don't though.
4) Artes. Speaking of skills, the game gives you a couple of elemental skills which you can use to change skills like FoF changes. The differences being that you also need to use the Arte 100 times to learn it permanently (which gives you full access to the skill instead of just the Altered arte or the original version of the arte), and that you need extra skills to link Altered artes together. I can see how they thought this was a cool concept. Hey, you can get access to utilizing FoF type artes without needing to set up FoFs which was a pretty big mess until you got Sun cores in TotA. In actual practice...not as good. And another annoyance. For starters? The fact that you need the skill to link the alter arte together with your regular combo string means you need to expend CP towards it and these skills aren't cheap. The cheapest one I think is 12 points or something. Next, until you actually learn the arte, you can't go back to the original arte if you have the elemental skills equipped. Oh and if you haven't learned it, that's at least another 4 CP it costs you to set up the altered arte. Then on top of that, some of the alter artes require you to set up two or three different elemental skills together before it changes. Yeah. You know, in TotA, FoF changes weren't the most obvious thing in the world either. But there were only 6 colours with 2 of them just being a mix of the other 4, AND if you run into those rings and repeatedly use your artes, you would eventually learn which one changes. In ToV, this doesn't happen because you need to mix and match different skills (which suddenly amps up the different combinations you need to find the hidden artes), meaning unless you discover it by change or unless you FAQ it, don't expect it to happen like ever. Oh, and another thing, you would think these elemental skills would change the arte to its elemental form, but it doesn't. That doesn't annoy me as much as the previous schpeel though.
5) Overlimits. The game changes the OL system by giving the entire team one universal gauge. As a result, it charges up faster since everyone's attacks and damage they take helps to build up the OL meter. During the OL, you can choose how many levels to expend it. 1,2,3 or 4. Obviously, using 4 gauges means that nobody else can use an OL. Using 1 gauge means everyone else on the team can also use a level or two. And OLs are upped very much. You can spam artes infinitely since the recovery lag time is removed during OL. Spells in particular becomes REALLY powerful because the casting time normally associated with Tales mages is removed. In particular, Rita has a Arte later on called Tidal Wave which covers the entire screen. So OL1, spam Tidal Wave effectively ties up everything that does not absorb water. Another thing that I can see people liking it.
It annoys me though for several reasons. The first being the huge emphasis now being placed on OLs. Your big ass damage doesn't now come from trying to lock the enemy up or from using your combos or even your basic spells. It comes effectively from Overlimits and spamming the same move over and over and over again. Expect to hear a lot of AZURE AZURE AZURE AZURE or SHINING SHINING SHINING etc, depending on what arte you decide to use. So instead of one shift where, hey OLs are kinda useless, its now, OLs are pretty much your life line. Way to go guys. I liked it better when OLs were just like a nice fringe benefit instead of being this uber dominance on the main gameplay. Next, the different levels are supposed to represent different strengths of the OL. During a L2 OL, you can get a stat bonus equivalent to any skill symbols you managed to made when setting up your skills. During a L3 OL, you don't flinch and can use Mystic Artes. During a L4 OL, you're invulnerable and gain the strengths of all other OLs. Again, sounds cool. I find it less than endearing in actual practice. You would notice I did not talk about skill symbols under skills whe I was ranting. That's because these symbols are hidden. Yeah, so while actual skills you learn are shown, knowing what you need to do to create what bonus symbol is not. Again, don't expect to find these except through sheer luck or through FAQing. I went through the entire damn game and I didn't find one symbol until the end for Rita. So for the most part? Don't expect this to like matter ever. OL3 and OL4 sounds nice, but then you realize this means that only one other person can OL in OL3 while no one else can in OL4. Well that's not a problem as long as you're the player character right? Not really. It doesn't take long to figure out that standing in the back and spamming spells with no lag time is the best way to go. And if you use a OL4 on that, you're effectively wasting three bars that you could've wasted spamming more lagless spells. So all these options are effectively not very useful because your most optimum way of dealing with things later on is: let the AI be idiots and kill themselves while Manualing Rita and spamming her strongest spells with no lag time. You might think its different if you're using a melee character and for the most part, you would be right EXCEPT, the AI cheats anyway. See, all this talk about tying up enemies is basically absolutely irrelevant. Just like in TotA, bosses can break out of combos after a certain number of hits. Unlike in TotA, where this hit was like 50-60, it's now more like, 5. So...why you would go into OL4 and use a melee character is beyond me, since that PC can't even tie up enemies like they're supposed to do even if the bosses aren't in OL. Yeah, so any OL above L1 is effectively worthless. Oh and don't expect Mystic Artes like ever. Since you can't use it now without OL3, you can only get one person to use a Mystic Arte once per battle more or less and it takes pretty much the same amount of time as it did in TotA to charge up three bars of OL. Well, at least until you open up the casino and then get Limit Bottles for free.
6) Synthesizing. Man, this is some of the stupidest shit ToV pulls on you. You're basically not going to get very powerful if you only use storeboughts. So you have to keep on synthesizing. Unfortunately, ToV takes a lesson from RoF here and basically does some stupid shit like make you grind against low level randoms because the way they spaced the drop is effectively stupid. You could go for a long time without that bottle of Toad Oil. And while you will soon get new synths, it's the principal idea that's annoying. Think about it. You could be out for a weapon for a while and if that weapon teaches you a skill you really want, have fun backtracking. When you make a synth system, either make it like the Gust games where you can create it from several sets of materials, thereby avoiding this problem, or space your drops better or make the drops common in chests or easily accessible or something. The synth system also takes a noise dive when it comes to rare drops. Some of it requires specific weather conditions and ToV's weather system is also bullocks. You have no control over it and since you can't repeatedly use a Tent because of lolplotgimmick. So you basically are either forced to fight battles in between it which makes this process even longer than it should be or rest at an inn which sometimes doesn't tell you the condition that you need (like windy or snowing). And the worst part? Most of time, you're trying to make these things because of the skills they teach you. So it effectively shoots the skill system in the foot too. There's only a few weapons that can be excused for this bullshit because the skills they teach are really that damn good. The rest of it though, why?
7) Backtracking and sidequests. Some of the stupid shit I mentioned for synthing really rears its ugly head when it comes to backtracking. For the most part, I don't think you can. I remember missing out a Mace+1 for the longest time because the game wouldn't let me take a boat back to the harbor. This meant that I had to make the synth effectively before the dungeon, which I had real no way of knowing that I wouldn't be able to backtrack and grind against stupid randoms :|. Sidequests face the same deal with sometimes not even the slightest hint unless you manage to get it by change. The good news though is that it looks like things like hidden artes and some titles and even some weapons don't effectively get shut off with cut off points. That's at least neutral-ish
8) The world maps sucks. It's not TotA's world maps, but its not like its that much better anyway.
EDIT: 9) Oh also forgot. Sorcerer's Ring. There's also more bullshit they put into this. Hey, if you hit the enemy, you can stun them! At least from the scene. In reality, lolno. You can either have them freeze, have them stun or have them go aggro. There's no telling what will happen. You can hit them multiple times with it, so you can keep doing it until they are finally stunned. But really, why? This just makes the entire advantage sorta pointless since the half the time, its just easier and faster to run head first into the enemy instead of using the ring and HOPING that it stuns them.
I also have some of the worst luck in this game. Like taking the entire damn game to learn a new recipe off of Sandwich. I had Estelle cooking this thing from the damn start of the game to the end. Seriously, what the hell. Game isn't garbage, but I would be outright lying if I said I wasn't pissed at some points.
The game for the most part fixed the enemies so that Free Run is no longer auto win. And the character interaction for most of it is pretty good. There's some areas where I wish they didn't go for plot direction (waaaaaaay too much MYSTARY for like the first 30 hours/Raven's stuff), but its alright otherwise. The core plot is kinda junky, but the side plot between Flynn and Yuri as cliche as it was it, is pulled off beautifully. It's probably my favourite portions of the game when the two chew each other out (helps that their designs are sharp contrasts to each other, which also scores some symbolism points). So yeah, if that wasn't any indication, Yuri and Flynn are pretty cool. Estelle's pretty cool tool. Karol and Rita are okay. Judith's just there. And Raven...uh...I have mixed feelings on him. There's some scenes with him where he's great. And then there's some other scenes where its just lolwat. Especially the plot twist at that. Oh and his humour wasn't that funny :|. So he's kinda annoying at times, but not irratatingly so. I am not touching the villains with a 10 foot pool, because for the most part, they all fail. To quote Super, this villain cast manages to reach the levels of XS3 failure. That is suitably (and depressingly) impressive.
Overall, game's around a 5.5/10 for me. I've had more fun with some of my 6s. It's better than EB to me, but worse than things like S5.
FF13: So finally getting in on this after everyone's done. Around 8 hours in and on disc 2. Some of Gref's complaints are warranted (like Lightning basically being a bitch). Snow is also an ass and lamer. That hat just makes him look like KH2 Seifer and I am expecting him to start rapping any moment. The start of the game also pulls a FF7. No definitive opinions. Will play more and see what happens. If the rest of the game holds up like the first 4 hours or so after Chapter 2, it would be great. Otherwise, see Grefter.
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Mmm yeah, I definitely can second your complaints on ToV. I liked it, but I like Tales games. Yet another game in the series sort of pusing the fact that Tales games are pretty much an all or nothing thing. They can have something in there for most gamers, but you have to be able to stomach their special brand of bullshit and that special brand of bullshit really wears thin with how damned long the games are getting.
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White Knight Chronicles is really weird. Systematically it's kind of a Parasite Eve/Xenogears/Legend of Dragoon hybrid (active time, free movement, timed hits, action points, giant robots). You control one character at a time and the others work by AI, which I know some of you don't like. You can change characters freely, though.
Boss fights have been pretty neat so far. Almost all of them have been huge and with multiple target areas. Nothing challenging, but I'm only three or four hours in.
Very pretty, and with surprisingly interesting art design; the game looks ludicrously generic, but actually has its own rather neat style.
Music hasn't jumped out at me yet, but video game scores rarely do.
Menus are extraordinarily clunky, in that deluge of options tons of menus micromanagement way (which I can love, when done right). Desperately needs an autopopulate function to set up skills for your secondary characters without spending half an hour deciding which minutely different basic sword strikes you want them to have access to. It does let you save your skill set-ups, though, which is not so much a saving grace as a necessity (although one that FF13, with its only moderately less complex set-ups, lacks).
I really like that it has a wholly customizable (western RPG-style) silent avatar character, but that person is not the main character. There's a perfectly good main character (Leonardo) and your avatar befriends him (silently) in the opening scene, and as far as I can tell follows him around for the rest of the game (although he occasionally runs off on his own to do RPG-main-character stupid things, like rescuing princesses who are probably his sister, during which you control only him). So rather than a silent main, you've got a silent sidekick, which I like much better.
The character creator's pretty good. As a Sims player, I'm a sucker for a good character generator.
Haven't played online yet (the real reason there's an avatar), may or may not ever bother.
Story probably deserves a cease-and-desist from George Lucas' lawyer. We'll see how it ends up. Darth Vader/the Burger King is pretty badass, though: http://whiteknightchronicles.neoseeker.com/wiki/Dragias
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I value Tales game highly because of the multiplayer aspect and can get dudes to play with me. We yell and complain on how goddamn stupid the plot is and have a great time. Another reason Tales of Legendia sucks! But really, I didn't have a problem with the game even if I went solo aside of the stupid sidequest requirements. Tiny text is probably because you're playing on a standard definition TV, a problem with every single PS3/360 game (You'll probably hate SO4 on that, let alone the other 20 problems with the game).
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Tide you like to be wordy for things that can be said concisely. "Altered Artes are near-pointless because they take too long to learn and are FAQ-bait" for example (honestly Nightingale is the only one worth talking about). Altered Artes should have been handled differently but I think you may have put more effort into that paragraph than Bamco did into the planning process for them.
Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 days. Beaten. Final time of about 25 hours I think.
I liked Kingdom Hearts 1 and 2 for a variety of reasons related to gameplay, style, and presentation. Unfortunately I think 358/2 has the first in reduced quality and eschewed the other two completely.
The gameplay is certainly passable, with decent action elements and lots of very interesting customization options via the panel-board. The mission system wasn't varied (kill this boss, slaughter all the heartless in this location), but they felt engaging enough due to enemy differences, and if you didn't want to do them you could just skip the optional missions. I felt the game was too focused on Magic for damage outside of a few bosses, but the physical damage side of the equation is Limits and they ARE pretty good (if dangerous) so I suppose it is just a balance that made me favor magic. I liked the way they made you think about conserving magic due to the number of casts being limited per mission. There wasn't much variety in enemies but there was just enough to keep it from being frustratingly repetitive (and you could skip missions with enemy types you disliked/were too familiar with). My biggest beef with the gameplay is easily that playing an action game on the DS is physically painful for my hands, and the gameplay while decent isn't outright GOOD enough to let me get over this.
The style and presentation were pretty dang lacking, though. Since this is a big part of the KH equation I came away with a bad taste in my mouth. A quick example would be the 'voice acting' during normal scenes (as opposed to movies). They have like one or two 'laughing tracks' that they play constantly. To say this is annoying is an understatement. It also lacks the requisite variation in character interactions. Roxas does missions, Roxas sits on a roof and eats ice cream while saying very little even if the other two Are with him, and so on. The graphics are okay but they tried a little TOO hard to make it similar to the PS2 KH games and so it comes off looking much worse by compare (one still remembers the same locations looking much better from KH1/2). The music is definitely solid, no complaints there.
The plot itself has the whole "Predetermined by Cannon and nothing much interesting to add" problem. Crisis Core managed to work around this by having characters that were much more interesting, and cranking the epic up to 11 for the ending. KH 358/2 fails to pull this off. "But who will I have ice cream with" was about the worst line I've heard in a game in a long time.
Game's best moment: Crushing Saix like an insect in his boss fight. Man, I had wanted to do that for a good LONG time.
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FE9- Makalov gotten, map 14 cleared. Oscar and Mia are inching closer to promotion, with Kieran, Ike, and Boyd not too far behind them. Astrid, Nephenee, Jill, Brom, Volke, and Mist are still catching up with the rest.
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Heart Gold: Got most of the phone numbers, and I'm going to Mt Silver next.
Left 4 Dead 2: Played through all the campaigns.
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White Knight Chronicles is really weird. Systematically it's kind of a Parasite Eve/Xenogears/Legend of Dragoon hybrid (active time, free movement, timed hits, action points, giant robots). You control one character at a time and the others work by AI, which I know some of you don't like. You can change characters freely, though.
The biggest problem with WKC gameplay is that it is REALLY REALLY SLOW. You get to act like every five seconds or so, and can't really do anything in the mean time but watch your gauge fill up. If it was faster, it could be compelling, but as is it's just really boring.
Boss fights have been pretty neat so far. Almost all of them have been huge and with multiple target areas. Nothing challenging, but I'm only three or four hours in.
You forgot BOSS INTROS. Boss fights are one of the few things of that game that isn't piss boring.
Very pretty, and with surprisingly interesting art design; the game looks ludicrously generic, but actually has its own rather neat style.
You know, I hadn't thought about it much, but I think I agree. Kind of weird in that sense.
Music hasn't jumped out at me yet, but video game scores rarely do.
I think you need to go listen to the opening move song again because it is awesome.
Menus are extraordinarily clunky, in that deluge of options tons of menus micromanagement way (which I can love, when done right). Desperately needs an autopopulate function to set up skills for your secondary characters without spending half an hour deciding which minutely different basic sword strikes you want them to have access to. It does let you save your skill set-ups, though, which is not so much a saving grace as a necessity (although one that FF13, with its only moderately less complex set-ups, lacks).
This is why I didn't mess with that stuff much, except for the avatar. It's just not worth it in the end. The game's easy enough that you don't really need to worry, at least.
I really like that it has a wholly customizable (western RPG-style) silent avatar character, but that person is not the main character. There's a perfectly good main character (Leonardo) and your avatar befriends him (silently) in the opening scene, and as far as I can tell follows him around for the rest of the game (although he occasionally runs off on his own to do RPG-main-character stupid things, like rescuing princesses who are probably his sister, during which you control only him). So rather than a silent main, you've got a silent sidekick, which I like much better.
Well, the main problem with this is... that it feels like the avatar was just added in at the very end of development along with the online component. The avatar is pretty much never even noticed in any plot scenes and is just kind of there. So it's not even really a "silent sidekick" because the plot doesn't even acknowledge the character.
Still better than a silent main, sure, but it's not really a huge improvement or anything.
Haven't played online yet (the real reason there's an avatar), may or may not ever bother.
At least try it if you have the ability. I found the online stuff to be far more interesting than the main game, though it gets grindy after a point (which is where you should stop unless you like grindy). I only went up to about GR5 and stopped then since it was starting to get grindy.
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Playing Half-Life because I never did get to finish it before. Hopefully this computer won't arbitrarily start hating on the game and refuse to run it past the halfway mark.
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Tide you like to be wordy for things that can be said concisely. "Altered Artes are near-pointless because they take too long to learn and are FAQ-bait" for example (honestly Nightingale is the only one worth talking about). Altered Artes should have been handled differently but dude chill.
If we start busting people's balls for posting long-winded rants on games, I'm pretty sure we have to perma-ban Meeple before we go after anyone else.
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But not Elfboy, cause his rants are both enjoyable and informative.
Oh yeah, I play games too.
SH3: Finished uhhh, the pirate ship. Party is Gay Incan Stripper, Indian McBoobs, Fatass lolivamp, and OblivionKnight. The minor upgrade in gameplay from SH2-SH3 isn't say a huge one like Grandia 2->Grandia 3 and the characters are much worse. Oh well, got to vote on Gay Incan Stripper.
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Ace Attourney Investigations: complete.
Overall, definitely liked it. Lary Buttz and Wendy Oldbag get probably their best appearance by a longshot. (When they get out of hand, Edgeworth subtly insults them AND Franziska whips them in the face; very satisfying). Franziska on the whole was a little disappointing--ok, so she doesn't match Edgeworth in wits when she's like...7--that makes sense. However, when they're both adults and the dynamic is similar, I...just don't like it. Honestly, there's a few missions where it felt like you should have just played as Franziska--it's not like PW games are new to the idea of multiple protagonists. Judge cameo was lame.
VPDS: Booted this up again--at 8th-9th time through the Seraphic Gate, which is when all the completely ridiculous weapons show up. Things got very easy for a while (there was one fight where no enemy attacked me). Fights take about 15 minutes on average (as short as 10. The Hamster fight takes 30 to chase them all down--would take less if I just ignored them). Hoping the final time through (10th) is more competent--the enemies are showing signs of improvement towards the end of the 9th, anyhow.
Oh, fun VPDS fact: there is a strength cap of 9999. You can't boost higher with anything--Power Bangle, Might Reinforce, the in-battle attack booster (I forget the name). Made me rethink my setup.
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I value Tales game highly because of the multiplayer aspect and can get dudes to play with me. We yell and complain on how goddamn stupid the plot is and have a great time. Another reason Tales of Legendia sucks! But really, I didn't have a problem with the game even if I went solo aside of the stupid sidequest requirements. Tiny text is probably because you're playing on a standard definition TV, a problem with every single PS3/360 game (You'll probably hate SO4 on that, let alone the other 20 problems with the game).
Yeah, maybe if I had other people around me when I was playing commenting and poking fun at the stupid fun, it would've been more fun! But typically that doesn't happen. I mean, I could've streamed it, but you people don't watch it/don't have Skype to poke fun of the game with me :(
I'm noticing the trend of Tiny text yes. It doesn't help ToV though since in the two other games I have played, they do things that circumvent around it (FF13 allows you to bring up the scan info at any time which shows the HP remaining in big text, plus they have an HP bar on top of the enemy. RoF has a HP bar on top of enemy. ToV does too! ...if you're willing to spend like 5 CP towards it which could be spend on other things -_-). Also, SO4 is like one of the last things on my playlists right now since it sounds gloriously bad!
Tide you like to be wordy for things that can be said concisely. "Altered Artes are near-pointless because they take too long to learn and are FAQ-bait" for example (honestly Nightingale is the only one worth talking about). Altered Artes should have been handled differently but I think you may have put more effort into that paragraph than Bamco did into the planning process for them.
Excuse me for being long winded >_>. I wanted to spell out exactly why I found it annoying though instead of posting a one sentence, "Man, Altered Artes are dumb". It's more informative that way! And too long to learn? That's only ONE of the problems associated with it >.>.
But not Elfboy, cause his rants are both enjoyable and informative.
Grefter's rants are highly entertaining as well. But yes, NEB rants are awesome. Both deserves cookies. And pie.
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Excuse me for being long winded >_>. I wanted to spell out exactly why I found it annoying though instead of posting a one sentence, "Man, Altered Artes are dumb". It's more informative that way! And too long to learn? That's only ONE of the problems associated with it >.>.
Altered Artes are practically sidequests in themselves. You obviously don't need them to beat the game, and your points are better spent elsewhere. Altered Artes are basically only used for us hardcore combo-enthusiasts who like to make ridiculous Judith aerial combos and are willing to spend more time practicing those than actually playing the game.
Honestly, the whole game seems geared towards this kind of player, but they make it optional for people that don't /want/ to play with the combo system that long and just want their usual Tales-y experience. As someone who loves playing with the combo system, I felt it was pretty balanced and it really focused on what makes the series great. There were so many combinations you could make and it was challenging to adapt your combos as Altered Artes were found/learned/shuffled.
And then once I got bored of playing with the combo system, I just Tidal Wave-spammed the 2nd half of the game and enjoyed the nice voice-acting.
...now I want to go back and practice Judith's infinite combo again. ;_;
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Pokemon HG. Played a bunch of this today while I was chilling in a coffee shop waiting for Jenna to pick me up. Knocking on the E4's front door, but haven't taken them on just yet.
Party is:
Feraligatr: Brave Nature(+Atk/-Spd). Torrent(derp). Crunch/Strength/Avalanche/Waterfall. Hits like a damn train. Does his job, does it well. Not fast, but I take advantage of that with Avalanche sometimes.
Slowbro: Calm Nature(+SDef/-Atk). Own Tempo. Surf/Zen Headbutt/Headbutt/Yawn. Tanky bugger with two fairly good STABs. Thinking about dropping Headbutt for something but dunno what.
Electivire: Lonely Nature(+Atk/-Def). Motor Drive. Thunder Punch/Fire Punch/Iron Tail/Light Screen. Yay high speed smashing. Wanted to teach him Brick Break instead of Iron Tail, but couldn't find the TM for that. Mrf.
Butterfree: Bashful Nature(Neutral). Compound Eyes. Psybeam/Bug Buzz/Sleep Powder/Flash. Look, it's a whorish Butterfree! Do they really come in any other flavor? Shitty stats, but the ability/moveset are fun. Mostly a catching poke, may swap out for something else if I wipe to the E4 and she feels like she's not pulling her weight.
Sandslash: Careful Nature(+SDef/-SAtk). Sand Veil. Crush Claw/Earthquake/CUT/ROCKSMASH. So yeah, guess who's largely been an HM mule for the largest part of the game? Still, Dig earlier and EQ now means she holds her own well enough. Also, I kinda like that nature for a Sandslash. Sure getting a boost to Atk or Spd would likely be better, but there's nothing quite as awesome as hanging on by that thread you otherwise wouldn't have been able to.
Scizor: Bold Nature(-Atk/+Def). Technician. Bullet Punch/U-turn/Wing Attack/False Swipe. Will likely dump FS for Sword Dance if that's within quick leveling range. Otherwise BP and U-Turn are both fun enough without it. Don't like the nature, but the first two Scythers I caught had Swarm instead of Technician, so when I finally got a Tech Scyther, I wasn't about to keep trying to get a better nature. Ah well.
So 'slash and 'free are clearly the LVPs of my team. I have a halfway decent Crowbat sitting in the wings(har) that I can level grind up fairly quickly if I wipe and feel the need to replace one of those two. I could also just move deleter CUT and ROCKSMASH and get something decent instead.
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The plot itself has the whole "Predetermined by Cannon and nothing much interesting to add" problem. Crisis Core managed to work around this by having characters that were much more interesting, and cranking the epic up to 11 for the ending. KH 358/2 fails to pull this off. "But who will I have ice cream with" was about the worst line I've heard in a game in a long time.
Do not forget that KH exist for the purpose of yaoi, and 358/2 plot serve no purpose but to promote 813 for the fandom. Only made worse when Nomura wasn't trying to hide this in the first place.
..Well no, I'll give Xion form 4 a point for being good. But that is mostly because Shimomura's music. She must have purposely designed that track to make you feel guilty about pushing the attack button in that fight. In a sense, that fight is equally as hard as the Vanitas fight for me.
...now I want to go back and practice Judith's infinite combo again. ;_;
Don't cry, I perfectly understand how you feel. But isn't it time to move onto Raven now? You know his combo loops are at least twice as ridiculous than that of Judy.
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Raven's loops are only ridiculous in PS3 version, I thought? Either way, I find him annoying to control. Even Repede is more fun to combo with.
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Beat the E4 on the first try. Sandslash didn't do a whole lot, as predicted. That kinda happens when half your move slots are shitty HMs. Also when your only good move is EQ and there are alot of flyers around.
Highlights of the run:
vs Koga: Muk comes out, there are already toxic spikes everywhere, I counter swap to Butterfree thinking I can wear him down. One small problem with that plan. Muk is faster, 'free eats OHKO. Okay. So Sandslash gets her moment of glory by coming out, taking the poison, and returning the favor with EQ.
vs. Karen: Gengar gets owned by Butterfree in hilarious fashion. Sleep, FLASH SPAM, and suddenly the mighty Gengar is useless. Scizor comes out to close the deal and slowely chips it down with Bullet Punches.
vs Lance: A couple here. Butterfree does the samn damn thing to the Thunder spamming Dragonite(courtesy of the Bright Powder making it's initial Thunder miss~). Sleep, Flash spam, swap to Scizor and watch the chipping commence. One Thunder gets through the accuracy nuking, but isn't enough to kill Scizor. Prior to this, the Level 50 Dragonite squared off against a level 41 Feraligatr. Dragonite goes first! Outrage! 'gatr hangs on with 12 hp left. Guess what move Feraligatr was using? Avalanche. Double the power since I was hit means that the strongest pokemon of the strongest trainer eats OHKO from a move that isn't even STAB. I love how much 'gatr gets to take advantage of the phys/spec split now.
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Oh yeah I remember those ToV puzzles >.> Synthing didn't bother me much mainly because I didn't do it <.< Except for the Limit Duo/etc items and Limit bottles for Rita which ... yeah.
FFXIII- Trying to beat Atticus with PC Vanille + low stats. All goes well until he starts whipping out Meditate -_-
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Its hard to take a Synthesize Rant seriously when one of the main points was "YOU CAN'T BE STRONG UNLESS YOU DO IT!", which I totally spit on considering my little sister mostly ignored Synthing herself, and got through 80% of ToV Normal Mode without much problems (one fight with the Hunting Blades gave her some trouble, but mostly cause she was low on items and forgot to restock). So there really is no justification for that claim; ToV is balanced such that it is perfectly playable without much synthing.
Synthing really is one of those "If you like it, you'll get rewarded for applying it. If you don't like it, ignore it; game is balanced around not using it." I can't honestly hold this against a game too strongly, cause Synthing really isn't that significant a factor like Tide made it out to be. Hell, the stuff you get out of synthing isn't THAT significant a push in power; a few extra skills are nice, but not game breaking barring some notable exceptions, and the stat increase...well, I was often using underleveled weapons anyway due to the nature of the skill system, so that kind of defeats the purpose there.
Regarding the Altered Arte thing...
I do agree you kind of went overboard there. A lot of what you said could have been said in a far more concise manner. You went into depth about things that are blatantly obvious in terms of their flaws. Requires a skill, then doesn't tell you what skill gets altered until you use it, THEN requires you use it 100 times, and worst part is, if you have multiple equipped, I don't seem to recall the game actually telling you which Altered Arte skill is being applied. This is just as informative as your major rant, and gets the point in a much more concise manner, and is easier to read, cause anyone with half a brain can see everything that's wrong here.
Also, IIRC, Altered Artes are identical to Arcane Artes in terms of tiering for combos, so you can do Arte -> Altered Arte just as well as going Arte -> Arcane Arte WITHOUT any skills. SO I don't get the whole "You need skills to combo them!" No, I'm pretty sure you need skills to make advanced nonsense combos that distinguish the two like going Arte -> Arcane -> Altered, which is something totally different, and lets be honest here; its completely justified considering the existence of Overlimits and how nasty they can be, what with the addition of Burst Artes.
Don't get me wrong; Altered Artes were idiotically handled, and hell, if they were removed the game probably wouldn't have been any worse, but I don't think going into that much depth did any favors; if anything, it made it harder to follow just what you were chipping on about, especially consistent comparisons to TotA's FoF's, which the two aren't that similar beyond "they change skills."
I know, I'm not one to talk about keeping things concise, but I don't think I've ever attacked singular, minor points in that much depth. I could just have shitty memory though.
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Who gives a shit? It's a games topic made for ranting. Let the man rant. Most of his points are valid, as ToV does have plenty of flaws.
FE9- Up to map 19. Still enjoying the game.
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Its hard to take a Synthesize Rant seriously when one of the main points was "YOU CAN'T BE STRONG UNLESS YOU DO IT!", which I totally spit on considering my little sister mostly ignored Synthing herself, and got through 80% of ToV Normal Mode without much problems (one fight with the Hunting Blades gave her some trouble, but mostly cause she was low on items and forgot to restock). So there really is no justification for that claim; ToV is balanced such that it is perfectly playable without much synthing.
Synthing really is one of those "If you like it, you'll get rewarded for applying it. If you don't like it, ignore it; game is balanced around not using it." I can't honestly hold this against a game too strongly, cause Synthing really isn't that significant a factor like Tide made it out to be. Hell, the stuff you get out of synthing isn't THAT significant a push in power; a few extra skills are nice, but not game breaking barring some notable exceptions, and the stat increase...well, I was often using underleveled weapons anyway due to the nature of the skill system, so that kind of defeats the purpose there.
I dunno, getting new skills is definitely a form of "Getting stronger" to me. And there are a lot of skills that only come via synthesized equipment. Heck some things you synth are definitely a form of getting stronger (limit upgrades for example). So I would argue otherwise that, yes, synthesizing is definitely a form of getting stronger. You can argue that its not needed to finish the game (hence, you can be strong without synthing it), but do you really want to argue about that?
Besides, that wasn't the main point of the rant; the main point is the stupidness they require you to go through in order to synth items. And that if you miss some synthes, have fun trying to hunt down certain items to get those skills. It's the core principle that annoys me. They could've made equipment that teaches garbages skills on it, and I would still be annoyed by this factor. I'm pretty sure to its credit however, that ToV puts several chests in place so you can get items through synthing in chests anyway. Just that you end up getting it later. Of course, there is no way of knowing this the first time you play it so its kind of a crapshoot if you're betting on getting something from a dungeon.
SIDE NOTE: Oh yeah, if the skills don't make you stronger, then it just bothers me further. Yes, make synthed weapon take around 2 hours longer to get for grinding materials because of this one skill that doesn't do anything thereby making the system pointless.
Regarding the Altered Arte thing...
I do agree you kind of went overboard there. A lot of what you said could have been said in a far more concise manner. You went into depth about things that are blatantly obvious in terms of their flaws. Requires a skill, then doesn't tell you what skill gets altered until you use it, THEN requires you use it 100 times, and worst part is, if you have multiple equipped, I don't seem to recall the game actually telling you which Altered Arte skill is being applied. This is just as informative as your major rant, and gets the point in a much more concise manner, and is easier to read, cause anyone with half a brain can see everything that's wrong here.
Also, IIRC, Altered Artes are identical to Arcane Artes in terms of tiering for combos, so you can do Arte -> Altered Arte just as well as going Arte -> Arcane Arte WITHOUT any skills. SO I don't get the whole "You need skills to combo them!" No, I'm pretty sure you need skills to make advanced nonsense combos that distinguish the two like going Arte -> Arcane -> Altered, which is something totally different, and lets be honest here; its completely justified considering the existence of Overlimits and how nasty they can be, what with the addition of Burst Artes.
Don't get me wrong; Altered Artes were idiotically handled, and hell, if they were removed the game probably wouldn't have been any worse, but I don't think going into that much depth did any favors; if anything, it made it harder to follow just what you were chipping on about, especially consistent comparisons to TotA's FoF's, which the two aren't that similar beyond "they change skills."
I know, I'm not one to talk about keeping things concise, but I don't think I've ever attacked singular, minor points in that much depth. I could just have shitty memory though.
Man, I don't know why you guys keep emphasizing this, especially when I already apologized for being long winded. If it seemed like I was being sarcastic, I wasn't . Again, the only reason why I'm spelling it out is specifically so that I have it on record exactly what I hated about it. Could it have been more concise? Sure. But I would believe that by spelling it out, I'm at least getting the point across why I didn't like it. And if there was something they did right, it would have been mentioned. Would you like me to change the entire rant to just, "I disliked ToV", void of any explaination? That would be a lot more concise and probably just as informative since I already ranted about it in chat. And as you put it, anyone "with a half brain" can figure out why I didn't like it based on my random schpeels about it in chat.
Actually, speaking of which, the only reason it was even that long was because I hatbotted the decision on ranting;I was originally just going to say, "finished ToV, didn't like it. Here's its score". So if you want to blame someone, blame Hatbot >_>.
Also, Meeple, you're wrong on the Altered Arte thing. I just booted up ToV to check, and there is a SPECIFIC skill (Super Chain 4) that lets you chain base artes to alter artes. If you could do it the same way as base -> alter, I don't understand why they would give you a skill to learn that lets you do the exact same thing as you could normally. Not to mention I tried it in-game and I definitely recall that you can't which is why I remember it personally.
I'm not sure where these "constant" comparisons are. As far as I know, I only did it twice in that paragraph. The reason for drawing them is to basically compare it to something as similar possible to show how badly implemented it was. Altered artes are not FoF changes, but they are the closest thing I could think of at the time. The "They changed skills" thing was pretty much enough I felt to draw the comparison. It's not perfect, but then again, I'm not claiming it to be perfect either. And even though I have an interest in writing, I'm not an English major. So sue me for ranting on and eventually masking/covering up what the big deal was. Whatever.
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Pokemon Heart Gold: Currently doing Battle Frontier stuff to try and get several new moves. Was -not- expecting to have Guillotine hit 2/2 times on Fight 19, nor was I expecting to be TrickScarfed on Fight 20. Ended up losing that one eventually, which sucks - would've been nice to get to 21 wins to get another batch of BP, but oh well. Now using Multi Battle, since the majority of allies use Pokemon that immune/resist Earthquake and it's oh so easy to sweep the opposition with it.
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Who gives a shit? It's a games topic made for ranting. Let the man rant.
This. zomg people have different opinions. Tide wasn't trolling the game's fans or anything, just putting his opinions out there. If he was being a bit long-winded, well, there are some people in this topic who have no right to berate others for that fault. Not to mention nobody forces you to read the whole rant at gunpoint.
Metroid Fusion - Hahaha Nightmare is dead! DEADDEADDEADDEADDEAD YESSSSSSS. *cough*
Okay that was one of the more satisfying game experiences I've had in a while. God Nightmare is a whore. Pretty much had him figured out by the end though, manipulating his third form is a lot of fun, would be less aggravating if you pretty much didn't die for one mistake (he 2HKOs you but screwing up once often leads to taking an unavoidable second hit) but hey that's what challenges are for. Anyway, Security Robot 2 wasn't so bad, only giving me about 5 or 6 resets, which is the least of any boss in the second half and even less than Serris! Wow. Ridley on the other hand has been posing problems (not Nightmare-level problems, but problems). Funnily enough I have LOST respect for him as a fight because he dies almost instantly now that I know how to really aim shots at him, just he does some things which are basically impossible to avoid so it seems to mostly come down to luck. If he doesn't do things like corner you then randomly turn around so HEY MY TAIL IS IN YOUR FACE LOL 2HKO he's quite beatable, I have actually beaten him once but then I had an epic screwup and died to the Core-X. That was facepalm-worthy. Anyway, battles with him are hilariously fast, over one way or another in under 20-30 seconds tops.
Somewhat dreading SA-X now but the run is distinctly coming to a close!
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Who gives a shit? It's a games topic made for ranting. Let the man rant.
This. zomg people have different opinions. Tide wasn't trolling the game's fans or anything, just putting his opinions out there. If he was being a bit long-winded, well, there are some people in this topic who have no right to berate others for that fault. Not to mention nobody forces you to read the whole rant at gunpoint.
I actually like reading long posts, so...uh...more power to you! I guess?
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I make extensive use of my mouse wheel, personally.
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For what its worth, Tide, I didn't have anything against the length of the your post and it was an interesting enough read. My post was just addressing on -why- I thought they implemented those features the way they did.
The comparisons to TotA -did- feel out-of-place, and it felt like you missed the easiest comparison to make between FOF effects and ToV Altered Artes - that they are optional and mostly there for the people who like to play with the combo system. If you -like- the combo system, then seeing situational opportunities like FOFs or having it grow beyond what you expected to further abuse the system (like ToV Altereds) is actually a really fun extension of the normal system. Another side challenge. I felt you inflated their importance and then bemoaned that it was too challenging/annoying.
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The real problem is that it's adding mechanics that, at best, are way too situational and underwhelming to actually add depth to the game system. I can't speak for ToV, but TotA's FoFs certainly felt like a half-implemented mechanic that either added nothing of important to an efficient strategic plan or had essentially idiotic exploits (i.e. Guy's brain-damaged semi-infinite). Vying for FoFs in TotA tends to even run anathema to effective, efficient game-planning, since setting them up is slow, awkward and unreliable given it relies on the enemy's spatial location (which is amazingly erratic and turns the FoFs hard to utilize) almost as much as your PCs', and the vast majority of the FoF skills exist only to be flashy, having little to no tactical relevance - i.e. you're mostly hamstringing yourself when trying to apply FoFs outside the exploits, which are the result of poor planning and implementation to begin with. When you pull off a mechanic that manages to detract from a battle system rather than add, I think you have the right to bitch about it. It's inelegant design at best.
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TotA FoFs were nicely ignorable. I wouldn't use them in an argument against the game since they are easy just to shrug and pass over.
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TotA FOFs were only strategic in multiplayer mode. And if you had two players, they were actually incredibly efficient and fun to set up. This could have been possible in singleplayer if the AI was better at it, but with someone sitting next to you, FOFs were awesome.
Also, it's how Anise and Luke shine. They make a particularly good FOF-abuse team. Anise can set up Light and Dark FOFs rather early on, which allows access to all elements rather easily. Luke has all four elements attached to at least one of his physicals, so if the FOF disappears, you just use a set-up physical to reopen it and then spam your new combo with a FOF-cancelling finisher (he can also take advantage of all four elements rather easily, so the choice is yours on which move best fits the situation).
This was one of the great discoveries my brother and I made while playing wtih TotA's battle system.
Again, Tales has some design ideas that aren't implemented for every mode of play. FOFs are non-factors in singleplayer mode, so it doesn't detract from the normal Tales experience... but in 2-player mode, they're that hectic kind of 'shout out what you're about to do and get your friend to set you up/take the setup' fun/challenging that keeps you entertained for hours.
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TotA FoFs were nicely ignorable. I wouldn't use them in an argument against the game since they are easy just to shrug and pass over.
ToV's Altered Artes, for what its worth, are very much the same way; they only matter for those HARD CORE COMBO FREAKS, and can be more or less ignored entirely otherwise. I frankly ignored them outside of getting a few just to see what they looked like (well, I did use the double fireball from Yuri, but that's mostly cause it seemed like a logical move.)
Also,, guess I should elaborate, I wasn't so much slamming the length just so much as trying to put into perspective why Tide's length was a bit overboard (I'm not one to talk, I know.) Mostly cause it felt hard to actually keep up with what he was going on about, and some of his points felt a bit off. I guess I should apologize for that. I still think he did go bit overboard having to point every freaking flaw with something, in major depth, when some are self explanatory. I guess I'm saying it was more the style of the length rather than the length itself? Really felt like he was going into things into such depth for things that were...so minor, if that makes sense?
I guess my first part ties into part of what irked me a bit; going into huge depth about something that is totally ignorable, and can be overlooked, and the game is still fully playable, but slamming it like its such a huge factor...I dunno. Feels like people who slam FF8 or FF9 cause of their card games, when they're totally optional and you don't really suffer (Especially in FF9's case) for not using them.
...I should probably shut up at this point <_<;
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Re: TotA FoFs:
Eh, you can use them in single player, pretty easily, in fact. The secret is to have Jade in your party casting spells. I had no real problems getting some use out of them in most battles after Jade got his second tier of spells, since there usually ended up being so many open at the same time.
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Altered Arts are far more hidden than FoF, partly for the reason Zenny has stated above (I certainly got plenty of use out of Wind and Fire FoFs when I was playing), Altered Arts on the other hand require a random smattering of skills to unlock and there is no hints in game as to what unlocks what. None of the moves are necessary but some of the moves are straight up superior to your basic arts (Some of Raven's altered arts are dramatically better than his other bow skills, he gets other element spells to give him more diverse options, Estelle's area based buffs are nice) and some are just straight up great (Nightingale and well Nightingale). They are far to obscured, the using them a bunch of times isn't a huge drama though, you will have the time to do them for sure since this is a Tales game and you WILL be fighting a lot, but it is one more thing to grind out after you have found the requisite combination of skills.
Synthing though? You can do fine without it, but the game actively cock blocks you in it fairly often. Didn't get like 30 Ice Crystals when you were in the desert? Well those weapons you unlocked just after going through it are unavailable for now until a good portion of the game in (without abusing Search Points, which are yet another obscure FAQbait component that are obtuse as all fuck to abuse) and with them went those elemental skills you need to learn Altered Arts (lawl). Then there is later when you need Spirit Fragments just as Zaude surfaced, oh wait the ghst pirate ship just disappeared until you have got past that plot point, WHY DIDN'T YOU GET 12 SPIRITS FROM THAT DUNGEON YOU DID 1/3 OF THE GAME AGO RETARD. So on and so on.
They are optional side things, and they just kind of randomly have thrown up these brick walls in the way of them. I did them and enjoyed the synthing even (got myself a Last Fencer very early which took far more effort than it should because the game strips you of control over the weather until late in the game and that is a big part on Search Point manipulation), but that didn't mean I didn't note and be annoyed by the brick walls they threw up. It is the kind of obtuse bullshit that keeps making Tales games for Tales fans and not really anyone else.
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Pokemon Platinum: Just started. Hit with a fresh wave of good old fashioned nostalgia. It's been many years since I touched a Pokemon game, and I can see why they are fun again. Went with the fire monkey starter. Unevolved Pokemon are so bloody cute. Also, is there a difference between male/female trainer at all?
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I am doing an FFT Let's Play on another board, so I've been playing that. So far, in Chapter 2, merrily destroying everything ever because enemy encounter scaling is ridiculous crap.
Also, Trickster Online, mwahahaha.
EDIT: Since Djinn reminded me you can read the LP here (http://www.shrinemaiden.org/forum/index.php?topic=5745.0), but you'll need to register for it unless you were one of the DLers who attended the Mafiers game there.
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Pokemon Platinum: Just started. Hit with a fresh wave of good old fashioned nostalgia. It's been many years since I touched a Pokemon game, and I can see why they are fun again. Went with the fire monkey starter. Unevolved Pokemon are so bloody cute. Also, is there a difference between male/female trainer at all?
No. Probably some dialogue but that's it.
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Yeah, male vs. female is mostly just there for sprite purposes, as well as default name. I don't think the dialog even changes thinking on it, mostly cause when the character is referred to, its either in 2nd person, *OR* they just refer to you by name.
So yeah, when it comes to male vs. female, its pretty quite literally "choose who looks better." Well, in RSE, I think Male vs. Female also determines WHICH HOUSE IS YOURS, and alters which your rival is (your rival is whoever you didn't pick), but that's being nitpickey.
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I don't get how Altered Artes are obscure at all. The 8 skills you need to equip in order to get them all flat-out tell you that's what they do, there's no penalty for equipping more of said skill than is properly needed, and if you use the base arte with the proper skills equipped, there is a 100% chance that the altered arte will be used. All you need to do to discover them is cycle through your artes with all the altering skills equipped (except for the very few base artes that generate multiple altered artes, but even for those, once the first altered arte is learned, the base arte starts generating the second altered arte). I agree they take too many uses to learn, but they're not tough to discover. I mean, this is Tales. Cycling through every skill on a character takes like 2 random encounters.
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That's just it though; you either equip all Altered Artes skills (Which is by no means trivial, even WITH a weapon that has it innately on), and then use all your Artes until one becomes an altered.
OR
You equip one skill, cause you want to conserve CP, go through all your artes and mark down which turns into what, and then do them one at a time.
Its really just not fun and gets tedious and boring. The idea behind Altered Artes was actually kind of neat; allowing you to get Upgrades or variations of your lesser Artes. But the implementation was just bad.
Tales of Symphonia 2 had an Altered Arte style thing, but handled it infinitely better if only for one factor:
The game openly tells you what skill gets changed by the respective skill.
It didn't really matter here, and generally you didn't use them cause they were often a waste of AP, but they were still nice enough to tell you. ToV? Its tedious and a lot of trial and error; it gets old fast, and its a waste of CP if you don't use the Altered Arte (IIRC, you can't change Techs midbattle, barring ones directly linked to equipment.)
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Pokemon Heart Gold - Beat up Morty. He was a joke.
Current team:
L11 Zubat
L17 Heracross
L19 Flaafy
L20 Butterfree
L21 Togetic
L23 Bayleef
Going to replace Flaafy with a water pokemon real soon for Surf, but I'm not sure which yet.
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That's just it though; you either equip all Altered Artes skills (Which is by no means trivial, even WITH a weapon that has it innately on), and then use all your Artes until one becomes an altered.
OR
You equip one skill, cause you want to conserve CP, go through all your artes and mark down which turns into what, and then do them one at a time.
I don't get that, really. Yes, it takes a lot of CP to have all the skills on at once, but you only need to do it for literally a fight or two per character to discover all the artes you have available to you. Once you've discovered them, the game tells you exactly which skills you need for each, so it's not a longtime burden on CP. None of that takes away from the amount of time you'd have to spend to master the artes, but discovering them is a short and simple process of elimination (except for base artes that spark more than 1 altered arte, but there are only like 3 of those).
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Hey don't forget Karol who sparks an Altered Arte from an Altered Arte! (50% healing one)
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Metroid Fusion:
Clear time... 1:37
Your rate for collecting items is... 1%
Woot. Anyway, still didn't like the Ridley fight much but I did get notably better at it as time went on. SA-X was fairly tricky given the beam OHKOs and impacts high 2HKO, but fundamentally more manageable, less random a fight so you can get her into a pattern (proably about 8 resets). Omega Metroid, well, OHKOs but fairly simple, couple more resets here.
Overall difficulty of bosses on this run: Nightmare >> Ridley > Yakuza >> Nettori > SA-X > Serris > Security Robot 2 > Omega Metroid > (bosses who still kinda suck)
Pretty fun, not sure what's next.
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Wow. Impressive, that, though, wait- which bosses are Yakuza/Nettori? Everything else I can see (semisurprised on SR2 being up there) but not really sure which two those are.
I'd poke you into FFTA2 but IIRC you were taking a break from strat games. Still, I think it's even cheaper now, so.
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Yakuza = spider
Nettori = plant
SR2 really wasn't too bad, just 4-5 resets or so as I mentioned in an earlier post. Still, he 2HKOs you and isn't totally trivial to avoid, so that gets him above the earlygame bosses who are just bad (Serris aside obviously) and Omega Metroid who is brutally simple but just kills you in one hit if you screw up.
Glanced through the 1% FAQ now that I've done the game and I notice the guide barely even mentions Ridley dismissing him as fairly easy. I wonder if I'm missing something. For all that he's one of the easiest on normal files, I still found reliably avoiding him on 1% a real pain since he just closes in on you and you pretty much have to guess what he's going to do sometimes. Wouldn't shock me if there's an AI exploit there I never keyed in on, though.
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Oh, right. Yakuza and Nettori.
...wait, shit, Nettori would've been fucking painful for me. Even more power to you.
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Deus Ex-Still Pacifist! Zero direct kills, though there was one guy who gibbed himself with a LAM trying to get me. Since I went for the "Paul lives" story path, the hotel was a major pain in the ass. I ended up just spamming gas grenades and using Fast Run to cheese it. Definitely the hardest part thus far. Prod has overtaken Baton because people simply do not go down in one swing anymore. Also part of the reason why I'm saving up for Master Melee! This is the optimal time because I'm swimming in multitools and lockpicks, and hacking still gives me plenty of time. Augs are the one where you blow missiles up, Environmental Resistance, Fast Run, Microfibal Muscle, and Bullet Resistance. Only found one upgrade cannister so far, which went to Fast Run.
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Super Street Fighter 4: Played through the game with Ryu, Dudley (even did him legit, as in Medium difficulty, 3 round matches!), Zangief, Cody, Guy, Juri, Guile, Chun-li, Ken, and Blanka.
Game is...well, exactly what you'd EXPECT it to be. Which is to say, its Street Fighter 4 with a bunch of new things added in.
...which is by no means a bad thing. Street Fighter 4 was already a damn good game, so it just being a better version of Street Fighter 4 means its just more awesome! At least in this rendition, they have a significant number of additions to justify making a whole new game; 10 characters and new ultras for everyone is nothing to scoff at. Reworking the balance, NEW PLOT!11!!!, music, stages, bonus rounds, etc. just justifies the game even further, for all that among those the Music is really all that matters (I don't care what you say; Daft Punk Balrog's Theme > stuff), and the rest is more like "SEE! NEW STUFF?!!?!? TOTALLY WORTH THE VERSION!!!1!11" Whatever, the game costs only $40, which is damned cheap for a new modern gen console game, so how the fuck can I complain <_<?
Also, won a mini tournament at school with Dudley for SSF4. Rules were Single Elim, 1 Round, 60 seconds (its a mini tournament, we wanted it to not take forever, especially cause a lot of people entered), new characters only (as in, the 10 new guys relative to Street Fighter 4.) The semi final match was literally down to the last second. Got one last hit in that knocked his health to basically invisible measures, just like mine was, and the timer hit 0. I apparently had a negligible amount more, but hey, its enough to win! Won a $10 Gift Card to Best Buy.
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Mana Khemia - Late to the party, but this is a good game. Very tightly designed. The growth system is the most fun Skinner box I've had the pleasure of being trapped in. Everything just feeds off of eachother so well, and the game doesn't leave you guessing as to what you can synthesize when, or when a new recipe is available. And even the act of exploring and creating recipes triggers cute little character interaction scenes. It's just very synergistic, and the battle system is tons of fun to play with - especially when the randoms are challenging. Bosses could stand to be a little more challenging as once you stop holding back to conserve resources, they can become too easy.
Party-wise, I've been using everyone to fill out their grow books, though Nikki and Jess tend to be the most useful. Flay, Roxis, and Pamela are good for boss-slaying (Physical damage, Magical damage, Endless resources and Immortal body in case of death, respectively). Vayne and Anna exist to help me set up Variation Burst. Muppy has yet to be not a hinderance.
Character-wise, everyone is nuts, so the whole thing is pretty light-hearted and easy to gloss over the weird parts. Like Muppy, who is funny, but in a really different way than the rest of the cast and it kinda destroys suspension of disbelief. Tony/Renee are the best. Jess is surprisingly good in-plot, but her CQs make me cringe. I unabashedly like Nikki, but perhaps that's because I know a few people who are a lot like her so she feels comfortingly familiar in the cast of crazies. Pamela is a super-bitch and I love it. Roxis would be forgettable if he wasn't Tsundere-Trance. Anna is just forgettable. Vayne is 'insert yourself here' main, despite not being silent.
And then there's Flay. Who just makes -everything- work.
Anyway, it seems Gust has come a long way since Atelier Iris 1. I only played AI3 briefly (just the end sections with a friend of mine), so I didn't have as good of an idea of what it was like. And Ar tonelico has too much fanservice-rape for me to remember anything about its battle system. So, now that I've -finally- gotten into MK (On chapter 9), I'm really looking forward to MK2.
Suikoden Tierkreis: Polar opposite of MK? Story hasn't let me down yet, but egads the battle system is -still- boring. Also... random encounters?! What year is this?
I haven't been FAQing this... will I miss any SoDs if I play without FAQs?
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If it's not Suikoden 3, odds are you already missed SoDs if you didn't FAQ. >_>
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If it's not Suikoden 3, odds are you already missed SoDs if you didn't FAQ. >_>
I think there's only like 4 or 5 that are permanently missable.
There's also the goddamn Nanda or whatever is name is.
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I usually play as the female Pokemon Trainer, but the one in Heart Gold has a stupid hat, so male it is.
HG: Realized both the Pokemon that I plan on breeding for the tournament only come out female 12.5% of the time. So many more hours added to breeding. Sigh.
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Snow's pretty well spot on I think. Playing Tierkreis casually (that is, not hunting down starts) I had something pitiful like 35% completion on stars, so the sheer volume I think would make them hard to track without FAQs.
Of course, despite the system making every character have a unique combination of skills, the skills themselves are so limited I honestly think Tierkreis has the least-differentiated cast in the series (maaaaaybe Suikoden 1 is worse about this) so it's not like it matters.
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MM10 - Got 90% challenges done. Notably, this includes perfecting every single boss on EM/NM (except Weapons Archive on NM, and no reason I couldn't, just haven't yet). Trying to buster most bosses on HM, I've at least beaten all of them except Blade Man and Solar Man. Still, that's enough for now. Giving this game a break. I mean, I figured I could play more, but-
HOLD IT!
Phoenix Wright - Replaying this. Wow, 1-1 is short. Fun so far! Payne isn't played for laughs nearly as much in this game.
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I haven't been FAQing this... will I miss any SoDs if I play without FAQs?
It's Suikoden so yes.
I usually play as the female Pokemon Trainer, but the one in Heart Gold has a stupid hat, so male it is.
You spelled "awesome" wrong. Easy mistake to make.
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Man, handheld games that need FAQing suck. If I'm already sitting at home on a console, it's no big deal to check a FAQ... but such a pain for on-the-go play. This may be the first Suikoden that I don't get all 108 stars.
Checked a FAQ for now, and the recruiting looks painful to try to memorize for future sessions, so... blargh.
I'm still early enough that I haven't missed anyone yet, it's just a pain.
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Snow's pretty well spot on I think. Playing Tierkreis casually (that is, not hunting down starts) I had something pitiful like 35% completion on stars, so the sheer volume I think would make them hard to track without FAQs.
Of course, despite the system making every character have a unique combination of skills, the skills themselves are so limited I honestly think Tierkreis has the least-differentiated cast in the series (maaaaaybe Suikoden 1 is worse about this) so it's not like it matters.
If they have skills, they're more differentiated than S4's cast.
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Depressingly no. Suikoden IV at least had a few folks like Kika and Ted, so SOMEONE stood out as being different from another character. Even without that, elemental affinities meant that different characters could be given the same rune and have appreciably different results. The same is not really true of two Tierkreis characters with the same skill, although Tierkreis does have a wider pool of skills to draw from than Suikoden IV had spells at least.
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I usually play as the female Pokemon Trainer, but the one in Heart Gold has a stupid hat, so male it is.
You spelled "awesome" wrong. Easy mistake to make.
No, I'm pretty sure he spelled "Stupid" correctly. the HGSS Female is the worst looking female trainer in the series. The Kanto, Sinnoh and Hoehn Female Trainers were all passable to flat out good in designs; the HGSS Female was the first time I went "Fuck this, I'm playing as the male."
(Sinnoh's female trainer also has the advantage of not being the Sinnoh Male, who looks similarly stupid to the Johto Female <_<)
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http://i.neoseeker.com/ca/pokemon_heart_gold_conceptart_67nOF.jpg
Looks pretty awesome to me.
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Depressingly no. Suikoden IV at least had a few folks like Kika and Ted, so SOMEONE stood out as being different from another character. Even without that, elemental affinities meant that different characters could be given the same rune and have appreciably different results. The same is not really true of two Tierkreis characters with the same skill, although Tierkreis does have a wider pool of skills to draw from than Suikoden IV had spells at least.
Two Tierkreis characters with the same skill can differ highly in effectiveness due to base stats and equips. Mages that can't use good physical weapons won't get much use out of Two Way Thrust, for example (and I know there's at least one mage that gets it). Fighters won't get much use out of Havoc Cyclone/Fuse Dome (and there's at least one of those too!).
Also:
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Liu - Unique perfect silence skill that's MT. Only mage that can dual wield maces (and only one of two that can dual wield at all).
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Chrodechild - Only True Falcon user that can dual wield maces. Makes it quite a bit more effective than the other two.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Selen - Shrike Strike + Equilibrium. Only two people get Shrike Strike in the first place, but the other doesn't get Equilibrium making him much less effective at using it.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Hina - Other dual wielding mage. Notable for actually making good use of the magic boosting swords.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Nakil - Has durability of epic and is thus fail for basically anything.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Zayin - Mage that can't even equip weapons. Also has Dark Disaster which only three other people have. Also notable for having good durability all around and having Havoc Cyclone, which is the best ST magic attack in the game. One of the best mages in the game (suffers from not having MT) and I bet no one even uses him.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Indrik - Havoc Cyclone (72 MP) - 967 magic damage.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Yod - Fighter who can't equip weapons. Ends up kind of fail since Two-Way Thrust is barely even average damage and has recoil.
http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Suikoden_Tierkreis_Hotupa - Only character with Dispel.
Yeah, I dunno, there are definitely a bunch of people who stand out for different reasons, I didn't even list them all! And even for the ones who don't stand out, characters with similar skills may differ highly due to their base stats and equips. See Indrik doing less than 1000 damage with Havoc Cyclone while the good mages do around 2500. The same is true for physical skills as well. And then there are some skill combo setups that are effective and not common (unbalancing skill + unbalance immunity is the big one). And don't even get me started on the hidden swing count or whatever BS is hiding under the mechanics this time.
I mean, sure, they could've done it better and had more variety, but there's still a good amount here.
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Depressingly no. Suikoden IV at least had a few folks like Kika and Ted, so SOMEONE stood out as being different from another character. Even without that, elemental affinities meant that different characters could be given the same rune and have appreciably different results. The same is not really true of two Tierkreis characters with the same skill, although Tierkreis does have a wider pool of skills to draw from than Suikoden IV had spells at least.
Unfortunately, so many of those skills end up super redundant anyways! Yeah, there are some niches carved, but I would have liked the battle system a lot more if they made elements count, and instead of giving them all 10 unique skills, they just made some skill upgrades so there wasn't as much overlap (And maybe some different varities of MT too).
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The elements thing really does hurt. I kind of wonder if they're just bugged or something. Doesn't really make sense to have them otherwise.
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SSF4 - Completed a few arcades and played online about 50 or so games with 70% of them being wins while gathering 20 trophies. Due to not having played SF4 in months I struggled to beat the AI (Hardest) but eventually after a while I started getting the timings down again and started trashing them.
I play as Ken mostly and I'm happy with his new ultra as I can't land the old one for shit. The new one can easily be used to punish people who make wiffs/mistakes so I'm happy.
As for the new characters I've only tried Juri yet and while I've not played as her extentively her moves seems pretty damn good from what I saw.
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SUPER MARIO BROS. CROSSOVER! http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534416
Holy crap, this is the best game ever made. This dude took a bunch of Nintendo platformer characters and balanced them all to play in the SMB1 levels. The result is amazing. He even uses the music from each respective game.
This is wonderfully addictive, I just wish that I could play it with a controller instead of a crappy keyboard.
So far Megaman has been the easiest one to use, but I'm trying to get the hang of controlling Simon Belmont with a keyboard.
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SUPER MARIO BROS. CROSSOVER! http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/534416
Holy crap, this is the best game ever made. This dude took a bunch of Nintendo platformer characters and balanced them all to play in the SMB1 levels. The result is amazing. He even uses the music from each respective game.
This is wonderfully addictive, I just wish that I could play it with a controller instead of a crappy keyboard.
So far Megaman has been the easiest one to use, but I'm trying to get the hang of controlling Simon Belmont with a keyboard.
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,4412.msg105814.html#msg105814
*cough, cough.*
But I agree this game is a lot of fun.
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Mega Man Starforce 2 vs Saurian
Playing Saurian mode. Currently only up to investigating plane crashes, but I have racked up a number of things that I feel like speaking on so doing some of that now as I will surely forget them if I wait until I'm finished.
The world is kind of in some sort of horrible state where unsocial people are discriminated against. This includes at least one statement about how a particular business would not sell their wares to anyone that doesn't have enough friends, on top of mostly just people with enough friends getting all sorts of ludicrous discounts and so on. I can only assume that businesses everywhere are getting insane kickbacks from the Star Carrier (smartphone) company since you -need- a Star Carrier in order to participate in this society (despite the fact that there appear to be a fair amount of people walking around without one, but they may just not have them on them for all I know).
This is all taken to be a good thing. Also, lack of this is what killed off the dinosaurs. And berserkers and ninja. Head. Desk.
I don't remember how the Wave world worked in MMSF1, but vague notions and insinuations from characters in this game seem to indicate that the Wave World was overlayed on the real world but fully separate aside from the conduits between them. In this game on the other hand, the Wave World includes the real world plus the overlay, which all adds up to freakingly annoying amounts of backtracking over the same area.So you're running around and you see a person that has a task for you. You have to find a wave hole, run back to the person in the Wave world and look into their Star Carrier, pulse back to the real world from the wave hole, then run back to the person again via the same route. Finding a vantage point to access the person in 1 could be a puzzle in and of itself.
Now, I could see complaints against the system in 1 making it unnecessarily complicated to get tasks considering that ideally it should be easy to get them and the tasks themselves be the complicated part, but the change here doesn't improve anything at all, it just changes the potentiality of having to find an interestingly different route to an exercise in wasting time. If you're not going to make me do anything worthwhile during the two-phase process of getting tasks, game, then just cut it down to one phase for crying out loud.
That said there have been a couple of artificial barriers to walking along the same path in the Wave world as in the real world (Automatic door sensors cannot detect an energy being to open the door for it! ...why is an energy being blocked by a door? Especially since you can go through regular doors, so either you're walking through them and should be able to here, or you're opening them and everyone is very complacent when it comes to doors opening and closing for no reason), but none of these instances have had especially complicated methods to get around.
There's also the whole Sky Wave deal where in order to access other major real world locations, you need to spend time running around in the Wave world. Bad. Form. I should not have to spend any more time than necessary in the Wave world, and I don't remember this ever being necessary in 1 for whatever that is worth.
Throughout MMSF and MMBN there are machines that you can enter into for a small flat stage that normally has one or two bonuses, an NPC to talk to, and maybe some enemies you won't find elsewhere that you can farm new chips/cards off. You need to look at most of the general stuff in the world to find them as most of the things lying around won't allow you but some will. In BN at least you can fall back on hugging the walls of each area jamming the jack-in button. SF2, however! You can see waves coming off anything you can pulse into, but 90% of the things you can pulse into you need to examine in the real world first before the waves will start coming off them. In some situations this is justified as Geo has to turn the object in question on, but in other cases they just need to look at it and notice waves are being emitted to cause the waves to appear. But in some of these cases, the game decides to go above and beyond in pursuit of pointless inanery and have them note that the object in question -could- be an enterable object, but they can't be bothered looking into this further at the time.
So not only do you need to scour the landscape for hidden locations, you need to somehow remember all these locations which are there but you're blocked out of until an arbitrary later point.
Of course there is also the mind-numbing fact that the waves in question are all pointlessly described as 'Stylish Waves' and 'Waves of Mother Nature' and 'Waves that smell like Zack' and other assorted garbage these are supposed to be radio waves.
Then we have the Matter Waves which are waves which Star Carriers can turn into physical objects, yet another way in which Carrier-less people are left behind. Apparently the world of SF2 has conquered scarcity. Because the world is a whimsical place all the Matter Wave items which you see have AIs for no adequately explained reason. This includes a Tent. And Skis.
Whazzap is a stupid place with a stupid name and stupid people and a stupid head of state who has a really stupid plan and an even stupider one once he gets his hands on The Power and they are guarding a really, really pointless secret. Terra was a decent battle however.
I don't understand the point of some of the enforced minigames. I never went ludicrously bad at skiing, but I couldn't help but notice that it always ended the section after I fulfilled the target, and I did suffer noticable setbacks in a couple of the rounds. It seems like it's just a case of 'ski until you get the target or fail so badly that you manage to lose all your health from the minor hits', in other words, a thorough waste of time. The black holes in the various places they show up just dump you in a small room if you fail and once you get out you are generally further along than you started, and on top of that they don't appear to show up more than once even if you fail to them (although I believe they get reset each time you destroy a generator if I remember correctly). The viruses you dig up underwater for digging in the wrong spot? Also seem to be limited to showing up once per chunk of the area. That's really a great way to stop people just digging until they find things. Although I didn't really mind it personally since my L button is broken and I consequently couldn't read the directions.
Good to see that the broken time bomb still exists.
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SMT Strange Journey: Just beat the boss of Carina. He was hilariously easy. He started off the battle with a physical attack that could 2HKO anyone on my team so I thought that the battle would be interesting but then things went south for him. He used an attack which summoned some random monster to help him so I split my attacks between him and the summoned monster. One of my demons had a physical that caused silence and he was able to silence the summoned monster. A few turns later the boss used an attack which ate the summoned monster and healed him for half the monsters remaining hp. I had been beating up on the monster so the monster only had 11 hp when the boss ate him. However, it turns out that a side effect of the boss's eating ability is that he takes on any status effects the summoned monster has, in this case silence. So for the rest of the fight the boss just sat there trying and failing to use his attack as I bashed his head in.
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Pokemon SS
Beat!
The Elite four went down like chumps thanks to my level 70 Magmotar.
I also finally got my national pokedex so my pokemon count jumped from 181 to a solid 340.
It's time to explore Kanto again!
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Deus Ex-Hong Kong. Got the sword back, did the first VersaLife incursion. Now that I have Cloak I can avoid unnecessary firefights, which should help keep the pacifist run fairly sane and my ammo from running out. Regen is not quite as overpowered as it is usually, thanks to basically everybody killing you in 1 hit anyway. I've found plenty of aug cannisters, but only a couple upgrade cannisters, which is starting to worry me. I can always do the infinite upgrade cannister glitch if I have to, but I really didn't think that I was doing that poorly for exploration.
Skillwise, FINALLY got Master of Low-Tech. Next up I'll probably put another point into Pistols for my trusty Crossbow. Not sure what I'll do after that...probably another level of Computers.
Jesus I don't remember the VA being this bad.
Oh yeah! I gotta go steal everything that's not nailed down in Jock's apartment!
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FE9- Fuck the black knight. Every time his ass shows up in a map, bad things happen luck wise. I have two resets here thanks to Mist dying to Bastilla crit hits. Unreal.
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FE9- Just beat Ena's map. I have blessed Ilyana and Marcia, Speedy Kieran, and otherwise a pretty normal team. Using Ike, Oscar, Ilyana, Marcia, Stefan, Tanith, Boyd, Kieran, Rhys, Volke (sometimes), Titania, Nephenee, Reyson. ^.^
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Upgrade cannisters are a bitch sometimes, but there is at least two I can think of just in Hong Kong hub area (maybe a third? I might just be remembering a secret area without an upgrade though).
Edit - Poke The Mans: Fire Red - Bulbasaur starter. Things. Up to Mount Moon. Stuff. Going to get more Geodudes.
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You people and your FE9's! I'll show you all!
FE10: Just beat 2-P! I'm as prone to simple fuck ups as I usually am, proven by 1-E time and time again. Also, fuck you Laura, you make Rhys look like Caineghis!
RE4: Finally got around to playing this some! Just saved Ashley for the first time! I'll have more opinionated comments later. And yes, this is the first Resident Evil I'm playing a significant amount of; I've played RE2 a while back briefly, and really didn't like it, I do know, however, that this is generally the "RE game that everyone likes, even people who hate the series!" so yeah.
...that, and it was less than $10 <_<
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Jesus I don't remember the VA being this bad.
"A bomb!?"
What, you don't recall JC having the mighty conversational powers of Solid Snake?
(There's worse VA than DE but not a whole lot.)
Been mostly poking at Puzzle Quest(C3 now!), Gundam Assault Survive(Done, unless I decide to go back and get more mechs, which I might as V2/V2AB are cool and all and I've only fought them. 100% Missions though.), TF2(I like downsideless Bonk) and books lately. Thinking of starting something else up, as I'm genuinely stuck on all my games for any real enthusiasm, but damn if I can figure out what.
Oh, and got a copy of AC+AX back thanks to the ~ and been poking at it.
First game I was Gaians and Lal/Zak were the major powers of the world, who promptly started beating the crap out of me with superior tech. That was a stunning game. I've never had the AI go to Quantum-level weaponry(16 power, if you don't recall AC details that well). Good god. I mostly won by blasting through the pure science(Discovery I think?) branch of tech development and netting The Cloning Vats as an option before everyone else, which is the equivalent of digging out a howitzer and making every other faction lock their lips around it's barrel in general and is ridiculously broken with the expansionist Gaians, so yeah.
This game I started out as Morgan and owned Zak and Deidre with Unity Rovers 50 turns in and now the massive Gaian/Morganite/Uni three-way rape-fest is leveling the world. I even got Hab Complexes at around Turn 100, which is utterly wrong with Morgan. This is probably the first Morgan game I've played where I don't feel disadvantaged for using him. It's nice.
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Well yeah everybody knows that line, but a lot of other shit's been thrown at me, like people trying to sound heartbroken and coming out like they just had a stroke, or borderline racist attempts at a Chinese accent, or Walter Simons VA chewing copious amounts of scenery.
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Oh, man, yeah, Chinatown accents were something else again entirely.
I should replay DE soonish.
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DE accents are fine until you get someone without a native English accent (soooooo, the third quarter of the game in its entirety, Agent Navarre and of course GUNTHER, but I think his was spot on for what they wanted). Don't overlook some of the better stuff though like Paul and Alex and Icarus/Daedelus/Helios are always fun bits of VA.
But yeah when they are bad they are amazingly bad.
Looking up who did some of the stuff though, Tom Hall did Walton Simons. So they guy that brought us the awesomeness of the Dope Fish totally chews that shit right up like it is his mothers milk. Apparently he did PAL-18 in Anachronox which is awesome.
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Oh, and got a copy of AC+AX back thanks to the ~ and been poking at it.
First game I was Gaians and Lal/Zak were the major powers of the world, who promptly started beating the crap out of me with superior tech. That was a stunning game. I've never had the AI go to Quantum-level weaponry(16 power, if you don't recall AC details that well). Good god. I mostly won by blasting through the pure science(Discovery I think?) branch of tech development and netting The Cloning Vats as an option before everyone else, which is the equivalent of digging out a howitzer and making every other faction lock their lips around it's barrel in general and is ridiculously broken with the expansionist Gaians, so yeah.
This game I started out as Morgan and owned Zak and Deidre with Unity Rovers 50 turns in and now the massive Gaian/Morganite/Uni three-way rape-fest is leveling the world. I even got Hab Complexes at around Turn 100, which is utterly wrong with Morgan. This is probably the first Morgan game I've played where I don't feel disadvantaged for using him. It's nice.
...*reinstalls*
goddamnit.
Why are the cloning vats that good? I always found I had a ton of trouble making enough tile improvements and happiness buildings to really put those extra people to work. Most of them ended up as crappy specialists or working tiles that gave 1 rock + 1 energy, or something. Thanks to the support mechanic spamming formers to get around that kills your production.
As late game projects go nothing beats the nano factory for me. Full healing on all my units every turn without having to stop? Blows the shit out of pop boom.
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FF 13- Up to mid Chapter 4. Game has a really rough start. Takes a while for the battle system to get any extra depth, story starts out a random place and you basically have to do a lot of reading before it starts having any cohesion, the first 2 areas are pretty dull, and a few of the characters (Vanille, Snow, Hope) all grate right out of the gate. Luckily, after Chapter 2 finishes, the game greatly improves, and the story getting some cohesion+lots of scenes help smooth the edges off a lot of characters. Well, okay, Snow got his edges smoothed out a little, Hope just took a backseat, and Vanille...uh...edged slightly off her heroin high?
Given my extreme hate of FF 12, I was a bit nervous coming into the game, but luckily it's avoided basically all of FF 12's pitfalls (After uh...the first two chapters, which really were pretty bad). Dungeons are long, but filled with plenty of story scenes. You are forced to use AI, but this one doesn't have any glaring flaws (And is just generally superior). My lingering complaint is that my TV is in a room that gets a decent amount of sun during the day. Unfortunately, at times it covers the HP bars, and it makes it really distracting.
Battle system has been quirky and fun the last two chapters. Not a hard game (Especially since if you lose any difficult battle, you'll just retry and pre-buff. Granted, nothing has needed that for a while, and it appears that the bosses are now erring towards multi-forms to get around that), but it's dynamics and its uniqueness have made it fun. Gut reaction of worth so far is Lightning>Vanille>Snow>Hope>Sazh. Sazh getting Commando could move him ahead a little. Hope would be higher, but soon after he became available, they introduced the MT pre battle defensive buffs, which took away a bit of his niche.
Camera is blah. Graphics are "good", but they are unfortunately in the FF 10 vein (Which is to say trades in gorgeous design for increased functionality).
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Nier - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNu2iGk4TLI
That is all.
Okay, maybe not.
(NOTE: Playing on Hard mode, supposedly Normal mode is a lot easier.)
So I start out controlling a UOM (Note: May or may not be O, I dunno, he kinda looks O though) and killing shit and then I get a book and then I get magic and shit and then kill some more dudes for awhile and level up 16 times and then BOSS and then I do all this dodging and shit while hitting it with magic and then I knock it down and then I have to attack it to deplete its second lifebar for a limited time but fail because I couldn't do enough damage so I had to knock it down again and repeat until I kill it and then I level up 13 more times and then PROLOGUE END.
Real game starts and I still control UOM (yay!) but I lose levels (not yay) and have to go out of time to kill sheep for someone and then I go up to sheep and try to attack--LOL HAMEDO HEADBUTT and I go flying into the wall. I go behind and LOL HAMEDO FOOT KICK and go flying again. Sheeps don't fuck around. I have to attack them from the side to win. Oh and there's also goats that randomly headbutt you.
So I kill sheeps and finish that quest and then another one that didn't have uber sheep so it's not important and then have to go to this temple place. I go through dungeon which takes awhile because I backtracked to see if there was more shinies (there weren't any). Enemies in there were pretty tough and took awhile to beat (probably due to hard mode). Anyway, at certain parts in the dungeon the game changes from normal 3-D ARPG style to top-down Zelda style gameplay for some reason. Eventually I get to the bosses and get my magic back. Two statue things that like to charge at you, though one of them stops doing anything at all soon after the fight starts (and immunes damage too). After killing the first one (having go through that second lifebar thing like before), the second one gets back up, summons some little annoying support guys, and starts shooting bullets at you like it's some kind of danmaku game. It's kind of tough at first since the support likes to get in your way and/or attack you but after getting rid of them it's pretty straightforward, but still long. Anyway, kill boss, go back home.
And then once I get back home, I now get to do a lot of optional quests, some of which are easy (go put books on shelves!!), while some of them actually take some effort. I go buy a new sword while I'm at it because why not. Anyway, back to the first field area with the sheeps. Now there's a big boar walking around that needs to be killed for one of the quests. Yeah, sure, no big deal. I jump on rock and start blasting it with magic so it can't hit me. Except it somehow goes around and finds a way to get up the rock and charges into me for a OHKO.
Fuck ow.
Time to try that again. Go back onto plain, boar is in different place. First I find another rock that's taller and safer and remember where it is. Then go look for boar. Boar is pretty far away from rock, so I hit it with magic and then run like hell towards rock. Boar chases me. And then charges me. At like twice the speed as my running. I didn't notice until too late and got raped while trying to dodge.
ffffffffff
I'll get that boar later.
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So anyway, a few impressions. I'm not really all that far in, so any opinions I have here could change easily. The game's pretty much an ARPG, though it seems to try and mix elements from different genres in. Like top-down old school Zelda style gameplay and bosses shooting danmaku at you. So far, it's mostly just kind of novel rather than anything impressive.
Gameplay's not too complicated. You got your basic attack combo (up to five hits) and you can charge up your attack for an area wide attack that can knock things down (I wish I figured out how good that was earlier, since it helped in the dungeon once I did). Different weapons have slightly different attacks, though nothing huge so far. After a certain point you get magic attacks as well, which use MP. MP regenerates really fast, so spamming magic is really viable. So far I have two spells. One that shoots bullets repeatedly which also charges up for a homing bullet attack (charging still shoots normal bullets too). Seems like a primitive PC danmaku attack, really. Weird thing is that the aim of the bullets depends on camera facing rather than the PC's facing. Kind of hard to get used to. The other one is a piercing lance attack that does much more damage, but requires some charging up. You have to aim while charging it up, but time slows down while this happens, so it's not too difficult to use. It can also knock things down too, I think.
Voice acting's pretty great so far. Grimoire Weiss's (the book you get to use magic) voice fits perfectly, as does the PC's to a lesser extent. I haven't seen many other major characters yet, though. Music's really good, too. The town theme is pretty amazing, though the vocals only kick in while near the person singing. Neat touch but pretty annoying since you don't spend much time near her. First field music is good too.
Writing kind of switches between bland and actually good. Most of the voiced lines are good, but the non-voiced lines don't seem to have much effort put into them. Kind of like if you just got a direct translation with no spice. After getting Weiss, there are some chats between the PC and Weiss while running around, which are amusing. Story seems okay so far, but I don't expect much anyway. Basically, PC's daughter is sick and you have to go figure out how to cure the disease. Don't know much more outside of that yet.
Overall, I'm liking it so far, but like I said, I'm not far in. The game could easily get boring in a few hours. Especially since it's an ARPG and those are more prone to "samey" syndrome. But we'll see.
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And that's my long post for the year. Don't expect another one until 2011.
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Oh, and got a copy of AC+AX back thanks to the ~ and been poking at it.
First game I was Gaians and Lal/Zak were the major powers of the world, who promptly started beating the crap out of me with superior tech. That was a stunning game. I've never had the AI go to Quantum-level weaponry(16 power, if you don't recall AC details that well). Good god. I mostly won by blasting through the pure science(Discovery I think?) branch of tech development and netting The Cloning Vats as an option before everyone else, which is the equivalent of digging out a howitzer and making every other faction lock their lips around it's barrel in general and is ridiculously broken with the expansionist Gaians, so yeah.
This game I started out as Morgan and owned Zak and Deidre with Unity Rovers 50 turns in and now the massive Gaian/Morganite/Uni three-way rape-fest is leveling the world. I even got Hab Complexes at around Turn 100, which is utterly wrong with Morgan. This is probably the first Morgan game I've played where I don't feel disadvantaged for using him. It's nice.
...*reinstalls*
goddamnit.
Why are the cloning vats that good? I always found I had a ton of trouble making enough tile improvements and happiness buildings to really put those extra people to work. Most of them ended up as crappy specialists or working tiles that gave 1 rock + 1 energy, or something. Thanks to the support mechanic spamming formers to get around that kills your production.
As late game projects go nothing beats the nano factory for me. Full healing on all my units every turn without having to stop? Blows the shit out of pop boom.
Cloning Vats show up at lategame tech levels. By that point, just toss the people into "Make people happy" jobs and you've advanced enough so that's Empaths or Transcendi. Both have secondary effects(Empaths...was....Econ, I want to say[Edit: *Checks out of curiousity.* Two Econ, Two Psych, yeah.], as well as the making people happy, Transcendi is Labs, Econ and Psych, so it makes people happy, gives you cash and gives you more tech, although that's late as hell). The impact on early levels-having all your cities go from nothing to fairly built up in five-ten turns-is simply spectacular, too, basically a super Planetary Transit System, which is by no means a bad Project(although comparing lategame projects to early ones lol etc.).
Next, there's using them in tandem with Orbital Power Stations. Launch 14. Suddenly every city produces 7 energy(after Hab Complex, which is relatively cheap/easy to make). If you have Nessus(again really late), this is also 7 minerals. Doubles with Cloudbase(which I'm willing to say may be better than Cloning Vats, but you can get both.) without needing Aerospaces in every town, too. (Although, putting an Aerospace in every town for the extra seven Energy is worth it anyhow.)
They are, admittedly, only really really broken with the Hab Domes or whatever the secondary building was. You can launch 30+ Hydroponics/Nessus/Power Stations at this stage and watch your 40+ pop city be perfectly happy, have Golden Age+all squares worked+ridiculous amount of secondary people making you cash/tech/whatever and basically one city can power an entire empire...and that's every city you have, pretty much. But it's a damn good Project up to that point.
I'll admit, I tend to forget Cloudbase is needed to really break the hell out of it though. I tend to get that as such a matter of course, I can only recall once or twice I screwed up and failed to nab it, and those were really odd cases.
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Nier - So I go back into the Northern Plains to go beat up that boar. This time he shows up close enough to the rock that I can lure him there without him charging and raping me. Anyway. I get up on the rock and start shooting this thing with magic bullets.
And keep shooting.
And keep shooting.
And keep shooting.
And keep shooting.
And keep shooting.
...and about 30 minutes later it dies. Okay, yeah, I'm on Hard mode, but seriously? 30 minutes? For a boss fight that's fine but for some silly boar I just need to kill for a quest? I can't even imagine trying to fight that thing normally. Trying to dodge the OHKO charge for 30 minutes would just be argh.
Also:
[04:00] <LucaTrulyworth> I sat on a rock and danmaku'd it to death. >.>
[04:00] <SageAcrin> <_<
[04:01] <SageAcrin> So would you say you killed him...
[04:01] * SageAcrin puts on sunglasses.
[04:01] <SageAcrin> The boaring way?
[04:01] * RichardHawk rolls the opening credits.
[04:01] <LucaTrulyworth> I suppose I could say that, yes.
Anyway, so I go turn in that quest, and then get some tutorial about riding on a boar. So I go back into the plains and there is boar I can ride it! Fun! And I can charge into things! So I charge into the sheep around there... and it does no damage. Apparently sheep can withstand OHKO charging attacks. Rank. So I ride around on a boar for about 5 minutes and get the trophy titled "All Aboard". Well played, Square-Enix. Well played.
Off to new dungeon next! At a certain point in the dungeon, the game changes to a 2-D platformer. Complete with double jump. Still retains the enemies so it's not like the ARPG stuff stops either. There was a section like that in the first dungeon but it was so short that I forgot.
At one of the forks in the path, I took the sidepath, which was pretty long. At the end there are three breakable crates. One of them contains... a tutorial for Harvesting. Best sidepath reward ever. I didn't mention it before, but enemies drop tutorials sometimes too. Like normal item drops. I dunno, it's silly.
Towards the end of the dungeon, the grunts started shooting danmaku at me too. I thought that was reserved for just bosses! At least it wasn't as damaging. Not that it's hard to evade anyway.
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So I unlocked another gameplay feature: Words. Basically you get words (I've only gotten them from enemy drops so far) that you can put on weapons/armor/martial arts (defend/evade) commands to enhance them. So far, I've gotten one that increases weapon power by 2%, one that increases guard break by 2%, one that increases magic power by 2%, and one that increases item drop rate by 2% (MOAR TUTORIAL DROPS YESZ). They can be attached to multiple things, though only once per each. Each thing can equip two different words, and certain words only affect certain things (weapon power increasing word doesn't work on magic, for example). It's not really super original, but it seems interesting enough. Assuming words get more effective than this godly 2%.
Also forgot to mention that Grimoire Weiss is a smartass. Allows for amusing conversations.
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Uncharted: Drake's Fortune - Yeah, I... Just beat this on Hard, and now I have to do it again on Crushing to get the last trophy I need to be awarded the Platinum. Chapter 4 was just full of "fun". I'm in chapter 5 now, though. Not looking forward to the big giant underwater room I need to pass through to get to Chapter 6. I remember that room was my biggest stalling point back on Hard for SO long.
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Assassin's Creed 2 - Started this. Did the first mission, then Parkour side questing for a while. Punching dudes, climbing on things, opening treasure chests. Fun and what I wanted to be doing all weekend instead of fucking around with my computer and trying to distract myself with Pokemon.
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Gref, do you have a link to the Bloodlines fan patch handy? I'm reinstalling the game.
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Finished VC, about halfway through the new game+ playthrough, tearing through maps. It's actually surprisingly enjoyable (after the first few chapters) and often not totally trivial to get A rankings even with endgame+ stats.
It's re-emphasizing, though, how huge an advantage knowing what's going to happen in a given map is. I'm not sure I want to call this a weakness of the game, since it's certainly realistic and probably even deliberate (note that the final order you get from the War Cemetary is "Recon" which clears fog of war for a round), but it does cut into replay, to a degree; the game simply loses a lot of challenge once there are no more surprises.
(I found Chapter 9 really tough the first time through, for example, but now that I know how it works a bit better I can see that it can be laughably easy even at really low levels; in new game+ I wouldn't be surprised to find that it's the best way to grind for xp and monies, if such a thing were desirable)
Still, highly enjoyable. Will definitely play through all the DLC as well. Any opinions as to if I should do this before or after acing all the basic game's missions? (like, will it be less fun with a maxed out file, level 20 everyone etc?)
Picked up PSP Final Fantasy I when I realized that I've never actually played the game through. Looking forward to that. Also got Chains of Olympus, which I'm not actually super impressed by yet.
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Nier - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNu2iGk4TLI
Wow, the female lead (?) suffers from as severe a case of Look Into Pants syndrome as I think I've ever seen. Not sure I'd be able to handle that for a whole game.
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Gref, do you have a link to the Bloodlines fan patch handy? I'm reinstalling the game.
http://www.planetvampire.com/bloodlines/files/patches/
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Nier - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNu2iGk4TLI
Wow, the female lead (?) suffers from as severe a case of Look Into Pants syndrome as I think I've ever seen. Not sure I'd be able to handle that for a whole game.
I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I haven't even seen that character in-game so I don't know.
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I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I haven't even seen that character in-game so I don't know.
Maybe she's less an important character ingame than she is important in the game's promotional material...
A babydoll chemise does not remove the need for pants, is all I'm saying. Frequent mistake in jRPGs especially :P But I've got pretty low tolerance of egregious fan service generally... Bayonetta's gameplay actually seemed pretty strong, from the demo, but I just couldn't get over the character design.
(although there it's egregious cheesecake + actively aesthetically ugly in the main character that really didn't work for me; it's a shame, 'cause I've got a huge huge thing for angels normally and they seemed pretty cool).
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Still, highly enjoyable. Will definitely play through all the DLC as well. Any opinions as to if I should do this before or after acing all the basic game's missions? (like, will it be less fun with a maxed out file, level 20 everyone etc?)
I haven't done the DLC yet myself. Have you gone through the skirmishes on hard, though? Pretty sure that option only opens up on new game+, at least, and they switch the setups around pretty significantly for some of the maps. Some of them are still easy, some of them are brutal.
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No, not yet. Looking forward to it.
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FF 13- The Xbox just ate all of my chapter 5 saves. WTF.
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Good an excuse as any to just quit playing.
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Minus my general enjoyment of the game.
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Your Hard Drive didn't happen to get a little loose, did it? That sometimes happens on mine, and it pretends there's nothing there; simply pushing it back in (or unhooking it entirely and putting it back in) tends to remedy the scenario. UNless you mean SPECIFICALLY your Chapter 5 saves and your others are still around, in which case, that's weird.
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Yeah, all the other saves are fine, but it reverted completely back to the start of Chapter 5, and appeared to kill any saves I had beyond that point.
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Yeah, that's...just really freaking weird.
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Grefter's rage is actually enough to destroy saves now. Impressive.
FE9- Done! I liked the game. It makes some major improvements to the FE formula with BEXP/altering the weapon weight system. Challenge wise, probably the easiest FE game to finish. Why? You get handed the best Marcus type Paladin in the series early and you get a steady stream of excellent prepromo units the entire game. Tanith, Titania, and Stefan are all very good, and even some of the lesser options like Callil and Geoffery are quite solid. You probably never need to touch a unit that isn't promoted until Volke joins, and you don't need one for combat for the entire game. The Laguz royals are even there if your Ike gets screwed bad and can't stand toe to toe with Ashnard. Kill order: Ike-Titania-Mia-Boyd-Oscar-Jill-Nephenee. Brom was the next nearest and he was a notable drop. Titania should be 1 but Ike got fed a ton of kills once he got Ragnell.
Mia wins the award for being RNG blessed, as she got a stupid amount of STR. Marcia wins the award for RNG boned this game. Nothing shocking there.
Ike was fairly decent and the story stuff was outright good in the first half. Naesala made an excellent slimy villain; somehow he manages to be more hatable than the creepy bishop furry. Nice work there. Ashnard was just bad. His story/plot was completely nonsensical, and the game would have been far better if it hadn't overreached and tried to tie several events (Serene forest, etc) together into an overarching plot. Bad guy invades kingdom-->you go to beast kingdom-->Rally help-->win. Ashnard's plans make zero sense and are pretty terribly executed. I was wondering why the hell he would invade a small kingdom that was under the protection of a far larger and stronger one (To the game's credit, they actually discuss this in depth from Ike's PoV.) You honestly have to worry why anyone would follow a king who's masterfully inept on top of being a cruel dictator. The only time the game tries to explain why anyone has loyalty to him is from a freaking extra scene with Sothe the useless thief/street rat. Augh.
Oh, and Soren is an obnoxious shithead who makes Shinon look sympathetic by comparison. He annoyed the living hell out of me from start to end, with special ire going to him figuring out the truth about Nasir and then not saying anything to Ike. Good job.
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Mana Khemia is addictive like crack. Seriously, this is a damn good Skinner box. I fell asleep and I was still mentally synthing items and filling in the Grow Book. The last time I did that kind of shit was Tetris.
I must applaud Gust's ability to design something like that, if nothing else.
Oh right, and I beat Isolde, so yay, full voting rights.
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Isn't
Bad guy invades kingdom-->you go to rival kingdom-->Rally help-->win
the only plot Fire Emblem does?
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FE7 does something else, but is actually worse for it. FE10 also does other things, but doesn't suck at it.
It's the basic forumla and even those two games use it in parts though soooo >.>
(Although frankly the formula is so basic that it's a staple of the entire srpg genre. FE is just bare bones on plot so it stands out more.)
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FE7 just removes the "get help from other country" part, really.
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Basic plot is fine. What moved the story was the character work and Ike managing to bridge relations between kingdoms. Once that vanished, the overarching plot stepped in and blah.
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I played some Touhou games recently.
I've beaten PCB and IN on Easy without continuing and managed Sakuya's (comparatively laughable) last word in far too many tries. I'm also in a low-level tournament with friends for Hisoutensoku.
That's... pretty much it. PCB was beaten with Sakuya A aka the one that's really good at living but pretty bad at scoring. IN was Reimu/Yukari because I'm still too new to do really well without homing weapons to cover my ass. Torn between playing more games on Easy or trying to do IN on Normal without continuing.
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Torn between playing more games on Easy or trying to do IN on Normal without continuing.
Play more games. It's more fun that way, and having a variety of challenges thrown at you is better general training than rote memorization.
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Super's FE9 rant is pretty spot on.
Ashnard's plans make zero sense and are pretty terribly executed.
To be fair, it seems that by FE10 the writers realise this as Ashnard is turned into a complete pawn for something else. (This incenses Ashnard fans. Elfboy laughs.)
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Mana Khemia is addictive like crack. Seriously, this is a damn good Skinner box. I fell asleep and I was still mentally synthing items and filling in the Grow Book. The last time I did that kind of shit was Tetris.
What. As an N1 fan I thought you would recognise a Skinner box scenario when you saw it. MK uses pretty standard Classical conditioning, you do things and you get rewarded for it. There is very little actually random (or infrequently random) in Mana Khemia. A huge part of Behaviourist forms of conditioning is the random factor which amplifies the effect. A Skinner box scenario needs the randomness to be truely B F Skinner worthy and randomness is something N1 games have in spades. Edit - You can actually see some of that in my distaste expressed when people started playing MK2 and the resource gathering had another game layer on top of it.
http://www.patches-scrolls.de/vampire_bloodlines.php
This link should have the patch with less of the Gamespy shit coating if you still don't have it Rob.
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L4D2 - Downloaded the City 17 custom map. Purple checkered tiles in the sky aside, it's really neat. Pretty long, though--we ran through it pretty quickly and it took an hour and a half? Bots fuck up quite a bit though but that's custom maps for ya.
I imagine VS on this would be fun. 4th level's hospital has a lot of places where SI could come at the survivors from every side, 2nd and 3rd level have quite a few potentially bitchy chokepoints, and the finale... well, okay, survivors should sweep the finale pretty easily.
Anyway point is all L4D2 players should DL this map so we can run through it sometime.
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SSF4 - Decided to switch characters as playing as Ken all the time gets boring so I'm now breaking heads as Dudley. My win record with him is slightly lower and I have trouble with Bisons and Balrogs who were everywhere yesterday for some reason but I'm having fun. The highlight of yesterday was beating a Ken by Ultraing through his Ultra and throwing a Dhalsim just as he did his ultra 8-)
Capcom did a good job with the new characters in that they are all very playable and easy enough for even me to use. Also 99% of people are no longer Saget with his overpowered cheapness so life is good.
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Super's FE9 rant is pretty spot on.
Ashnard's plans make zero sense and are pretty terribly executed.
To be fair, it seems that by FE10 the writers realise this as Ashnard is turned into a complete pawn for something else. (This incenses Ashnard fans. Elfboy laughs.)
In fainress, I seem to recall you stating like right around the time I finished FE9 that "Yeah, Ashnard is beaten, but he is so obviously a tool" so its possible he was made intentionally lame cause he was planned to be one from the get go.
FE9 really is nothing more than set up for FE10, which it does a decent enough job at in the end, and FE10 does a decent enough job of telling its story. The 2 Tellius games are exceptional in the series as far as story goes, though, in FE9's case, that's more "The rest of the series sucks at this" contrast to FE10 where its flat out good at times. The Formulaic stuff in FE10 is...all in Part 1, from what I recall, Part 1 basically being "Typical FE Plot with an Atypical Team!" Part 2 is of course rather unique (its...pretty much inverting the scenario entirely actually, and is pretty awesome because of the unique perspective and plot behind each maps. Pity its shortlived, but then, I guess that's advantageous of not overstaying its welcome.)
Ok, I suppose Part 3 is rather generic, but...at the same time, unlike all other games, split perspectives mean you get to see shit going on from both sides.
...actually, FE10 is just awesome for the Multiple Perspective thing to begin with. Thanks to it, a lot of interesting maps can be made just due to the variety of units that keep being changed. I mean, its hard to deny that 2-P is freaking sweet if only for pure stylistic reasons, and stuff in Part 3 where someone is a PC one map, then an enemy the next cause you swapped sides on a whim...yeah, fun stuff.
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...actually FE10 is just awesome for the Multiple Perspective thing to begin with. Thanks to it, a lot of interesting maps can be made just due to the variety of units that keep being changed. I mean, its hard to deny that 2-P is freaking sweet if only for pure stylistic reasons, and stuff in Part 3 where someone is a PC one map, then an enemy the next cause you swapped sides on a whim...yeah, fun stuff.
I also really liked the way FE10 handled the multiple perspectives, especially with what they did at the end of part three. Not only that, but FE10 made it so that one side was clearly superior to the other in terms of military strength. It was interesting to see one side scramble to come up with a strategy even if it was one that went against their morals to protect their people while the other side just bulldozed them with their overwhelming might.
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To be fair, it seems that by FE10 the writers realise this as Ashnard is turned into a complete pawn for something else. (This incenses Ashnard fans. Elfboy laughs.)
Demonic posession could explain it. The only thing Ashnard was good for at all was defending Daein (Which Sothe refers to and you see the conquences of at the start of FE10), and even that he clearly didn't give a flying fuck by the way he abandoned his country at the drop of a hat.
Also, fuck off Edward.
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SSF4 - Decided to switch characters as playing as Ken all the time gets boring so I'm now breaking heads as Dudley. My win record with him is slightly lower and I have trouble with Bisons and Balrogs who were everywhere yesterday for some reason but I'm having fun. The highlight of yesterday was beating a Ken by Ultraing through his Ultra and throwing a Dhalsim just as he did his ultra 8-)
Capcom did a good job with the new characters in that they are all very playable and easy enough for even me to use. Also 99% of people are no longer Saget with his overpowered cheapness so life is good.
Holy crap, they nerfed Sagat? Finally.
He's still probably top tier, though. The only time he hasn't been top tier has been in MvC2.
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Yeah, think the main nerfing to Sagat was mostly he doesn't do obscene damage anymore, so its possible to win slugfests with him now. He's still got good stuff all around of course, just now other characters can actually trade hits with him and come out ahead.
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The only way to knock Sagat from top tier is to have his legs get blown off by the VC, so he fights with his feet sewn to his knees.
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I would like to apologize for slandering Rhys. Clearly I had it too good with his complete ineptness at taking any kind of physical damage. He is about as tough as swordsman was to physicals. God knows he isn't dealing much damage than Edward of the 'hay guys I'm a myrm and don't double randoms' fame. Ilyana just joined and she's both my best damage dealer outside of Sothe, but also probably the second best at taking hits. I don't even want to talk about Laura/Michiah, who die horribly if a single enemy reaches them.
It says something about the special ed nature of the dawn brigade that my plans are revolving around my fucking THIEF winning most of the fights, as clearly no one else besides Ilyana is capable of dealing damage.
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Illyana's pretty bad once she loses her level advantage. She is solid for the first few chapters, but she gets worse pretty quickly. Did you get Aran? He's in the same chapter as Illyana and he has pretty good defense and hp, and I would imagine that Nolan should also be at least slightly better at taking hits than Illyana unless he got really bad level ups.
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You're going to have to live with Micaiah, so may as well make her useful. Use BEXP to level her when she starts hitting her Magic, Res, and Luck caps. This should get her Speed/Def/HP to rise.
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Uh yeah, Nolan doesn't even need levels to trash Ilyana in durability (29 HP/9 def vs. 22 HP/3 def). Ilyana has Micaiah's stats once she catches up in levels, but without even a fraction of the offence (Thani is hax).
Never had a problem with Micaiah being one-rounded myself unless she was doubled (Resolve can avoid that, you get it early in this game). Laura explodes when looked at, yes, but it's not too hard to keep her from being looked at... DB maps are chokepoint central. Just hide people behind Sothe and Nolan and go to town with the frail people behind them blasting or healing.
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I would like to apologize for slandering Rhys. Clearly I had it too good with his complete ineptness at taking any kind of physical damage. He is about as tough as swordsman was to physicals. God knows he isn't dealing much damage than Edward of the 'hay guys I'm a myrm and don't double randoms' fame.
More like 'hay guize, I block axes with my face am i doin it rite???'
Make good use out of Nolan/Sothe/Aran in the early maps. You get to shuffle skills soon enough and you should probably do some switching right off the bat such as removing Wrath from Edward and Cancel from Leonardo, then giving them to better units. Don't expect Micaiah to improve much in terms of avoiding doubles either since her natural speed growth isn't very impressive. You'll have another 10 chapters to go before the end of part 1 (although your army improves considerably) so get used to using frail units. It'll become pretty important during some of the Part 3 maps for the DB.
Oh rite, games:
HGSS: Got past Morty. Hilarious shinenagans were had as Gen 4 AI once again shows its frue colours:
- Tide sents out Crobat, sweeps a Gastly and a Haunter
- Morty sends out Gengar. One round of combat exchanged. Tide sends out Eevee (Growl/Helping Hand/Headbutt/SandAttack)
- Morty uses Mean Look, effectively trapping Eevee.
- Morty puts Eevee to sleep
- Morty proceeds to waste all 5-8 shots of his Sucker Punch on a sleeping Eevee
- Morty now has a Gengar that cannot kill Eevee as his only two other moves are Hypnosis and Shadow Ball
- Gengar dies from Struggling itself to death after wasting its PP
gj there Gen 4 AI.
FF13: Chapter 11. Grefter complaints are pretty well founded, with the stream lining of choices gone the wrong way and all. Still, game isn't noticably bad. Although not noticably that great either. Around a 5-6 territory. Will see what happens.
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That's pretty much the way to go on Morty's Gengar. I did the same thing, except replace Eevee with Furrett.
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I just grabbed Noctowl and Confusion'd the fuck out of Morty. >_>
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All you guys slagging off Edward are a bunch of haters. Edward is no worse then any of the other swordsmen statwise and is overall better as Zihark steals xp for a time while Mia is an utter waste of space unless you skip Ed and Zihark. If he dies then you're the one doing something wrong as you are given 3 meat-tanks to block any and all hits. The enemy AI is retarded so how any of you are dying I have no idea.
Holy crap, they nerfed Sagat? Finally.
He lost some health and about a 1/3 of his damage for a new move that STOPS TIME! The bad news is that Saget is still leagues ahead of many characters but the good news is only pros can really use to full effect now. From what I've seen Sagat players have to use combos involving his new move to dominate now and they are quite tricky to pull off. That is the reason I wager there isn't as many Sagats now as he isn't as noob friendly as before.
SSF4 - I don't think I'm doing as well as I should be as expert Balrogs and Guiles utterly destroy me which I'm not happy about.
Total Win record:
Wins/Total fights
141/223 overall.
85/128 as Ken (Ranked)
26/41 as Dudley (Ranked)
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Oh yeah. Forgot about Nolan, he can sort of take a hit.
Never had a problem with Micaiah being one-rounded myself unless she was doubled (Resolve can avoid that, you get it early in this game). Laura explodes when looked at, yes, but it's not too hard to keep her from being looked at... DB maps are chokepoint central. Just hide people behind Sothe and Nolan and go to town with the frail people behind them blasting or healing.
She died from a single enemy attack (Not doubled). She has 18 HP and hasn't gained any defense since the start, if that matters.
All you guys slagging off Edward are a bunch of haters. Edward is no worse then any of the other swordsmen statwise and is overall better as Zihark steals xp for a time while Mia is an utter waste of space unless you skip Ed and Zihark. If he dies then you're the one doing something wrong as you are given 3 meat-tanks to block any and all hits. The enemy AI is retarded so how any of you are dying I have no idea.
What? Yes he is. He isn't relying doubling any enemy I've seen so far, doesn't have durability (He's commonly 2HKOed by the randoms up to this point) and his damage isn't great thanks to no common doubles either.
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Never had a problem with Micaiah being one-rounded myself unless she was doubled (Resolve can avoid that, you get it early in this game).
Oh sure, unintentionally mock my first game where Micaiah gained 0 Speed in her first 16 levels making 1-9 a total bitch cause EVERYTHING OHKO'D HER *shakes fist*
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In my last playthrough Nolan didn't get any speed so in the DB chapters in part 3 he was double by almost everything effectively killing any durability advantage he might have had. But as Pyro said the trick to using units like Michaiah who have uneven stat growths is to wait until they max 2-3 stats and then use bonus XP to fill in their weaker stats. Fortunately the next few chapters give you a bunch of characters with solid durability.
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Rocket Riot: Stuck on the final boss after 82 attempts. And no, that's not hyperbole.
Left 4 Dead 2, not PC Edition: Ranking the campaigns for singleplayer - Dead Center > Dark Carnival > The Passing > The Parish >> Hard Rain >>> Swamp Fever.
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Dhyer - Doesn't Sazh have Brave/Faith yet? Those are quite useful =-)
Tide - Are you going to do any of the side stuff now that you've reached Chapter 11? It's pretty barebones otherwise~
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Seraph Robe + Resolve = Micaiah won't be one-rounded even if she hasn't gained any stats yet.
I don't recommend hording BExp for MAXIMUM STATS later on, use it right away for immediate gains, since the DB chapters are the hardest part of the game.
All you guys slagging off Edward are a bunch of haters. Edward is no worse then any of the other swordsmen statwise and is overall better as Zihark steals xp for a time while Mia is an utter waste of space unless you skip Ed and Zihark.
Oh hey, the false "steals exp" argument again. Funny, I could just as easily argue Edward steals exp. But anyway...
When Zihark joins, his stats are way better than Edward's, so he is better than Ed early.
At equal levels, the two are about equal (you said so yourself). But Zihark needed way less exp to get there, so either he'll have a level advantage (if the two are given equal kills and BExp), or he'll have been able to give up some of his kills and BExp to other PCs making them better. Either way, Zihark still wins.
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Seraph Robe + Resolve = Micaiah won't be one-rounded even if she hasn't gained any stats yet.
Well, I DID give her the Seraph robe...and I think the Draco Shield too. Resolve, though, didn't have that, cause I didn't think to remove it from Tauroneo. Obviously, this was my first playthrough only, and I don't hold that as standard against Micaiah, more jut an "UGH WHY GAME WHY ;_;"
(that statement probably wasn't targeted at me, but whatever, felt I should respond anyway!)
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All you guys slagging off Edward are a bunch of haters. Edward is no worse then any of the other swordsmen statwise and is overall better as Zihark steals xp for a time while Mia is an utter waste of space unless you skip Ed and Zihark. If he dies then you're the one doing something wrong as you are given 3 meat-tanks to block any and all hits. The enemy AI is retarded so how any of you are dying I have no idea.
Did we even play the same game? Edward is quite simply a liability for the early game. Sure, he can be AS GOOD as another swordmaster if you baby him up, but Zihark and Mia both start out a hell of a lot better than him. Also, bullshit on him having 'meat tanks' in the early game. To start out, the only character you have more durable than him is Nolan. That is ONE. Not three. There's a bunch more I could say but I'll leave it be for now.
Seriously, though. Are you basing all your opinions on one single playthrough of the game and ignoring the way characters can come out different and growths and shit? Because that's the only thing I can think of that makes any of your opinions make sense.
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Lets recap the Dawn Brigade for a second; note that I am only talking about the DB, and not the "Daien Army", so this is all stuff up to and including 1-5...
We have 2 Mages, a Myrmidon and Archer whose durability is on par with those 2 Mages, quite possibly the Frailest Character in FE History whose your Healer, a Fighter whose "OK" on durability, a Prepromo Rogue, a tanky Soldier, a Sword Armor, and a Laguz who stuck in half shift, but still has better stats than just about everything.
Sounds fair, but wait...you talked about EXP thieving! So that means Sothe and Volug can't count anymore, cause they only gain 1 EXP. OOPS! That means our tanks are now Meg and Aran...and Meg has low movement and low HP, so even her tanking is limited (if still much better than all other options in the Dawn Brigade.) That leaves Aran whose your only real reliable tank that doesn't steal EXP.
So basically, you either have one Reliable Meatshield by YOUR standards *OR* SOthe/Volug now count, which means Zihark has to count too, since he steals no more EXP than those two do. Can't have it both ways.
Also, other things about Zihark...
-If you're afraid of him stealing EXP, hand him a Bronze Sword. Now, outside of the chance Adept kicks in, he'll be good at knocking enemies down to low health, thus giving people like Edward that kill without risk of Counters. Hey look, now Zihark is ADDING to EXP, not lowering it, making raising your other PCs easier, while still getting some EXP himself!
-Zihark can use Paragon, Edward cannot until he promotes. So Zihark is not quite stealing as much EXP as you think (he is, in fairness, still not gaining as much EXP as lower units, but Paragon does lower the difference.) You could argue someone like Sothe or Micaiah should use it instead, but that's not Zihark vs. Edward, that's Zihark vs. Other PCs using Paragon. Its a case of "Zihark has this option, Edward does not."
Edward getting up to the same level as Zihark just isn't reasonable, and there are ways to use Zihark without him stealing too much EXP. The fact that Zihark can be used to make the harder sections of the game easier while Edward is part of the reason the harder sections are hard really speaks for itself.
I would give Brave Sword as an advantage for Zihark, but I think Edward has no problem getting a B in Swords by that point anyway, so probably a superficial advantage. Brave Sword, however, is a reason Caladbolg isn't a huge edge; yes, Caladbolg > no Caladbolg, but giving Edward Brave Sword means you can only make use of one at a time, where as Brave Sword on Zihark means you can use both for maximum offensive worth, so its not quite the same as Paragon.
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Left 4 Dead 2, not PC Edition: Ranking the campaigns for singleplayer - Dead Center > Dark Carnival > The Passing > The Parish >> Hard Rain >>> Swamp Fever.
Singleplayer? You're doing it wrong
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Oh hey, the false "steals exp" argument again. Funny, I could just as easily argue Edward steals exp. But anyway...
He earns less so he steals or more accurately in his case wastes xp. As I said though its a short time period.
But Zihark needed way less exp to get there, so either he'll have a level advantage (if the two are given equal kills and BExp), or he'll have been able to give up some of his kills and BExp to other PCs making them better. Either way, Zihark still wins.
Split the xp between Nolan, Aran and Edward and you'll end up with an Edward thats what 5 levels below Zihark. The difference won't be major and the sword Ed gets puts him above Zihark in that section of the game. Its also odd that you guys keep going on about Eds poor Hp and def considering his growths mean when he catchs up he'll be better in all stats but res. Regardless of what you say Ed is in no way worse then the other swordsmen in a way that is deserving of half the score that Zihark/Mia got in the rateing thread.
What? Yes he is. He isn't relying doubling any enemy I've seen so far, doesn't have durability (He's commonly 2HKOed by the randoms up to this point) and his damage isn't great thanks to no common doubles either.
My Volug gained no stats at all guys and he gets OHKOed by counter attacks from healers, lolz worst character ever -9000/10. His growths are fine you just got screwed by the RNG because my Edward was Doubling, being 3HKOed and was never in any danger of dying.
Also, bullshit on him having 'meat tanks' in the early game. To start out, the only character you have more durable than him is Nolan.
False. The black Knight, Tauroneo, Sothe and Nailah (Untransformed) can all tank while not kill stealing through counter-attacks (Unequip weapon).
Seriously, though. Are you basing all your opinions on one single playthrough of the game and ignoring the way characters can come out different and growths and shit?
I should say the same thing to you. Edward can come out bad like all characters can but he can also turn out good so he isn't always as bad as you say. Yet I'm the one wrong because I'm saying Edward isn't always that bad while everyone else is right because he sucked in their game right? Edwards growths are fine so if he turned out wrong then whatever he turned out wrong thats no reason to be so heavy in the hate of him.
You're the one ignoring the way characters can come out different and growths and shit?
Lets recap the Dawn Brigade for a second; note that I am only talking about the DB, and not the "Daien Army", so this is all stuff up to and including 1-5...
Up to 1-5 eh? Up to that point Sothe by himself can tank well enough and the only enemies that'll be a problem (The boss Laguz) Sothe can OHKO. After 1-5 you get all the meaty goodness.
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My Volug gained no stats at all guys and he gets OHKOed by counter attacks from healers, lolz worst character ever -9000/10. His growths are fine you just got screwed by the RNG because my Edward was Doubling, being 3HKOed and was never in any danger of dying.
He starts running into the risk of being 2HKOed on the map where Sothe appears. That isn't long enough for a character to get that RNG screwed.
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False. The black Knight, Tauroneo, Sothe and Nailah (Untransformed) can all tank while not kill stealing through counter-attacks (Unequip weapon).
Black Knight: Exists for 2 chapters, one of them Edward is not even part of, so in practice he's around for one Chapter. Not really a standard. Also, the chapter you use him in is big and enemies have a lot of free shots; he can only divert so many hits as a result.
Furthermore, you use the EXP Stealing Requirement against Zihark...Black Knight is the EPITOME of EXP Stealing. He gets 0 EXP from his kills, starts off with maxed out Weapon ranks (well...I think he has an S in Lances, but for him, that's effectively maxed due to lack of Wishblade), has his level capped, etc. If Zihark steals EXP, I don't even wanna know what you call Black knight.
Tauroneo: Exists for literally one chapter (2 maps granted); how is he saving you in all the chapters you can't use him in? Oh, right, HE'S NOT. Also, one of the chapters he has involves a 2 Panel Choke Point, so he can only hold half of it.
Worth noting that if you want to rescue as many Green Units as possible in 1-6-2, you're basically sacrificing Jill, Sothe and Volug to the North East, which is 3 of your Tankier PCs, cause you need to send several units up there to divert enemies and kill them, and those 3 are the only ones mobile enough to get there fast enough. This means that you basically have...Tauroneo, Aran and Meg as potential tanks.
Nailah: One Map, she's busy on half of it not dealing with your party, unless you wanna sacrifice Civilians and lose actual Bonus EXP. So she's not really aiding the team that needs help. As for
Oh yeah, Nailah and Tauroneo steal EXP more than Zihark does; they're around less, get less EXP regardless, what have you. Well, Nailah can use GLARE for MOAR EXP, but ahahahah to that being reliable, and the only use Glare has is if you want Nailah to immobilize an enemy without killing it (basically, a filler turn), but its hit rate is so abysmal, its basically a "eh, sure, why not" move at best. Either way, this is why you can't use the "STEALS EXP ARGUMENT!" cause then PCs like Nailah are suddenly diminished in use like this.
That said, you use the "Don't equip weapon!" argument...guess what Zihark can do too! His evade is much better than Edward's as well, especially if you give him a support with Volug or Nolan. Double Earth on a Swordmaster = Win. And Zihark, unlike Tauroneo, is usable almost all of Part 1 after that, so he's got both Short Term and Long Term benefits to being used, where as Tauroneo is pretty much purely a short term character (he misses out on 3-6 even, and his positioning in 3-12 is such that its hard to take full advantage of him.)
Up to 1-5 eh? Up to that point Sothe by himself can tank well enough and the only enemies that'll be a problem (The boss Laguz) Sothe can OHKO. After 1-5 you get all the meaty goodness.
So throw away all your EXP to Sothe, eh? This coming from the guy who whined about EXP Stealing. Oh sure, Sothe can hold choke points with no weapons...but you act like your Ranged Weapons are unlimited. I mean, yeah, Micaiah and Leonardo have plenty, but how many Wind Edges you have? And how accurate are those things? Furthermore, did you forget that 2 PCs want Wind Edges? (Nolan and Aran are the only Hand Axe and Javelin user respectively, so its not as big a deal for them.) These weapons aren't storebought, and they're pricey in Aimee's Shop.
Also, there are MULTIPLE Choke Points to hold; Sothe can only hold one. Sothe is good at what he does, but he can't be in 2 places at once. Furthermore, I think this is still a chapter where losing PCs = Instant Game Over? So you can't just say "x PC is expendable!"
That's the problem with relying on one PC; they're ONE person, they can only handle so much. Even immortal freaks like Black Knight, Laguz Royals, Giffca, etc. still can only divert so many enemies. Weaker PCs are liabilities for this reason.
It'd be one thing if Edward could hold off sections on his own, or alternatively, on his own with nothing more than a healer, then he wouldn't be a liability, but he can't. FE10's early game isn't big on these easy chokepoints to hold barring a few stray maps (1-4 comes to mind), and those choke points often allow you to get attacked from multiple angles anyway. This isn't like FE6's Fir who works away her liability by joining on a map that works to her advantages BEAUTIFULLY (Evasive Swordsmen vs. FE6 Axes, with a map layout she can take full advantage of), and comes with a weapon that mitigates her early game offense issues too, no.
In any event, your entire argument is filled with double standard as I noted earlier. You slam Zihark for stealing EXP, then say Sothe does not, even though you can use the two in the EXACT SAME VAIN? How is that fair?
EDIT: As a side note, think this discussion maybe should be moved to the FE10 Rankings Topic? Shouldn't be filling up this topic with nothing but FE10 talk. Just a thought; we have a topic specifically for this kind of discussion, after all.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
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You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
Except for FE9 Bastian. Worthless goatfucking swine. Can we all agree on that?
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
This is one of the many reasons I loathe FE games.
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Also, bullshit on him having 'meat tanks' in the early game. To start out, the only character you have more durable than him is Nolan.
False. The black Knight, Tauroneo, Sothe and Nailah (Untransformed) can all tank while not kill stealing through counter-attacks (Unequip weapon).
Reading comprehension is your friend. He doesn't have anybody but Nolan for several maps before you get anyone else that can take a hit. Getting them eventually is not the same as having them at the beginning.
Seriously, though. Are you basing all your opinions on one single playthrough of the game and ignoring the way characters can come out different and growths and shit?
I should say the same thing to you. Edward can come out bad like all characters can but he can also turn out good so he isn't always as bad as you say. Yet I'm the one wrong because I'm saying Edward isn't always that bad while everyone else is right because he sucked in their game right? Edwards growths are fine so if he turned out wrong then whatever he turned out wrong thats no reason to be so heavy in the hate of him.
You're the one ignoring the way characters can come out different and growths and shit?
Sure, Edward's growths are fine. That is not the point! Explain to me how his growths that will generally put him on par with the other swordmasters, NOT way ahead of them, is worth the effort of levelling him all the way from where he starts as opposed to just taking a swordmaster that starts with a several level advantage and is therefore not a liability before he gains a few levels. This isn't even going into things like how his support bonuses are horrible compared to the others either. And don't give me bullshit about him not being a liablility. Unless you're getting extremely good RNG luck he can't afford to be attacked more than once, maybe twice, for several levels and he only has one other person to cover for him for his first few maps when he's at his weakest.
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Can we add FE9 Lucia to that list? And FE7 Karla? And FE6 Sophia?
EDIT: That was to Just Another Day.
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Can we add FE9 Lucia to that list? And FE7 Karla? And FE6 Sophia?
If you like, I'm not going to argue to hard. I do think all three of those are conceivably usable, however, whereas FE9 Bastian I don't think is capable of being anything other than a liability under any reasonable circumstance (save rampant stat booster abuse, which just doesn't count).
Well, okay, he can soften up wyvern knights decently in the chapter he joins in, so long as you keep him away from the real enemies. And the ballistae. And the Black Knight. Sigh.
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I found Bastian to be at least somewhat useful on the starting map. Lucia... yuck to the durability, and she is range 1. Those arrows are a serious problem for anyone who doesn't have defense- mostly due to the AOJKSDFLKASDJFSD CRITSSSSSSSSSSSSS OF DOOM, but yeah.
It's not a big deal about a few PC's who join late being bad; as every single FE game I've finished has some sort of emergency backup plan. FE7 has Athos to deal with the dragon, FE8 has the tower so you can level, 9/10 have both BEXP and some very good lategame units to babysit you.
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I should say the same thing to you. Edward can come out bad like all characters can but he can also turn out good so he isn't always as bad as you say. Yet I'm the one wrong because I'm saying Edward isn't always that bad while everyone else is right because he sucked in their game right? Edwards growths are fine so if he turned out wrong then whatever he turned out wrong thats no reason to be so heavy in the hate of him.
No one is saying Edward's growths suck - because they don't. He has what? 45 strength? 40 Defense? 60 Speed? That's pretty damn good. The problem is, he can't really put those growths to his advantage because his bases are pretty bad and at the point where he is present in the game, he dies to like two hits. Even on easy mode. That's just damning.
Also, no one is calling you 'wrong'. You're the one who's basically going oh lolzguize u peeps suck at using Edward >_>. Sure, he turned out great on your file - I've gotten a really damn awesom Edward too. But guess what though? On average, Edward's a worse investment than Zihark because Zihark does the same things if not better for a large portion of the maps than Edward. AND he doesn't need that early experience, which he CAN give to some other units like Aran. That's a much larger advantage. And guess what? When multiple people start playing multiple playthroughs, chances are it is going to conform to the average. So it's no surprise that Edward looks terrible to almost everyone else. Note, even if Edward does dominate in the end, it takes him way too long to get there. Mia and Zihark meanwhile are much safer investments because they start off pretty damn awesome.
Also...
All you guys slagging off Edward are a bunch of haters. Edward is no worse then any of the other swordsmen statwise and is overall better as Zihark steals xp for a time while Mia is an utter waste of space unless you skip Ed and Zihark. If he dies then you're the one doing something wrong as you are given 3 meat-tanks to block any and all hits. The enemy AI is retarded so how any of you are dying I have no idea.
I really really like how this turns out to be an advantage for Edward >_>. Yes, Zihark and Mia are a waste of space because you don't need 3 meat tanks to make them good! In this case, I should jump on the Nino hype train. PENT IS A WASTE OF SPACE BECAUSE NINO HAS INFINITE MEAT SHIELDS TO GIVE HER EXPS AND GET BETTER AND BECAUSE PENT STEALS EXPS!
tldr version:
BLAH BLAH OPINIONS BLAH.
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Singleplayer? You're doing it wrong
Can't rank versus yet because I've been concentrating on Scavenge, and I haven't played versus on all the campaigns yet.
Mega Man 10: Cleared enough challenges to reach rank D. Haven't played the real game yet.
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I don't want to argue this any further as we'll get nowhere and start repeating ourselfs like parrots. Tide pretty much nailed it anyway. I think Edward is worth the effort while everyone else doesn't, end of.
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Singleplayer? You're doing it wrong
Can't rank versus yet because I've been concentrating on Scavenge, and I haven't played versus on all the campaigns yet.
Wait. Are you doing Campaign Mode at all?
Deus Ex-Cleared the mansion, off to go get some shinies. Come to think of it I don't think I did the correct trigger to get Gunther's killphrase, so unless he can be knocked unconscious I'll probably have to take him out. Skill-wise I got Advanced in Pistols, not sure what to do next. I'm swimming in Lockpicks and Multitools, being able to hack turrets isn't really worth it, but I'm not using rifles or any other lethal weapons so those are out too. I guess I could get MASTER OF SWIMMING or something but eh. Augs wise I've got Cloak up to level 3. Next canister I get will probably max that out. Then I dunno. I guess I could max Regen but it's kinda pointless since my only gameover are from getting one-shot by MJ12 Commandos anyway.
Speaking of MJ12 Commandos, Fuck MJ12 Commandos. They take like 6 tranq rounds, are immune to stun from the prod, and basically one-shot me with anything on Realistic. I basically have to Dragon Sword them because literally nothing else works unless I'm willing to spend the entire rest of the game camping in vents or constantly reloading and hoping to get lucky. Bleh.
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Strange Journey - Got up to Sector E, poking around Sectors C and D for Enemy Search demons because why not.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
-
One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
There's something very wrong with you. So let's stay in tonight.
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pics now
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Singleplayer? You're doing it wrong
Can't rank versus yet because I've been concentrating on Scavenge, and I haven't played versus on all the campaigns yet.
Wait. Are you doing Campaign Mode at all?
Deus Ex-Cleared the mansion, off to go get some shinies. Come to think of it I don't think I did the correct trigger to get Gunther's killphrase, so unless he can be knocked unconscious I'll probably have to take him out. Skill-wise I got Advanced in Pistols, not sure what to do next. I'm swimming in Lockpicks and Multitools, being able to hack turrets isn't really worth it, but I'm not using rifles or any other lethal weapons so those are out too. I guess I could get MASTER OF SWIMMING or something but eh. Augs wise I've got Cloak up to level 3. Next canister I get will probably max that out. Then I dunno. I guess I could max Regen but it's kinda pointless since my only gameover are from getting one-shot by MJ12 Commandos anyway.
Speaking of MJ12 Commandos, Fuck MJ12 Commandos. They take like 6 tranq rounds, are immune to stun from the prod, and basically one-shot me with anything on Realistic. I basically have to Dragon Sword them because literally nothing else works unless I'm willing to spend the entire rest of the game camping in vents or constantly reloading and hoping to get lucky. Bleh.
Isn't Gunther one of the two people who have to die no matter what?
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Right, but I figured maybe if you knock him out his dead man switch goes off or whatever so technically I wouldn't have killed him. Small hope but oh well.
Now what the fuck I'm gonna do with Walter Simons is what you should have asked.
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Hey CapK, do you know anything about any upcoming pokemon events, if there are any?
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Right, but I figured maybe if you knock him out his dead man switch goes off or whatever so technically I wouldn't have killed him. Small hope but oh well.
Now what the fuck I'm gonna do with Walter Simons is what you should have asked.
Well, after some 20-odd tranq darts and a good 10 or so riot prod shockings Gunther refuses to go down. Luckily, Cloak keeps him from finding me and I can simply run to the metro station since I found everything else there was to find. Now I'm at Vanderbilt, with a fully maxed out Cloak and an Advanced Level Electronics.
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Hey CapK, do you know anything about any upcoming pokemon events, if there are any?
I'm assuming you mean downloadable stuff? Celebi and the gerbils with good movesets are being given out in Japan now (or soon, or recently in the past, I forget). Expect to see them in North America in a few months. Nothing else going on that I know about.
HGSS: Breeding for tournament continues, going fairly well. Should be done this week. Then just have to EV train and practice/fine tune.
PWI: Finally quit the game because I just don't have time for it anymore. Stopped at level 94.
TvsC: Dabbling with this when I'm sick of hatching Pokemon eggs. Finally got all the routes on All-Shooters mode, and almost have everything bought from the shop.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
This is one of the many reasons I loathe FE games.
It makes it impossible to have a setting other than "softball" and "cock-punching hard."
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Well I also meant anything like Toys'r'us events or anything, but thanks. What do you mean by gerbils with good movesets?
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He means stuff like FLare Blitz Entei.
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Well, the Yellow Forest event ends this week, so in the next couple the next wifi event should be announced. Could be a Mew, I think? Just guessing based on what Serebii has listed for Japanese events. Celebi/Gerbils will probably be later in the year as a non-wifi thing.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
There's something very wrong with you. So let's stay in tonight.
The questions, the queries, the rhetoric, the theories, it hurts me. :(
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Record of Agraset War: Finished Generation 1. Annnnnnnd that's enough for me. Cross Edge was a terrible game but it at least had Prinnies. This game however is inherits all the flaws of CE and adds more stupid bullshit (9x9 AOE Instant death attacks? gj bosses). Everything is cryptic from skill combos to pathsplits and even the "dating" aspect doesn't make any sense. Somehow going north makes the elfgirl hate me while the lance chick like me more? What? Honestly, having ecchi anime elfgirl softcore porn would actually be more interesting just like the game was marketed as.
I know Niu said Idea Factory was bad, but wow they're really bad. Why can't they make gameplay a bit more traditional given the target audience of "2d on HD" games are people who loved RPGs of the old? Instead they experiment with convoluted mechanics just so they can say the game is deep and strategic. Also, item synthesis is Atelier's gimmick and okay in Ar Tonelico and CE but there's no real reason to have it in Agarest War. Now they added in "Monster synthesis" by capturing monsters and trading them in for items. But good luck capturing monsters with its sub 10% capture rate attack that only works when the monster has 1 HP.
I'm totally using the boobie mousepad FYI.
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ARGH SUIKODEN TIERKREIS!
*reads up* Hmm... it's not as bad as Idea Factory at least.
Anyway, STier's Blacksmith upgrades based on how much Trading you do. I don't know how much trading anyone has done in the previous Suikoden games, but if you're like me, you traded one or two things early on and then whatever you had on you later in the game when you were getting money for sharpening. Basically it was a nice system if you wanted to abuse it, but if you didn't want to take the time to copy down item prices from every town in the game for every one of their six thousand trade items, you ignored it.
STier makes things a bit more required. Copied from the FAQ because you should hear it from the point of view of someone who liked the game enough to write a FAQ for it.
What you need to do to increase the Blacksmith's selection is trade, trade,
trade! You're going to need to trade a ton from one village to another in
order to unlock new weapons and armor. Just selling a dozen won't work, it
needs to be a lot.
A good place to start would be buying Butterfly Wings in Salsabil and
selling them in Grayridge. You need to, literally, sell 30 Butterfly
Wings to the Butterfly Robe to appear in the Armor section. Fortunately
for you, Butterfly Wings stack up to 10, so it only takes three trips from
Citro to Grayridge to fill that requirement. The Butterfly Robe costs
80,000 Potch, but is a very nice item that not only has a defense of 60, but
adds 10 Magical attack and 20 magical defense! At the very least, you may
want to spend some time trading and experimenting with, literally, hundreds
of items in order to unlock new armor. You'll make a nice profit in the
process. I'd suggest waiting until a bit later in the game, however, to
spend a lot of time trading. It can be somewhat mind-numbing just wandering
back and forth between areas and you don't want to ruin the normal game for
yourself.
Thanks, FAQ-guy, you've hit the nail on the head.
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Assassin's Creed 2 - I stab things in the face with knife hands. Sometimes I stab them in the face with a regular knife. If I am bored I might just use a sword. That is all there is to the game really, but if you enjoyed the first game at any points the sequel is worth it because Renaissance Italy is far more interesting for Parkour than ancient Jerusalem. Also you can stab two dudes in the face at the same time now, so the sequel is like twice as good or something.
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Mega Man 10: Beat (on easy mode, which still counts, so there). While I didn't get Mr. Perfect, I did win without dying/tanking, and I bustered all the bosses.
Game Room: As of 8:30 AM, I am ranked #6 in the world for Megamania. The fact that the only reason I'm that high is because the game was just released this morning and there may be 200 people in the entire world who have it so far is irrelevant. ::)
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
There's something very wrong with you. So let's stay in tonight.
The questions, the queries, the rhetoric, the theories, it hurts me. :(
Like a double down when stakes are high, my dirty ball will never die. :)
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SSF4 - Got my tenpeat trophy today as I won 14 times online before losing 8-). Dudley is the man.
DDS1 - Embarrassingly I never finished DDS2 due to that shithead Meganada so I got this to finish before playing DDS2. Just owned Orochi by rendering all 8 of his turns useless and I'm not going to stop with him as the rest of the superbosses are also going down Besides the DemiFiend, Fuck him.
Just you wait Meganada I'll strangle you with your own tentacle tits you fat bastard.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
There's something very wrong with you. So let's stay in tonight.
The questions, the queries, the rhetoric, the theories, it hurts me. :(
Like a double down when stakes are high, my dirty ball will never die. :)
You drink champagne and nobody cares about arriving on time. We know your name and your cross to bear, you'll answer for your crimes and we'll save an extra seat for you on the day you die.
Sit back, relax and take in the view and enjoy your flight.
-
One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
There's something very wrong with you. So let's stay in tonight.
The questions, the queries, the rhetoric, the theories, it hurts me. :(
Like a double down when stakes are high, my dirty ball will never die. :)
You drink champagne and nobody cares about arriving on time. We know your name and your cross to bear, you'll answer for your crimes and we'll save an extra seat for you on the day you die.
Sit back, relax and take in the view and enjoy your flight.
You know that my suit costs more than your house. I'm a scoundral, a lover, a murderous mouse.
I look good in your bed. Do ya think I'm looking good? And everybody's happy happy tonight.
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One opinion.
Another opinion.
You know what I like about the Fire Emblem games? Anybody can end up decent, and anybody can end up bad, purely because of luck.
At the end of the day all conversation is pointless and all discussion is meaningless *slits wrists*
There's something very wrong with us. So let's go out tonight.
There's something very wrong with you. So let's stay in tonight.
The questions, the queries, the rhetoric, the theories, it hurts me. :(
Like a double down when stakes are high, my dirty ball will never die. :)
You drink champagne and nobody cares about arriving on time. We know your name and your cross to bear, you'll answer for your crimes and we'll save an extra seat for you on the day you die.
Sit back, relax and take in the view and enjoy your flight.
You know that my suit costs more than your house. I'm a scoundral, a lover, a murderous mouse.
I look good in your bed. Do ya think I'm looking good? And everybody's happy happy tonight.
This is where we are tonight, everybody under survelliance from a satellite. You can be the first one on your block to die.
And there's a plague of locusts upon us, and there's a nightmare in the swarm. And there's a lion out in the desert slouching to Bethlehem to be born again.
Backstreet's back, alright. Alright
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/me writes GrefterXCiato yaoi.
Crack Quest - Wow, the Mana+ items are completely broke. *Web/Petrify.* *Flaming Skulls.* *Wild Magic.* *TEN BILLION 4-OF-A-KINDS.* *Web.* *Lather rinse repeat.*
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SC2- I can basically sum up beta now
1v1- Game revolves around Roaches and Marauders. Yes, 2 units are all that matter. If the enemy gets them, you get the hard counter. If the enemy doesn't, you don't. I watched a 107 food army of Zealot/Sentry/Stalker/Templar lose to a 61 food army of roaches/roaches/roaches/roaches. Why? Because you HAVE to get Immortal or Void Ray to beat roaches. Plain and simple. If the zerg don't go roaches, now you have a fun game, but sadly that doesn't happen.
Marauders are the same. LOL at Toss Tier 1 being viable the entire game. Blizzard needs to either make roaches 2 food or nerf them. A one food unit soloing most 2 food units is silly. Marauders meanwhile need a nerf too. For Protoss the Void Ray needs a nerf just to balance the Marauder/Roach nerf. This game is no supposed to be "I got roaches you get a hard counter or autolose." Also, a tier 1.5 ground unit should not be better than any tier 2 or 3 ground unit. Sooo yeah... the games without roaches/marauders are pretty fun. The games with them are dumb since each unit has ONE counter you have to get. (I suppose you can get air vs either one, but good luck surviving a timing push.) And yeah... I was ranked 1 Platinum for a bit, so I'm not a bad player...
2v2- Brother and I went 19-2 and got rank 1 fairly early on. Granted he's one of the top players in Beta, which helps. Then I figured out the autowin strat with another ally. 8pool +8rax reaper. 0% of Terran and 0% of Toss can survive this. So unless you're against dual Zerg it's 2v1. Teams tried to help each other, turtle, counterattack, etc and nothing matters. A GOOD Zerg/X team might be able to win, but Terran/Terran, Toss/Terran, Toss/Toss cannot win. We played some well known players and rolled them. By the time I got done I had won 20 games in a row with my worst race thanks to an unbeatable harass from a team with decent micro. Cool.
Long story short, 2v2 is broken as fuck unless this is balanced somehow. The games are really fun when they go deep... Psy and I had a lot of epic battles vs some good teams. Sadly, teams like I made with Zerg will always exist and will always win. SC2 lacks the base defense (Burrows/MoonWell/Ghoul/Call to Arms thingy) to stop this garbage.
Shorthand
1v1- Stop making the game revolve around 2 units and their hard counters
2v2- Find a way to make the proxy + 8 pool unstoppable vs anything, but another proxy + 8 pool.
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Deus Ex-Beaten.
Funny thing about Walter. His AI really hates it when you go into an enclosed space. As such running into the bunker right next to the main entrance caused him to ping-pong around frantically, trying to come at me but only bouncing off the furniture. Eventually I guess the AI just said 'fuck it' because he wound up just staring at a wall. I like to think he was embarrassed and just decided to ignore JC until he left and he could have a nice cry in the corner. Otherwise Area 51 wasn't a big deal. Plenty of Commandos to Sword, otherwise I had plenty of crossbow ammo so I spammed that. Went for all 3 endings, as usual (Helios Merge is the best one).
Best AI Moment: A MJ12 guard with a GEP Gun. Sees me, turns around, and fires...directly into the wall he was up against, gibbing himself instantly. Hilarious!
So game's really awesome, blah blah, you've heard this a million times. Pacifist run was an interesting way to go through the game, though again Deus Ex happily breaks itself in half for you no matter what you do.
Well, now that I have CoD4 on this PC I suppose I'll give it a whirl.
PS-Leave it to the PC version to make the endings even worse. Whee static heads talking to each other
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Whispered World -
Generally good fun.
It uses effectively the same verb system as Monkey Island 3, which is nice because I am a fan of that style, but unfortunately they don't subtitle what each option is going to entail as you choose it D: There was only one point where I was tripped up by the lack of this information, but still, not the best of all possible ways of going about things here.
There are a noticable number of glitches regarding loading the wrong dialogue and so forth sadly. Nothing gamebreaking. But annoying.
Chapter 1 has a fairly hefty amount of incidental interaction comments. Very nice. As I was afraid of, the amount did drop off somewhat in the later chapters, but there was still sufficient.
I was hoping that the Rock Bros. would pull a Murray and incongruously show up at points later on in the game with other plans but sadly it was not to be. Sadness.
There were a number of characters that vanish from the game... in the end this turns out to not really matter, but at the time it's a bit disconcertening. For example, there are some people in Chapter 2 who are trying to prevent a certain thing from happening, and then it happens anyway and... we don't find out what happens to them.
All up it was pretty good. A number of decent puzzles. A number of overly simple puzzles. Of the whole set of doors in the game which you can close from the other side, I don't believe there is a single one that you don't need to do that to. Were you trying to get people complacent and all 'oh, they won't put something behind the door yet again so I won't bother spending a couple seconds to do it', game? Not going to work.
Hm... the pipes in Chapter 1 are never explained, if I remember correctly. Considering his reaction and the ending, however, it may be that they were an analogy to the cause of the setup.
MMSF2 x Saurian
Beat the main game. The final was initially far too busy on the screen for me to do anything approaching well at it, but I eventually managed to start paying less attention to things I wasn't supposed to be paying attention to and prevailed. Not very nice of them to give him a buffer of invisible health on top of his visible health, but I guess it is Capcom.
Things appear to follow the same general scheme as SF1, with there a powered up version of the final available to fight once I manage to do enough ancillary stuff. If it's anything like the powered version of SF1's final, I'm not going to have a chance in heck, so I'm not even going to bother with that once I get up to it.
Currently I am slowly meandering through beating up the IF version bosses.
Got the BN Blaster aways before finishing the maingame. I don't really see the point of it here. In SF1, you got it really early and it was overpowered for quite some time. At the point in time you get it in SF2, it is far and away not overpowered and really not better than the other options you have available. Especially if you're using a form with a good charge attack. Cannot say that the postBN information that is given out in the process is really all that enthralling either.
Having looked over some postgame information I cannot help but notice that there are things in the game which are limited to people who have hooked up with others with the games in real life. I was fairly sure that SF1 had everything accessible to people with no realworld people to link up with, albiet potentially not as easily. What is your game here, Capcom.
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HGSS:
Elite 4 goes down. Not sure how much of the aftergame I'm gonna do. Certainly not doing much for team building enjoyment because some of the changes HGSS made is pretty gag inducing (y halo thar voltorb flip asdas;ljasdkjls). I'll probably just end up catching all the bonus pokes like Suicune/Lati/weather trio etc. Game is pretty much as I remembered GSC except the EXP curve is possibly even lower (although I did end up splitting EXPs for a pretty long time). I don't find the game much better than its predecessor though...probably remains at a 6 or a 6.5.
In terms of Gym leaders, it's a little better around this time. As in, there is a certain bit of balance such that its not a completely cruisathon sans Claire. Most notable improvement probably ends up going to Bugsy. That Scyther is now a mean bastard and can probably rip you apart even if his other two pokes are lolmetapod and lolkakuna. Pryce is still pretty lulz and Morty feels weaker than his GSC incarnation. The remaining others haven't changed all that much. Probably something like Claire > Whitney > Jasmine > Bugsy > Morty > Falkner > Chuck > Pryce for me.
The E4 is weird. Some of them are pretty bad, but others are pretty nasty once they get going. Wil and Bruno notably aren't too impressive. Most of Will's pokes are slow, and their dual typing lets you pounce on that even if you don't have a dark type. While Bruno has learnt to deal with flyers, but still dies horribly to a single Psychic poke. Koga gets pretty nasty if you let him pull off any of his combos, but thankfully half his team is weak to FIRE (gogo Choice Scarf Arcanine). Karen's only notable poke is her Houndoom. Nasty plot on that thing = hey kill me in a hit or two because I WILL fuck you up otherwise. The Umbreon is annoying, but Umbreon offense and Gengar is decent otherwise. Lance...I dunno. I got pretty lucky since all 5 shots of Blizzard hit and his lowered levelled ones got one-shotted without problem. Outrage on the level 50 one though is nasty shit. The Aerodactyl is probably his second biggest threat, but getting the ability to set up on Charizard with Feraligatr made it easy to handle.
Pokes used/Final team:
Feraligatr: Used this instead of Typhlosion because a) Water and b) Different pace from using Cyndaquil typically in GSC. Mmm...I think Gate sums it up pretty well. The Gen 4 Physical/Special change, Gator is the one who ends up benefitting significantly. Running Ice Fang/Crunch/Agility/Waterfall made it plenty scary and got plenty of coverage across the board. It also learns its moves in good pacing for upgrades so it never has really any notable amount of lag. Probably MVP overall of the team.
Ampharos: Yeah, I used this thing in GSC. In HGSS, I think the only really notable thing I can think of is that it picks up Discharge on its own. So you don't have to waste coins/TMs on it to give it a stronger Electric move rather than Thundershock. Otherwise, its pretty adequate for the main game. A little slow, but very meaty SpA means it deals plenty of damage even on things that are neutral. TWave rounds out the package for slowing down big threats. Pretty solid overall
Crobat: Wasn't part of the final E4 team due to it being underlevelled, but you know what to expect by now. Horrible horrible failure while as Zubat until it learns Bite. Then it starts getting better with Wing Attack and eventually evolving. The big thing with Zubat though is that if you've been using it regularly, it only takes like 1 or 2 more levels after it becomes Golbat to evolve again. And THAT is a huge power surge, especially since that happens around midgame. Very good when is around though and wins primarily through chippage means.
Arcanine: Ew. I wanted a Fire poke and I always told myself I should give this thing a try since I typically just run Typhlosion. Well okay, so what does it have? It learns pretty decent moves so it gets a solid variety and it stat bases aren't horrible. Flip side, it takes too long to learn the good stuff, stops learning moves after evo, so you can't fast evolve it and even after evolution it isn't performing much better than anyone else since most of them have reached Tier 3 by then too. In short, it's not a good investment - Vulpix > it in-game anyway.
Clefable: Heh. I picked this up in the Safari zone and then just EXP shared it to hell and back, learnt Meteor Mash and then evolved it. In retrospect I probably didn't need to since the end moveset didn't really justify Meteor Mash. Has its usual good points of being a good shoe in since it can learn many different TM abilities. In my case, it got Blizzard, which made it a decent switch option against Lance's Dragonites which either pack Thunder or Blizzard or something pretty nasty. It's relatively tanky too, which allowed it to survive a Dragonite Outrage (with like 5 HP left albeit), and eventually come back with Cosmic Power + Blizzarding those things to death. Very small time period of performance, but pretty good when it was there.
Espeon: STAB Return with Adaptability = Around a 200 powered move when Return is at full power. Jesus christ, that was nuts. Running around with a portable SelfDestruct and knocking things out in one go without trouble was pretty lulz. I did eventually evolve it after learning Baton Pass - and then found out that there wasn't much it could pass and the after game is more raeg then the other Pokemon version >.>. As Espeon, it performs solidly. I could've used a stronger move than Psybeam, but that was enough to hold down plenty of threats for a while. Only the E4 pokes were able to take two on a SE, and they would've died if I had Choice Spec'd it. Probably third most valuable member after Amphy
Butterfree: Eventually got dropped, but is surprisingly solid. Compound Eyes really does help it since it can status things with good accuacy and then proceed to win via chipping. The low stat bases make it pretty hard to keep on using it though.
Pidgeotto: Also got dropped, except earlier. It's notably worse in later gens sice Crobat is worth fielding often which means, you would want to get Zubat to level up and as a result, Pidgeotto gets less levels. It also takes a while for it to reach stage 3, so I can't imagine it being that overly impressive anyway.
Ho-oh: I used it against only 1 pokemon, and that was Karen's Umbreon so it can't pull off its annoying shinaningans. All I can really say is STAB Brave Bird. Ow. With no EVs and default level, that's still strong enough to high 2HKO Umbreon o_o.
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Trips's Deus Ex posts have given me a powerful urge to play the Thief games again. I must get ahold of a copy of the first one. And maybe actually finish the third, although I'm not sure it would be worth it.
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Can you buy Thief 1 on steam?
LFT: See the LFT thread, doing a no direct damage run. Up through Zirekile falls.
FE10- Just got Zihark and Jill. Benching Edward/Aran/Leo. Leo/Aran are getting RNG fucked like crazy on STR, Edward is just blah overall.
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Are you sure Leo is actually being RNG screwed? <.< (He has some definite payoff in part 3, but his raw stats on average are, well, um. He has res!)
Phoenix Wright - Started 1-4. I <3 1-3 a lot, but we already knew that.
Fire Emblem 9 - Replaying again, HM as always, up to Chapter 7. Have a party of people I've not used much before roughly planned out, centred around using all the beast laguz.
Wizard of Oz - Fun game so far. Sure, it doesn't have plot or characters, but nor does it pretend to, and the way of telling what minimal story it does have is cute enough. I really appreciate it for what it is - the point of an RPG is its gameplay, and it focusses entirely on that, kinda like Mega Man X Command Miission. No fetchquest bullshit or inane party chatter (not that some games don't have good party chatter, but they're hardly common to me) or item synthesis or etc. etc. Just lets me focus on the battle system, which has a unique gimmick (the ratio system) that makes it rather fun. I'd already heard about this system going into things, but I hadn't realised it applied to the enemies too, which affects battle strategy significantly. Also didn't realise you could use it to affect which PCs are targetted, which also makes for interesting decisions. Mmm mm. It's arguably a shame the system is so simple otherwise (hey look it's Dragon Quest) but oh well. It's hardly going to be a great game but it seems to succeed at what it sets out to do well enough. Currently in Flora's castle.
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Yes. STR screwed in particular, he has trouble breaking average enemy defense.
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Only Thief 3 on Steam. You can buy Thief 1 and 2 both in those el cheapo $10 game things though.
Assassin's Creed 2 - Finished. Did all of the everything to do. So all done, no reason to play it again. It is what it is. Better than the first one, neat to see some stuff taken from the original expanded and done much better (Like the last section before the final boss is actually stealth oriented instead of KILL FUCKING EVERYONE EVERYWHERE), the last 2 chapters were total padding though, WHOOPS YOU LOST THE MACGUFFIN, GO GET IT AGAIN, LOOK THERE IS MACHIAVELLI. Those might have been DLC originally though? I don't know and I don't really care, I got to stab people. Neat gimmick for the final boss where you have the Macguffin from the first game, so you get to pull the final boss' trick from the original game on the boss of this one. Then after the boss goes NOOOOO I WILL USE MY PLOT POWERS TO INCAPACITATE YOU EVEN THOUGH THEY DIDN'T WORK IN THE LAST CUTSCENE he stabs you in the stomach, this seems to do nothing as you get back up and chase after him and go "Okay dude, no more weapons or ancient artifacts lets you and me fisticuffs now" and he is all "kay" for some reason, so you punch him a lot and then it goes to the requisite Assassin's Creed dialogue side reality thing and you tell him you are through killing people, so you won't kill him and then he dies.
So yeah the last few sequences don't make a great deal of sense but they are all quite dramatic. Then there is some stuff, future plot nonsense. I was all excited at the prospect of doing the Assassin stuff in the future after the first game, now with a bit more plot, not so much. I am sure I will play the sequel in a few years time when it comes out anyway, but shit why not. They are a kind of game that I enjoy once every few years so they can get my money.
It takes itself WAYYY to seriously though. There is so many lines that feel like they are lifted straight from Illuminatus! (because they are Discordian statements pretty much), but without a hint of irony or humor to it. Considering Illuminatus! predates it by 20 (30?) years that is pretty fucking funny. Seriously though, the entire plot is all about Golden Apples, ancient conspiracies and people talk about how nothing is true and everything is permitted. It makes me laugh.
So. Assassin's Creed 2 reccomendation is, if you enjoyed the first one then you will probably like this. If you have no idea, then pick up the first one, this one is better, but the first one is dirt cheap now. If you want to follow the plot you will NEED to have played the first one (the plot is not good enough to warrant following, but it is kind of there, so I have to). There is lots of plot stuff hinted at and hidden away from you in obscure historical reference talked about in morse code or just straight up substitution code, but fuck that. The game certainly isn't worth THAT much effort to decipher a plot point that they will beat me over the head with in the next game and I could see coming in the first game.
Edit - Oh yeah I didn't note this last time I posted about it. The change in venue from the middle east to Italy does wonders for keeping the interest in a longer game. I pretty much bought it for stabbing and for jumping around Venice. Jumping around Venice was totally worth it and I got Florence as a bonus. Some other shitty places to do as well (Tuscanny was depressingly generic), but hey, still fin.
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It's arguably a shame the system is so simple otherwise (hey look it's Dragon Quest) but oh well. It's hardly going to be a great game but it seems to succeed at what it sets out to do well enough. Currently in Flora's castle.
That's basically Oz in a nutshell. Once I started thinking about the system, I realized it could go a lot further than it did, but all the choices the game made were quite conscious. It also helps the game is so short, which also side-steps one of DQ's biggest problems on averag e- honestly, I think the idea they had with the game was "hey let's make a classic DQ-style game for people who want to get acquainted with RPGs, only without the mass DQ bullshit and complete lack of polish". Also, how's the movement scheme going for you?
EDIT: The game HAS one stupid part, which lies in its minimal aftergame (fourth Father Dragon forms, which have MT overkill to Tin Man-level durability at endgame levels), in fairness. But it's completely ignorable and only there for the grindans of the universe.
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Wouldn't be the first game I liked well enough that I decided to give the aftergame the finger to.
And yes, it seems to sidestep DQ's two biggest problems, those being "our battle system is the same recycled unimpressive effort from two decades ago" and "we fail at pacing forever, here have a few dozen fetchquests".
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SSF4 - My conection cut out once which cost me 200 points which is anger inducing but besides that a had a meh day. Highlight of the day was Corkscrew Crossing someone who thought it a good idea to try and Raging Demon Dudley. Demon got pwned by british boxing skills 8-)
Currently ranked 12th as Dudley in the Uk, 66th in Europe.
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SMT SJ: Just finished the stuff with the Lightning and am going back to the 6th sector to finish it up. The story is excellent, but the gameplay is less dynamic than some of the other games in the series. However, most of the SMT series bullshit seems to be absent from the game. The damage seems to be lower than most of the games in the series and to compensate the healing skills are weaker, but Diarahan and Mediarahan are still full heals so now that I've got a few demons with them very few enemies have threatening damage. The last boss had almost almost scary damage, but gun resistance would have shut it down completely.
Demons are less interesting than in the other games because they usually only have a few abilities, but the demon source system is pretty interesting and makes it easy to get abilities which negate a demons weakness. It also encourages using a wide array of demons to get their sources which is also cool. The sub app system is a bit of a letdown though. It would be better if they just did away with rings and used the sub app system to give the main character support abilities and have him gain points as he levels. Overall the game is worth playing for the story alone, but don't expect too much from the gameplay.
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SMTSJ: Actually at the exact same damn spot dude789's in!
And... mmm. I'm kinda in disagreement with you. Not on the damage thing (they fubar'd Mediarama/Diarama -bad- and so screwed up and had to give you Diarahan/Mediarahan relatively early, which yeah does skew midgame difficulty outside of the section 4/5 bosses who don't rely on their damage so much), but the demon/demon fusion/demon source/gameplay.
I'm actually pretty well enjoying the gameplay, in part due to the limited options - one demon rarely can cover everything in the universe, which is nice - and will definitely agree that the demon source system encouraging swapping demons is a plus, at least to me. This being said, I'm not fond of use it and lose it pretty much permanently; having the reclamation of used sources be easier would have been very much appreciated. Demon fusion as a result's a lot more tactical, and the fact that that gives fixed results is both somewhat saddening and useful.
Subapp system... mmm, I can see your complaint, but it forces you to consider what you actually want - a chance to give your demons better stuff on levels, trap floor negation, better demon negotiation... Iunno. I feel it's actually a pretty neat concept that worked out, if not perfectly, at least decently well.
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I don't think that the gameplay's bad just that it's not as good as the press turn system or P3 and 4's systems. As for demons being more one dimensional, it has advantages and disadvantages. It does encourage different party set ups. I've used a bunch of different types of teams including one that was very heal heavy and one that could hit a bunch of elements but lacked a lot of healing and they were all pretty close in effectiveness. The disadvantage is that enemies are pretty easy to shut down and it inflates demons who can get a lot of resistances because enemy demons can only hit one or two elements.
As for the sub-app system, I think they really needed to scale up the points for it to work better and some of the abilities needed a big price drop. 10 points is just two restrictive when some of the more expensive apps cost 7 or more points. Generally, I only use three apps (relax spray, the one that gives you extra items after battle, and the one that lowers the rate of surprises) aside from the ones that alter fusion results and I don't really see myself changing them that often.
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I don't think that the gameplay's bad just that it's not as good as the press turn system or P3 and 4's systems.
Doesn't look too good for SMT:SJ gameplay if it loses out in comparison to press turns - which are honestly a poor design idea that creates a bad balance limitation.
Also, in general, besides the short stint where all you have is Dia/Media, SMT games tend to have healing close enough to full and plentiful enough sources to get it from that slugfesting is generally a complete failure against you unless enemies have OHKO-level offense. It does happen in SMT, of course, and SMT has never been shy about using non-damage related hax, but healing having screwed-up balance has been a part of SMT for god knows how long.
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Ehhhh I am not one to defend SMT gameplay at the best of times, but I wouldn't necessarilly call Press Turns poor design, it does what they want it to and it gives them lots of options (It is a good way to enable enemies to triple act), getting press turns on crits that still do 2x damage is overly punishing as is losing a turn because you missed, but the basic concept of getting extra turns for doing the right thing tm is an interesting gameplay twist on a more standard TB combat system. I mean I certainly would have been completely bored out of my skull if DDS had done a Dragon Quest on us and kept using the exact same TB system it has been using since the early 90s with the original SMT. It isn't a huge change, but it is different enough to keep it fresh (and of course being SMT the presentation of the system is incredibly modern where DQ is still trying to be 8-bit menu systems.
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Press Turns aren't such a bad thing when its purely "Hit weakness, get rewarded, hit resistance, get punished" style; its a way to reward someone for doing something right in a more extreme manner, and vice versa, punishes you for making screw ups. It forces you to actually learn your enemies and adapt and what not, rather than just go "oops, minor screw up cause I forgot, whoops ^^;"
Press Turns for random factors are stupid though; the series is bad enough for random shit that can kick your ass and there's nothing you can do about it ("Ambushed -> Team is status'd IDed lul, you suck start over" comes to mind), so adding MORE to that is just UGH HATE. Rewarding you for good luck or punishing you cause the RNG hates you...the fact that you miss/do more damage is enough of a reward/punishment. This wouldn't be as bad if the game had failsafes like "This move always hits, but it will never crit!" such that can be used as alternatives, but I'm pretty sure even Magic slams evade, you get punished for that, and Magic can't hit crit, good job there.
Thing is, SMT games like to screw this up by forcing Trial and Error on bosses anyway cause your scan sucks, and you end up being punished as a result. Pretty stupid especially when you get a move reflected back at you; so now you're not only taking damage from your own attack when you have no clue what to use, but you lost a turn? Fantastic...
Seriously, Press Turns aren't bad in and of themselves, but like everything, SMT loves to just not do the simple, easy approach and instead have to do their usual fuck ups to make the system seem worse than it is.
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I don't think that the gameplay's bad just that it's not as good as the press turn system or P3 and 4's systems.
Doesn't look too good for SMT:SJ gameplay if it loses out in comparison to press turns - which are honestly a poor design idea that creates a bad balance limitation.
Also, in general, besides the short stint where all you have is Dia/Media, SMT games tend to have healing close enough to full and plentiful enough sources to get it from that slugfesting is generally a complete failure against you unless enemies have OHKO-level offense. It does happen in SMT, of course, and SMT has never been shy about using non-damage related hax, but healing having screwed-up balance has been a part of SMT for god knows how long.
Like Grefter, I think that the press turn system was pretty solid design. It rewarded you for playing smartly and is one of the few systems in rpgs where non-healing defense plays almost as big a role as offense. Also, while SMT healing is effective it usually needed to be because enemies could do a bunch of damage if they got the drop on you and started hitting weaknesses. As far as SJ the dia and diarama skills have been drastically weakened. Dia spells start off healing for about 30 and diarama for about 70, but it was pretty well balanced because enemies do less damage. When you get access to Diarahan though the enemies offense starts to suck, Mediarama still does a fairly good job of keeping up with the enemeis damage, and your characters are starting to get hp in the 300-400 range. Unlike the other games, enemies can't capitalize on press turns or one mores to make up the difference.
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DDS puts saves in front of bosses, so a little trial and error on them isn't that big a deal, is it? I prefer bosses that take a little figuring out to scan, hit weakness, win easily, repeat. Also, by the time ambushes can do you serious damage, there's plenty you can do about them, such as increasing luck or equipping anti-ambush skills. Part of the strategy of DDS is risk management; planning a strategy that minimizes the damage when luck goes against you. The game gives you a variety of tools to accomplish those goals: being able to pass for 1/2 press turn, dictating your side's order, etc.
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Meanwhile, I prefer the SJ system over P3/4 press turns - no annoying hax bullshit on enemy side, PC side can't auto hax win but does get rewarded for hitting weakness. (The system being that hitting weakness is about a 1.25x damage boost (this varies, because Atlus fails at making things consistent); the PC side can, if it has more than one unit of the type hitting weakness, do a follow-up attack for okay damage. Enemy side gets no such bonus, in part possibly because your main character often has a weakness of some sort and that'd just have been stupid. Main death = game over is enough of a balance there, if not still slanted towards enemies.
Also, your main character is a healing god in SMTSJ (again, they kinda failed at balancing non-full heals). ...just ST for most of the game, when most threatening offense is MT anyway. So.
(Media is 40 HP healing. Mediarama is 80. You have more than 80 HP easily by the third area which is just getting out of earlygame, enemy offense keeps up with your HP over Mediarama easily from my own experience. Sooo yeah.)
In fairness, though, enemy offense from randoms has been in a lull overall since sector 5, IMO? So I can see dude's complaint, sure, just... there's still been resets for me, demons still die, etc., so I'm not terribly concerned. It's easier than normal but hardly not challenging, the bosses definitely see to that.
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Ehhhh I am not one to defend SMT gameplay at the best of times, but I wouldn't necessarilly call Press Turns poor design, it does what they want it to and it gives them lots of options (It is a good way to enable enemies to triple act), getting press turns on crits that still do 2x damage is overly punishing as is losing a turn because you missed, but the basic concept of getting extra turns for doing the right thing tm is an interesting gameplay twist on a more standard TB combat system.
Yeah, I even see your point there - it's a twist that makes the idea less dull. On the other hand, this seriously limits the sorts of weaknesses bosses get, particularly in P3-4. They can't give stronger enemies like bosses weaknesses lest they want them to fail hardcore - even in DDS, giving bosses weaknesses that can be exploited made them pretty bad, and the few P3-4 bosses who -had- weaknesses failed beyond belief. It's a mechanic that exists solely for randoms on the PC offense strategy end, and it's rather broken as it stands. It also overemphasizes elemental weaknesses in lieu of other stratagems. I guess calling it poor design flat out is a bit unfair, but it's a very limiting choice in the long run that ultimately lowers the game's depth from a design standpoint unless implemented in a very tight manner.
Also:
DDS puts saves in front of bosses, so a little trial and error on them isn't that big a deal, is it?
The problem with DDS trial and error isn't on bosses, who are almost universally colossal wimps, it's on randoms, who borderline require scanning anyway and are the ones who tend to hax you out over and over from missing/critting.
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I can't speak for press turn system in P3-4 since I haven't played 4 and my opinion on 3 is well documented (from memory that made it so the enemy like lost its turn? Yeah that isn't really the Press Turn system that was interesting enough in SMT3 and DDS). So those are not really going to be a part of my argument.
Shock at shitty game with shitty shit shit gameplay and shitty everything being shitty though.
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I think the biggest issue with DDS was punishing hitting resists too harshly (... did they also penalize you for misses? I can't remember, if they did that can fuck right off). You do have to play around to figure out each enemy, so punishing you harshly for experimenting is pretty dumb.
That said, like so many games DDS suffers from "utter dull sloggy slog until FINALLY there's a boss fight. Boss fight is fun". Well, that and non-existent plot pacing, but that's outside the scope of this discussion.
Edit: I felt like Oz, in addition to the Ratio thing, also rose above the DQ mold via character variety. Except... well, like I said at the time I felt like the game ended just when it was getting into full swing, that way. The late skills are really a lot cooler than the early one and it's too bad you don't get another dungeon or so (complete with boss, off course) to really play with them. I suppose there is aftergame but I get the distinct impression that doesn't even count and is an exercise in hunting down rare equips, not abusing abusable battle system and broken skills.
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I think the biggest issue with DDS was punishing hitting resists too harshly (... did they also penalize you for misses? I can't remember, if they did that can fuck right off).
Yes they did! DDS is a sterling example on how to do annoying design on purpose.
EDIT:
As for Oz, you get... two dungeons to play with the endgame skills (Snow Castle and Yellow Brick Road), which honestly feels enough (frankly, more and it'd have gotten kinda boring anyway. Game knows when to end). Three if you're nuts, but if you grinded to the point you beat Ju Kaku 2 -before- Holly, I don't think the rest of the game will really stand up to you very well.
EDIT 2: On the other hand, the later game skills -are- funner than the earlygame ones. You start getting the more interesting stuff by Gou Yoku and Ju Kaku gives you the cream of the crop for all but Strawman, and even he gets Purifying Wind out of Ju Kaku (and, if nothing else, dispel is crucial against Ju Kaku 2 -and- Oz). Strawman's biggest money, as far as I'm concerned, lies on Tomato Bomb and First Wind. Fox Hunt is neat, but its synergy gets expensive for randoms and, besides Protea and Ju Kaku, WAoO bosses draw their strongest offense from magic. I also like Plunder, but its inaccuracy at stealing is a bit of a downer (oh well, it deals acceptable damage).
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Hm. I remember only getting the final skills right before Protea, myself. Though obviously you can get them earlier. Or ... yaeh, I think I did the penultimate skills for Holly, then the final for Protea.
I just remember fighting Oz and feeling like "heyyyy, I can do some cool shit now" then realizing the game was over. It was sorta sad.
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DDS only penalized you if you hit Nulls or higher, I think. resistance, you just did less damage, shrugged and moved on; you didn't lose Press Turns there. The same applied to PCs; a resisted attack merely means you take less, the enemies don't lose turns.
This is why those Void spells were so significant, cause yeah, MT Ice Move still hits Serph, but resisting means shit for Press Turns; Nulling, now, that's a big deal!
But yeah, doesn't change the fact that the game punishes you for having to experiment and one slight futz up can kill you in an SMT if the game hates you enough.
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On the other hand, this seriously limits the sorts of weaknesses bosses get, particularly in P3-4. They can't give stronger enemies like bosses weaknesses lest they want them to fail hardcore - even in DDS, giving bosses weaknesses that can be exploited made them pretty bad, and the few P3-4 bosses who -had- weaknesses failed beyond belief.
They can and did. By making them have low HP and resisting all elements besides their "weak" elements. P3 had a few bosses like this. Not to mention the "weakness" tag is separate from how much damage they take anyway.
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Those were still completely mauled by just weakness-locking them. "Lest they want to fail hardcore" clause applies. Less so in P4, but it didn't help much.
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Well, as I recall it had a scale. Hitting a null lost you one press turn, hitting a reflect two, hitting an absorb three. Considering that in the latter two cases you just hurt yourself or healed the enemy, additional penalties seem excessive. The merits of losing an attack when hitting a null of any sort is debatable, but more than one is clearly excessive.
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You are full of it on this one, Snow. P4 had some goddamn hard bosses, and some of the hardest ones were the ones with elemental weaknesses. They had both the durability to deal with hitting a weakness, and the ability to hit weaknesses back at you.
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And I guess that's part of why I like SJ a lot - the only bosses who've lacked elemental weaknesses are the ones I'd expect to for spoiler reasons. Everything else has had a weakness you could actually use to speed up fights with, but it doesn't terribly maul their durability because you don't get extra turns, just an extra bonus smack in if you meet the conditions.
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Bosses having weaknesses matter far less in Persona 4. They were immune to stun, so you just got the one more/all out attack out of it. Even if they could be stunned, that's just one turn off before they come back and attack again.
This is because Persona 3 did not work this way. You didn't have to hit weakness twice and inflict a special status to keep enemies down; recovering from being knocked down consumed a turn. While hitting a knocked down enemy removed Knocked Down status, well... the abuse should be obvious. And this is why they had to make Persona 3 bosses they didn't want to be jokes (say, Nyx Avatar) immune to knock down status; otherwise they never got turns. But this also meant that the entire Once more system was effectively removed, which is dumb of course since without that you're basically DQ level.
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You are full of it on this one, Snow. P4 had some goddamn hard bosses, and some of the hardest ones were the ones with elemental weaknesses. They had both the durability to deal with hitting a weakness, and the ability to hit weaknesses back at you.
Which strong boss in P4 had weaknesses? The baby plant in Kanji's dungeon revisited certainly didn't qualify. None of the plot bosses were saddled with elemental weaknesses - only resistances and immunities. The hardest optional dungeon boss was Crimson King, which had no weaknesses either. Shadow Yosuke and Shadow Chie were utter trash - although maybe the Knight with borderline OHKO damage has a weakness (don't think he did - he was kinda frail to begin with, with a weakness that durability issue would've been more pronounced). The mid-dungeon bosses were generally unimpressive, and those would be the ones that have weaknesses - and they start getting noticeably bad by the Strip Club. Of course, hitting weakness in P4 matters less, but I digress.
Some randoms had durability enough to not get insta-owned by getting their weakness hit, but it mattered less in P4 with you getting One Mores by hitting any weakness in the fray, so even hitting a single weakness gave you an extra go against the entire enemy group, re-emphasizing the ownage of MT against randoms.
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Those were still completely mauled by just weakness-locking them. "Lest they want to fail hardcore" clause applies. Less so in P4, but it didn't help much.
No no no no.
The bosses had no "weakness". They were strong to most elements and neutral to others, and had low HP to compensate. It simulates a "weakness" without letting you weakness lock them.
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Those were still completely mauled by just weakness-locking them. "Lest they want to fail hardcore" clause applies. Less so in P4, but it didn't help much.
No no no no.
The bosses had no "weakness". They were strong to most elements and neutral to others, and had low HP to compensate. It simulates a "weakness" without letting you weakness lock them.
Oh, sure - and that's a fair enough point - but that -still- undermines the actual press turns system set for weaknesses altogether, which was supposed to be the differential for modern SMT. Setting the knockdown/press turn weakness system on bosses does them an inordinate amount of ill, which is a problem when the game itself sets its bases heavily on this system.
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Press Turns and One Mores still work against the PCs. Instead of thinking of the system only as something to abuse, it's also another challenge to overcome.
Still better than DQ.
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Still chugging away at Valkyria aftergame; got A rankings in all the story maps. The hard missions are hard, really enjoying them.
Playing FF1 for the PSP; I've never actually played any version of the game all the way through before. Just finished the first run through the Earth Cave. Enjoying it, although it's certainly not a game I would ever really notice in this day and age.
Went Fighter/Thief/White Mage/Black Mage, for no particular reason other than it seemed a good way to experience the range the game has to offer (full range of spells, close to full range of equipment). Probably shoulda gone Fighter/Black Belt/Thief/Red Mage to suit how I seem to be playing the game, but anyhow. I doubt I'll replay it.
Really just an artifact of its age, of course, but the lack of class diversity feels pretty strange... There's exactly one heavy armour class, one medium armour class, one light armour class, and two (!) non-armoured classes. That's weird, to me, and it's strange that when I pick up medium armour it has no conceivable use other than selling. Dunno why, just feels like something that wouldn't happen in a modern game. We have become weak.
(so weak that we play pansyass watered-down versions of games where you actually retarget if the enemy you'd chosen to attack dies in the interim, rather than stabbing the air like a man)
Game desperately needs an autobattle function.
Thief is probably the lvp so far; slight offense advantage over the fighter just doesn't make up for the gap in durability.
I'm inclined to hoard MP, which makes White Mage and Black Mage seem kinda useless sometimes, but Black Mage dishes so much pain when I remember to try that I forgive her, and there really just aren't realistic MP shortage issues when her magic is used with any amount of discretion.
Money's so tight early in the game that White Mage gets something of a pass just for saving on potions and status healing and whatnot, but MP is more of an issue there, definitely, and she feels a lot like dead-weight limping out of dungeons without MP. Lots of undead enemies early in the game help, though, and spells like Life plus more affordable ethers will keep me interested later on, I'm sure.
Fighter is solid, no complaints. Beats out thief for offense during some agility windows. He'd be expensive to maintain, except even old armour gives him such ludicrous durability (basically nulls damage that 3-5hkos other party members, plus shield evade and decent class evade) that it seems less pertinent. Plus you get quite a bit of equipment from treasure chests. Total mvp, hard to see how this'd change.
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Do note that FF1 PSP is watered down in difficulty in more ways than you can imagine (at least, I believe its the same as the GBA version with one aftergame dungeon and BETTAR GRAFIX!), so keep that in mind when people complain about things that you may find hard to understand, such as "The game is really hard!" or whatever. This applies for a comparison against the NES version and Origins one.
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SH2 - HEY GUYZE YURI HAS A JOKER FUSION AND A GACKT FUSION
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Do note that FF1 PSP is watered down in difficulty in more ways than you can imagine (at least, I believe its the same as the GBA version with one aftergame dungeon and BETTAR GRAFIX!), so keep that in mind when people complain about things that you may find hard to understand, such as "The game is really hard!" or whatever. This applies for a comparison against the NES version and Origins one.
Definitely understood. I've played quite a bit of the original version, though I never finished it. I was young enough that any evaluation I might have of its difficulty is suspect, of course (years before I got stuck on Ultros, both his first and second forms :P), but the differences are still pretty evident.
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the knight is the boss I'm thinking of, yeah. I didn't find bosses to really get easy in any sense until after Mitsuo and even then you could wipe if you had bad luck. P4's weakness system is cool because most of the fights have some way to crack them, which you need to do since randoms are very competent until late in the game. Ignoring Adachi and Shadow Teddie, I don't think any of the bosses were really cakewalks unless you have Trumpeer or Yoshi for the final arc. The dungeons are very good at draining resources even when you know what you doing, and that fucking thief of a fox only becomes reasonable later on.
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MK2- Haha. This game is so unbalanced. Just got Enna. Kinda.
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Gate and Tai play Trickster
Chapter 1: Musical Bunnygirl Gate and Suicide Driller Foxtoro in the case of The Extremely Stubborn Octopi.
Fairly generic, if entertaining MMO. May have only been entertaining because I was playing with Tai, but. Made a bunny for my char(Gate punches things. Shock.) and when Tai heard he decided to make a fox to play along with. 4 power/4 charm for my build, spread my bonus points around for the first 10 levels but focused 3 into AP and 1 into Weight ever since I actually read up on build ideas for a bunny. Did a whole bunch of quests, got up to level 28, cheated a bit with Tai snagging stuff from his higher leveled Dragon to help, but whatever.
Most memorable quests were the ones dealing with Hula Octopi. They have like 5 different drops, and absolutely REFUSED to drop any of whichever one we were trying to get for me. Tai had much less trouble of course. The thing to note is that this happened twice. First we were trying to get 15 flower necklaces each, and Tai ended up having to give me 9 since he got 24 faster then I could get 10. And not becuase he killed things faster, oh no. I was killing these bastards left and right, and they would drop anything and everything BUT flower necklaces.
THen later we discovered that we needed Octopus Legs as well. So back we went. And it very nearly happened again. This time, they dropped flower necklaces left and right! The first three drops in a row I got were necklaces, in fact. And the legs became the rare drop...for me.
I did end up getting 3 Hula Octopus cards during all this, which I'm told is a good thing.
Oh, and to explain the "title" up there, my bunny is named CarbonLeaf after the band, while Tai's fox is RopesIntoMines.
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FF 13- Up to the middle of the Airship dungeon. Game plots along nicely, although sometimes when it tries to do serious plot it comes out as an overmelodic joke. So far it's done decent at avoiding stagnation in it's battle system, although it would have done really well for chapters 4-6 to be 20-25% shorter. Lightning smashes worlds.
ToV- Just beat the tower. Barbatos would have been an awesome fight if he kept his aqua-powered chain saw (I mean...the fight was decent enough anyways! But would have been fun to see him lugging that around). But solid boss fights are something the game has done very well except for the hell wolf of course! Fun game, although very Tales. I was very, very, very happy to see the general scene after the Tower (And generally, seeing RPG heroes act like grownups capable of making tough decisions is great. Even if the decision was only made because of stupid non-sensical law systems!). Generally thinking that party now is going to be Yuri/Judy/Estelle/Rita. Seems like in terms of other fighter PCs that aren't Yuri, Repede has the speed, Judy has the combos, Karol has some smashing and gets some durability stuff earlier and light healing, and Raven has versatility (magic, range, status)? That covers it well?
Banter attempts sometime come off as really odd and stilted. Some of Estelle-Yuri's end battle interactions just have ceased after being thrown out once. She's naive, not an imbecile!
Oh yeah, battle system feels like it has too many damn buttons. Fatal Strikes are very unforgiving time wise. Does this alter at all? (As if my wall of text and likely horrid grammar will even let people get to this question!)
Also mentioned this in chat, but yeeee gods that is a horrible fail on the singer's part on the intro song. Well, the translation is pretty bad too. Just really stands out because the voice acting is great, but the intro song was translated via Babelfish and the singer clearly couldn't speak any English.
Finally, no scene skip? Am I missing the method? There are games that still don't have this?
LO- So reminiscent of LoD in a lot of ways. From weird battle specific things like timed hits (Although...I hate LO's system. Why make a timed hit system where you have to hold a button down and then release it? Why not just hit the button at the right time. And then have it in a turn based system where you won't know exactly when the person is acting. Yeah, stupid planning/obvious flaw), the overall clunkiness, and the fact that it's the system makers attempts to make an expensive high-powered RPG (Okay, maybe that alone makes the other comparisons feel so much larger).
Up to the mountains. Something about the game makes it feel very directionless (Well, the city part felt like I had to run around too much. Mountain part...I seemed to have hit a notable dead end). Maps in the game suck badly. Town maps that don't auto note things like shops and inn when the game's graphics don't make it fully evident? I uh...well, that's actually really weird.
I really, really like the music so far. I also like that the game was able to mention sex, even if it a throwaway! Just because making games where adults can be adult in some manner=great.
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when it tries to do serious plot it comes out as an overmelodic joke.
FF13s harmonies during plot sequences suck big ones. Barber Shop is not a unique storytelling style no matter how much you want to pretend it is. Seriously, this game can't do anything right.
ToV stuff, generally right. I think there might be scene skip for specific sequences? Probably just the animu ones. Fatal Strikes are more forgiving than they seem, to do them you need to not be tied up in a move, so it is very easy to pull off either off an ally's attack, but with attacks that have a longer animation for the attack than the character they are relatively easy as well. The timing off of Destruction Field is pretty tight though (especially a long range one), which that early in the game was certainly where I was seeing the majority of my Finishing Strikes pop up.
The opening song is very meh and should be skipped to quickly get to the menu where the music will turn off because you have muted the music because ToV is far more advanced than that Square shit and lets me make it shut the fuck up like a civilised game so that I can put on something made by someone with talent (Joking about how bad either OST is, but I would much rather listen to my CD collection than someone elses).
Edit - Not joking about how bad the opening song is.
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FE10- Just finished 1-7, the one Tormod joins on. I am trying to beat the fail out of Fiona and get her to decent- BEXPed her to level 15, and used a master seal on her. Ended up benching meg- she had gained one point of defense in six levels and no strength on top of bad skill, making her a painful liability in spite of good speed. Frustrating.
Main team is Michiah/Nolan/Zihark/Volug/Sothe/Ilyana/Jill, with me trying to beat the fail out of Fiona. Laura I used a master seal on and gave her paragon, so she has a nice level lead. She has 19 motherfucking HP which... *checks* Means she's gained a whole one HP on levels! Sigh.
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Snow finally has a SHC yay *^_^*
FFXIII- Defeated a Long Gui and mastered the SEN role for two more achievements to bring my total up to 26/35. I've come this far, I might as well go for them all >.> Now that I've finished doing silly things like defeating Attacus and Long Gui (Vanille 1660~ MAG, Lighning and Sazh both with STR below 1000, didn't quite manage to defeat Gui within one stagger though and had to use an Elixir to reuse Vanille's summon) using extremely low stats I think it's time to start uberising characters for the Master's Seal ^_^
I thought that Chapters 4-6 were fine (probably because I like Vanille/Sazh >.>) but that Chapter 7 was overtly long >.> Even though I like Snow ^_^ Chapters 9/10 are fairly lengthy as well but at least things start picking up there with party choice and set ups (YMMV)~
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I'm sure the song wasn't translated at all and that's the actual problem.
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The translation is horrid, but that doesn't change the fact that the singer can't speak English.
And when I say that chapters in FF 13 should be shorter, I don't mean plotwise. I mean battlewise, because the plot structuring in all the chapters and 4-6 really blurs together to much, so it just feels like a large mess smashed together. Granted, 1 and 2 also need to be shorter because the gameplay is lackluster at that point! Granted, 1's plot structuring has soooooo many issues otherwise. Throwing someone into action straight-off is cool, but not when it necessitates a first time game player to read that much backstory on their own to get any basis on what the hell is going on.
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Oh yeah, battle system feels like it has too many damn buttons. Fatal Strikes are very unforgiving time wise. Does this alter at all? (As if my wall of text and likely horrid grammar will even let people get to this question!)
FS timing is easy, you just have to realize that the ARROW has to appear. Not the colored circle, but the actual arrow. Don't just jam the button the second you see a color flash and you'll be good.
Finally, no scene skip? Am I missing the method? There are games that still don't have this?
PS3 version had this... along with a whole host of other stuff. 360 version was practically the Beta.
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Quote
Finally, no scene skip? Am I missing the method? There are games that still don't have this?
PS3 version had this... along with a whole host of other stuff. 360 version was practically the Beta
More like the PS3 version was your typical "international" bullshit that adds in a bunch of content to make the new release seem more appealing. ToV 360 is complete enough as is, don't go trying to claim it has a bajillion polish flaws that the PS3 version worked out, cause it clearly does not. Its merely the usual "Extra Goodies!" stuff, with a few extra minor tweaks. If you want a game that's "practically a beta", go look at SaGa Frontier.
(IOWs, yes, we get it, you're annoyed we didn't get ToV PS3, just suck it up and move on; this isn't the first time we've been screwed over from a superior version of a game...and I doubt it will be the last.)
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Man, I love that ToV opening song. I love it even more knowing that Grefter hates it.
Suikoden Tierkreis: 54/108 Starbearers. I'm just going to assume that means that I'm at the halfway point in the story too.
Story is starting to become obvious what direction a lot of the twists are going to go... and they seem like they'll be good twists as long as the characters continue to be just as perceptive as any player would be from all the information they have.
I'm particularly starting to like the main (though his voice is still grating). It was actually pretty cool when he sees through the Mage Lord's attempt at manipulation before it became entirely obvious what the guy was up to (it was obvious he was trying to manipulate the Main and Chrodechild's companies, but the exact nature of it wasn't obvious until the Main was already fixing it).
I'm still a little sad that they couldn't have tied this story a little more to the original games (especially considering the multiple-worlds setting, they could have at least given us Viki as some background color).
...However, the addition of a talking Main character is such a great improvement, that I would definitely buy a Suikoden Tierkreis 2.
Gameplaywise, I just recruited some witch who creates illusionary optional bosses that I can refight at my leisure from my homebase. In addition to finally having a good source for levelling up all my PCs (I won't, but I can catch up the ones I wanted to try out), they're also the first bit of challenge the game has thrown at me and it actually made me think about party-building and some fighting strategies.
Kind of curious why other Suikoden games didn't have someone like her...
Recruitment is almost complete FAQ-bait, but a bit more fun than anything else the gameplay has to offer. There are a LOT of playable PCs in this, holy crap. I have 54 PCs and like 6 of them are Support PCs. The other 48 are all 100% playable. Previous Suikodens were more like 60-40% distribution between 'I fight' and 'I'm a Castle decoration'. This really borders on too much, I wanna say. Currently using the hot female Pirate chick and... hell I forget, the hot female Pirate chick is just -really- distractingly beautiful.
http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/6/69742/1199889-felecca_large.jpg
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Call of Duty 4-I picked up the PC version when it was half off on Steam, so...
Great game. Very polished, very fun, lots of well made setpieces and action. Even the obligatory stealth section was fun! Story was alright, I guess. Infinity Ward had major balls, what with the nuke level. My only real complaint is that it was very short (~10 hours or so). Tried going through again on Veteran but I don't think I'm going to keep trying, it's irritating having to run through everything over and over again and hoping this time I don't randomly die from like one bullet from a terrorist halfway across the level. Tried the multiplayer for a few rounds and it's...interesting, though the fact you have to level up to get better weapons irritates me. Guess I'll troll through my Steam Games list and see if there's anything I haven't played yet that I want to.
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ToV 360 is complete enough as is, don't go trying to claim it has a bajillion polish flaws that the PS3 version worked out, cause it clearly does not.
Not having scene skip in this day and age is a pretty glaring omission, on the other hand.
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The translation is horrid, but that doesn't change the fact that the singer can't speak English./
Well, what I meant was "I'm sure the song is completely unaltered from the Japanese version of the game". So of COURSE the singer can't speak English >.>
Why the Japanese like their engrish singers I dunno. It's not like they don't have access to some native speakers that can sing competently.
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Except...the song has a Japanese version and I've actually seen the video with the japanese cut?
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Interesting. I wonder if they didn't get the original singer then, it has all the hallmarks of a non-native singer.
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The singer is Bonnie Pink, the album was released before the game came out in Japan with both versions of the song.
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The singer is Bonnie Pink, the album was released before the game came out in Japan with both versions of the song.
Now with a fake name in a language she can't speak!
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"Blue jeans on fire
Chevrolet Elvis
Blue jeans on fire
New York!"
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ToV 360 is complete enough as is, don't go trying to claim it has a bajillion polish flaws that the PS3 version worked out, cause it clearly does not.
Not having scene skip in this day and age is a pretty glaring omission, on the other hand.
I don't second Rob too often, but damned if I'm not doing it vigourously now.
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Even Bioware RPGs where cutscenes are kinda part of the gameplay let you sceneskip (well, it lets you mash X/Xvariant through them). An RPG where the cutscenes are movies? Sceneskip can definitely break a game. Hell, I may well have replayed FFX if I could cut through all the bullshit and get at that CTB system.
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While I generally agree that lack of Sceneskip is stupid (though, ToV is not the only one at fault here, but that doesn't justify it either), I was mostly just going "stop bitching about the other things." Lack of scene skip? Ok, fair, but I don't see how that makes it "practically a beta."
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The singer is Bonnie Pink, the album was released before the game came out in Japan with both versions of the song.
Now with a fake name in a language she can't speak!
Better or worse than something like Ke$ha?
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The singer is Bonnie Pink, the album was released before the game came out in Japan with both versions of the song.
Now with a fake name in a language she can't speak!
Better or worse than something like Ke$ha?
At least she opens herself up for scorn like "Kedollarsignha."
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Final Fantasy 13
I've been playing this very intermittently since launch, wrapping up Pulse now. I like almost everything about it, with three glaring exceptions: the series-worst-by-far music, the ridiculous faq-bait weapon leveling, and the pacing.
Oh, Principle, the pacing.
Part of the problem is probably coming to it straight from Wild ARMs 5, which nailed pacing almost the entire way through, but it's still onerous even compared to an average game. Battles take too long, there are too many battles, dungeons are too long, dungeons are too repetitive, gameplay concepts take too long to show up, gameplay concepts aren't numerous or unintuitive enough to justify the time it takes to introduce them.
Cut every significant gameplay sequence by half, halve XP requirements in the crystarium, halve item costs, and even though the game would be significantly shorter I'd feel like I got more of my money's worth from it.
Sakura Wars: So Long My Love
Haven't done much with this due to FF13/lack of time. And yet, I've encountered more anime cliches distilled in the first chapter than in all the anime I've ever watched combined. I don't think it's intended to be exaggerated to the point of parody, but quite frankly it comes across that way. Amusing, nonetheless.
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I like the CP requirements for the Crystarium. Granted, they could get a lot worse, but I basically max at everything by the end of the chapter and have to choose well during it. If anything, I wouldn't mind if they were slightly increased at my point in the game (or...just make 10-20% fewer randoms would work too!)
LO- ARGHHHHHHHH WORM BOSS. This took me forever to beat. Seriously, just the absurdity of this being the second boss in the game with horrible healing. Eventually won with only my main living and throwing items (Which...well, it appears that the speed of magic items is far better than spells, which is pretty questionable design decision unless the attack items are worse damage).
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FF13 battles were pretty short for me... I'd finish most random battles within like a minute, which is pretty damn good for RPGs. Also you can uh evade battles if you don't want to fight all of them. The game even gives you extra tools to do so.
Also, if you didn't expect lots of anime cliches when you got Sakura Wars I don't know what to say.
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NIER - Done with other half of the quests and finally getting along in plot. Bosses are still pretty fun. Previous one started out with a bullet hell form, and then started shooting lasers which was kind of a pain in the ass. Also spinning. Lots of spinning.
Also one of the plot arcs has you basically playing mini visual novels. Only one is required but doing the two optional ones gets you a new sword (which isn't very good anyway). They were entertaining to read/play though, so no big deal.
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Dhyer, what is this LO game? I can't think of anything with those initials.
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Dhyer, what is this LO game? I can't think of anything with those initials.
Presumably Lost Odyssey.
Anyway...
Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Republic Heroes - This game is obviously designed for a younger audience than myself, since even on the hardest setting it's been a cakewalk from the start. The game has focused too much on the characters I don't like (Ahsoka, Anakin) and not enough on the characters I do (Obi-Wan, the clones). It's at least an adequate time waster.
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SSF4 - Yesterday I decided to make 30 endless lobbies to get the trophy regarding doing as such. I did not get it yesterday due to my policy of taking on all comers till I lost but I'm not complaining. It seems I hit quite a groove because I smashed 26 people (in a row :)) and caused two people to rage quit the game.
I've recently added the move thunderbolt to my game because while somewhat crappy people just don't expect you to use it. I actually knocked out someone who was running away spamming Hadukens with it as they didn't expect Dudley to randomly fly into the air and kick their arse.
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LFT: Right before Goug. Put this on pause of late to play more...
FE10- Just finished 1-9. No idea who my kill leader is- probably Zihark? Maybe Volug, I should check.
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FF13 battles were pretty short for me... I'd finish most random battles within like a minute, which is pretty damn good for RPGs. Also you can uh evade battles if you don't want to fight all of them. The game even gives you extra tools to do so.
The flaw being that my insanity dictates on basically all RPGs with this type of encounter system that the most accurate levels are obtained by fighting every enemy group once (and ideally once only!).
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Have fun once you get to Pulse then, cause distinguishing a group that respawned with one that happened to run over to your general area can get tricky!
That said, yeah, FF13 battles for me were also generally short. There were a few lengthy ones, but only some of the real monstrous durable ones, which are a minority of randoms. I honestly thought that overall, FF13 handled random encounters pretty well (not only skippable, but they were fast paced, and generally didn't fail it up completely so it wasn't like a yawn fest either)
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NIER - Finished the first "half" of the game. Boss fight music for the last boss of the first half kicks all kinds of ass.
Now I can use spears and two-handed swords! The ones they gave me are both weaker than the one-handed sword I have though.
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Have fun once you get to Pulse then, cause distinguishing a group that respawned with one that happened to run over to your general area can get tricky!
That said, yeah, FF13 battles for me were also generally short. There were a few lengthy ones, but only some of the real monstrous durable ones, which are a minority of randoms. I honestly thought that overall, FF13 handled random encounters pretty well (not only skippable, but they were fast paced, and generally didn't fail it up completely so it wasn't like a yawn fest either)
Fights on the airship can actually be quite long regularly. After that I think you can really speed things along though.
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FF13 battles were pretty short for me... I'd finish most random battles within like a minute, which is pretty damn good for RPGs. Also you can uh evade battles if you don't want to fight all of them. The game even gives you extra tools to do so.
The flaw being that my insanity dictates on basically all RPGs with this type of encounter system that the most accurate levels are obtained by fighting every enemy group once (and ideally once only!).
Well, there IS that hard-cap.
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The flaw being that my insanity dictates on basically all RPGs with this type of encounter system that the most accurate levels are obtained by fighting every enemy group once (and ideally once only!).
That's how I'm doing my SaGa Frontier stat topic!
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Phoenix Wright - Replay finished, which means 1-1 to 1-4 because hey, that gets you to the ending credits. 1-4 was a lot more enjoyable this time around, as I knew it would be; Manfred is too much fun. 1-3 is still my favourite, though. Looking forward to the JFA replay a lot.
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FE10- Finished up part one. 1-3 was the hardest map in the set. 1-E I had a fair few resets, but usually it just involved how to figure out how to survive a given round of offense. I only used one of the uber PC's, and him only to kill two units who had appeared as reinforcements.
General game thoughts. Some FE9 stuff mixed in here.
The good- Saving in battle. Anything that gives you more precise control of a fight is good. I don't mind what was done with BEXP- I may prefer FE9's system, but either way it is a way to get EXP for your underleveled units without having to feed them kills. FE9 in general improved things across the board (Weapon weight, supports, etc) and FE10 kept a lot of those improvements. It rebalanced units. Mages are no longer complete jokes on the enemy or PC end. The story is a logical progression of what happened in FE9. Izuka stands out for being a scumbag (But a loyal one), and just the general effort shown to show how horrible it is to be occupied by another country. Also, that one general who wasin charge of Bergeion's forces in FE9 vanished into thin air- that raises red flags. Something has to be up there.
The bad: FE10 uses the wrong type of challenge at points. You are heavily restricted with what you can do. The enemies are better, which is nice! You however start the game both short on warm bodies and short on quality characters. Nolan is okay, but no one else in the DB can take a hit until Sothe and Aran join. I found the opening three maps to be exercises in frustration for that reason. Laura I don't even want to talk about, her ineptness at taking hits is so bad that it severly limits her use as a healer. A single bow user or a ranged weapon overkills her by some gross amount and this doesn't change until you promote her. The DB chapters turn into using a few good units (Jill, Zihark, Voluk) and hoping your underleveled characters hit good levels up, because the game can and will slaughter them without breaking a sweat. It gets much better after 1-5, when BEXP lets you catch up whichever project unit you want to use, but blah.
Also, Paragon for godlike. Laura gained something stupid like 15 levels in three maps thanks to it. She probably has the biggest turnaround that isn't Nino in any FE game that I've ever seen.
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Pokemon: Heart Gold- I started this this morning. I picked the boy trainer, and I chose Chikorita as my starter. I'm in the second town, just got the running shoes. Hooray for not having to hold down the button!
FE10- Just finished Part 1. After Aran got doubled and killed by a Longbowmen on 1-E, I decided Aran was just going to have to stay dead. I can't imagine someone with 11 speed being terribly useful in Part 3 anyway. Leo is also dead due to PEGGIE SWARM on 1-6. Current party is Ed/Meg/Volug/Jill/Nolan/Sothe/Micaiah/Laura there. Really wish Ed would gain some defense (9 at level 16? ;_;). Micaiah has gained speed 5/6 levels, which means that she basically caught up from her very bad speed start. (Maybe 1 point above average now.) Gave the Energy Drop to Edward and the Dracoshield to Nolan. Meg is better than both without either. >_>
Resets thus far:
1-3: Accidentally let Aran kill Laura
1-4: derp. Meg got doubled by the boss and he attacked her
1-9: SHE JUST GOT OHKOED BY AN AXEMAN!??
1-E: Just a couple of resets involving: a) overestimating Laura's RES b) overestimating Tormod's tankiness c) overestimating Volug's RES
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3D Dot Game Heroes
Picked this up today. It's humor is playing right into my style so far. Less then an hour in, it's already spoofed DQ1, DQ5, Legend of Zelda all over the place, and FF1. Gameplay is very simple and rather easy so far, but I was expecting that. Still fun overall. May try my hand at making my own hero soon~
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Resident Evil 4: Just beat Salazar! Took me 4 tries. First was me figuring out what the hell the fight was like. 2nd involved me getting killed by his instant death move (ie don't stand right in front of him, and if you do, be ready to jump to the bottom!) 3rd involved me basically running out of resources...but near the end, I realized you could shoot his tentacles, which were the main nuisance of the fight, and temporarily get them away. 4th was VICTORY!
The game is fun, but boss fights leave something to be desired. I mean they're challenging but they feel really...slow paced. Its more like "ok, when are you gonna die?" rather than exploiting the gameplay to its finest. Feels like they're only there cause all games need boss fights.
Other than that, game is good stuff so far.
Street Fighter 4: You know, it occured to me that I never finished Arcade Mode as Seth...so I went ahead and did that! Ok, NOW STREET FIGHTER 4 PLOT MAKES SLIGHLTY MORE SENSE FOR SUPER!?
...or not <_<
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Aren't there only three true boss fights in RE4? I mean, the Right Hand Man fight could be a boss battle if you fought it straight-up, but it's clearly a gimmick fight.
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well, yeah, thankfully boss fights aren't very common. Just both Mendes and Salazar weren't particularly fun, more just kind of dragged on. The game wasn't geared around straight up combat like that, so typical action game/FPS/etc. style bosses just kind of clash with its style and pacing.
Oh, yeah, I would also consider the Gigantes Bosses as well; you do fight more than one, but they're built up as bosses; heck the first one is very much a boss fight straight up.
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I always rocket launcher-ed Salazar. They give you one for free.
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Aren't there only three true boss fights in RE4? I mean, the Right Hand Man fight could be a boss battle if you fought it straight-up, but it's clearly a gimmick fight.
RE4 is actually quite boss heavy having ten bosses. The only other RE game that can boast such a number is RE3 but thats due to the player having to face Nemesis nine or so times.
The bosses are:
Del Lago
First Gigante
Chief Mendes
Right Hand Man
Salazar
U3
Jack Krauser
Jack Krauser again (Bonus content only)
Saddler (Bonus content only)
Final Saddler
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Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn: Started this on a whim. Up to Chapter 1-5.
The Dawn Brigade seems custom-made to feed kills to Micaiah. Pretty much any setup I've gone with defensively has always made it really easy to just come in and sweep up with Micaiah. She's sitting at level 15 while the rest of my team is hovering around 8-9. She's getting to be rather broken.
Benched Meg and Leo once I got the chance, and everyone else has been shades of okay outside of Micaiah, Nolan, and Sothe. And mostly I've just been using Sothe with his weapon unequipped as a Micaiah Support battery/wall. Though in the latest battle, I actually let him counter some things.
The battle against the Laguz was like a Micaiah EXP buffet. I went from level 7 to level 14.
I just realized that I've played this many maps and I haven't used Sacrifice yet. What does it do anyway? Do I get EXP for using it? Can I replace Laura with it?
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It turns Micaiah HP into Someone Else HP. I don't THINK it's worth experience. I'm told it combos well with Resolve, but I forget where you get resolve to start with. Sans that not a good thing; afterall, everyone except Laura has more HP than Micaiah to start with! She needs it more!
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Sacrifice gives up Micaiah's HP to restore someone else's, so you can't replace Laura with it. It does give experience, though, so you could use it to heal then have Laura heal her if you really think you need extra Micaiah XP. Which it sounds like you don't, and there's another map basically made to give Micaiah free experience later.
Edit for DotNinja: I am certain that it does give experience, despite CK's belief to the contrary.
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You get Tauroneo as a temp for a stage and you can steal resolve from him.
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I just realized that I've played this many maps and I haven't used Sacrifice yet. What does it do anyway? Do I get EXP for using it? Can I replace Laura with it?
That's actually pretty normal. Sacrifice is good in a few niche situations, but on the whole, you shouldn't be using it that often. Anyways, other people have already described what it does. And yes, I can confirm that it gives experience: A whole 10 EXP. You can EXP share around by having Micaiah use Sacrifice and then Laura to heal her, but its not a very efficient way of playing for several reasons.
More importantly, I highly recommend against replacing Laura with Sacrifice. This is mainly due to the fact that with Sacrifice, you essentially need two turns in order to heal someone (one for Micaiah to heal one person, then the turn after to heal Micaiah herself since she can't heal if she has no HP). This is not the case with Laura using the Heal Staff.
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Sacrifice + That regen skill = Lv 20 Micaiah. Once she gets down to 1 hp she'll regen 1 hp allowing you to use Sacrifice again and again. Its best to do it on the prison map where the fail trio join as the boss doesn't move and you can use him to damage Nolan/Aran.
Thats the only use Sacrifice has because its outclassed by healing staves massively.
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Estpolis- Finally get the rom to work, thus I can finally hack it, thus I finally feel like to run through the second cycle. This should take less than 10 hours.
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Sacrifice can be used as backup healing if Laura isn't in range or if Micaiah doesn't have anything else to do. That's pretty much what it was made for.
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3D Dot Game Heroes - Started this. Got the first orb out of six, which takes like two hours.
Gameplay: Is boring. As hell. You go around and stab things with a sword. It's pretty much just Zelda. Good thing I didn't expect much here. I guess the first boss was somewhat entertaining.
However, the writing is pretty amusing. The game references loads of other games. Games I've seen referenced so far:
Zelda (obvious)
Final Fantasy
Dragon Quest 4
Dragon Quest 5
Demon's Souls
Probably some others I didn't catch/forgot. Gate says there was a DQ1 reference in there or something but I think I missed it. Game also pokes fun at some video game cliches.
The fairy is a complete moron though.
Not much else to say. Game's mostly just a lot of blah outside of amusing writing and style. Definitely going back to NIER tomorrow because it actually has interesting gameplay.
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Sacrifice also heals status, which can be handy. Micaiah never needs a Restore Staff, unless she wants to protect herself from silence. Anyway yeah, overall not too useful, but does have a few niche uses as described.
Also, I'm pretty sure the Bonus Exp you'd get from not stalling out the prison map is worth way more than some Sacrifice Exp on Micaiah given that she has no problem hitting Level 20 before promotion anyway.
FE9 - Haha Chapter 12, such a joke once you know the trick. Using both beast laguz this time.
Wizard of Oz - Oooh, the beach is pretty. Flora wasn't terrible or anything but was <Yulie voice> kinda disappointing. Plunder rules now that it seems almost all enemies have at least Hi-Potions.
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Kirby Superstar Ultra
You know, I haven't played a traditional Kirby platformer since the original Kirby's Dreamland (played and loved Kirby's Canvas Curse, though). So far...I'm not really feeling this one, actually. I mean, the first thing it does is a very easy shortened remake of Kirby's Dreamland, one where my AI partner was soloing the bosses. Way to crush my childhood memories.
I dunno, I guess so far I'm not sold that adding 6 or so new mechanics really improves the original Kirby's Dreamland. I'm really suspicious of blocking in...a lot of games, to be honest. What's wrong with just dodging? Next mechanic...AI buddies? Wow, so about half your firepower is out of your control. AI buddies who transform into a different AI buddy right before they're about to die if they get hit by the right boss move? Hypothetically you can control this, but it feels random to me. Special swallow powers? Fine on paper. Secrets that require a specific swallow power? Very hit and miss--sometimes it's obvious "I need to go back and eat that enemy" but sometimes it's just "yeah, I'm not sure what power I'm supposed to use here, and trial and error will take half an hour running back and forth through the rooms." Next mechanic: Megaman kick slide. Nothing wrong with this mechanic, although it is pretty underwhelming. Next mechanic: doubletap to run. Die in a fire. Geez, I think I like this mechanic less than "hold down the run button." What is with game designers thinking we don't want to run all the time, seriously?
I dunno, maybe my opinion will change in the last half of the game, but it's just...I've played through the original Kirby's Dream Land on hard mode with my health meter customized down to 1 HP. I can't imagine playing through this game like that; right now it just seems too chaotic and determined by elements outside of my control. And to be fair, maybe further exposure will illuminate order in the apparent chaos; then again, maybe it won't--AI buddies are AI buddies.
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What team are you using, Elfboy? And yeah, map 12 is cake. I don't remember Jill being threatened by much of anything on the map, and I had a subpar team for that battle (No mages!)
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Wizard of Oz - Oooh, the beach is pretty. Flora wasn't terrible or anything but was <Yulie voice> kinda disappointing. Plunder rules now that it seems almost all enemies have at least Hi-Potions.
Yup. Also, the fat phantoms on the beach carry Tree of Life Ashes. Enjoy, because they -will- serve you beautifully. Generally, stealable items are pretty up-to-date, but really, Hi-Potions will serve you well until like Protea.
Also, Flora isn't amazing or anything, just kind of better than the utter jokes you'd expect first bosses to be. The ones that make you run for your money in Oz are Holly and Ju Kaku (hitting weakness on Strawman off that speed? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Power Boost+Battle Wind off near-Strawman speed? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!).
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Eh, Holly hitting Strawman weakness isn't a big deal; I typically don't use him for bosses besides dispel and maybe Gnaw anyways. Protea hitting Tin Man's weakness worried me much more. That said, Holly was the only witch that actually used Magic Charge + big ST move on me, which was pretty damned scary; thank GOD Mirror Skin was up at that point.
Ju Kaku is pure evil though.
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I found weakness-hitting relevant for one reason mostly: Strawman is such a good item boy and I kept needing the MT item healing to come out before Holly got a turn (I was at a high enough level that he went first more often). Other than that, he's not really getting much of an outing on bosses... but impressively, -that- one niche was really relevant for me. He's also kinda neat for guaranteeing a Power Boosted Battle Wind next turn with First Wind shenanigans if you care, because the witches tend to -love- dispelling Power Boost. Also, Magic Charge'd Blazing Fire overkills Strawman, no questions asked, while a Magic Charge'd Blizzard won't even come that close to KOing Tin Man if it goes off. Well, keeping Strawman in the back would solve -that-, but I needed the healing to come out off that speed often and badly.
BACHELOR #2 EDIT: Well, Protea does overkill Tin Man with Ice Ballx2 quite badly, and given the ratio you give up on him, that could happen easily...
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I never had any use for an item boy in boss fights unless the risk of Dorothy dying was severe *cough*Ju Kaku*cough*. 1 ratio meant that getting sufficient turns was never an issue so long as she stayed alive.
In particular, I had really good luck with keeping Mirror Skin up against Holly, she probably ended up doing more damage to herself with magic than she did to me.
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Yeah, I never had that luck. *Mirror Skin.* *Dispel.* "GODDAMMIT." *Mirror Skin.* *Murder somebody else, Dispel.* "GODDAMMIT!"
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What team are you using, Elfboy? And yeah, map 12 is cake. I don't remember Jill being threatened by much of anything on the map, and I had a subpar team for that battle (No mages!)
I'm pretty sure having no mages makes that an above par team, not subpar! <.< Honestly, all you need is 4 PCs who can take at least one hit from a raven and you're fine (a fifth helps but isn't strictly necessary). Jill is in no danger partially due to that Laguzguard, which halves their damage and makes up for the fact that they double Jill (granted, her Def is pretty high).
I'm planning on using a party of Ike, the four beast laguz, Zihark and Stefan, Rhys and Soren, Rolf, Tauroneo, and Largo. Not an overall strong or especially well-balanced team, heavy emphasis on people I've not used through the entire game before (one or two exceptions there to fill in support chains, mostly).
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Oz bosses tend to be good. I had to go back to Ju Kaku after getting my ass handed to me by Holly the first time and there were a few other instances of hard fights.
Pokemon: Platinum.
Beat the E4 courtesy of Gyarados and Dragon Dance, along with Reflect/Light Screen/debuff setup on the first poke they sent out. Dragon Dance is really the most badass move in the game.
Infernape and Garchomp were the other heavy lifters of the team. Infernape just had awesome offense and speed, Garchomp was just monstrous all-around.
I used a variety of other Pokes, but wasn't impressed too much with any individuals (Staraptor was better than I had anticipated, Leafeon much much worse). Not going to do the aftergame, I don't think. It's funny because I figured I'd save the Masterball for something other than Giratina, and I never ended up grabbing anything at all with it. Oh well.
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SH2 - HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY SHIT IS RASPUTIN COMPLETELY LAME OR WHAT
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Good thing he's not the main villain. Plus, you get to see Amon go apeshit on him.
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For me, he was redeemed entirely through "No, YOU will bite ME!"
Hey, they never made him out to be too serious a villain, did they?
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Nor were the entirety of Sapientes Gladio, really. SH2's first-half antagonists are Tales villain-level failure.
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Having recently seen some incredible tales related fail in the villain department, I am going to have to disagree with Rasputin being lamer than that.
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I'm not saying he's -lamer- than the ones I know. But god damn if Rasputin couldn't have been a boss in Klonoa, much like over half of the villain cast in Tales of Legendia.
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I don't praise Tales villains, or indeed anything about the series, very often.
Rasputin is lamer than Tales villains.
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You know you've screwed up on your writing when you somehow manage to turn Rasputin into a lamer villain than the likes of Mithos and whatshername from ToD2.
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If you're ever in need of an awesome Rasputin, Devil Summoner awaits.
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You know you've screwed up on your writing when you somehow manage to turn Rasputin into a lamer villain than the likes of Mithos and whatshername from ToD2.
And yet, the rest of the game's writing makes us overlook this, especially when Yuri goes apeshit on an old man.
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Disgaea 3 - So I'm going through the list of the bonus content which are all rank 27 levels containing lv 188 enemies. There was a rank 41 level but surely enemies would be lv 500 or something right? BAM lv 9000 overlord Baal!
As I like to see big shiny numbers I let him curb stomp me and as Baal smacks Mao into oblivion *Bling* You earned the trophy "Who Wants to be a Milliondamagaire"
???
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I am going to repeat myself on SH2 here, but when you have a game centred around a guy that has beaten a giant space alien "god" you don't really want or need to put him up against a real villain. He has already done that in SH1. SH2 works so much better because there isn't really much of a villain for him to challenge, it makes the situaion all the more palpable.
Shadow Hearts 2 is EXACTLY how to make a sequel.
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Well, they did go the route of "handicap the hero, with some legit explanation behind it" instead of the usual "BETTAR ADVERSARIES!!!" like most direct sequels have (aka the Shonen Anime style). Yuri losing all his powers and basically starting from scratch, having only the knowledge he had before, leads to more flexibility with villains; they don't NEED to be stronger than what he fought, just strong enough that they can be threatening to this weakened hero.
Mostly I find it obnoxious when people propose a sequel and say shit like "bring x villain back from the dead!" with the excuse of "its either that or ass pull some stronger guy from nowhere!" They completely forget that circumstantial problems can cause a villain to be threatening too (pretty much the case in the 2nd half of SHC, IIRC. No one is really strong enough to deal with Yuri, barring maybe Astaroth if he ever reaches his full potential, now that he's gotten Amon back, but the circumstances he's up against sort of limit his options on what he CAN do, so the villains can still undergo with their schemes.)
...but that just proves SHC did things right. Handicap the Hero if you want to make him seem weaker, rather than make bullshit new villains who are more powerful than the Gods he just defeated, then after he's recovered, make the threat come from circumstances, rather than making MOAR STRONG STUFF!
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Pretty much. Although I think the fact that the second disc is the notably better of the two in SH2 may be partially the fault of adversity by circumstances being better than just making the hero weaker (which mostly serves to create an environment in which Yuri will not dominate his allies to the point that they are useless).
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LO- Cooke just joined. And holy crap, queen of frail, damageless healers? HP looks about 60%-70%, damage is uh...20% range but uses two turns and is at the end of the second turn or maybe 3% and fast (And the first move needs her to gain 4 levels)! Ha.
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Muramasa - picked this up a few months ago, actually playing a bit of it now that I have Teh Time. Hack-slashy fun so far, like the plot such as it is, and the game is gorgeous as advertised, but it's a shame both characters control the same.
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Disgaea 3 - So I'm going through the list of the bonus content which are all rank 27 levels containing lv 188 enemies. There was a rank 41 level but surely enemies would be lv 500 or something right? BAM lv 9000 overlord Baal!
As I like to see big shiny numbers I let him curb stomp me and as Baal smacks Mao into oblivion *Bling* You earned the trophy "Who Wants to be a Milliondamagaire"
???
Apparently, the game doesn't care who dealt/took the damage, only that the damage happened.
I managed to get the Ten-Million Damage trophy when I ran into Baal Pirates on Invincibility panels, at that.
If you ever decide to go after the Ten Billion damage trophy... Mr. Champloo will be your most best friend of all time.
...Same game. Guess what I'm doing.
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BoF5- Picked this back up in the past few days. Went through the Trinity base and mrfed at their leader, then went up to High Sector Borough and smacked Bosch around. Probably used too much D-Ratio on him, but meh. I should be fine.
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SH2 - Veronica, you -fail-.
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I dunno if that's plot or gameplay, but yeah, pretty much.
Oz - Scarlet Forest time. Enemies here are definitely an upgrade, I had a bit of a score from some of them before I got a handle on them. Delphi was decent, the threats of charm and better speed (plus dispel to get rid of Overclock, not that I had that for Flora) made her better than the previous boss. Still no resets though~
FE9 - Chapter 17. MVP so far is probably Lethe, surprisingly (well, until Stefan joined. Now it's him). Mordecai on the other hand has been underwhelming, even with a Speedwing there are too many things he can't double and late transform is bad because usually you need more help with early parts of maps (C16 is a weird exception).
Party is Ike, Rhys, Soren, Rolf, Lethe, Mordecai, Zihark, Muarim, and Stefan. Soren is promoted, Zihark and Rhys will probably follow during the four-part monster. And then Rolf. Not many non-prepromos this time.
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I dunno if that's plot or gameplay, but yeah, pretty much.
This instance is gameplay, but yeah. I think I did mention in chat that Veronica is basically your run-off-the-mill baby-eating anti-gay therapist in plot.
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SH2 - No matter how badly Veronica failed, Rasputin managed to do worse in all counts. Dude, specializing in S.ATK LOWERING and BUFFING off -that- durability and no status whatsoever to speak of? Good job, mang. I guess Soul Bent post-Surge scrapes a low-middle end 2HKO, but have fun taking advantage of -that-.
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I personally found Veronica to be rather entertaining in the story. Gameplaywise, she's an SH2 boss. But I chuckled during most of her scenes. And she's on the same team as LENNY!
Oh right, I play games!
Suikoden Tierkreis: Quests are finally starting to open up, and the premises behind them are amusing enough. Trying to figure out the requirements is a crapshoot, and even FAQs are pretty useless. Luckily, 90% of the quests are repeatable if you mess 'em up. I'm currently investigating the MYSTARY of how poor Yovel's mask got glued to his face.
Got about 58 of 108 Starbearers, so I'm hoping that means I'm over halfway done with the game.
They made the biggest plot reveal so far with finally telling us what's going on with the Worlds randomly appearing and introducing the idea of a main antagonist. Story is a lot different than usual Suikoden fare - it's much bigger in scope. But I have to give it props for introducing things very fluidly and not treating the player like an idiot.
Gameplaywise, I finally got my fifth Chronicle, so all of my PCs have 5 spell options, thus finally giving me some control over their skillsets. It's still pretty bland, but that made it about 10 times more interesting.
Current favorite team: Hero, Roberto, Chein, Manaril/Asad
Current favorite PC: Felecca is still distractingly beautiful.
I play other games!
Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn
Chapter 3-10. Back to the Fail Brigade it seems. Because they got unique weapons, I let Dward and Nardo back into my party. This should be fun. Micaiah destroys worlds~ My Mist has ended up RNG-blessed and has something like 25 Str and 21 Def... How the hell?!
Had one reset with Leanne on the Bridge mission (seriously, you threw a Lvl7 Heron into the middle of my battle!? GAME!!!! *shakes fist* ). But otherwise, no one's died on me permanently.
This game is too long, I'm really quite bored with it now.
The story is leaps and bounds better than previous FEs, so I'm actually interested in seeing where it's going. However, the entire reasoning behind Gallia attacking Begnion is kinda infuriating though. Throughout the second half of this chapter, the Laguz are all 'O woe are we! However did we end up in this situation where we're losing to a massive empire?!'. And all I can think is 'you idiots attacked -them-'... Sure they killed the Herons, but that's pretty ancient history at this point. And really, Herons die so easily, they probably didn't even mean it.
Elincia has been really cool so far. Better than I was expecting.
Skrimir needs to be punched in the face more often.
The new skills and such make this FE cast so much more interesting DL-wise it's not even funny.
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Torchlight: I was on Steam getting X-Com and this was half price, so what the hell. Apparently I was in the mood for some mindless hack 'n' slash. Or shoot 'n' shoot more, I guess. Went with vanquisher because, seriously, it's me and it shouldn't be any surprise by this point that Cid runs with the female PC.
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Also been on a Torchlight kick recently. Finished Normal mode with Vanquisher, then tried to do an Easy Hardcore Ironman run with Destroyer. Died on Ordrak. :( Then tried the same thing again with Alchemist and had weird random death in the goblin zone. Despite that, wow are Nether Imps completly broken. For some reason you get double the listed number of them. So you have like 10 of them skittering around all benefitting from Pet Mastery and other bonuses.
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The latest in SaGa Frontier formula-cracking. It appears that not -all- of the SaGa formulas make no sense. The Shield Card formula is rather straightforward. It's just nigh-useless. And it's one of the best buff spells in the game. The others degrade too fast to be of any use.
From Zaraktheus:
The Shield spell grants a DEF Buff to the Actor and all its Allies. The size of the Buff depends on the Actor's stats, and is calculated as follows:
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/rd means "Divide and round down".
A:INT = Actor Current INT.
A:WIL = Actor Current WIL.
A:PSY = Actor Current PSY.
A:CHA = Actor Current CHA.
(A:INT + A:WIL + A:PSY + A:CHA)
/rd 24
+ 5
= DEF Buff
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So, the value of the DEF Buff can range from 5--21. The DEF Buff overwrites any previous DEF Buff/Debuff, meaning it doesn't stack in any way, but it also doesn't decay or ever wear off (within the battle in which it was cast).
The DEF Buff will increase your EDV (Effective DEF Value), which is used to reduce damage from almost any damage-dealing attack (unless it completely bypasses DEF, like BoundShot, etc), but so far, all the SCPs (Status Change Processes) I've translated DON'T count the DEF Buff even when they do count your Status FX DEF, so it probably doesn't help at all in resisting Status Ailments. Also, different EPs use EDV differently, so exactly how much benefit you get from a given DEF Buff depends on what attacks you're facing and which EPs they use. A DEF Buff of 5 generally won't mean much, but a Buff closer to 21, especially since it affects all PCs with just one casting, can significantly reduce the party's damage from most attacks.
Unfortunately, the Bosses against whom damage-reduction would probably be most useful often do a great deal of that damage using EP 14 (Boss) attacks, which use EDV in such a way that the DEF Buff will often make much less difference than usual. As a result, Shield may be less help than you'd like just when you need it most.
Also, since the value of the Buff is so heavily dependant upon stats, the spell isn't really as effective until later in a game, by which time you've probably had the opportunity to get much better armor, and so may not need the Buff as much anyway.
Nevertheless, Shield is one of the better Buffs available in the game, and it's not a bad idea to have your highest-stat PC cast it on the first round of any battle you don't expect to win in one or two rounds. It can help to prevent OHKOs and the like, and especially if combined with regeneration effects from VitalityRune, SelfRepair, and/or the monster Syntheses, it can cut down on the need for healing.
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FE9 - So someone went and released a GCN/Wii emulator when I wasn't paying attention. Cheat codes? Save States? Cheats that let me set it to Fixed level up schemes first play through? Well shit I guess I have to do this at least once now. Save states aren't super awesome, but hey it lets me be lazy. Chapter 6 or something. Things happening. Stabbing some dudes. This game doesn't have enough Colm. Shinon might be alright? I dunno. zzzzzzzzzzz
Edit - To tired to say much more rather than the game not being worth commenting on. Some stuff in Chat with generic making fun of character dress sense. I don't expect to enjoy it, but since I spent money on it I should play it sometime if only cheating the fuck out of it. I have Baten Kaitos ready to follow it, because damn if that game wasn't a flaming pile of shit that I wasted money on.
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BoF5- Finished. Went from TopSector to the end in one final, huge push. Cheated a bit and did the file reload trick just to pad my levels a bit (From 26 to 32). Made the game a lot more managable and, dare I say, fun. My items weren't saved in the Item Locker though, so I lost them. And the money never carried over, so... yeah. Kinda slightly screwed myself, but I managed. Deamoned Flanders was pretty easy, as was Cupid. Accidentally wandered into Vexacion. Great fight, actually. Nearly ran out of healing, but still beat all the Regents without using Wyrm. Then just cheesed the rest. Final D-Counter before finishing was 80.39%, coming in at a few minutes over 21 hours. D-Ratio for the new file was 1/4096. Oh well. Those resets probably cost me, but being level 39 and not doing any of the Fairy dungeon also had something to do with it. Oh well.
People were right. Shatter was great for Lin. Nina was an all-star. Lag Vahalla was clutch for extra damage against Vex's cronies. Vahalla and Blizzard also helped, but in general stringing her 20 AP skills together was better. Ryu... Slicexwhatever usually beat out anything he had, throwing in some Rust Armor hits. Overly simple and kinda tedious, but once I raised up my levels it wasn't so bad.
Game is... maybe 6/10 overall? Does some things right, interesting system... but not all there. Needed refining. The interface was clunky and it's not ever really clear what carries over and how. Not enough to the story really. The characters had a decent report, for what little time they had. Nothing for the villains, really other than the spooooky SEELE conferences roundtable meetings. Bosch is a wanker and no amount of SOL scenes could redeem him. Elyon at least had some style. Despite the shortcomings, I still felt good seeing them reach the surface, so that counts for something.
I'll probably go with Cross Edge next.
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Apparently, the game doesn't care who dealt/took the damage, only that the damage happened.
I managed to get the Ten-Million Damage trophy when I ran into Baal Pirates on Invincibility panels, at that.
If you ever decide to go after the Ten Billion damage trophy... Mr. Champloo will be your most best friend of all time.
...Same game. Guess what I'm doing.
The same as me I'm guessing. I've heard Champloo can do the job if you set it up right but I think using either the Hero Prinny or reverse healing are better methods. Currently I'm trying to get the Axel and trophy shop trophies and even on the 91st level of the item world they never appear.
Disgaea 3 - Seto Kaiba and his Black eyes blue prinny fall! He thought he was smart summoning a bunch of monsters in one turn but I showed him, Asagi and Marona were also gotten. Marona doesn't seem that impressive really but I'm liking Asagi immensely due to awesome air guitar powers. I was underleveled for the marona fight but by abusing throwing people into panels I was able to kill all the ghosts with Mao/Asagi, Marona is then stupidly trapped and with her stupid AI never healing itself I gunned her down easily.
I'll probably go with Cross Edge next.
Don't subject yourself to that torture. Cross Edge isn't just bad but horrible and retarded in every single way imaginable so I advise you steer clear of such a monster.
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FE10: Up to 4-2. Dead PC's: All three of the Herons, Mist. Nothing else really notable going on besides Marcia deciding to turn into Haar Jr and Callil being awesome and once again making Soren/Ilyana look terrible. Enjoying the game, though I am glad to be done with DB shitfests at this point.
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The latest in SaGa Frontier formula-cracking. It appears that not -all- of the SaGa formulas make no sense. The Shield Card formula is rather straightforward. It's just nigh-useless. And it's one of the best buff spells in the game. The others degrade too fast to be of any use.
From Zaraktheus:
The Shield spell grants a DEF Buff to the Actor and all its Allies. The size of the Buff depends on the Actor's stats, and is calculated as follows:
----------
/rd means "Divide and round down".
A:INT = Actor Current INT.
A:WIL = Actor Current WIL.
A:PSY = Actor Current PSY.
A:CHA = Actor Current CHA.
(A:INT + A:WIL + A:PSY + A:CHA)
/rd 24
+ 5
= DEF Buff
Straightforward?! A defense buff that runs off of 4 of the caster's stats is definitely something I'll call overly complex for any other game!
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The latest in SaGa Frontier formula-cracking. It appears that not -all- of the SaGa formulas make no sense. The Shield Card formula is rather straightforward. It's just nigh-useless. And it's one of the best buff spells in the game. The others degrade too fast to be of any use.
From Zaraktheus:
The Shield spell grants a DEF Buff to the Actor and all its Allies. The size of the Buff depends on the Actor's stats, and is calculated as follows:
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/rd means "Divide and round down".
A:INT = Actor Current INT.
A:WIL = Actor Current WIL.
A:PSY = Actor Current PSY.
A:CHA = Actor Current CHA.
(A:INT + A:WIL + A:PSY + A:CHA)
/rd 24
+ 5
= DEF Buff
Straightforward?! A defense buff that runs off of 4 of the caster's stats is definitely something I'll call overly complex for any other game!
This is SaGa Frontier - that sounds horrible simple to me >_>
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Did you not see the magic damage formula I posted a few weeks back?
Here, for those that missed it:
(((((WIL^2 * ((INT+WIL+PSY+40)/4) * 3.125 * HiddenSkillValue1) / (WIL^2 +1600) + (ComboBonus * (HSV1-2) + 4*HSV2) + (PSY^2)/16 + (INT+WIL+PSY+100)/4 * 2 * JPcost) * (128-VIT/4 + DEF)/128 ) - DEF ) / MysticHiddenValue*AllyEnemyLabelMult/3 ) + (RandomValue between 0 and the number of spells a PC knows+10)
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How did these games even get made? Did someone have a picture of Square's execs fucking a dog?
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I liked it. Formula opacity isn't really that terrible sin, particularly for the vast majority of more or less casual gamers.
Not that SF wasn't rough around the edges. It was rough around the middle, really, to say nothing of the edges. But it was fun and quirky and difficult and huge in scope, so, yeah. Worked for me.
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Worse - pictures of them approving Final Fantasy II.
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I'll probably go with Cross Edge next.
Don't subject yourself to that torture. Cross Edge isn't just bad but horrible and retarded in every single way imaginable so I advise you steer clear of such a monster.
Blah blah blah blah. I'll decide for myself, I've already played a bunch of IF games. It's old hat to me at this point.
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I liked it. Formula opacity isn't really that terrible sin, particularly for the vast majority of more or less casual gamers.
Not that SF wasn't rough around the edges. It was rough around the middle, really, to say nothing of the edges. But it was fun and quirky and difficult and huge in scope, so, yeah. Worked for me.
Yeah, more or less agree with this. The DL has too much of this mindset of "MATH DAMAGE OUT!!!" whcih SaGa Frontier is completely against in that regard; when everything is internal and it leads to something that you don't care about, just "use move that does more damage" and figuring that out is easy in game (which is in SaGa Frontier for the most part), then its fine. At the same time, SaGa Frontier plays like a Beta cause...well...there's a lot of things that feel unfinished; heck, the fact that they ripped out an entire story arc (Fuse was suppose to have his own, apparently, and one that ties all the quests together, which I guess would be opened after you finished all the others, and makes SaGa Frontier almost pretend its one story instead of 7 like it actually is), and completely cut down on another (Asellus; there's a lot of dummied text from it which...makes the whole Mystic vs. Human ending style thing a bit more appropriate, considering her story barely touches up on that at all), what have you...yeah, its fun and all that, but the game definitely felt unfinished.
Worse - pictures of them approving Final Fantasy II.
Umm...this is a really thing to imagine.
The year is 1988. They just had a smashing success with Final Fantasy 1.
Square Guy #1: Hey, I got an idea! Lets make another game in the series, using the same graphics engine and what not! However, we won't make it a sequel, just an entirely new story!
Square Guy #2: Hey, brilliant idea! We'll make lots of money off that! So what made the original game so successful?
Square Guy #3: It was unique compared to stuff like Dragon Quest! So lets try to be unique again!
Square Guy #1: I got it! Instead of leveling up like in other games, you get stats based on what you do! But also, you build up weapons and magic! It'll be like no other game before it!
Square Guy #2: Cool idea!
You can see what I'm getting at. FF2 is really not such a bad thing on paper, and you have to consider the standards of which the game was made. You're blatant "lol FF2 sucks" statement is really falling short for this reason, and is really not witty. Its just a cheap shot that doesn't even make sense, cause FF2 is not a conceptually bad idea, ESPECIALLY for its time. Yes, the game has issues and didn't turn out the way people wanted it...but back then that was more forgivable.
There are ideas I just facepalm at. Dirge of Cerberus comes to mind; they made a 3rd person Shooting Game after a minor character that completely fucks with EVERYTHING FF7 had...and saw nothing wrong with it?
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The fact that most pepole weren't saying that Spirits Within was a really, really, really bad idea at the time doesn't change the fact that it was a really, really, really bad idea that was embarassing to approve.
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The idea was fine, as evidenced by the fact that the core idea (build the stats and spells you use, instead of gaining generic experience points) was spun off into the successful-in-its-own-right SaGa series. The final product didn't turn out good, but that was a matter of execution, not green-lighting a shitty idea; it's not like approving, say, BMX XXX.
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How did these games even get made? Did someone have a picture of Square's execs fucking a dog?
Technically, it didn't really get made. It had it's budget snatched away mid-development so Square could make FF8.
...And SaGa Frontier is still probably the better game.
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How did these games even get made? Did someone have a picture of Square's execs fucking a dog?
Technically, it didn't really get made. It had it's budget snatched away mid-development so Square could make FF8.
...And SaGa Frontier is still probably the better game.
Snap!
Actually, I agree. Both are pretty innovative, but FF8 takes utterly no risks and thus ends up remarkably dull. Very polished, but again, excessively formulaic. SF lacks the polish, but makes it up in chutzpah.
FF8 had graphics, but time hasn't been kind to it and it's an ugly game now (whereas SFs sketchy sprites hold up in that weird way that sprites usually do). Its innovations, such as they were, were refined in later titles too (endless item/skill/class customization wankery in the years since, see FF13 and Star Oceans and...)
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I'd rather replay Saga Frontier than FF8 these days (mainly due to length, plus SF is more entertaining to break), but I can't call it a better game because SF1 is stupidly beginner-unfriendly. Within about 30 minutes of an Emelia file, I got stuck in Tanzer with no MT moves so I couldn't beat the Slimes to escape. I would've given up right there if Super didn't hand me a cheat code to get Blue's teleport ability to get out.
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How did these games even get made? Did someone have a picture of Square's execs fucking a dog?
Technically, it didn't really get made. It had it's budget snatched away mid-development so Square could make FF8.
...And SaGa Frontier is still probably the better game.
I thought that was Xenogears?
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I don't need full formula opacity to play a game. Obviously, this helps a lot when making a stat topic, but it truly necessary. But hey, when playing a game? It's actually a pretty awesome thing. Do I care to use status, buffing, debuffing, various quirky attacks? Well, I could try out every single thing if the game doesn't throw in any opacity...which for every game is a pain in the ass. If you make it clear what everything does, generally how good it is, etc...it makes it much, much nicer for the player who likely will not want to thoroughly try out everything to see if it's any use. And yes, casually saying, I would like to know what stats I should focus on!
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Blah blah blah blah. I'll decide for myself, I've already played a bunch of IF games. It's old hat to me at this point.
Suit yourself, it was just some friendly advice on my part.
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Thing is, SaGa Frontier is geared such that using Magic makes your magic stronger (Guns being better is irrelevant, since Magic still boosts the relevant stats at a good rate.)
Not knowing anything about the game, its easy to tell stuff like "oh hey, Vermillion Sand hits harder than other Realm magic!" or "Triple Thrust is a pretty good end game move!" The game is even nice enough in regards to Human Sword and Fist techniques such that you see the move you just learned on the spot, so you get an idea of how strong it is; furthermore, WP costs are often good indicators of what the move is good for, provided the move obviously doesn't have some "special" factor to it (be it MT, instant death, etc.), so simply going by More Expensive = Better move.
This applies pretty well to Magic too frankly; Mega Wind Blast, Vermillion Sand, Reverse Gravity, etc. all cost a lot more than stuff like Sun Ray, or Phantasm Shot. And sure enough, they hit a lot harder, and are MT to boot (now, which of those moves are better among them...well, simple experimentation kicks in there; you equip 2 moves for one battle, cast them, see what does more, use that!)
Complicated as SaGa Frontier's mechanics are, they still get the job done; they have varying damage for a bunch of attacks, and you can distinguish strong vs. weak attacks. I know when I played the game, I didn't care WHY Sky Twister was hitting harder than Babel Crumble, just the fact that it did!
That said...
The idea was fine, as evidenced by the fact that the core idea (build the stats and spells you use, instead of gaining generic experience points) was spun off into the successful-in-its-own-right SaGa series. The final product didn't turn out good, but that was a matter of execution, not green-lighting a shitty idea; it's not like approving, say, BMX XXX.
Pretty much agree with this.
FF2 is not the only game to be one of those "Cool on paper, but execution makes it not nearly as good" ideas. Fire Emblem 4 and Phantasy Star 3 are both prime examples of this as well (if to different magnitudes)
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SH2 - Bah, Kurando. Also, Lucia's buffs could've been -amazing- if they were in a game where they didn't hand you the Arc buffs far earlier than they ever should and were more user-friendly. On paper, her buffing game is far better than Ricardo's, but user friendliness isn't really there and you don't give a shit when you get Arc Rage, Arc Surge and Arc Gale earlier than Lucia starts getting worthwhile oils. I guess they stack, but why bother. >_>
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Re: Formula opacity: There's really no excuse for a game to not at least give you something like Fire: Power 25, Megainferno: Power 280 in tooltips so you can easily refer to the power of a skill at a glance. Just feeling them out CAN be a pain especially in more exotic systems and you don't know if you're hitting elemental resistance/weakness/abnormally high/low defense or whatever.
For a particularly tedious example see VP2.
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Torchlight: Killin' zombies. Fire Trap, Fire Trap, Fire Trap.
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How did these games even get made? Did someone have a picture of Square's execs fucking a dog?
Technically, it didn't really get made. It had it's budget snatched away mid-development so Square could make FF8.
...And SaGa Frontier is still probably the better game.
I thought that was Xenogears?
It happened to Xenogears, I know that much. Probably happened to other shit, too.
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Cross Edge- Started. As usual, didn't go very far. Just to the first rest point. May is amusing. Basically a fiestier and slightly more competant version of Rin from Chaos Wars. Convenient that York carries pistols around with him though.
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*nods @ Snow* Did you try the Strike/Crit Booster oils yet? Also on other twink related matters have you found any shiny Mind's Eyes for Yuri/Joe yet? There's also the Extreme which should be coming up soon, that can be a bit of a pain depending on your skills with the RNG though. Oh and think there's a point of no return as far as the Extreme's concerned. I can't remember for sure though but yeah might be worth a FAQ. Kurando can also make use of Mind's Eye/Extreme =-)
FFXIII- What the hell Mission 64. Sure glad that's over. Several resets even though my party was fairly beefed up with max roles and everything from their post game wanderings. Not Max Crystarium but still. A real fight that kept me on my toes *^_^* I didn't know whether I should be happy (that the game was still giving me a challenge) or frustrated it was taking me so long =P
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L4D2- I need to pay more attention in versus to my surroundings. Oh well. Thsi is still fun, even if balancing games with the DL crew is a bitch and a half.
FE10- Still at 4-2, haven't felt like playing this. Still going to try to beat it by this weekend.
FE7- Up to map 15. To say that the game is a step down from FE10 in challenge is a slight understatement- I'm seeing Dorcas double enemies and Serra is 3HKOed by non bosses with physicals. Yeah. Dorcas and Marcus have been my best combat units in Hector mode, with Sain being my best in Lyn mode. Let Matthew and Lowen die since I didn't care enough to bother healing them. Dorcas finally gained speed (3 in 3 levels in fact) and he has a ton of HP. I'm using some restrictions on my team as well. I'm not using any of my normal PC's, or any PC's who are fast with the exception of Dart. (Expensive, RNG reliant)
Team: Eliwood, Marcus, Sain, Serra, Dorcas, Isadora, Geitz, Nils/Ninian, Wil, Renault, Dart, Heath, Vaida. I reserve the right to use Athos for the dragon just in case as well. No thief should make things interesting as well (;_;).
Playing this reminds me what a drastic improvement FE9 was to the series.
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re: L4D2 - I just wish my PC was good enough to play and I'd be all over playing super. :(
Been playing a bunch of games lately. Been focusing on Macross Ultimate Frontier lately, which sparked me marathoning the whole Macross series[will make a big anime topic post about it after I watch Zero and Frontier possibly?]. Also dabbling with Pokemon Soul Silver[got all 16 badges, just aftergameness now], Samurai Warriors 3[almost unlocked every character...], and practicing in Super Street Fighter 4. Using Guile currently, dunno if that'll change or not when I get less bad at the game though.
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The problem's been balancing the teams, really.
Super curses whatever team he's on, unless it has Laggy AND Trips together, in which case it dominates the world. It probably would be more balanced with 8, though - that way the teams could be more dilute/concentrated as needed.
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Clearly the only solution is for me to play on their team, so I can drag everyone down by shooting them in the back of the head by "accident."
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I try that with Super - it never works as well as you wish it would ;_;
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The only way you get a balanced team with Laggy and Trips in the game and both on the same team is if you have a numerical advantage on the other side, at least going by TF2, if you're making up a game of just DLers. >_>
(TF2-wise I want to say at least it wouldn't be a slaughter if Demo/Medic worked against Soldier/Medic; At least Monkey and I could try to combat the two then. But it doesn't. It also doesn't work against Soldier/Scout. Pyro/Medic doesn't work against any of them either. So essentially it comes down to one of our inferior-to-Trips Soldiers.
There's also the fact that Monkey isn't that kind of Demo anyways, ambush focus, but oh well.)
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Upgrade to Molotov cocktails.
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We tried a 4v2 game, with me and Laggy on the same side, and that didn't work either.
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The problem's been balancing the teams, really.
Super curses whatever team he's on, unless it has Laggy AND Trips together, in which case it dominates the world. It probably would be more balanced with 8, though - that way the teams could be more dilute/concentrated as needed.
I'd like to get better at versus, but yeah. We have three really good players (Eph, Trips, Laggy) and then everyone else. It's why balancing it is tough. It is hard to practice versus as well, since you need four players for even a simple game. Maybe play more 2 vs 2 games for that?
Edit: The only way to play as the infected vs the AI is to use a dedicated versus server and play a coop game?
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The problem's been balancing the teams, really.
Super curses whatever team he's on, unless it has Laggy AND Trips together, in which case it dominates the world. It probably would be more balanced with 8, though - that way the teams could be more dilute/concentrated as needed.
I'd like to get better at versus, but yeah. We have three really good players (Eph, Trips, Laggy) and then everyone else. It's why balancing it is tough. It is hard to practice versus as well, since you need four players for even a simple game. Maybe play more 2 vs 2 games for that?
Edit: The only way to play as the infected vs the AI is to use a dedicated versus server and play a coop game?
Hey, don't put Nitori, myself, Zenny, and everyone else on the same level as you!
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I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sounds of you missing me yet again with a charge.
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I'm telling you, Molotovs.
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Charger and Hunter I'm not exactly great with. I can still Smoke and Boom you damn fine >_>
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Re: Formula opacity: There's really no excuse for a game to not at least give you something like Fire: Power 25, Megainferno: Power 280 in tooltips so you can easily refer to the power of a skill at a glance. Just feeling them out CAN be a pain especially in more exotic systems and you don't know if you're hitting elemental resistance/weakness/abnormally high/low defense or whatever.
For a particularly tedious example see VP2.
This. Very much this. Not to mention that if you put down a game for awhile, you won't even remember any of the conclusions you came to while feeling things out and will have to do that ALL OVER AGAIN.
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*nods @ Snow* Did you try the Strike/Crit Booster oils yet? Also on other twink related matters have you found any shiny Mind's Eyes for Yuri/Joe yet? There's also the Extreme which should be coming up soon, that can be a bit of a pain depending on your skills with the RNG though. Oh and think there's a point of no return as far as the Extreme's concerned. I can't remember for sure though but yeah might be worth a FAQ. Kurando can also make use of Mind's Eye/Extreme =-)
The only Mind's Eyes I'd try would be magical. I'm not that good with Judgment Rings though I like the system well enough, and physicals can be a massive pain in the ass to memorize with ME. I even have a couple, but didn't bother. My modus operandi is going much like it went in SH3: technical rings+Warlock/Demon Earrings for physical/magical boosts and a friendlier Judgment Ring. It's being massive overkill to everything so far.
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Technical Rings are more important than Mind's Eye anyway, because they improve buffs as well, for a quadratic increase in overall damage.
PW2 - aw yeah. First case was better than I remembered, although needed more Wellington and less Byrde but we already knew that. The Judge's owning of Gumshoe ("this witness' crush on the defendant has no bearing on this case") was priceless. Owned by the Judge, ouch.
FE9 - Chapter 19 now. Everyone's promoted. MVPs so far have been Stefan and Lethe. Most of the other PCs are vaguely underwhelming, but particularly Muarim whom I expected more from.
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Muarim became a straight-up liability in my laguz-only playthrough towards the end of the game. Lack of speed kills his offense and his defense both, and the late change actually grows more inconvenient too (early in the game it's convenient to let the two basically switch out whenever one shifts, but that dynamic falls by the wayside as others join and as they stop being able to solo everything effortlessly).
...
Lethe for president!
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Re: Formula opacity: There's really no excuse for a game to not at least give you something like Fire: Power 25, Megainferno: Power 280 in tooltips so you can easily refer to the power of a skill at a glance. Just feeling them out CAN be a pain especially in more exotic systems and you don't know if you're hitting elemental resistance/weakness/abnormally high/low defense or whatever.
For a particularly tedious example see VP2.
This. Very much this. Not to mention that if you put down a game for awhile, you won't even remember any of the conclusions you came to while feeling things out and will have to do that ALL OVER AGAIN.
In SaGa Frontier's defense (and I'm actually going through the annoying math of all of this, so this is a very unhappy concession on my part)... The spell costs all end up surprisingly accurate measurements for how effective a skill is. And looking at the main magic damage formula, JP cost is actually factored in! It's minor factor at best, but it implies to me that they at least had some balancing concerns in mind when they were making the game.
However, I definitely agree with the sentiment that transparent mechanics are better. You may be able to come to the conclusion that Spell A does more damage than Spell B. But if you knew that Spell B is actually ITD, you'd know it's a better option against super-defensive ShelledWarrior, whereas Spell A is only more awesome in cases with average/low-defense enemies.
The fact that SaGa Frontier elemental typings are ridiculous and the enemy weaknesses are uninituitive are further proof that transparency is better for any kind of strategizing.
On the other hand, with all the new discoveries of the actual typings and weaknesses are (along with a bunch of other features that we never really knew existed like how Mystics get a damage boost against opponent Mystics), SaGa Frontier actually has some pretty fun strategizing that can be done. You just have to painstakingly extract the data from the programming with a debugger to figure it out.
That's all.
FE10: I'm so bored of this game. I started a map with the Fail Brigade and fell asleep while playing. I will finish it, but long game is long and it's a lousy Skinner Box.
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The other advantage of relatively logical, though it doesn't have to be completely transparent damage algorithms is that it makes it much easier for the programmers themselves to actually make sure that everything, both on the PC and enemy side, does the damage that it is supposed to. If you generate an effective black box for your damage formulae it is very very easy to unintentionally break something somewhere that you didn't intend to and not have any idea how to fix it. I'm not especially familiar with Saga Frontier mechanics, but I'm willing to bet that at least some of the bosses ended up far weaker or stronger than the programmers originally intended.
I'd also argue that the complexity of the magic damage formula is representative of the game's coding in general, which is full of byzantine and unintuitive mechanics that can make the game user unfriendly, especially if you aren't reading up on faqs at all. Even with a more casual glance at them you're more likely to just pick up on the most abusive tricks/glitches and the best skills and ignore the vast majority of what the game offers because the documentation is so poor and performance so nonintuitive - which is a shame considering how many options the game has.
I will agree though that JP/WP costs did a pretty good job of correlating with usefulness for damage skills. A more expensive move would consistently do more damage and/or hit more targets. It's far from perfect, but by Saga Frontier standards it was a lot easier to get a rough sense of what worked with damage skills than just about anything else in the game's mechanics.
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Blah blah blah blah. I'll decide for myself, I've already played a bunch of IF games. It's old hat to me at this point.
Suit yourself, it was just some friendly advice on my part.
Soppy is a full fledge netherworld inhabitants by now. The pain delivered by IF game is equivalent to pleasure by this point.
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FE10: I'm so bored of this game. I started a map with the Fail Brigade and fell asleep while playing. I will finish it, but long game is long and it's a lousy Skinner Box.
You're almost done with the DB at least.
FE10- Just finished the desert myself.
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Torchlight: gave up the Hardcore and just did Easy mode Destroyer. Got the <8 and <5 hours to kill Ordrak achievements.
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TF2 - There is no shotgun; there is a pistol. There is no dispenser; there is another pistol. There is no sentry; there is yet another pistol. There is no teleporter; there is a dispenser. There is no death; there is the Pistol.
The Pistol is a lie; there is only the shotgun. Through the shotgun, I gain the sentry. Through the sentry, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Shotgun will set me free.
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So... the shotgun tortures your foes with lightning?
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SMT SJ: Just beat the boss of Grus. She was pretty disappointing overall. Her damage was unthreatening and unlike the other bosses she didn't have status or offensive buffs to back it up. Her gimmick was pretty stupid too and didn't do anything besides lengthen the fight. Fortunately, buffs and debuffs don't trigger her counter so my newly fused Anubis with Luster Candy helped to speed things along. The cutscene afterwords had the typical SMT scene where everyone goes there seperate ways based on alignment. I also just realized the pun behind Louisa Ferr's name and I'm kind of surprised that Atlus couldn't come up with more subtle.
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FE9 - So I am not really enjoying this. Chapter 13 done though! Wooooo. I can see some of the improvements to the game, but it doesn't really help. Thankfully fixed stat level ups really does help cut back in plenty of the bullshit annoying junk that goes into the game. The dialogue has a few points that are really facepalm worthy and early morning US time chats is getting the full brunt of my ranting about it.
My new favourite example of the dialogue is this though from my immediate responses to chapter 13
[22:21] <Grefter> "Bad news Ma'am. We've sighted laguz near the apostle's position. Birdmen. Crows, most likely." "Hmph! We've seen their kind before. They fancy themsleves pirates without a ship. but they're thieves plain and simple."
[22:21] <Grefter> Uh... yes?
[22:21] <Grefter> They do?
[22:22] <Grefter> Because pirates are thieves with a ship?
[22:22] <Grefter> What
[22:22] <Grefter> the dialogue
[22:23] <Grefter> LOOK OUT THERE IS EGGS. THEY PICTURE THEMSELVES AS UNBORN YOUNG OF REPTILES AND AVIANS BUT THEY ARE NOTHING MORE THAN THE YOUNG OF AVIANS AND REPTILES THAT HAVE BEEN FERTILISED AND ARE YET TO BREAK OUT OF THEIR SHELLS.
[22:25] <Grefter> aldskjfjkasdfjasdf THEY HAVE A BOAT
So it turns out they don't actually have a boat, but they were definitely working with people who have a boat. I do wonder where Brigands and Currs fit on this sliding scale of criminals though, are they more elustrious than Pirates or are they worse than Thieves? Perhaps time will tell.
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FE10- Got to the FoW map with Ike and company. I love the way you can tear through the game on replays. No animations + no text= about 10 to 15 hour game.\
Naturally Grefter is in this topic crying about games that he knew he wouldn't enjoy from the start. Wow, how predictable.
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FE9 - So I am not really enjoying this.
Dude, pirates sans ships are totally different from thieves. Peg legs? Hook hands? helloooo~o!
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FE7- Up to Darin's map. What Ciato said applies to every FE game, they get short when you skip plot/animations.
The polish differences between FE7 and 10 are pretty damn noticable. Most of it is small, like how you buy weapons and and the FE7 defaulting you to a max party whereas 10 remembers it, but it adds up. The series generally has gotten better about details like that. One flaw that FE games have that they share with other SRPGs is that they definitely are built challenge wise around the idea of using a full party and rotating team members. It isn't something I mind since it suits my playstyle, but it is there.
Team breakdown:
Lyn/Hector: Used in the arena so I could get Geitz instead of Wallace. Also using Hector to guard Merlinus. Hector ended up very average, where Lyn looked like she was well on her way to be massively defense/res screwed. Not a big deal.
Eliwood: Over on all the offensive stats, average on the rest. Getting an A in swords helped his offense tremendously thanks to that silver sword you pick up fairly early in his mode. He'll probably cap STR/SKI/SPD after promotion if his luck holds at all. I do need to dig up a body ring or two for him, as he is going to be my Dragonslayer.
Marcus: I'm about two thirds of the way through the game and he is still is good. Stat growth has been crap, since he hasn't gained speed or strength yet. But... yeah, he still doubles most things and he is still durable. He is better than I thought; he can carry a bad team (When DORCAS is your best fighter otherwise for several maps) quite well until... probably the desert? Something like that.
Dorcas: Also competent. He hits hard and his HP lets him be an effective tank. He's currently a L1 Warrior. Bit STR screwed and didn't gain speed until like L15, when he got four levels of it in a row. He is skill blessed though!!!...hey, if he can't have speed, he may as well be accurate.
Sain: STR screwed, speed blessed, skill blessed. I will definitely take that with him. He's an L2ish Paladin, currently supportin with Serra. I gave him an Angelic robe so he'd be able to tank out when needed. This really helped on Fargas's map and tanking the boss there.
Wil: Useful against flyers! Otherwise he's been the LVP so far. Doesn't have damage, durability, or speed. His support options suck too.
Serra: Naturally capped out her levels on like map 17, which says something about the offense of my team. Defense is made of fail and lose, even by her standards. She gained one whole point before promotion! *Claps*
Dart: Another axeman with potential speed issues. I clearly don't have enough of those, between Dorcas and Marcus. On the bright side, he's progressing well stat wise and can support with Will and Karel. I also dumped all my secret books on him, as he'll need every scrap of hit he can get. Speaking of that, going to end up using Karel since I seriously doubt I'll meet the reqs for getting Harken.
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Rattata Stories (HG): OMG JUST GOT A SHINY GEODUDE!! Rattata destroys worlds. Current team is Sandshrew, Chiko, Ratatta, Butterfree, Spearow, and Mareep.
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TF2 - There is no shotgun; there is a pistol. There is no dispenser; there is another pistol. There is no sentry; there is yet another pistol. There is no teleporter; there is a dispenser. There is no death; there is the Pistol.
The Pistol is a lie; there is only the shotgun. Through the shotgun, I gain the sentry. Through the sentry, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Shotgun will set me free.
Ironically I was just randomly comparing the stats on those two.
They're pretty much the same weapon. One's front-ended and the other is better in every other way.
Deep, man.
Edit:
We tried a 4v2 game, with me and Laggy on the same side, and that didn't work either.
...Oh come *on* you guys that just means non-Laggy and Trips people need to step it up. >_>
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TF2 - There is no shotgun; there is a pistol. There is no dispenser; there is another pistol. There is no sentry; there is yet another pistol. There is no teleporter; there is a dispenser. There is no death; there is the Pistol.
The Pistol is a lie; there is only the shotgun. Through the shotgun, I gain the sentry. Through the sentry, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Shotgun will set me free.
BLASPHEMY
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Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.
I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! :o It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.
Soppy is a full fledge netherworld inhabitants by now. The pain delivered by IF game is equivalent to pleasure by this point.
Really? Then he'll have the time of his life with Cross edge. I recommend you play Dragoneer's Aria next Soppy because even hating CE I still finished it twice. DA? Fuck that.
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Naturally Grefter is in this topic crying about games that he knew he wouldn't enjoy from the start. Wow, how predictable.
A game that I spent money on years ago so feel like I should actually play it and hey I may not like the series or enjoy playing it, but outside of the plot and horrible dialogue I am enjoying seeing the series evolve (Or return to form with less bullshit?). The crying is purely for the comedy reasons (Except for when the plot or dialogue breaks my brain). You can see they have improved a lot when my tears are all about FIRE EMBLEM PLOT and there is a couple of generic side things about FE gameplay.
It isn't like I have a big long teeth gnashing rant about Thieves promoting into assassin's making them damned useless or how absurdly frail low level but good growth starters are and how damned many of them you have to baby or anything because OH SNAP the game actually isn't doing that kind of shit (yet?). Seriously, they give you a set of capable quite usable characters pretty much straight up front and the ones that start at low level (Marcia being my best example I guess) are quite usable to level up. Sure there is Rolf thrown in the mix there and if he was in a more archer friendly game he might be better, but he is far enough in that you have quite a competent team enough that you can probably baby him up or you can just throw him on the wayside and not care about him. This speaks volumes because he is like the 4th or 5th recruit you get? Seriously they have made a lot of improvements and the reasons I dislike the game are the core ones with the series. None of that stops playing the game from being an interesting exercise even if I don't enjoy the game itself.
Bonus points because it gives me chances to have over the top drama jokes about the plot. Trust me the other candidates for bad things I have spent money on that I feel the need to play has things that I am dreading far more than this. I have Baten Kaitos to get through on this emulator next. I have Fable 2 to get back to. Considering I got through like one dungeon of BK and Fable 2 still makes me feel dirty with how ridiculously shallow and stupid it is that lead to the horrifying things it does without even thinking about it.
FE9 is a competent game for what it is, it just isn't my flavour. I reserve the right to bitch and moan like a big fat drama queen because shit that is what I do. It pleases me that really all I have to criticise about it is plot when all it really needs for plot is some vague excuse to string together a series of fights.
Seriously the only real gameplay flaw outside of the core philosophy of the game is that that maybe Strength is a bit over valued for physical characters now that it is how heavy a weapon you can carry, but that just puts it on the same level as the already overbudgetted Speed anyway, so boo fucking hoo. I am still really not sure what I think of it for casters. It is effectively an incredibly weak stat for them, but it is so rare for them that it is pretty nice when they do get it, so eh. Might matter more if most magic users didn't suck big fat ones in this game.
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SH2 -
<Hello-DojimathedralWaddleDee> Woohoo Kurando is a tranny.
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In FE9's defense:
Pirates: People with Ships who attack other People with Ships.
Ravens: Flying People who attack People with Ships.
The term "Shipless Pirates" makes sense, since the Ravens live in an island nation and they only attack Ships.
He calls them nothing more than Thieves to contrast the Hawk Tribe, which does the same thing, only they only attack Ships from Rich nations, like Robin Hood Pirates without ships.
Convoluted explanation, but you're taking the line out of context and then whining that it doesn't make sense out of context.
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Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.
I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! :o It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.
Baal stole mostly none of those in reality. Most people say so because they need someone to blame, especially Asagi.
SMT SJ: Just beat the boss of Grus. She was pretty disappointing overall. Her damage was unthreatening and unlike the other bosses she didn't have status or offensive buffs to back it up. Her gimmick was pretty stupid too and didn't do anything besides lengthen the fight. Fortunately, buffs and debuffs don't trigger her counter so my newly fused Anubis with Luster Candy helped to speed things along. The cutscene afterwords had the typical SMT scene where everyone goes there seperate ways based on alignment. I also just realized the pun behind Louisa Ferr's name and I'm kind of surprised that Atlus couldn't come up with more subtle.
Better than nothing, in the Japanese version, they didn't even bother to make a new name and still use his old alias: Louie Cypher. But than, Louie wasn't really trying to hide his identity in the first place.
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Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.
I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! :o It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.
And now, you're approaching getting my favorite "unique" character. My Heart Shakes is just so over-the-top fun to watch, and Love Dynamite is... Well, a 3x3 attack that you get for free. Shame it's not transferable, but it makes building up Fist Fighters and Martial Artists for going towards Big Bang SO much easier.
Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.
I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! :o It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.
Baal stole mostly none of those in reality. Most people say so because they need someone to blame, especially Asagi.
But... Master Bigster... How? I... That breaks my brain to think about.
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The pirates line made perfect sense in context to me, yeah.
Wizard of Oz - Holly is a biiiiitch. But I beat her first try anyway. Very evil fight, the charged MT attack was far more deadly than that used by her sisters even before you factor in the "OHKO Strawman" thing and both her speed and durability are insane. She almost walled me with healing there at the end, and I used all my revival items just staying on top of things.
Guessing the game's nearing its end now, with one egg left to collect (and I'm sure there will be no plot twist at that point involving how much better people my enemies are than my boss).
Charming little game overall, quite impressed with the aesthetics since I don't think I've mentioned that, and challenge level is about where an RPG should be. Far from perfect or even great but it succeeds well at what it sets out to do. Best Dragon Quest game ever.
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Just for the record, the comments were in chat are live as I was watching it just to fill in a dead morning in chat. So ranting for jokes and not because it was so bad I had to scream at something.
I still don't see how the pirate line makes sense in context, the only context you have about birds first time through there is that some attacked you and that they were pirates. (You haven't even had a scene with Tibarn, you have one throw away line about there being 2 kinds of birds and nothing else) None of that matters, the line is not confusing, the line is just a bad line. Thus why I talk about bad dialogue not OH MY GODS THE PLOTS IT IS SUXOR. They are comparing two entirely negative things and making a big deal of it. Having seen more scenes Freedom Fighters or Corsairs would have been a far more fitting description than pirates without a ship.
One more chapter done. I really should start playing sooner after I get home. Should turn off animations as well, but eh. Stuff. Game is happening, phasing out other units as the realisation of just how much more exploitable mounted units are than the other options. Was meaning to ask Brom vs Gatrie post before last, but hey clearly I needed to get people cut up by making fun of some dumb shit right? Settled on Brom since he was faster and 7 levels lower. Think Gatrie has better growth or equal maybe? I remember checking their stats and there wasn't much difference at 20/20 Edit - Missed words in last two sentences not good read making for times.
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I for my part am done with FE10. I've been emulating it, and I made it to part 3 epilogue before it finally gave up the ghost. Corrupted data or something, I always get a crash when I try to load the level. Welp. It was a pretty decent game while it lasted, but that's the end.
I definitely found it easier than the GBA games, even ignoring battle saves. Sire grunts take more oomph to bring down, but they don't hit much harder, and there's less nasty surprises - no enemies with multiple weapons to mess you up, less flyers to do surprise picks on someone squishy you put 1 square too close, less fog of war, less dying to 10 attacks because you kept killing everything with counters, more ways to null a boss's crit chance, etc.
Nolan and Aran carried the DB, Elincia and Geoff carried the CRKs (surprise), Haar and Nephenee carried the GMs. Final group would have most certainly been picked from them + royals.
I was also kind of looking forward to see the story play out, and there's a lot synopses won't tell you.
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You can't download a save from GF, Monkey?
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Nope, it's all endgame/clear file stuff. wiisaves.com has end of part 3 saves! But they're all european.
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The pirates line made perfect sense in context to me, yeah.
Wizard of Oz - Holly is a biiiiitch. But I beat her first try anyway. Very evil fight, the charged MT attack was far more deadly than that used by her sisters even before you factor in the "OHKO Strawman" thing and both her speed and durability are insane. She almost walled me with healing there at the end, and I used all my revival items just staying on top of things.
Guessing the game's nearing its end now, with one egg left to collect (and I'm sure there will be no plot twist at that point involving how much better people my enemies are than my boss).
Charming little game overall, quite impressed with the aesthetics since I don't think I've mentioned that, and challenge level is about where an RPG should be. Far from perfect or even great but it succeeds well at what it sets out to do. Best Dragon Quest game ever.
I knew the game would be right up your alley.
WAoO - Yeah, I'm replaying this at lunch break. Currently dawdling at the beach, just learned the fourth skills from Gou Yoku - i.e. Strawman starts beating Dorothy out as MVP for randoms. Life is good.
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SaGa debugging comes through with something interesting. Apparently the designers have some interesting balancing going on with their status effects and dispels.
Most relevant - it turns out that DarkSphere (the highest-level Dark magic spell, which is less damaging than its Light magic counterpart and therefore always seemed worthless) is actually the best Dispel move in the game. It dispels all status effects and does decent damage. Great for those pesky buffing enemies.
It also dispels any status effects that you might have cast on an enemy too... like Psychic Prison. So you don't want to hit the same enemy with both of these.
It also -doesn't- dispel passive ability-based buffs, like Photosynthesis' regeneration effect. Related note: SaGaF has a 'Null Regeneration' status effect that -does- stop the Regen from Photosynthesis, Deathsynthesis, Self-Repair... and from normally-casted Regen spells like Vitality Rune.
So... conceivably there's some interesting skill balancing going on here... if the game actually told the player that any of these things existed (or what their effects were).
FE10 - Chapter 3 - Endgame. I love the ticking time bomb in the corner. 80 Sacrifices seems like such an arbitrary number for resurrecting a dark god.
STK - Need to invade Astrasia for its own good. I wonder if we're not being a little hypocritical here.
Yggdra Union - No, I'm not actually playing this, it just looks really really interesting and I can't seem to find a good review of the system to figure out if it's as interesting as I think it is. Also curious if the PSP version actually has anything appreciably different from the GBA version.
What else has STING made besides Yggdra and Riviera?
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SaGa debugging comes through with something interesting. Apparently the designers have some interesting balancing going on with their status effects and dispels.
Most relevant - it turns out that DarkSphere (the highest-level Dark magic spell, which is less damaging than its Light magic counterpart and therefore always seemed worthless) is actually the best Dispel move in the game. It dispels all status effects and does decent damage. Great for those pesky buffing enemies.
It also dispels any status effects that you might have cast on an enemy too... like Psychic Prison. So you don't want to hit the same enemy with both of these.
It also -doesn't- dispel passive ability-based buffs, like Photosynthesis' regeneration effect. Related note: SaGaF has a 'Null Regeneration' status effect that -does- stop the Regen from Photosynthesis, Deathsynthesis, Self-Repair... and from normally-casted Regen spells like Vitality Rune.
So... conceivably there's some interesting skill balancing going on here... if the game actually told the player that any of these things existed (or what their effects were).
FE10 - Chapter 3 - Endgame. I love the ticking time bomb in the corner. 80 Sacrifices seems like such an arbitrary number for resurrecting a dark god.
STK - Need to invade Astrasia for its own good. I wonder if we're not being a little hypocritical here.
Yggdra Union - No, I'm not actually playing this, it just looks really really interesting and I can't seem to find a good review of the system to figure out if it's as interesting as I think it is. Also curious if the PSP version actually has anything appreciably different from the GBA version.
What else has STING made besides Yggdra and Riviera?
I am wondering, who is cracking the SaGa code for you?
Also, Yggdra Union is HARD. PSP is easier, GBA one is PSP hard mode. PSP also have special scenario on second cycle if you play the hard mode.
Sting's other games are Evolution series and Baroque series.
EDIT:
BTW, the chronological order of the game is Blazing Union->Yggdra Union->Knights in the Nightmare->Riviera
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Yggdra Union PSP is pretty good. It's hard like Niu said but easily playable. Sting also made Knights in the Nightmare which is downright bizarre and not for everyone. Also upcoming next week is their new game, Hexys Force, which I have no idea what its about! Niu!
I love how Djinn is trying to breakdown the shitfest that is SaGa Frontier battlemechanics. If I had my old computer I would have uploaded a pic of the game cd shredded in a blender. Fucking waste of 14 dollars.
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I am wondering, who is cracking the SaGa code for you?
Also, Yggdra Union is HARD. PSP is easier, GBA one is PSP hard mode. PSP also have special scenario on second cycle if you play the hard mode.
Sting's other games are Evolution series and Baroque series.
EDIT:
BTW, the chronological order of the game is Blazing Union->Yggdra Union->Knights in the Nightmare->Riviera
The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool. There's a girl there who has been translating the Fuse scenario from the Essence for a while now. There's also Zaraktheus, the main debugger guy who has made a lot of the recent breakthroughs... he has a half-complete BMG up on GFs shows most of his progress, though he's shared a bit more with the community casually while he's working on making it reader-friendly. There's another guy who is scanning all of the Essence for posterity, and there's been a recent push to translate the scans. We also have a bunch of people synthesizing gameshark codes and testing Zaraktheus' finds to round out the group.
Yggdra Union: This game is freakin' cool. I found a BMG for this, so I'm probably gonna stat topic it, despite it being the least stat topic-friendly game ever. Not that this has stopped me yet...
List of games that shouldn't have been stat-topicced that Djinn has stat-topicced:
Star Ocean Blue Sphere
Soul Nomad
Final Fantasy 12 Revenant Wings
SaGa Frontier
And I stat-topiced Tales Radiant Mythology, but a mere action RPG is pretty tame compared to those others with problems like 'no damage figures'.
I also have spreadsheets with completed stat topic info for Eternal Sonata (with bonus dungeon equips, but I lost my boss notes so I got discouraged) and The World Ends With You (but Niu and RadLink beat me to this, so I just gave up on it).
Stat topics are only fun if I have to struggle with weird interps to make them.
Though Yggdra Union might be the first one that stumps me completely. I'm going to buy the Japanese guide and see if that fills in any wholes.
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I'll provide favours if you stat topic Rondo of Swords.
Because Cotton hype.
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Yggdra Union: This game is freakin' cool. I found a BMG for this, so I'm probably gonna stat topic it, despite it being the least stat topic-friendly game ever. Not that this has stopped me yet...
Chaos Wars wants a word with you.
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No, no, Yggdra Union may well be worse.
I remember playing it just enough to go "Is a stat topic for this possible in any meaningful way? I'm not sure.". I'd rather stat topic Megaman.
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TF2- Engie+good team=yay positive kill count. My ego needed that after the last time I was pitted against team Trips/Laggy. Now to master ninja Engie with Sage. *Nods*
FE10- Finished E-2. Almost done!
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The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.
I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.
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The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.
I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.
This coming from someone on the RPGDL?
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The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.
I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.
This coming from someone on the RPGDL?
If you ever catch me heading north again, let me know.
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TF2- Engie+good team=yay positive kill count. My ego needed that after the last time I was pitted against team Trips/Laggy. Now to master ninja Engie with Sage. *Nods*
Ninja Pyro is fun. I like the changes they made (...after...making changes...). Flare Gun Sniping is finely annoying to people without medics. I love the auto-crit at long range - people really don't watch it well enough.
Practically not that effective, but still fun! Coming behind a pack of people and burning all 6 of them down is fun.
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Rattata Stories (HG):
So instead of Human and Fairy paths, you have Humanshape and Fairy egg groups?
Also, I remember the picture of the SaGa CD in the blender. Good times.
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If I had my old computer I would have uploaded a pic of the game cd shredded in a blender. Fucking waste of 14 dollars.
Dude, $14 for a blender is a great deal.
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No Disgaea 3 as Studley is too awesome.
Played a very good Fei Long player a shed load of times today, I used to consider it a bad matchup but it was more I was making too many stupid moves. If I hold back I found there was little he could do and it forced him into making mistakes. It helped that he was proberly peeved about having roses thrown at him for 30 solid seconds ;D.
After that there was no turtling and I managed to come out ahead as while we were quite even Dudley's ultra swayed it in my favour. He had a great deal of trouble landing his ultra while mine was connecting at times twice a round.
Oh yeah also I played 5 MAKOTOS! What were capcom thinking? All her combos are worthless if one punch from Dudley puts things even. She has from what I've seen crap damage, health, speed, ground moves, anti air and command grabs. I should not be able to throw her out of her command throw but thats how crap it is. I am aware of the grab + punch + Super + Ultra combo before anyone says anything. Its honestly not that great, its tricky to pull off and the chances a good player letting it hit is near zero.
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TF2- Engie+good team=yay positive kill count. My ego needed that after the last time I was pitted against team Trips/Laggy. Now to master ninja Engie with Sage. *Nods*
Ninja Pyro is fun. I like the changes they made (...after...making changes...). Flare Gun Sniping is finely annoying to people without medics. I love the auto-crit at long range - people really don't watch it well enough.
Practically not that effective, but still fun! Coming behind a pack of people and burning all 6 of them down is fun.
I'll be honest: The way I ninja Engie is kinda ridiculous as fuck, because I've played enough Spy to back up "Come up on someone's back and wrench them to death." as a strategy if I'm lucky. It probably shouldn't work, but people spectacularly underrate Engineers as a combat force. (25% less speed, a little less extreme close range damage(But a better melee weapon) and a double jump is substantial advantages in combat but that DOESN'T MEAN THE ENGIE DOESN'T DO JUST AS MUCH DAMAGE GUYS)
Still, I know some spots. I think my favorite is the Turbine offensive spot where it covers four doors. Teleporters I'm better with and I keep finding new spots for those every day(Yesssss I actually saw someone pull off the Badwater fifth point tele into the back end of the base. Took a dispenser though and they rather stupidly didn't cover it with a gun first. what the hell.).
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FE10- In zee final dungeon, saved halfway into E-1. The TV is going to get mighty tired of FE9/FE10 after the last month.
Overall, things have gone pretty smoothly. I decided I wanted to use Tanith, Shinon, and Calill; those were going to be my pet characters and otherwise I would use the best people (or in the case of a near tie, those who made me happiest).
A few things:
1. Marcia was not very good this playthrough. She was strictly inferior to Tanith in most ways.
2. Mia is badass! Definitely a bad enough girl to use in the final dungeon, I must say.
3. Tried to use Edward once again. Ended up dumping in around 3-13. I used him as filler in Part 4 and he even got to Tier 3... because I Master Crowned him at Level 10.
4. Tried to use Makalov. The asshat decided not to gain speed four levels straight with his 75% speed growth. Oh fuck off!
5. Nephenee was excluded from the final dungeon due to having used her both other playthroughs already, but she really deserved to go again.
6. Death count:
Leonardo- gang raped by Pegusus Knights in Part 1
Aran- Doubled by the steel longbow dude in 1-Endgame
Ranulf- magic'd to death
Ulki- Got hit by a crossbowmen on the Save Elincia map
Pelleas and Laura and Marcia died at various points and I was going to let them die but then I had to reset anyway. >_>
7. Final party: Ike, Micaiah, Sanaki, Ena, Kurth, Sothe of course. Volug, Meg, Nolan, Janaff, Tanith, Mia, Calill, Elincia, Oscar, Shinon. Jill was close to being on the team until I realized that I only had one healer so I replaced her with Elincia.
8. Oscar turned out just statistically superior to Titania. It kind of snuck up on me, because I thought Titania was always the best.
9. Dang, Jill got hot in the last three years. Titania is hot too. Fire Emblem rules making hot redheads. Mmm, Raven. Mmm, Joshua.
10. Shinon is quite good. It's a stark contrast to FE9, where he talks all this trash like he's some kind of badass and then can't fucking break defense. Also, Earth/Earth supports are stupid. :D
Also, Alondite Meg y/y
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SH2 - SUPER FLASHY CGI OH LOOK IT'S A RANDOM BOSSFIGHT man Saki's battle is pretty out of the blue. At least she's capable of doling out OHKO offense, which is more than any of the 3HKOing losers so far could say.
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The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.
I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.
Oh Rob, you're so delightfully antagonistic! :-* <3
Yggdra Union: Well, the game is as unique as it's reported to be. Pretty interesting. There are some mechanics that translate really easily to DL format like "The entire SRPG team of 9 can only make -one- attack total in a round". Then there's the weird Clash/Morale system, which essentially gives every PC two forms of HP: Real HP, called Morale, which takes a unit out of play if it reaches 0; and "Buffer HP", called Clash damage, which only serves to determine whether or not a PC gets a chance to damage Morale or not. Buffer HP only lasts for one round of combat, it is completely restored by the next turn, even if all Buffer HP is reduced to 0.
The reason this is controversial is because each PC's Buffer HP looks like a generic mook that follows them into battle.
As an example, Yggdra always rides into battle with 6 Valkyries at her side. These Valkyries are just graphical representations of Yggdra's stats that attack alongside her. If all of them die, they instantly respawn in the next attack. At the end of an attack, the number of Yggdra's Valkyries that survived are converted into damage against the opponent's Real HP. If only Yggdra survives, she does 10% damage (plus a few other factors) to the opponent's Real HP. If Yggdra doesn't survive, then she deals no damage and the opponent gets to counter-attack, but there's no game over unless the opponent manages to bring her Real HP to 0.
After a lot of looking at the mechanics, I've come to the conclusion there's only two ways to view Yggdra Union characters.
The way I suspect most DLers would demand would be "Leader PC fights alone", which is only possible in-game during a single round of combat if the enemy manages to take out all of the mooks, but not the Leader. Mathematically, I can probably still make a stat topic like this, since if only the Leader is alive, they do 10% of damage, which would just make the damage averages look a lot lower. However, most of the skill/equipment mechanics formulas in the game look something like this:
Attacker's TEC - Opponent's GEN = # of Mooks killed
The Mooks themselves each count as basically 1 Buffer HP and 10% of Potential damage. That's basically their entire function is to be a graphical representation of the Leader's Buffer HP, which can be converted into damage if any of them survive. Manipulating how many of them survive on either side during a turn is basically how damage to Real HP works.
This is how I would view Yggdra Union, where mooks are ignored as anything other than meatshields. If they were graphically represented as floating shields, there would be no question on how to interpret this. They have about as much autonomy as FF6's Interceptor (maybe less since technically Relm can get Interceptor, too!). Yggdra always has 6 Valkyries, Durant always has 3 (2-HP) Knights, enemies always have 6 or 3 mooks following them, so calculating Real HP damage using the baseline 6 mooks is actually entirely possible.
And particularly interesting due to the way resists and weaknesses work in the game. All things being equal, an attacking PC normally (no skills used) wins a Clash with only themselves standing. However, there's a weapon triangle, elemental typings, and species/terrain effects that come into play. If a PC has a weapon-type that's strong against their opponent's (like Sword over Axe), then they will win a Clash with more of their mooks standing (which converts into more direct damage to their Real HP). But this system is tiered. Elemental resistance overwrites Weapon triangle, so if the Sword-user attacks the Axe-user with a Holy-elemental physical and the Axe-user nulls Holy, now the Sword-user loses the Clash miserably and deals no damage to Real HP (in fact, they give the opponent a free counter-attack to their own Real HP). Species weakness overrides everything, but there's only like 4 species weaknesses in the game.
It makes an interesting cast full of spoilers who are equally spoil-able. Resisting a YU PC's weapon-type can make them completely unable to damage an opponent without using skills (which are very limited). Conversely, having a weapon-type that a YU PC resists can basically make them untouchable and give them free counters (unless the opponent uses skills/elements/status).
So... while I doubt I'll be able to make a topic that would make people deem the YU cast as 'rankable', I can definitely make a stat topic that has comparable stats for things like Board Tournaments.
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That is not what truly makes the game unrankable.
The first thing is the individual hp of each mook and leader. They are invisible but still important, especially in a leader vs leader situation.
Second, the actual damage done is determined by the card score. But each individual card's score can vary greatly, and there is no definite ways on how a card will grow. So there is no reliable end game average.
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Each mook's HP is exactly 1/2 or equal to the Leader's HP. The Leader's stats are the only stats that matter.
For Card Power, I was going to take the amount of maps that the card was available for (since each card can only be used once per map) and give it the average amount of EXP from enemies on that map (each enemy gives a fixed amount of Card EXP).
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FE9 - Holy shit they have actually resolved the Jill recruitment with the fact that you are totally making out with every Laguz you come across in this game. I really didn't expect that to happen. So props to the game there.
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MMSF2 x Saurian -
Beat Apollo. Currently I have every regular and giga card, and am just missing 19 mega cards, which I am not going to bother getting.
Pokémon Heart Gold -
Just beat the Elite 4/Champion for the first time. Currently on 115 mons acquired.
I see that the game still has the annoying problem inbattle where if you have Run highlighted, you can't hit Up to go to Fight (and Run doesn't require confirmation). It would help if after accidentally moving off Fight, moving the other direction went back to Fight instead of to Run.
Game is being fine as would be expected of a remake of the best iteration so far.
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Nier: Finished part 1. Did all the quests because I'm crazy like that. And they give shiny dialog between the characters usually so that is worth it.
Generally sharing some of Tal's thoughts, although playing on Normal means enemies die a whole lot faster. Game is depressing as crap at the end of part 1/start of part 2. To be expected I guess.
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Disgaea 3: Just got a L200 Cosmo Infinity. Base stats are as follows:
365700 HP
146400 SP
1576850 ATK
73300 DEF
73300 INT
131780 RES
146400 HIT
1720182 SPD
Due to 5 sets of L19998 Sprinters, there's 99990 more base ATK/SPD, a Professional tossed on for perfect crit rates, a Guardian to get all the Equipment to offer bonkers bonuses... Then, the last slot for a L500 Fist Fighter, so go ahead and multiply all those base values by 500.
I am going to thoroughly enjoy this weapon.
And by thoroughly enjoy, I mean clone the hell out of it.
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Let's see...
Well I am still playing the hell out of League of Legends. They keep pumping out new heroes so it isn't getting old or anything either! I think I have seen at least nine new characters since I have been playing. I think Shaco is my favorite champion to use though.
Not to mention I made a Bass player for my GFs band and have been rocking out in some good ole fashion Rock Band 2. Juan Dinero is now a part of Neon Roses!
I have also been playing a good amount of Call of Duty MW2 on the PS3 as of late. Me and my lady got her profile in online mode to around level 44.
Not to mention she has that Sega Classics Collection Package for her 360 so I popped that in and showed her some Phantasy Star 4 and Shining Force 2 lovin. Go figure that she seemed to like PS4 more.
She also just bought Brawl and Melee so I have been teaching her how to play those games.
We have also been playing that New Super Mario bros game. I think I have beaten that game with three different groups of people now. I enjoy killing my partners. It's more fun that way!
Not to mention I have been constantly playing SS while I have the time. I am around 400 pokemon caught with 15 badges. I think I have to evolve all those stupid happiness pokemon now which is going to be hella annoying.
OH! So I got my friend to dl the After years and what a cop out. I get Kain, he gets all bad ass and magical and then the damn game ends on me. I KNOW that isn't the end, but now I have to pay more to see the rest. How fucking lame. Why couldn't they just make the game a whole game!
edit: Just so you all know, Kain gets Haste, Blink, and Cures along with Esuna now! *dances*
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SH2 - Here lies Nicolai Conrad. He failed almost as spectacularly as Shion on Ice: Springtime for 4chan until the end. R.I.P.
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Best class in the game (http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/Laggy/dumplog/1274384464.nh343.txt)
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Nier: Finished part 1. Did all the quests because I'm crazy like that. And they give shiny dialog between the characters usually so that is worth it.
Generally sharing some of Tal's thoughts, although playing on Normal means enemies die a whole lot faster. Game is depressing as crap at the end of part 1/start of part 2. To be expected I guess.
Boss durability seems to drop off in part 2, for some reason. Maybe because spears are cracked.
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NIER - Finished. x2. Hard mode, 100% quest completion, 100% weapon completion. Good game overall, though it does have its fair of issues (TROLLAN). Gameplay is pretty fun, but doing all the optional quests can be tedious. I did all of them on the first run so cycle 2 went by pretty quick. Fortunately the enemies do get stronger on the second cycle, so it wasn't all that boring. Some of the lategame bosses can be real bitches though. Especially one towards the end where you're supposed to blitz BUT YOU CAN'T BLITZ BECAUSE THE HP WAS INCREASED HAVE FUN. Had a reset there but fortunately NIER continues stick you right at the beginning of whatever PHASE of the boss you died on, not the beginning of the whole battle. Pretty awesome, that.
Got to finish this run for the other two endings and then I'll be done. Doesn't seem like enemies got stronger this time, so it should be even quicker (and I can skip scenes because all the new stuff outside the ending shows up on cycle 2 as far as I know).
Oh yeah, and the soundtrack is amazing. I know I already said that but it needs to be said again.
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Best class in the game (http://alt.org/nethack/userdata/Laggy/dumplog/1274384464.nh343.txt)
archaeologist 4 lief
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edit: Just so you all know, Kain gets Haste, Blink, and Cures along with Esuna now! *dances*
Eh, it helps, but he's no Edge or Yang. Edge gets itemcast haste, blink and protect, and Yang gets a defend/counter cover thing that is just stupid good at turtling.
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Torchlight: So, I got Fletchette Trap. Now I have a machinegun, ho ho ho. It's kind of unfair, really; it's like playing Nelson Muntz to the game's Milhouse. "Stop shooting yourself, stop shooting yourself, stop shooting yourself." The game in general has been quite easy, actually, apart from the occasional optional area that has higher-levelled enemies. Probably coulda dealt with playing on a higher difficulty setting--as usual, I just went with the default.
Just fought Ordrak. Mine 'n' run strategy took him out pretty easily (as it does with most things), though there was enough damage flying around that I actually had to heal once. So that's something? Anyway, onwards to Boatmurdered dwarven fortress.
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Heart Gold: More tournament planning! I now have a collection of about 10 Pokemon that I need to cut down to my final 6, and I have a pretty good idea of the final 6 (4, technically) that I want. Got 4 of them fully EVd, and 3 of those are above Lv 50 (the other is, like, 47 or something) so I'm nearly there! ...but only a week to go. I'm gonna have to speed-play this if I want to win a trip to Hawaii~ ;(
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WAoO - Five Tree of Life Ashes, seven Hi-Potions, all my Moonfly Powders and a dead Lion later, I realize why I left Gou Yoku 3 for post-Delphi in my first playthrough. Delphi was pretty underwhelming as a result, though.
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Each mook's HP is exactly 1/2 or equal to the Leader's HP. The Leader's stats are the only stats that matter.
For Card Power, I was going to take the amount of maps that the card was available for (since each card can only be used once per map) and give it the average amount of EXP from enemies on that map (each enemy gives a fixed amount of Card EXP).
Doesn't work though. The amount of cards you can use per map changes. You can't predict which card you'll use and which one you don't.
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Got to finish this run for the other two endings and then I'll be done. Doesn't seem like enemies got stronger this time, so it should be even quicker (and I can skip scenes because all the new stuff outside the ending shows up on cycle 2 as far as I know).
You sure? You should know what ending D does by now....
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It's apparently possible to back up your save first and get around that.
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Already backed up my saves so yeah.
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Each mook's HP is exactly 1/2 or equal to the Leader's HP. The Leader's stats are the only stats that matter.
For Card Power, I was going to take the amount of maps that the card was available for (since each card can only be used once per map) and give it the average amount of EXP from enemies on that map (each enemy gives a fixed amount of Card EXP).
Doesn't work though. The amount of cards you can use per map changes. You can't predict which card you'll use and which one you don't.
It works for an average. Kind of like saying that even though you can play through all of FE7 and never once use Wil doesn't mean that he doesn't deserve to get EXP as if you were using him in your main party.
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FE10- Finished. I didn't bother to watch the ending; I just wanted the game to end. It was a fun game that is largely an improvement over FE9 in most regards, but I was also very ready for it to be over. I need to be better about protecting support units. I didn't have a single dragon or heron by endgame, and both would have been very helpful there. It's built for high level play. Unlike FE9, your stat caps matter a hell of a lot and so do your innate skills. The support system is far more gameplay friendly; anyone can support with anyone and supports are quick to build. BEXP's also a great way to cap out your stats at endgame instead of a way to catch some PC's up.
The good: The game does a good job explaining exactly how the Mad King's war came about when it made so little sense on paper. The rotating system lets you use far more PC's than the typical FE game, and the challenge is much improved from 7-9. A lot of the unbalance (Hay Forging) has been rebalanced. Laguz are good this time around!
The bad: You are completely at the mercy of the RNG at the start of the game. If you aren't getting the levels early, good luck getting to the point where Jeigans can carry you. BEXP only helps so much as it almost always hits the top three stats, for a PC like Leo (HP/skill/RES are his top five IIRC) it is useless in catching them up. Fuck the Dawn Brigade in general, on that note. Part 1 went on for way too long. While it isn't a big deal, hard mode fails beyond belief. The main villains are terrible (A proud FE tradition).
I like it, but not sure I like it notably more than FE9.
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FE10- Complete~ MVP: Nolan. For realz. Ike doubling the Black Knight was hi-lar-ious. (Okay fine it was only one round. It was an "I'M NOT LEFT HANDED EITHER" moment.). Calill does not have as much Magic as I thought but she is uber-good against the non-RES-panel final boss dudes, especially next to Nasir where she gets +5 Magic AND can double. Hell yeah. Overall I had a lot of fun and already want to start my fourth playthrough already *gets hit over the head with a bat by Elfboy*. Ow.
So, overall, biggest problems with the game.
1. Conversations forcing you to stay on the panel you are in AND being at the top. Sure, you can just be attentive and notice them, but I feel like most people aren't always attentive and they shouldn't have to be~
2. E-3 and E-4 villains could really be less lame. I really like the Senators, but holy hell do I hate E-3's boss. What a fucking worthless sack of shit wanker.
3. Less Ike god mode. For fuck's sake, he's not a deity.
4. The ending suuucks and is unskippable on the first playthrough.
5. Why can't you view your characters post-epilogue?!
6. The GMs really could have used a couple less boring easy chapters. I'm looking at you, 3-7 (the battle vs. Mic) and 3-8 (the volcano). Just stick Septy somewhere else.
Obviously none of these are gamebreaking problems but they are all things I noticed throughout the game.
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NIER - Finished! Hard mode, 100% quests, all endings get. Not much to add to what I've already said. Plot needed to have more explanation though.
And the soundtrack is still amazing. Cute that that all four different versions of the ending song (four different languages) were used in corresponding ending credit rolls.
Not sure what I'll get into next. Need to get back to progressing in Pokemon Heart Gold but I might go back to Cross Edge postgame stuff. And Hexyz Force comes out this week, too. Hmm... Might check that out instead.
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Subterranean Animism: been feeling the call towards this again. Performing...unspectacularly; not guaranteed to beat normal, for instance.
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But this is card that can only be used once a map, not a PC.
And unlike FE, where you can use Arena and realistically get everyone even HP, this is impossible in Yggdra Union.
You'll make the card score more flat than it really is.
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Didn't you hear, Niu? They removed arenas from the Fire Emblem games.
So instead of Wil, let's use Edward as an example.
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Online cutting out = not cool. Back to playing Disgaea 3.
So Baal didn't steal the stuff? So everyone is basically doing the whole gambit of blaming someone they know can't defend themselfs? I would have thought Laharl would be more angry at Baal killing his father but whatever.
Beat Axel with the old and true method of lifting him into the air. Its incredable that even in the third game bosses can still be lifted. Prinny mask is the only boss that can't and thus is hardest boss in the game as a result.
Laharl time now and he isn't to hard. I beat him and all his lackeys before Etna killed me so a few more levels and the tiny overlords going down.
I also finished Raspberyl mode with Vulcanus's cameo being the most hilarious even though he didn't say anything. I guess thats why you don't mess with Seraph Lamington.
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Replaying FE9! And Ike is still awesome!... despite having a few bad levels and a 1-stat level. Yeah. I'm also running into the party of no Def, so HP and Spd are kinda the god-stats in my playthrough, as despite getting all the way to recruiting Volke (btw, is there actually any way to sneak in on that map? Or are you always spotted?), nobody can survive much of being looked at sideways. Except Rhys. Who is getting into the 3HKO territory of durability now, which scares me. Hmm... maybe he really IS Mia's white-clad rival!?
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You can sneak through it, but it's pretty tricky, and basically requires (hilariously) cavalier abuse. Worth it in bexp, though.
Those sneaky horses.
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And how, exactly, do you do that? Kill people before they can say anything?
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Stay out of their attack ranges, other than the boss and his flunkies. Like I said, cavaliers are the sneakiest.
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Oh, is that all it is? Thanks
...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.
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I see better when I'm carrying a javelin.
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Also, keep stuff like Sephiran's Cell closed; there's no reason to open that and if closed, enemies won't see him.
Deploying less units is naturally helpful in the "Sneak" situation.
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3D Dot Game Heroes - Cleared the first dungeon. Woo, Zelda clone.
Fable - Supposed to be helping traders through the Darkwood, but abusing quest saving and blackjack instead.
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Yeah, only deploy the mounted units (Marcia, Titania, Oscar), the laguz, Volke, and Ike. I think you can have one other combat unit if you reaally want but IIRC the one I chose just ended up being stuck in a corner somewhere along with whichever mounted unit had rescued him. You only need to talk to Nephenee and Brom (Kieran recruits himself anyway, Sephiran does nothing) and that's only if you want them as PCs. Oh yeah, and don't ever attack a door; enemies can hear that and it alerts them. Basic strategy is to rescue Volke and Ike so they can get places faster; Volke needs to open doors (and later chests, since you won't be able to get the guards' chest keys), Ike needs to recruit Neph/Brom and eventually escape. You'll need to fight the boss with a relatively small number of units which is potentially scary but if one of said units is Titania you won't have much to worry about, especially if she has a Hammer.
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Touhou Hisoutensoku - In a casual tournament with some people from elsewhere. Three rounds so far, the third knocking me into the loser's bracket, but teaching me some hopefully valuable lessons. Matches are best of three, different characters in each fight.
First match, I took three goes to beat Utsuho with Meiling (got nailed with Giga Flare in the second round, OUCH) then destroyed Youmu with Remilia.
Second match I lost the first round of each fight - narrowly beat Iku with Suika, then somewhat less narrowly beat Yuyuko with Utsuho, bringing me to having used all four characters I'm good with.
Third match I discovered that Suika has a hard time with Remilia, though it wasn't terrible. Utsuho destroyed his Reimu - for the second time in the tournament. Then I fought Patchy with Meiling with a deck that was all wrong for the fight at hand and got beat down. Fortunately, I think I can take the loser's bracket and figure out ways to take Remi and Patchy next time, and I can't imagine him getting better at Reimu vs. Utsuho so I have to try to get that match-up again.
There's a YouTube playlist of the matches if anyone's interested.
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IIRC, there's a FAQ with a turn-by-turn guide to get you through that map the stealthy way. What was the point of doing it that way, again? I remember doing it but forgot why.
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You get a fuckton of Bonus Exp for it.
WoO - ULTIMATE BETRAYAL!!! Pretty fun times, at the final dungeon. Ju Kaku 2 decided it would be a good idea to use Power Charge + Magic Thunder to cancel it himself a lot so yeah he kinda failed.
FE9 - Up to Chapter 27. So yeah, I was all "Stefan can totally save me a turn if he kills Bertram" and I saw Bertram's 1% crit chance (on a 55% hit rate) and I was all "well if it happens, it'll be hilarious." It happened. Same thing occured with Ike the following round, but Ike didn't get critted, so no ludicrous 1/40000 odds fucking me over beyond belief. That would have been the best thing ever. Going on with the game because Stefan was finally falling back to the pack (Zihark became his equal with like 4 maps left, omg totally a better SM) and I dislike resetting anyways these days.
He's my second casualty that I care about, Soren ate it to a crit from the last SM in Chapter 21 and I was all "Soren if you're going to be killed by someone who does singledigit damage to much of my party DESPITE my giving you an Angelic Robe that's really your problem". He was okay until then, although his staff use was laughably useless, still have never gotten much out of a Sage's staves in FE9.
Lethe isn't so great any more but she's still gunning for overall game MVP.
Oh yeah, and after Soren died I pulled barely-used Oscar out of for Chapter 22, gave him 3 levels to catch him up a little and since then he's been quite possibly my best unit. So broken. Fixed mode btw, and I haven't given him any stat boosters, and he's still my lowest levelled PC if no longer by much. Oscar just owns.
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WoO - ULTIMATE BETRAYAL!!! Pretty fun times, at the final dungeon. Ju Kaku 2 decided it would be a good idea to use Power Charge + Magic Thunder to cancel it himself a lot so yeah he kinda failed.
I hate you so much.
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Oh, is that all it is? Thanks
...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.
They're obviously rented out genome soldiers. It always bugs me how wrong stealth sections are done in games, especially turn based games.
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Oh, is that all it is? Thanks
...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.
They're obviously rented out genome soldiers. It always bugs me how wrong stealth sections are done in games, especially turn based games.
Yup, especially games like XF. They totally did it all wrong.
EDIT: But seriously, I think the stealth sections of MGS were just fine, and a lot of games handle it about as well as I expect. Which is to say: Not impossible, and not hyper-realistic.
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Oh, is that all it is? Thanks
...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.
I have a theory: strobe lights. Makes TOO MUCH SENSE!!!
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Speaking of Stealth Sections, currently in Growlanser dealing with one. Where there's a mob of goons ready to surround and rape you if you screw up the stealth section, and all the entrances are guarded by folks who will see you if you go near them regardless of whether or not they are facing your direction. So... looks like I'm going to have to figure out how to win the fight.
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But seriously, I think the stealth sections of MGS were just fine
Whats that noise? Whats this? The wall seems to have been blown up by C4! I'm sure it was nothing and the wall just blew up on its own so theres no need to radio HQ or anything. Man we genome soldiers are the best guards ever!
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LO- Got Sarah. Wow, Sarah and Ming are extremely redundant usewise. Well, I should use that Sarah and Ming make Cooke and Jensen extremely redundant. Casting speed 1? Starting with Black-White 3 and 4?! I'm going to assume that is the last the game throws of the Black-White series, because it's not balanced at all. Also is uh...Ming wearing two separate leather thongs? Yes, a cape, a neck high collar, boobs that are clearly modeled off a (very obvious) boob job, two separate leather thongs, and then full leg covering. Classy.
Almost bad enough for Sarah's clothing to look okay. But while Ming just looks like a drunken stripper trying to go to a cosplay convention, Sarah's outfit just combined Ming's not horrible top (helps that her boobs like far better)...and combines them with hammer pants. Man, I'm appreciative of some types of fanservice, but both of these two are just disasterous.
Positives of the game are generally on the surface level (minus...uh...some character design obviously). The memory stuff is awesome. Graphics/music/ambience are all generally fairly on point. I like the conceit of the story structure, but sometimes there aren't consistencies. Well, I shouldn't say that the consistencies won't be solved, but I'm waiting to see how exactly the Immortals backstory plays out (Especially Kaim and Sarah). However, why Cooke and the other one call Ming had no reason to be put off story-wise assuming it will be answering. Ming can't seem to go anywhere by herself and obviously had no brother, so...Dungeon/area design are generally pretty badass. Basically all the cities/the Magic Tower/the Crimson Forest/the Sorceress' Manor have been awesome. The game wants to be humorous, but often falls flat on it's face. "Uh...puberty is weird" was perfectly timed and hilarious though.
Also, WTF at the boat stealing. Heihachi Mishima's response to having dangerous fighters escape...is to completely remove all security from some of his most important military tools. The PCs weren't even sneaking around. They opened the previously closed gate and removed every. last. soldier. Yeah, clearly sometimes the writing has issues.
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Speaking of Stealth Sections, currently in Growlanser dealing with one. Where there's a mob of goons ready to surround and rape you if you screw up the stealth section, and all the entrances are guarded by folks who will see you if you go near them regardless of whether or not they are facing your direction. So... looks like I'm going to have to figure out how to win the fight.
Firefly? Good luck, man. That's the bitchiest map in the game. I think I just piled on the speed and HP boosters and tried to get in and out as fast as possible, killing only the people directly in the way. Which is still problematic when the mage reinforcements start showing up.
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Oh yeah just to let all you haters out there know. I have began a hard mode DB only playthrough.
Micaiah, Edward, Leonardo, Nolan, Laura, Sothe, Aran, Meg, Fiona, Volug and Pelleas will be the team I'll be using in part 1 and in endgame.
Pelleas isn't DB but he is the King and the King must simply be used. My goals are:
1: To show the glory of the DB to the world.
2: To defeat any Laguz/Crimea non generic that oppose me.
3: Defeat Ike in 3-13.
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FE 9 - Chapter 21 beaten. So you know I was going to say some more good stuff about the fact that hey they do keep actually doing scenes I don't expect them to because lol FE plot. They actually acknowledge difficult stuff with Jill! A few other things like that! The scenes aren't great or well written or anything (lol 3 lines of characterisation), but they are trying, so hey I should be giving props and whatnot. But Chapter 21 ended on the first real scene with Ashnard. Flush goes the plot. Horrible and stupid. He makes Ephraim giving the Sacred Stone to Demon King in FE8 look like a good scene. Fail.
The game really is getting into full swing much more in this last third or so, which is odd because it is when they have started to run out of different ideas and are reverting to more normal FE map gameplay (KILL BOSS SIEZE THRONE WIN), but the game really just works a bit better when everyone has a bit more solid ground to work off of. Actually GETTING skills is of course a big part of it. They are pretty terribly implemented though, no balance whatsoever for the obvious broken ones and way to many being not good or taking up way to many CP and to top it all off you just plain don't get enough to do anything really fun with other than go "Here, these two units are good and worth making broken", well done total waste of potential. It sounds like FE10 does a great deal to fix this.
Minor annoying things, there is a few interface things that they had right in the hand held versions that they don't have here (why?). Having to cap a stat to find out what the cap is pretty minor, but still a bit off putting. Not being able to see combat statistics when the enemy attacks you is similarly minor effectively but more annoying (issue with my setup? Animations on only issue? Something I am missing from the menu?), you should be able to math that all out before the enemy attacks and all that blah blah, but ergh, if you would let me see it when they are attacking I can just remember roughly what it is and react to the situation better. Far more annoying but essentially minor, not being able to see how close to weapon exp level up I am. Way to many people were unable to use Silver Weapons when they first became available and it would have been nice to know how far off they are other than being B away from A. (Minor cheating cheater only issue, not being able to get Blizzard but being able to Bolting and Meteor is really annoying when you have been using Soren as your only mage, seriously you either start the game and use him consistently with a worse element for him than Wind or you aren't going to be able to use him to snipe. I can understand not giving the player access to Blizzard though since it hits weakness way more often than Boltings or Meteor do.)
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Oh yeah just to let all you haters out there know. I have began a hard mode DB only playthrough.
Micaiah, Edward, Leonardo, Nolan, Laura, Sothe, Aran, Meg, Fiona, Volug and Pelleas will be the team I'll be using in part 1 and in endgame.
Pelleas isn't DB but he is the King and the King must simply be used. My goals are:
1: To show the glory of the DB to the world.
2: To defeat any Laguz/Crimea non generic that oppose me.
3: Defeat Ike in 3-13.
I demand Illyana and Kurthnaga added to the list.
Also... are you going to reset if they get craptastic stat gains?
EDIT:
I play games!
FE10: You know what's -really- satisfying to see? I aimed Soren at a General and suddenly *Support* *Daunt* *Adept!* *Critical!* *FLARE!* ... LEVEL UP!
Heh, occasionally the RNG is pretty cool I guess.
Beat 3-E, saw the cute little story sequences. It was pretty 'meh, standard RPG plot' stuff that wasn't too bad, but I was completely blindsided by Yune. Seriously, FE10, that was a stylish move there.
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Been playing FF5 Advance while on vacation. At the Desert of Shifting Sands. Going Blue Mage with control for Bartz since I've never really used blue magic before, otherwise pretty standard stuff. Still a really fun game, liking the new script.
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Not being able to see combat statistics when the enemy attacks you is similarly minor effectively but more annoying (issue with my setup? Animations on only issue? Something I am missing from the menu?), you should be able to math that all out before the enemy attacks and all that blah blah, but ergh, if you would let me see it when they are attacking I can just remember roughly what it is and react to the situation better. Far more annoying but essentially minor, not being able to see how close to weapon exp level up I am.
Both of these I don't get either. I believe FE6/7/8 all allowed you to see the Weapon EXP aspect, but why FE9 doesn't have it, I don't know; really makes no sense.
The lack of battle statistics, I think I ALMOST understand that. My guess is they couldn't figure out how to implement it and make it look good cause the layout is different than the GBA games (hell, FE4 even at least listed Attack, Relevant Defense, and Accuracy in battles (AND LEVELS!!); not perfect, but at least you weren't COMPLETELY blind on the defensive against swarms), which I guess is a semi-understandable excuse, but not sure if that's the reason, and honestly, Looking Ugly but having Information necessary is better than aesthetically pleasing if you ask me.
FE10 fixes both these issues; for the latter, it just lists exactly what you care about (it takes it a step further by actually showing Damage Values, which is a nice little extra perk), so if the "didn't know how to make it look good" thing was the reason, they did find a method between games, and the former, it has a gauge like you'd expect. The only problem with the Weapon EXP is that the Symbol/Weapon Rank can obscure the gauge some, being super imposed over it, which can be annoying if you want to know exactly where you are, but admittedly, just having an idea of how far you are in a weapon level is an improvement over FE9.
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Kurthnaga is quite a cool guy helping the DB in their time of need so yeah I'll add him, plus he'll make whatever his name is easy. Big no to Illyana though because last time she stole my stuff and gave it to Ike and thats not cool >:(.
As for the stat gains its a yes and a no. If the character levels up either at the start of the level or through bonus xp then yeah but any other time and its a no. Thus far Leo seems to be the only one screwed which is a shame because he got a perfect level up before I had to reset. I'm only at the stage where you recruit Aran but here are my stats besides Sothe who has yet to level up.
Nolan Lv 10
Hp 29
Str 12
Mag 0
Sp 11
Lck 8
Def 10
Res 3
Edward Lv 7
Hp 22
Str 9
Mag 0
Skill 13
Sp 15
Lck 8
Def 7
Res 1
Leonardo Lv 7
Hp 20
Str 8 (Damn you)
Mag 1 (Damn you too)
Skill 12
Sp 10
Lck 7
Def 5
Res 5
Micaiah Lv 4
Hp 16
Str 3
Mag 10
Skill 10
Sp 7
Lck 13
Def 2
Res 7
Laura Lv 3
Hp 16
Str 3
Mag 9
Skill 5
Sp 7
Lck 9
Def 3
Res 11
I'm going to be leveling Laura up fast because I want her to be the one to blast energy into Ike's resless head for great justice.
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Most of Grefter's comments are pretty spot on, particularly seconding the attempts they made around chapter 20 followed by the plot flush that happens after Chapter 21, and the comments on interface (all of which they at least fixed in 10).
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FE9 - Big Pimpin' Mode. Ike and women only.
I went and beat this without any mid-game updates - nothing really big to talk about, it ended up just another FE9 replay. The only real stand-out difference were the early chapters, which of course were Ike/Titania soloed, and with relative ease to boot. While it took a while to get a full team, by the time Day Breaks came around it wasn't really any easier or harder than any other run, aside from support chains being kinda hard to build.
Top 5 - kills are just off the top of my head, and possibly wrong.
Ike - 116 - No surprise. Fed him tons of early kills, and he wrecked things late in the game as always, so even the brief abstinence from combat while he chilled out at level 20 before promoting couldn't stop this. Capped Str, Spd, and Def by level 15, so Ashnard was a piece of cake.
Titania - 107 - Crushed early game, and outkilled Ike up until everyone was starting to promote. Fell behind towards the end, with some pretty terrible Str and Def, but a level A support with Ike and the awesome of axes meant that she was never not useful.
Lethe - 95 - First time using a Laguz other than Reyson through endgame. Her early dominance was pretty much just as planned, but I was surprised at how well she kept up. Got great level ups in Spd and Str, and she supports nicely with Ike and Jill. Early transformation stopped being as useful later on, but she was still useful even with a Demi Band - she could still double almost everything and one-round frailer enemies with ease.
Jill - 87 - She's Jill. A little low on Spd (21 at lvl 17) but a lot Str and Def blessed (27 and 24 respectively!) so she didn't have much trouble being as dominant as usual.
Marcia - 87 - Biggest surprise on the unit records. Pretty much her usual at everything, unlike my silly Marcia from my first Hard Mode run. First flying unit + being the designated Mage smasher seems to have earned her a hell of a lot more kills than I expected from her.
Mia came in just below that by a few kills - the usual Str issues came up, and she never got hit enough for the Resolve I gave her late in the game to ever even kick in, though it DOES let her solo a trial map. I should probably do Resolve/Wrath Ike at some point, if I feel like playing again I think I'll do Mages and Laguz only and give him that combo.
Mist capped magic and got to level A in swords, so I got to use the terror of Rune Sword Mist. Ilyana was, as always for me, well above average, with solid Spd and awesome Mag. Calill was good too. Saved some BExp to get Ena to level 20 just to see what she's like; pretty awesome, but not soloing Ashnard without Resolve, stat boosters, and luck.
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Supporting Rozalia's DB hype! Even if Leo kind sucks... :(
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not soloing Ashnard without Resolve, stat boosters, and luck.
Ena solos Ashnard easily with just Resolve actually, it's how he's beaten on HM challenges in which Ike is not allowed to be used. Base level / no stat boosters is quite fine. Resolve is hax. Dragons are pretty useless for anything else IMO due to 5 move / no 2 range / iffy offensive stats in general.
Speaking of Ena, at Chapter 28 of FE9 now.
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Cross Edge - Back to doing postgame stuff. Finally got all the ultimate weapons for my party, so now I just get to do the same thing with armors and accessories. Joy.
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Cross Edge- Right before the second Etna fight. Level 12 for the party, hopefully the fully upgraded Thunder Guards/Silver Bracelets composited with Crab Meat for +8 VIT will make the fight easier. Not sure if I want to wait so I can finish upgrading the Piledriver and Harpoon, or at least get them to level 4. Party is Morrigan, Miko, York and Aurica.
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FF 13: I've been playing this lately and I just got up to disk 3. I honestly don't know how to feel about the game. I like the gameplay. Battles are fun, fast paced and they make you pay attention, and the game is gorgeous. I don't know what the the writers were doing when they created the plot though. The overall idea isn't bad, and in general the scenes are good. It's just that so much is missing from it. It kind of reminds me of voting in Meeple's scene tournament when you see a scene from a game you don't know. When you see a scene it's pretty good, but it would be better if you knew the context behind it. The entire plot of FF13 so far is like that. For example, I just fought some big bad guy and the scene before fighting him was pretty cool. Unfortunately he had all of one other scene before that and all he did was sit around looking all angry and important.
So far the game has left me with a ton of questions and I'm not sure how many the game will answer before it's over. It wouldn't be so frustrating if the scenes that we see were bad, but they're generally pretty good and it makes we want to see more. The world building also suffers as we almost never get to see how all the locations are connected and what makes them important. Finally, I was talking with my dad who's already beaten the game and he said that you don't get to go back to most of the areas you've already been. This sucks. Some of the areas are absolutely gorgeous and I would like to go see them again even if there isn't anything new to do there (Nautilus and the forest leading to Nautilus are the main areas I would like to see again.)
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Playing FE10 - wow, did this game just make a clever point with its PLOT?! Just before the Hawk Army battle (SPOILERS FE10 ZOMG!!!)
The PCs are talking about how the Goddess turned all the people who couldn't stop warring to stone... and how, well, the world IS pretty nice without all those jerks fucking it up. But then they say "But that's a false peace, we can't accept things this way." And it made me think, "Well, in other RPGs there's always these self-righteous nihilist villains going around saying how they will kill a bunch of people for the sake of peace."
...It's like "Who are you to judge? God?"
But in this game... well, she gave them a 1000 years to stop warring. And she -is- God. She does kind of have a right to judge. It's like... well, can we just accept the new peaceful world as is? It made me think "How would I react if I was one of the survivors?"
So... points to FE10 for actually making me introspective for a moment.
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Battles are fun, fast paced and they make you pay attention, and the game is gorgeous.
Not really to be snarky (well yeah it is), but that is just a trick. You don't actually have to pay attention to the battles to get 5 star victories in most cases, let alone just win them. Just don't lose your place in the menus and you will get the rhythm up so you can play the game by ear and read a book at the same time.
It is pretty though.
Edit - FE9 - Only one chapter tonight since I do things on a Tuesday night. So Chapter 22 makes me not able to make up my mind. At the start of the chapter Schaeffer takes a bunch of priests essentially hostage and says KKKKCCCCHHHHH!!! which makes me want to stab people in the face. Do not use spoken sound effects in dialogue without animation. It just makes your characters sound fucking stupid. But then you kill him and he says he should have got more priests or maybe some babies, so after Arsenerds retarded stupid display of villainy just before we actually have a character who takes that villainy and just runs with it to cartoon levels of villainy and THAT is something I can get behind because hey, if you are going to be ridiculously villainous for no reason you may as well go overboard right? But that KKKKCCCCHHHHH!!! is pretty unforgivable...
So anyway, on the main plot front I had to skip a scene since the emulator just sits there sometimes not starting the text roll, so you get to see people standing around blinking a lot with an empty blue box. Can skip it, so no real harm. The scene in particular was just after Reyson has deciphered a bunch of stuff on the walls and they do a big OH MY! It all makes sense now! Ike's mum was totally bringing Reyson's kidnapped sister fish tacos to down or something and gave her the pendant with the evil dark god chaos whatever inside it. Then stuff happened and Greil got it one day and went apeshit and stabbed some dudes then calmed down and everyone ran away. But yeah the scene just after they go IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW! was the one that didn't work. So I got, IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. Scene missed. Then IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW. So I figured I had missed the thing that explained why Arsenerd wants to release a dark god of chaos. Apparently not though. Since the next scene said they still didn't understand why Arsenerd spent 20 years carefully setting up the destruction of the world (or something?). I guess they were just connecting the dots that had already formed a straight line for all the slow kids in the audience. Sure I could check a script to make sure, but that is no fun and I am pretty sure I haven't missed anything. Also it makes me happier to go with my made up story about fish tacos.
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Battles are fun, fast paced and they make you pay attention, and the game is gorgeous.
Not really to be snarky (well yeah it is), but that is just a trick. You don't actually have to pay attention to the battles to get 5 star victories in most cases, let alone just win them. Just don't lose your place in the menus and you will get the rhythm up so you can play the game by ear and read a book at the same time.
I felt that in generally the battles encouraged quick decision making to make the battles smoother and faster even if in the long run it wasn't necessary. A rather frequently have to make the decision on whether to swap to a healing paradigm immediately or stay in the an offensive one for a little while longer to take out an enemy and take pressure off of the team. One minor thing I wish they had was a command to tell your party to split up. I got a bullshit death against the boss at the end of disk two because Snow decided to back up into Vanille and Lightning so that they all got hit by his Blizzaga and Waterga spells effectively heal locking the team.
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FE7- Replay done. Even a below average team steamrolled the entire game. Dorcas should not be doubling enemies at the second to last map. Had fun with the replay, got to use units (Heath!) I don't normally bother with.
Eliwood- Was always above on STR/speed, capped both before endgame. I think he was up +4 on SPD/STR until he capped it, it was rather crazy. He ended up being my dedicated dragon fighter. Body ring+capped speed=doubles with Durandal, and that leads to shredded dragon in a hurry.
Marcus- Oh god. He gained ONE point of speed the entire game and was below average on HP/Defense. It was so bad that he managed to get one rounded by Denning. In spite of some bad growths, he was still a great unit for the first half of Lyn Mode and was never actively a liability till the later bosses get some speed. He was useless in Light thanks to 12 speed, outside of his A support with Eliwood.
Dorcas- That he is useful even with that speed is a shameful commentary on FE7 enemies. Nice HP makes up for garbage defenses somewhat, and he is good for the first half of Hector mode/most of Lyn mode.
Dart- Glass cannon who requires way too much effort. Inferior to the manly Garcia *nod*
Wil- Shit early, better in the midgame thanks to getting some range, very good late thanks to the Brave Bow+being way up on speed. Rath and Rebecca are so much better than him that it isn't funny, and it isn't like Sniper's a good class outside of some Bastilla nonsense.
Serra- Ended up grossly overleveled after Lyn mode thanks to the Dorcas/Wil/Sain shitfest resulting in a lot of healing. She was her normal self, lots of evasion/magic/speed and not a shred of defense.
Karel/Geitz- Prepromo filler. I got exactly what I expected out of them.
Heath- Shit early, great late. Nothing new here. The flying was useful for the last couple of maps at least!
Isadora- Frail and didn't get much strength, but she at least reliably doubled most things until Light.
Renault: Useful as a second stave user late.
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But in this game... well, she gave them a 1000 years to stop warring. And she -is- God. She does kind of have a right to judge. It's like... well, can we just accept the new peaceful world as is? It made me think "How would I react if I was one of the survivors?"
She said 1000 years, but they had about 800; she woke up early and well yeah. So if anything, she went back on her word. That's an important factor there. There's a bit more to it than that and why the 800 year thing is important but I won't get into it. The game does make a point like instantly that she DID wake up significantly earlier than she was suppose to.
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A Faint Light: Had 2 resets here, once as I was testing how to best counter the 7 or so enemies on the left side and the other because the NG hates me and made Nolan miss with a 92% hit rate. Once I figured out how to deal with the guys on the left side the rest became easy as they let you take your time. The battle went like this.
Leo killed the closest while Nolan and Sothe got in place for the wave of enemies. The Armour sword fluffed and got shanked as result of his attack on Sothe. 3 guys spawned (One being Aran). While they moved forward Leo and Sothe killed a guy each with Nolan killing two. The enemies then fluffed an attack on Leo and Sothe and the one guy on the right got owned by Edward. My turn again and I began by recruiting Aran who I used to kill a guy with Nolan killing the last one. Then the oddest thing happened, an archer moved from behind the wall of Armour and parked himself behind Aran. Yeah he just followed Aran around never attacking anyone ???. Aran ran him through.
Waiting for the guys in the west and north to spawn was the best option so I waited and killed them before they could move. Nolan owned the two archers protecting the doorway with his handaxe while Edward killed the third guy when Sothe unlocked the door. That left the boss, 3 Armours and an archer.
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Boss: Tim Burton
- Tim kept hit and running till I brought out Edward who Tim just couldn't resist. He used up all his movement meaning Nolan and Sothe could trap him between two trees. After jacking his stuff Micky blasted some energy into his face killing him.
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The rest isn't worth talking about because you can guess how it went. Surprised the Armour guys moved though, I didn't think they actually could.
A Distant Voice: 1 Reset due to me trying to level up Meg. She can't really damage anything too well and gets doubled by all the cats and half the tigers. If it was only the cats she got doubled by fine but the tigers too? Yeah not using. If there is some way to level her up please tell me because I'm open to it.
Nolan protecting the north, Aran the south and Sothe the east. Aran has a shaky hit rate so he had to kill through counters and had Micky and Laura to help him. Illyana aided Nolan and while she has shaky hit I might train her in the Ike chapters in place of Soren, plus she's the only Rexbolt user. Sothe's counters always put the enemies near death so Edward and Leo could leach a kill afterwards.
The whole battle was mostly me in the centre defending till only 4 enemies remained.
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Pain & Agony
- Pain Got put to near death before he could transform by Nolan. His attack was pathetic and he got killed with the counter.
- Agony got lured into chasing Sothe around the whole map so I could steal the chest he was protecting. Sothe then killed him easily.
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Now on the next stage where I've gained Volug. He OHKOs all the enemies so I was thinking of sending him up the middle to kill the soldiers on the northeast. Basically all the enemies I won't be able to kill with anyone else anyway. The rest of my folks I was thinking of using to first kill the punks infront of me and then use them to kill the boss for some nice xp. If that doesn't work then I'll have Volug kill the boss. I've not killed this levels boss before so I'm giving it a shot this time.
Stat Attack:
Nolan Lv 14 (+4)
Hp 33 (+ 4)
Str 15 (+3)
Mag 0
Skill 15 (+3)
Sp 12 (+1)
Lck 11 (+3)
Def 10 (WTF)
Res 4 (+1)
Edward Lv 10 (+3)
Hp 25 (+3)
Str 12 (+3)
Mag 1 (+1)
Skill 16 (+3)
Sp 18 (+3)
Lck 10 (+2)
Def 7 (+2)
Res 1 (+1)
Leonardo Lv 10 (+3)
Hp 22 (+2)
Str 11 (+3)
Mag 1
Skill 15 (+3)
Sp 12 (+2)
Lck 9 (+2)
Def 6 (+1)
Res 6 (+1)
Micaiah Lv 8 (+4)
Hp 19 (+3)
Str 5 (+2)
Mag 13 (+3)
Skill 11 (+1)
Sp 8 (+1)
Lck 15 (+2)
Def 2
Res 11 (+4)
Laura Lv 7 (+4)
Hp 19 (+3)
Str 3
Mag 12 (+3)
Skill 8 (+3)
Sp 10 (+3)
Lck 11 (+2)
Def 3
Res 12 (+1)
Sothe Lv 3
Hp 36
Str 20
Mag 4
Skill 22
Sp 21
Lck 15
Def 14
Res 10
Aran Lv 10
Hp 26
Str 13
Mag 1
Skill 14
Sp 11
Lck 7
Def 12 (WTF)
Res 3
Volug Lv15
Hp 49
Str 11
Mag 2
Skill 12
Sp 13
Lck 13
Def 9
Res 5
I'm Bonus Xping Nolan to make sure he gains Speed, Strength and most importantly Defence. I'm reseting if Aran doesn't gain defence when he levels up. Sothe's levels were gained through stealing and the boss Agony so he hasn't stolen much xp while gaining two levels.
I have a Dracoshield, Energy drop and Spirit dust and Seraph robe in storage, who should I use them on?
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A Distant Voice: 1 Reset due to me trying to level up Meg. She can't really damage anything too well and gets doubled by all the cats and half the tigers. If it was only the cats she got doubled by fine but the tigers too? Yeah not using. If there is some way to level her up please tell me because I'm open to it.
She has good growths in Speed and Res so a few Bonus Exp levels could really help her out there. Once she gets those up she should be able to do a pretty good job of killing mages to get Exp. Also, good call on making sure Nolan gets speed. I had a speed screwed Nolan in my last playthrough and it really screwed up his durability in Part 3. He ended up with 13 speed and got doubled by almost everything. This was on normal mode too and I think you said you were playing on hard.
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Cross Edge- Absolutely destroyed the second Etna fight. 98 hit combo that overkilled her front line and brought her down to ~10% on my first attack chain, then overkilled her the next time I moved. Prinnies were pretty much tinking. Etna was too.
Explored around. Got into the fight with Lazarus before I realized I'd forgotten to re-equip Morrigan's skills onto her new Gold Finger. Oh well. I'll just redo that fight later. I pretty much destroyed him without it. Had him down to 40HP and was preparing to coup-de-grace him when the fight ended. Meh. At least his special did 50% to everyone not Aurica. Did about 25% to Aurica (her costume pumped her HP to 3500).
Having a good time with the game so far. Nothing special, but amusing and enjoyable, as a crossover game should be.
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She has good growths in Speed and Res so a few Bonus Exp levels could really help her out there. Once she gets those up she should be able to do a pretty good job of killing mages to get Exp.
Very little Bonus xp comes in hard mode so I guess Meg is just impossible to train in hard mode. I've now cleared the next level but I'm not happy with the outcome. Nolan has got some speed but he is still defence screwed while Aran is both Speed and Defence screwed. Ditching Aran looks good but if I do that who else do I have? Mastersealing him is an option but promoting at lv 11 isn't good long term. Leo has been as good as you can expect which is okay because he has at least not been screwed in any area. Edward is pretty much the best unit at the moment having had good stat ups all round.
The final two units Volug and Sothe are getting a lot of use. Sothe has been solid and taken the pressure of the team and OHKOs mages which is good. Volug has been a mixed bag. He can't OHKO fire mages and due to my bad luck their 50% hit rate has hit every time. Regardless he got 11 kills (None wasted xp) in the level he joins which should have increased his strike level a bunch. I wasn't able to kill the boss though and I also skipped what he said because I paniced when he targeted Volug who was at half health. He missed due to Volug being on the ledge but if he hit I would have quit in disgust considering it was moments away from the end.
Also whoever designed the level must have been the guy who designed FFT's rooftop battle. There is a 50% chance that Jill will die turn fucking one due to her stupidity. Volug had to pretty much kill all incoming enemies when she survived because she is too dumb to heal when at half health.
edit: Actually I might get to use Meg now that I think about it. I just need to find a boss I can abuse to get her to tier two. I don't normally boss abuse but she is otherwise unuseable so I think its fair.
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Just give Meg one level (or close enough that the first kill will push her over) of BExp and make sure she gains speed, the way FE10 BExp formula works this costs almost nothing (divides by the person's current level, so dividing by 3 costs very little compared to dividing by 9-10). I dunno, I used her on HM and had no problems whatsoever, though there are a few 12 speed tigers so she probably does need that speed point. Factor in that 1-4 is a colossal joke and it's easy to get her more levels there, though since you're past that now it'll be a bit harder. Still quite doable and the part 3 payoff is probably worth it? That said dropping a few people from the DB will make this playthrough easier and while Meg isn't one of the first I'd drop (that'd be any/all of Fiona/Ed/Leo/Ilyana if she counts) she's reasonable to drop if you're set on using most of the others as I suspect you are.
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But in this game... well, she gave them a 1000 years to stop warring. And she -is- God. She does kind of have a right to judge. It's like... well, can we just accept the new peaceful world as is? It made me think "How would I react if I was one of the survivors?"
She said 1000 years, but they had about 800; she woke up early and well yeah. So if anything, she went back on her word. That's an important factor there. There's a bit more to it than that and why the 800 year thing is important but I won't get into it. The game does make a point like instantly that she DID wake up significantly earlier than she was suppose to.
Stop ruining it. I wasn't ragging on the PCs or anything. Clearly, 'Genocide is bad and oh we don't want to die' is a perfectly reasonable position to take, even against God. But now you're pointing out how FE10 couldn't have any kind of ambiguity in its big villains, they had to make it clear that 'God was in the wrong, so it's okay to beat her up.'
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FE10 SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY
Yakko pretty much hits the nail on the head here. Suffice to say there is some ambiguity in Ashera and how things play out. Don't really want to say more because Djinn is still playing the game.
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That's not really the point, they were supposed to stop fighting entirely for 1000 years and even with her waking up early they hadn't managed even close to it. She didn't break her word, they broke theirs.
Stop it, you're giving me flashbacks to my Contracts final. (does God have a defense to breach of contract based on the failure of her counterparty to substantially perform their obligations? depends whether the conditions of "you guys don't get into wars" and "I don't destroy civilization" are concurrent or independant.)
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Bother, I hit the wrong button and deleted that. Short version: They were supposed to stop fighting entirely for 1000 years, they broke their word, she didn't break hers, I quoted something that said that. <_<
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Back buttons are potent. Yakko's post, goes between Djinn's and my seconding him:
But in this game... well, she gave them a 1000 years to stop warring. And she -is- God. She does kind of have a right to judge. It's like... well, can we just accept the new peaceful world as is? It made me think "How would I react if I was one of the survivors?"
She said 1000 years, but they had about 800; she woke up early and well yeah. So if anything, she went back on her word. That's an important factor there. There's a bit more to it than that and why the 800 year thing is important but I won't get into it. The game does make a point like instantly that she DID wake up significantly earlier than she was suppose to.
That's not really the point, they were supposed to stop fighting entirely for 1000 years and even with her waking up early they hadn't managed even close to it. She didn't break her word, they broke theirs.
Yune: We're running out of time, so I'll explain quickly. Long, long ago, your
ancestors made a promise to Ashera. They promised they would start no wars
among all the nations for at least one thousand years. If this promise was
broken, then Ashera would destroy the world and try again with a new one.
Despite this promise, you bone-cages kept fighting each other. Eventually,
war and conflict spread throughout the world. When Ashera woke up, she cast
down her judgment upon those who failed to keep her promise.
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My favourite part is how later, there is some actual philosophical conversation between the two camps, specifically between the most philosophical villain and the more reasonable party members (oddly, Ike can be among them in the NG+ if you meet the FAQ bait conditions, but generally is the foremost proponent of the less talking, more smashing party) about this specific issue.
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Oh yeah, Eviltype! Picked this up again, I was in the early WoR. Random notes...
Daryl's Tomb - Zombie!~ PowerDemons and their auto-runic are dirty cheaters, PowerDemon + two Exoray fights are fairly maddening and I'm not above just Revivifying the PowerDemon. Otherwise fire burns things and find/exploit status weaknesses, the usual.
Presenter - If I actually had someone with Float I'd be much easier! Besides that, mostly a matter of "don't let him counter with Merton since it does like 0.9 PCHP, don't let him counter twice or you're dead". I assume getting the Minerva makes this fight a joke but that's not too reasonable to have yet overall.
Dullahan - A fairly easy MP kill. I should fight him legit, I suspect I didn't last playthrough either but I don't remember.
Mt. Zozo - Confused Borras Uppercutting his allies for 8000 damage for the win. Some fairly scary enemies here but nothing unmanageable.
Storm Dragon - Skipping until late.
Owzer's House - Doing this early is kinda ugly? Enemies using Exploder right off is borderline OHKO. SoulDancers beg to be statused out lest they knife my face but this is quite doable. My main complaint here? The Wild Cats always use Kitty first turn. This is fine when there's one of them, it makes sense as a buff. When there's four of them it's just a waste of time. Dunno if this could be fixed with a "if self has haste status" entry to their script.
Chadarnook - Took FOREVER. Low levels are a factor there. Still, Thunder Shield hoses him pretty badly, he might need a little more to get around that.
Veldt Cave - Ow Toe Cutter Bio Blast hurts ow. Still it ups the value of STAR PENDANTS! so it's okay, and even when both use it it's quite survivable, good stuff.
Allo Ver - Argh Auto-Runic. I hate it! And his Fallen One + gravity + Gale Cut strategy is so whorish, good show. Doesn't help that the time it killed me I had three people at one HP and Snowball actually KOs then! Ouch. A little more HP doesn't save you since the seizure, but Ribbon does help. X-Potion on Sabin + Mantra hype! Hell yes. Didn't check if he could be instagibbed. I approve of Tiger Fangs not failing as much.
SrBehemoth - Massive whore. First stage is handled easily enough although a bit scary, really high magic damage but Shell + Image can control him (Zoneseek would have helped a lot, oh well). Second stage argh argh argh, nothing new I remember this from last playthrough well enough. I tread water for ages but could barely damage him, and just when finally things seemed to be going south, with three zombies + one sleeping, condemned PC, zombie Sabin attacks with the Tiger Fangs. SLICE! Instant death. Epic. So he's got a pretty big weakness (X-Zone for a more controllable version) but that's probably fine since he's such a whore.
Currently about Level 28, unsure on what's next.
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Mana Khemia Challenge Run
Ze Rules.
1. No items.
2. Still debating between only one item per grow book node, or no +stats period.
3. No common skill ether effects.
Beat the Lorebeast. No real challenge yet.
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FE9 - Emulator doesn't like Chapter 23, so game over. Might come back to it when there is an update.
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Back buttons are potent. Yakko's post, goes between Djinn's and my seconding him:
But in this game... well, she gave them a 1000 years to stop warring. And she -is- God. She does kind of have a right to judge. It's like... well, can we just accept the new peaceful world as is? It made me think "How would I react if I was one of the survivors?"
She said 1000 years, but they had about 800; she woke up early and well yeah. So if anything, she went back on her word. That's an important factor there. There's a bit more to it than that and why the 800 year thing is important but I won't get into it. The game does make a point like instantly that she DID wake up significantly earlier than she was suppose to.
That's not really the point, they were supposed to stop fighting entirely for 1000 years and even with her waking up early they hadn't managed even close to it. She didn't break her word, they broke theirs.
Yune: We're running out of time, so I'll explain quickly. Long, long ago, your
ancestors made a promise to Ashera. They promised they would start no wars
among all the nations for at least one thousand years. If this promise was
broken, then Ashera would destroy the world and try again with a new one.
Despite this promise, you bone-cages kept fighting each other. Eventually,
war and conflict spread throughout the world. When Ashera woke up, she cast
down her judgment upon those who failed to keep her promise.
And over 50%, or perhaps 90% is Sephiran's fault. Can that hypocrite die already? Lying is bad you know? Discrimination exists in this world because you fucking lied. God, killing him once is NOT enough.
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Yup, how dare he be human. That bastard.
On a side note, Andy, I'll argue against avoiding the +Stats stuff in MK. I know that when I played the game, I went half of it without finding the basic item that opened up the magic path for everyone. This meant that among other things that never increased, MDef never went up at all.
By Chapter 7 anything competent at magic was pushing a partywide OHKO with magical attacks.
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Yup, how dare he be human. That bastard.
Being human and being a total jerk is two different thing. After he fucked things up with his lies, instead of trying to fix it, he self righteously thinks he can get rest of the world killed just to pay for his sin.
Seriously, what rights do you have to make rest of the world to be responsible for something YOU started.
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Because one person controls the actions of an entire world no?
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Portal -
Played through the maingame. Good fun. I had already seen bits and pieces of it while my brother was playing, however, in addition to knowing the stuff that everyone knows by now, so I'm not sure that the plot, if it can be called that, was as effective as it might have been. When it comes down to it I cannot say I'm the biggest fan of minimilism of details, so I would be likely to get less of a kick out of it than other people regardless.
Sam & Max S3E1 -
Managed to get this to run without crashing.
The opening has a forced tutorial and is fairly blah, but things improve quickly once you get full control back. But then as the game progresses things sink slowly back down, although never reaching the level of the opening. Part of the problem is that there seems to be hardly any ancillary actions compared to previous seasons, but given the regularity with which I make that complaint for all I know I am just applying rose tint to earlier games.
Another problem is the future power, which they seem to lean on in order to add in absurd puzzles a bit too much. For example, at one point you need to get on to a roof. You don't know that you need to get on to the roof unless you use the future power and see yourselves up there. There is no apparent way up there, and no apparent way to use teleportation to get up there as that would require a phone up there. Using the future power on the pigeons nearby sorts this out of course, as you get a glimpse of them apparently eating something particularly large in one gulp. So the obvious solution to the puzzle you didn't know existed was to put the mobile phone on the pizza tray, whereupon the pigeon would eat it and fly up to the roof, and you could teleport to it.
There is also the Crime-Tron which is vaguely similar to the logic mechanic in AAI Edgeworth but serves only as a means of opening additional areas to visit later on. Additional areas to which really the only point of which is to collect information leading to more additional areas.
Sam & Max S3E2 -
So you get a ventriloquism power, and to be fair Max does tend to come up with different things during the actual ventriloquising, but the majority of the time the response from the target is a variation on 'I didn't say that'. Tsk.
I liked the overall concept of this episode, but there was nowhere near enough crossover between sections to make it a really worthwhile. I played through section one until I was blocked from continuing, then section two until I was blocked from continuing, and by then I could complete section three without being blocked, went on to complete section one with no further blocking, then complete section two with no further blocking. The opening of section four is a pathetic joke (aside from one metajoke that I found pretty amusing), although the final part of it is pretty dandy.
Some returning faces; I'm not sure if they really give you enough information to solve one puzzle related to one returning character in particular, where their fate is only alluded to here (you may not even realise who is being spoken about at the two times in question). But considering the generally low amount of interaction possible, it's more than likely that anyone not realising what's necessary will fall over it anyway.
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Raise the Stardard part 1 - No resets! Dreading this map the whole time and then I clear it in one. The Flying ponies are a threat to all your mages and considering where they spawn and their speed they can be bother. At one point 3 of them gave chase to Leo which was pathetic as they couldn't hit him too well and were 3HKOing! Leo OHKOed them all in return.
Abused pathetic priest counters for great justice. I forgot to unequip Resolve off Mr Meat so I'm hoping he appears on another stage because I want that skill.
Stat Attack:
Nolan Lv 16 (+2)
Hp 34 (+ 1)
Str 16 (+1)
Mag 1 (+1)
Skill 16 (+1)
Sp 13 (+1)
Lck 13 (+2)
Def 11 (+1)
Res 6 (+2)
Edward Lv 12 (+2)
Hp 27 (+2)
Str 13 (+1)
Mag 1
Skill 17 (+1)
Sp 20 (+2)
Lck 12 (+2)
Def 10 (+3.....Wait what?)
Res 2 (+1)
Leonardo Lv 14 (+4)
Hp 24 (+2)
Str 13 (+2)
Mag 1
Skill 17 (+2)
Sp 14 (+2)
Lck 10 (+1)
Def 7 (+1)
Res 8 (+2)
Micaiah Lv 16 (+8)
Hp 21 (+2)
Str 5
Mag 20 (+7)
Skill 14 (+3)
Sp 11 (+3)
Lck 23 (+8)
Def 3 (+1)
Res 19 (+8)
Laura Lv 14 (+7)
Hp 20 (+1)
Str 5 (+2)
Mag 18 (+6)
Skill 13 (+5)
Sp 15 (+5)
Lck 15 (+4)
Def 4 (+1)
Res 15 (+3)
Sothe Lv 3
Hp 36
Str 20
Mag 4
Skill 22
Sp 21
Lck 15
Def 14
Res 10
Aran Lv 12 (+2)
Hp 27 (+1)
Str 14 (+1)
Mag 1
Skill 15 (+1)
Sp 11
Lck 8 (+1)
Def 12 (WTF)
Res 4 (+1)
Volug Lv15
Hp 49
Str 11
Mag 2
Skill 12
Sp 13
Lck 13
Def 9
Res 5
Ilyana Lv15 (+3)
Hp 25 (+3)
Str 8 (+2)
Mag 14 (+2)
Skill 13 (+1)
Sp 13
Lck 9 (+3)
Def 3
Res 11 (+2)
Aran you've gained 1 defence in 7 fucking levels? At a 70% chance? Prick! I mean I've heard of a speed screwed Aran but defence screwed too. Now thats just wrong.
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Owzer's House - Doing this early is kinda ugly? Enemies using Exploder right off is borderline OHKO. SoulDancers beg to be statused out lest they knife my face but this is quite doable. My main complaint here? The Wild Cats always use Kitty first turn. This is fine when there's one of them, it makes sense as a buff. When there's four of them it's just a waste of time. Dunno if this could be fixed with a "if self has haste status" entry to their script.
You know I swear I meant to go back and fix it so that they did exactly that after I noticed that they appeared in fours(Actual formations and enemies aren't easy to crosscheck in the editor), but that was during the part of Eviltype I made when I was taking month long hiatuses between updates. So it's not a shock that I failed to recall that at least...
Man I need to do a revised version. Ehhh soon enough, FF6 replay is looking decent recently.
On the upside things like the two Auto-Runic cases you mentioned(Allo Ver is a terribly unmemorable and boring boss and I wanted him to be different, PowerDemons were meant to remind you that yes a lot of things in here are undead and you should try reviving 'em, it was pretty much on purpose, not that they can't be killed first other ways.) and SrBehemoth(huh forgot about no final counter ID working on him. Good show.) manage to not annoy me at obvious hiccups later, so that's good. >_>
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Because one person controls the actions of an entire world no?
Apparently yes. The branded hate started solely because of his lie. He is the very person who came up with the anti-branded policy and sold it to the public. He was still known as the Oracle at that time, and passed his lie as the word of goddess. The public then bought his words wholeheartedly.
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Nier: Finished. Liked it a lot so echoing Tal's thoughts. Soundtrack is the best I've heard in a very long while and I doubt I'll be finding another I like as much for a long time.
My only real complaint was the spoiler twist at the end. Really left a bad taste in my mouth but I guess the point was to make you feel bad anyway so mission accomplished.
Next up is P1 PSP now that I grew half a brain and figured out it had animation skip.
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Rozalia: Your Aran sucks. Why is he not capping stats yet? gawd. [/justmeenjoyinghowawesomemyAranwas]
Decided to pick up Disgaia again after... how long? Anyway, got myself a Nin Nin~ and now I'm heading through the Item World so I can loot me some Prinny Squad paychecks!
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Aran has gained loads of speed and defence since the last update so Huzzah! Not posting stats because after like an hour and half Leo got Crit at a 2% chance (Fuck you game!).
Oh course the battle itself didn't take that long. I wiped out everything but the boss and a few men and abused the priest to grind Meg some levels to see if she was worth it. Eventually deciding to wipe out the boss Leo got crit and bam I had to reset because without Leo I'd be doomed later on.
Yeah I'm going nowhere near Meg and by extention Fiona. Level ups gave Meg much in the way of speed, skill, hp and so forth but you know what they didn't give? Str. In 15 levels there wasn't a single point put into str, not one. I also had to reset after all of that so she is back at level 3 so hell if I'm doing that again.
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Fiona might be useful for an all-DB game just because Canto will give her some utility that few (none?) of your other units will have. Even though every other Cavalier in the game (except maybe Astrid?) is better than her, she's still your only DB Cavalier. I don't really know about Meg one way or the other?
EDIT!
And I finished it! Yay!
FE10: All-around good game, but FE gameplay just isn't all that interesting to me after a while. Game would be better with about 50% fewer maps. But the end of the game, I just wanted it to be over. Nothing really wrong with how it's balanced, it just doesn't hold my attention for nearly as long as it likes to drag on. Definitely the best FE game to date. Story was actually serviceable and it had a few moments of interesting ideas, though it definitely always felt secondary to the gameplay (which wasn't strong enough to support this many maps to me).
SPOILERS and questions for the experts:
What is Lehran anyway? His flashback with Zelgius seemed to imply he's a Branded, but his own flashback refers to himself as a bird Laguz and having the ability to sing Galdrar.
Is Pelleas really Ashnard's child? There's a bunch of half-Laguz running around in the second game, but the game seems to imply that Pelleas isn't really Ashnard's kid and the whole thing is a setup by Izuka.
Do PCs get different epilogue text depending on supports or anything? I gave Soren and Ike high-level support and it seems that they wandered off into the sunset together while Mist became a spinster and Elincia is apparently in love with Lucia. Not -too- surprising if these were fixed epilogues, but they could easily be support-dependent.
Anything interesting about a 2nd playthrough? There's no way I'm playing this again anytime soon, but I'd like to know what changes.
Kill leaders:
5. Nephenee
4. Soren
3. Jill
2. Rolf
1. HAAAAAARRRRRR!!!!
Micaiah and Ike were just below them.
Ashera's a cool final boss, and seems like an easy to interpret rank, so I don't see what the fuss was about there.
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You get more about both Lehran and Pelleas on replays. Lame, yes. Lehran was a Heron, and then he had a kid with a Beorc and lost the ability to transform and sing Galdr for no damn good reason that I can recall. He may have posed as a Branded due to his lifespan and prettiness though. Not a big spoiler
KINDA SPOILERS ABOUT PELLEAS: Pelleas wasn't the real kid. It's Soren - he's the Dragon Branded son of Ashnard and Almedha, which you need to replay the game, get him and his big manly lover to A rank support, and recruit all the second-playthrough guys to find out, I believe.
So. Second playthrough gives you extra plot about backstories, as well as recruitable Lehran and Pelleas. Pelleas is a decent late-game magic user who FINALLY lets you use Dark Magic, and Lehran... well you can bring him to fight Ashera at any rate, which is cool.
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SPOILERS and questions for the experts:
What is Lehran anyway? His flashback with Zelgius seemed to imply he's a Branded, but his own flashback refers to himself as a bird Laguz and having the ability to sing Galdrar.
Is Pelleas really Ashnard's child? There's a bunch of half-Laguz running around in the second game, but the game seems to imply that Pelleas isn't really Ashnard's kid and the whole thing is a setup by Izuka.
Do PCs get different epilogue text depending on supports or anything? I gave Soren and Ike high-level support and it seems that they wandered off into the sunset together while Mist became a spinster and Elincia is apparently in love with Lucia. Not -too- surprising if these were fixed epilogues, but they could easily be support-dependent.
Anything interesting about a 2nd playthrough? There's no way I'm playing this again anytime soon, but I'd like to know what changes.
1. One of the 3 heroes, IIRC, along with Dheginsea and the girl riding a lion with two swords whose name I cannot remember. Made the pact with Ashera after sealing Yune away, everyone made the promise not to war blah blah blah...Lehren is a Heron.
2. You are correct in your assessment tha the frue child of Ashnard/Almedha is SOREN
3. Some are. For instance, Naesala and Leanne marry if they have an A support.
4. Playable Pelleas and Lehran, more plot that answers some of the questions/points you brought up
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MAJOR FE10 SPOILERS HERE AND SUCH!
What is Lehran anyway? His flashback with Zelgius seemed to imply he's a Branded, but his own flashback refers to himself as a bird Laguz and having the ability to sing Galdrar.
Lehran is one of the 4 heroes who, the representative of the Bird Tribe, a Heron no less (though NOT a Royal; he has Black Wings, all Royals and ONLY the Royals have White Wings of the Heron clan. FE9 made this rather clear). The others were Soan of the Beast Tribe (a White Lion), Dheginsea (you know who he is), and Altina of the Beorc (the original wielder of Ragnell and Alondite, and the first Empress of Begnion.)
Lehran was the father of the first Branded (Altina being the mother), however, as a result, he lost all his Laguz Powers. Longstory short, he became just like Almedha, so functionally was very similar to a Branded, in that he was basically a Human who aged VERY SLOWLY and had to be on the move. Just in Lehran's case, he was able to take refuge in Goldoa for several hundred years, being a friend of Dheggy who knew all his secrets anyway, so he didn't have to worry about the usual Nomadic Lifestyle.
Is Pelleas really Ashnard's child? There's a bunch of half-Laguz running around in the second game, but the game seems to imply that Pelleas isn't really Ashnard's kid and the whole thing is a setup by Izuka.
Pelleas is not Ashnard's Son. He doesn't know he's not really Ashnard's son, cause he didn't know that Ashnard's son was in fact a Branded. He himself figures out he's not the real son once Izuka spills the beans to him on a replay where he survives, as he knows his symbol is from a Spirit Pact. Izuka just saw the Spirit Pact, saw that Pelleas was an orphan and was able to convince Almedha that Pelleas was her son cause of how similar the Spirit Pact looks compared to a Brand.
Naturally, for Almedha, he just kept the whole "That's a Spirit Pact!" thing a secret from her, pretending it was a brand, and in the case of Pelleas, he just kept the whole "Almedha is actually a Laguz!" thing a secret from her, so they never could put two and two together. Pelleas never reveals the Spirit Pact thing to anyone but Micaiah too, for that matter, on grounds that he knows it looks too much like a Brand, and its easier to just avoid any potential unrest rather than have to get into explaining it; obviously, in Micaiah's case, he just assumed she was one too, so felt it would ease her if she knew he was totally ok with it, especially since being one with a pact himself, he's no one to judge.
Do PCs get different epilogue text depending on supports or anything? I gave Soren and Ike high-level support and it seems that they wandered off into the sunset together while Mist became a spinster and Elincia is apparently in love with Lucia. Not -too- surprising if these were fixed epilogues, but they could easily be support-dependent.
The following epilogue text changes based on supports, characters living/dying, etc. Supports require an A, mind:
Micaiah: Depends on whether Pelleas is alive (NG+ only for "Pelleas lives" route naturally; whether Pelleas dies in plot or gameplay doesn't matter here.)
Sothe: Support with Micaiah
Jill: Support with Haar
Volug: Nailah Alive/Dead.
Rafiel: Nailah alive/dead
(AHAHAHAHAHA to either of those <.<?)
Caineghis: Skrimir alive/dead
Ranulf: Support with Ike
Muarim: Tormod alive/dead
Leanne: Support w/ Naesala (...yeah, he's a lucky bastard <_<)
Geoffrey: Support w/ Elincia
Lucia: Support w/ Bastian
Astrid: Support w/ Makalov
Boyd: Support w/ Mist
Mist: Support w/ Boyd
Soren: Support w/ Ike
Not gonna reveal what happens but a lot of them should be pretty straight forward.
Anything interesting about a 2nd playthrough? There's no way I'm playing this again anytime soon, but I'd like to know what changes.
NG+ allows you to keep Pelleas alive (and he becomes a PC), it has a few new plot scenes, particularly backstory related, and there's a PC you can get for the FINAL BATTLE only (who has a unique item to boot.) This also extends into a potentially extended ending, where a few new scenes pop up.
A big one which I don't understand why it wasn't in the first play through, though, is that the game actually explains why Ike couldn't remember that he grew up in Gallia, despite how when he left, he was old enough such that he should remember SOMETHING, and also explains why Mist got the Medallion, etc. Its something that I can understand why they held off until FE10 to explain, but why it had to be NG+ only is beyond me (there are other things I understand why they're NG+ only, like early in the game, there's a scene with Kurth and Almedha added on into Info Sessions. Naturally, they wanted to avoid this foreshadowing on a first playthrough and accidentally give something away, so I can at least understand that. On a replay, you already know how they're related)
Though, why Pelleas is an NG+ only PC, I'll never know. The fact that the game teases you by pretending you have a choice to keep him alive in the first playthrough, which only effects "Does Micaiah do it or does Tauroneo do it!?" is especially insulting.
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So uh. Djinn, your questions have been very, very answered.
Oh FE10, you and your kooky misunderstandings.
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It's a Pokemon weekend! I'll be in Dallas at the Regional competition, and Yoshiken will be at the United Kingdom Championships. Go RPGDL!
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Be sure to give us an epic warstory <_< >_>
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re: FE10
Well, first, since I doubt Djinn will want to replay the game.
http://www.serenesforest.net/fe10/script/ending.html -> covers the text for some of the hidden NG+ scenes as well as the alternate endings for various characters. Some of these are pretty subtle, as you'll see.
http://www.serenesforest.net/fe10/script/boss3.html -> you'll want to skip down to the bits with Ashera and Sephiran. In between other stuff you get some backstory.
Otherwise... well. the game never really gets into this, at least in any straightforward way, but as Niu explains it, basically... Laguz are, obviously, partly magical in their nature. Their strength, ability to change form, long lives and so on represent a reserve of magical strength they possess. When they have children with Beorc, a great deal of this strength is lost to them, and passed on to their children. Thus, any laguz having children with Beorc suddenly lose all their powers, more or less.
Spoilery bits follow. Sephiran, then known as Lehran the hero and consort to Altina the Empress, naturally suffered the same fate when his first child was born. This was not widely known. What was widely known was that this was happening throughout the land, since his relationship with Altina had weakened old taboos. Faced with a mounting crisis, he decided to claim that this was punishment from the Goddess. This in turn kicked off the unending discrimination against branded from both sides, as well as rebuilding the barriers between beorc and laguz. The argument can be made that this decision, made in despair at the loss of his own powers was the root cause of a lot of the fighting we see in the series. It stopped the healing of prejudice between the races and cut new wounds. Which is the source of Niu's comments that Sephiran deserves to die and all that.
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SPOILERS AND SUCH:
Actually, I believe the game states that Branded do NOT have any special powers relative to Beorc, beyond the extended life span; the loss of powers is purely a "punishment" for mixing blood, and it occurs in the Laguz Parent (who has actual powers to lose).
That was why Ashnard severed his ties with Almedha and her child. He thought "Hey, if I have a child that has blood of a Black Dragon, THE STRONGEST OF THE LAGUZ, he should be totally awesome!" but found out that said child, after he was born, had no special powers to speak of, and hence wanted no part in it anymore, since a weakling child is useless to him (as one would expect.)
This is pretty consistent with the other branded too. Of all the branded we see, only Zelgius comes off as exceptional, and Ike beats him one on one, and its implied that Greil at his prime (ie before Handicap) was stronger than Zelgius as well, hence why Zelgius kept pushing himself such that he could surpass his master eventually. This strikes me as more that Zelgius' strength came from his upbringing and just general talent, not so much cause of his natural blood.
Micaiah's the only one who shows any sort of special powers, and hers are...cause of WHO her ancestor is (Lehran), not cause she's just a branded; Lehran is suppose to be exceptional due to his linkage with the Goddess, afterall, compared to other Laguz.
Unless I'm forgetting some important factor here, I'm pretty sure the game stated that Branded have no distinguishable differences compared to Beorc in terms of powers and what not; the only thing that really makes them "better" is that they live a lot longer.
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Alpha Protocol - Game starts slow and the opening set of missions are longer than some of the later ones. I started playing as Recruit, so I have not a great set of skills, picking something else first play through might have been a good idea, but hey it unlocks something. Once I have got rolling with it though I am actually enjoying it. It suffers from Console Portitis though sadly with a twitchy jerky mouse and shitty menus (LOL YOU MOUSED OVER ME 5 SECONDS AGO THAT IS WHAT OPTION YOU WANTED TO SELECT), but I can deal with it. It isn't great, but it is pretty fun. Sort of like a really small scale far more focussed version of Deus Ex combat.
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I think branded do have stronger affinity for magic than is typical in beorc, but yeah, didn't mean to imply they have awesome laguz powers. Basically instead of the parent turning into a dragon, both parent and child are people who will be alive for a long long time.
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I think branded do have stronger affinity for magic than is typical in beorc, but yeah, didn't mean to imply they have awesome laguz powers. Basically instead of the parent turning into a dragon, both parent and child are people who will be alive for a long long time.
That might only apply to half-Dragon branded like Sorenthough.
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Cross Edge- Stopped before the Raizen fight. True End going fine as far as I know. Probably should have tried Hard mode, but there's enough challenge even though I'm mostly crushing the game beneath my heel. Definitely feels like I missed an important Synth Guide somewhere, as there's a noticable chunk missing in between the Table Napkin and Ciercoceramics. Oh well. Still going with Morrigan, Miko, York and Aurica. Getting better at assimilating others into bossfights though. Lots of spare equipment floating around. Zelos should work fine in place of York for the next one.
Story is fluff, thus always the crossover RPG. Chaos Wars' was actually more entertaining, but this has it's moments. Still nothing to write home about, but servicable.
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Check the TP store for the synth recipe. Might be one of the ones there. If not, just FAQ it I guess. It's quite possible that's one of the ones that shows up out of order though.
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Cross Edge - Still doing synthing. Almost done, just need to finish up the Topology Ribbon and Heavenly Charm and then I get to go kill things again. For composite materials, of course!
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I think branded do have stronger affinity for magic than is typical in beorc, but yeah, didn't mean to imply they have awesome laguz powers. Basically instead of the parent turning into a dragon, both parent and child are people who will be alive for a long long time.
I think somebody (maybe Stefan?) at some point mentions that Branded have a certain affinity towards whatever end of the Magic/Might spectrum their Laguz parent was. Like, say, Tiger Branded have a natural affinity toward being strong and whatnot.
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I think branded do have stronger affinity for magic than is typical in beorc, but yeah, didn't mean to imply they have awesome laguz powers. Basically instead of the parent turning into a dragon, both parent and child are people who will be alive for a long long time.
That might only apply to half-Dragon branded like Sorenthough.
I think branded do have stronger affinity for magic than is typical in beorc, but yeah, didn't mean to imply they have awesome laguz powers. Basically instead of the parent turning into a dragon, both parent and child are people who will be alive for a long long time.
I think somebody (maybe Stefan?) at some point mentions that Branded have a certain affinity towards whatever end of the Magic/Might spectrum their Laguz parent was. Like, say, Tiger Branded have a natural affinity toward being strong and whatnot.
That makes sense. Looking at all the Branded we know of:
Soren: Half-Dragon (Long life and Magical affinity)
Micaiah and Sanaki: Heron-descended (Longer life and Magical affinity)
Stefan (Called a Lion in his Epilogue text, so I'm assuming he's Lion-descended, and has a Physical affinity)
Zelgius (presumably some kind of Physical affinity. Since he seems to age a bit faster than Soren or Micaiah did, being just a bit younger than Greil after all, I would assume he's descended from a Lion or Tiger and not nearly as long-lived.)
"The little girl near the Queen of Crimea" - I'm assuming this is Amy due to when Yune said this, but I really didn't get much clarification on this. Is Largo some kind of Laguz or a Branded himself? Is Calill? Assuming that, then either Largo is a Tiger-descended with physical affinity or Calill is a Heron/Raven/Dragon-descended with a magical affinity. I would assume the former just from a passing glance at Largo. >.>;;
Somewhat related: Why did Ike and Mist grow up in Gallia and what possible effect does this have on the story?
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FFV: Galuf's world, just got the dragon. Still mostly on tier 1 jobs aside from Faris being a ninja. Still having fun. May switch Galuf (the designated mage) to Summoner for a bit soon.
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"The little girl near the Queen of Crimea" - I'm assuming this is Amy due to when Yune said this, but I really didn't get much clarification on this. Is Largo some kind of Laguz or a Branded himself? Is Calill? Assuming that, then either Largo is a Tiger-descended with physical affinity or Calill is a Heron/Raven/Dragon-descended with a magical affinity. I would assume the former just from a passing glance at Largo. >.>;;
Far Simpler than that; she's Adopted. So what Callil and Largo are (or aren't) is totally irrelevant.
She kind of has to be for the time to make sense though; the two aren't quite a couple yet in FE9, let alone parents, and that was only 3 years prior FE10; Amy has to be at least 4, considering, so mathematically, adoption is the only way to justify her existence here.
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And completing the list of "things FE10 doesn't like to tell you about the story", for djinn's amusement, the yaoi fangirl fodder scene. Small type for the sake of not taking up a whole page more than for spoilers.
[Part IV Endgame (5); Soren] (*)
Soren: Ike... Um... Were you joking when you said you couldn't remember how we
met?
Ike: Well, sorta. It was a long time ago.
Soren: How could you forget?
Ike: Relax, Soren. I got to thinking, and I remembered. I remember what
happened in Gallia on the day we first met.
Soren: Ike...
Ike: Mother had gone shopping with Mist that day. I was wandering around the
village all alone. I walked to the edge of the forest, looking for a stick
I could pretend was a sword. There was a raven-haired boy lying on the
ground.
Soren: I remember the huge oak tree by the clearing... I'd been sleeping in the
hollow by the roots.
Ike: He looked like he was my age. He was as skinny as a twig, wearing rags and
covered in dirt. He looked like he was near death. I took out my lunch and
I handed it to him. He made a noise like a scared animal and shied away. He
was suspicious of me at first, but eventually he took my sandwich and
started to eat. It was like he'd never eaten before in his life. I didn't
have anything else to feed him, so I told him to come to my house. But he
kept shaking his head no.
Soren: I was afraid you were going to trick me. Afraid that you were going to
chase me away after taunting me with food, just for a laugh...
Ike: I told the boy that I'd bring him some food the next day at the same time
and place. He finally nodded when I said that. It made me happy. I felt
like I was doing something right, helping this boy. Like I was the only one
who'd do that.
Soren: ...I was happy, too. Not just because I wasn't hungry anymore. Because
someone finally would talk to me. So I went back to the village again the
next day. I was scared of the other villagers and their rocks and sticks,
but I still went back.
Ike: That's right. That was Gallia back then. The beorc abused and tormented
the Branded because the laguz shunned them. They wanted to avoid upsetting
the laguz.
Soren: The villagers threw stones at me, called me an animal and a devil. But
on the next day, the village was littered with corpses. Soldiers and
peasants were in a panic.
Ike: It was my dad. He went crazy when the spirit of chaos in the medallion
touched him.
Soren: I walked through the empty streets, checking bodies to see if you were
dead. But I couldn't find you. I decided that you had to be alive. I took
money and food from the village and headed for Crimea, a land of beorcs.
Ike: Soren...
Soren: On my way to Crimea, I kept seeing laguz from the beast tribe. They
were terrifying, but after a while I realized something. They never
attacked me. They all seemed to notice something about me, and then pretend
they couldn't see me. That look was burned into my mind, and it was always
the same. They'd scowl, then walk away like they'd never noticed me. In a
way, that left me feeling older and more alone than if they'd attacked me.
Hate... That I could understand. This was denial. They made me feel like I
wasn't supposed to exist at all. That my simply being alive was an affront
to the world. That was how the beasts treated me. And I hated them for it.
It sat in my heart like a lead bar. Like a glacier.
Ike: ...
Soren: When I reached Crimea, I took refuge in a church along the way. They
took my brand to be a sign that I had been trained in the arcane arts.
They took good care of me, and taught me things. Once I had learned to
speak and behave like other people, I wandered Crimea for several years.
Then I finally found you.
Ike: But I'd...
Soren: Yes. You'd forgotten that day in Gallia. But I didn't care. My only wish
was to see you again. I just wanted to see the only boy who had held out a
warm hand when I had nothing.
Ike: Soren... Don't cry.
Soren: Don't cry? What? I'm not crying...
Ike: Soren, you're smart, but you're no good when it comes to your emotions.
Come over here.
Soren: D-don't treat me like I'm a child! I'm not that--
Ike: Come on.
Soren: Shut up! Shut up...
Ike: Then I'll come over to you.
[he moves over]
Ike: It's all in the past, Soren...
Soren: ...Sniff... Sniff... Gwuh... Wahhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh!
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... that's cute. :'(
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Alpha Protocol - So I was rocking around specialising in Stealth and Tech stuff, everything is fine everything is good until one day you wake up and you are on fire. The game went and pulled a MGS on me. Stealth around and stuff is all good, I am not trained up at all in guns, but I can do the thing I enjoy, sneaking around and stabbing people in the face. OH HEY BOSS FIGHT, and I get bent over and fucked like a cheap hooker at 4 in the morning in Vegas. Seriously I can even get it so I can stealth around the room of the boss, set up traps and stuff. You know what happens? I shoot him in the head at point blank with a shotgun and he loses his armor, then I set off a bomb right next to him and it barely damages him. I try shotting him with the shotgun again, it barely damages him. Then he punches me and I die almost instantly, or just get stunlocked and die. If I try to maintain some distance and chip him down, he summons more guards and they fuck me in the arse or let him regen his armour back to full. If I try to prolong it and try to regroup and start chipping away at him again then it prolongs the fight and in my trying to run away I will run into something and he will kill me.
What the fuck game. I am really having fun like right up to that point. Now I am annoyed. I have been fighting this guy for ... 2 hours now almost? Yeah I am out of ideas entirely.
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Dammit Grefter I really want to like Alpha Protocol why are you saying stuff like this about it. Hmph.
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It is okay, I probably should have gone to other cities and done missions there, pretty sure it was the last mission in Rome, so doing it with no weapon skill at all was a bit off. Went to Moscow instead, having a ball with it again. Got some Shotgun skill, so will see how the fight goes again.
It is hard to really say why I like the game, it isn't anywhere near as polished as some of the stuff I have played lately, so it grates a little in some ways, but that is probably me just being spoilt by all the Bioware releases. Going in as someone that likes Deus Ex, Thief and a few other key games Strago I reccomend you pick it up at some point at least.
Edit - Shock and horror, I say something bad about a game.
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... that's cute. :'(
Indeed. ;_;
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Spoilarz
That makes sense. Looking at all the Branded we know of:
Soren: Half-Dragon (Long life and Magical affinity)
Micaiah and Sanaki: Heron-descended (Longer life and Magical affinity)
Stefan (Called a Lion in his Epilogue text, so I'm assuming he's Lion-descended, and has a Physical affinity)
Zelgius (presumably some kind of Physical affinity. Since he seems to age a bit faster than Soren or Micaiah did, being just a bit younger than Greil after all, I would assume he's descended from a Lion or Tiger and not nearly as long-lived.)
"The little girl near the Queen of Crimea" - I'm assuming this is Amy due to when Yune said this, but I really didn't get much clarification on this. Is Largo some kind of Laguz or a Branded himself? Is Calill? Assuming that, then either Largo is a Tiger-descended with physical affinity or Calill is a Heron/Raven/Dragon-descended with a magical affinity. I would assume the former just from a passing glance at Largo. >.>;;
-Zelgius is descended from a bird, looks like a hawk? We see his brand, and those give away the type well enough.
-Sanaki isn't branded. Descended from mixed heritage does not imply branded; branded implies descended from mixed heritage. Stefan makes this very clear; both his own parents were normal beorc, but he is branded, and it's because of his ancestry.
-Amy is adopted, and even if she weren't that wouldn't make Calill/Largo branded, as above. It's pretty much impossible to speculate more about the nature of Amy's brandedness, though.
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Fiona might be useful for an all-DB game just because Canto will give her some utility that few (none?) of your other units will have.
Fiona doesn't suffer from the stat downs of carrying people so it makes a frontline Laura possible and I must do this tactic for that alone. There is only one map you can train Fiona and thankfully there is no need to worry about her dying as The black Knight will stand and break all the enemies puny weapons.
Its all set up really. She just needs to do her part and gain some good stat ups.
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Miles Edgeworth AAI: Really fanstastic game and anyone who like the series should definately pick it up if they get the chance. For me the only other game in the series that's as good as this one is the second one and even then it's really good between the two. The characters look great in their new perspectives both in the large up close versions and the smaller sprites and the music is generally fantastic. The fourth and fifth cases are probably up with 2-3 for my favorite cases in the series and the other cases are at least solid. Miles is really likable despite being kind of a grump throughout the series and it really shows the strength of the writing that makes him so likable. I also like what they did with Kay and Gumshoe in the fourth and fifth cases. Larry and Wendy are both great when they're around and it's nice that the game gave them a moment to shine at the end. The game does have a few problems though. With all the old characters there really aren't that many new ones which means that each case only has a few new ones. This usually leads to there being very few suspects so I was usually able to figure out the suspect before the game made it obvious. Aside from that though, it's a very good game and is definately worth playing.
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Holy crap, dude, you're... you're me.
Speaking of which!
Phoenix Wright 2 - Awww yeah. Three cases beat. I think 2-2 was even better than I remembered, and 2-3 is just as good as I remembered, which, well, see the previous post. Ben and Moe are the best. Love this game.
Beat Wizard of Oz, need to rant about that. Also beat Fire Emblem 9 for the 5th time, need to rant about that too! Started Pokemon Soul Silver which seems cool enough so far but I'm super early. Using Totodile because hell he's actually good now. What is this I don't even-
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Starting up a new game of Bloodlines to tide me over for Alpha Protocol on Tuesday.
Also, because Alpha Protocol is buggy, NMA has now officially announced that New Vegas is a shitty game.
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Eh it is only as bad as their other efforts in that department. It isn't awesome or anything, but it is relatively average execution for a multiplatform release. Give it a few months for the backlash to die down. I think the biggest reaction to it is far more that it wasn't quite what people expected the game to be. The last delay was definitely worth it financially. Remembering that it was delayed from the 2009 release after the game was mostly finished, it was done more to avoid releasing it at the same time as Dragon Age. Between then and now it would have just been swept up in amongst a few other big name releases. Delay till May/June was probably a good call on Sega's part.
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SH2 - Beaten. Poor Kato didn't even get to see his support actually take turns, gogogogo Melt Crest+FE'd For the Child. Not much to comment, though: I found SH2 a solid game, on par with SH3, but for completely different reasons. SH3 has the excellent gameplay, SH2 has the actually decent (within its boundaries) writing and a few very good characters, mainly Yuri and Kato. I was just thoroughly impressed by how they outlined Kato's whole trajectory and how it was handled through the game. One of the most tasteful antagonists I've seen in a videogame, period.
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SSF4 - Had a good day today losing twice out of twenty or so fights. I still have no answer to good Guy players who seem to beat me all the time for some reason. I do quite well against Chunners though which is odd considering its Dudley's worst match up.
Disgaea 3 - I have a rank 39 item and didn't even know it! The Megiddo Cannon! I'm planing to Level it to 99 and then dupe it. That way I can max it out in safty and still have a spare one to allow me to steal off the item god 2.
Is there anything special I should do when going through these rank 39 items? Anyone?
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You should sing the Legendary Item Blues.
/me nodnods.
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Alpha Protocol - I just infiltrated a Russian Mobster's mansion who is obsessed with 80s American culture. So get a boss fight with him, the room has a checkerboard dance floor with each tile being backlit with a different colour, he rises up out of the floor on an elevator with pyrotechnics set off as he gets to the top as the lyrics to Autograph - Turn Up the Radio kicks in and then you boss fight to an 80s synth pop rock classic.
So awesome.
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Holy crap, dude, you're... you're me.
Speaking of which!
Phoenix Wright 2 - Awww yeah. Three cases beat. I think 2-2 was even better than I remembered, and 2-3 is just as good as I remembered, which, well, see the previous post. Ben and Moe are the best. Love this game.
That's cool. I remember that someone else on these forums really liked 2-3, but I couldn't remember who it was. I think part of the reason I liked both games is that Franziska is my favorite out of the prosecutors and she had a large role in both games. As for 2-3, I felt that it struck a good balance between humor, and drama and while the killer wasn't as sympathetic as the 2-2 killer, you still felt bad for what happened. It was also interesting to see how the case worked out when the victim was someone who literally everyone loved and had no motive to kill and it was great how frustrated Franziska and Pheonix got with some of the witnesses.
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Phoenix Wright 2 - Awww yeah. Three cases beat. I think 2-2 was even better than I remembered, and 2-3 is just as good as I remembered, which, well, see the previous post. Ben and Moe are the best. Love this game.
And now you are about to do my favoritest case~
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Disgaea 3 - I have a rank 39 item and didn't even know it! The Megiddo Cannon! I'm planing to Level it to 99 and then dupe it. That way I can max it out in safty and still have a spare one to allow me to steal off the item god 2.
Is there anything special I should do when going through these rank 39 items? Anyone?
The rank 39s? Just make sure that you take it over to the LoC for F99 and F100, and have a level 9999 (or some other absurdly high number) Thief with decent movement. Other:
(Not important, but incredibly useful) Have a Barefoot X with +6 Movement. Cloned twice, if you can manage it.
(Required) Two to three Fist users with at least the first four fist techniques, and the ability to use all those with their base SP (in case they need to switch out their equipment with +MOV stuff and lower their max SP capacity). I believe that Champloo, Axel, and Master Bigster can fulfill that requirement, if you don't feel like building up the generics to be able to do it.
(Required for R40, not for R39) Load down your gun with subdued specialists of either the Marksman or Coach varieties. Pass bills accordingly. Realize that you'll need to double-kill all the item generals/kings/gods. If you're doing it right, you'll hit all 8 specialist spots by the time you finish with F30.
That said, the rank 40s are all you should really care about building up properly.
...Given that the only three things that can hit a 3x3 square are magic, Fist's Big Bang, and Axel's Love Dynamite, you might also want to consider seeing if you can't pick up a Legendary Ultimus and Legendary Arcadia while you're getting through your current Legendary Megiddo Cannon.
...And Legendary Astaroth Texts, those help too.
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Torchlight: Krog. Actually made me heal! More than once! And made me use MP restoring items, which is more remarkable. Mostly because ye gods that's a lot of support. I mostly just ran like hell constantly, pausing only to drop turrets and throw down Arrow Hails. Anyway, floor 28 or so now.
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Double-kill all the item generals/kings/gods? You mean killing the boss, exiting and then coming back and whooping him again? Can this be done more then once?
Load down your gun with subdued specialists of either the Marksman or Coach varieties
Do they have to be maxed out? 19,998 is the max right so how would I go about getting them that high? Duping items that have subdued Innocents and combining them maybe?
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Double-kill all the item generals/kings/gods? You mean killing the boss, exiting and then coming back and whooping him again? Can this be done more then once?
Once per every 10 floors. The general formula is that it logs the general/king/god death in item bonus... And then you leave, so you get a level-up bonus for all the floors you skipped/completed, (as well as any Mystery Gate bonuses and Item Spheres) and the bonus for killing the boss will show on the last level-up. Once you go in again, you kill the boss and either finish or skip the level, do whatever else (including passing your bills), and once you leave, the singular floor will come with the stat bonus for killing the F10 boss a second time. So, to gain the bonuses from killing the Item Fx10 boss, you need at least one level-up to compensate.
Load down your gun with subdued specialists of either the Marksman or Coach varieties
Do they have to be maxed out? 19,998 is the max right so how would I go about getting them that high? Duping items that have subdued Innocents and combining them maybe?
I don't believe they need to be L19998, just that they're there and subdued whenever you start leveling up the item for real. It doesn't particularly matter on the level of the specialists, just that they're taking up slots on the item's ability to carry specialists.
That said, if you're gonna be tossing aside that Megiddo Cannon once you finish leveling up an Invincible, you may just want to consider it bait for starting up collections of dual-stat specialists... And specifically for that, a L100 Mediator. Teachers are basically worthless thanks to item duping, but getting the Deadeye specialist up to L500 is basically required once you're done leveling up your Guns.
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Fire Emblem Path of Radiance: Finished my fifth playthrough, as mentioned. Fixed Mode since I was trying out new dudes, Hard Mode because the game has no other difficulty mode; I still hardly reset ever (3-4 times total?). Unit rundown...
Ike: Kill leader, which isn't shocking since the earliest PC besides him I used every chapter after joining was Rolf. Anyway, he had crappier supports than normal so I actually had to watch out for his durability at times. By endgame he had A Oscar B Lethe so all was good, though. Other than that, the usual, great speed, averagish attack, and Aether is helpful in the last few maps, as is Ragnell of course.
Rhys: He uh heals. And hits Level 20 fairly easily! Too bad Nosferatu weighs him the hell down. I forged him a Light tome with like +3 might light enough for him to use and it was easily the most expensive thing I forged. Still, when he did double things (which wasn't often, but the level lead makes it less rare than you'd think) he was actually kinda competent. Just wish he had more move.
Soren: With my dropping Oscar/Boyd/Titania, Soren was the first promoted beorc in my main party (well, around the same time I got Stefan, but anyway). Pretty cool. His move and durability really hold him back from being a high-end PC but he was quite capable at killing single enemies on the player phase. Unfortunately he died late in Chapter 21 before he could really start paying off (Sages get better lategame due to laguz and wyverns). Not especially fun to get to promotion though not terrible. Also, said it once and I'll say it again: I find Soren's staves nearly useless, you get them around the time you need less and less healing outside Restore (which he can't use) and the bad move + no Physic really sucks compared to what Rhys/Mist can do.
Rolf: Well, we roughly know the story here. He basically sucks until he promotes, although he's not -that- painful to get there, you just aren't using someone better. After that he has okay offence though struggles with strength some. Having to wall him in is annoying; yes his durability doesn't fail so much that he can't take a hit or two, but no counters = worse enemy phase = harder battle next round, so bleh to that. Just isn't worth it. #2 in kills though!
Lethe: What the hell, I underrated it a lot. Transforming early is so much better than late because usually the hardest turns of a battle come early as you get it under control. Statwise she crushes things for much of the game with the combination of offence, defence, and mobility... she falls off but doesn't get -that- bad, though by the very end her offence is fairly bleh indeed. Still one of the best new PCs this playthrough. #3 in kills.
Mordecai: He on the other hand kinda sucks outside Smite. Transforming late is terrible, and Demi Banding him costs him his already problematic speed. Just needs too much work to be good, lost a fair bit of respect for him here. He still has jeigan uses but is behind Titania and Lethe in that regard.
Zihark: Fast, problematic attack (crits + Adept compensate some, but still nowhere near as good as even Ike's superior strength, which is like 2-3 points), kinda fragile until late when the Muarim supports kicks in. Late he has durability and such which is fairly handy, rounds him out nicely. If you use Muarim anyway.
Muarim: I was certainly unimpressed at first, even though I favoured him with the Demi Band. Growths actually prevent him from falling off despite being overlevelled. He has the right build to utilise Wrath well; he tends to have problems one-rounding (especially later on) but has huge HP and adjustable durability with his evade supports (mostly Zihark) so that combo works better on him than most. Still, had to favour him, definitely don't feel he's really threatening to be in the best party like some lists peg him as.
Stefan: Finally used him fully, and confirmed what I suspected - best Swordmaster in the game fairly easily. Luck's the only problem stat but nobody else really needs those two Ashera Icons so whatever. Playing him side by side with Zihark, the latter just can't keep up for most of the game - Stefan's S in swords while Zihark struggles to just get A makes it no contest for a while, and Stefan wins offence forever. I think Zihark surpasses Stefan around Chapter 26 or so which is way too late to consider him better. Hilariously that's when my Stefan died (lololol 1% crit) so I didn't see his last few chapters but they're easy to extrapolate.
Tauroneo: Graaah. I mean okay Rolf is probably the worst PC I used but Tauroneo puts up a better fight than I expected. He's a wall but you have other walls by then, including three who join shortly after he does, all of whom have 3 extra move (Haar, Ranulf, Geoffrey). His speed is basically unsalvageable even with a Speedwing, and he's difficult to get into Resolve range. I gave him Boots and a Speedwing and he was still pretty bad (and very much needed both, without the Speedwing he can't double average enemies even in Resolve!).
Ranulf: As I've alluded to, laguz get worse as time goes on since they never get better weapons. Ranulf joins as this "getting worse" process is well underway so he never really gets to benefit from the other beast laguz' earlier prowess. He lacks that, he lacks Muarim's supports, he lacks Lethe's fast transformation... what does he get to make up for this? Uh... he's very tanky!
Largo: Largo kills EVERYTHING. Seriously. Easily, easily party-best offence out of those I used this playthrough. Strength second only to Boyd, speed in the Ike/Nephenee/Paladin tier (i.e. fast), and even a crit rate for measure... and axes! Even without relying on luck he could take out well over half of a dragon's HP in one attack, something nobody else was even close to. Of course to compensate for this he's totally made of glass. Gave him two Dracoshields and he was still well below par in this regard. HP softens the blow, as do evade supports (too bad they're not with great PCs), but ouch. So not a wonderful PC overall but better than the previous two.
Oscar: Aside from occasional pure filler use I basically did not use Oscar between Chapter 13 and Chapter 22, subbing him in when Soren died. I did admittedly give him 3 levels of BExp to catch up, but it's worth noting that after that he was pretty much the MVP, due to being my only PC with move-again, 9 move, and the generally Ike-like stats. No real fight over the Knight Ward helped as he built the supports but oh well. It's Oscar, he rules, what else is new. Fourth in kills.
Reyson: Had the Knight Ring, though I benched him whenever I didn't have enough space for all of the aforementioned units because I "wasn't using him" this playthrough. Sadly he's still pretty much the best filler unit there is.
Ena: Gave her Resolve so she would counter Ashnard. Also, surrounded Ashnard this playthrough. This makes him MUCH easier. He'll go for Ena since he thinks he can one-round her (moron) ignoring the two who can't counter him, then Ike beats on him, Ike gets refreshed and beats on him again, heal and repeat. Giffca didn't even make it to the battle in time. Poor FE9 laguz royals.
Wizard of Oz rant is next! Whenever I get around to it.
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That said, if you're gonna be tossing aside that Megiddo Cannon once you finish leveling up an Invincible, you may just want to consider it bait for starting up collections of dual-stat specialists... And specifically for that, a L100 Mediator. Teachers are basically worthless thanks to item duping, but getting the Deadeye specialist up to L500 is basically required once you're done leveling up your Guns.
Deadeye and Mediators are reverse pirating only I'm guessing? Also how do dual stat specialists work? I've read a few conflicting things about them.
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That said, if you're gonna be tossing aside that Megiddo Cannon once you finish leveling up an Invincible, you may just want to consider it bait for starting up collections of dual-stat specialists... And specifically for that, a L100 Mediator. Teachers are basically worthless thanks to item duping, but getting the Deadeye specialist up to L500 is basically required once you're done leveling up your Guns.
Deadeye and Mediators are reverse pirating only I'm guessing? Also how do dual stat specialists work? I've read a few conflicting things about them.
Reverse Pirating is the most common way to get them, yes. However, I've also had them show up while filling in the tiles for one of those mystery box things when I've still had spaces left on an item I was running. Fist Fighters are for Fists, Eroses are for Bows, Deadeyes are for Guns, Fencers are for Swords, Lancers are for Spears, Lumberjacks are for Axes (you'll want a good number of these for your PPS, probably), Cane Man is for Staves, and Monster Hunter is for Monster weapons. Also, standing at the best of the boosters is Guardians, which boost the power of your accessories/equipment/armor/whatever you want to call it. There's even an in-game bug where if Guardians are above another piece of equipment, it'll effect the equipment it's on (minus weapons - Guardians don't have an effect on those) AND all the equipment in slots before it. If you have a permanent weapon set up for a character, it's actually a good idea to toss your Guardians on said weapon, so you don't have to worry about what piece of armor has Guardians on it or not.
Hell, my Cosmo Infinity is currently set up with the following specialists:
Professional (L19998 just for kicks - yes, that means a 19998% Critical Hit rate.)
Fist Fighter (L500)
Guardian (L500)
5x Sprinter (L19998)
For the Trapezohedrons, I basically have this:
3x 8x Sprinter (L19998).
Dual stat specialists are just that - they boost two stats instead of just one, like a L19998 Sprinter will have the same boost as a L19998 Gladiator and a L19998 Coach. The only downside is that they DO NOT WORK for extra stat boosts from double-killing item bosses in item world. This basically restricts them to basically toppers, but they are far more effective than their single-stat brethren at it. In short: Single-stat specialists during Item World, dual-stat specialists after.
However, there's only a handful of dual-stat specialists, and not all of them are completely useful. There Sniper (ATK and HIT), Sprinter (ATK and SPD), Muscleman (ATK and HP), Hard Worker (ATK and INT), Nerd (SP and INT), and Patient (DEF and RES). Of course of those in that list, Muscleman is middling on use, Sniper, Sprinter, and Nerd are probably the best depending on the situation/weapon, while Hard Worker gets overshadowed by the split and Patient is really just useless in the endgame areas, since most LoC enemies will one-shot you anyway even with absurd defense values.
When you finally get your R40, be sure to watch its rarity - there's an extra statistical bonus for matching the rarities of all your equipment.
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Alpha Protocol - So finished all of Moscow, go back to Rome, the fight is still fucking retarded even with pretty good Shotgun skills. I try going the other route and sacrificing an exhibit and letting a terrorist strike happen and saving the girl instead. So instead of exiting the building that a bomb has just gone off in you and this guy still decide to fight even though one of you has just commited a large scale terrorist attack and you are a rogue agent.
Sigh.
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Heart Gold: Went to VGC! Fucking disappointed as hell. Me and two friends went. All 3 of us were knocked in Rd 2. 2 of us were knocked out by exactly the same move from exactly the same Pokemon. SIGH.
For me:
Rd 1: Sent out Smeargle and Kyogre, he opens with Charizard and Empoleon. I figured Kyogre Water Spout can OHKO Charizard, since there's no other weather, and Fake Out the Empoleon. I then get a crit on the Empoleon and take out both of them. Uhm. Okay then! Next two are Blastoise and Groudon, which kinda confused me, but I figured they were both pretty slow, so went with Dark Void. Success! From there, it was just Ice Beam spam to take out Groudon, which stayed asleep. In the meantime, Blastoise woke up and missed with Hydro Pump. Since it was using that, I Protected with Smeargle next turn while Kyogre tried Thundering (despite sun; missed once, OHKOed the next try). As a result, won my first match without taking any damage. >.>
Rd 2: I decide that Dark Void Smeargle and Kyogre Water Spout clearly work well together and use the same four as Rd 1. He opens with Clefable and Giratina, so I go with Dark Void and Ice Beam. Giratina Protects, but I still get the sleep on Clefable. Next turn, I do the same again and I'm against a sleeping Giratina (on about 2/3 - Leftovers and defensive type, fuuun) and Clefable. He switches Giratina at a great time, as Smeargle uses Follow Me and Kyogre uses Water Spout. Just missed the OHKO on the Clefable, dammit. Clefable wakes up and Aura Spheres Smeargle, which... doesn't even activate Focus Sash. Right. His Kyogre is faster than mine, but both Clefable and Smeargle Follow Me'd here - both Kyogres Thunder, killing the opposing non-Kyogres. I realise Infernape is horrible against Kyogre and the Giratina I expect, so I send out Palkia while he sends out Giratina. His Kyogre Thunders mine, barely fails to OHKO, my Kyogre Thunders his and... fails to kill. Tanky fucking Kyogre. Paralysis, though! He Protects with Giratina, saving himself from a Dragon Claw. Next turn, I Water Spout to finish the Kyogre and... Giratina Protects again. It works. Dragon Claw fails again, and he sends out Metagross. I decide to take out Giratina with a Draco Meteor, while getting Kyogre to Thunder Metagross, which paralyzes again, but it was apparently fast enough to go before both Giratina and Palkia. And Explodes. Fuck, forgot Metagross did that. (Protect working twice on Giratina and -this- stupid decision cost me the match. EASILY. Palkia had a Protect at the ready, but I completely forgot Metagross+Explosion.) I end up with Life Orb Infernape vs. Giratina on about 50% w/Leftovers. Yeaaaah, this is gonna go well. I used Thunderpunch twice, in the hopes that I could get more paralysis hax, but nothing, and he finishes it in two Dragon Pulses.
In other news, I fucking hate Metagross.
Didn't stay for the finals, left sometime between the final 16 and final 8. Things that I did see working well: Explosion Metagross. Sigh. My friend who lost to this came up against a taaaaank Snorlax (less than 50% from Electrode Explosion? Shit) which used Belly Drum - baited an Extremespeed from Rayquaza, ensuring the Metagross could successfully Explode. (Also, Salamence switched to Metagross that turn, meaning he reaaaaallly took nothing from Explosion.) Saw another team using Focus Sash Breloom alongside Palkia, then switching Palkia for Metagross and Exploding - Breloom dying wasn't a problem at this point, as Mewtwo was asleep. Surprisingly few Abomasnow, although I did see one match where both players had one - that said, one of those copied the exact team that Fish used in Seattle (although was using them in a different order - Hitmontop/Abomasnow/Kyogre/Palkia instead of Hitmontop/Kyogre/Abomasnow/Palkia.) That team lost to a Giratina, so that really seems to be the major threat here.
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Disgaea 3 stuff: Most of what MagicFanatic said isn't neccessary for a R39 item (I know he mentioned that, but just reiterating) since you'll just end up getting a R40 and maxing that out anyway (or not even bothering since you can OHKO Baal with a L200 R39 weapon anyway). That said, a lot of that stuff is easy to do (like double killing bosses and sticking single stat residents on the item), so you might as well do those to get that extra power for little effort. Also, if you want to get the item to L200, make sure you get the item to about L150 before clearing floor 100. You can get the other 50 levels from reverse pirating, but it's hard to get much more than that.
Once (if) you get to a R40 item, make sure you read up on the stat caps and how they work in practice. If you try and optimize for a single stat, you'll end up capping and wasting stats you could've put elsewhere. R39 items won't have that issue but just keep it in mind for later.
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Cross Edge - Finished synthing all the ultimates. Turns out all the ultimate accessories require items I can't get any more of until a later boss, so I'm stuck with a Topology Ribbon which kind of sucks (crappy grade, no INT). Whatever. Farming composite materials now.
Hexyz Force - Up to Phase 2 (end of it I think), Cecilia story. Game's pretty generic, really. But not bad. Pretty easy, so far, though.
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HL2 - Replaying this because Valve added achievements. Still a great game. I definitely like it more than TF2, don't know if I like it more than L4D. Probably. Playing on hard and it's pretty doable because I'm a lot less terrible at FPSes than I was when I first started. Conversely, since I've been playing a lot of L4D2 recently, I keep forgetting that the crowbar isn't an instant kill on anything and that right click isn't Melee. The latter, fortunately, is only really a problem when I'm using the SMG or Pulse rifle. Up to the bridge in Highway 17. Got the Grav gun only through Ravenholm achievement, promptly forgot how to use other weapons. >_> May or may not play through Ep 1 and 2 after this.
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LO- Oh god please stop Prisma casting randoms! Yeah, back row casters with 2HKO MT damage are pretty painful. Two resets, although at least it's alleviated by the fact that the Black Cave is pretty cool.
ToV- Up to the Belius fight. Game was kind of treading water for a bit in terms of repetition (Endless asking Estelle what she wants to do, endless Rita or Raven or Estelle saying they are going to split off just to stay, annoying repetitive use of introducing a plot point that might be interesting and then stringing you along, etc...), although at least it repeated the best thing that plot had done! Really lacked anywhere near as much impact the second time, but at least this time it didn't feel like they had to go great lengths of contrivance to set it up!
FF 13- I really wanted to try and pick this up today but...man, really didn't feel like sitting through more of the games' battles.
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Alpha Protocol - Okay, so beat that boss. Turns out shotguns are shit at prolonged boss fights until you get Master Critical Hit with them, after that you just stun lock them until they are dead. Fail balance is fail.
It is midnight and I have work tomorrow so I won't beat the game yet, but up to a bit where I have to shoot down a helicopter while running through a gauntlet of guys to pick up rocket launchers. So yay! More MGS bullshit randomly thrown into my fun stealth game.
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Torchlight: Black Palace. This place has final dungeon written all over it. And the randoms are actually threatening! This was unexpected. (Thus far, my only death in the game was in the lava area. Was very sleepy and didn't notice that like five goblin hunters had planted explosive arrows around me until it was too late to run.)
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Cid: Yup. If you do aftergame, you learn to hate anything with a breath weapon especially - and in the main story, breath weapons mainly show up there.
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Pokemon HeartGold - Whiiiiitney!!!!!! Took out Clefairy with Butterfree, pretty uneventful. I'm getting cocky because I just Sleep/Flashed Cleffy.
(Spearow, my sixth Pokemon, is already dead)
Butterfree: *Sleeps Miltank*
Miltank: AUTO-SLEEP-WEAR-OFF-ITEM
Butterfree: Eeep! *dies*
*sends out Rattata*
Miltank: *Attracts Rattata*
Rattata: MWAHAHA! ROCK SMASH!!
Miltank: *critical hit second round*
Ciato: WAHHH!
*sends out Flaafy*
Flaafy: Mwahahahaa!! Thundershock!
Miltank: *STOMP STOMP*
Flaafy: Fine, fine. *GROWL*
Miltank: *kills Flaafy, but gets PARALYZED!*
*sends out Bayleef*
EPIC DUEL ENSUES!
*Milk Drink* *Synthesis* *Stomp* *Razor Leaf*
Ciato: FUCK!! SHE HAS TWO SUPER POTIONS?!!?
*Tackle* *Rollout* *Growl*
Eventually, Bayleef succumbs after being out of Razor Leaf and Synthesis and Lemonade, and...
THE HERO APPEARS!
Sandslash: *Sand-Attack*
Miltank: *out of healing and Super Potions and Attract has no effect!* *cries*
Sandslash: *Cuts Miltank to death after 10 rounds*
This lasted around 80 rounds total.
So awesome. Whitney's a whoooore~ Now time to go stock up on Lemonade.
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Wizard of Oz - Completed a few days ago. Final level 41, final time around 15 hours or so?
Great design on the final boss fight, incidentally. I really liked how, after having quite a number of bosses who dispel you on a regular basis, the game turns things around and gives you a final boss without Dispel... but instead one that makes you use dispel instead! Cute, and makes things more interesting.
Overall a rant on this game almost has to be fairly short, much like the game itself. It's very much a small game, though this is quite fine, as increasingly I think games are better off this way, and particularly games that take after Dragon Quest: light on plot, light on character setup, heavy on dungeon and battle. The game's length was pretty much perfect for what it was.
Gameplay-wise, they came up with one cool twist and played it well, though straight enough otherwise: the ratio system makes for some more interesting choices in battle than many other traditional turn-based RPGs allow, and it has interesting effects on the enemy as well, and how you deal with them (cutting down on numbers isn't as helpful as in some games, for instance). The battle system is fairly plain outside this but it's enough to keep the game quite interesting as long as it lasts.
Dungeon design is fairly solid. A few are extremely pretty, the rest tend towards moderately pretty (well, I didn't like the jungle stage much), and exploring them is fun enough; the signpost feature is one I quite enjoyed. Encounter control is fairly good overall.
Challenge level is perfect. Not much to say, the game rarely ever let me snooze through anything because enemies are well-balanced and almost never incompetent. Bosses are enough to cause scares but on the other hand I never did actually die, although the battle against Holly was walking along a razor.
Characters and plot... well... har? The PCs in particular (sans Dorothy) don't really even exist much. I do like the story sequences that are presented in the book, that was a nice touch. Otherwise the game is unashamed in how little plot it has. I don't really mind, although it's not exactly going to score points for this, either.
Music is quite good, and fits the game perfectly. Graphics... I love the environments, as mentioned. In-battle graphics are, however, inexcusably lazy; we're talking way behind, say, Phantasy Star IV. When an enemy casts Coconut Drop, I expect to see coconuts, not just hear a generic impact sound effect with no animation whatsoever.
Weaknesses of the game... well, aside from just not really aspiring to be great, I think the biggest one is that the interface could definitely be better. The shop screen feels like something out of the SNES era; can't see my own equipment stats to compare with what I'm getting, have to leave the shop and equip then return... yeah. There were a few other times the menu felt clunky, though part of it may be the insistence on being an entirely-stylus-based game. The stylus-based movement was cool, but I can't say I like what it did to my DS screen, which makes it much less cool.
Still, as I said earlier, the game is, essentially, the best Dragon Quest game ever. That's not really much of a compliment, but hey, it's something, and the game succeeds at what it sets out to do, which I appreciate. I think most of my games at 7/10 fundamentally accomplish more so I'll put it as a 6/10.
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Thank you both Talaysen and MagicFanatic for the advic. I'm currently building up Gladiators and coachs as I have 2000+ of them. Shouldn't take too long to max out.
Disgaea 3 - My Asagi is about lv 1300 and equiped with a L150+ Rank 39 Megiddo Cannon so I was pretty happy with myself. I challanged the level 4000 Baal and damn was he easy, his minions have Lolhp and he himself gets 5HKOed by Cameo Star. I didn't get the item "Makai wars" off him but I don't really care personally, it can be replaced.
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Torchlight: I'm in complete vegetable mode today, so I just went ahead and beat the big bad. Died a couple times when there were just too damn many goons around for healing to keep up (getting caught between the crowd and Ordrak is bad). Of course, there's functionally no penalty for dying at that fight, so...Effectively not difficult. How much aftergame is there? Glancing at the list of achievements for the game, it appears to be a helluva lot. (Although, if the first couple floors of that tomb in the SE of the town are any indication, it won't be anything I haven't seen before.)
On a whim, I walked into the first floor of the maingame dungeon again. My equipment cumulatively reflects 47 damage of every hit I take. The monsters on the first floor have less HP than this, so they get instagibbed whenever they attack me. Pointless, but hilarious. People touch me and they explode.
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Aftergame is endless AFAIK.
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XS3 -
First dungeon:
<Shion> SAVE TEH INTARWEBS
<Miyuki> Woohoo I suck!
<Canaan> I aged seven hundred and a half years in six months.
<Doctoris> -And- your name sucks.
<Canaan> :(
<FirstBoss> RARR 10HKO MT DAMAGE AND I GET ONE TURN EVERY THREE
<Hello-DojimathedralWaddleDee> lol *smash.*
SECOND PLOT:
<XS3Writers> FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANSERVICE
* Japan faps over Shion in a spiderwoman bikini.
<Miyuki> I still suck?
<Shion> You still suck. Now go away while I exhibit my dangerously anorexic body in a swimsuit that still manages to be less slutty than Jeane's dresses so the otakus have something to fap over.
THIRD PLOT
<Allen> Hi, I'm emailing you to tell that the military took KOS-MOS to open a new niche stripclub and they're putting a strap-on dildo on her forehead. Also I miss you and I want to see you naked and OHGOD WHY AM I FORCED TO BE IN LOVE WITH THE WORST JERKASS SUE EVER JUST LET ME SEE YOUR BARE TITS
<Shion> Yeah right. Welp, time for a conspicuously placed flashback where I get one-upped by someone more irritatingly beloved than I am for no discernible reason other than the script saying so!
<Game> *LET'S DO THE TIME WARP AGA-* Wait a minute, that would be awesome. Nonono we just get a dry cut to the scene without any mention of it being a flashback! Hooray, saved pennies for longer discretion pantyshots on hookerbot!
<Shion> oooooh it's so hard to be a jerk sue
<Kevin> RARR I'M A TWO-BIT LESBIAN FEMINIST HIDING BEHIND MY TWO-FOLD SEXISM TO PRETEND I'M NOT A ROBOPHILE
<Shion> On the other hand, he probably does the jerk sue schtick better than I do.
<Shion> Kevin, are you trying to be like Jesus and save everyone with KOS-MOS?
<Kevin> No, not just that. I -want- to be Jesus, but I actually just wanted to know how sleazy sex with a biblical prostitute was like.
<Shion> ... god now I know how Allen feels.
FOURTH PLOT:
<Red Testament> This scene is supposed to be totally cryptic and enigmatic, but it's actually just a very extended your mom joke. It's fun and easy just like your mom!
<Wilhelm> You were right, your mom emits good wavelength. Twice. From behind.
<NotMiki> You guys suck.
EDIT: Editor's digest notes: seriously, try putting "your mom" somewhere in every line said by the Red Testament and Wilhelm that scene. It -eerily- fits.
Sooooooooooo yeah. One hour in and it's up to a stellar start. Seriously, gratuitous bikini segment fifteen minutes into the game?
EDIT: WAIT A MINUTE IS THAT FUNDIES OVERTONES I SEE ON MARGULIS AND PELLEGRI
EDIT2: Good to know you still want Jin naked in your bed, preferrably on top of you, Margulis. How does your religion feel about that, though?
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Back from the Pokemon VGCs. First my team:
THE TEAM THAT ONLY GOD COULD DEFEAT (more on that in a minute)
Rayquaza @ Focus Sash
Dragon Dance
Extremespeed
Outrage
Draco Meteor
Lucario @ Black Belt
Follow Me
Feint
Low Kick
Extremespeed
Empoleon @ Expert Belt
Grass Knot
Ice Beam
Brine
Flash Cannon (changed this from Aqua Jet at the last minute, probably a bad decision but meh)
Giratina @ Leftovers
Protect
Spite
Shadow Force
Dragon Claw
The idea behind this team is for Rayquaza to rape things while Lucario covers for him. Even though Lucario has sub-par defensive stats, his resistances complement Rayquaza perfectly. Empoleon and Giratina are great cleanup hitters. And if you're going "?" at Spite, keep in mind that most moves being spammed in these tourneys like Blizzard have only 5 base PP.
Round 1: Against a girl, Tabitha (Tabby). She didn't have any ubers, but her team was EV'd and move-tutored properly so it was a good fight. She had Scizor, Charizard, Kingdra, and Crobat. I saved the video of this match, id number 58-31729-95232.
Round 2: Against a guy, think his name was Adam. He had Torterra, Dialga, and two other non-ubers. Not good at all. He gets a Roar of Time off against Ray, but Focus Sash covers it while Lucario OHKOs him with Low Kick. Ray sweeps the rest of his team, only Lucario dies. Also, he thought using Leaf Storm against Empoleon was better than Earthquake. LOL.
Round 3: Against cute Asian girl Christine (aka Tine female symbol). She leads with Feraligatr and Kyogre. Not a problem, since Ray laughs at Water Spout and Lucario laughs at anything else Ky might be using. Anyway, I get my Dragon Dance set up, Ky appears to be using Choice Scarf along with Water Spout, even better for me.
And then things start going wrong. Feraligatr survives Dragon Danced Outrage. W. T. F. Things go downhill from there, and I'm soon left with only Giratina versus a healthy Garchomp and Gengar. I can get off a Shadow Force here and kill Gengar, but if it has a Focus Sash I will lose since I can't take multiple hits from both heavy hitters. But I don't feel comfortable with the odds of me killing Garchomp in one hit either. So I go after Gengar. Luckily it is not Sashed, so it dies. Giratina has no problem handling Garchomp one on one after that.
Round 4: Against guy named Rodolfo. He's using Metagross, Garchomp, Palkia, and some other uber that I can't remember. Starts off well, he's not equipped to deal with Lucario's Follow Me, so he eventually explodes his Metagross (which Lucario survives and activates Ray's Sash). He manages to finish off Lucario who soaks another hit for Ray while it rapes the rest of his team. Empoleon comes out and does 90% to his Garchomp with Ice Beam (Yache berry), while Ray does the same to Palkia (Haban berry). Ray gets killed finally, Giratina comes out and Shadow Forces, and Empoleon dies before it gets to move again.
So I am in a fantastic situation. Giratina's already up in the air targetting Palkia, both his Palkia and Garchomp have a sliver of health so will die in 1 hit, and Gar cannot kill Giratina even with a critical hit. I have this match won.
And then God said NO.
The power shuts out at our whole table (both us and the match next to us).
We have to start the match over.
I am understandably worried at this point, because my team relies on the initial element of surprise in order to get Rayquaza setup properly. I go with my standard setup, since I don't have a backup plan. He swaps his other uber for a Giratina, which he leads along with Metagross. I am almost certain he's going to explode with his Metagross, since it doesn't seem to be good for anything else. So I swap both Ray and Lucario for Emp and Gira. This was probably a partial mistake, as I should have let Lucario take the hit instead of the more useful Empoleon. But at the moment I'm feeling pretty good because he's down a poke already and I only have a damaged Empoleon.
But things don't go well. His Giratina turns out to be faster than mine, which becomes a *huge* advantage. He can dodge everything I throw at him with Shadow Force, and also has Shadow Sneak as a priority move (which lets him nuke 1 hp Ray after Ray Draco Meteor's his Garchomp). In the end, I only have my Giratina left against his Giratina and Palkia, and I can't handle two enemies hitting weakness on me at once. I lose.
But I'm not bitter about the experience. I wasn't planning on going to Nationals anyway this year, and I don't need another DSI, so the remaining rounds would just be bragging rights. I know my team worked and (for all intents and purposes) I was in the top 32, so I'm content.
My kid also competed and went 1-1. I made his team better than mine, but he's not very experienced so he still managed to muck it up. :)
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Wait. They let him SWAP when the match had to be restarted? Thats grounds for appeal, honestly. While the power loss sucks, it surprises me the judges would allow him to switch up his team.
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XS3 - Three hours of game and like fifteen minutes spent on anything resembling gameplay. This is a XS alright.
Also, T-ELOS introduction: where they manage to give us three crotch shots and four brazilian bikini butt shots in less than thirty seconds.
ALSO ALSO, KOS-MOS' new cleavage is where all the development budget went after Shion left.
EDIT:
<Juli> Hi, I'm trying to give this sad show some shred of dignity.
<Shion> Yeah whatever, how's it been? Still having to pretend you like MOMO so you keep your job?
<Juli> I make more money babysitting MOMO than you do by turning tricks at that 7-11 at Ursa Minor, you know.
<Shion> You hush your mouth.
* LoligothAutisticFei wanders into the room and gets a pen.
<Juli> We're not committing copyright infringement, nope, not at all!
<Shion> Have you -seen- how Jin's dressing right now?
<Juli> NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT AT ALL
<Shion> sheesh whatever.
* LoligothAutisticFei draws a fucking butt-ugly drawing of Elly.
<Shion> HOLY FUCK IT LOOKS LIKE A TORIYAMA CROSSDRESSER AFTER GETTING POUNDED WITH A PRINTER IN THE FACE
<Juli> Actually, it's just Toriyama Elly NOT ELLY AT ALL, no beatings involved. Did I mention Android-18 hates gears or fighting?
<Shion> Who the heck is Android-18?
<Juli> I have no idea, I just call the kid that way to avoid a lawsuit.
<Shion> Man, you're not even trying right now.
<Juli> You're saying that now? Just you wait 'til disc 2.
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Wait. They let him SWAP when the match had to be restarted? Thats grounds for appeal, honestly. While the power loss sucks, it surprises me the judges would allow him to switch up his team.
Eh, considering there aren't really any rules at all about such a situation, I didn't really have anything to appeal. Same deal with me not having a backup strategy - there shouldn't have been a situation where I faced the same player twice, so never considered needing one...
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XS3
*Elfboy grabs an extra large bucket of popcorn*
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I already said this in chat, but Snow deserves cookies.
*grabs a seat beside NEB, opens a bag of chips*
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Snow you are making the correct, balanced decision here.
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Snow always deserves cookies.
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Alpha Protocol - Finished, Last level is rush of bosses, which is fairly meh, but the plot is fun enough. I guess it is to the late 90s and conspiracy theories to what 2004 to nowish (on going?) spy films are. A big mish mash of everything that is sort of in them at the moment. It is fun enough and when you aren't in boss fights the game is way fun. Just don't pick Shotguns. They are kind of bad. I couldn't have beaten bosses without excessive kiting and stunlock spam at all, they just do no damage at all. Apparently Pistols just kind of destroys shit. The last boss I couldn't even stunlock without using the auto stun skill, so if I hadn't killed him with the one I had come up (after I shot him out a window uh okay) I am really not sure how I would have handled that fight. Still went way better than the Helicopter gauntlet and Conrad Marburg fight (the one I was swearing about incessantly previously).
Short and sweet review, if you like Deus Ex and Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines along with modern Bond Films/Jason Bourne films then this is worth checking out. If you don't like any of those then uh I don't know. It might help if I had played more MGS, but if you like stealth games with retarded boss fights? Well you might be disappointed because while the boss fights are retarded they aren't off the scale retarded and the controls aren't amazingly shit during them or anything. If you want Thief though you will be massively disappointed, you can specalise in stealth just fine and get through most of the game, but come the end of an area you will want some skill in weaponry, if you are focussing on stealth at the expense of everything else (Stealth and Technical Aptitude) you will need to get up to the last boss of an area and then move on to somewhere else tempoarilly as all of the bosses have more armour and enough things that you will have trouble handling them without some kind of combat skill (and you have to uh fuck up pretty badly to not have one by the time you have cleared out almost 2 whole areas worth of missions since there is only 3 areas).
Fun game for me, fairly up and down with angry and really happy with it, but some of that was brought on myself. I might play again on an easier difficulty just playing an angry dude who shoots people in the mouth with his pistol, but hey I still have Dragon Age replay to do and the expansion to get through first. Not to mention there is stuff I need to revisit in Mass Effect 2.
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So much FE10 talk has made me want to play it!
...too bad I have no Wii at the moment >_> So, in place of that, I figured I'd do a challenge run of FE7!
Females only. I could use Matthew to steal, and that's it. Lyn mode went perfectly fine (maxed out Nils/Ninian!). Then...Hector Hard Mode. When I have Serra and Rebecca as the only characters to challenge 13x...things do not go well. So...I've given up on that for the moment to play...
FE8 Hard Mode Females Only! Same restrictions above - can use Colm to steal (REPLACED WITH RENNAC LATER, HOWEVER) and open things, Ephraim only for 5x...everything else is kind of straightforward. Oh, and, for once, no RNG abusing >_>
Currently finished Chapter 10. The game...well, it's a bit more challenging than normal? First few maps were basically Eirika soloing the game. Then Vanessa joined...and it took forever to level her up to the point where she didn't die to everything. Too many axes early >_> Still desperately in need of someone who can not only take a hit, but also deal damage >_> Missed recruiting Amelia the first time (too many enemies...couldn't kill them all), which means she's going to be a bit behind later. Oh well.
Current Stats:
Eirika
Lvl 18, 25 HP, 8 STR, 17 SKL, 16 SPD, 13 LUK, 8 DEF, 7 RES
*Probably the Eirika I've had the best STR growth with ever - usually they're hovering around 6 by level 20 >_>
Tana
Lvl 12, 22 HP, 9 STR, 11 SKL, 18 SPD, 13 LUK, 7 DEF, 8 RES
*...STR and defenses are far lower than I'm used to..she also has some trouble hitting things, oddly.
Natasha
Lvl 15, 26 HP, 12 MAG, 6 SKL, 14 SPD, 19 LUK, 7 DEF, 14 RES
*...wow. I never used Natasha much, but she's turning out good this first time I'm really using her.
Vanessa
Lvl 15, 26 HP, 11 STR, 14 SKL, 15 SPD, 10 LUK, 7 DEF, 10 RES
*...eh...about on par with Tana
Neimi
Lvl 16, 28 HP, 9 STR, 10 SKL, 17 SPD, 12 LUK, 5 DEF, 11 RES
*...;_; usually her STR and SKL are far better than this
Lute
Lvl 18, 26 HP, 15 MAG, 8 SKL, 14 SPD, 15 LUK, 5 DEF, 13 RES
*Accuracy needs a little work, but is still valuable for the damage alone
Tethys
Lvl 3, 20 HP, 1 STR, 2 SKL, 14 SPD, 12 LUK, 5 DEF, 6 RES
*OMG STR SCREWED!!!!
Marisa
Lvl 8, 26 HP, 9 STR, 15 SKL, 15 SPD, 12 LUK, 4 DEF, 3 RES
*Decent - I have good luck with female swordmasters, so hopefully she'll be able to gain some more STR and smash things
I blew Eirika's Rapier fast - it was the only way I could damage some bosses. Missed a few items in the towns (Haven't used any stat boosters yet!) due to not having the manpower to get to them in time. No one has promoted yet - Lute's really been the MVP thus far, as she can actually damage things! Marisa has gained awesome stats so far, so it appears my usual luck with female swordmasters is kicking in. Thank god >_> Lute's SKL looks awful, but she has SPD, though the MAG is a bit lower than I am used to. Rest of the stats speak for themselves - really fast, but damage kind of lacking >_>
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Cross Edge - Finished up synthing everything and getting the best composite materials I could (for now). Went to fight the first boss of 5-3... and lost. I got 2% away from killing the thing and then it healed a bit and then I screwed up and failed to kill it on later turns and just got killed.
Tried it again a second time, managed to one-round him (well, two if you count storing up AP). The support was a joke on offense, but it took awhile to kill them because I did less damage than I thought with EX moves and wasted them (they have perfect evasion at low HP so you have to use EX moves to hit them). Oh well, just made the fight longer. Got 5.5m EXP for them (5.5 levels, basically), but that's kind of weak considering the boss was level 500 and my people were hovering around 250...
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FF4- Just discovered ROSA'S CURSE!! Hooray, time to save her~
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So much FE10 talk has made me want to play it!
...too bad I have no Wii at the moment >_> So, in place of that, I figured I'd do a challenge run of FE7!
Females only. I could use Matthew to steal, and that's it. Lyn mode went perfectly fine (maxed out Nils/Ninian!). Then...Hector Hard Mode. When I have Serra and Rebecca as the only characters to challenge 13x...things do not go well. So...I've given up on that for the moment to play...
FE8 Hard Mode Females Only! Same restrictions above - can use Colm to steal (REPLACED WITH RENNAC LATER, HOWEVER) and open things, Ephraim only for 5x...everything else is kind of straightforward. Oh, and, for once, no RNG abusing >_>
Sounds like a fun challenge, I might have to join you in that... hardcore style of course! (No resets, something tells me this is going to end in failure.)
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I'm doing the same thing, only calling it Harem Mode because I allow male lords.
...Lute needs to stop being slow, but everyone's kicking ass. Except L'Arachel, who may need an early promotion.
Trying to get Great Knight Amelia to level S in axes so I have a Garm user, because Tellius is the only land where women are awesome enough to regularly use axes.
...I also kinda uh CHEATED JUST A LITTLE. Mostly because I'm sick of Myyrh's shitty 50 use weapon. I should've just given her Wretched Breath or whatever, but, well, one thing lead to another and now she has Demon Light. So there's that.
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Super Mario Galaxy 2
About 60-70 stars in. Generally impressed. It's more like Mario Galaxy and less like Mario 64, which...overall is good (for all that I love Mario 64, I like my games to be focused on what they do well). They seem to be making more of an effort at making each star really stand out in some way (although...they're doing a worse and worse job of that later in the game--running out of new mechanics to introduce, I guess).
Upgrade Complete (http://armorgames.com/play/3955/upgrade-complete)...Nuzlocke run. I did an easier version first, and then came up with these rules:
1. If you fail to beat a wave, restart the game.
2. You may spend money on only one thing between each wave. (i.e. one ship-part or one upgrade, not both).
So...remember how I kinda stat topiced (http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,4410.msg101735.html#msg101735) this game a little while ago? From this I figured out the following strategies. First, get up to 12 ship parts before doing anything else--two ship parts do more damage than one level 2 ship part. Next, level 1 guns deal more damage than level 1 anything else, and from a few attempts, the 12th wave is one of the hardest (when basically all your stuff is level 1) so...use lots of level 1 guns. (Though don't use exclusively guns--they don't have homing, and stack badly due to hit detection). Next...Missiles get slightly more damage out of an upgrade (compared to guns) so...when possible upgrade missiles.
After...four or five failed runs (many of which were experimenting with more missiles and fewer guns) I eventually cracked it with an 8-4 ratio. Final ship looked like....
8 level1 guns
3 level3 missiles
1 level4 missile
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LoE- Beaten a few days ago, doubt I'll do a second cycle. But I guess we are having two more OG games nefore OG3.
Senko no Ronde Duo-
Finally beaten, god, I hate danmaku.
What the fuck is wrong with the Changpo vs. Hadro fight? Yes, it is such a good idea to pit a boss with 360 degree danamku who can even shoot from the behind or teleport right on top of you against some one with so little armor and totally lacks wide range rapid fire and a stupidly weak bomb. Yeah, how many fucking time I got totally overwhelmed by the form 3???
Oh, and death to "drop them to 1 hp but don't kill them mission". FUCK, FUUUUUCK those. This is not SRW!!
Gaaahhh, thank god I can lower the difficulty or else the hell I can finish this game.
At least it is worth it when Pitote shows up. G.Rev, you still can't get over with your obsession with Boarder Down, do you?
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Pretty psyched to play Alpha Protocol.
I will not use shotguns, since they apparently suck. Besides, Alvis only used pistols. Everyone knows that.
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They really really are.
I don't know how you manage to make shotguns with Phosophorous shells that let you kill people with fire bad, but they managed.
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MF6- Just finished Ike's soul. Magus was an awesome(ly whorish) boss. Kudos, devilish Meeple. Next is Sheldar ! WILL I GET FOOMY??!
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They really really are.
I don't know how you manage to make shotguns with Phosophorous shells that let you kill people with fire bad, but they managed.
Maybe it's intentional, because when you level them up enough you become unstoppable. It's like uncursing the Cursed Shield.
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Pokemon Soul Silver - Defeated BUGSY. Both he and Falkner are real bosses now, although there wasn't much Bugsy could really do about def-buffed Onix. Still, they improved him as much as was possible given they only gave him 2 levels and still saddled him with Metapod and Kakuna. Current levels are 10-13.
Current team, which is subject to some change (at the very least, I'm set on using Vulpix) is...
Totodile: Haven't been using him much as I've been raising others, but he's solid enough without being outstanding in any way. Has the always handy side-bonus of murdering otherwise tanky rocks. Just got Bite, which should up his offence a fair deal and round out his weakness-hitting some more.
Onix: Aw yeah competent Onix. 150% exp gain of course helps. His offence isn't amazing but he can tank like little else, Screech to lower Def, and hits a bunch of handy weaknesses, all off good speed.
Spearow: Filler flier to murder bugs and grasses. Definitely not planning to use him long-term, but he's quite effective for now.
Hoppip: Bullet Seed TM makes him much more usable than he was in Crystal, I feel, since he no longer waits forever for an attack better than non-STAB Tackle. Anyway, still waiting for the real payoff here since he hasn't learned status moves (besides Flash which I taught him) but Bullet Seed is nice enough when it nails its weaknesses.
Zubat: Still a couple levels short of him getting damage, so he's... bad at first, though his typing lets him wall stuff and confuse it with his low-odds Supersonic.
Togepi: Level 1 Extrasensory is a hell of an improvement, so he works as a kind of weird earlygame psychic + project. The speed is depressing but Charm is a handy move.
Eviltype - Uh, not sure what I did and didn't mention since last time.
Phoenix Cave: Mentioned this in chat already, but I don't like Trixters the way they are now; they just bounce Fire 3 off themselves for unimpressive, easily wallable damage once they cast Reflect, and they take too long to kill with Reflect + high MDef + no real status holes. Other enemies here are cool though.
Red Dragon: Runic can stop Flare from ripping you apart. Yay Runic hype!
Storm Dragon: Think I fought him around here. Anyway, I had a fairly poor party for him (no Minerva and too many light armour users so it was very nasty, I got wiped badly once, came back and immediately cast ZoneSeek + Fenrir + Haste 2, later added in Safe, and made it through, though when people did eventually die I got in a pretty nasty scare. One of my PCs (Sabin, who didn't have a good shield) was just too fragile to stay up so I let him die and tried my hold on, lots of reviving towards the end before I finally landed the last few attacks.
Triangle Island: Zombite scary if not blocked, nothing new there. Karkasses are dirty whores until you MP drain them. The fights against the Coverts and Tap Dancers are fairly scary but Stop and MP damage keeps them under control.
Ancient Castle: The dungeon of X-Zone spam. Quite frankly I'm fine with this, the move is inaccurate enough to make me consider other options often enough, especially once down to one or two enemies. Otherwise they wall magic very effectively, although I'm sure if I'd had Quake or Meteor it'd be a different story.
Master Pug: MP drained him.
KatanaSoul: Forget exactly what he did besides making me dispel him and buff up and ow the ID special but eh, manageable.
Blue Dragon: I hate Slow+Ripper. Except when the Rippler misses! Good times.
Cyan's Soul: Second notable complaint here: Allosaurs. They just have way too much HP. I got wiped by one and was pretty disgusted because I'd done like 20k damage. Granted, I came back with a Relic Ring + 255 def (Mog was my starter) which totally owns him in the face but still, he does feel too durable for someone who can reasonably fight a solo PC? Especially since everyone else in the dungeon (rightly) only has 4 digit HP. I guess if you're willing to just run from them they're not a problem but bleh, Eviltype feels better than that.
Stooges - Probably took me almost half an hour, three fairly durable bosses with lots of healing against only 3 PCs. My fault for not having any Ribbons eqiupped since they're status whores to the max, but so it goes. MP killed Curley eventually, and then the rest became quite manageable. Randomly discovered Larry could be confused which made things easier towards the end. Also dispel got a lot of use! Yay dispel! Very fun fight overall though.
Train and cave: Train enemies are competent enough, Sneeze is the ultimate annoyer even though it ensures you won't game over, the Samurai MDef I found amusing. Cave... I only fought an Io, who did almost nothing before going down. Unlike Allosaur he could probably stand to have more HP! Fights 3 PCs and weak to a common element.
Wrexsoul: Is a dirty cheating whore but that's entirely true to FF6. I have nothing more to say here.
Doom Gaze: Got owned by him badly earlier in the WoR, but with Shadow throwing Flame Sabres, one PC with Fire 3, and one PC with Illumina, he wasn't too bad. Lots of healing controls his constant Bane Claws, I imagine Fenrir would work even better.
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Cross Edge - Woo more postgame bosses~
First eight bosses weren't that bad. Managed to overkill them all on round 2 (and then finish off the support in the next 4 turns...). Then Vermillion shows up being a massive whore. He has ridiculous defense (6*88 damage Fanatic Rave wtf), Deep Breath (not like I CAN DO PHYSICAL DAMAGE ANYWAY YOU JERK), and Perfect Barrier (perfect magic evasion at <25% HP). Manage to beat him with good old magic EX attacks (ignore evade), but seriously that guy is a whore. I only got about 50% of the way to overkilling him.
Next up was Astral or something I don't know. Also ridiculously physically tanky (8*88 Fanatic Rave!) but can also take magic better. Managed to kill him on turn 2 as usual, but just barely.
Finally, Shen Long. What the hell man. Starts out with good physical defense (not as much as the previous two) and not special magic defense. But once he gets to low HP he basically starts tinking out most normal attacks and only combos do anything resembling damage. Oh, and his support freaking heals him.
So I use turn 2 to rack up some SP on him, and knock him down to low health. Turn 4 I nuke one of the support guys, then the other on turn 6. Now I can handle the offense better and also he can't heal. Combo the hell out of him on turn 8. Then turn 10. Then finally kill him on turn 12. WHAT THE HELL. And I only get 4m EXP because it took so long.
So now I'm sitting at the next boss. Level is around 310 or something now. Probably supposed to be higher (Shen Long was level 800), but whatever. Level grinding is boring. Going to see how far I can get without doing it.
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Allosaurs. They just have way too much HP. I got wiped by one and was pretty disgusted because I'd done like 20k damage. Granted, I came back with a Relic Ring + 255 def (Mog was my starter) which totally owns him in the face but still, he does feel too durable for someone who can reasonably fight a solo PC? Especially since everyone else in the dungeon (rightly) only has 4 digit HP. I guess if you're willing to just run from them they're not a problem but bleh, Eviltype feels better than that.
Cyan's Soul was done with the idea in mind that it would probably be the last or nearly the last thing done before WoR was completed. Not because the rewards are necessarily *worth* it...but because the game scaled it that way, Wrexsoul without cheese is, one of the best bosses in the WoR overall(sadly).
So there were some interesting hiccups in the area of "Do I scale this to three competent, powerful PCs and assume they get their other characters back fast and run/Charm Bangle/Moogle Charm from fights until they do? Or assume someone will get lost a while and not have or be willing to do that?". The entire subarea's challenge pretty much relies on what assumption you peg it to, which is why you end up with one annoyingly strong monster and some others that can be handled solo, because I'm really good at dissatisfying compromises when I get indecisive about design.
Having said all that the 30k they have is probably too much and isn't too necessary for their design. Probably I just flat rate doubled or tripled what was there without thinking about it. >_> This is the sort of thing that is why I need to do one last revision of Eviltype.
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Honestly, I think that the area of the Soul that has Allosaurs, Critics, Barb-Es, and Pan Doras is short enough that it will be mostly fought with 1-2 PCs (especially if the player knows where they're going, possible given the game's audience) so in general should be a little weaker, at least defensively. Actually, having the enemies there have more of an MT focus is probably the best idea? I didn't notice how much is already there, you may be a bit ahead of me on that!
And yeah, it's really not a big deal to just Charm Bangle/Moogle Charm/run from randoms at first, it's not like they tend to do fatal things on turn 1 (yay). So this really isn't much of a complaint overall. Just a bit of a "what" moment.
Also, randomly scanned an Allosaur in the Colosseum today and noticed they're weak to fire which I hadn't realised, this makes their relative HP less high than I thought. Mog was sadly one of my few PCs without Scan and I don't think I fought one after getting my second PC back.
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XS3 - Clocked four hours. Gameplay-to-plot ratio so far: about 90-10.
Also, jesus christ chaos just tattoo i'm jesus on your forehead already no need to hamfist it all over.
Also also, the plot of the first three hours seems to be basically "Shion faints a lot. And sometimes does Parasite Eve plot". What the heck.
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Rough start to female only no reset FE8 game. I got a bit too risky on my odds. Vanessa missed back to back 75% chances and got hit by back to back 66% chances pretty damn early on. I'm putting the odds of that at like 1/34 or something, but I'm not sure if I should be taking those kinds of risks this early on. Oh well, I'm just going to have to be safer with Tana!
Lost my healer at the fog of war map. Damn horseriders came at me from everywhere. Needless to say I did not save the villagers!
Running with my 3 woman crew if Eirika, Neimi, and Lute now. Gave Lute the Dragonshield since there is no way I am trying this without items. Stat growth is being pretty garbage for everyone so far unfortunately... a serious lack of skill and speed for Lute and Eirika.
Damn, lost my lockpicks and an Angelic Robe in chapter 8. I;'m hurting on cash and healing items now. The thief also survived with 1 damn HP before stealing the Robe, which was going to go to Tana. As of now I've got Lute at 20, Eirika at 19, and Neimi at 14.
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Also, randomly scanned an Allosaur in the Colosseum today and noticed they're weak to fire which I hadn't realised, this makes their relative HP less high than I thought. Mog was sadly one of my few PCs without Scan and I don't think I fought one after getting my second PC back.
Two fully debilitating status vunerabilities(Muddle and Stop), too.
Still, yes, this situation pretty much sums up why I shouldn't have given them *that* much HP. 15-20k range would have worked. They need to get two turns in general if the person fighting them isn't going all out, so that you respect them enough to, but not so much that they are actually dangerous, I think.
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Attempt 1 is a failure! I lost Tana and Neimi at the map you get Tana. I considered trying to just power through the game with Eirika and Lute, which may have been doable, but that seemed cheap.
Attempt 2 commencing.
Edit: Bleh, lost healer and Lute on the fog of war map. That map really blows without using Colm. Vanessa has had some nice growth though, Eirika is doing a bit better, and Neimi is still failing.
Neimi dead while laying siege to castle, turns out she isn't a tank. No biggy, she's a whore. Super Vanessa is all I need!
Attempt 2 is a failure! Forgot Vanessa gets 1 shotted by bows. Something tells me I should sleep and play when I'm slightly less tired.
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They really really are.
I don't know how you manage to make shotguns with Phosophorous shells that let you kill people with fire bad, but they managed.
Maybe it's intentional, because when you level them up enough you become unstoppable. It's like uncursing the Cursed Shield.
It is a nice idea, but they are only bad for boss fights really. Also by all reports Pistols start out kind of broken and then just get progressively more so. So meh. Shotguns are just shit for the only part of the game that weapon choice actively matters. Randoms die just fine from anything as long as you have the requesite shooter skills or you can just stealth kill every motherfucker in the room.
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I really like the assault rifle, personally. This is partially because I just got a gold-plated one and FUCK you can't not make me want to use it.
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Cross Edge - So yeah I beat the next boss and it pretty much took me all day to figure out how.
So the boss has the same gimmick as Shen Long, huge defenses at low HP. Except it also has regen. Which I couldn't break normally. So I do the same thing as before, build up SP on round 2, kill off the support on rounds 4 and 6. Then I proceed to beat his face in on rounds 8 and 10 to build up my SP again.
Here's the important part: All the characters in my party have passive skills that increase their offense stat(s) when they are below 25% HP. So on turns 11 and 12 I don't heal. Meu dies on round 12, so I revive her with an item that restores 25% (rounded down) HP. Morrigan's also in critical. I then unleash two EX combos with my SP to guard break him, throw in a magic combo to Overbreak him and add up some hits/extra damage, and then have Morrigan and Meu physical combo him to death, up to overkill for shinies.
Morrigan's damage before the passive kicked in was about 100 per hit. After? About 9500. Per hit. That is one ridiculous offense boost and I need to abuse it more.
Party was 359 before the fight. Boss was 850, so it's probably designed for a higher level but whatever. JUST AS PLANNED > level grinding (though I did grab a few levels before figuring this out).
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That is a beautiful, inspirational story of success, Tal. It's good to know that when I buy XEdge out of N1 brand loyalty that there's actually some cool non-cameo parts to the game.
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L4D2 Last Man on Earth:
This mode is a lot of getting to the very end of a level, getting distracted trying to off a jockey, getting hunter/chargered/smokered from behind, then having the jockey jump on you immediately afterwards causing a reset.
Fuck this mode.
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Attempt 3: A lot less tired means a lot less sending everyone in and praying they live.
I decided to ditch Neimi... the lack of Longbow might be annoying later, but outside of that weapon archers can blow me. So far that just means a ton of Eirika, Vanessa, and Lute smash. Because of this those 3 are leveling a lot quicker than they did for OK. Once I get Tana, Marisa, and hopefully Amelia things should spread out a bit more.
Eirika
OK: Lvl 18, 25 HP, 8 STR, 17 SKL, 16 SPD, 13 LUK, 8 DEF, 7 RES
ME: Lvl 18, 28 HP, 11 STR, 17 SKL, 16 SPD, 17 LUK, 5 DEF, 5 RES
I haven't done any resets so... wow my Eirika has some crazy Strength and HP compared to OK. Her Def/Res is trash though, which could be bad in a no reset playthrough.
Natasha
OK: Lvl 15, 26 HP, 12 MAG, 6 SKL, 14 SPD, 19 LUK, 7 DEF, 14 RES
ME: Lvl 4- Nuff said right there... haven't gotten a chance to use her too much I guess.
Vanessa
Lvl 15, 26 HP, 11 STR, 14 SKL, 15 SPD, 10 LUK, 7 DEF, 10 RES
Lvl 18, 25 HP, 13 STR, 17 SKL, 20 SPD, 11 LUK, 8 DEF, 13 RES
I'm 3 levels higher than OK, but somehow managed less HP. Insane speed though, which is nice for avoiding any doubles ever.
Lute
Lvl 18, 26 HP, 15 MAG, 8 SKL, 14 SPD, 15 LUK, 5 DEF, 13 RES
Lvl 19, 23 HP, 16 MAG, 13 SKL, 14 SPD, 17 LUK, 5 DEF, 14 RES
Another one where I'm getting crap HP compared to OK. The SKL is absolutely crazy for me though. Everything else is similar enough. I also have her secret book so her actual SKL is 15 in game... nutso. (She also got Dragonshield.)
The real challenge will be keeping Tana alive long enough to get some use from her.
Edit: Well shit, after a ton of work getting Marisa she gets killed. Had her hiding in a nice funnel, but she crit 3 consecutive enemies so new ones kept coming. Damn.
Edit 2: Lost Natasha at the monster map, damn flyers. Wasn't planning on using L' but I guess I should now.
Edit 3: This one sucks, lost Lute via frameskipping too much. I thought she had 26 lift so I moved her forward, but guess she'd been hit the turn before and she only had 12. Last enemy that could reach her finished her. Ruh roh. Amelia also died... kinda wanted to use her, but leveling a 4 recruit on the first try isn't easy to do. Tana/Eirika/Natasha/Tethys gonna have to hold the fort for the time being.
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Alpha Protocol- Anyway, I just finished the CIA Listening Post mission in Rome. Avoided doing anything to torque the CIA off this time, since their dossier indicated that killing their d00ds in their base would be bad for me and I am playing on Rookie. But next time, when I get the Veteran class unlocked, I am going to go from "sneaky pistol/karate/knife-work dude" to "Rambo getting chased through the woods by a bunch of cops."
All in all, really pleased with the way this game is working out so far. I feel like my choices are carrying genuine weight and my interactions are affecting the way other characters behave. It's like I'm playing an actual role-playing game or some shit.
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L4D2 Last Man on Earth:
This mode is a lot of getting to the very end of a level, getting distracted trying to off a jockey, getting hunter/chargered/smokered from behind, then having the jockey jump on you immediately afterwards causing a reset.
Fuck this mode.
That mode somehow sounds worse than Bleed out, which is truly remarkable if so.
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That is a beautiful, inspirational story of success, Tal. It's good to know that when I buy XEdge out of N1 brand loyalty that there's actually some cool non-cameo parts to the game.
Brand loyalty because of two characters and no other involvement other than localizing? I need to get you to play more IF games then.
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Cross Edge - Postgame completed. Most of the other bosses got owned by getting my characters to below 25% for the offense boost. One time I even set up my formation so everyone would get hit for maximum smash.
Ended up at only level 654 despite the bosses being level 999. I was probably supposed to be higher because the last one's offense murdered me until I got lucky. Oh well. Goes to show that gear >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> levels.
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SRW OG2: In yet another case of "Gate bounces between games far too easily", I started playing this a couple days ago. Just beat CH13. Kill leader and the only person to make Ace so far is Tasuku. Yeah. Having Strike and a MAP does that, I suppose. Him and the Gigan are right behind Kyosuke and the Alt in terms of Gate Fanboyism anyway, so I have no problems with this! Though in fairness if I'd gone Ethiopia route instead of Moon route, Kyo and possibly Rai would have gotten to Ace status first.
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Bleehhh attempt 3 a failure. Fucking Ephraim decided to be a wimp and die on the map he comes back. Kind of lame that my all female game ends with Ephraim dying, but oh well I'll just have to remember that he's a scrub next time and bring a flyer over sooner!
Apparently even a ridiculously easy game can become a challenge if you give yourself enough limitations.
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That is a beautiful, inspirational story of success, Tal. It's good to know that when I buy XEdge out of N1 brand loyalty that there's actually some cool non-cameo parts to the game.
Brand loyalty because of two characters and no other involvement other than localizing? I need to get you to play more IF games then.
Maybe if Idea Factory games were fun enough to inspire that kind of brand loyalty.
Also, localizing is a big part of it. I generally really like NISA's localizations and hold them in high regard. Soul Nomad and Mana Khemia if I need specific examples of why. I haven't played any of the localizations that were apparently terrible, so my good opinion hasn't been tarnished.
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Unlimited Saga: ...I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on. At all.
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Then you are indeed playing Unlimited SaGa.
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Random thought: The Pirate chick from USaga and the Randomly-eyepatched King guy from Last Remnant look freakin' identical.
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Mass Effect 2-
Man, this was a great game! All the mining was pretty awesome. You can mine a planet...and then you can mine more planets. Sometimes they make you go on missions, which adds to the anticipation of getting to mine more planets! It takes a little long sometimes, though, I sometimes just wanna mine something already guys can we cut the chatter? All the loyalty missions were great because you get new systems with lots of planets to mine! I usually just thought about all the mining I was gonna do while the characters talked about some galactic threat or something. I think the idea is Shepard retired after ME1 and became a successful mining company? You do get a pretty sweet ship. I dunno why I have to get assassins and mercenaries and vigilantes on my team but I guess mining must be a rough and tumble business.
I mined my Shepard into a Paragon, which I guess is nice because it makes people let you mine some more. I also mined as an Infiltrator, so I could use sniper mines, which are over powered. The mineshot damage is insane, and you can mine people in the head easily with the slowdown mine. Not that the other weapons were mine, just not as powerful as mine rifles. None of the enemy mines were particularly dangerous, and I only mineovered a few mines. The other mines were pretty mineful, and I was mining to mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine mine releasing direct control
Uh..what was I saying? Oh yeah, the game is damn good! The streamlining was a mixed bag. The weapon variety was severely cut, but in ME1 it was mostly 'rifle with slightly different stats' so it wasn't a major deal. Adding ammo was something I wasn't too keen on but turned out to be a stroke of genius. It forces you to rotate your weapon usage, use tech/biotics more, and generally was just a slick way to add variety. The ability/biotic tree is pretty simplified, which makes things kind of brainless at times. The game is also really easy, even easier than ME1.
Characters and plot were as well handled as you can expect from Bioware. The concept of Shepard is about the best way to go about making a CYOA main character without having him be a total milquetoast while still giving you some sort of input on how he reacts to events or people. The voice acting is superb, getting Martin Sheen was brilliant. Jacob's a cool dude, Miranda has this weird facial expression all the time but is otherwise a decent ice queen type, Garrus is a fucking badass, Moridin's funny as hell (and a surprisingly good singer), Jack's kinda meh, so is Samara, Tali's funny if you pursue a relationship with her, Grunt's no Wrex but he does a decent job, Thane's ok, and the secret character is actually interesting and adds some new, intriguing plot twists. Wish I could have gotten the DLC characters, but I bought the game used so the Cerberus network wouldn't work and like hell I'm paying 15 bucks for it.
Game was highly polished, interesting, and just lots of fun. An improvement from ME1 in basically every way, and I can't wait for ME3.
http://img714.imageshack.us/img714/2438/taliface1.jpg
OR
http://img576.imageshack.us/img576/5532/taliface2.jpg
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FF XII: Beaten, I'll probably play a bit more to do some of the extra missions on Gran Pulse, but I don't think I'll end up doing all of them. Final team was Fang/Snow/Vanille. I don't really see myself ever replaying it but you never know. Probably the worst FF game since 8 for me, but I didn't really play that much of 12.
What the game did well:
-Graphics, as I said earlier the game is beautiful and the areas look great in addition to being incredibly detailed. Combat is also flashy and the characters are generally well animated. The scale of some of the areas is completely awesome.
-When it wants to the gameplay can be really fun and intense. Boss battles especially are fun and incorporate a bunch of different strategies. To give an example, this is the first time where most of my damage to the final boss came from POIZN.
-The characters themselves tend to get more likable or at least stay the same as the game goes on. Hope makes the biggest improvement and Lightning also transitions from super bitch to tolerable.
-Probably the first rankable final fantasy game since 10! Definately not next time, but depending on how fast it grows the ranking period after that could be good. I'm currently undecided on whether I'm going to allow characters their first 3 classes only or their main 3 and a few levels of the other 3. As for bosses, I'd probably support Barthandelus. I'm not sure on the others.
What the game didn't do well:
-Plot, the plot is really difficult to understand during the Cocoon segments and dull during Gran Pulse. There are a ton of unanswered questions and I just feel that a lot of stuff was left out. The characters interacted well with some of the characters and completely ignored the others. Pretty much every character had at least one other person in the party who they didn't really interact with. This would be okay, but the game seems to make a big deal about the party being a family and the party pretty much has to carry the player's interest during the Gran Pulse sections of the game. This fails pretty badly. They really needed to add some other characters for the party to interact with because as it is, the Gran Pulse areas are boring.
-When the gameplay is bad, it's pretty bad. While some of the fights are really fun and exciting, there are too many other randoms who are overly tedious. The game really needed to adjust the amount of crystarium points given out, because a group of small monsters who take 15 seconds to kill with AoE attacks give out the same experience as one big monster who takes 2 minutes. This combined with a relatively low monster variety, meant that eventually I got bored with some of the randoms and tried avoiding them. Also while the outdoor areas where nice, the dungeons where hellish.
-Not being able to go back to old areas in Cocoon. The Gran Pulse areas were nice, but the best looking spots in the game were early on in Cocoon. I covered this earlier, but a bunch of people worked hard to make those areas look amazing and the game should at least let us go back to look at them again without having to start a new game.
Other notes:
-I thought the music was okay. Most of the songs were nice even if there weren't that many different songs and I think some people are being overly harsh on it. It was pretty easy to ignore in some places, but I feel that that's what it was going for sometimes. It didn't want to take too much from the visuals and sound effects and it did its job.
-Some minor gripes about the battle system. It would be nice to have an option for your team to spread out so they don't all get blasted at once with magic and a basic targeting system would also be nice so that you can choose whether your team focuses on a single enemy or spreads the pain. More items would also help to make the combat a bit more interesting.
Overall, it's worth playing for the visuals alone, but don't expect too much from the plot. Probably a 6 or 7/10 for me.
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Unlimited Saga: ...I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on. At all.
At last!!! The punishment begins??
Who did you start with??
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I dunno why I have to get assassins and mercenaries and vigilantes on my team but I guess mining must be a rough and tumble business.
What, you thought all this strip mining you were doing was legal? Dream on. You're with Cerberus now, you're like Dennis Reynolds when he was being whored out: NO RULES.
Anyway... Alpha Protocol.
I'm in Moscow. I met "Sis" and I think they stole 75% of my design for my dream woman.
1- Dresses kinda trampy, but not TOO trampy.
2- Good with guns.
3- Clearly doesn't mind the cold very much.
4- Mute.
Seriously, though, I am enjoying this game a lot. Has some polish issues, but they're forgivable to me because I'm just digging the game's story so much.
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Unlimited Saga: ...I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on. At all.
And you complain that the Shin Megami Tensei series sucks >_> Just wait until you finish Unlimited Saga <_<
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Unlimited Saga: ...I have no fucking clue what the hell is going on. At all.
And you complain that the Shin Megami Tensei series sucks >_> Just wait until you finish Unlimited Saga <_<
Just cause I say SMT sucks doesn't mean it couldn't get worse. Ignoring where I put Persona 1 cause I can't remember (and the game is probably ranked that low cause its that bad), you'll note I have plenty of games ranked lower than the SMTs I've played <.<
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Pokemon Heartgold - Vappy get! He's way underlevelled though.
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Pokemon - Voltorb Flip so addicting. Single best change the remake has made so far, although figuring out ways to make FALKNER and BUGSY not fail deserves an honourable mention.
Three gyms down. Vulpix get! Totodile finally evolved, I don't think I've ever not had the second stage of my starter by gym 3 before but I guess Croconaw is a late evo + gen 2 has lower exp gain than other games so it makes sense. ONIX has been my MVP so far probably, invaluable against both Bugsy and Whitney. His offence is definitely struggling outside the good speed, though. Good thing I just snagged a Metal Coat, so that problem's about to go away! Incidentally, making some of these evo items through pokeathalon = another good idea the remake had. Just wish Togekiss wasn't aftergame... although Togepi did just evolve, so it'll be able to hang on for another while at least. Rest of my team is Zubat (fairly competent, though definitely waiting on Confuse Ray and the evo) and Skiploom (sleeps/flashes things, gotta have an annoyer).
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Only took me like half an hour to realize I posted this in the wrong topic.
Finished FE8 Pimp Mode. Things went as sadly as expected later on, with everyone killing everything. L'arachel promoted at level 10, and by the time she and Natasha were both level 10 Valkyries, Mag was the only thing Natasha had a major advantage in - and she's a good support for the siblings on top of that. Made Amelia a Great Knight for axes but didn't bother getting her to S for the Final. Not like I needed it - Eirika one-rounded Fomortiis with a pair of Sieglinde crits, and that was that.
Top kill was Myrrh, but that's because I hacked Demon Light onto her and soloed the Tower.
Because I like lists, my top 5 non-Myrrh.
1. Amelia - 180 - She killed at about the same pace as my other top characters, so the extra 20 or so were feeding her catch-up kills.
2. Ephraim - 164 - Ephraim is still a freak of nature; beat Eirika because I picked his route.
3. Tana - 161 - Also a freak. Fucking fast, though lagged behind Vanessa at some points. Had Vidofnir.
4t. Neimi & Vanessa - 155 - Being stuck with bows early on made Neimi lag a little, but these two were also crazy mofos. Neimi supported Amelia, Vanessa supported Lute. Lots of lulz.
Honorable mention goes to Syrene for 32 kills despite being possibly the worst character in the game.
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Persona 1 PSP:
Megido: What.
Megidola: WHAT.
This game is unbalanced.
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Pokemon Heartgold - Just beat the fifth gym. Easiest gym leader by far thus far. Team is: Magmar, Bayleef, Flaafy, Rattata, Vappy, and the sixth is either Sudo if I need him or Fearow if I need to Fly.
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Dragon Age: Origins - Replay on easy as mage finally in full swing, only been planning it for months. Only on easy for AoE lols of making everything explode. I had forgot how totally endearing Sandal is.
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The best part is his appearance in the final dungeon. "How the fuck are you still alive?" "Enchantment!"
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Finished Pokemon XD a few days ago. For a side game, it did a pretty good job of mixing up the gameplay somewhat while still retaining the same core battle system (and trade compatibility). Also a big improvement from what I've seen/played of Colosseum, but I'll save that rant for later; this is long enough already.
I doubt I'd like it if a main Pokemon game concentrated entirely on doubles, but it made for a decent change of pace from all the handheld games. More team synergy potential this way, although I didn't end up using a whole lot myself. No shift option forces you to deal with unfavorable matchups more often, also.
Shadow Pokemon mechanics are actually pretty neat in this game. Their Shadow attacks are super-effective against any non-Shadow Pokemon but are resisted by other Shadow Pokemon. In addition, they can not level up, evolve, or use TMs until purified into normal Pokemon. Strategically, this means:
(a) Having 1-2 Shadow Pokemon to tank hits is priceless if you're serious about catching Pokemon, as regular ones will get murdered by all the super-effective hits from opposing Shadow Pokemon if you don't KO them quickly
(b) Your Shadow Pokemon have significant offensive power when first obtained, but the drawbacks gradually begin to outweigh the benefits for general purpose use
Some of the non-offensive Shadow moves are pretty neat as well. I got alot of mileage out of Shadow Down, an MT -2 defense move that worked really well with False Swipe for catching. I kept one slot reserved for a rotating Shadow Pokemon to tank Shadow moves throughout the game, swapping which one to use as they fell behind in levels.
Catching most (if not all) of your team from trainer battles instead of the wild makes soft resetting for natures/abilities/IVs god forbit a pain, but if you don't care about that it does make for some interesting boss battles, as you have to juggle killing the non-Shadow Pokemon, weaking the Shadow ones to catch, and not getting wiped out by high powered Shadow attacks from the likes of Snorlax, Marowak, and Tauros. I can't imagine doing it without any in-battle item use like Elfboy usually plays, considering how my non-Shadows like Breloom were getting knocked around like rag dolls in late game boss fights.
Also, Battle CDs (http://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Battle_cd) are really cool - by far the best minigame in the entire series, with some rather clever puzzles. The only flow is that repeated trial and error can be slow due to all the animations. I'd really like to see something similar show up in a handheld game, where animations could be turned off - that would be perfect.
My biggest complaint about the game is that they put too many Shadow Pokemon in the last dungeon, Citadark Isle - 36/83 I believe. That's a pretty large chunk of the cast who have very little use in-game except as Shadow meat shields, which is a shame. Yeah, the Shadow Pokemon spammage essentially makes the bosses, but there was no need to give so many Shadow Pokemon to grunts. Also, while I do appreciate the absence of the usual HM nonsense, I must admit that I missed having a free, infinite renewable source of Surf. Water types just aren't the same without it. :(
Lastly, some thoughts on my permanent team members:
Jolteon (Thunderbolt, Bite, Thunderwave, Helping Hand) - Solid special attacker. It and Espeon are probably the best Eeveelutions in-game, and I preferred Electric's type coverage. Bite was a godsend early on, especially before L16 when it didn't even have Thundershock, and had its users even endgame, mainly for Ground types who lacked an actual Ground attack. Thunderwave is there for the usual reasons, while Helping Hand + Surf is handy.
Ursaring (Return, Brick Break, Rest, Metal Claw) - STAB Return off 130 base attack on the second Pokemon you get is brutal. The low speed sucks, but basically anything that didn't resist Normal was pretty much guaranteed to be a goner. Rest is there to abuse the Call command to wake up on the next turn, while Metal Claw is pure filler because I couldn't think of anything better when I decided not to use Earthquake. I used it to help weaken Shadow Pokemon for catching a few types, but that's about it.
Houndoom (Flamethrower, Bite, Charm, Fire Blast) - I couldn't pass on a rare chance to actually use Houndoom in-game for once *glares at Gamefreak*. Possibly the best offensive Pokemon in the game considering it packs two useful STAB types and has good speed, though Crunch being nonexistent in effect is a slight downer. No real coverage moves aside from STAB, but besides enemy Houndooms anything that resists Fire+Dark is too dangerous to stay in anyhow.
Breloom (Sky Uppercut, Body Slam, False Swipe, Stun Spore) - False Swipe off 130 base attack + Stun Spore made Breloom a fantastic Pokemon for catching purposes. Pretty good offense as well, aside from being totally walled by Ghosts. I gave it the midgame Leftovers to help it in its catching role.
Dewgong (Surf, Ice Beam, Rest, Helping Hand) - Only Dewgong and Cloyster get Surf in this game, and nothing practical gets Waterfall or Hydro Pump (well, at least at reasonable levels) either. I opted for Dewgong's all-around mediocrity over Cloysterl's tendency to die to any random special attack that it doesn't resist, and some that it does. Split target is a mixed blessing for Surf, but I still prefer it over Water Pulse. Getting STAB on Ice Beam turned out to be even more important, giving it a decently powered ST move. Rest+Call suits Dewgong's defensive leaning stats.
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Dragon Age: Origins - Replay on easy as mage finally in full swing, only been planning it for months. Only on easy for AoE lols of making everything explode. I had forgot how totally endearing Sandal is.
Cone of Cold breaks the game on easy. Just run with every mage you can get and you can perma freeze every fight in the game. (Except maybe final boss, but he's a joke regardless.)
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FFV Advance: World 3. Just beat Bahamut after wiping three or four times because I forgot Carbuncle exists ("I can't put up Mighty Guard if I want to get Reflect on everybody before Megaflare hits! And how am I supposed to have it up again for the random second use?" LATER: "Duuuuurrrrrrrrrrrr"). Just finished mastering Ranger with Bartz and Ninja with Fairs, working on Summoner for Krile and Samurai for Lenna.
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XS3 -
<KOS-MOS> AAAAAAAAAAaaaNd IIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIIIIIIiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiIIIIIIII WILL ALWAYS LOOOooooooooooooooooVeeEEEeeE YYYYYYYYoooooOOOOOOOOooOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuu
<T-ELOS> OOOOOOOOOH KOS-MOS GIVE ME YOU PENIS TO MAKE ME WHOLE OHHHHHHHH YES OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHH YEEEEEEEEEEEEES
<KevinandShion> zomg hot and steamy sex
I wish this wasn't actual cutscene content.
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LFT- Completed after long hiatus! Deep Dungeon made me not want to finish methinks. Kletian is a whore! Laggy is the devil.
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XS3 -
<Mai> Hi I'm totally not a deviantart user reimagination of Maria Belthasar! I'm totally not copyright infringement at all!
<Jin> Yeah get in line with shota Elly and loligoth Fei.
<Shion> ... don't you have a few words to speak for yourself, brother?
<Jin> Shut up.
<Jr.> Wow, Adult Maria Mai is almost as much of a total bitch as you are, Shion.
<Mai> Excuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me for not being able to be the bitchiest bitchwhore in the universe.
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Pokémon HG-
I think I've done all the things worth doing. Currently on 150 Johtomons owned (233 seen) which seems like a nice number to stop on. Pretty much all I could do now is grind mons for more completion, and I believe I've been over all the interesting places to do that. To say nothing about needing two other copies of the game in order to finish just the Johtodex ignoring Mew/Celebi/potentiallyothersIcannotthinkof, and I don't even have access to one other copy.
Never ended up doing anything with the 'walker. The manual states that it only becomes usable once you reach a particular point in the game so I was waiting around for that but apparently said point wasn't marked by anything or was missable, and by the time I realised that an option regarding the 'walker had shown up on the main menu I did not consider it worthwhile looking into. I don't exactly do a lot of walking anyway.
Lunar Genesis-
Was recently cursed with a loss of sense of balance, currently training/equipping Gabryel.
Running around nibbles away at your HP, and if you have low enough HP it doesn't let you run which could be a problem if you didn't want to fight an enemy that was quickly moving in on you. This situation has not happened to me yet but it seems kind of bizarre to impose such a penalty on running around.
Menus have the back button in the bottom right hand corner, but when they have a yes/no option instead they have the no option in the bottom left and the yes in the bottom right. Sigh. Also they have touch controls for a vast amount of things including moving, but to change the working character during equipping and so forth you need to use the shoulder buttons. Sigh.
Goddess Statues don't heal Poison. But they do restore MP. Since you are letting me cure the poison with magic and then get the MP back why don't you just cure poison and be done with it game ._.
I cannot say that the storyline so far has been the greatest storyline of this or any other century, especially since Jian is apparently being motivated by the voices in his head or something. But the gameplay is being reasonable enough so far. I have some concerns that the courier system will become irritatingly grindingful in the future but it has not yet reached that point.
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XS3 -
<Voyager> rarr i almost ohko momo with my best st attack and like 7hko average with everything else oh and i waste turns telling who am i going to target too
<MOMO> rarr i shave off 600 hp off voyager a pop with fire bolt 2 and have broken mt healing
<Jr.> rarr i do that too
<chaos> rarr i have mt damage buffing
<Voyager> BUT I HAVE ABYSS WALKER AND BREAK IMMUNITY
<MOMOJr.andchaos> lulz
* chaos spams MT buffing.
* MOMOandJr. set Voyager on fire.
<Voyager> I feel like Strawman going up against Holly. ;_;
It's pretty sad that Voyager is probably the best boss fight so far (...).
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Pokemon HG - I beat the sixth gym! Booyah.
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X-Com: So I started this on beginner difficulty because there's obviously a metric ton of micromanagement and I don't know which parts of it break the game yet. Couple false starts where I just totally crashed on the first terror mission, then spent way too much of the day playing it once I got things running smoothly. Reminds me of playing Civilization because there's never a good, obvious break at which to shut down for the day. "I'll stop once this mission's over. Well, no, I may as well restock and everything before calling it quits. Oh hell, there's another UFO. I can't just leave that sitting there."
Currently in Mid-May or so, just cleared out an alien base for the first time. Have no idea how long a typical game of this is supposed to run but presume Grefter or Rob or someone will tell me. Currently wishing the science team would hurry up and unravel the great mystery of arming the plasma rifles they figured out how to build two months ago. C'mon, I've got thirty guys working on this. It can't be that hard. Not that lasers are bad (infinite ammo!), but anything that makes aliens die faster is worth the money.
Trying to build a second base but can only add to it in drips and drabs. Don't have a ton of spare cash around. Is there any point in keeping around extra alien bodies or anything like that? I've been selling them off to clear storage space and make some extra money.
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And...just beat up the Necrophiliac Paladin and got Eirika promoted.
All I can say is, that once people started promoting, the game returned, again, to having fail difficulty. Blah. Well, I tried. I really did! Everyone's promoted to their final classes now.
Chapter freaking 14...because my characters have relatively poor SKL and STR...it took me 200+ turns to finish this map (257, to be exact). I couldn't hit Carlyle. I got to a point where I got him down to 1 HP...then proceeded to miss, continuously, until he fulled healed up. Just...wow. I ended up gaining crazy levels there, not even planned! My best hit rate was in the 60's, and I was still missing with them constantly. Other than that, been pretty normal.
I'm also using the worst possible promotions I can, in most cases. Neimi the Sniper, Amelia the Great Knight (well...I guess Paladin is worse, but I need an axe-user >_>), etc. Natasha went Bishop, Vanessa and Tana Falcoknight, Mage Knight for Lute, L'Arachel went Valkyrie, Marisa Swordmaster.
Current Stats:
Eirika
Lvl 1, 31 HP, 10 STR, 19 SKL, 17 SPD, 15 LUK, 12 DEF, 12 RES
*ABOVE AVERAGE ON DEFENSES YESIU!!!!
Tana
Lvl 5, 33 HP, 17 STR, 14 SKL, 25 SPD, 17 LUK, 12 DEF, 14 RES
*...wow, she's...below on everything except SPD...and RES, where she's average...
Natasha
Lvl 5, 38 HP, 23 MAG, 10 SKL, 22 SPD, 27 LUK, 13 DEF, 22 RES
*...damn, she turned out well. Except for that SKL. Yuck.
Vanessa
Lvl 6, 37 HP, 15 STR, 19 SKL, 23 SPD, 14 LUK, 9 DEF, 13 RES
*More accurate than Tana, and that's really about it...still, flying is good! Oddly, she's below average on like all her stats, but stands out on this team so much because for the longest time, she was way above >_>
Neimi
Lvl 5, 37 HP, 14 STR, 16 SKL, 23 SPD, 16 LUK, 11 DEF, 15 RES
*Above on SPD, HP, DEF, RES, slightly below on SKL and LUK, way low on STR. Damnit, Neimi ;_;
Lute
Lvl 8, 34 HP, 19 MAG, 11 SKL, 19 SPD, 21 LUK, 9 DEF, 19 RES
*...6 below on MAG. Above on RES and HP only, below on everything else. She was amazing to start because...she gained MAG! And could do damage to the RES stat! Which was lower than enemy DEF! And now...yuck. She was like a Jeigan >_>
Tethys
Lvl 20, 33 HP, 4 STR, 4 SKL, 27 SPD, 27 LUK, 8 DEF, 17 RES
*Eh, she dances. Low on defenses, higher on SPD/LUK. Works.
Marisa
Lvl 7, 44 HP, 22 STR, 26 SKL, 26 SPD, 24 LUK, 12 DEF, 10 RES
*Happy days...a good growth character! My female swordmaster luck continues! Above on everything! Hurrah! Will be my main offense in the future, probably.
Amelia
Lvl 1, 39 HP, 21 STR, 17 SKL, 22 SPD, 19 LUK, 13 DEF, 11 RES
*She was a pain to train up...but gained massive levels the past few maps. The only axe-user, so she'll be very good later...she's a little low on LUK (lol 1 point), but otherwise above or average in other places.
L'Arachel
Lvl 2, 28 HP, 18 MAG, 16 SKL, 21 SPD, 22 LUK, 10 DEF, 22 RES
*Another character who turned out well. The last 3 are turning into MVPs, if only because they've been getting good growth/NORMAL growth >_> Though Tana is getting better. L'Arachel, Marisa, Natasha, Amelia will probably be the ones who dominate the end-game, although Neimi and Tana might catch up there a bit.
Syrene and Myrrh are at starting levels...uh...mostly because I forgot to bring Myrrh into chapter 16 >_>
Once more, this re-instates my opinion that FE in-game use is all about luck with growth. Game is fun, though it's going to be a pain to get any more challenge out of it...I could stop using Marisa, I guess...
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X-Com: So I started this on beginner difficulty because there's obviously a metric ton of micromanagement and I don't know which parts of it break the game yet. Couple false starts where I just totally crashed on the first terror mission, then spent way too much of the day playing it once I got things running smoothly. Reminds me of playing Civilization because there's never a good, obvious break at which to shut down for the day. "I'll stop once this mission's over. Well, no, I may as well restock and everything before calling it quits. Oh hell, there's another UFO. I can't just leave that sitting there."
Currently in Mid-May or so, just cleared out an alien base for the first time. Have no idea how long a typical game of this is supposed to run but presume Grefter or Rob or someone will tell me. Currently wishing the science team would hurry up and unravel the great mystery of arming the plasma rifles they figured out how to build two months ago. C'mon, I've got thirty guys working on this. It can't be that hard. Not that lasers are bad (infinite ammo!), but anything that makes aliens die faster is worth the money.
Trying to build a second base but can only add to it in drips and drabs. Don't have a ton of spare cash around. Is there any point in keeping around extra alien bodies or anything like that? I've been selling them off to clear storage space and make some extra money.
X-Com is awesome! More people should follow Cid here!
Games can take...anywhere from 2 months or so (you can technically get all the material needed to finish the game in 3 missions, and finish it...I think in 2 months is the fastest? I'd have to look). My first game took me about a year of game-time or so, maybe more, since I didn't know all the ways to go through and break the game.
I'd suggest getting more scientists if you can afford it. I usually hit for 50 the first 2 months minimum, then 100 when cool new projects come up (after several missions, stuff piles up).
Sell all but one of an alien body so you can research it and get points for it. Sell all plasma items except Heavy Plasma (keep those for your soldiers, never manufacture your own - aliens stop carrying anything but Heavy Plasma when Mutons start showing up). Manufacture Laser Cannons when not doing anything else with your engineers and sell them. Where is your first base? The best way to make money is to do as many missions as possible. Raid alien ships, capture materials, sell, etc. If you have any Mind Probes, they sell for shitloads of money - they're great to keep at least 1 or 2 around for so you can see Alien specs (and find out which ones are Leaders, etc.), but other than that, they're just $300k to get.
Lasers are awesome, and you can make do with them the majority of the game (I know I used them up to the end in my first playthrough). Use them too for your interceptors until you get Plasma Cannons. Interceptors with Plasma Cannons can take down almost all Alien Ships except Battleships, but they'll blow up the smaller ones. Don't build the Lightning or Firestorm. Use Interceptors, Skyrangers, and the Avenger.
There are a couple cheats you can use to help your income (i.e., how to build things for totally free, then sell them for craploads) if you are desperate. To help with money, I wouldn't destroy alien bases - raid them, kill all but one alien, grab all the stuff, and take it home to sell. Lather, rinse, repeat. The funding nations pay you jack crap, so let the damn base sit in their country for a while.
A new base ASAP is good, as you cover more of the world, which means you down more alien ships, which makes you more money.
Uh...other thoughts specifically you want input on?
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FE7 Harem mode!
The early game was hell, and that's allowing Lucius into the harem for being prettier than all of the women. I had to give Florina the Angelic Robe in Lyn story to keep her alive long enough to get good. Archers with just Florina, Lyn, and Lucius capable of killing things are not fun, for all that Lyn can usually just evade tank them. Lundgren was the usual... except that Lyn would get one-shotted by his Silver Lance. Yikes. Baiting him into the Javelin made it easy to blow him up with Mani Katti though.
Eliwood story was not easy; again, even making an allowance, this one being weaponless Marcus as a meatshield. Hector, Eliwood, and Rebecca having to kill everything on the map was something. Once I got Florina, Lyn, and Lucius back things got pretty damn reasonable though. Haven't had to bench a character so far, and I'll be using Nino for sure. Surprisingly, Isadora has been perfectly usable - 17 Str and 19 Spd at level 10 is on pace to be way better than average, though she HAS to dodge things to cover that loltastic 9 Def. Good chance I'll bench Louise before I bench Isadora, though losing Ninian means losing a unit and I've got one more lady (sort of) coming up that I'll probably use.
This will also mark the first time I don't abuse Athos to crush the last stage.
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Think that pretty much covers it, OK. Some of that stuff I'm doing, some of it I can't yet. (I've found dozens of plasma rifles, so I figured I may as well learn how to use them. Why I diverted a chunk of the research staff to that instead of heavy plasma--I haven't found any of the latter type of weaponry. Free weapons that are better than the ones I have to pay for? Yeah). I have 60-65 scientists at the moment, as there are quite a lot of things to research lately.
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Lunar Genesis-
Was recently cursed with a loss of sense of balance, currently training/equipping Gabryel.
Running around nibbles away at your HP, and if you have low enough HP it doesn't let you run which could be a problem if you didn't want to fight an enemy that was quickly moving in on you. This situation has not happened to me yet but it seems kind of bizarre to impose such a penalty on running around.
Menus have the back button in the bottom right hand corner, but when they have a yes/no option instead they have the no option in the bottom left and the yes in the bottom right. Sigh. Also they have touch controls for a vast amount of things including moving, but to change the working character during equipping and so forth you need to use the shoulder buttons. Sigh.
Goddess Statues don't heal Poison. But they do restore MP. Since you are letting me cure the poison with magic and then get the MP back why don't you just cure poison and be done with it game ._.
I cannot say that the storyline so far has been the greatest storyline of this or any other century, especially since Jian is apparently being motivated by the voices in his head or something. But the gameplay is being reasonable enough so far. I have some concerns that the courier system will become irritatingly grindingful in the future but it has not yet reached that point.
Oh God, Lunar 3.
The game does some interesting things with how it tries to balance its very weird systems. Basically, the reason why running has a penalty is because -not levelling- is the key to success. Seriously, enemy level is dependant upon player level, so if you just don't level up Jian, the game rolls over and dies.
The only hard fight in the game is the one you're coming up on, where you have to fight the Beast King (unexpectedly, so save before you talk to the bastard) solo with the balance curse, thus destroying your ability to deal any damage.
Level up just enough to beat him and then never fight anything that's not a boss ever again if you can help it -> you win!
Though beating Lunar 3 is a dubious honor at best. It's a mindless time-waster and there are only one or two lines of dialog that made me chuckle, but if you can get past the terrible interface, more power to you!
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World of Warcraft TCG, North American Continental Championships
Short story version, because eh. If people express interest, I'll do an elongated version.
Thursday: Andrew 3-0 in the Pet Collection event and scored a Spectral Kitten. Hurrah, $100.
Friday: The main event. Started off strong by scoring a win R1 to a no show opponent. Won R2, unfortunately, due to a rules misunderstanding that was realized after the matter and thus unable to be corrected. Went on to win the next two rounds legitimately (one of which was covered in CZE's blog: http://wowtcgcoverage.typepad.com/blog/2010/06/round-4-feature-match-cahshurn-harrigan-vs-andrew-bartosh.html (fear my contemplative face). Sitting pretty at 4-0, I was feeling pretty good, especially given that the deck I was playing was an accident. Unfortunately, Round 5 put me against a similar deck type. Despite threatening to regain control of the game almost every turn, I never quite managed. Round 6 and 7 went similarly for me and suddenly things were looking a lot less happy. Sitting at 4-3 with 3 rounds to go, I needed at least 2 more wins to be assured a spot. Round 8 saw me against another similar deck and I destroyed him. Round 9 saw me against one of the more popular decks in the meta and had me rolling him as he played out a little too fast and made a series of errors that I had no issues capitalizing on. Round 10 saw me against a variant of the deck. Very tight game, but I managed to pull it out, bringing me to a record of 7-3 and, along with fellow teammate Daniel Rossi, making it to Day 2. Hu-fucking-zzah.
Saturday: Day 2 of the main event, or Wherein Andrew's Day Grows Increasingly Worse, Leading To Him Playing Increasingly On Tilt Throughout the Day. Drafting today, rather then constructed. Pod 4 of 12, so I had the potential to squeeze into Top 8 with some good play. Can I do it? As it turns out? No. Was very unhappy with the draft to begin with, as the packs felt pretty weak and, while I was sitting on a solid curve and some decent cards, I had no major bombs. Managed to win R11 in a very close set of games. (And by very close, I mean Game 1 was very close, while 2 was a blowout in his favor, 3 a blowout in mine). Then it all went south. R12 was a complete blowout against me. R13 was similarly rough. I lost game 1 to a brutal curve ending in a bomb rare. Game 2 was looking good for me as I utterly dominated board position and was brutally winning the damage race (20 to 0), until a combination of a bomb uncommon and his bomb rare managed to utterly reverse the tempo of the game and let him pull out a win. 8-5. At this point, I'm feeling pretty demoralized, having been basically rolled in two games in a row (and having around 30 minutes between each round to dwell on it). Not a good thing. Going into the second draft, I'm feeling very out of it and it shows in my agitated body language and such. Still not happy with the draft either. And then things get worse.
I'm pulled aside by the judges during deck construction and interrogated and finally informed that, apparently, a judge and another player heard me signal the player on my left (saying blue or something similar) which is, unshockingly, super bad mojo. You have got to be fucking kidding me. After getting a statement from me a couple times and some questioning, they finally decide that I did indeed speak out loud but it was unintentional (ala I was talking to myself or something). So, I avoid a DQ without prize, but DO score a gameloss, meaning I start the next match down. Full tilt mode begins as I'm unable to compose myself. Immensely tired, desperate to win, feeling screwed out by luck and the similar, my play deteriorates rapidly, culminating in an utterly ingenious play decision that costs me card advantage and board position. Despite brainless play decisions, I almost manage to pull it out, but the card I need is one deeper then I can reach. I attempt to compose myself R15, but instead get rolled by an opponent who yanked a Death Wish (bomb rare) and played it successfully on Turn 2 twice. Oh joy. R16 is looking good for me as I manage to handily win game 1, but a mediocre hand fails to improve in game 2 and game 3 sees him rip the win off the top of his deck RIGHT before I can pull the game out again.
Despite the promising start, Andrew drops from 7-3 day 1 (30th) to 8-8 day 2 (79th), dropping out of most relevant prizes. Still, 79th of 245ish isn't that bad. Just... really wish I could have done better. Oh well. Next time. Next time.
Coming up, the rest of the weekend!
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Unlimited Saga: I am almost getting a hang of things. Problem is, the game is ridiculously boring and unengaging and I'm not suer how long it even is.
I'd say where I am, but honestly not sure; game doesn't exactly have a PLOT to for me to keep track of.
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Suikoden Turkeys: I've stopped caring about getting all 108 stars because needing a walkthrough for a handheld game is ridiculous since the only time I play it is when I'm nowhere near a computer.
Despite that, the story is still pretty strong and I like the direction it seems to be moving. It does a good job of introducing plot elements without giving away all the important surprises immediately.
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FFV Advance: Cleared out World 3. Got all the summons, weapons and bonus spells, just picked up the three new jobs and will play around with them a bit before jumping Voidward. Builds are:
Bartz: Mastered Ranger, Blue Mage, Monk, Bard (I was out of things to master, sue me), got 2-Hand from Knight. As Freelancer, uses double-handed Excalibur to Rapid Fire things to death, with blue magic for backup.
Lenna: Mastered White Mage, Thief, Blue Mage, Samurai. Probably using White and Blue magic for the last fights.
Krile: Mastered Red Mage (finally!), Time Mage, Summoner, White Mage. Mime with Doublecast, Summon and White Magic FTW.
Faris: Mastered Ninja, Mystic Knight, White Mage. Double-sworded Flare Sword with a white magic backup sounds good to me.
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Unlimited Saga: I am almost getting a hang of things. Problem is, the game is ridiculously boring and unengaging and I'm not suer how long it even is.
I'd say where I am, but honestly not sure; game doesn't exactly have a PLOT to for me to keep track of.
I don't know why but as described this game reminds me of some kind of desert journey-fatal to those that don't understand it, merely unpleasant as hell, boring, and only a low chance of death for those who do.
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Meeple: No, no. It definitely has a plot. Just... you can't tell what is furthering the plot, and what is useless sidequests.
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I was busy all last week so I could only log on for like 5 minutes every day. Gamewise I played bits and pieces of a few things I normally wouldn't as I didn't have much time.
SO2 - Rena Mode. Claude is a jerk, Celine and Ashton are unimportant and Rena just happens to be friends to be friends with the greatest swordsman in all of Expel? I don't think the name has come up yet but I'm guessing its Expel due to Rena's race.
Game thus far has had one king introduced. Will it be like the previous game where you meet various kings before defeating a great evil and then for the plot to randomly send you to another planet where you must battle a completly near unrelated super soldier who has plot hax making him immune to everything but swords and can blow chunks to randomly become a huge mutant angel who could have really been dealt with by the Terran alliance as they have a massive Space fleet while the super soldier man doesn't? Punctuation you say? SO1 plot!?1 doesn't deserve it.
Persona 3 - AKA Pimplords adventure 3. Seta can take like what? Six women at the same time without problem, so can this P3 guy match up? Well he has as my friend calls it the "Emo walk" and the "Emo run" which the women in this game just can't resist. As a cool ladies man Minato will only hang out on sundays with the ladies and will reject all offers from everyone else. His first target is Yuko as Minato likes it exotic.
Resident Evil Code Veronica X - Most people say this game has terrible voice acting but I say it has BRILLANT voice acting. Already finished part one because as someone who plays these types of games all the time its easy as can be. Alffred is awesome, Wesker has a cartoony voice but is saved by terminator eyes and his super pimp slap but the greatest award goes to Umbrella. While Clair is on a bomber flying away from the island there is a *thud* who turns out to be none other then the tyrant she faced minutes before. Yes folks clap your hands because Umbrella have finally done the impossible by creating a Tyrant who can teleport! *CLAP* *CLAP* *CLAP**CLAP*
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Not a fan of using Plasma Weapons at all personally. I use Laser Rifles from start to finish, they are more than enough for Beginner. They are less lethal than Plasma weaponry, but are just fine for taking out Aliens. They are great at minimising damage caused by friendly fire on the other hand. Flying Armour can take Laser Rifle shots like nobody's business.
Ditch the Heavy Cannon if you have anyone using it still. I normally drop the Rocket Launcher pretty fast as well. Replace them with Auto-Cannons. Auto-Cannons rule.
Plasma Rifles are fine to research, they unlock Plasma Beam as well. You can make a truck load of money if you don't research Plasma Pistols though since Alien Artifacts sell for way more than a Pistol does normally. Aliens will actually use these for a long time on Beginner, you won't see Heavy Plasma outside of Large ships on Beginner really.
OK is spot on the best ways to make money though. If it is your first play through though and you want to skip the micromanagement and get straight to the meat and potatoes of the game though, cheating for money and/or Elerium is actually something I wholely support. Skipping the macro level management and getting straight to the squad based tactics and giving you the resources to just try out whatever you want is pretty liberating. It is a fine way to either start playing the game and get used to the main part of it or for when you are playing it for the 20th time and just want to get to the good stuff. Geoscape is good and all, but after a while it gets a bit tedious.
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SO2 - Rena Mode. Claude is a jerk, Celine and Ashton are unimportant and Rena just happens to be friends to be friends with the greatest swordsman in all of Expel? I don't think the name has come up yet but I'm guessing its Expel due to Rena's race.
Game thus far has had one king introduced. Will it be like the previous game where you meet various kings before defeating a great evil and then for the plot to randomly send you to another planet where you must battle a completly near unrelated super soldier who has plot hax making him immune to everything but swords and can blow chunks to randomly become a huge mutant angel who could have really been dealt with by the Terran alliance as they have a massive Space fleet while the super soldier man doesn't? Punctuation you say? SO1 plot!?1 doesn't deserve it.
That is almost completely accurate.
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SO2 - Rena Mode. Claude is a jerk, Celine and Ashton are unimportant and Rena just happens to be friends to be friends with the greatest swordsman in all of Expel? I don't think the name has come up yet but I'm guessing its Expel due to Rena's race.
Game thus far has had one king introduced. Will it be like the previous game where you meet various kings before defeating a great evil and then for the plot to randomly send you to another planet where you must battle a completly near unrelated super soldier who has plot hax making him immune to everything but swords and can blow chunks to randomly become a huge mutant angel who could have really been dealt with by the Terran alliance as they have a massive Space fleet while the super soldier man doesn't? Punctuation you say? SO1 plot!?1 doesn't deserve it.
That is almost completely accurate.
Yes, pretty much this. You should really mark that with spoiler text for anyone else who hasn't played SO2.
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SO2 - Rena Mode. Claude is a jerk, Celine and Ashton are unimportant and Rena just happens to be friends to be friends with the greatest swordsman in all of Expel? I don't think the name has come up yet but I'm guessing its Expel due to Rena's race.
Game thus far has had one king introduced. Will it be like the previous game where you meet various kings before defeating a great evil and then for the plot to randomly send you to another planet where you must battle a completly near unrelated super soldier who has plot hax making him immune to everything but swords and can blow chunks to randomly become a huge mutant angel who could have really been dealt with by the Terran alliance as they have a massive Space fleet while the super soldier man doesn't? Punctuation you say? SO1 plot!?1 doesn't deserve it.
That is almost completely accurate.
It is, except for the part where SO2 has no plot once you get past the child jerk-king. Or, pretty much, ever. You're basically just wandering around, 'cause, why not?
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Eh, eff that. Anyone who hasn't played SO2 yet shouldn't. It's a lot of mashing L1/R1 and wondering in the back of your mind if everyone in the DL (aside from, like... Sopko? And that's it I think) has severe trauma to the head.
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SO2 is good fun if you've never played a Tri-Ace game before. Which was pretty likely back when it first came out, but not so much now.
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World of Warcraft TCG, North American Continental Championships
Short story version, because eh. If people express interest, I'll do an elongated version.
Thursday: Andrew 3-0 in the Pet Collection event and scored a Spectral Kitten. Hurrah, $100.
Friday: The main event. Started off strong by scoring a win R1 to a no show opponent. Won R2, unfortunately, due to a rules misunderstanding that was realized after the matter and thus unable to be corrected. Went on to win the next two rounds legitimately (one of which was covered in CZE's blog: http://wowtcgcoverage.typepad.com/blog/2010/06/round-4-feature-match-cahshurn-harrigan-vs-andrew-bartosh.html (fear my contemplative face). Sitting pretty at 4-0, I was feeling pretty good, especially given that the deck I was playing was an accident. Unfortunately, Round 5 put me against a similar deck type. Despite threatening to regain control of the game almost every turn, I never quite managed. Round 6 and 7 went similarly for me and suddenly things were looking a lot less happy. Sitting at 4-3 with 3 rounds to go, I needed at least 2 more wins to be assured a spot. Round 8 saw me against another similar deck and I destroyed him. Round 9 saw me against one of the more popular decks in the meta and had me rolling him as he played out a little too fast and made a series of errors that I had no issues capitalizing on. Round 10 saw me against a variant of the deck. Very tight game, but I managed to pull it out, bringing me to a record of 7-3 and, along with fellow teammate Daniel Rossi, making it to Day 2. Hu-fucking-zzah.
Saturday: Day 2 of the main event, or Wherein Andrew's Day Grows Increasingly Worse, Leading To Him Playing Increasingly On Tilt Throughout the Day. Drafting today, rather then constructed. Pod 4 of 12, so I had the potential to squeeze into Top 8 with some good play. Can I do it? As it turns out? No. Was very unhappy with the draft to begin with, as the packs felt pretty weak and, while I was sitting on a solid curve and some decent cards, I had no major bombs. Managed to win R11 in a very close set of games. (And by very close, I mean Game 1 was very close, while 2 was a blowout in his favor, 3 a blowout in mine). Then it all went south. R12 was a complete blowout against me. R13 was similarly rough. I lost game 1 to a brutal curve ending in a bomb rare. Game 2 was looking good for me as I utterly dominated board position and was brutally winning the damage race (20 to 0), until a combination of a bomb uncommon and his bomb rare managed to utterly reverse the tempo of the game and let him pull out a win. 8-5. At this point, I'm feeling pretty demoralized, having been basically rolled in two games in a row (and having around 30 minutes between each round to dwell on it). Not a good thing. Going into the second draft, I'm feeling very out of it and it shows in my agitated body language and such. Still not happy with the draft either. And then things get worse.
I'm pulled aside by the judges during deck construction and interrogated and finally informed that, apparently, a judge and another player heard me signal the player on my left (saying blue or something similar) which is, unshockingly, super bad mojo. You have got to be fucking kidding me. After getting a statement from me a couple times and some questioning, they finally decide that I did indeed speak out loud but it was unintentional (ala I was talking to myself or something). So, I avoid a DQ without prize, but DO score a gameloss, meaning I start the next match down. Full tilt mode begins as I'm unable to compose myself. Immensely tired, desperate to win, feeling screwed out by luck and the similar, my play deteriorates rapidly, culminating in an utterly ingenious play decision that costs me card advantage and board position. Despite brainless play decisions, I almost manage to pull it out, but the card I need is one deeper then I can reach. I attempt to compose myself R15, but instead get rolled by an opponent who yanked a Death Wish (bomb rare) and played it successfully on Turn 2 twice. Oh joy. R16 is looking good for me as I manage to handily win game 1, but a mediocre hand fails to improve in game 2 and game 3 sees him rip the win off the top of his deck RIGHT before I can pull the game out again.
Despite the promising start, Andrew drops from 7-3 day 1 (30th) to 8-8 day 2 (79th), dropping out of most relevant prizes. Still, 79th of 245ish isn't that bad. Just... really wish I could have done better. Oh well. Next time. Next time.
Coming up, the rest of the weekend!
I was there too, though you'd never know it. <_<
My game record is far worse than his, though, so it isn't anything to talk about anyway. More important: gambling in Vegas, we actually left a little ahead in money, thanks to a friend's discovery that you can freaking play War. I mean, I know Vegas is all about monetizing and making everything into a bet, but I had no idea that that particular children's card game was a real gambling thing. It was terrifically fun to watch and play, and relatively low risk (your odds are pretty even, and our preferred table only had a $5 min), so hooray!
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SO2 is good fun if you've never played a Tri-Ace game before. Which was pretty likely back when it first came out, but not so much now.
I thought SO2 was brilliant when I first played it myself (especially compared to SO1, which I had played roughly half of.) But after a point, my opinion started to drop of it. Game just didn't age particularly well, and its got to be compared to higher standards.
ToPo had a similar problem. A lot of what made the game cool and fresh...just doesn't hold up now. There's far better, more polished options with similar advantages (ToV is flat out better than ToP in like every way, as far as I'm concerned, outside of Dhaos being a better villain than any of the ToV Lamers. Though, if ToP did something right, it was creating a genuinely unique villain, let alone for the SNES era, and its pretty much always going to have that.)
So yeah, gonna have to go with that SO2 is just a game that didn't stand the test of time so well. Its one of those games that seemed great for its time, but since then, standards have raised and it hasn't exactly kept up with them.
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I thought SO2 was brilliant when I first played it myself
a lot of mashing L1/R1 and wondering in the back of your mind if everyone in the DL (aside from, like... Sopko? And that's it I think) has severe trauma to the head.
EDIT'd Meeple's quote a bit because from all accounts SO1 is in fact way worse, if that's possible.
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SO2 is good fun if you've never played a Tri-Ace game before. Which was pretty likely back when it first came out, but not so much now.
Even better: Fun if you haven't played an RPG before! Was the first I played.
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Does giving it a 4/10 count as having severe brain damage?
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Chrono Trigger- Just beat up Yakra. Game is as breezy and fun as I remember. Planning on using Crono/Lucca. No idea about the third so far.
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Does giving it a 4/10 count as having severe brain damage?
Yes.
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Spectral Souls - Going back to this. Anderson and Hans are jerks. That is all.
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Does giving it a 4/10 count as having severe brain damage?
Yes.
Well, mild brain damage. Not Super or OK levels, at least.
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In fairness, I severely doubt that brain damage alone would be sufficient to produce OK.
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SO2 was one of the earliest games to really incorporate a friendship/romance system between every PC, and it is still one of the least creepy about it. I know that as a high school student, I thought it was interesting that you could play around with the PCs' relationships... and I still like some of the PA scenes (which I wish more games would incorporate).
The actual battle system hasn't aged as well as SO3 or newer Tales games, but it's not terrible. And the remake helps a bit.
Plot is still lolwhut, but I enjoyed the anime based on it due to its all-around light-hearted adventure nature (which worked out far better in the anime than the original PSX localization).
So... no, I'm not brain damaged. SO2 has some good points.
But, Zenny, I also wasn't being serious about spoiler-marking SO2 PLOT... >.>;;
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Zenny was serious about the brain damage, though.
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So... no, I'm not brain damaged. SO2 has some good points.
It's hard for some people to see their own flaws, even when they're so easy to point out.
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/me sheds a single tear.
Why must you always abuse the ones you love, Zenny?
No, but you can't -really- feel that way. It must be the alcohol talking. Don't worry, Zenny, I still love you for you.
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Why must you always abuse the ones you love, Zenny?
What, is he cutting himself again?
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HEY-OO~
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Unlike Djinn, I only love Zenny for his alcohol induced rage.
Oh right, I've been playing stuff.
Been pretty uninterested in console/Japanese stuff of late. So much so that the only Japanese game I'm playing right now is a knock off of an American Story.
Anyways, beaten the land of Spring. Flora wasn't much of a challenge in spite of not getting the final skill. Also making a point of upgrading weapons first, as first strike for Dorothy and the Scarecrow deals with a lot of troubles. Tin Man is currently LVP, with Scarecrow running a close second for that fight (Plunder has been pretty useless as well). Tin Man for the horrific Ratio issues, while Scarecrow has the Durability of fail. Dorothy is the easy MVP combining great Ratio with good enough damage, speed and durability, as well as healing.
X-COM - Found my CD with this on it, so I reinstalled. Currently got two forces, one stations in Istanbul, the other over in Sault St. Marie (Think where Lake Michigan meets Huron and Superior). Mid-June right now, with the fun aliens starting to show up, though no bases found, yet. Recently managed to use a Stun Bomb to nab me an Engineer and a Navigator (both Mutons) so Hyper Wave Jammer, here we come.
Dwarf Fortress - My main game right now. It's like Sim City, except it's underground, and instead of sims, it has alcoholic midgets with waraxes. Managed to mostly figure out how things work, and attempt #8 has seen me survive two and a half years, and get a thriving population of 82 dwarves with a bustling Steel and Platinum industry. Sadly, any attempts to get regular meat has involved poor ends for the hunters involving wolves. On the other hand, every now and then random herds of apes try to screw me over and it ends with me getting free ape meat.
Currently trying to figure out how to get a freaking millstone to work, though experimentation should soon provide a breakthrough. Hopefully before the new, slightly insane Mayor, declares a law that prohibits building Millstones.
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FE7 Harem Replay, savestate fun!
Oh hey it's that big nasty Nerga-*ELIWOOD ONE-SHOT*
Okay that wasn't so bad but maybe this fucking Dragon wi-*ELIWOOD ONE-ROUND*
...
Thank you for Ashera, IS. Thank you so much.
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Unlimited Saga: I am almost getting a hang of things. Problem is, the game is ridiculously boring and unengaging and I'm not suer how long it even is.
I'd say where I am, but honestly not sure; game doesn't exactly have a PLOT to for me to keep track of.
Who are you playing as exactly??
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Been playing Deadwood: The Game (aka "Red Dead Redemption.") Pretty fun so far in that me and the Marshal bust heads while everyone else makes me jealous of their superior beards.
Anyway, I believe this game has the best masked insult on an entire character archetype ever: "I suspect you speak in riddles simply to hide the fact that you have nothing resembling a personality."
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XE: Beaten. Well, not really but I got the final boss down to critical before he went all "RAR OVERKILL YOUR ENTIRE PARTY BY 4X RAR" and I don't care enough to go through all the fights up to that again. So yeah whatever.
Demon's Souls: Beat the Dragon God in the Stonefang tunnel. Guess I'm onto finishing the Castle/Palace and then moving to other areas.
Fuck the swamp, by the way. In the ass. With a burning poker.
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Spectral Souls - Beat Hans and Anderson. Had to kite them around while spamming heal to win but still beat the 99 turn limit so whatever. Next fight was a joke, so I'm now at some Historical Moment thing. Watched a plot scene and then stopped.
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It saddens me to think I guessed the whole plot of the game like that. Not because I'm a SO fanboy or anything but more because now I know the games just gonna keep rolling downhill. Thus far the best villain has been lord Allen, can SO2 produce a better villain? I'm guessing no.
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Thing about SO2 is that the end of the first disc sets itself up such that you think something interesting is going to happen. The stuff on the first disc is mostly just set up, but its handled decently well.
Disc 2 comes along and...its mostly just side quests with lame explanations for everything, kind of dropping ball on some of them like 'hay guys, did you know that this is the truth!? Its so ridiculous IT MUST BE KOOL!!' They completely forgot any remote chemistry the first disc had, and what had some potential interest was replaced with crack induced explanations, so yeah.
Its not like XS3 where its outright offensive, mind; this just falls under being plain generic stupid, and the fact that it is a follow up to something with potential makes it worse.
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can SO2 produce a better villain? I'm guessing no.
He wants to destroy the entire SO2 universe. I can get behind that.
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X-Com: Still trying out different stuff despite advice because, hell, I researched it, may as well experiment with everything firsthand since I've got it. Can see why laser rifles would be good throughout the game; low TU cost often makes it nicer to have than something that does more damage per hit.
I still do have one person hauling around a rocket launcher just because it does come in handy on occasion. Taking out two reapers with one shot? That was pretty nice. It's nice to have the option of long-range AoE nukings when it's needed, and I don't yet have a replacement in that department.
Heavy lasers don't have autofire? Fail. I made a couple just to try them out, but that'll be all I bother with given that glaring disadvantage. Autofire's just too useful an option for when you round a corner and run right into an alien. Best choice for close-quarters fire. Also, shooting through a wall and twice hitting the enemy I only suspected was on the other side? That was pretty cool. I like being able to do things like that. (I frequently blow holes in walls just to save time even when I don't think there are enemies around.)
Chrysalids are showing up now. They are jerks. Great Britain allied with the aliens. They are bigger jerks.
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Phoenix Wright: Justice for All - Finished the replay! Man the villain of the final case is such a douchebag. I love it.
Pokemon Soul Silver: Five gyms beaten. Chuck didn't like Crobat at all but who is shocked by this? Team is Crobat, Steelix, Croconaw, Jumpluff, Vulpix (will be Ninetales as soon as I pick up the game next since it's Tuesday and I can buy a Fire Stone), and Togetic. Crobat is my best pokemon at the moment, Togetic I am looking to replace because he is just too slow, even though Encore has had some pretty cool applications. I'll pick Togetic up again when I do the aftergame, I think.
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HG: Lots of Pokeathlon-ing. Think I have around 20 crowns now.
Fantasy Earth Zero: Tried it, seems like it has some decent PVP but the interface is so horrible it's not worth playing. Just trying to move around town is ridiculously difficult.
Tales of Symphonia: Not as bad as I remembered it. Mostly because I'm pretending none of the characters exist except for Raine and Zelos. Lack of sceneskip makes this difficult however. Collecting Summons in Tethealla at the moment.
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Phoenix Wright: Justice for All - Finished the replay! Man the villain of the final case is such a douchebag. I love it.
Thumbs up. How do you rank the cases thus far?
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SC2 Beta, done for the time being. Not sure how many people plan on playing it, but here's my overall review of the beta.
Balancing
1v1- Terran had a pretty ridiculous edge with their mech build, especially against Zerg. Tanks annihilated any and all zerg ground and 2-3 Thors could take on about 6000 mutalisks. The only way for Zerg to win was to A. be a far better player, or B. have far better macro. As it was, even Idra (best Zerg player alive, proly best player alive) had trouble beating the top Terrans. In a patch that came out in the final week, Tanks saw their damage reduced from 60 to 50, which is pretty significant. This meant it took one extra blast to kill a Roach (zerg unit), which gave zerg some prayer on the ground. Didn't get to see any high level tourneys after the patch so not sure if it was enough of a nerf. Everything else seemed okay, although 1v1 bores me a bit. Games are all too similar. If you go random you have 9 possible matchups, you also just try to counter the enemy. In 2v2+ there are far more matchups and you can't straight counter an enemy since his teammate usually has him covered. Just my preference though.
2v2- There are a couple of rushes that are effectively unstoppable on most of the current maps. (I went 20-0 as Zerg using one of these and it was the first 20 times I played Zerg.) Not sure how to stop these tactics without killing 1v1 games though other than making maps slightly larger. Still, games that don't have the 8pool/reaper proxy or the 8pool/gateway proxy tend to be pretty balanced with the better team winning.
3v3- Added a few weeks ago, definitely my favorite game type. They only had one 3v3 map, but it felt FAR more balanced and fun than ANY of the 2v2 maps. Also, in 2v2 if you lose an ally to a bullshit rush, you're fucked unless your opponents blow. Sure, they are behind on eco, but it's still 2v1. In 3s this is not the case. If all 3 bullshit rush an ally you're still playing 2v3 instead of 1v2. This is obviously a far better ratio and I played plenty of games where we lost someone early only to come back and win pretty easily. There are also insane amounts of matchups possible, keeping the game from getting dull. As of now I've seen no "super strat" that can just outright win games. (A popular commentator made a video of a tri 7 pool rush being unbeatable. Yeah, we got lucky enough to pull his team in a 3v3 and massacre his unbeatable strat.)
4v4- These games are just crazy. Only one map as well, which would have been a good map if ONE BASE DIDN'T HAVE THE MAIN BUILDING A FULL SPACE TO THE LEFT. HUGE oversight that hurt the hell out of 1 player each game. Didn't make a difference 9/10 games due to skill differences, but in close games it definitely mattered. Fours seems pretty balanced too, with no uber team/strat or anything like that. The early game rushes are popular, but as with 3v3, if you lose an ally to an all-in rush, it is easy to counter with good players on your squad.
Matchmaking
Always important in games like this is the matchmaking. Blizzard created 5 divisions. Diamonds/Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze. You play in 5 placement matches that decide your division. I have two beefs with this. 1. You can go 5-0 in placement and get either Diamond, Platinum, or Gold based on who you played against. This is dumb. Gold league is an absolute joke to high level players and you shouldn't be stuck there after going 5-0 because of drawing garbage opponents in placement. It's also not fair to gold players who have to play the top teams 15-20 times before they can upgrade. Hopefully this is fixed before release. 2. Divisions have 100 players in them right now. Meaning... being rank 1 in Diamond is a joke. Let's say 1/5 people are in Diamond, with 100 per division. If 1 million people are playing online when the game comes out then 2000 people will be ranked 1 in 1v1. TWO THOUSAND. You can be "rank 1" and not be a top player at all. I'm fine with the division but hopefully the 100 per was just a beta thing. I'd like to see 1000-2000 in a division come release. That way being a top 10 diamond player actually means something. (I've heard rumors of a "pro" league above diamond that will be hard to get into. That'd be cool.)
I'm betting Blizzard will get some feedback on this and correct things for release. Mainly the whole 5-0 in gold thing.
Interface
This isn't completed, but it's pretty awesome with a couple of flaws. The overall layout is really cool and easy to use. The one downside is no chat rooms... you also need a friend's E-mail address or facebook account to become real ID friends! (The facebook thing is cool, but wish it wasn't the only good option.) Other than the friends/chat issues it's awesome though. Tabs for games, replays, achievements, etc. Achievements are silly just like in all games, but kind of fun. I've also heard rumors that there are going to be "challenge" achievements. Like extra scenarios to do. Hopefully they are tough.
Overall
Some obvious issues to deal with, but that's what the next 1.5 months are for. They're all interface/battle.net issues as well, so they're easily fixable.
And shameless plug, if anyone is curious to see some games. Look up PsyStarcraft on youtube. He's my brother and I think the 4th most viewed commentator. He's probably a top 20-25 1v1 player from Beta and had a good record vs a lot of the top pros. (Except Idra.)
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It's so goddamn annoying how people still pretend there's anything good about Blizzard games other than the single player campaigns.
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It's so goddamn annoying how people still pretend there's anything good about Blizzard games other than the single player campaigns.
Not half as annoying as how people pretend the other aspect of Blizzard games suck.
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It's so goddamn annoying how people still pretend there's anything good about Blizzard games other than the single player campaigns.
Not half as annoying as how people pretend the other aspect of Blizzard games suck.
Multiplayer would be kind of fun if North Korea would take out South Korea for me. As it stands, though...
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Lunar Genesis -
Recently 'got back' from the Frontier, which is not exactly the world's preeminent holiday destination. After entering the Frontier, Jian had one of his little episodes and turned down an offer of guidance from Rufus in favour of asking a woman he only just met and knows nothing about to do it. This is one of the women that has in theory spent her whole life in hiding from the Vile Tribe underground. Now she does say that she knows the terrain and such but this is only after Jian has popped the question on her, and we find out later that she didn't know anything about anywhere past the first next area anyway. Meanwhile Rufus claimed to know the entire layout in his initial offer, although to be fair god knows how he could have this information (unless he got that far initially and was brought back, I suppose).
Meanwhile, we get to use a stone that weakens Althena's power in order to delude the Vile Tribe into thinking that we aren't humans/beastmen. I. Don't. Understand. How. That. Works. Furthermore it doesn't seem to work on any of the people that aren't in the town, although I'm not entirely sure where the Vile Tribe race stops and monsters begin, and if you push it we may have only seen one actual Vile Tribe member out of town (and he might even not be one...).
One good thing is that the woman (Flora) has Althena Magic which we recently lost access to. This is on the continent where Althena magic is supposed to be weak to non-existant. While we are carrying around rocks which weaken Althena's power. Whatever she is a source of healing.
Anyways, we need to go through Elda Valley in order to get to Vile Castle. So we leave town and the only option available to us is some mines I forget the name of. No-one said anything about needing to go through mines first. Or about needing to go through a desert after that. And at the end of the desert Jian refuses to take the girls any further and decides to go through Elda Valley and Vile Castle on his own without any magical healing. Jian, when did you last visit your psychiatrist.
To make matters worse Jian got poisoned pretty early in Elda and had no way of curing it -_- Fortunately I had more than enough healing items/cards in stock to last until I happily turned up a status curer in the valley (which I believe is actually the first one from a chest I've seen so far).
Ben There, Dan That -
Nice little adventure. Sufficient incidental actions to appease my hunger.
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Alpha Protocol -
Bought this because of my burning passion for Chris Avellone's plotmeat. Started a game on Hard mode as a Freelancer, spreading my skill points more or less evenly among Stealth, Pistols, Sabotage and Tech Whatever-it-is. Planning on playing him with a mostly professional demeanor, though if someone really pisses me off and I'm forced to go Jack Bauer and bite him to death, I hardly feel I can be blamed for that.
So the game starts out... in almost exactly the same way as Mass Effect 2! Well, okay, that's fine, I'm sure Obsidian will do something or other to make their mark on the old "wake up in creepy government/para-military facility with no equipment and an I.V. in your arm and fight your way out" tutorial scenario. Right?
I can't quite comment on whether or not they do, yet. I'm finding the game rather difficult to actually play. The graphical glitches on Mike's character model aren't actually detrimental to the gameplay, but they are annoying and kill the mood just a touch. I'm also finding that controlling with the mouse is pretty problematic; I try to make a 30-degree turn in my perspective and end up whipping the camera around a full one-eighty and suddenly oh look I'm getting shot to death before I can re-orient. I tried lowering my mouse sensitivity, but that just makes the stpid lock-picking mini-games* impossible without improving the camera control issues. Aiming my gun has similar extremely unpleasant problems, but I think part of that might be that I only have one rank in Pistols? Anyone care to comment on whether that gets better?
So, yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to play enough even to get past the tutorial yet. I'm sure it will get less frustrating, particularly when the plot actually starts happening. I have... moderately high hopes for certain aspects of the game. And if they don't pan out, I suppose I'll just go back and re-play Thief and Deus Ex.
Or play X-Com or Dwarf Fortress and give them more than a five-minute chance. El Cid and Excal are piquing my interest.
*Seriously, fuck these standard issue bullshit mini-games. Either make them painless and extremely quick -- and not even mini-games, really -- as in Thief, or base lock-picking on skills. You know, like games always used to do it? When everyone was happier? What cracked-out focus group indicated that these things were a positive goddamn presence in gameplay? Sigh.
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FFT- With super around there was no escaping this. Fun so far apart from CT rage at the first map which super thought was hilarious >.> Running Ramza as a Monk with Mettle as his secondary, another Monk who was a tank Knight with item spam for a while, a Orator with White Magic as her secondary and a Summoner with Time Magic currently. Saved just after Mustadio joins at the Clockwork city. Getting anywhere does sometimes seem to take forever at times what with random battles and all but really I'm just spoiled by ARPG type battle systems~
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Alpha Protocol -
Bought this because of my burning passion for Chris Avellone's plotmeat. Started a game on Hard mode as a Freelancer, spreading my skill points more or less evenly among Stealth, Pistols, Sabotage and Tech Whatever-it-is. Planning on playing him with a mostly professional demeanor, though if someone really pisses me off and I'm forced to go Jack Bauer and bite him to death, I hardly feel I can be blamed for that.
So the game starts out... in almost exactly the same way as Mass Effect 2! Well, okay, that's fine, I'm sure Obsidian will do something or other to make their mark on the old "wake up in creepy government/para-military facility with no equipment and an I.V. in your arm and fight your way out" tutorial scenario. Right?
I can't quite comment on whether or not they do, yet. I'm finding the game rather difficult to actually play. The graphical glitches on Mike's character model aren't actually detrimental to the gameplay, but they are annoying and kill the mood just a touch. I'm also finding that controlling with the mouse is pretty problematic; I try to make a 30-degree turn in my perspective and end up whipping the camera around a full one-eighty and suddenly oh look I'm getting shot to death before I can re-orient. I tried lowering my mouse sensitivity, but that just makes the stpid lock-picking mini-games* impossible without improving the camera control issues. Aiming my gun has similar extremely unpleasant problems, but I think part of that might be that I only have one rank in Pistols? Anyone care to comment on whether that gets better?
So, yeah, I haven't gotten a chance to play enough even to get past the tutorial yet. I'm sure it will get less frustrating, particularly when the plot actually starts happening. I have... moderately high hopes for certain aspects of the game. And if they don't pan out, I suppose I'll just go back and re-play Thief and Deus Ex.
Or play X-Com or Dwarf Fortress and give them more than a five-minute chance. El Cid and Excal are piquing my interest.
*Seriously, fuck these standard issue bullshit mini-games. Either make them painless and extremely quick -- and not even mini-games, really -- as in Thief, or base lock-picking on skills. You know, like games always used to do it? When everyone was happier? What cracked-out focus group indicated that these things were a positive goddamn presence in gameplay? Sigh.
Once you hit rank 3 or so in Pistols, you can line shots up from behind cover and it takes much less time. So yeah.
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*Seriously, fuck these standard issue bullshit mini-games. Either make them painless and extremely quick -- and not even mini-games, really -- as in Thief, or base lock-picking on skills. You know, like games always used to do it? When everyone was happier? What cracked-out focus group indicated that these things were a positive goddamn presence in gameplay? Sigh.
I thought the Fallout 3 minigames, lockpicking and hacking, were pretty decent. Other than the kinda bullshit getting locked out of a computer forever if you fail hard enough. Lockpicking was quick and intuitive, mostly resource dependent (if you suck, you run out of bobby pins pretty easy) rather than game-stopping, with your skill level determining which locks you're allowed to try. Hacking was a game of mastermind, basically, which I at least enjoyed. Neither were brilliant or perfect, but both were a damn sight better than I've seen in other games.
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I thought the Fallout 3 minigames, lockpicking and hacking, were pretty decent. Other than the kinda bullshit getting locked out of a computer forever if you fail hard enough.
There was a perk for that.
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I thought the Fallout 3 minigames, lockpicking and hacking, were pretty decent. Other than the kinda bullshit getting locked out of a computer forever if you fail hard enough.
There was a perk for that.
Yeah, not one I'd ever recommend but it is there as a rescue. There's one for lockpicks too, though it's much harder to bust a lock permanently. You can also just bail before making your last guess if you're not absolutely certain you're correct. It just seems like somewhat questionable design, is all. Seems to me like the game coulda punished failure somehow (damage/rads/item consumption/alerts enemies) without closing off parts of the game ~permanently. At max level you're SOL for knacks, after all. Even a rare and/or expensive item that lets you reactivate a terminal or lock would do the trick better, I think.
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FFV: About ready to finish off Exdeath. Killed Shinryu after a day of trying off and on, mainly with Lenna jumping on him with the Dragon Lance. Ragnarok should make Rapid Fire cheese in the final battle that much cheesier.
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Hacking was a game of mastermind, basically, which I at least enjoyed. Neither were brilliant or perfect, but both were a damn sight better than I've seen in other games.
See I spent $50 to play an RPG, not fucking Mastermind. I could download Mastermind off of Sourceforge for nothing. It is a very valid complaint that these things are so ubiquitous and take away from the skill of the character in an RPG and put it more on the player (see lockpicking in Oblivion being passable with 0 skill when picklocking a Very Hard lock). Thief gets away with it because it is a core component of the gameplay, it takes time to pick a lock and there might still be a guard patrolling. Oh and it also isn't an RPG.
They are in AP and it doesn't do the game any favours, but you get so used to them that you are just like whatever. I didn't have the camera problem Strago, but it is documented, check Obsidian website, might be a fix for it. Rank...3 Technical Aptitiude I think it is lets you bypass all minigames with EMP grenades, so you can take that route if it bothers you a lot.
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But Grefter, it's not roleplaying if you're not able to do take part in everything your character does! It's EVEN BETTER roleplaying when you have to do everything FOR your character!
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Wow, it has been some time since I posted in here. Lately, I've been playing Burnout Paradise on the PS3, because smashing into gates and jumping around in a version of the General Lee never gets unfun. Also started up on The Saboteur, which is apparently supposed to be GTA: Occupied Paris.
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Spectral Souls - So for frue ending I have to beat Hiro without killing all her support (well, the game says don't kill ANY enemy but lolnisa). Fortunately they're morons and don't move unless I get into range, so leaving one alive is the easy part. The hard part is beating Hiro. Hiro has over 5000 HP when the highest HP I've seen before now is 2000. Well, guess it'll just be a slugfest, right?
So I kill all the enemies but two, then go after her. Then she does 500x2 to my ~1200 HP and all of that is draining. 1000+ HP draining. Uh yeah, she pretty much just kills everyone after that and I can't outpace the draining.
So I have to pull out my SEKRIT WEAPON. Marx. Yeah, yeah, Marx sucks horribly. No range, shitty stats, shitty stat growths, and is underlevelled.
But what he has is Boldness (increases SP each turn) and Cheer Up (uses 2 SP to give everyone in range 2 SP).
So yeah, I kill everyone except one guy and Hiro, and then just stand out of her range spamming Speed Up and attacking allies to gain SP and then have Marx use Cheer Up until everyone is at 4 SP.
And then I blitz the SHIT out of her. Even one turn of unloading EX moves (with CHAAAAAAAAAAARGE abuse, of course), she doesn't die. Only took out like 75% HP. She spends the next turn spamming EX skills (she has Boldness too so probably had 3 or 4 SP by this point) which do a lot of damage but don't heal her, which is definitely good for me. Naiz dies and everyone else is wounded, but I unload everything I have for one more turn and overkill her quite soundly.
So yeah, not as hard as I thought at first. Thought I was going to have grind, but turns out that I didn't. Also got a White Frame for killing her, which is pretty damn good at this point in the game (almost 100 more DEF than the armors I had before).
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Pokemon Platinum: Finally decided to finish Elite 4 on this. Got some general comments on both E4+Champ and my team.
E4)
Aaron: Yanmega (and in one insanely pathetic run, VESPIQUEN) are the only two remote threats he has - both due to defensive buffing. Otherwise, easy.
Bertha: Roserade solo outside of Gliscor who usually gets Golem Explosion'd because I dislike dealing with it and STAB Earthquake ludicrousness.
Flint: Golem solo. Despite having Empoleon. Empoleon proved surprisingly worthless against his entire team, 2HKOing and not having enough durability to survive retaliations from a fair few of them. Not sure what's up there.
Lucian: This guy stonewalled me for a while until I started leading with a Spiritomb to keep that damn Gallade in the back lines. A revived Golem + Lucario PAWNCH dealt with Bronzong, Crobat takes out Gallade (and Heracross of Aaron's squad.)
Cynthia: ...All I have to say here is that I relied on QUICK CLAW EMPOLEON BLIZZARD to kill that goddamn Garchomp. mutter. Fortunately Spiritomb took one look at Empoleon and rolled over so luring the Garchomp out that way was easy.
Team for most of game: Empoleon, Crobat, Golem, Alakazam, Lucario, Roserade. Yeah, massively Ground-weak and without a few key offensive types. I caught onto that at the E4, beforehand no one used them enough for me to care/I had something to hit weakness with. Crobat/Lucario share MVP, Alakazam LVP primarily due to Psychic not faring well after a point (lolquake spam). Alakazam was subbed out for Spiritomb to deal with Lucian's bullshit.
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This man has applied my teachings and come out victorious. You could all take lessons from him.
You need to use more Geodude.
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To be honest, these days I feel like Geodude is about like running Abra.
Except without the horrible startup and instead a ridiculous early period. And somewhat less impressive late. Not much.
I don't use Geodude much now because it's too frigging overkill half the time is what I'm saying(That, and it's a trade evo, but assuming you can get around that for both). So yeah, agreed!
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This was my first time using Geodude-line. While I probably had better options, it was definitely worth it, and Explosion saved my -ass- the multiple times it picked up.
(Also, is it funny or sad that Garchomp's stupid Berry saved my ass? I managed to freeze it with the first hit... and knocked it into the red. ...and then the berry kicked Garchomp back out of Full Restore territory.)
Empoleon... performed fine outside of E4 We Have Moves Of All Types (But Specifically Everyone Has Earthquake, lol), thinking on it.
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Lunar Genesis -
So Flora turned back up. How she did this considering that the only way out of the Frontier on foot is impassable is never explained. Whatever, access to magic healing again. There is another joke about Flora knowing the lay of the land when she actually doesn't. Hopefully this does not continue throughout the game, although I could always just stop checking the discussions.
Red Dragon Cave! They were advised to jump into every hole they see in order to find a particular item. There is only one hole in the cave and they don't need to jump into it. Kinda lame guidance there, Titus. I was wondering partway through the cave whether he was actually talking about the antlion pits in the previous area but fortunately I found what he was on about before I decided to test that theory out.
White Dragon Cave! Icicles fall, nobody dies. The White Dragon congratulates Jian on having passed the trial and Gabryel/Flora are glad that they don't have to fight him, but no, Jian insists. What's worse is that this turns out to be the right course of action. JIAN'S MADNESS DOES NOT NEED ENCOURAGEMENT
Both the dragons so far were pretty lame, spending at least half of their turns doing nothing. Not sure what's up with that.
Random equipment breaking is becoming increasingly irritating.
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FFV: Exdeath has been lumberjacked. STarted the Sealed Temple but got bored. May come back with Flee or Smoke...something to let me run away from the same damn random enemies I've been fighting all endgame.
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Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.
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FFV: Exdeath has been lumberjacked. STarted the Sealed Temple but got bored. May come back with Flee or Smoke...something to let me run away from the same damn random enemies I've been fighting all endgame.
Master Oracle, and get Read Ahead; this drops encounter rate dramatically, and makes things go far more smoothly.
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Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.
It's a Dragon Quest game. You're expecting what from it, exactly, besides fetch quests and level grinding?
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Yangus.
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Lots and lots of But Thou Must (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ButThouMust).
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Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.
You can see DQ8 in two lights: boring, or uneventful. Boring is when you're driving to work and nothing interesting happens. Uneventful is when you're driving to work and you don't get in a car crash. Looking for excitement? Not the game for you. Feel like an old man minus a porch and a rocking chair? Fire that baby up.
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I didn't have any expectations really.
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What with ludicrous amounts of stress and busyness, Valkyria Chronicles expert mode has become less and less what I need in a game. Not that I don't endorse it wholeheartedly, but it's almost hilariously difficult, with even the vaguest pretense of fairness on the enemy's part totally out the window. So fun, but I don't necessarily feel the need to be punished mercilessly for the slightest mistake right now.
So, pokemon! Platinum, not very far into it yet. Bashful penguin and evil starling are the definite MVPs so far, stupid-looking ratata-clone beaver the most disappointing. Well, okay, the cricket is useless too, but I had lower expectations of early-game bugs.
I'm an obsessive completionist, so this may fall by the wayside in the urge to catch-'em-motherfucking-all, but I was thinking I may try a medieval great chain of being-themed playthrough, focusing on pokemon from the top of their respective food-chains (so winged snakes if I can find any, royalty, lions, elephants, roses, oak, gold, diamonds, eagles) and see if I can't put together a decent final team therein.
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focusing on pokemon from the top of their respective food-chains (so winged snakes if I can find any, royalty, lions, elephants, roses, oak, gold, diamonds, eagles)
Winged snakes? What?
This theme makes no sense to me. What do winged snakes and diamonds have to do with eachother in terms of a theme?
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Diamonds are forever. Winged Snakes are immortal beasts. Seems obvious to me!
Also, oaks are clearly at the top of the animal food chain. Kite-Eating Tree, anyone?
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Some medieval christian philosophy organizes the world into tiered hierarchies (God->Angels->Humans->Animals->Plants->Rocks, usually), and draws parallels between individuals occupying the same rank in each hierarchy, particularly at the top. So symbolically speaking a king (at the top of the human hierarchy) can be represented by a lion (top of the animal hierarchy) or a diamond (top of the stone hierarchy). Oak is the king of trees, rose the king of flowers, etc. etc.
Winged snake is a bit tongue in cheek, it's how I personally envision seraphim (top of the angel hierarchy), due largely to the influence of In Nomine (http://sjgames.com/in-nomine/).
So, yeah, um, I'm a dork, I suppose. I just realized that empoleon was totally the top of the penguin hierarchy and went from there.
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Unlimited Saga: So I got to a town, went to some Plains or something and a big festival scene occurred...
...wait, you mean this game has a PLOT now!?
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Unlimited Saga: So I got to a town, went to some Plains or something and a big festival scene occurred...
...wait, you mean this game has a PLOT now!?
What character you are playing as exactly?
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Unlimited Saga: So I got to a town, went to some Plains or something and a big festival scene occurred...
...wait, you mean this game has a PLOT now!?
What character you are playing as exactly?
I choose not to say cause it is a form of mild suffering to you!
...that or I'm just being an absolute dick <_<
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Or you can't even figure that out, because it's Unlimited SaGa.
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Dragon Quest VIII is boring. I don't think I've played a more boring game next to Summoner, and Summoner was bit in the ass by technological shortcomings not present in VIII. Made it to the Western Continent and just talked to the child at the church. Will be wandering around the map for a little bit.
You can see DQ8 in two lights: boring, or uneventful. Boring is when you're driving to work and nothing interesting happens. Uneventful is when you're driving to work and you don't get in a car crash. Looking for excitement? Not the game for you. Feel like an old man minus a porch and a rocking chair? Fire that baby up.
An old man who whittles a large piece of wood in to a pile of shavings for no reward and then goes on to shave a slightly larger piece of wood in to a larger pile of shavings for an equally non-existent reward, yes.
DQ8 isn't driving to work. It IS work, except that you don't get paid to do it.
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So, yeah, um, I'm a dork, I suppose. I just realized that empoleon was totally the top of the penguin hierarchy and went from there.
Fucking nerd. Get off my RPG Duelling website.
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So I played and completed Red Dead Redemption in a rental period. If you saw Yatzee's review on the game, then it's pretty much how I feel about the game. Wild West GTA with lots of ethnic stereotypes, albet funny ones, cover-based shooting with every damn third person action game does these days and lots of content. The game world is a lot smaller and you can fast travel to anypoint on the map so it actually feels much shorter than it really is. Meh.
On another note, my 360 RRoD again on me. I haven't seriously gamed on it since Bayonetta back in JANURARY. Booted it up to check if they didn't charge me for XBL Gold and the box crapped out on me. Will Bamco ever give me a clear answer for ToV PS3 so I can get rid of my broken piece of shit?
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Xenosaga II: Well, Snow's XS3 posts got me curious and now I truly understand the anti-Shion sentiment here. For the longest time, I had only played XS1, which while not the greatest RPG known to man, it certainly wasn't the worst. And more pertinently, Shion was not the worst protagonist ever. A bit whiny. And recklessly stupid, but hardly the most offensive I'd seen. I still liked her more than most silent protagonists.
Wow, XS2 Shionisabitch. I can't say anything that I'm sure hasn't been already been turned into gospel for the choir here, but I merely want to add that I've been converted, to complete this pointlessly-religious analogy.
A lot of it is definitely the new voice actress. Looking at XS1 Shion's lines more carefully, she could definitely have been characterized as bitchy in the first game as well. However, while Lia Sargent may not be the most skilled VA in the business, her overly-friendly I'm-talking-to-a-little-kid-at-all-times vocal style really made it hard for Shion to come off as anything other than ditzy, if a bit condescending. XS2 Shion seems like she's taking the opposite end of direction. It's like someone told her "Well, the biggest complaint we had about the last girl was that she was too whiny and high-pitched... try for a tougher style." And of course, the result was that Shion's innate bitchiness was magnified tenfold and HOLY CRAP HOW CAN YOU TREAT YOUR ONLY FAMILY LIKE THAT AND WHY MUST YOU ABUSE EVERYONE WHO IS NICE TO THAT DOESN'T HAVE BLUE FIBER-OPTIC HAIR?!
Anyway, my frothing continues from this point on, so I'll end this post now.
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Fire Emblem 9:
Completed. Around 35 hours to beat, which is surely inflated by the amount of times I got bored midway through a map and started chatting. >_>
<_<
General thoughts.
In a general sense it's an FE game, so I may as well just skip ahead to comparing it to other FE games.
It has a lot of good points against the series though.
It moves faster than normal just across the board. Large maps generally are a lot of fun to play on; In fact, it doesn't give you nearly enough units to really enjoy how fast the game plays, most of the time(can't really say this is a downside, although the low amount of slots makes me subjectively sad.).
CGs are very pretty.
Balance of weapons is generally much better than other FEs. Swords/Axes/Lances only have swords really standing out as a weaker weapon type, and even then swords have Blades and the magic swords(for Elincia/Mist, not that anyone gives them to Elincia. At least, I didn't.). So it's not really too bad. Axes are better, Swords are worse, but compared to how this stands out in FE7 for axes being the worst, it's no comparison. Magic...well, I'll get to magic.
Maps are generally changed up much more often than most FEs with a lot of different goals and rarely do they settle on any one to the point where it's a "standard" goal. Granted this is partially because they made two versions of seize the throne, but whatever, still a good change. Maps are also just really well designed in general, hard to put into words how but it's definitely there.
Skills are nice. Needed more internal balance, but unlike FE8 they aren't horrible jokes and unlike FE4 they don't define a character and a lot of the playing experience. I liked the middle ground, useful but not massive, as a change.
Now, the minuses.
First off, aesthetics. CGs are really very pretty. Movies are fine if you mute the sound so you don't hear the VAs. Graphics are...generically bland and the 3D has none of the style I associate with the series while there were absolutely no songs I found memorable at all. ('cept maybe Ashnard's theme but I barely got to hear that. That was not an impressive battle and no one doubled each other there. Well unless I wanted him to one-round Ena.) It's not offensive...merely dull.
Secondly, class balance. Weapon balance is, as I said, not too bad, except that it has the baffling as hell hiccup of knives existing. There goes two characters who could have been good in a fight, but due to being stuck with 2-Might-Base, 8-at-best-when-others-swing-20 Might weaponry, will never be good. Magic is poor but Magic has never been as good as the other weapon types.
No, though, classes were just balanced badly. Enemies are more accurate and powerful than usual and evasion is generally harder to come by...so your dodgy units can't tank on it until late. And, late's the easy part. hmmmm. that's not good. This literally chucks everyone in the Myrmidon branch out a window for easy usability, when you add in early swords sucking and not making up for their low might issues. They're fine...later, when the game is already easy. But screw that, you can use Nephenee anyways for a similar build with better weaponry, and Stefan is a good prepromo Swordmaster.
Mages, meanwhile, suffer from a lot of subtle things. Magic is bad statistically...worse than usual. Okay, that's okay. Magic also requires Strength to handle it's Weight. Well, that's fine, except the first mage you get will average 3.9 Strength at 20/20 rendering him completely unable at any point to use his(large) speed advantage to deal the useful added damage he could have if he'd had strength and hence balance him. okay.
Enemies are perfectly capable of two-shotting mages with 2 range weapons like Javelins(because you see enemies don't entirely suck, especially early) so you can't keep them just behind the line, you have to shove the line upwards after they attack, rendering them extremely annoying or extremely vunerable. great.
Mages can't use most of the good skills very well. Vantage won't usually kill off enemies with such low power weaponry(even enemy Res doesn't make this happen) and being below 50% for a mage is a death sentence. Flare is...sadly not a bad Occult but surely isn't much.
Later mages all have their own issues. Ilyana sucks, has bad Speed to make up for her Strength. Tormod is...meant to be a Nino like, and in many ways I respect him most out of the non-promoted mages just because what you get when you build him up is a +2 Move Mage with good overall stats and a durability focus the other two don't have, but he's still a project investment and you could just use a non-mage and get actual Might on your weapons. Calill is unable to get staves but is otherwise a good prepromo. Bastian doesn't exist.
Even then, magic has a terrible forge set that really hurts it. It's not like knives where you can't, it's just that you won't because it costs 2-5x as much as Silver on other weapons, is only the first tier, and gets you....a meh weapon in the end. great. just great.
Snipers are horrible just because you get a Nomad equivalent who is one of the best characters in the game. Also because both of them are actively horrible.
It isn't just negative, either. Paladins are ridiculously good compared to every other class. Mounted is great due to hit and away, they get two weapon choices(the one you choose can and decently often should be bows, rendering Snipers even worse), every single Paladin is at worst decent(Makalov) and most of them are really good. Fliers are really really good too, and none of them have any stat issues or anything. The closest thing you get to bad mounted units are healers, and all healers have issues so you may definitely as well use the mounted ones. >_>
As to things that are neither good nor bad? Laguz. Laguz baffle me, they're in this range where they are solid without standing out enough to be in the game's top tier of units(ignore royals). It's a combination of lackluster prepromo stats but good transformations but picky transformations but Demi-Band but bla bla strategy bla bla, the issue is that you get a unit that is pretty good but you get those with most prepromos in this game.
And Laguz function exactly like prepromos. They don't gain more EXP(as they really, really should). They don't...function differently in any notable way. They just tend to stay usable more long term...when it's easy...and have an annoying element to them. By and large I can't say they're bad but saying they're good is a lie too. It's weird.
Anyways, some random character notes!
Anyone I'm not listing either didn't get used much or didn't get used at all(this happened a fair deal, sadly). I did RNG abuse save/reloads on BEXP. Mostly for 20/20 carryovers for shiny. Shiny! SHIIIIIIIINY! Er sorry. Usually it was a reboot once per character per time giving them BEXP on average, with some exceptions(usually logical ones). Of course early levels couldn't get this treatment so the hard part of the game was actually hard so screw it, whatever. >_>
Incidentally, on a related note, failed the Black Knight duel because none of the FAQs mention Aether is Range 1 when describing it. thanks you're swell. Had a few shots after I guessed this but none decided to click. Too bad.
Ike: 20/20. 60 HP(Cap, one Angelic Robes), 26 Strength(Cap, one Energy Drops), 8 Magic, 27 Skill(I thiiiink he had a Secret Book on this, capped), 28 Speed(Cap), 21 Luck, 24 Defense(Cap), 22 Res(Cap, took both Talismans).
Early on, Ike was a dodgy bastard who had way too much defense and Res but struggled to actually hurt things. It wasn't until the actually hard stages that I appreciated how useful this was overall, although I would have liked some damage. >_> Later on, his Strength caught up a bit(although I can't guarantee he didn't need those drops to cap even with RNG abuse existing) and it mattered less anyhow so he just became a massive boomstick that splattered everything around him. Ragnell helped. Unecessarily. He plays so much like a better Hector it's not even funny, but he's a bit less impressive early on.
Boyd: 20/20. 60 HP(capped), 30 Strength(capped), 2 Magic, 28 Skill(Capped), 27 Speed(Capped), 18 Luck, 18 Defense, 15 Res. The RNG abuse here mostly came in making sure he capped off Strength and Skill late, which I didn't even try to bother with early. In fact I didn't bother with Boyd early. That Speed is entirely natural and capped around early teens because his early growth was around 90% Speed. Frigging awe-inspiring offense throughout due to this and late watching him deal 40x2 to Laguz with a Laguz Axe was just plain fun. My best character out of the early Greil Mercs overall, although not as good in practice as...
Titania: 20/20. 49 HP, 20 Strength, 9 Magic, 26(Capped, two Secret Books) Skill, 27(Cap) Speed, 17 Luck, 18 Defense, 16 Res. I didn't really get any chances to RNG abuse her much-she was impractical as hell until she hit around L10 to even consider BEXPing-so I just gave her the Knight Ward most of the in-battle time after Astrid caught up and let her run around smacking things. She was one of my weakest characters on the final map and....still managed to solo a bunch of L14 Paladins without any necessary support while I was trying to get her up to 20/20(last character I managed this for, was surprised I scraped up this many 20/20s.). Was my kill leader at 112(IIRC) kills. Completely ridiculous, best Jeigan ever for a lot of reasons, both obvious(early game hard) and subtle(EXP gains of not 1 for smashing early game hard enemies=:)). Totally awesome.
Soren: L12 Unpromoted. 24/0/12/16/15/8/4/18. I ditched him around the teens. I'd just like to point out his stats when I ditched him. He was turning out *great* and I still didn't like him enough to stick with him. On a replay I really need to Seraphic Robes his ass and see if I can get somewhere using him. Oh well. I blame wanting 20/20s for FE10 in part for a strong ditching urge.
Oscar: L20/15. 46 HP, 23 Strength, 10 Magic, 25 Skill, 24 Speed, 13 Luck, 24 Defense, 19 Res. Posterboy of "If you get RNG screwed just ditch the bastard and use someone else." for me. Unutterably horrible earlygame except for decent Def and excellent(insanely so) Res(which is still visible here). So I RNG abused him five times as much as most people and got something...that would have been better than Titiania if I stuck with it but meh. I still was using him and he was very useful, I just wonder why I bothered. He ended up with some very high kills just because of how often I fed him kills so he'd be higher level and hence useful. <_< Drat luck.
Shinon: Not sure he gained a level. If he did it was just one. Anywho, Shinon amuses me. He's a prepromo at a great time in the game to be one, who ditches you and comes back a horrible, *underleveled and understatted* prepromo. Um. Yeah. He was useful when I had him early!...
Gatrie: Gained a few levels, but eh. I'd just like to point out that despite being a horrible, horrible character he's even more useful than Shinon early on because of mid-teens defense. I am easily amused by such things. He has 5 Speed at L13 here, which probably isn't that different from normal for him, though. ^_^;
Rhys: 23/0/12/8/6/10/1/15, L7. Ultimately I hated Rhys. I think this was more just the early stages sucking ass for him in retrospect but I *really hated Rhys*. Really. Really really. Like I ditched him for a stock of Vulneraries after a point, until Mist came along. This probably wasn't deserved but jesus christ TAKE A HIT YOU JERK. :(
Mia: 24/10/2/13/17/7/8/4, L11. As the game went on I vaguely regretted not using Mia more, but ultimately I was kinda stuck by limited EXP I could pass out if I wanted shinies. >_> She isn't too bad but she desparately needs Blades/higher Swords and enough strength to use them to feel really competent. Another case of the game screwing her build; She just has issues doing much early on. It annoys me, since she's at least decent thanks to Vantage, but...yeah.
Ilyana: Ditched her the moment I could. You saw my Soren, do you think I was going to bother with Ilyana if I didn't like Soren? yeah.
Rolf: Somehow got the mistaken impression he paid off later and used him for a few levels before learning that this was wrong and ditching him. Looking at the average stats much later I agree. He's not worth it. >_>
UBER MIST: 20/20. 39 HP, 20(capped) Strength, 26(capped) Magic, 14 Skill, 26(capped) Speed, 35 Luck(Two Ashera's Icons), 14 Defense, 21 Resistance. Okay the game liked Mist. I was all set to RNG abuse the hell out of her and it gradually dawned on me-around L10, where she was outclassing her 20/1 Strength-that I wasn't going to need to! Indeed, the only RNG abuse was mostly touchups on Strength/Speed near the end and redos of BEXP levels that sucked that everyone got-and the latter she got far less than most people, as she was already good(I at the start never considered that she'd cap strength and hence did not build towards it, and the rest she was well on her way to capping, so why would I waste good BEXP?). Bafflingly awesome, I suppose the game realized it was at mortal peril if it gave me an actively bad Valkyrie and overcompensated.
Marcia: 20/20. 49 HP, 23 Strength(Cap), 7 Magic, 24 Skill, 28 Speed(Cap), 21 Luck, 24 Defense(Cap), 19 Res. Baffler here is the Defense, which I practically ignored until it capped and went "Oh huh that capped. ...". Anywho she's awesome no matter what and with that defense and a Full Guard she was my go-to for killing the obnoxious Ballista hoards. Yay!
Lethe: Gained a few levels. My first candidate for best Laguz, although I didn't feel that way early on. I blame Mordecai's Defense growth blowing relative to his start. Anyways she's pretty good, if I'd had more slots I would have been fielding her a fair deal. Oh well.
Mordecai: Didn't gain any levels. Good prepromo who drops off fast. And is a Laguz so he's annoying. Yeah.
Volke: L20/6. 37/22/2/26/26/10/13/8. Good: Volke. Bad: Knives. I actually got far more kills with him than I expected(over a dozen by the end I think?) just because he's that good. He wasn't part of my main team because knives are that bad. He held his own going to get chests though and that's a great use soooo I'm happy with him.
Kieran: 20/12. 42/25/2/22/26/12/18/10. Long term pickup I was most "eh" about and he didn't actually show up on the final map(tossed him to staff abuse Elincia instead). Good enough, mind you, just really boring. I dunno why I feel so eh about him, on paper he looks great thinking on it. Granted he gained five points of speed in like the last five levels there so that's part of it.
Nephenee: 20/16. 42/24/9/27/26(cap)/15/20/13. ugghhhhh why didn't I Arm Scroll her. NEVER AGAIN WILL I MAKE THAT MISTAKE FOR THE EARLY GAME. It really did hold her back a bit throughout. She did eventually hit A Spears...when I used said scroll for her B->A and would have done as well to do that off the bat thanks to Steel WEXP. grr. Anywho she's pretty great, although she's not ridiculous. Mia with a marginally worse skill and a much better weapon choice overall=:). I liked her, gave her Vantage and everything and it was fun~ Too bad about running out of EXP to give her, she was the next 20/20 candidate after Titania, and only was because she was 20/15 coming in and I didn't think I could get a 20/15 to 20/20 reasonably(and was probably right).
Brom: Never used. I suppose the fact that you can Knight Ward this silly bastard helps him but meh I'm still not interested.
Zihark: Never used. Mia! With stats more fitting to the game! And no awesome skill! oh. :(
Sothe: Used to pick up chests on one or two stages that I didn't feel Volke was enough for. Um. Yeah he's useless otherwise. Unless you want to L20 him and give him both Angelic Robes, then you can get amusement in the sequel? Then again I think the +5 HP I'll get on Ike was more amusing anyways.
Jill: 20/20. 44 HP, 27(capped) Strength, 14 Magic, 26(Capped) Skill, 27(Capped) Speed, 8 Luck, 27 Defense(Cap), 16 Res. Yeah Jill turned out ridiculously. In more ways than one. Her starting Luck is like 6 and her growth isn't bad. Despite having unbelievably raped one stat she somehow managed to be sick. Maybe it was capping Defense at around L10 promoted, I dunno. Yeaaaaaaaaaah she was frigging awesome. I capped Speed mostly with RNG abuse(And I think there may have been a Speedwings too; I can't recall everything I Item'd and that would make sense. Her Speed wasn't spectacular until the last 10 or so levels regardless, so it doesn't count). Adept made her really good early on for smashing things even ignoring the Speed that would not double but usually did not get her doubled either. She kicked ass mostly on tanking.
Astrid: 20/20. 46 HP, 25(Capped) Strength, 9 Magic, 26 Skill(Cap), 27 Speed(Cap), 21 Luck, 20 Defense, 14 Res. Man she came out irrationally good for someone I barely BEXPed and mostly went "Here have Knight Ward most of the game have a fun.". The Defense in particular is weird feeling, is that remotely normal for her? Anyways, she's awesome, okay stats but awesome, awesome skill on someone who can get 38 levels to use the Knight Ward with. Yeeeeeeessssssss. Too bad it sounds like she's not much in 10. :|
Makalov: Didn't use. Didn't have a slot for him really, but meeeeeeeh sword paladin being the last non-promoted one complete with meh stats and no skill of note. Not bad just meh.
Stefan: Used during Day Breaks, never gained any levels though. I really respect Stefan, he's pretty damn awesome. If you swapped his and Titania's spots he might be better than she is. But I just didn't really feel like using him. I dunno, low move was part of it(meh on foot), but that wasn't all of it. It was just a whim I guess.
Tormod: Never used. I respect him on paper but by then I was really sick of mages.
Muarim: Never used. I respect him on paper but I didn't have any slots, see Lethe there.
Devdan: Used him during Day Breaks. Notable for me forgetting to equip him and having him somehow dodge four out of eight attacks with a Heavy Spear weighing him down, saving his life. I..............don't even know what the hell. I didn't expect four good enemies to pop out on top of the reinforcements on that map okay. Or for them to be bow-wielding Cavs and a Paladin. He couldn't get out of the way fast enough. Anywho, he's like the most boring character ever outside of that. >_>
Tanith: Gained a few levels, despite pretty decent use. Great character but lategame doesn't reward her much outside of picking off Ballista. I would imagine she's a savior on Hard, but as it is the game's not really difficult enough for me to care late, and she's...good and solid otherwise but not ridiculous. I liked her and used her a fair deal though, she just didn't pick up a lot of kills somehow.
Reyson: L15. 38(Angelic Robes) HP, 1 Strength, 18 Magic, 17 Skill(Cap), 18 Speed, 25 Luck, 4 Defense, 25 Res. I could have ground him on the final map but I noticed he wasn't going to cap anything that mattered except maybe Magic(IIRC, don't have his caps up right now) so screw it. Anyways with Boots and Knight Ring he's pretty awesome. He's not much without at least one of them but hey! >_>
Ulki, Janaff: I used one of them for the map you need them to get Naesala off the damn map right now oh god go awaaayyyy oooh Knight Ring, and they were...blandly okay there(It was Ulki). Ulki's better just because ooh evade boost but meh I dunno. They don't strike me as bad but they're so damn bland and they show up during the time of ballista spam. Good timing there.
Calill: Used her like once. She's pretty damn good but again I was fed up with mages late.
Tauroneo: Used him when I recruited him to kill two people just you know because. Terrible but has Resolve so better than some people.
Ranulf: Bla bla no Laguz slots bla. He's okay.
Haar: I think he gained a level for me. Good secondary tank to have around, I can't see not using him if you're lacking on fliers for some reason but he doesn't stand out stunningly in any way. He's nice enough though.
Bastian: Worse than Calill. Worse than Tauroneo for that matter. Worst character in the game overall? PERHAPS.
Lucia: Also pretty horrible. I didn't use either Bastian or Lucia. Even on the map they get deployed free on. They just stayed back near the start and a flier picked up people that got near them instead IIRC. Notable for having fairly comparable stats to Stefan's *start* at L20. ^_^
Geoffrey: 20/20. 49 HP, 22 Strength, 11 Magic, 22 Skill, 27 Speed(cap), 16 Luck, 27 Defense(cap), 13 Res. Got the Knight Ward from the moment he joined but the defense is still marginally miraculous(although it may have involved a Dragonshield. I forget.). Oh right I ditched Kieran for him solely because he was far more likely to hit 20/20. I don't regret it too much, he did fine. Definitely the best lategame prepromo, and there's solid competition there.
Largo: Didn't use. Cool but didn't need him. For why, see: Boyd.
Elincia: L20. 42 HP, 14 Strength, 25(Cap) Magic, 26(Cap) Skill, 25 Speed, 30 Luck, 14 Defense, 23 Res. So it turns out it only takes like 25 turns to hit 20/20 if you abused Fortify, Ashera Staff and Hammerne. Go figure. Too bad she didn't get a better carryover. (Incidentally she was L3 on entering the final stage.)
Ena: Gained a level. Was not very useful at any point. god damnit FAQs you should have mentioned the range 1 thing jerks grrrrrrrrrrrrrr I even gave her Wrath and Resolve and it didn't help because Ashnard could double and kill even if I had given her Speedwings.
Giffca: Was deployed solely to be a giant awesome black lion who eats Ashnard's sorry ass and to give his FE10 self +2 Strength. At least I think that works. I don't think words ever really describe how awesome Laguz Royals are, simply put. So shiny.
And that's it. If you read all of this you are probably Elfboy. If you are not Elfboy you should be worried that his mind control rays are working on you. Or happy. I dunno.
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If you read all of this you are probably Elfboy.
... how did you guess?
Anyway if Ena had Resolve then Ashnard couldn't double her as long as he made the first attack. Granted, on NM this probably isn't worth caring about (Ashnard doesn't move and you have a royal), but on HM using the dragon as part of the surrounding Ashnard strategy is really valuable. Ashnard isn't going to attack Ike (unless your Ike is seriously speed or def-screwed) since Ragnell ensures he won't be your frailest PC in the surrounding circle, but he -thinks- he can double the dragon and whoops, WROOONNNNNGGGG! Resolve is awesome. Anyway this is the fastest and safest way I've found for dealing with HM Ashnard (who is quite a pest), since otherwise he'll use his attack on someone who can't counter him and get more time to regen.
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*reads* SHIIIIINY~
PW3- Finished. Poor pearl. Poor poor pearl.
Not a lot else to say. Godot, while enjoyable during Courtroom Antics phases, makes any in depth analysis of the plot annoying because he's just a terrible person. And he's pretty well central to every case except 3-2, so.
Oh, wait. Great game for villains otherwise. Luke Atmey will forever haunt us with his furious jerking motion defeat pose (seriously, who checked those sprites and why didn't they get their pay knocked down to Gumshoe levels?), and Dahlia is, well, awesome. Just a joy to watch.
I have nothing positive to say about the gameplay here. I think every investigation hit a point of FAQing, and the last two cases had some utterly baffling use of evidence in the courtroom. With just PW2 to go, only PW5 has managed to have enjoyable gameplay. Fortunately I don't care very much about that.
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If you read all of this you are probably Elfboy.
... how did you guess?
Anyway if Ena had Resolve then Ashnard couldn't double her as long as he made the first attack. Granted, on NM this probably isn't worth caring about (Ashnard doesn't move and you have a royal), but on HM using the dragon as part of the surrounding Ashnard strategy is really valuable. Ashnard isn't going to attack Ike (unless your Ike is seriously speed or def-screwed) since Ragnell ensures he won't be your frailest PC in the surrounding circle, but he -thinks- he can double the dragon and whoops, WROOONNNNNGGGG! Resolve is awesome. Anyway this is the fastest and safest way I've found for dealing with HM Ashnard (who is quite a pest), since otherwise he'll use his attack on someone who can't counter him and get more time to regen.
Wait, Resolve actually kicks on so fast it'll negate the second hit in the same *attack* if the enemy attacks first? Wow. That never occured to me, would have had her up there and smashing if I'd known. Nice. I had a high enough opinion of that skill to start with.
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It also allows doubling if it can occur with the post-Resolve speed, yeah. It's pretty much an uber skill.
Still doesn't save Tauroneo though. :(
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It saves him from being worse than Bastian!
Probably.
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Oh, almost certainly. I just feel like ranting after last playthrough.
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And that's it. If you read all of this you are probably Elfboy. If you are not Elfboy you should be worried that his mind control rays are working on you. Or happy. I dunno.
Wahhhhh! I hate mind control rays!!! *puts on a tin foil hat*
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Like you've got any chance of avoiding them. He knows where you live!
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Tin foil solves all problems
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...wait, shit, -I- read the entire thing.
...and I've not even played FE9. >_>
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Probably more likely that I'm Elfboy than that I'm being mind controlled by him.
I'd have used Ilyana myself, but I never go without at least one mage - and she always, ALWAYS has above-average magic and crazy speed-blessedness for me. Makes it hard to be objective about rating her after she helped out so much on my first Hard Mode. This was also the playthrough where my Marcia did the same thing with Def as yours did, so it's not unprecedented.
Boyd really is a brute. Always my kill leader when I use him, though that's in part because I've only once used Titania through to endgame, and I didn't use him on that run.
Definitely agree on the map design and skill opinions. I know someone who loves FE4's skills and special weapons, and my reaction is "but that's all the game is!"
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Yeah read through it as well. Needed more kicking Ashnard in the face for stupid stupid plot.
Kind of made me want to force Dolphin to work and finish the game though. Then hack the fuck out of it even more and 20/20 everyone and stat cap them all for pointless stupid FE10 carry overs for lawl reason..
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And that's it. If you read all of this you are probably Elfboy. If you are not Elfboy you should be worried that his mind control rays are working on you. Or happy. I dunno.
... wait a minute I live in CANADA!?
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Canada took over the world recently, haven't you heard?
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Yeah read through it as well. Needed more kicking Ashnard in the face for stupid stupid plot.
Kind of made me want to force Dolphin to work and finish the game though. Then hack the fuck out of it even more and 20/20 everyone and stat cap them all for pointless stupid FE10 carry overs for lawl reason..
Ashnard?
I'm sorry I was too busy laughing my ass off at Bertram, I think it was? to even notice Ashnard.
This game has such compelling villians. I mean...they're dark! And evil! AND THEY EAT BABIES PERSECUTE JEWISH PEOPLE LAGUZ. *Cower.* (Originality? What's that? IS doesn't roll that way baby.)
Edit: Actually the more I think about it the more the Twisted Tower/ending stuff makes Ashnard a Nazi. Wow.
Edit 2:
I'd have used Ilyana myself, but I never go without at least one mage - and she always, ALWAYS has above-average magic and crazy speed-blessedness for me.
Oh yeah, Ilyana has more potential to get a lucky bless than Soren. Soren doesn't need much strength to be good but at a horrible 5% rate it's not likely to happen. Ilyana has a much better chance of ending up three or four Speed up than Soren does two Strength. Things do change up if you give him a Strength booster(Or you can go Elfboy's way of just giving him a speed boost, but personally I think he's going to slam speed caps at points if you do that. Strength's more long term. Both work though, he mostly just needs a little more speed either way from what I saw.), but that's only NG+.
I don't really dislike FE9 mages on paper. It's just when I go to use them that I start getting annoyed. I like them somewhat in theory, but the game's so small of a deployment set and so huge of a cast that I tend to not like people that aren't performing well both out of the box and later on. Too easy of criteria to fulfill for me to bother with people that can't.
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Doesn't hurt that I've beaten the game... six or seven times now? Eventually I need to do a playthrough to cover characters I haven't used like Tormod and Makalov. All the freaking Laguz too.
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I read the general gameplay notes then ctrl+f'ed "capped" through the list of people.
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Cross Edge- Beaten. It was okay. A nice little diversion. Not quite as fun as Chaos Wars overall, as I was just skipping over all plot related stuff by the end, but worth playing at least. Gameplay was good, but it began to feel a little tedious. Got the True End. Surprised there was no "Congratulations!"
The very end was very D'awwwwww. Cute.
Aftergame has a pretty good sense of humor. Just want to get that 400-hit trophy before I put it down, but it'll require building up Felicia and Lazarus.
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FF13 - 2 trophys left, the 5 star all missions and get all equipment one. Only 5 missions left to 5 star and I've already 5 stared missions 62 and 64 so it'll be cake, getting the last one will be painful though. Team is Fang, Light and Snow.
SO2 - I really like tournaments in games but the one in SO2? Laaaaaaaaaammmmmme. Was it so much to ask to allow you to control Mr Flac as he utterly destroys everybody? Also what the hell is everyone in this game on anyway? "Oh Claude you nearly had him but he managed to come back barely"....NOT! What is this bullshit. Mr Flac crushed that jerk claude in seconds, it wasn't a fight.
Also why does everyone in your party but Ashton refer to you as Claude? urrh Whatever.
Party is Rena, Claude, Ashton and Presis. Mr Flac joins soon right? So who to drop? I was thinking of dropping Claude for generally being an annoying git. "God Rena if you don't need me then don't talk to me geez. You were out with Mr Flac? YOU'VE BETRAYED ME! JUST GO I KNOW WHERE YOUR EMOTIONS LIE!"
Though bravo to the guys down at Tri Ace though. I mean I thought I'd just end up calling Claude generic hero guy and Mr Flac brooding badass guy but I don't feel calling them that is right. Mr Flac I have no issue with and considering he is one to the few characters with development it breaks up the crap involving the other two. Claude meanwhile annoys me as while he is the standard nice guy hero he seems to become a right twat when Mr Flac is nearby.
Anyway enough about that. I got a birthday present that was 5 months late yesterday, White Knight chronicles. I thanked him because I didn't want to sound ungrateful but I'm of the mindset I'm going to hate it from what I've seen and heard.
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Anyway enough about that. I got a birthday present that was 5 months late yesterday, White Knight chronicles. I thanked him because I didn't want to sound ungrateful but I'm of the mindset I'm going to hate it from what I've seen and heard.
Yeah probably. Because it sucks.
Also they're making a sequel which will have WKC1 with WKC2's improvements anyway (but forces you to play WKC1 to play WKC2).
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Spectral Souls - Finished the HM2 battle. It was a joke because Hiro is broked as hell. PLOT scene afterward said that Simba Army lost due to lack of experience. Uh. No. Simba Army lost due to lack of Hiro.
Did the first BP and the Otherworld Gate for Simba Army in the next chapter, then recruited Yaku Mu. Massive plot fail there but whatever. He uses staves and looks to be a hybrid... but has no magic skills and less than half the INT as Corwin and his STR is less than his INT. Not sure if want.
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Also why does everyone in your party but Ashton refer to you as Claude? urrh Whatever.
Because that's his name? I don't understand this complaint. And what does Ashton call him?
Party is Rena, Claude, Ashton and Presis. Mr Flac joins soon right?
Dias only joins if you did Rena's path.
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Crawd?
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KURODDO, of course.
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SO2 - I really like tournaments in games but the one in SO2? Laaaaaaaaaammmmmme. Was it so much to ask to allow you to control Mr Flac as he utterly destroys everybody? Also what the hell is everyone in this game on anyway? "Oh Claude you nearly had him but he managed to come back barely"....NOT! What is this bullshit. Mr Flac crushed that jerk claude in seconds, it wasn't a fight.
Also why does everyone in your party but Ashton refer to you as Claude? urrh Whatever.
Party is Rena, Claude, Ashton and Presis. Mr Flac joins soon right? So who to drop? I was thinking of dropping Claude for generally being an annoying git. "God Rena if you don't need me then don't talk to me geez. You were out with Mr Flac? YOU'VE BETRAYED ME! JUST GO I KNOW WHERE YOUR EMOTIONS LIE!"
Though bravo to the guys down at Tri Ace though. I mean I thought I'd just end up calling Claude generic hero guy and Mr Flac brooding badass guy but I don't feel calling them that is right. Mr Flac I have no issue with and considering he is one to the few characters with development it breaks up the crap involving the other two. Claude meanwhile annoys me as while he is the standard nice guy hero he seems to become a right twat when Mr Flac is nearby.
Gameplay and plot segregation! Don't you love it?
As for who to drop, eh probably Ashton to be honest, but this is SO2, so it doesn't really matter who you pick. If you are going to control someone I would pick Dias, but I always pick Dias. Don't do the lame boring mega zzzzzzzzzz route and spam Air Slash, it will make the next 30 hours incredibly snoozetastic.
Anyway, you have one dungeon of using Leon, lots of talking and then you will get Dias if you are playing as Rena. Then you get the awesome fun of like 2 plot boss fights in a row! Yay Shin! Seriously you are about to experience the first real climax the game has to offer and it is going to be incredibly underwhelming.
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Pokeplatinum
Died once on the rock gym, just wasn't prepared for the mightiness of Cranidos. Too many scrubs and trainer pokemon, too. Came back with Onyx to weaken, made it through, though not without difficulty. Holy offense batman.
Gym 2 wasn't such a big deal, but I had a team relatively suited to it.
The penguin isn't actually really impressing. Terrible move selection at early levels (Bubble and Pound for offense? Seriously?). Just evolved, Metal Claw is a marginal improvement, still no good water moves.
Stupid beaver thing got benched. Psyduck too, more for redundancy than for fail. Evolved the cricket and benched it too.
Budew doing pretty well. Will probably keep for theme reasons. Roselia etc. look good enough on paper.
Shinx... defintely a project, much better now that he's got Spark. Took way too long for it to get an electric attack. Keep for theme reasons; lion.
Starly's time in the sun is probably fast, though it carried me through the grass gym competently enough.
Driftloom will likely replace it, for novelty if nothing else. Keeps the normals/fighting down, much better than some loser geodude.
Ponyta is sitting in for now, probably won't keep. Not because it isn't doing fine, I'm just not really interested in ponyta at this stage of my life.
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Starly is basically amazing at a variety of levels! Much better than his predecessors.
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Spectral Souls - Finished the HM2 battle. It was a joke because Hiro is broked as hell. PLOT scene afterward said that Simba Army lost due to lack of experience. Uh. No. Simba Army lost due to lack of Hiro.
This is not a fair statement, not at all
Blaze Union-
Gulcasa (in Genocide mode)- 理不尽を壊すのだ!!
Me- いやいや 理不尽のはあなたな自身なのですよ
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Starly is basically amazing at a variety of levels! Much better than his predecessors.
Better hair, certainly. Just became Staravia, but anyhow. Mostly getting worse by comparison; Wing Attack was just so totally the best move I had access to for quite a while. No longer quite as dominant speed-wise either. Still totally decent. Probably won't keep her for theme reasons, ultimately (given I can find an eagle); starlings are totally lower-middle class in the bird hierarchy, and even raptors are no better than say... barons or so.
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So since you are sticking to the theme you need more Geodude. Because Bad Dudes save the president and they are the kings of the entire fucking universe.
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Lunar Genesis -
Because they cannot charter the Caldor-Wrick ferry to take them to the Ghulian continent for some reason, instead they walk there through a couple of caves beneath the ocean. So upon entering the first town they see in Ghulian what is the first new information they find out? That the Ghulian-Caldor ferry has just opened for service :D! Knowing Jian, he was probably fully aware that this was happening and withheld the information just so they would have to go cavewalking. Especially since the courier service he works for has depots in Ghulian... is the implication here that until now they have been transporting everything through that route?
The existing ferry GOES RIGHT PAST THE PLACE
(http://twilkitri.fewiki.net/stuff/lunargenesisferryroute.png)
Meanwhile in the city at one point Flora can waffle on about HOW DID THESE GUYS GET A WHOLE BARREL OF GHULIAN APPLES THEY ARE LIEK MY FAVOURITE when a) THEY ARE IN FREAKING GHULIAN and b) YOU SPENT YOUR ENTIRE LIFE UNTIL NOW IN A HOLE FLORA YOU HAVE NEVER HAD ONE
Black Dragon Cave! We jump into holes looking for a photon power plant. Maybe Titus was getting his caves mixed up earlier when he said we had to jump into holes in Red Dragon Cave and we didn't. Typically, the hole for the plant was almost the last thing I did in the cave before fighting the Black Dragon, so a great deal of help it was (assuming it wasn't mandatory to get in to see the Dragon anyway, as I didn't try beforehand).
The Black Dragon was much better than the previous two dragons. It didn't waste any turns. It was still not particularly difficult. The fight turned out to have a second section however which stepped things up a fair bit... the second enemy having a 2-3 HKO MT breakdance move. Fortunately it only used it on me twice, but those two times were consecutively -_- It used it once which resulted in Jian and Flora getting knocked down, then on my next turn I went to have Gabryel use the fully-restore-downed-people card only to find that it managed to go first and use it again D: Fortunately for me she managed to survive on double-digit hp, and it never ended up using that attack again, so everything ended up going finely and dandily.
Blue Dragon Cave! We unblock a number of tiny fountains, which somehow reduces pressure enough to remove a whacking great waterfall from blocking access to the Blue Dragon. We also get an item which cuts MP costs in 3, making Flora's buffs somewhat usable. The Blue Dragon was a return to form for the dragons with the reappearance of dead turns. Why exactly were these necessary. The Blue Dragon also manages to vastly overrate Jian's intelligence. Especially since he speaks a bit about how Ignatius is waiting at the Cathedral for the seal to be broken and the first thing that Jian & Co decide is necessary to do afterwards is to head off to the Frontier to stop him. Sadly I expect that this will be the right decision.
I assumed that the reason Jian wasn't able to use his magics was that he needed to collect them all first and was confounded when I finished the dragon set and his magics didn't unlock. But I have just now noticed that it looks like he needs to equip elemental rings in order to use the matching elemental magic. So he can only use one element at a time and it blocks him from equipping say the Counter items. That's terrific.
Heading back to Blue Dragon Cave to collect stone foliage now.
[EDIT]
If I had realised I was close to finishing I would have held off from posting until I had done so.
Anyway, finished.
As it turns out Ignatius was at the Cathedral but Vile Castle was still the right place to go anyway. How Jian is supposed to have intuited this is unknowable.
Anyway, finished.
I would not say that the final boss came out of nowhere exactly, but it was a character that very little had been done with throughout the game. Rufus really needed more time devoted to him as well, especially since his sword was apparently special in some way that's never specified as far as I saw.
Anyway, finished.
The ending was fairly atrocious. Jian is fine in a manner of speaking with Ignatius manipulating Althena but goes off the handle when Althena gets in the way of an attack Ignatius is making and gets hit. Then Althena tries to convince Jian to use the tactics that he had already been trying and failing at. All in all Ignatius ends up losing thoroughly unclimactically and not really directly due to the actions of the heroes. And Titus, another character they occassionally try to convince is is important but is barely relevant, ends up turning into a monster for some reason.
Anyway, finished.
I tried out Jian's magic and it was much better than I was expecting, wiping the floor with Gabryel's technique. Ended up leaving him with magic and assigning countering to Gabryel, although it would probably have been better to have left her with the Force Ring. Plus, his magic was boosted by Flora's attack-boosting buff, which worked wonders considering it was already so powerful.
All in all, the game was competent in terms of gameplay and mediocre in terms of story. Fairly good times were had. Most of all, random equipment breaking needed to not exist, but it seemed to cease being a problem later on - I may have just been being lucky however.
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Yeah, you were nothing but lucky there - I continued to have problems with equipment breaking, even after obtaining the character "ultimates".
I'd say gameplay would've been better for two things:
1) Equipment breaking going away, as you mentioned.
2) Being able to target enemies, though this is less important, since it pretty much ties directly into the first.
Magic fails for being too expensive, nothing in the game (including the final boss) is immune to poison, Jian never stops being stupidly good (compared to just really good) at damage, cards for godlike, and the most interesting thing about the characters is that Flora mentions she has a fear of heights.
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I was aware that everything was vulnerable to poison, but it's only 5% damage as far as I understood things, so it's not all that great if that is indeed the case.
Mostly what I found impressive about magic (Jian's magic at least) is that it does similar damage as he would have done with a no-miss regular attack, but to every enemy in the battle, and with no chance of missing. It is a bit unnecessary when against single enemies like the final but mildly glee inducing to do 1000+ damage hits with it after several attack buffs. I still had 7 or so uses of the full-MP-restore card at the time I started using it generally (and Jian had enough MP for 6 shots) so I just ran with it.
Now Flora's magic I can easily see as failing for expensiveness.
I was generally antsy about relying on cards in case I ran out of charges and didn't have anything else to fall back on. Game was generally far too easy for this sort of mindset to be appropriate however - if I ever replay for some reason I will probably ride them harder.
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Since I couldn't stand how you couldn't choose your targets in Lunar DS, I just never used anything that didn't hit every enemy from the second I got Jian's first Dragon Ring. Then the game became an exercise of 'how long can I go before I have to use the MP-restore card?', which ended up being a much more enjoyable time-wasting activity than pretty much everything else in LunarDS.
XS2: Where the fuck did this Orgulla bitch come from? Why does she have multiple personalities? Controller-throwing good times.
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XS2: Where the fuck did this Orgulla bitch come from? Why does she have multiple personalities? Controller-throwing good times.
Hey! Give her credit! She's had one scene...on a video screen or something...really early in the game...and didn't get named nor really do anything significant other than say a few stock lines!
...yeah, I'm not really helping am I?
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Orgulla existed to get DL ranking hype for the sole reason of being a Godlike in spite of essentially negative screentime. >_>
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Because that's his name? I don't understand this complaint. And what does Ashton call him?
Did I mention I'm playing as Rena.
Anyway, you have one dungeon of using Leon, lots of talking and then you will get Dias if you are playing as Rena. Then you get the awesome fun of like 2 plot boss fights in a row! Yay Shin! Seriously you are about to experience the first real climax the game has to offer and it is going to be incredibly underwhelming.
I actually am looking foward to it as it'll be nice for something to actually happen for once.
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So since you are sticking to the theme you need more Geodude. Because Bad Dudes save the president and they are the kings of the entire fucking universe.
Geodude is a rock, not a diamond. Peasant material. He can hang out with the worms, guinea pigs and messenger angels.
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PokemonSS - Got Lugia. Kimono girl fight was the hardest in the game so far, all of them except Flareon were pretty tough in their own way and it's technically five separate fights so no buff cheese. Game has generally been too easy otherwise, despite the improvements... really highlights the problems with original gen 2 in this regard. Clair got nothing but better I think (Dragon Pulse > Dragonbreath overall?) and still doesn't compare especially well with the better fights in Emerald. Chuck and Pryce are still pretty bad.
Honestly, though, my biggest annoyance was with the whole Mahogany arc. What the fuck, guys? No, Level 18-20 trainers AFTER YOU BEAT THE SIXTH GYM is just stupid. I get that they made them so bad because you can go here straight after Ecruteak, but that's still just a stupid design decision. Either make them tougher and make people work for their sequence-breaking, or if you're too worried about the kids being swept by Team Rocket's Level 30 Weezing when they only have 4 badges, then make Jasmine the damn trigger for Strength and put a boulder between Ecruteak and Mahogany. Not hard. It would have prevented a good two hours of stupid.
Voltorb Flip still owns my soul, I've racked up some 30k+ points in it. Sadly don't have too much to use it on, either, besides Swords Dance for Feraligatr and Thunderbolt for Girafarig (my replacement for Togetic, since he has BP and Agility at low levels and both psy and elec are types my team would appreciate).
Team otherwise remains:
Jumpluff - dirty whore and probably MVP because of it, go first and use 82.5% accurate Sleep Powder then Leech Seed and Flashflashflashflash, very little can deal with this. The reason I beat Clair first try.
Crobat - Runner-up for the MVP title, 130 base speed and a 95 power STAB attack means he hurts things, fast Confuse Ray gives him good utility and Roost is certainly handy.
Ninetales - Would be better if fire didn't suck, or if I could just find him a second special type (Dark Pulse coming in the aftergame). Nasty Plot, good speed, and two status attacks helps out, but fire really limits his use, just too many water and rock enemies in this game.
Feraligatr - Still waiting for the real payoff here, although he does murder Flareon! I imagine he'll be good against the E4 then, with Swords Dance Waterfall/Ice Fang sweepery.
Steelix - Walls some things really well, which is nice. Offence impresses nobody, but Screech helps.
Girafarig - Fills a type niche and BPs the occasional Agility.
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Level 18-20 is STILL lower than Morty's levels anyhow. The one time I sequence breaked in GSC and went to Mahogany first, I remember steamrolling all the trainers in Rocket Hideout anyway, so they could stand to see a boost even assuming that someone goes east from Ecruteak first.
At least Pryce doesn't get swept by a Sunflora this time!
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I was aware that everything was vulnerable to poison, but it's only 5% damage as far as I understood things, so it's not all that great if that is indeed the case.
The main use of it is that it's ALMOST better than a scan spell. Deals 5% of their mHP damage per turn, so you know what their general cHP is after a bit of numbercrunching. Almost could be considered for Flora dealing damage instead of being a card girl, at that.
WA4: Just saved outside the Sea of Trees. Scythe was a piece of cake since he didn't kill Yulie, who had revive, and Belial wasn't that much of a threat thanks to her low HP versus a multi-Intrude chain and Joint Struggle. Trying to net some good stuff with Item Steal is proving a pain, though.
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X-Com: Still killing stuff. Too many sectoids and they grow tiresome. Mutons show up now and they are somewhat badass. Research indicates I need to capture a leader alien and interrogate it, so mindreading and stunning engage, I guess.
SMBX: Zenny linked this a few days ago, been playing this as well. It's pretty cool, though I fail somewhat at finding alternate exits to levels. I did at least find a house that gives me hammer suits for free ad infinitum, though, so that's convenient.
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FE9 - =)!
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X-Com: Still killing stuff. Too many sectoids and they grow tiresome. Mutons show up now and they are somewhat badass. Research indicates I need to capture a leader alien and interrogate it, so mindreading and stunning engage, I guess.
SMBX: Zenny linked this a few days ago, been playing this as well. It's pretty cool, though I fail somewhat at finding alternate exits to levels. I did at least find a house that gives me hammer suits for free ad infinitum, though, so that's convenient.
Mutons are resistant to regular bullets, so if you are still using Auto-Cannon then swich to HE rounds (which is the answer to all problems anyway), but yeah Laser Rifles handle them. They have like 20 more health than Sectoids do and better armour, so yeah they might seem a bit tougher, but they aren't really anything to worry to much about.
If you want a Leader you are going to want to get a big ship that is the culmination of an alien campaign (you will start to see this when you get Hyperwave Decoders, aliens slowly work their way up to sending out big ships by doing recon with progressively larger ships. Start with a small/Medium Scout, then a Large Scout (or more sometimes) and then send in the big ship) so either an Abductor, Harvester, Terror Ship, Supply Ship or Battle Ship. You don't need to really scan every enemy if you get to the area soon after shooting it down (Send out Sky Ranger at the same time as your interceptor(s) or if you are feeling really lucky, before you send them ooooorrrrr just have an Avenger loaded with people shoot them down), the enemies actually spawn in fairly logical places based off of their role. Soldiers are the ones you are likely to find out and about, Engineers tend to be in the room with the Alien Power Supplies (which is why they get harder to find late game, when you start shooting shit down with Plasma Beams the Power Supplies start to go boom), Navigators and Leaders are almost always in the cockpit full of Alien Navigation.
Have I mentioned that this game is so awesome?
And I believe the done thing when you are playing SMBX is to link to it in the Misc Links topic.
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Alpha Protocol -
Restarted on Normal mode exclusively for the reason of making the dumb mini-games easier, since I don't care for blowing EMPs on every single one. In particular, the lock-picking controls are so weirdly clunky (perhaps they're better on the consoles?) that occasionally I'd run across one that I literally could not complete in the allotted time. It was weird. As far as the rest of the gameplay goes, I've managed to fix the mouse sensitivity issues that were driving me nuts, so all is well.
So: Normal difficulty, Tech Specialist, largely training in Stealth/Assault Rifles/Sabotage/Technical Expertise. He wears aviators and has a giant scruffy beard. He calls it his freedom beard. I just finished the Saudi missions and started things rolling in Taipei, so the game is definitely only now starting to hit its stride. I do like the way that things are starting to pan out, though. And Steven Heck seems like he might be funny? He also seems like he might be obnoxious and horrible, but I cannot yet tell. All I know is that his sociopathic tendencies greatly appeal to my Thorton's Jack Bauer-esque levels of aggression. He also hates Sean Darcy and finds Mina Tang and Scarlet Lake obnoxious. Yet Mina's still all over him, for some reason. Oh well. Women, you know?
Man, you guys make X-COM sound so fun, yet the one time I tried it out I found it completely inscrutable.
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Demon's Souls: Beaten after a long hiatus. Not much to say on this game that hasn't been said already. It manages to be a downright scary adventure game without being an outright horror game. There is so much nightmare fuel in this game. So very much.
The game will be remembered for some of the more dick moves it pulled, and the (sometimes cheap) ways I got around them. Warding made things so much better it wasn't funny though. The difference between being OHKO'd and being 3HKO'd is kind of important! Warding is badass like that.
Heavenly Sword: Older game but it was fun, if terribly short. Kai's sections with the motion-controlled sniping were a blast. The ordinary combat was cute, and the game so short that it stayed 'fresh' the entire time. Not much else to say about it. The plot is pretty laughable but there is sufficient hamminess to be enjoyable!
Not sure what I'm going to play now.
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Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia
Don't even remember buying this game, yet there it was sitting on my shelf with all my other DS games. And the funny part was that I was really Jonesing to play this game, but didn't think I owned it! SCORE!
Plowed through the normal parts fo the game and am currently in Draculas castle. I'll tell you what I have no luck in this game. I have been tryign to collect all the glyphs from each of the monsters that drop them and they have been stuborn as hell. Also, I didn't know you get medals for beating bosses if you took no damage. Only boss where I accomplished that was the wall guy in Dracs Castle.
Fun game, lots of fetch quest type adventures to be had. These games usually always deliver.
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Alpha Protocol -
Restarted on Normal mode exclusively for the reason of making the dumb mini-games easier, since I don't care for blowing EMPs on every single one. In particular, the lock-picking controls are so weirdly clunky (perhaps they're better on the consoles?) that occasionally I'd run across one that I literally could not complete in the allotted time. It was weird. As far as the rest of the gameplay goes, I've managed to fix the mouse sensitivity issues that were driving me nuts, so all is well.
So: Normal difficulty, Tech Specialist, largely training in Stealth/Assault Rifles/Sabotage/Technical Expertise. He wears aviators and has a giant scruffy beard. He calls it his freedom beard. I just finished the Saudi missions and started things rolling in Taipei, so the game is definitely only now starting to hit its stride. I do like the way that things are starting to pan out, though. And Steven Heck seems like he might be funny? He also seems like he might be obnoxious and horrible, but I cannot yet tell. All I know is that his sociopathic tendencies greatly appeal to my Thorton's Jack Bauer-esque levels of aggression. He also hates Sean Darcy and finds Mina Tang and Scarlet Lake obnoxious. Yet Mina's still all over him, for some reason. Oh well. Women, you know?
Man, you guys make X-COM sound so fun, yet the one time I tried it out I found it completely inscrutable.
There's still the classic "totally useless" Bond girl to come, so you still have someone to bang.
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LFT: About to get betrayed by Gafgarion.
Almost got owned in Dorter 2 by a lone Archer hiding in the corner. The only way I could attack her was with my 2 mages, and both were out of MP. I poison her, bide my time until someone crystalizes... and then Gafgarion steals the crystal. He then proceeds to Haste me repeatedly. I secret fist him partially out of spite, but mostly so he cuts his shit and lets one of my mages take the crystal.
Agrias steals the next one, but makes herself more useful by raising my fallen units. For some reason she completely refuses to go up and Stasis Sword the archer and end the battle. Poison wears off, I start worrying that I'm going to have to redo the battle because of this nonsense. In any case, eventually I get lucky and another enemy crystalizes near my Black Wizard, so I go up to magic her to death... and Agrias finally decides to use SS and end the match.
Fuck you, game.
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New Super Mario Bros Wii- Halfway through world 5 now. Pretty fun thus far, I'd say it's definately better than NSMB DS as of now, though not quite SMB3/W level.
The Good:
Stage design is varied and interesting. World 1 was just plain easy and World 2 had some gimmicks that I was iffy on, but I've really been liking world 3 and upwards so far. Difficulty is much higher than NSMB DS; it's SMB3 level at least, and feels somewhat harder to me thus far.
Item storage ala SMB3 returns. Yay!
Lots of design callbacks from SMB3 and SMW, even a few from Yoshi's Island. Koopalings, fence climbing, airship levels (complete with the movable nuts), POW blocks, and a bunch of other stuff are back, and most are integrated pretty well into gameplay.
Penguin Mario is pretty much Frog Suit + Ice Flower + Blue Shell from NSMB DS. This is a surprisingly effective package.
The okay:
Ice Flowers are a lot harder to use than Fire Flowers, the ice balls bounce at higher angles and last shorter making them harder to use offensively. Conversely, they can kill a bunch of things that Fireballs can't, like Dry Bones, so it's a fair tradeoff. The only sorta-complaint is that Fire Flowers are kinda rare now, with Ice Flowers being more common.
Yoshi controls well enough, but he can't be taken out of a level. :( I guess it'd screw up level balance in some cases, but still disappointing.
The bad:
Only being able to save after beating a fortress/castle/airship. BOO! I was hoping that they'd get enough complaints about that in the NSMB DS to fix it for this, but nope. You can even get it after beating the game, too, when it's lost a lot of usefulness. Quick Save helps to some extent, but not enough really.
Controller shaking feels really gimmicky, like it was put in just because this is a Wii game and they wanted to shove Wiimote functionality in there somehow. I can't think of anything that just using another button couldn't have done just as well, and with less risk of accidentally spin jumping. This goes for the whole Propeller Mario powerup, as well. I'm fine with the tilting functions, which are at least less prone to accidental screwups.
The "carry Toad to end of level" bonus feature is really annoying, as carrying Toad around restricts your options a lot and he dies pretty easily. Luckily this is totally optional, but the completionist in me gets irked by ignoring that and periodically makes (mostly futile) attempts at rescuing Toad when the captured Toad icon pops up on the world map.
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FFTA2: Back to this now that FFV is toast. Did a story battle against Illua, which would have been a lot trickier if I wasn't protected from darkness. Then left the Rift to protect the Yellow Wings from House Bowen, and...wow, that was the toughest mission yet. Took three retries, mainly because the Yellow Wings are (a) really underpowered, and (b) total morons. Seriously, why would an archer with her choice of five squares that all give her a shot from behind on her target choose to stand right next to him and get flattened by Bonecrusher? Fuck you too, AI.
/me checks FAQ...wow, the next fight is the final battle? Seriously? I thought there were more storyline characters to get. What about the Heritor class? The Scion summons?
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Cross Edge- Doing the postgame until I get the 3000 enemies beaten trophy. I got the 900 battles trophy within like, 5 or 6 fights when I started today. Can't be that far from it. All the PCs gotten at this point. They were pretty easy, now on 5-2. Overkilled Cursed Blade and beat Lindwurm. Stopped there. Lucky me though, an Angel Knight in Augustine's battle dropped a Gungnir
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Man, you guys make X-COM sound so fun, yet the one time I tried it out I found it completely inscrutable.
That was my initial reaction. So many buttons what is this I don't even. Just fiddle with it for a bit, it'll become clear.
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* Shale checks FAQ...wow, the next fight is the final battle? Seriously? I thought there were more storyline characters to get. What about the Heritor class? The Scion summons?
All optional. Vaan/Penelo can be gotten like right before the final battle, Heritor Class is obtainable anytime after Adelle does her temporary MIA stunt, and the Scions are gotten through...actually, I'm not sure, I think its any of those "Go to the other world' missions.
Its not hard to figure out where to go for things like these, but yeah, FFTA2's forced stuff is a very minimal thing. Its like I said; the game lacks any real plot, but doesn't pretend to have one either, so really, how long could the game be on forced stuff alone?
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Yeah, there's a reason I'm not saying the plot hasn't resolved itself yet. Hell, myabe it's because I haven't played the game for a while, but I honestly have no idea who this woman is (other than that she was bossing around Ewen) or what she wants. I just thought stuff like Heritor was forced.
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FE9 - =)!
It's funny, I have an utterly average Oscar in basically all ways. However, this hardly keeps him from being my non-Titania MVP. FE9 Cavs for fucking Godlike.
Anyhow, ninja edit for unit analysis on my noteworthy people:
Ike: L14, 28 HP, 12 Str. 5 Mag, 11 Skill, 14 Speed, 11 Luck, 11 Defense, 4 Res. Pretty normal. Solid unit, but doesn't truly impress me. Only one weapon type, the worst of them to boot, keep him not amazing.
Soren: L11, 29 HP (Seraphic Robe), 0 Str, 14 Mag, 13 Skill, 11 Speed, 9 Luck, 4 Defense, 15 Res. Solid too, got a bit Res-blessed. Robe keeps his pdur from being Lucius-tastic, at least.
Mia: L11, 22 HP, 11 Str, 3 Mag, 12 Skl, 16 Spd, 7 Luc, 8 Def, 5 Res. Durability of fail. Strength is solid, though, which keeps her a solid option.
Titania: L5, 35 HP, 14 Str, 5 Mag, 14 Skl, 16 Spd, 14 Luc, 13 Def, 8 Res. Utterly godlike so far. Titania is all but necessary to keep your party going, and giving her XP is worth the hassle, all things considered. She's been crazy awesome so far, with Axes and Lances to spam like a good girlscout.
Oscar: L15, 33 HP, 12 Str, 3 Mag, 11 Skl, 12 Spd (Speedwings), 7 Luc, 13 Def, 5 Res. As much defense as Titania while being about ten levels lower is a good start. Ike/Oscar support is fucking godly, the evade/defense boosts are delicious. Otherwise, he's an average Oscar, but an average Oscar rules the universe anyway.
Boyd: L14, 40 HP, 12 Str, 2 Mag, 10 Skl, 13 Spd, 9 Luc, 9 Def, 2 Res. Some pretty excellent speed so far. Strength isn't quite as impressive, though, but Axes help with that some. Fast axeman in a game like this is pretty much toodles anyway.
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The Saboteur: Cleared the story, at 60% optional freeform. The game can basically be summed up thusly: Captain Irish Stereotype, the love child of Wolverine and Altair, singlehandedly throws the Nazis out of Paris thanks to the occupiers having the attention spans of goldfish. Though given than I played 30 hours of it in five days, I rag on it because I like it. Just like you people.
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Yeah, there's a reason I'm not saying the plot hasn't resolved itself yet. Hell, myabe it's because I haven't played the game for a while, but I honestly have no idea who this woman is (other than that she was bossing around Ewen) or what she wants. I just thought stuff like Heritor was forced.
Well, considering the game's "plot" is basically just the Wizard of Oz with an FF-style twist (and a more optimistic main character), there's not a whole lot you can do or make resolved. IIRC, Illua's plot was basically just "some girl in a similar case as Luso, only took less of a 'lets have fun' approach and sort of just went all 'summon demons!'" Seriously, I'm not quite sure, I just recalled she also had a Grimoire like Luso, only hers wasn't filling up like his or something cause she didn't take the same "Oh, if I have fun, it'll fill up itself and then I get to go home? Well, that sounds like a great idea!" approach Luso did.
...really, though, I'm not sure; again, FFTA2 doesn't have any real plot and what's loosely there feels like the devs were like "We only put this in the game cause we felt it was some sort of subtle requirement to make you not have to do all 300 missions; really, we didn't want a story at all..."; stuff like Heritor was mostly just tossed in for "hey, Adelle is special! I Mean, SHE'S A FEMALE HUME SO SHE'S GOTTA DO SOMETHING!"
Female Humes are not special at all I know, its just Adelle, but Adelle is also the ONLY Female Hume PC in the game, so uh...<_<;. Then again, Cid and Luso are completely unspecial in terms of characters (though, Cid's a unique race...just he's identical to Banga gameplaywise, so its a huge "who cares" factor)...honestly, was it really that hard to give those two a unique Job just to make them stand out more? They gave one to Hurdy, Vaan and Penelo (Penelo being relative to Viera, mind), and the way unique jobs work in this game, there's really no penalty since its just "One extra job on your list" rather than "replaces Squire"
...and in the end, I realize I said like absolutely nothing that was probably relevant to your statement, whoo FFTA2 plot discussions?
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Soul Nomad- Had done a bit of a speed replay of this a bit back to get some stat topic notes/feel out a bit more. Notable differences in fights from the first time around:
Thuris 1: Had to grind+throw on full decors first time around. Didn't need to do either this time to beat it first time. Still a really solid fight, but after having analyzed the game, I had a much better handle on how to deal with it.
Dio: Killed everything on the field but Dio. He attacks Revya...and the 15% crit comes in. Yep, Revya's party is flat out OHKOed. Ow. Not a high probably this will happen, but still rather nasty!
Classes that saw more play in terms of early game leadership:
Deathblossom: Early archers have that nasty durability issue. Deathblossom has a lot more durability, but isn't as great against mages. Still, not a liability. Replaced by the special PCs range options of course.
Whirwin/Swordsman/Bandit/Gryphos: Partially because I was aiming to keep Levin so Levin was in Revya's party, partly because I was using all the Nereids with Juno. Whirwin had the evasion, Swordsman is the most consistent fighter, Bandit has a bad-ass special (High mult+murders the leader's offensive stats in case it does live), and Gryphos because the mobility+attacking breaking was a fun combo (Although I ditched it pretty quickly).
ToV- About to go Leviathan Claw's manor. Belius fight got me the first time around (didn't realize there is was an easier way to kill the shadow and I was ice magiced to death!). Hoping that the battle system kind of breaks out a little soon (Fairly typical Tales, which is okay, but waiting for the time when it takes it to the next level).
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Deadwood: The Game-
Wow, that ending actually kind of got to me. Congratulations, Rockstar. You elicited something of an emotional response.
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Wait? Rob has emotions?
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I'm as surprised as anyone.
ToS: Beat the Advanced Singles arena with everyone (starting with Zelos at level 60), beat the team arena, beat Abyssion (at level 64 or so, he was annoying). Game kind of rolls over and dies after all that - even the Cursed Book was a pushover. Now lovely Raine can Absorb 5 elements, Null 3, and resist physical attacks. Not that there's any enemies left worth using that against. Guess I'll work on figurines next. Only missing two rare monsters for monster list, but one's in the Ice temple which has been destroyed. So that and the Collector's Book will have to wait for the third playthrough.
Advance Wars Dual Strike: Finally got good at the Combat game, collecting the trophies for that.
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Wait? Rob has emotions?
Rob has emotions. He just buries them and bottles them up like a man.
Someone could learn a lesson or two from this, ahem.
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Good for you, Zenny! Admitting you have a problem is the first step. :D
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Late, but yeah, Scions are totally optional, Heritor skills are totally optional, Frimelda is totally optional, Van/Penelo are... I think you can at least miss Penelo before the final, don't recall if you can do the same with Van but FFTA2 plot. Bare bones.
Illua gets no details like ever, get used to this. She's still somehow a Heavy/Godlike to most interps. Somehow. >_> (Not to me! Buuut she doesn't like dealing with a team, ever.)
Really, there is one thing I'm actually kinda impressed at FFTA2 about, but at the same time find it kinda lame... eh, a rant for another time, even if it is FFTA2 PLOT. But yeah, FFTA2 is really a "do the sidequests and aftergame at least some" game, in theory, since... yeah. Rambling! Shutting up on FFTA2!
WA:ACF: Demon Prophet for Godlike. Chooses the weakest attack each round to get hit by out of three? Either that or he randomly chooses one of three people in the fight to get hit by each round. That plus fast MT 3HKO damage of any ACF element plus 3HKO counters to physicals... 66% chance to immune damage plus fast plus ...probably PCHP+ durability otherwise + pretty fast damage + if you allow it, Fate Storm to single targets (I'd limit it to when enemy has >33% mHP but that's me) = pain in the damn ass.
Otherwise, been having fun, recruited CALAMITY and TORRENTER so CALAMITY/TORRENTER/ENTER THE MATRIX has been my team for exploring. TORRENTER swaps for TAKE A NUMBER, I'M NOT CUTTING IN LINE AS WELL AS RAQUEL, SHUT UP once I've downloaded from all monsters in an area/dungeon. BANG BANG steps in for bosses.
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Yeah, there's a reason I'm not saying the plot hasn't resolved itself yet. Hell, myabe it's because I haven't played the game for a while, but I honestly have no idea who this woman is (other than that she was bossing around Ewen) or what she wants. I just thought stuff like Heritor was forced.
Well, considering the game's "plot" is basically just the Wizard of Oz with an FF-style twist (and a more optimistic main character), there's not a whole lot you can do or make resolved. IIRC, Illua's plot was basically just "some girl in a similar case as Luso, only took less of a 'lets have fun' approach and sort of just went all 'summon demons!'" Seriously, I'm not quite sure, I just recalled she also had a Grimoire like Luso, only hers wasn't filling up like his or something cause she didn't take the same "Oh, if I have fun, it'll fill up itself and then I get to go home? Well, that sounds like a great idea!" approach Luso did.
...really, though, I'm not sure; again, FFTA2 doesn't have any real plot and what's loosely there feels like the devs were like "We only put this in the game cause we felt it was some sort of subtle requirement to make you not have to do all 300 missions; really, we didn't want a story at all..."; stuff like Heritor was mostly just tossed in for "hey, Adelle is special! I Mean, SHE'S A FEMALE HUME SO SHE'S GOTTA DO SOMETHING!"
Female Humes are not special at all I know, its just Adelle, but Adelle is also the ONLY Female Hume PC in the game, so uh...<_<;. Then again, Cid and Luso are completely unspecial in terms of characters (though, Cid's a unique race...just he's identical to Banga gameplaywise, so its a huge "who cares" factor)...honestly, was it really that hard to give those two a unique Job just to make them stand out more? They gave one to Hurdy, Vaan and Penelo (Penelo being relative to Viera, mind), and the way unique jobs work in this game, there's really no penalty since its just "One extra job on your list" rather than "replaces Squire"
...and in the end, I realize I said like absolutely nothing that was probably relevant to your statement, whoo FFTA2 plot discussions?
My theory on FFTA2 is that they took the myriad FFTA fans who said "No, seriously, we'd prefer this game if it had no plot at all." exactly at their word. If I was going to remake make an extremely similar sequel to a game that had gotten a lot of flak, that'd be how I'd go about it, listening to complaints specifically.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn:
Started this up. Currently on 1-4.
The good:
Aesthetics are much better. I didn't instantly turn off normal animations(they are long and need a single-button-press skip and don't have one. :|) but did eventually. I like the music, although nothing particularly stands out.
Mages blow much less. Micaiah is actively *good* right now holy crap. I mean, she's not awesome front line tank but she is fine at what she does.
Knives don't suck. Even if they did it wouldn't matter because one of the people that gets them is a Jeigan.
They created some...interesting character builds as experimentation. Some didn't work(Leonardo) but the stats have some weird-ass people in there as well as generically standard builds. I like that they tried.
Basically everything about FE9 that was good still seems intact, although I'm not far enough to say if the design is worse in general or anything.
The bad:
1-3. 1-3 is like a more freeform version of that XF prison escape mission. I don't mind the game being hard-and, actually, this is part of why I forgive it more than the XF version, as FE10 does not pull punches at any stage here-but when I can't kill an archer across a wall, not because I lack healing items or staff users to handle the damage, but because only one of my dedicated range attackers can actually not get OHKOed by the counter and the people who aren't dedicated are over here trying to keep everyone from not dying....yeah.
(Also, putting a steal on a moving boss on the same stage? Seriously? I missed nothing really notable outside of Rexaura which I couldn't use in 9, but I've already missed a skill in this. Oh well.)
Mind, I've seen maps I disliked way worse, let's be clear. FE4 had that one bullshit stage where fifteen million pegknights swarmed your castle near the end, for instance, and I've played enough SRWs I shouldn't have to have seen some very, very bad map design. But I disliked this. Then again if this is the main issue I have with the game so far, that's pretty good, right?
Oh, and BEXP on early C1 stages, that's horrible too. To the point where I very seriously considered setting aside one of the early stages for staff/Sacrifice constant abuse just because I would lose nothing, and to the point where I actually did completely ignore the turn timer on 1-2 and 1-3. Seriously, guys? 80? For clearing in ten turns on 1-3? 80? Oh wow I can get 80% of the way from L1 to L2!!!!!!!!! Come on.
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My theory on FFTA2 is that they took the myriad FFTA fans who said "No, seriously, we'd prefer this game if it had no plot at all." exactly at their word. If I was going to remake make an extremely similar sequel to a game that had gotten a lot of flak, that'd be how I'd go about it, listening to complaints specifically.
Well, I couldn't get past the first third of FFTA, and I've logged almost 60 hours in FFTA2. I think it worked!
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This is the longest I've played any Dragon Quest game if anyone's curious. VII I immediately returned the next day. Either way, I made it to Baccarat finally, after being chased by some chicken enemy that I was uninterested in fighting. It's nice that they have such a huge target range to come attack me at. I'm hoping there is something later in the game that either cancels out or diminishes the encounter rate, because I seriously see no point in fighting in the battles. Auto does perfectly fine until a boss sometimes.
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(Also, putting a steal on a moving boss on the same stage? Seriously? I missed nothing really notable outside of Rexaura which I couldn't use in 9, but I've already missed a skill in this. Oh well.)
To be fair, it's a boss you can one-shot, so it's not so bad. Lure him forward with Sothe, steal, and have Micaiah blow him up. (If your Micaiah is Mag-screwed this may not be possible, but it just means you have Aran or someone toss in a shot first.)
Also, I'm a bit confused about your archer-behind-the-wall comments. I don't ever recall trying to kill an archer through a wall in that map. It doesn't shock me that it wouldn't work too well! FE10 enemy archers tend to be powerful attackers (the exact opposite of 9) and you want to kill them at melee. If he's behind a wall, you stay away from that wall until you can get to him. The game is going to pull some more situations with nasty enemy archers like this (ones on top of ledges in particular) so keep your eyes open.
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Wait? Rob has emotions?
Rob has emotions. He just buries them and bottles them up like a man.
Someone could learn a lesson or two from this, ahem.
I knew there was a reason I made an exception to my SOP and allowed you to have an opinion. Good call.
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Also, I'm a bit confused about your archer-behind-the-wall comments.
Less commentary on the basic concept(archer behind wall is scary and can hurt you badly!) and more how horrible some of your units are relative to the stage(Ranged attackers are not getting doubled, they are getting straight up one-shotted by a single bowshot from a unit that is, numerically, their level.). Admittedly had I leveled Leonardo he probably would have taken one hit, but the point is more that it's stunning that you have such nasty enemies against such an overall poor team, and one that you have no real chance to make better.
Even luck wouldn't help you, you'd need constant HP/Defense growth to really make even one of the mages worth taking any sort of a risk on on that map. And while I saw enemies get sub-50% rates on someone dodge-oriented... it was only against Micaiah with Sothe in support range. The game just very strictly funnels you into one strategy for clearing the map, with a possible second option for just running(which is a terrible idea for a lot of reasons and is only justifiable by someone really liking to finish maps fast.).
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Also, I'm a bit confused about your archer-behind-the-wall comments. I don't ever recall trying to kill an archer through a wall in that map.
If its the map I think it is then he means the archers on the right side next to a door. A non factor mostly but on hard mode I had to have Nolan throw axes through walls to kill them. Rushing in isn't really an option unless you want to risk a character dying.
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Spectral Souls - Taking Meu's army down the Otherworld Gate for some quick items and EXP. Bad place to gauge how good the PCs are since all the enemies suck, so can't really say anything there.
Chaos Wars - Started this again. Finished the first chapter. Best voice acting ever. That is all.
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Oh yeah, picked up Advance Wars: Dark Conflict pre-owned for cheap the other day. About 15 chapters through so far, including Trial Maps, and... well, it's decent. Not as good as Dual Strike or AW2, but still decent enough, and I'm not far enough in to say I like/dislike the characters yet (although they're hideously generic, but so were the old Orange Star characters.) Still, I'm missing my lack of Grit/Eagle/Lash. :(
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X-Com: Already getting tired of the mindhax. Is there any counter for this? Will likely stay the hell away from ethereal UFOs if not, or at least large ones. Made the first attempt at one of those yesterday and it went...poorly. Team got picked to pieces by infighting and ultimately the one guy I still had control over managed to run to the control room and frag the last two aliens before his allies could kill him. 11/14 soldiers lost, brutal. (Anyone still under alien control at mission's end goes MIA, I assume?) It was the B team, so it's not like I lost my core of top officers, but it was still a massive inconvenience and I reloaded an earlier save once the next encounter started going the same way. Seriously, fuck those guys for a while.
France and the U.S. signed pacts with the aliens and dropped out of X-Com. The money loss is only a minor inconvenience, but it makes me feel like I'm working against a hidden timer. Also, blaster launcher = fuuuck yes.
SMBX: Up to the lava area, which I assume means just about the end (I am running through the Invasion 2 scenario, if I didn't mention it before; I messed with the Castle scenario a bit too, but the level design there is uninventive by comparison. Very impressed with the I2 levels). Died a bunch on Hardmode Tanks (fuuuuck, homing koopa swarm. I need to come back with hammer suits, surely easier to aim with then the cannon), stopped for the night. Only a few earlier roadblocks still sitting around: can't find the second exit in Subcon Nightmare (I'm sure it has something to do with the random Mr. Saturn, but can't figure out what), Mother Brain (seriously, fuck that fight), and the star in the desert area (no red levels on the map, I dunno how to reach it. I guess the second exit's lurking in the pyramid, sandpit, or airship levels, but ew to searching some of those again).
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Hmm, generally prefer Days of Ruin myself. Though, with only 15 maps, you'll have just brushed parts of why this is. Namely, they made an attempt at adding a bit more depth to Naval and Air combat (I find that they generally succeeded at Naval, while the Duster didn't quite succeed), as well as generally preferring what they've done with the new COs, specifically removing map wide affects just for picking the guy. Later on you'll be able to play around with that system (granted, one person does still have a map wide effect just for picking them, but it's situational and their fixed bonuses aren't so hot. Of course, if there is weather effects in play, then congrats, barring huge skill differences, you have won.)
X-COM - Damn thing is crashing a lot of late, which is irritating. Also, currently at the point where Etherials are starting to show up. Regular raids are going fine so far, but that one Terror attack ended in madness, screaming, and death within what, five rounds? Efforts to catch one are going poorly, but Stun Bombs are part of the regular ordinance packages now, so soon this should be less of an issue.
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X-Com: Already getting tired of the mindhax. Is there any counter for this? Will likely stay the hell away from ethereal UFOs if not, or at least large ones. Made the first attempt at one of those yesterday and it went...poorly. Team got picked to pieces by infighting and ultimately the one guy I still had control over managed to run to the control room and frag the last two aliens before his allies could kill him. 11/14 soldiers lost, brutal. (Anyone still under alien control at mission's end goes MIA, I assume?) It was the B team, so it's not like I lost my core of top officers, but it was still a massive inconvenience and I reloaded an earlier save once the next encounter started going the same way. Seriously, fuck those guys for a while.
France and the U.S. signed pacts with the aliens and dropped out of X-Com. The money loss is only a minor inconvenience, but it makes me feel like I'm working against a hidden timer. Also, blaster launcher = fuuuck yes.
The only real defense against mind control is to have guys with high Psi Strength (which unless you managed to capture a Sectoid Leader/Commander or something like that and build a Psi-Lab, you'll have no idea about, unfortunately). Barring that, just have some unarmed psi-scrubs stand around and the AI will probably be dumb enough to mindhax them. And yeah, any soldier still mind controlled at the end of a mission is considered MIA.
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I also think Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict is probably the best of the series balance-wise, and I miss a lot of the innovations it added (like drive-by recon on forests in fog of war) when playing older games. Having said that, Dual Strike is just plain more fun because it's so easy to break the game. Sometimes you don't want to burn your brain on strategy, you just want to blow shit up.
AWDS: Finished getting all the Combat trophies. Last run on Brutal was no gameovers, booyah.
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Beyond Good and Evil (PS2).
Besides being glitchy as hell due to a scratched up disc this game is pretty fun. Generic heroine but the side characters are cute (UNCLE PEY'J~). It's kinda like Metal Gear Solid meets Zelda for gameplay, and it actually works much better than I expected. No real complaints although it is nothing stellar by any means.
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Pey'j is so totally awesome.
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FE8 hard/females/noresets.
Things were going well. I let Neimi die, but I managed to get past annoying fog map without losing healer. I had Lute and Vanessa at 20 at the perfect timing, but... I forgot to fucking bring Colm on Chapter 8. NO ELYSIAN WHIP AND NO ANGELIC ROBE. FUCK ME. I was planning on using a promoted Vanessa to rush her way to Amelia, who I was going to give the 7hp. Now Amelia and Tana both will be an absolute bitch to level and I can't get a whip to upgrade Vanessa with for 6 more levels. And even then I only get the whip if I manage to run down Rennac.
Oh well, on Chapter 9, gonna still try and grab Amelia, we'll see how long she lives.
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ToV- LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAME.
Just saw Don Whitehorse's final scene. Pyro forewarned that people either love it or hate it, but I have a feeling that my dislike comes from a completely different source. My issue is that this motherfucker kills himself without getting any of that kind of super important shit done!
1. The attack of Palistralle basically seemed to be a combo of Don Whitehorse's dumbass grandson getting some purposefully bad info from Leviathan's Claw and then roping in the dumb as a box as rocks Hunter's Guild into attacking. So Don Whitehorse...of course says nothing bad about Leviathan's Claw or the Hunting Blades despite the fact that both seemed to very egregiously break one of the key tenets of the Union. Obviously if he felt he still needed to kill himself to fulfilll laws that would be one thing, but to not even spread the information around that everyone should probably be gunning to bring these 2 guilds to justice?! To just stab himself instead?!! Seriously?!
2. Mother fucker, you owe me an explanation for why someone would go through all the trouble of an elaborate assassination attempt to get a clear ciel crystal! You have somewhere else to be? The game is having this ridiculous string of having people know all the plot information you need, but they are either extreme assholes or decide that even throwing out a 10 word explanation is preferable to dying! I know Tales plot and all, but there are some interesting glimmers here and there, and the game's structuring same loathe to make even any progress. And really, if all that's on your plate for today is to stab yourself, asking for a few extra minutes and giving even a cursory explanation really doesn't feel like too much to ask. Not to mention that the people who caused you to kamikaze still have far more information than your friends and now you are just removing yourself from the game and leaving them at their full advantage. Fail.
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Oh, I'll definitely agree that Dark Conflict is more balanced than Dual Strike, that's pretty much a given - it took three full-health Bombers to take out a Megatank before, which... no. My problems with Dark Conflict so far are that it's too slow to get started - I mean, I'm still using the same 3 COs, which is getting a little annoying, and CO-ing units hasn't been implemented in the campaign yet - and that ground-based maps are broken apart by indirect combat.
Definitely prefer the way they work Fog of War, though - okay, who cares that I moved away from that space? I know there's nothing there, and I should be able to damn well see that. Nice touch, despite it being a relatively small addition. Don't like Anti-Tanks, though. Seriously, just make Tanks weaker and cut those.
Also, Ship Planes for Godlike, etc, etc.
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Capture an Ethereal alive and you will get Psi stuff. 11/14 soldiers is a sacrifice well worth it if you can swing it. After you get it the next month should be spent amassing however you can a large squad of rookies in a base with enough Psi-Labs to train them all. They need to be in training for at least a month (Can be active in this time), then you will know their Psi Strength. Fire everyone with bad Psi Strength. This is your army. They will not lose. You can get by with 75+ or so (it is random between 0-100), but personally I get a squad of 10 or so guys with 90+ and just use them for the rest of the game. Psi-Strength is unable to be increased. Psi-Skill is able to be through use of Psi stuff. This is broken. The stakes are pretty high at the end game and learning Psi is almost as if not more brutal than the start of the game. The key trick is that you need someone with line of site to do mind control or panic, the aliens do this as well. So yo can handle Ethereals more effectively if you either kill/stun them the same turn you first see them and prevent them from getting turns where they can see your dudes or if they mind control someone either get out of their line of site or straight up kill them immediately. Keep out of LOS of them at all times and you can handle the situation much better.
Your first encounter with Ethereals tends to be handled the same way you normally deal with aliens, so you work in small groups and most of the time you try to keep these groups within throwing distance of each other. This tends to mean the aliens find you and mind control a guy. He then turns around, they mind control another guy and so on down a chain until everyone is mind raped. You just need to alter your tactics accordingly. Edit - That is to say you need to not do your normal tactics for these guys and first time through you do not see it coming.
You hope to first encounter Ethereals in a Small Scout so there is only one, you WANT to stun this one. So if you are lucky enough to get that small scout, you pack up a bunch of dudes with Small Launchers and send them out one at a time breaking LOS with the interior of your ship ASAP. Running a tank in that mission isn't a bad idea since you have a disposable scout then. I know some people (my brothers especially) disdain the use of Tanks. I love them but don't apply them as well as I should. You don't use them to kill things (that is stats your soldiers could be getting). You use them much more like a remote bomb defusal droid.
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Anti-tanks seem godly at first, but when you figure in their cost they're not so hot. I rarely even build them anymore. Wonderful at choke points though.
Ship Planes are awesome. DEPLOY MASS CARRIERS for the win.
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Atelier Iris 2- Finished. 'salright. I was expecting something Grandia level, with the general boss mockery, but it was closer to Grandia II. Still ultimately easy but did require a basic abuse of the system to make it so. Put another way, even the one boss with real damage couldn't do much about my unseemly mass of revive items.
Everyone is a middle (At least, I think Viese can swing this, could be overestimating her though) except Poe who sucks.
Nothing much to say otherwise, except... I like how the insane wedding gambit was not, in fact, quickly brushed off.
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FE9 - I missed Astrid because the game is fucking dumb. Talk to Gatrie, get fucking nothing, talk to Astrid, insta-recruit? Hell with that.
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Ok, knew there was some limitation to the Psi stuff. Just didn't know it was LoS.
As for Days of Ruin and the anti-tank guns, they definately have their weaknesses. For example, if you can ever swarm one with two or three mech infantry, it will maim one, and the other two will be super effective. Regular infantry also manage to do nice things to them. As for Seaplanes. They are awesome, though feel fairly balanced when the cost and the hoops you have to jump through are considered.
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FE9 - Wait a minute, no Astrid means no Knight Ward as well! Welp, screw that. *Finds a functional C10 save, takes the hit.* At least, I've gotten better overall BExp levels for Marcia so far. Woohoo, 11 Str/10 Def/11 Res/14 Speed.
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The obtuse thing is that it is LoS from the entire enemy squad. It works exactly the same for aliens as it does for you, if you know where they are you can blind fire at them and because well it is Psi you can do it accross the whole map.
Player side it is mostly just expanding tactics you should already use (shooting accross the map with people that have no chance of seeing the enemy is not only viable, it is a good idea!).
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Remembered I had Holdover from 1up gaming's list of indie/browser games on this computer and that I had it mostly beaten.
Generally speaking, the game was platforming hell, requiring very strict timing to make it through underwater sequences without drowning. And death spikes. And death lasers. And a random top-down shooter sequence. I dunno, it was a decent game overall, although immensely, immensely frustrating. Also random nudity of the main for no real reason whatsoever.
http://www.foxeye.squares.net/product/holdover/index.htm
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Chrono Trigger- Just beat Magus. Levels are 25/24 for the team. My Magus fighting team was Frog/Crono/Robo. Good fight; though I didn't really take it seriously. If I had I would have done another fight and gotten Robo that MT healnig spell.
CT remains a fun, quick game to replay. The new arena added to the DS version looks stupid as fuck, though.
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PokePlatinum
Going well, 5 gyms down. I tend to lose exactly once to most of the gym leaders, which makes sense, since they've usually got a trick that's relatively easy to deal with once you know it's coming. Also, compulsive breeder that I am, I usually try first with an egg and a "project" (underleveled unevolved) in the party.
Exceptions were the grass and water gyms. Grass just seemed pansy, water I went in (for whatever reason) better prepared, with Leafeon instead of an egg and Kirlia instead of a project and steamrolled despite numerous tactical errors.
Core party is Prinpulp, solid defensively, decent offensively workhorse move is Bubblebeam, also carries my Rock Smash.
Roselia for relatively low defense massive draining offense and Cut. Poison Point is pretty cool, too.
Staravia continues pretty cool, Fly plus Aerial Ace (and Defog, which I really want to just forget and slap on some stupid filler for whenever i need it)
Luxray is hogging the spotlight right now as my first 3rd tier pokemon. His Bite carried me through the ghost gym, funnily enough, and he's got my highest raw offense generally with Spark, too.
Adjuncts include Bronzor (defense plus status is almost enough to make up for an inability to do damage). Kirlia (total project, decent offense but nothing else, about to evolve which'll help), Driftloom (mostly dropped, just wasn't performing), Togetic (similar) and Ponyta (more boring than underperforming, but I hardly use it anymore), Chimecho (evolved and dropped).
Breeding Eevees right now, might hold on to Espeon, Glaceon or Flareon for reals, haven't decided. Don't really fit the theme, though, so I might talk myself out of it.
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FFT- Just recruited Beowulf as well as picking up the Gacial Gun and the Pig. Yes I'm having waay too much fun with this as super lets me know of every new thing I can do to break the game. Ninja Ramza, Chemist Mustadio, WMage with Holy, Summoner with Cyclops and Agrias with Holy Sword <33333 I also have another two generics as Ninjas, one with mastered Jump~
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Unlimited Saga: Just beat Dagul Bos.
Me: Oh, hey, I am almost done with the game! This gauntlet shouldn't be too hard!
*Minotaur fight later*
Ok, that was annoying, but the next fight is one enemy, 8 LP, shouldn't be TOO hard cause its one guy right?
*Fight later*
WHAT THE FUCK? I did like 5000 damage before you lost your first LP, and you took off half my LP due to retarded MT BUllshit? UGH! Well, at least you're dead, now about Basil...
*Fight with him*
...I've done over 10k damage to you, you have double the LP of that Dragon thing, the same MT damage bullshit, a move that knocks a character out instantly, requiring that Rescue Gimmick that's been 100% useless until now...and I haven't done a SINGLE Point of LP damage to you? Seriously? Ugh, how retarded are the enemies after him, provided I care to finish?
*FAQs*
So I fight the exact same fight again, only this time with a full dungeon BEFORE him, nad then a 69 LP fight afterwards? Dagul Bos had 27 and that was pretty absurd, but at least he had a cute gimmick. This...seriously, fuck off Unlimited Saga.
At this point, I've determined I can't really mathematically win; no, I'm not kidding. I don't do anywhere near enough damage to do LP fast enough to these bastards, my LP drops absurdedly fast (I saw Basil take off 5 LP on 2 separate occassions in his MT attack) and...yeah, I basically can't win barring really absurd evasion hax. Basil has only 16 LP, for the record, and I couldn't do *ANY* LP damage to him, so what shit am I suppose to do against a chain fight with Him *AND* 69 LP afterwords?
So I pretty much ending US here. I know you're thinking "HA! Meeple gave up!" but when I can't realistically CONTINUE THE GAME due to mathematically impossible scenarios, I think I'm justified.
ON THAT NOTE...
Game sucks in every regard. Creativity can go fuck itself, I don't give credits for trying if the idea is so stupid, you could see how retarded it is on paper. This game has NOTHING, be it wasted potential, fun value, intriguing plot, what have you. I'm seriously tempted to give it 0/10; the game is just THAT BAD.
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It has very nice box art.
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I warned you it was worse then Magna Carta ;_; , didn't I?
Only reason I beat so much as ONE path in Unlimited SaGa is because I played it while I was younger and had a much higher fail tolerance then I do even now.
And no, I could not even tell you how I did it at this point. The game is thankfully nothing more then a blur of spinning reels accompanied by a feeling of frustration and annoyance at this point in my memory.
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I wonder if there's any truth in the rumour that Square had a limited time promotion where if you pre-ordered Unlimited SaGa they would send a guy to your place to personally kick you in the junk.
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FE9 - Woohoo, Stage 11 redo!
*Kieran, Marcia and Nephenee gain well over 30 points worth of stats among the three of them.*
For reference: Kieran gained two levels, Nephenee three and Marcia two.
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FFXII- Started. Good start at least, then goes right into you cosplaying Aladdin, which I can live with. Penelo said everything I need to know about her character with that huff. The look on her face was almost as awkward as the entire laughing sequence. Stopped outside the gate to fight ROGUE TOMATO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Hey, I bought a new that I really can't afford due to buying tickets to DLC5!
Anyway, I bought Nier Replicant since I found it used for a mere $54. I figure if I'm going to buy Japanese games, I might as well buy ones that have no chance of being released in English. Since Nier Gestalht was already released in English, it means I can effectively buy the game twice, but at least I'll get two different protagonists along with the Japanese/English vocal track changes, yay!
Anyway, so Nier: Pansy Japanese Boy Version is pretty fun so far, and from the youtube videos I've watched, it really is practically identical to the Nier: UOM version, right down to how ugly the Pansy Japanese Protagonist is!
There are some dialogue changes I noticed, but I'd chalk that up to differences between the English translation and the Japanese track than anything that would have been different between the two Japanese scripts (apart from the obvious change of 'otousan' to 'oniichan' in every scene with Yona).
Also, Weiss's Japanese name is Shiro... At least the English version had the decency to use another language's word for 'White'... It sounds like the main character is calling the ancient evil Grimoire by a dog's name in the Japanese version. >.>;;
BTW, I haven't figured out what the hell 'Nier' is supposed to mean. Is that the main character's official name or something? The world's official name? (I guess could just be like Grandia's nonsensical title...)
...oh right, I'm playing it! The opening tutorial level was freakin' fun. Just mindless destruction and levelling up like crazy.
I'm wondering if this is much of an RPG at all, though... It plays more like Devil May Cry than other ARPGs like Tales/SO. I suppose it might be KH-like later on, but as of now, I'm playing solo and the only thing that seems RPG-like is the level up system.
Do I get party members eventually? I saw a whole bunch of colorful characters in the Japanese opening (the American opening looks a bit toned down in comparison). I'm hoping a few join my party and that I can switch between them at will (but more likely, it'll be all AI-controlled if I get any party members, sigh...).
Soundtrack is love, I may have to actually buy this one, I haven't found a track that wasn't good yet. Even the town themes are pretty engaging, and they're the worst of what I've heard so far.
Suikoden Tierkreis: 80/108 starbearers of destiny~
whoaMG Latildha is hot. Whoever this game's art director is, his style is pretty sedated compared to the S2-3-5 artist, but he makes some of the hottest designs for anime women that I've seen in a long while.
Storywise, game is still pretty strong. They introduced the idea that the antagonists might have altruistic goals after all, which is nice, but it feels a little hamhanded since all the protagonists are saying 'Well, their intentions seem good from what they say, but something's not right...' . It sort of blows any illusion that the antagonists are morally ambiguous in any way.
On the reverse side, it -does- mean that the protagonists aren't all stuck holding the Idiot Ball. A few of them even make good points by noting some of the antagonists' past actions that don't seem particularly altruistic, even considering the disasters that they claim they are trying to avert.
Recruitment for some of these characters sucks... Even with a guide.
-
BTW, I haven't figured out what the hell 'Nier' is supposed to mean. Is that the main character's official name or something? The world's official name? (I guess could just be like Grandia's nonsensical title...)
I believe the main character has been called that on the site or something? Dunno. I wouldn't think too much into it.
I'm wondering if this is much of an RPG at all, though... It plays more like Devil May Cry than other ARPGs like Tales/SO. I suppose it might be KH-like later on, but as of now, I'm playing solo and the only thing that seems RPG-like is the level up system.
Do I get party members eventually? I saw a whole bunch of colorful characters in the Japanese opening (the American opening looks a bit toned down in comparison). I'm hoping a few join my party and that I can switch between them at will (but more likely, it'll be all AI-controlled if I get any party members, sigh...).
Uh... what exactly is your definition of RPG? I don't see much difference between Nier and KH there.
Anyway, you do get party members but they're not controllable.
Soundtrack is love, I may have to actually buy this one, I haven't found a track that wasn't good yet. Even the town themes are pretty engaging, and they're the worst of what I've heard so far.
I would also actually like a copy of the soundtrack but importing shipping sucks. Think you could grab me one and I'll pay you back at DLCon?
---
Spectral Souls - Finished the Otherworld Gate with Meu Army. Yunellia stats are ridiculous. Will probably be keeping her in my party for the end.
Chaos Wars - Chapter 2 now. Got some SH2 characters and Meu! :( at Meu not getting Realize yet. Oh well, the stats are decent I guess.
Gundemonium Collection - Got these off of PSN. 3 shmups for $15 isn't a bad deal. First one's decent enough. Second one's my favorite, though. Hitoga Happa or whatever is pretty terrible.
Some videos of Gundeadligne (the second one) if anyone's interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuydVPKhfsM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08Ce2k0dY5o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUBwXaZanSQ
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It has very nice box art.
Good music, too.
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FE9 - Back to C14! Now, with 100% less egregious failure. I just got Astrid, who's currently L5 and gains XP VERY VERY FAST and gets LOTS AND LOTS OF SPEED. Jill isn't turning out as well as last time, but she's fine. Not to mention Marcia's turning out insane. Seriously, 15 Defense and Strength?
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The 360 is set up and online....but the only games I have for it are the pack-ins (Banjo-Kazooie and Viva Pinata) until Amazon ships my copy of Bayonetta. So I played some of B-K. It's not very good. Contain your shock.
Edit: Gamertag is ShaleZero, although I'm not sure when I'll get a Gold account or any multiplayer games.
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Uh... what exactly is your definition of RPG? I don't see much difference between Nier and KH there.
Anyway, you do get party members but they're not controllable.
MOAR Menu-based combat! Actually, I'm not complaining. But I haven't gotten any party members yet, and that's basically the fastest way to separate 'Action Beat-em-up' from 'Action RPG' in my mind. Then there's stuff like Crisis Core, and who knows what to call that...
Soundtrack is love, I may have to actually buy this one, I haven't found a track that wasn't good yet. Even the town themes are pretty engaging, and they're the worst of what I've heard so far.
I would also actually like a copy of the soundtrack but importing shipping sucks. Think you could grab me one and I'll pay you back at DLCon?
No promises, I'll have to see how easy it is to find a copy. If I see a bunch, I'll definitely pick one up for you while I'm buying mine.
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Unlimited Saga: Just beat Dagul Bos.
Me: Oh, hey, I am almost done with the game! This gauntlet shouldn't be too hard!
*Minotaur fight later*
Ok, that was annoying, but the next fight is one enemy, 8 LP, shouldn't be TOO hard cause its one guy right?
*Fight later*
WHAT THE FUCK? I did like 5000 damage before you lost your first LP, and you took off half my LP due to retarded MT BUllshit? UGH! Well, at least you're dead, now about Basil...
*Fight with him*
...I've done over 10k damage to you, you have double the LP of that Dragon thing, the same MT damage bullshit, a move that knocks a character out instantly, requiring that Rescue Gimmick that's been 100% useless until now...and I haven't done a SINGLE Point of LP damage to you? Seriously? Ugh, how retarded are the enemies after him, provided I care to finish?
*FAQs*
So I fight the exact same fight again, only this time with a full dungeon BEFORE him, nad then a 69 LP fight afterwards? Dagul Bos had 27 and that was pretty absurd, but at least he had a cute gimmick. This...seriously, fuck off Unlimited Saga.
At this point, I've determined I can't really mathematically win; no, I'm not kidding. I don't do anywhere near enough damage to do LP fast enough to these bastards, my LP drops absurdedly fast (I saw Basil take off 5 LP on 2 separate occassions in his MT attack) and...yeah, I basically can't win barring really absurd evasion hax. Basil has only 16 LP, for the record, and I couldn't do *ANY* LP damage to him, so what shit am I suppose to do against a chain fight with Him *AND* 69 LP afterwords?
So I pretty much ending US here. I know you're thinking "HA! Meeple gave up!" but when I can't realistically CONTINUE THE GAME due to mathematically impossible scenarios, I think I'm justified.
ON THAT NOTE...
Game sucks in every regard. Creativity can go fuck itself, I don't give credits for trying if the idea is so stupid, you could see how retarded it is on paper. This game has NOTHING, be it wasted potential, fun value, intriguing plot, what have you. I'm seriously tempted to give it 0/10; the game is just THAT BAD.
Fool, this is what you get for not telling me who you play as. Laura is NOT a starter's chapter thanks to Gelios infamous SHADOW BREATH!!! You are not surviving him unless you tweak a full set of status protection equips.
You could have get around this. Like say, lose to Dagul Bos, which makes you only need to fight Gelios once.
Also, the final boss also gets the trade mark move of the second to last boss, which means if you didn't lose to Dagul Bos, not only you have to fight Gelios twice, you have to fight the last boss who can use Shadow Breath through the entire fight.
Also, you lose LP so fast probably due to the lack of LP protection gear. Those equips with LP Protection slots is what actually increase your LP defense. You need at least three of those on each character by end game (which is not too hard to get), and even easier if the Eng version kept the equipment bug.
Also, HP damage does not equates to LP damage. Tech's LP offensive power is different from its HP offnesive power. And enemies all have regen property, so in boss fighting, stocking hp damage hoping to squeeze LP out is NOT efficient due to how quick they regen hps. Attacks that does multiple hits or has multiple elements are most efficient in this case.
Here are some good boss slaying techs that are easy to learn: Acute Puncture, Bloody Mary, High Speed Nebula.
Also, sword techs are WORST for boss slaying due to not a single sword tech has a LP offense over 5. You need like 7 to do reliable LP damage from first round.
-
Man U. Saga just sounds beyond epic.
Mega Man Zero Collection - Yeah I'm replaying these games. Beat Zero 1, 2, and 3 so far.
1.. my fears were realized, the game does not age well and suffers from being too experimental. But nostalgia carried me through it handily enough.
2 aged a little worse than I thought, but it's still a pretty fun game. A lot better than 1 at any rate.
3 was harder than I remembered[cept for endgame where Ultima Foot = LOL final stage], and held up about as I expected. Very fun game.
Playing Zero 4 now, game is... harder than I remembered as well. We'll see how this goes.
-
WA:ACF: Demon Prophet for Godlike. Chooses the weakest attack each round to get hit by out of three? Either that or he randomly chooses one of three people in the fight to get hit by each round. That plus fast MT 3HKO damage of any ACF element plus 3HKO counters to physicals... 66% chance to immune damage plus fast plus ...probably PCHP+ durability otherwise + pretty fast damage + if you allow it, Fate Storm to single targets (I'd limit it to when enemy has >33% mHP but that's me) = pain in the damn ass.
Pretty late, but Demon Prophet's gimmick is that he chooses one of the three in each round, and only that person's attacks can go through. DL wise, you can either choose to throw it all together or limit it to 33% chance of him getting struck yeah.
As for games, I've been on a Dissidia grind more or less. I blame Meeple for this because I shelved the game for more than 8 months, but his recent talking about it has made me play it for over a week straight. CURSE YOU MEEPLE!!!
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PW2- And that, as they say, is that.
Probably the #2 game for gameplay after Edgeworth, in that nothing had me FAQing until about midway through 2-3. Otherwise not a lot going on with it, 2-4 just makes no goddamned sense at times and I'm glad I was flatly FAQing it for time. Franziska is entertaining, but really it's all about waiting for Edgey to come back. Poor Gumshoe.
-
I must play this Unlimited Saga at some point :P.
FFXIII - The Plat is now mine after clocking in 101 hours. Turtle farming isn't the most entertaining thing but it beats SO2 any day so I ain't complaining.
Next on the games for me to play is WKC :(.
-
Unlimited Saga: Just beat Dagul Bos.
Me: Oh, hey, I am almost done with the game! This gauntlet shouldn't be too hard!
*Minotaur fight later*
Ok, that was annoying, but the next fight is one enemy, 8 LP, shouldn't be TOO hard cause its one guy right?
*Fight later*
WHAT THE FUCK? I did like 5000 damage before you lost your first LP, and you took off half my LP due to retarded MT BUllshit? UGH! Well, at least you're dead, now about Basil...
*Fight with him*
...I've done over 10k damage to you, you have double the LP of that Dragon thing, the same MT damage bullshit, a move that knocks a character out instantly, requiring that Rescue Gimmick that's been 100% useless until now...and I haven't done a SINGLE Point of LP damage to you? Seriously? Ugh, how retarded are the enemies after him, provided I care to finish?
*FAQs*
So I fight the exact same fight again, only this time with a full dungeon BEFORE him, nad then a 69 LP fight afterwards? Dagul Bos had 27 and that was pretty absurd, but at least he had a cute gimmick. This...seriously, fuck off Unlimited Saga.
At this point, I've determined I can't really mathematically win; no, I'm not kidding. I don't do anywhere near enough damage to do LP fast enough to these bastards, my LP drops absurdedly fast (I saw Basil take off 5 LP on 2 separate occassions in his MT attack) and...yeah, I basically can't win barring really absurd evasion hax. Basil has only 16 LP, for the record, and I couldn't do *ANY* LP damage to him, so what shit am I suppose to do against a chain fight with Him *AND* 69 LP afterwords?
So I pretty much ending US here. I know you're thinking "HA! Meeple gave up!" but when I can't realistically CONTINUE THE GAME due to mathematically impossible scenarios, I think I'm justified.
ON THAT NOTE...
Game sucks in every regard. Creativity can go fuck itself, I don't give credits for trying if the idea is so stupid, you could see how retarded it is on paper. This game has NOTHING, be it wasted potential, fun value, intriguing plot, what have you. I'm seriously tempted to give it 0/10; the game is just THAT BAD.
Fool, this is what you get for not telling me who you play as. Laura is NOT a starter's chapter thanks to Gelios infamous SHADOW BREATH!!! You are not surviving him unless you tweak a full set of status protection equips.
You could have get around this. Like say, lose to Dagul Bos, which makes you only need to fight Gelios once.
Also, the final boss also gets the trade mark move of the second to last boss, which means if you didn't lose to Dagul Bos, not only you have to fight Gelios twice, you have to fight the last boss who can use Shadow Breath through the entire fight.
Also, you lose LP so fast probably due to the lack of LP protection gear. Those equips with LP Protection slots is what actually increase your LP defense. You need at least three of those on each character by end game (which is not too hard to get), and even easier if the Eng version kept the equipment bug.
Also, HP damage does not equates to LP damage. Tech's LP offensive power is different from its HP offnesive power. And enemies all have regen property, so in boss fighting, stocking hp damage hoping to squeeze LP out is NOT efficient due to how quick they regen hps. Attacks that does multiple hits or has multiple elements are most efficient in this case.
Here are some good boss slaying techs that are easy to learn: Acute Puncture, Bloody Mary, High Speed Nebula.
Also, sword techs are WORST for boss slaying due to not a single sword tech has a LP offense over 5. You need like 7 to do reliable LP damage from first round.
And this si exactly why I did *NOT* tell you who I was playing as Niu. I knew you'd go into this big massive rant about "OMG WHY DID YOU DO THIS!!?" and completely assume I'd have skills and what not. I play games however the fuck I want, and if I made a bad decision, so be it. I've made it clear that I hate people offering suggestions about gaming without me asking. You're one of the worst offenders in this regard; I so much as mention where I am in a game you're interested in my progress of, you ALWAYS go out of your way to say "MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THIS!!!" No, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT unless I ask for it.
Edit: And my opinion of the game has little to do with the endgame arc, and for the record, I had a lot of LP Protection Gear on; again, you make baseless assumptions without actually knowing what's going on, cause you assume way to much on theory rather than genuine performance (granted, I'm not much better, but at least I will say "If you have this" rather than "USE THIS!")
Halfway into Laura's chapter, my general thought was "This game is shit, I'm only completing it out of stubborness"; the end game fucktardness is just why I'm NOT finishing the game. It was going for that 0/10 as is, cause the game just really sucks at everything. Its completely unfun, has no real interesting worth anywhere (given the game's style of plot, I can safely say that the other other plots are ass. No, interesting storyline means shit when presentation is worse than your average SNES RPG, which US definitely has), 0 potential, frustrating stupid at times...I could go on. The game sucks in every regard I can think of, and "looks pretty" is not enough for me (which...honestly, the game did not; I know, someone said "The Box Art is pretty" which is totally different.) The game could have had the best OST ever, and I'd still give it a 1/10 at best.
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Box art is a surprisingly strong indicator of the quality of a game.
Good box art = bad game.
(http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0/3413/216824-hydlide_large.jpg)
Bad box art = good game.
(http://www.tomheroes.com/images/NES%20Golgo%2013%20box.jpg)
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I refuse to stand by that-...
*looks at the Japanese version of FF6's box art and how many people despise Amano's work, own opinions with-held*
...you know, you may be onto something there!
-
Unlimited Saga: Just beat Dagul Bos.
Me: Oh, hey, I am almost done with the game! This gauntlet shouldn't be too hard!
*Minotaur fight later*
Ok, that was annoying, but the next fight is one enemy, 8 LP, shouldn't be TOO hard cause its one guy right?
*Fight later*
WHAT THE FUCK? I did like 5000 damage before you lost your first LP, and you took off half my LP due to retarded MT BUllshit? UGH! Well, at least you're dead, now about Basil...
*Fight with him*
...I've done over 10k damage to you, you have double the LP of that Dragon thing, the same MT damage bullshit, a move that knocks a character out instantly, requiring that Rescue Gimmick that's been 100% useless until now...and I haven't done a SINGLE Point of LP damage to you? Seriously? Ugh, how retarded are the enemies after him, provided I care to finish?
*FAQs*
So I fight the exact same fight again, only this time with a full dungeon BEFORE him, nad then a 69 LP fight afterwards? Dagul Bos had 27 and that was pretty absurd, but at least he had a cute gimmick. This...seriously, fuck off Unlimited Saga.
At this point, I've determined I can't really mathematically win; no, I'm not kidding. I don't do anywhere near enough damage to do LP fast enough to these bastards, my LP drops absurdedly fast (I saw Basil take off 5 LP on 2 separate occassions in his MT attack) and...yeah, I basically can't win barring really absurd evasion hax. Basil has only 16 LP, for the record, and I couldn't do *ANY* LP damage to him, so what shit am I suppose to do against a chain fight with Him *AND* 69 LP afterwords?
So I pretty much ending US here. I know you're thinking "HA! Meeple gave up!" but when I can't realistically CONTINUE THE GAME due to mathematically impossible scenarios, I think I'm justified.
ON THAT NOTE...
Game sucks in every regard. Creativity can go fuck itself, I don't give credits for trying if the idea is so stupid, you could see how retarded it is on paper. This game has NOTHING, be it wasted potential, fun value, intriguing plot, what have you. I'm seriously tempted to give it 0/10; the game is just THAT BAD.
Fool, this is what you get for not telling me who you play as. Laura is NOT a starter's chapter thanks to Gelios infamous SHADOW BREATH!!! You are not surviving him unless you tweak a full set of status protection equips.
You could have get around this. Like say, lose to Dagul Bos, which makes you only need to fight Gelios once.
Also, the final boss also gets the trade mark move of the second to last boss, which means if you didn't lose to Dagul Bos, not only you have to fight Gelios twice, you have to fight the last boss who can use Shadow Breath through the entire fight.
Also, you lose LP so fast probably due to the lack of LP protection gear. Those equips with LP Protection slots is what actually increase your LP defense. You need at least three of those on each character by end game (which is not too hard to get), and even easier if the Eng version kept the equipment bug.
Also, HP damage does not equates to LP damage. Tech's LP offensive power is different from its HP offnesive power. And enemies all have regen property, so in boss fighting, stocking hp damage hoping to squeeze LP out is NOT efficient due to how quick they regen hps. Attacks that does multiple hits or has multiple elements are most efficient in this case.
Here are some good boss slaying techs that are easy to learn: Acute Puncture, Bloody Mary, High Speed Nebula.
Also, sword techs are WORST for boss slaying due to not a single sword tech has a LP offense over 5. You need like 7 to do reliable LP damage from first round.
And this si exactly why I did *NOT* tell you who I was playing as Niu. I knew you'd go into this big massive rant about "OMG WHY DID YOU DO THIS!!?" and completely assume I'd have skills and what not. I play games however the fuck I want, and if I made a bad decision, so be it. I've made it clear that I hate people offering suggestions about gaming without me asking. You're one of the worst offenders in this regard; I so much as mention where I am in a game you're interested in my progress of, you ALWAYS go out of your way to say "MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THIS!!!" No, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT unless I ask for it.
Edit: And my opinion of the game has little to do with the endgame arc, and for the record, I had a lot of LP Protection Gear on; again, you make baseless assumptions without actually knowing what's going on, cause you assume way to much on theory rather than genuine performance (granted, I'm not much better, but at least I will say "If you have this" rather than "USE THIS!")
Halfway into Laura's chapter, my general thought was "This game is shit, I'm only completing it out of stubborness"; the end game fucktardness is just why I'm NOT finishing the game. It was going for that 0/10 as is, cause the game just really sucks at everything. Its completely unfun, has no real interesting worth anywhere (given the game's style of plot, I can safely say that the other other plots are ass. No, interesting storyline means shit when presentation is worse than your average SNES RPG, which US definitely has), 0 potential, frustrating stupid at times...I could go on. The game sucks in every regard I can think of, and "looks pretty" is not enough for me (which...honestly, the game did not; I know, someone said "The Box Art is pretty" which is totally different.) The game could have had the best OST ever, and I'd still give it a 1/10 at best.
While I am perfectly fine with people expressing opinions, I am firing this off as a pre-emptive strike:
No more response on this regard. This concept seems to get people fired up, and I'd prefer not to have people firing at each other here. Discuss games, don't argue with each other. Do that in Discussion.
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MF6- Just completed the last of the sidequests -- beat Fou-Lu and Sara. Will probably be heading into the final dungeon and Cardboard Box abusing/making two runs because FF6 final dungeon is stupid. I may look for the Zemeckis Mail depending on how easy it is to get!
Pokemon Heartgold - Just beat Blaine and I'm going to beat Gary as soon as I am done with Voltorb Flipping to get Double Team.
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No more response on this regard. This concept seems to get people fired up, and I'd prefer not to have people firing at each other here. Discuss games, don't argue with each other. Do that in Discussion.
I will admit I came off harshly, but it just got me riled up and I felt like I needed to get something off my chest. I do apologize if I came off too harshly and insulted anyone, etc. It was uncalled for, and I probably shouldn't have said it.
My general point, put in nicer terms, was "I hate it when people give help and I don't ask for it" and that I've been vocal about this in the past. I generally avoid giving away info regarding some factors for this reason, and that's why I specifically did NOT mention what I was up to exactly in USaga, until I decided to quit the game. Niu's response was exactly what I didn't want to hear, basically.
No, I didn't have to read it, which makes my response look all the more dickish, but it was the exact kind of response I didn't want to see nonetheless.
(Not trying to start anything OK, just felt like I should make a more peaceful follow up. Please don't take this the wrong way; its not directed at you.)
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Conversely, I find all the suggestions and mechanics discussions that inevitably crop up when a game is mentioned to be the highlight of this topic.
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So I pretty much ending US here. I know you're thinking "HA! Meeple gave up!" but when I can't realistically CONTINUE THE GAME due to mathematically impossible scenarios, I think I'm justified.
Looks like you need to detox. I prescribe 10CCs of RS:MS.
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FE9 - *OSCAR/KIERAN SUPPORT.*
...
*KIERAN/MARCIA SUPPORT.*
......
Kieran is unbalanced.
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FE8- Hard/Females/Almost Hardcore
I managed to get Eirika killed off on that damn map with eggs and ranged units. Oops. I give up on playing a full hardcore females only mode, but I guess 1 reset will have to do.
Didn't get anyone killed off the entire game. I think the key was getting everyone to 20/1 before the survive 11 turns map. That map had spelled my doom a couple of times before, but with everyone at 20/1 and Lute at 20/7 or so I managed to rush Aius and deal with them before Pablo got there. (Having a ridiculously tanky Amelia helped too.)
Final was 662 turns, 90 on Queen of the White Sands. A couple maps I had to go extremely slow and a couple of others I just wanted supports.
Characters/Kills!! (Ranked from least MVPish to MVP!)
10. L'Archel- Did not use
9. Vanessa- Only used on map 5 to rescue citizens from teh evil spider
8. Neimi- 20/12, 129 Kills- Didn't get a ton of use out of her swords, and her 30HP was beyond awful so I had to keep her in the back a lot. Surprised she got as high as she did.
7. Eirika- 20/9, 100 kills- At 20 Eirika had 24 fucking HP. I'm pretty sure that is awful. By the time she got promoted a lot of the enemies could one shot her so I got very little use. Not sure how she even got to 20/8.
6. Natasha- 20/12, 37 kills- Standard healer, helped with her lightning on a couple of maps. Again I didn't go Bishop since I wanted the movement. Lots of movement + Psychic = very nice.
5. Tethys- 20, 0 kills- Was Tethys
4. Marisa- 20/13, 136 kills- Because I had to be careful about getting her killed I couldn't rambo Marisa as much as I usually do. Kept her behind a bit although she still killed shit nicely. Relying on crit is was also risky, hurting her use.
3. Tana- 20/16, 170 kills- Got pretty tanky and evady later, so I just sent her on most maps to clean up far away enemies. Worked well.
2. Lute- 20/19, 245 kills- Power leveled early. I went an odd route and didn't make her a Sage. This capped her magic at 25 (which she had at 20/6), but the movement was really nice for missions I needed to be quick. Getting Amelia, rescuing people, etc. and she still had plenty of killing power.
1. Amelia- 20/18, 193 kills- Amelia had ridiculous defense for me. I'll have to check stat topic to see what's normal for her, but I'm pretty convinced her growth was nuts. That + 55 HP + Garm completely smashed the later levels. (Surviving 15 turns is easy when she can sit there and take on all enemy reinforcements herself while Natasha drops Psychics down.)
Time for Ruins!
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And time for 20/20 RNG goodness! Using Gamefaqs for the averages. Me first, then average.
8. Neimi (Aragorn)
35 HP, 23 Str, 28 Skl, 27 Spd, 20 Luck, 7 Def, 21 Res (Maxed Str and Skl is all.)
41 HP, 23 Str, 26 Skl, 30 Spd, 23 Luck, 12 Def, 18 Res
So yeah, my Neimi is as frail as I figured. 6 HP and 5 Def below average. This is why I didn't get to use her for crap. Also terrible luck and speed... wow. But hey, at least I got Resist and some skill!!!! FAIL NEIMI.
7. Eirika (LORD)
40HP, 24 Str, 29 Skl, 30 Spd, 29 Luck, 17 Def, 15 Res (Maxed Str, Skl, Speed)
47HP, 21 Str, 29 Skl, 30 Spd, 28 Luck, 17 Def, 17 Res
Again massively HP fucked. The Str is nice. Maxed speed and skl, but it's damn near impossible not to do that with Eirika. Yay for frail ass Lord!
6. Natasha (Freya)
40HP, 25 Mag, 15 Skl, 22 Spd, 28 Luck, 11 Def, 28 Res (Maxed Mag and Res)
40HP, 25 Mag, 15 Skl, 23 Spd, 29 Luck, 10 Def, 28 Res
Again, I maxed the 2 stats that are easy to max. Actually, my Natasha is pretty damna verage. Minus 1 spd and luck and plus one defense. Yawns!
5. Tethys (Stripper)
33HP, 2 Str, 4 Skl, 24 Spd, 25 Luck, 8 Def, 20 Res (NO MAX)
34HP, 2 Str, 4 Skl, 25 Spd, 25 Luck, 11 Def, 18 Res
Nothing exciting here other than the minor defense nerf. Tethys is supposed to just dodge/not get hit anyway.
4. Marisa (Master of swords)
54HP, 16 Str, 25 Skl, 30 Spd, 20 Luck, 9 Def, 18 Res (SPEED MAX ZOMG)
53HP, 19 Str, 29 Skl, 30 Spd, 26 Luck, 11 Def, 13 Res
Are you kidding me? Marisa got raped across the board. Skl is the most amazing thing. Her average is supposed to end at like 32 to her 29 cap... and I got 25. This is why it didn't feel like she raped as hard as she usually does.
3. Tana (FALCON PUNCH)
50HP, 23 Str, 20 Skl, 28 Spd, 30 Luck, 18 Def, 17 Res (Max Str, Speed, Luck.)
47HP, 23 Str, 22 Skl, 28 Spd, 28 Luck, 16 Def, 18 Res
Well.. she didn't run terrible, but not really good either. Two of the maxed stats are pretty easy to do. This is getting sad.
2. Lute (Mage on a horse)
42 HP, 25 Mag, 22 Skl, 22 Spd, 28 Luck, 14 Def, 22 Res
37 HP, 25 Mag, 18 Skl, 24 Spd, 25 Luck, 11 Def, 23 Res
SOMEONE WHO RAN GOOD. Nice HP, obvious 25 magic, amazing skill, lacking a bit of speed, but good luck and defense. Lute is my only person who beat the RNG this time around, and it showed with her domination throughout the game. She woulda been number 1 if she had the ability to tank 5000 units like Amelia could.
1. Amelia (General of doom)
50 HP, 20 Str, 23 Skl, 25 Spd, 29 Luck, 26 Def, 15 Res (Max Speed!)
49 HP, 23 Str, 26 Skl, 25 Spd, 30 Luck, 21 Def, 13 Res
Even my MVP didn't do good. Bad Str and bad Skl, but her defense/res made up for it. Who cares if you can do damage when you cannot die... at all.
RUN WORSE ME!
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Heartgold: I have a Magmortor~~~ Life is goood~~~
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Beyond Good and Evil:
Finished. An utterly generic game that I enjoyed but would not strongly recommend. My copy was glitched so the sound was screwed up. Still, mostly inoffensive and fun (except for the very last part of the final bsos that needs to die in a fire).
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Alpha Protocol -
Finished Moscow and moved on to Rome, my third and final hub. This game has grown on me massively since my initial revulsion at its bugginess and wonky controls. I know that a good chunk of the branching plots and variable character interactions are fairly cosmetic, but I don't really care -- they go a long way toward making the story feel really personalized, and it's been drawing me in very effectively. And there are quite a few choices that really matter, too. I loved the repercussions of dealing with Nasri in Saudia Arabia, and Grigori when you first get to Moscow. Will be interested to see what effects, if any, result from my having iced Jibril al-Bara and the Gelato Shop guy.
Bosses so far have actually been pretty fun. Which surprises me, since they're generally sort of reviled? Brayko's fight is kind of absurdly badass, between the soundtrack and the rad use of the spotlights. And Steven Heck's help made it a fair bit easier than it would have been otherwise, I imagine. And of course I'm specializing in Assault Rifles, which are awesome (and versatile to the extreme, what with Subsonic Rounds being a thing), so there's that.
Already have plans for my next playthrough, on Recruit. I really want to see if Stealth/Sabotage/Toughness/Martial Arts can be a viable combo. I have a feeling that I'll find Omen and Brayko stonewalling me, but I still want to give it a shot. Can always put a few points in Pistols or Assault Rifles if need be. Or just spray bullets wildly.
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I can tell you that you will do horribly on bosses without weapon skills. You should be able to handle Brayko fine if you do Thailand first. I haven't heard to many problems with Omen as melee. I might start play through using pistols tomorrow night.
Boss fights aren't bad so much as not knowing you need combat skills makes them what the fuck and personally only really had issues with Rome guy, everything else was normally manageable or totally awesome. I wasn't prepared for Rome and there isn't much about the character or the fight that particularly appeals to me.
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CT- Golem was a surprisingly bitchy boss fight since I didn't have any real MT healing. Didn't take the fight seriously until late as well; Burp killed off Marle and Crono both.
Well balanced game. Crono=Lucca>Ayla>Robo>>>>Frog>>Marle.
Crono and Lucca were both better than I remembered. Crono really benefits from the speed and the crowd control focus of Whirlwind. He's quickly surpassed by Lucca as a combat unit, but that speed means he'll tend to get a drop on randoms. Lightning 2 dominated Magus's palace and helped a bunch on Azala's dungeon as well.
Lucca just had massive damage and the Taban Vest to help with her speed. Her damage tapered off some, but should be fine as soon as she picks up Fire 2. She gets Flare earlier than the others get their ultimate techs as well. Ayla's got damage/stats, but needs some time to catch up with everyone else. Her double techs kick all kinds of ass and I expect her to eclipse Lucca/Crono sooner rather than later. Robo's got great offense and some healing, but the speed needs work. I found his MT damage to quickly be rendered useless as well. The offense is hard to argue with, though. Frog's got no real damage outside of Masamune crits and only has solid stats, but he has a few useful double techs and he is built to be effective in Magus's castle. Marle was the worst PC by miles for the first fourth of the game or so. Haste helps some for bosses, but she still has an ugly damage/speed mix. I didn't find her useful outside of healing for specko until she got Ice Water with Ayla.
Game deserves a lot of credit for such a well balanced PC cast. Outside of Marle being a total turd early on, there are strong benefits and drawbacks to using every PC. Well, outside of Crono/Frog in Magus's castle. That was silly.
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I can tell you that you will do horribly on bosses without weapon skills. You should be able to handle Brayko fine if you do Thailand first. I haven't heard to many problems with Omen as melee. I might start play through using pistols tomorrow night.
Boss fights aren't bad so much as not knowing you need combat skills makes them what the fuck and personally only really had issues with Rome guy, everything else was normally manageable or totally awesome. I wasn't prepared for Rome and there isn't much about the character or the fight that particularly appeals to me.
I messed up Brayko pretty well using a combination of Rage and Iron Will when he came in close.
In my current playthrough I somehow managed to not get him to tell me about Surkov, though. Fack.
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WKC - Played a bit of this today, my thoughts thus far.
The Custom avatar you make is a silent support character? Well Its unexpected at least.
Leo is going to be lame.
Yulie is going to be annoying.
Princess is going to be kidnapped.
Evil Persian or whatever they are meant to be will stab the good guys in the back.
Mustache dood is evil because anyone with such facial hair is evil.
Black Knight is a woman? No self respecting male black knight would wear light armor and be silent.
After thinking about it for a bit I'm going with Longsword + Divine because hey I might as well save myself some time later in getting that trophy. Longswords have a bad rep because apparantly those who use it compensate for their small "tool" or if female they are compensating for their lack of the "tool" but thats Poppycock. My avatar has a huge power drill and doesn't need to compensate for anything.
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Pokemon Soul Silver - 11 badges down. In particular this meant I beat the Elite Four.
They really did a lot to make Lance not the utterly pathetic scrub he was in Crystal. I didn't really see the worst of what he could do myself, but watching Ciato's copy sorta drove home the power of Outrage off overlevelled Dragonite attack. It feels like they embraced that Dragonite isn't really fast or durable enough to deal with speedy Ice Beam spam (I see nothing that suggests Jynx doesn't take that battle to pieces, for instance) and instead made up for it by making them fast enough to deal with more ordinary icebeaming threats and super, super-powerful offensively. It's a different style of final boss than Pokemon usually throws at you so I have to give them some credit for that. Still one of the easier ones but at least there's definitely no longer a "... what the fuck was that?" reaction to the fight.
For my own part, Jumpluff Sleep Powder and Flash, Girafarig Agility and Baton Pass, Feraligatr Swords Dance and Ice Fang made fairly short work of the fight.
Ninetales really pulled up a lot at the end. I walked into the last Leon fight fairly crippled but Nasty Plot/Dark Pulse/Flamethrower made for a borderline sweep of him. Ninetales was also essential for both Will and Karen. Getting Nasty Plot and a decent off-type move to go with it helped so much.
I had a lot of trouble with Sabrina; my team doesn't tank specials too well overall, and the only Psychic resister I have kinda sucks at the job (Steelix). Definitely the hardest fight in the game to me so far. Kanto gym leaders feel a bit better, which is fine, but Sabrina was already pretty tough IIRC. Also beaten Surge and Misty, both of whom were at least competent.
With the aftergame Pokeathlon prizes opening up, I got myself a Togekiss. Choice Scarf/Specs, Air Slash/Flamethrower/Extrasensory/Aura Sphere. Fairly badass on paper, though hasn't really had a chance to shine yet. I think my mistake was going with Specs, aftergame bosses have been very speedy so he needs Scarf to shine against a lot of them, at least with the sweeper build I have.
Having trouble deciding who to bench. Was thinking of Girafarig but BP/Agility just helps so much even if its stats aren't good enough for much else any more. Steelix maybe, for all that this will leave my team very vulnerable to electric. I should probably do it anyway, there's not much electric left in this game. Watch me get swept by Ash's Pikachu.
Bold statement, but I'm fairly confident in it: After playing the game, watching Ciato play the game, and looking over the movesets... Meganium is the best starter in HGSS now. I'm kinda surprised by this, given gator hype, but Meganium getting Petal Dance just rounds him out so much, now he has reasonable offence to go with the tanky supporting. I'd dig Fera more if Ice Fang weren't so weak or if he were faster, he basically needs Agility support to dominate. He also competes with Gyarados, who has better stats, an earlier final evo, and eventually Dragon Dance. Typhlosion just looks bad due to the superior fire options present in the game; Magmar and Ninetales have similar speed, Confuse Ray, Nasty Plot in the fox's case and just win statwise before Level 36. I suspect Arcanine might be better too but am uncertain there. Meganium not only has his own perks, but he faces a real lack of competition from grass attackers (Victreebel and Vileplume get Petal Dance later/never and have worse stats), and grass is a great in-game type.
Also this kinda drives home how bad the gen2 starters originally were. Feraligatr with nothing worth noting that ran off his Atk stat! Meganium whose best attack, ever, is a 55-power Razor Leaf! I guess Typholosion's competition from other fires wasn't as harsh though, since they learned FT way too late.
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Bold statement, but I'm fairly confident in it: After playing the game, watching Ciato play the game, and looking over the movesets... Meganium is the best starter in HGSS now. I'm kinda surprised by this, given gator hype, but Meganium getting Petal Dance just rounds him out so much, now he has reasonable offence to go with the tanky supporting. I'd dig Fera more if Ice Fang weren't so weak or if he were faster, he basically needs Agility support to dominate. He also competes with Gyarados, who has better stats, an earlier final evo, and eventually Dragon Dance. Typhlosion just looks bad due to the superior fire options present in the game; Magmar and Ninetales have similar speed, Confuse Ray, Nasty Plot in the fox's case and just win statwise before Level 36. I suspect Arcanine might be better too but am uncertain there. Meganium not only has his own perks, but he faces a real lack of competition from grass attackers (Victreebel and Vileplume get Petal Dance later/never and have worse stats), and grass is a great in-game type.
Meganium is also my favorite of the Gen 2 starters, but if you don't plan on using him in your team for very long I'd suggest choosing one of the others. I chose Chikorita and the Lance/Clair double battle was a lot harder because Lance's Gyarados would go first and OHKO the rival's Typhlosion. I'd also say that Meganium has a bit of competition from Tangrowth. Tangela is pretty late, but Tangrowth's offensive stats are really good and it eventually gets Power Whip.
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Somehow I'd totally forgotten that Tangrowth's evolution was a reasonable one despite being a gen4 addition. That is a point, although Tangrowth is down 30 points of speed to Meganium and loses damage fairly badly until Power Whip comes out to play at Level 54, so whatever competition it does offer is less than what the other two starters face.
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Exeggutor gets Sleep Powder, Leech Seed, and Wood Hammer/Seed Bomb, plus you can evolve it pretty early via Pokeathlon prize. Victreebel doesn't get any good Grass STAB until L47, but Sludge Bomb by TM is an option, and it's not a TM that gets a whole lot of competition. Belossom of all things gets Leaf Blade via heart scale, Sleep Powder/Stun Spore, and Drain Punch for more coverage on a potential Swords Dance set.
I really don't think the grass competition in HGSS is bad anymore, unlike GSC. I'm also not very impressed by Meganium's support movepool, not without any sort of worthwhile status.
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Meganium's point is to be tanky and throw up defensive buffers, not status things. The fact that he doubles as a grass attacker now, something he was less impressive at in GSC, is what makes him worth noting. All the other grass attackers you listed have serious problems. Exeggutor has no grass offence until Blackthorn, as well bad speed and special def, while Bellosom needs a super-rare bug catching prize or the national dex and again has bad speed. Victreebel isn't even a grass attacker unless you count the almighty 55-power Razor Leaf at Level 39 Weepinbell. A poison attacker, as you say, but that's not what I was commenting on, and not very useful anyway.
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The point is that Reflect/Light Screen have much less marginal value than Sleep Powder/Leech Seed, especially in a game where you can buy them as TMs early on so their distribution is a lot more widespread. Psuedopassing only gives you three turns of defensive buff, and Grass itself is at a disadvantage against most gym types if you're using Meganium yourself.
Solarbeam is available as a storebought TM as an early Grass option, though I'll admit it's not ideal. Sunny Day helps eventually if you have the slot for it, since all of those Grass types have Chlorophyll. Sun Stone isn't really hard to get, either; current HP is a major factor in the scoring now, so something at the high end of its level range and caught at full health will usually win.
Without its usual trump card of good status, I don't really agree that Grass is a great type in-game in HGSS. The Johto gyms are pretty much stacked against Grass as a typing, both offensively and defensively. There are a million and a half random trainers with Water types as usual, but you don't need help against those. I've played HGSS twice, completely ignored Grass the first type around and didn't miss a beat and mainly used it for Leech Seed second time around.
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You simply face so much water and rock (The latter being annoying for a bunch of types, with its most common members liking to explode in your face if you don't one-shot them lategame) that having a grass attacker is handy. I agree it's not necessary; just look at my current team (No, Jumpluff doesn't count as grass offence). No type is. Still, it's a fairly cool type to have, which is mainly a point in its favour over fire, which is a weak typing for the same reasons (this isn't to say individual fires aren't worth using).
I'm not sure I'm following your argument here. If your point is "Meganium isn't too impressive" (and it seems to be), then so what? I never claimed he was an amazing pokemon or even a great starter by series standards. I claimed he was the best starter in HGSS, and you haven't really given me compelling reasons either of the other two might be better. I'm currently using Fera and watching Meganium and I can tell who is generally performing better and more valuable to the team, Lance aside. He's okay, mind, outright good at points, but he has plenty of lulls and faces extremely stiff competition from the usual array of capable water pokemon, the most glaring of which is the L30 Gyarados the game dumps into your lap. The only reason I'm not using Gyar is simply because I want to use my starter.
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Alpha Protocol- I goaded Marbury into coming after me instead of escaping, which meant I got to gun him down like a bitch. All that time I spent taunting him meant my cooldown abilities came back up. So I hit Overclock, threw a super-powered explosive at him, used Iron Will for the extra life as I ran at him through gunfire, then popped Fury and beat him to death.
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Your original arguement seemed to primarily be that "Meganium is way better than the competition, Gatr/Typh aren't", but I don't really agree on Meganium being better than the other Grasses. Status is such an important part of a Grass type's utility IMO, especially in a game where the bosses are stacked against Grass types matchup-wise and non-boss trainers are even weaker than usual in a Pokemon game. The fact that Meganium is still an average attacker at best with no type coverage barring an Earthquake TM (probably the single most fought over in the game) only makes its mediocre support capabilities for a Grass type less appealing.
I didn't make any direct comparisons between Meganium/Typhlosion/Feraligatr because that depends wildly on personal playstyle decisions (i.e. how diffuse exp is being spread around). That's purely subjective grounds with no right answer so no amount of discussion is going to change anyone's minds.
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Man I read you guys talking about a few levels in that mix, level 39, 47, 54 and I sit here and think, seriously? You are debating the superiority of something with GSC/HGSS level curve based on the competition getting stuff in the aftergame half of it? I dunno hinode man, on paper the Elf has a really compelling argument based just purely on the mega shit tastic level curve of those games. I mean sure for that very same reason carrying a Magikarp for so long is going to be stupidly painful, but ergh. Why couldn't I have just kept my Ice Punching Alakazam for dragon beat downs? Sad times.
Man I really want to play AP again. Think I will start it up now. Freelancer with pistols and being psychotic and shooting everyone in the face.
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Typh isn't really a personal playstyle decision unless you are a real powerleveller. Typh just kinda uh sucks compared to Ninetales.
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Your original arguement seemed to primarily be that "Meganium is way better than the competition, Gatr/Typh aren't", but I don't really agree on Meganium being better than the other Grasses.
He's better than them at grass attacking, which is relevant for the reasons I gave. Also don't see where the gym leaders are really affecting things here since HGSS represents literally every single type amongst its 16 gyms and E4, doubling up on Psychic, Fighting (kinda), Dragon, and Poizn.
If your argument is that the likes of Jumpluff and Exeggutor are better because they can sleep things, then sure, that's reasonable, but they don't really crowd out Meganium at his own job. I'm using Jumpluff and can't help but feel that Meganium would be nice to have on the team. This is my own damn fault for not using an electric, but I wasn't impressed with the grass attacking options in HGSS (I gave up on Bellsprout in disgust once I clued in that Growth no longer even had the decency to afffect Vine Whip and Bullet Seed) and I do see them as valuable.
You may disagree on the value of a grass attacker and that's fine but it doesn't change my original argument, Meganium is harder to eclipse at the job he does. Typh on the other hand is overtly worse than other fires at the very job he tries to do, and Fera faces varied water competition from all sides (Surf is still the type's money move and still runs off his wrong stat) and one very similar but superior option in Gyarados.
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inFamous- Started up my Hard, Evil playthrough to go alongside FFXII. It is indeed a bit harder! Enemies can be a bitch to kill sometimes. I shutter to think of what the trash golems will be like ;-; Hopefully I can finish up the stunt list this time around, but I still suck at hitting back grenades accurately and hardmode is NOT a good time to be doing the Shockwave Three People Off a Building at Once one. You just take too much damage before you can corral them in. I'll probably leave the Dark Water missions until later when I get the shield.
Those two are incidentally the last two I needed on my Good playthrough, but with 100% of all cities cleared three enemies NEVER appear on a rooftop together. There are three Reapers that show up on the traintracks, but thats just not high enough, and my Shockwave ends up throwing at least one onto a building.
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Alpha Protocol- Just raised my unarmed skill to the point where I got the running knee strike. Holy fuck, that thing DESTROYS people when you have the reinforced arm guards attached to your armor. I'm basically just running around, using people's knees as steps so I can more easily bash their skulls in with my knee.
Also this time, I sold out and decided to work with Halbech. See, I kind of dusted a couple NSA agents and I don't think I'll get away with it.
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Time Gentlemen, Please! -
Generally an improvement over BTDT. Being in less of a hub-style situation helps, and there's a fair amount more game there. Also has more of an ongoing storyline that the characters are involved in instead of one barely happening in the background.
Could have done with a little less immature dialogue however.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story -
Very entertaining. I would like to say that it was better than Partners in Time but I find myself unable to remember why I was displeased with PiT and it may even have picked up an unwarranted negative association somewhere.
It does start to drag a little with overly long areas as the end approaches. Also, I don't believe that the Inside was as fleshed out as it could have been, and disappointingly there are times which M&L don't spend Inside.
Big battles are amusing and now I vaguely want to replay Rocket Slime.
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He's better than them at grass attacking, which is relevant for the reasons I gave. Also don't see where the gym leaders are really affecting things here since HGSS represents literally every single type amongst its 16 gyms and E4, doubling up on Psychic, Fighting (kinda), Dragon, and Poizn.
Gym leaders/E4 members are just about the only enemy trainers that can put up a fight in this game even if you don't have advantageous typing. The Petal Dance arguement for Meganium fades away in aftergame as superior Grass options like Leaf Blade start rolling in for the other Grass types.
If your argument is that the likes of Jumpluff and Exeggutor are better because they can sleep things, then sure, that's reasonable, but they don't really crowd out Meganium at his own job. I'm using Jumpluff and can't help but feel that Meganium would be nice to have on the team. This is my own damn fault for not using an electric, but I wasn't impressed with the grass attacking options in HGSS (I gave up on Bellsprout in disgust once I clued in that Growth no longer even had the decency to afffect Vine Whip and Bullet Seed) and I do see them as valuable.
Frankly, I don't consider Meganium *good* at Grass attacking, in large part because I don't like Petal Dance. I used it on Sunflora for a while due to lack of better options, but there is a very serious risk that you fail to OHKO a boss's Pokemon, they use a Potion, and pretty soon you end up self-confused without even inflicting a KO. I can't see it working any better on Meganium which has lower special attack and might want to refresh Reflect/Light Screen at some point. Something like Bellossom's Leaf Blade or Exeggutor's Seed Bomb is far more appealing as a Grass attack to me.
Part of this, I suspect, is that I consider Water a near mandatory type in-game for Surf, so Rock doesn't worry me (typically running a bunch of special attackers who can blow throw Gravellers doesn't hurt there - you seem to have unintentionally created a team that gets largely walled by them), and Electric is my first choice anti-Water type due to boss Gyarados and random Tentacools/Tentacruels. Electric is so desirable I would absolutely look for one even with a Grass type on board.
You may disagree on the value of a grass attacker and that's fine but it doesn't change my original argument, Meganium is harder to eclipse at the job he does. Typh on the other hand is overtly worse than other fires at the very job he tries to do, and Fera faces varied water competition from all sides (Surf is still the type's money move and still runs off his wrong stat) and one very similar but superior option in Gyarados.
This... depends a lot on playstyle. Your tendency to run six Pokemon ASAP, diffusing exp significantly in the process, tends to work against both.
Feraligatr is probably the single best Pokemon for the "pool all exp into 1-3 Pokemon, smash game with them" style. It's a starter, it can use both attacking stats, and gets good enough neutrality to in fact run Surf+Waterfall endgame, with decent coverage moves otherwise. It's the king of the efficiency, borderline speedrun playstyle, where spending hours on Voltorb Flip to get accurate coverage TMs for a Starmie or waiting until Friday for a Lapras isn't a feasible option, and Gyarados slow exp gaining rate works against it compared to a heavily levelled Feraligatr.
Typhlosion is all about raw firepower: storebought Fire Blast running off 109 SpAtk + 100 Speed makes for a stronger choiced attacker than anything else in the game, with Eruption picked up late in the aftergame at L57 - although exactly how late depends heavily on how broadly exp is being spread. Its coverage moves (Dig, Focus Blast) don't mesh well with a Choice item but not enough to really discourage use of one - Dig lets you switch Typh in on Fire types to KO even with Specs equipped, at least. Ninetales has 28 less SpAtk and support moves good enough that I don't think anyone will choice it, so it ends up playing very differently. Magmar is strictly inferior as a choiced attacker, aside from the admittedly ugly Quilava phase - you can't argue it clearly superior unless you want to argue the game before L36 is vastly more difficult than the game after L36. Arcanine is a problem here, though - Intimidate I suspect makes up for the slightly lower SpAtk/Speed, and choiced Dragon Pulse is actually a good idea here. Typh would need to get Eruption to stand a chance here a suspect, which means the fewer Pokemon to spread out exp out amongst the better.
Meganium by contrast doesn't work as well for "pool your exp into a smaller number of Pokemon" - its offensive is significantly worse than the other two starters, especially since Petal Dance's self-confuse blows if you're trying to sweep entire teams with your STAB moves.
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My problem with the "pool all exp into a small number of pokemon" is that the game breaks that way; I'm pretty sure the game can't stand up to ANY badly overlevelled starter, especially with the TM focus that implies. At that point comparisons become fairly meaningless. Do you really think the game has a chance against an overlevelled Meganium? Offence goes up quadratically so his will be more than adequate, and he's just going to laugh off things like Lance's Outrage even before Reflect. I've seen people solo the game with the likes of Rattata (EDIT: And I mean Rattata, not Raticate) and complain that it's too easy.
Ninetales has 28 less SpAtk and support moves good enough that I don't think anyone will choice it
Indeed, which frees up the valuable Choice Specs for any number of other special attackers on the team, preferably one who gets decent special attacks of an element besides the problematic fire (besides lol Focus Blast). Not to mention Ninetales needs only one Nasty Plot (on a turn which it can typically buy itself using Confuse Ray at that) to beat out Choice Specs + 28 SpAtk difference, and said difference doesn't even exist until Level 36 (though to be fair, neither does NP).
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Ninetales also gets Flamethrower 15 levels lower! Typh is uh marginally better at special attacking in the aftergame (Level 57 barely even counts, I'm not even close to Level 57 and I've beaten most of the aftergame in HGSS) and way worse at it in most of the regular game.
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My problem with the "pool all exp into a small number of pokemon" is that the game breaks that way; I'm pretty sure the game can't stand up to ANY badly overlevelled starter, especially with the TM focus that implies. At that point comparisons become fairly meaningless. Do you really think the game has a chance against an overlevelled Meganium? Offence goes up quadratically so his will be more than adequate, and he's just going to laugh off things like Lance's Outrage even before Reflect. I've seen people solo the game with the likes of Rattata (EDIT: And I mean Rattata, not Raticate) and complain that it's too easy.
Meganium takes significantly more overlevelling, though. Late Earthquake aside, its only TM help is... Iron Tail. For most of the game it would have to chip away at stuff with normal attacks and Razor/Magical Leaf. What level would you need to handle enemy Haunters/Gengars effectively?
While it's true that you basically have to tie both your hands behind your back to make the game even sorta challenging, there is still a significant difference because a easy game, a really really easy game, and a Rhapsody-level game. Most of the serious attempts at hashing out in-game effectiveness ratings/tier lists look either focus on ~4 Pokemon teams with the remaining team slots devoted to HM slaves or they just focus on 1-2 Pokemon teams that crush the game with optimum efficiency. This is a really a philosophical arguement, similar to small teams vs large teams in Fire Emblem.
Indeed, which frees up the valuable Choice Specs for any number of other special attackers on the team, preferably one who gets decent special attacks of an element besides the problematic fire (besides lol Focus Blast). Not to mention Ninetales needs only one Nasty Plot (on a turn which it can typically buy itself using Confuse Ray at that) to beat out Choice Specs + 28 SpAtk difference, and said difference doesn't even exist until Level 36 (though to be fair, neither does NP).
That's 2 turns of setup spent before actually attacking. If you're trying to sweep a whole team then that's a trivial price, but sometimes there's only one or two Pokemon that provide a favorable matchup, so you just want to KO them and setup moves aren't really worthwhile. Both setup sweepers and immediate attackers have their use, I don't consider either type to obsolete the other.
Fire in general is probably worse than I realized in HGSS. I haven't used anything earlier than Ho-oh so I didn't pay attention to their matchups, and none of them get a second STAB except Ho-oh who is broken in general. Ninetales gets points for status at least, WoW is pretty rare in-game.
Ninetales also gets Flamethrower 15 levels lower! Typh is uh marginally better at special attacking in the aftergame (Level 57 barely even counts, I'm not even close to Level 57 and I've beaten most of the aftergame in HGSS) and way worse at it in most of the regular game.
18 actually (24 for Vulpix vs 42 for Typh), but storebought Fire Blast and Lava Plume at 35 mean Typh doesn't really miss FT that much. Severe Voltorb Flip addition can bring earlier FT but that is so time consuming for relatively little gain that I'd ignore the option entirely.
Fire Blast keeps Cyndaquil line tied/ahead for boss damage at all times, at the cost of low PP and 85% accuracy. Lava Plume is good enough either as a replacement or alongside FB; it's stronger than Ninetales' FT. Ninetales is only better at special attacking between 24 and 36, and even then Fire Blast can push it to an effective tie (Quilava has nearly the same SpAtk as Ninetales) for 5 turns.
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I will say this now: You are severely underestimating the Meganium line. Severely, severely, severely. I cannot see a single better choice of pokemon for not only having a well-balanced, decently powerful team (without TM shenanigans, mind), but also for building it. And that is more important than you're giving it credit for, since that means I have been intentionally tying my hands behind my back, and letting my pokemon get under leveled, and yet Meganium (Still a Bayleef, only on the 5th gym despite it being my 6th badge; which Bayleef was awesome against, btw. Poison Powder for life, y'all) still manages to pull well ahead of what the game throws at me, even with spending the first turn being completely vulnerable. It also means that I constantly have options, since that is what the grass type is for, but Meganium is tanky enough to actually have those options be feasible.
Also, your argument seems to rely rather heavily on both being good at only one thing (lulz, personally I find this a terrible thing to have in a pokemon, unless you wanna hype Shuckle as pretty sweet for being super tanky) as well as sinking TMs into someone just because they're available. There is one rather large problem with your argument involving the TMs; that is a lot of cash you're sinking in, and for what gain? Just so your starter can not suck compared to an easily caught pokemon that is cuter? I dunno. You could be spending that cash (and far less, as well) to make, say, Meganium good at what you're talking about.
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unless you wanna hype Shuckle as pretty sweet for being super tanky
Shuckle for president!
Also, the steel gym leader in Platinum is terrible. Totally pathetic.
(I'm conflicted about pokemon at the moment. I like Platinum, but I'm buying a DS today and don't know if I wanna replay the first third of it... Not totally sold on a gen II remakes either, though, and diamond/pearl seem like a step down...)
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I think I can sum this argument up fairly fast.
Totodile's line is a Pokemon you get a huge amount of good options for still including one that plain and simply does it's job better(Red Gyarados, although you can get one of these earlier with a little effort), still.
Chika's line is harder to get an early option for and the ones that do what Chika does stand out as less firmly dominating it.
What Chika does is not what most Grasses do and may not be universally valued, whereas Totodile's offense is generally good.
Put like this, Chika-line really is better than Totodile's line... but it's kinda a weird better. Yes, Meganium does what he does and doesn't do it like many other Pokemon, but you have to care about that first. Do you care? Good question.
I think the only clear thing in this is that Typhlosion would probably be the worst starter by this line of logic. Pure fire cannons aren't particularly valuable overall, in HGSS, and there's a bunch of other options for it, such as Ninetales/Arcanine or Magmar or Entei. (I'll defend Entei. Durable Pokemon with a glaring weakness aren't as bad in-game because the enemy simply can't always exploit this weakness, everyone in Netbattle has EQ while rather few enemies in game have Magnitude, let alone EQ, until very late, so yes Entei still works.) The other two are just a value judgement.
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unless you wanna hype Shuckle as pretty sweet for being super tanky
Shuckle for president!
Also, the steel gym leader in Platinum is terrible. Totally pathetic.
(I'm conflicted about pokemon at the moment. I like Platinum, but I'm buying a DS today and don't know if I wanna replay the first third of it... Not totally sold on a gen II remakes either, though, and diamond/pearl seem like a step down...)
The Gen 2 remakes are way better than Diamond/Pearl, I will say that much. I can't comment on Platty, having not played it. Why do you have to play the first third again?
Also, I think Sage puts it best.
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Honestly, if you're using a Pokemon for anything but cuteness, why are you playing the game? It's pretty obvious that Piplup is the best Pokemon in the game.
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I will say this now: You are severely underestimating the Meganium line. Severely, severely, severely. I cannot see a single better choice of pokemon for not only having a well-balanced, decently powerful team (without TM shenanigans, mind), but also for building it. And that is more important than you're giving it credit for, since that means I have been intentionally tying my hands behind my back, and letting my pokemon get under leveled, and yet Meganium (Still a Bayleef, only on the 5th gym despite it being my 6th badge; which Bayleef was awesome against, btw. Poison Powder for life, y'all) still manages to pull well ahead of what the game throws at me, even with spending the first turn being completely vulnerable. It also means that I constantly have options, since that is what the grass type is for, but Meganium is tanky enough to actually have those options be feasible.
Uh... Poison Powder? Really?
If that's the type of option you want lots of, then sure. Meganium has a case for best Poison Powder user in the game. I'd much prefer to take a durability hit to get options that are actually good, like Sleep Powder - actually disabling the enemy outright more than makes up for the extra damage taken due to less durability at the outset.
Also, your argument seems to rely rather heavily on both being good at only one thing (lulz, personally I find this a terrible thing to have in a pokemon, unless you wanna hype Shuckle as pretty sweet for being super tanky)
Specializing in offense *is* the single best overall strategy in-game, where you mainly face endless hordes of middling Pokemon and get to choose whatever matchup you want even on the harder fights. If you go first and KO everything, than you take less damage than what a slower tanky type would anyways. Accurate sleep/paralysis still has significant value because they help with catching Pokemon, especially legendaries, which are often harder than actual boss fights. Moreover, against something like Clair's Kingdra that's hard to blitz, they swing moment towards you faster than a more gradual buff/debuff.
as well as sinking TMs into someone just because they're available. There is one rather large problem with your argument involving the TMs; that is a lot of cash you're sinking in, and for what gain? Just so your starter can not suck compared to an easily caught pokemon that is cuter? I dunno. You could be spending that cash (and far less, as well) to make, say, Meganium good at what you're talking about.
Um... the main TM I'm talking about is Fire Blast, which is sold for a mere 7500 in Goldenrod. If you can't spare a one-time 7500 for an attack that is seriously overpowered for that point in the game, you are either wasting massive amounts of money on something bizarre or skipping every single trainer possible and then dying repeatedly to halve your cash. There's really not a whole lot to save up cash for in Pokemon in-game anyways.
Also, no amount of cash will make Meganium "good at what you're talking about" in this case. That would require buying an Action Replay to hack in a move like Power Whip or Seed Flare.
I think I can sum this argument up fairly fast.
Totodile's line is a Pokemon you get a huge amount of good options for still including one that plain and simply does it's job better(Red Gyarados, although you can get one of these earlier with a little effort), still.
Chika's line is harder to get an early option for and the ones that do what Chika does stand out as less firmly dominating it.
What Chika does is not what most Grasses do and may not be universally valued, whereas Totodile's offense is generally good.
Put like this, Chika-line really is better than Totodile's line... but it's kinda a weird better. Yes, Meganium does what he does and doesn't do it like many other Pokemon, but you have to care about that first. Do you care? Good question.
If you mean that Chika-line is relatively better at it's niche when you say it "really is better", I'd agree except with a huge caveat: Chika-line is still very much in competition with the other Grasses that fill a different niche for a team slot. Because of how many weaknesses Grass has (and how many types resist it), it's not a good type to double up on, whereas you could easily run say Gyarados and Lanturn together and not even share a single weakness. Just being the best at a specific niche doesn't necessarily mean much if the niche itself isn't good. Call it the RBY Charizard rule, or maybe RBY Hitmonlee rule for a more extreme rendition.
I think the only clear thing in this is that Typhlosion would probably be the worst starter by this line of logic. Pure fire cannons aren't particularly valuable overall, in HGSS, and there's a bunch of other options for it, such as Ninetales/Arcanine or Magmar or Entei. (I'll defend Entei. Durable Pokemon with a glaring weakness aren't as bad in-game because the enemy simply can't always exploit this weakness, everyone in Netbattle has EQ while rather few enemies in game have Magnitude, let alone EQ, until very late, so yes Entei still works.) The other two are just a value judgement.
I can see this argument, but it depends largely on how bad exactly Fire cannons turn out overall. Haven't really thought about it, just so happens that on my two playthroughs I've ran two late joining Fire types (Ho-oh was the earlier one <_<) who are also dual-typed and also of the opposite ends of the usefulness spectrum to the extent that they don't really extrapolate to Typhlosion/Arcanine/Ninetales/Magmar level performance.
As an aside, I'd say that Entei in-game is good because you can potentially get it right after gym 4 at level 40 with Flamethrower prelearned. Also, Dig is good in-game so Entei's attack isn't wasted if you can afford to use that TM on it.
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The Gen 2 remakes are way better than Diamond/Pearl, I will say that much. I can't comment on Platty, having not played it. Why do you have to play the first third again?
Well, I've been emulating Platinum on my crappy scrappy little netbook, but it's far from a perfect experience, plus no multiplayer/trading etc. Bought a DS this morning, haven't decided which version to get, though. Probably gonna go with SS, then platinum when I'm done with it if I haven't lost all pokemon enthusiasm by then.
Platinum's been a really positive experience so far, actually. Totally solid.
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Went on a bit of a Live Arcade shopping spree.
Shadow Complex: Did most of the challenges, got the bad/awesome/hilarious ending, then got up to the dorms. Fun game. Bit linear thus far, but very well-designed.
N+: This is pretty awesome. Bite-size bare-bones platforming with a huge array of varied stages.
Splosion Man: Haven't actually played my copy yet, but I already know it's good. Anybody who wants to play, drop me a line on Live.
TMNT Arcade 1989: Whee, nostalgia!
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Pokemon Heartgold -- Just beat superboss Red! Co-MVPs of the battle are Meganium, who used a lot of Light Shield/Reflect and tanked a couple of the otherwise untankable folks, and Articuno used Pressure to make Lapras use Struggle. Yeaaah I think I was pretty underlevelled (about 52) so I had to use lots and lots of items. I had about 30 Hyper Potions, 25~ Revives, and lots of Lemonade. I used all the Revives and almost all the Hyper Potions. Pretty great battle, Blastoise (owned so hard by Meganium) was a total scrub but otherwise the opponents were pretty scary. I used Amphy to Paralyze people and otherwise die. Magmortor/Raticate/Vappy didn't see much use in the battle other than Vappy getting off a Choice Specs Surf on Charizard and Magmortor Confusing... someone.
^_^ Fun game. I like Meganium a lot because he is actually cute at second and third evos. Petal Dance is also awesome; its drawback is so easy to mitigate by just a) using Petal Dance against something it at least 2HKOs (which is easy) and b) switching him out upon the death, when you don't lose anything. I didn't find it a drawback at all. Razor Leaf was my fourth move and it was passable for those pesky anti-magic people~ Also hits two people in Double Battle~ Magmar was amazing most of the game until the end of the regular game, where he was kinda crappy, but he was good again against Erika and another one of the Kanto Gym Leaders. It was kinda funny. Vappy just Choice Specs'd the world, Ratty was just a fast finisher and had Swords Dance and Double Team, and Amphy was pretty solid most of the game. (I had a +Speed Nature and he was speed blessed, so he was better than average.) Meganium also had all stats above 100~ ^.^
Overall I think the Team Rocket Portions are too easy and really need to be buffed up, and some of the Gyms are still suspect (but not as bad as they sound in the original!). I really like the higher selection of Pokemon in this game. The best thing, though, is that they give you mother-fucking Articuno. Hell yeah. Articuno!!!
:)
I gave it a high 7/10. Not as good as Em or LG, but much better than Diamond.
Next, for the portable I shall play Ace Attorney Investigations.
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Chronicles of Mystery: The Scorpio Ritual -
Well, there's some nice music and it's reasonably pretty (setting aside fairly horribly lipsynching). Apart from that it's fairly low-grade.
So at one point you break into a caravan using a bent metal pen insert, and take a bunch of stuff. You need to set up a flashlight in there for light, and I tried to take the flashlight back before leaving in case I needed it in the upcoming cave but it wasn't available for interacting with. So when I attempt to leave, Sylvie is all 'better take this flashlight so people don't realise that there's been a breakin' and takes it back of her own accord. Keeping in mind that we have taken: A brush and trowel, several photos, and a metal detector. And we leave the pen insert stuck in the door lock. Later on we get one remark offhand by the owner of the caravan in question that he thinks he's getting paranoid because he thinks someone might have gone through his caravan recently.
This is the same guy that is thoroughly nonplussed later on that the door of his van, which contains highly valuable valuables and was locked up, is ajar when he comes back, and doesn't even bother checking on them. To be fair, the ending -may- be attempting to imply that he knew more about what was happening than he was letting on, but I think it's more likely that that would be giving the writers far more credit than they're worth. Especially considering that the people who these valuables are delivered to apparently don't even check on them themselves... and the people which had the valuables previously notice that they've gone missing but apparently don't even care despite the trouble they went to to get them in the first place.
So at one point there is a vicious feral cat guarding something you need to access and you need to distract it. Which you do by the old standby of giving it a fish. Which for some bizarre reason causes it to run away instead of any of the reactions you may expect. Kay. In related news, if you look at the fish while carrying it around you get some weird dialogue along the lines of 'Since I can't give the mackerel access to the internet, I figured I may as well let it read the paper'.
So at one point you are in a generally dark warehouse with light at one end, and you can't go down the dark end without light. Sylvie claims that she just needs to find the light switch. Okay. So what you do, is try all your inventory with all your other inventory and find out that you can make a pendulum out of a scarf and a powder case. Now you hang the pendulum up on the hooks in the lit area of the warehouse and tilt it until something happens, which consists of one particular orientation resulting in a shaft of light shining out across the dark area of the warehouse, which you follow and find that it's shining right on the light switch. What exactly were they thinking.
Plus the 'puzzle' after that one is to give two items to a person, two items which you were -required- to pick up to finish the previous puzzle. That is not a puzzle, game, that is just busywork.
I could go on but I think that this has been sufficient to broadcast my thoughts on that particular area.
The interface is somewhat annoying - all onscreen interactibles have only one regular action you can take on them apart from using objects on them (except -one- instance where they don't which confused me for several minutes as to what exactly I was supposed to be doing). This leads to numerous occasions where clicking on an interactible just gives you one of the standard 'action failed' messages, and you can't even fall back on looking at the thing. It is infuriating. There is also one screen with no apparent interactibles where you have to select the metal detector and wave it around the screen to find something, and to be fair it does start beeping once you select it on that screen, but why would you ever select it or anything else on that screen when there is nothing to actively use it on?
I decree it not the best adventure game of the millenium. Now to play the sequel.
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WAXF - Other games? What other games? Currently at 1-5. The prison escape map in 1-4 (not Metal Gear Tonyrinthia, the -actual- escape) was amazingly fun.
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Mana Khemia: Finally back on this. On, like, Chapter 5 or something. Just got Anna and Roxis, aced the two modules and have met the DEFENDER OF JUSTICE. I think Roxis is actually the only character in the cast that I don't like so far, which is pretty awesome.
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FF6 Eviltype - Hmm, I think I'd done almost everything at last update, but a few more things since:
Narshe - Apparently most people do Narshe earlier in the game than I tend to. This playthrough I did it even later than was normal for me, so yeah. Around this time I rediscovered how awesome summons are, Bahamut took care of things here super-well. Bosses were all unremarkable but again I was probably overpowered, for all that I was only Level 32 or so.
Fanatics' Tower - Holy hell this dungeon is hard. Part of me loves it anyway. Find out all the status weaknesses and use them! OH GOD I FORGOT TO CAST FLOAT. L 90 Magics are just dirty cheating bastards. This playthrough I did the dungeon mostly without Wall Rings which makes it much faster and... probably not all that much harder honestly, the best stuff is still the ignore-reflect stuff.
White Dragon - I like White Dragon, he puts on enough pressure and there's no complete holy walling (except Paladin Shield but who cares) so he remains interesting enough. My one PC without great mdur/holy res just got smashed by Pearl.
MagiMaster - Ohnoes, boss healing! Kinda keeps things interesting, makes me worried about a really weak party that couldn't outrace it but you could always reflect him to stop it I guess. Fun fun. Needs a Life 3/Rasp/Palidor bailout as always but everyone knows about that by now. I had one PC with a Reflect Ring on (my frailest) to protect him.
Anyway the biggest thing to report here is that, after beating MagiMaster, I knew I could handle anything the tower could throw at me, Gem Box in hand, and I proudly started downwards.
*Battle!*
Oh, wait, I didn't heal after the chain-Life 3'ing revived me to ~250 HP. Well, that's okay, I'll just heal now. *enters command* Level 90 Magics are scary, but nothing they do kills me on turn 1, they can only use Merton and Stop-
*Meteor*
"NOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
One of the few times I have -actually said that- while playing a video game. Fuck. Oh well, came back, armed better than ever with the knowledge to beat the damn place, and took it apart well enough.
Only Ebot's Rock and the final dungeon left, now, and I'm probably just going to skip Ebot's Rock.
Devil May Cry - Up to Mission 17. This game is hard. Especially the bosses. Oh god the bosses. Except Griffon, he was a chump. Fun times, gameplay actually manages to have some depth to it, weapon balance is pretty good although I wish switching between them was a little faster. The game does have two notable flaws to my mind. First of all, the yellow stone system is a bit baffling. Why not just give 3 lives like most games? It's just annoying when you beat a level on your last life; I'm tempted to redo the level when that happens so I don't waste money getting the yellow orbs back. The second flaw is that ever since Mission 11 or so the game has fallen in love with DARKNESS which makes it annoying to see things; I don't really dig this. In theory it could lend the game a horror element but I don't think DMC is very effective at horror anyway.
Still a very solidly fun game overall mind.
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WA:ACF - needs to be a drinking game. take a shot every time the bad guys tell our heroes how insignificant they are then leave without killing them. I don't recall it being this ridiculous in the original.
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NEB: DMC3 addresses most of those flaws... and it addresses all of them if you play DMC3 Special Edition[has an option to make the lives system more sensical]. You can equip two guns and two melee weapons and switch between them at any point in gameplay, and the game generally doesn't have difficult to see environments.
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Somehow I neglected to mention the game's biggest flaw, though, which is the occasionally screwed up camera angles. OH MY GOD WHERE THE FUCK IS THE BOSS STOP SHOWING ME DANTE AND A WALL. Fortunately you can watch the direction Dante's guns are pointed and listen for sound effects so in practice it's not nearly as bad as it could be, but still lazy.
Also I am at Mission 18 now, MAJOR SPOILERS happened. This game's plot is silly. Not silly enough, though! That's what DMC3 is for~
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Camera is also better in 3, less static. DMC1 was originally going to be a Resident Evil game and it shows >_>;
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Camera is also better in 3, less static. DMC1 was originally going to be a Resident Evil game and it shows >_>;
As I recall, that god-awful GBC game was a prequel to it. Leon gets infected with some weird virus at the end of it and in DMC!RE4, it was going to turn him in to a super-powered killing machine.
Then RE4 came out and we realized he already was one.
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New Super Mario Bros Wii: Beaten.
I realize that all the enemy courses were essentially easy mushroom farming mini-stages, but world 6's really takes the cake. It spawns infinitely without having to clear any stages, is really easy to beat, and as a bonus all the Bullet Bills on screen are killed when you get the last target, meaning you'll almost guaranteed to get some 1-ups as well! Just in case you mess up and die every one in ten tries or so. I had 90+ mushrooms coming into the final world and just spammed them on every single stage. Thankfully all the stronger power-ups are much more scarce.
Stage 8-1 was one hell of an introduction level to the last (non-optional) world. Killer smoke advancing from the left, falling rocks from the top, and periodic insta-kill lava geysers from the bottom? Yikes. Just yikes.
The rest of the world never quite lived up to that intro, though. Bowser's Castle in particular was frankly underwhelming for a final stage, right up until the real final boss. I have never been so happy to see a Propeller Mushroom.
Now to go back and get all the Star Coins and secret goals that I missed previously.
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First off, Elfboy, for one of your complaints, there is a half solution:
For Melee weapons, at least Ifrit and Alastor, you can swap between them while you're on the ground by pressing the L/R3 button (Forget which offhand); again, gotta be grounded, and you can't be in DT. It would suck that it only works for Ifrit and Alastor, but really, those are the only two melee weapons you should be using (Force Edge is worse than Alastor in every way, Sparda's a total novelty weapon more than anything else), so you shouldn't care. Guns, sadly, no shortcut exists, which is annoying cause I do find myself swapping between the 3 Main Guns a lot.
Anyway...
Actually, DMC1, when it was still Resident Evil 4, was going to be about a Detective (named Dante) going into a gothic castle and well, ZOMBIE OUTBREAK!!! there and all that. Just while making the game, they realized how little the game was resembling a Resident Evil, so said "Fuck it, lets keep what we have, but make a totally new game out of it!"
Xenogears allegedly was the same deal; initially meant to be CT's sequel, somewhere along the way they realized they were straying too far away from their intent, but they liked what they had already, so rather than scrap it, just alter it into something new entirely.
Really, DMC1 initially being an RE really shows. It has the same Camera Angles as REs, a shit load of emblem puzzles (though, DMC3 didn't fix this but I don't think it was as bad as DMC1), Marrionettes being the basic enemy sort of scream "These were originally zombies" based on how they move and such, enemy specific fatalities, the "You are Dead" game over screen...really, the game is just so obvious where it got its routes from.
DMC2, they actually worked away all the RE-ness from the game, though many will credit DMC3 with this, cause DMC2 was just so different than DMC1 that it might as well not count (where as DMC3 has a lot of the same basics as DMC1, just with a lot of improvements, modernization, etc.)
Interestingly, DMC2 was the opposite compared to DMC1 in regards to the weapon swap. You could swap Guns on the fly, but not Melee Weapons. Then again, DMC2, the 3 weapons were identical for melee in terms of how they handled, just different Range and Power, so you typically just stayed with whatever you found most favorable, where as Guns were about as varied as DMC1.
Then DMC3 just lets you swap both! ...but limits you to one style at a time, sadly. DMC4 then said "Take this Style Swap button and have fun!"
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XF - Man, how many acts does C1 have? I'm at like 1-8 right now.
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20-ish?
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I... guess. <_< The acts are really short, at least. Also I definitely should give Virginia more time in Fantastica once she learns Gadgeteer EQ.
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Just started FFIII DS. Wow. Its characters talk and have names and are even introduced individually (presumably, anyhow, only seen the one so far, but even that's a big change). Can't really tell on gameplay yet. Very similar to FFIV DS, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.
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Bosses were all unremarkable but again I was probably overpowered, for all that I was only Level 32 or so.
I believe I pegged Narshe as the first area people would go to after the obvious stuff(forced to airship->Veldt stuff to Owzer or getting Terra back->the other of those two->Narshe), mostly because people do seem to go there early. I'unno why. Moogle Charm and just doing everything else('sides the locked Locke doors.) while they're there? So yeah, it's pegged to about those levels and your equipment was surely far better.
It's also probably not hard enough to start with, although Ice Dragon's a funny build in that it gets a lot worse if you're a lot more powerful than usual. Making Umaro too good would violate the original spirit of the boss(what, I do keep that in mind.), and the randoms are stuck with "Hey guys did you know there's three save points and a fullheal in this (small) area?". I'm not making randoms OHKO you constantly to keep up with that, so screw it. <_<
Oh, and Tritoch, but I'm pretty happy with what I did there. It's gimmicky, and could probably stand to have some more offense backing it up(not too much, but a little more), but whatever.
The game does have two notable flaws to my mind. First of all, the yellow stone system is a bit baffling. Why not just give 3 lives like most games? It's just annoying when you beat a level on your last life; I'm tempted to redo the level when that happens so I don't waste money getting the yellow orbs back. The second flaw is that ever since Mission 11 or so the game has fallen in love with DARKNESS which makes it annoying to see things; I don't really dig this. In theory it could lend the game a horror element but I don't think DMC is very effective at horror anyway.
Make sure you pick up SE when you get DMC3 then.
It fixes the DARKNESS crap either way, but the american DMC3 standard still has the Yellow orb crap. In the japanese original version you effectively had infinite Yellow Orbs and they had a very limited/expensive Gold Orb that is just an instant fullheal(which is to say it's still worse than Vital Star Larges since it's way more expensive but hey auto!). SE (in american and japanese versions, I believe) lets you choose between both options~
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He's got my copy of DMC3, so having SE won't be an issue!
Edit: I thought the Japanese version of DMC3 had the Yellow Orb standard as well, and their Special Edition added in Gold Orb, as well as Very Hard to the difficulty list (US version added in Japanese Normal, relabeled everything back to what they're suppose to be), as well as Heaven and Hell (yay gimmick modes?!)
Gold Mode is based off DMC2 in any event, which had limitless continues, and Gold Orbs were basically LoZ Fairies (...that gave you full DT as well, cause you know, 1 shot full healing auto-life was clearly not awesome enough as is! Nevermind DMC2 is so easy, you forget these exist). DMC3 added the option of letting you *NOT* use a Gold Orb if you didn't want to, which is nice; annoying entering a boss fight with practically zilch health, and die to it, then your Gold Orb effectively does nothing here but let you take one more hit relative to a normal death. Nice that you can say "no", accept the death, come back wtih full health, and actually use the Gold Orb to full potential!
FOR THE RECORD:
I consider the Yellow Orb standard of DMC1 a stupid thing myself. There was really no reason behind it, and I'm glad they've since punted it from DMC3SE and on in favor of just unlimited continues (of course, you lose a shit load on your ending style ranking, but there should be SOME penalty to dying!)
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Very similar to FFIV DS, which I guess shouldn't be surprising.
Note to self, scratch FF IV DS off of games to play list?
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Like it being FF4 wasn't enough to do that.
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Note to self, scratch FF IV DS off of games to play list?
[/quote]
It's a pretty true remake, plays fairly similar to the original hardtype (which wasn't that hard, recall, just wasn't ludicrously nerfed). I'm told the battle mechanics are actually largely redone, but it feels largely the same. Bunch of extra minigames and whatnot, probably an extra sidequest or two. Graphically almost identical to III, which is to say not terribly impressive, translation's a bit of a wash. I dunno, I didn't get through it (borrowed it and ran out of time) and don't feel any real need to track it down to finish.
Given that FFIV is, I think, just basically a worse game than III to start with, if you really didn't like III DS, I wouldn't bother, no.
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Well, I should note that I fairly disliked 3 DS's battle system, although I'd have to imagine that FF 4 DS couldn't also be a self-defeating job system by the very nature of the game. Still could be a clunky slog though!
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I definitely get the feeling that IV (and probably III) are aimed at new, younger audiences rather than existing fans. Which, y'know, probably only makes sense. They're definitely not director's cuts.
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Xenoblade-
The Radiata Story NPCs are REALLY getting on to my nerve.
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Shadow Complex: Finished the challenge missions (aaaargh at The Big One - goddamn mechs) and got the jetpack in the main game. Not much to say about it other than that it's still a really good Metroidvania thing.
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Bosses were all unremarkable but again I was probably overpowered, for all that I was only Level 32 or so.
I believe I pegged Narshe as the first area people would go to after the obvious stuff(forced to airship->Veldt stuff to Owzer or getting Terra back->the other of those two->Narshe), mostly because people do seem to go there early. I'unno why. Moogle Charm and just doing everything else('sides the locked Locke doors.) while they're there? So yeah, it's pegged to about those levels and your equipment was surely far better.
What about Zozo and Miranda? You know, the Cyan recruitment (which in turn tells you to where to get Gau, in case you didn't do it on accident). When you get the Airship the game tells you to head there.
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Bosses were all unremarkable but again I was probably overpowered, for all that I was only Level 32 or so.
I believe I pegged Narshe as the first area people would go to after the obvious stuff(forced to airship->Veldt stuff to Owzer or getting Terra back->the other of those two->Narshe), mostly because people do seem to go there early. I'unno why. Moogle Charm and just doing everything else('sides the locked Locke doors.) while they're there? So yeah, it's pegged to about those levels and your equipment was surely far better.
What about Zozo and Miranda? You know, the Cyan recruitment (which in turn tells you to where to get Gau, in case you didn't do it on accident). When you get the Airship the game tells you to head there.
Knew I was forgetting a step. Yeah, that was assumed first, I just couldn't recall the part I forgot when I posted that so I just shrugged and went with it.
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ToS: Finished the Figurine Book. Now let us never speak of it again.
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Xenoblade-
The Radiata Story NPCs are REALLY getting on to my nerve.
When you say 'Radiata Story NPCs'... do you mean actual cameos? Or are your AI-controlled companions just recruited stupidly like RS PCs and their AI is so worthless that they might as well be background color?
I just... didn't think Xenoblade was a tri-Ace game, so I'd be surprised if they were cameos?
Also... does it have any references to the other Xeno-whatever games? (Hopefully not Shion, and sadly probably not Xenogears even if it -is- related in some way.)
I see copies of it in the store all the time, but I have an American Wii, which means I can't play Japanese Wii games on it... >.>;;
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Given that FFIV is, I think, just basically a worse game than III to start with, if you really didn't like III DS, I wouldn't bother, no.
Say what? FF4DS is actually a good remake unlike the turd FF3DS is.
WKC - This game plays like a slowed down and retarded FF12 but it isn't so bad. Them giving you an avatar that does nothing plotwise was pure genius! Its like they knew you wouldn't give a fuck and had your avatar reflect that. The scene in the castle where Yulie is about to get stabbed and your avatar stands right next to her doing nothing is pure comedy.
The best part has to be the birds that act as projecters and Leo and the princess randomly bursting into a dance over a lake. What the hell was up with that random dance? It makes no sense to me because I know how these hero types like to go save women they met for like for minutes but Leo? He met her for a couple of seconds when he was a child and they didn't even talk.
Onlines been fine though but its just terrible so little people have a mic. Also town building is terrible and serves no real purpose.
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The best part has to be the birds that act as projecters and Leo and the princess randomly bursting into a dance over a lake. What the hell was up with that random dance? It makes no sense to me because I know how these hero types like to go save women they met for like for minutes but Leo? He met her for a couple of seconds when he was a child and they didn't even talk.
Ask Dante.
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Given that FFIV is, I think, just basically a worse game than III to start with, if you really didn't like III DS, I wouldn't bother, no.
FF3DS is a better remake than FF4DS, if you ask me, and I personally agree that FF3 > FF4 based off the originals. FF3DS mostly has one really major fuck up, which is the final dungeon bullshit (no save points; back during the NES era, this was more forgivable. But now? No, there's no excuse for a dungeon this long with no breaks and no save points. Especially when the final boss is NOT a trivial fight.)
Otherwise, it kept the general difficulty the same (horizontal shift basically; randoms are somewhat easier overall, but bosses are overall harder. The Dark Guardians not-Cerberus are the exception since they all are much worse than their Original incarnations, which is sad), and totally reworked the balance, such that every job for the most part can be used at any point its available, instead of "Ok, now you have Knight, NEVER USE FIGHTER EVER AGAIN!", so you have more options to work with, especially late game where the final dungeon is no longer "Sagex2 + Ninjax2 = Yay!" but you can actually make a team custom to your liking! (...so long as some form of adequate healer is among that group, unless you're a masochist or have FEOK's...who can heal anyway thinking on it...)
It leads to a different experience at least, for all that the core game is overall the same.
FF4DS did change the mechanics a lot meanwhile. Just compare the FF4DS Stat Topic to the FF4o/a one, and you'll get an idea of what I mean.
One thing FF4DS also did was really make apparent how FF4's story was NOT a masterpiece (for all that nostalgic fans will defend it to highest hell.) It tried to make epic scenes out of bland generic crap, and it only made the scenes look silly.
Just look at the scene in Myst. You know, a scene where a town is burning and there's a little girl crying over her dead mother...you'd think this should have some powerful visuals and audio. FF4o/a did a decent enough job considering the time, I suppose. FF4DS turned the scene into...more memetastic than anything. Cecil's yelling "WHY!!!!!!!!" certainly doesn't help, the scene feels rushed rather than just "oh, SNES game, ok" and Rydia's "I HATE YOU!!!!" really did not need that DRAMATIC ECHO, which actually made it harder to take seriously, rather than add emotional impact It really just made the scene sillier rather than improve it.
I will grant that the added Golbez stuff was nice, since hey, NOW GOLBEZ HAS BACKSTORY! That's something the ENTIRE FF4 CAST DIDN'T HAVE! The added flashbacks for Cecil/Kain/Rosa did absolutely nothing but tell us stuff we pretty much already knew, and were cheap. Honestly, FF4DS really just exemplified how poor FF4's plot is and how badly it aged, instead of actually fix up what was wrong with it.
Part of why I don't want an FF5 or FF6 remake is cause I don't think the remakes will necessarily be better than the core games, and to be frank, both games have aged considerably better than FF4 so they really don't need one.
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FF4- *kicks Palom and Porom in the face* Don't tell me you guys just got OHKOed by Cagnazzo. Oh my freaking god. Cid like, almost has double of their COMBINED HP! I HATE CHILDREN!!
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FF3DS is a better remake than FF4DS, if you ask me, and I personally agree that FF3 > FF4 based off the originals. FF3DS mostly has one really major fuck up, which is the final dungeon bullshit (no save points; back during the NES era, this was more forgivable. But now? No, there's no excuse for a dungeon this long with no breaks and no save points. Especially when the final boss is NOT a trivial fight.)
Otherwise, it kept the general difficulty the same (horizontal shift basically; randoms are somewhat easier overall, but bosses are overall harder. The Dark Guardians not-Cerberus are the exception since they all are much worse than their Original incarnations, which is sad), and totally reworked the balance, such that every job for the most part can be used at any point its available, instead of "Ok, now you have Knight, NEVER USE FIGHTER EVER AGAIN!", so you have more options to work with, especially late game where the final dungeon is no longer "Sagex2 + Ninjax2 = Yay!" but you can actually make a team custom to your liking! (...so long as some form of adequate healer is among that group, unless you're a masochist or have FEOK's...who can heal anyway thinking on it...)
It leads to a different experience at least, for all that the core game is overall the same.
FF4DS did change the mechanics a lot meanwhile. Just compare the FF4DS Stat Topic to the FF4o/a one, and you'll get an idea of what I mean.
One thing FF4DS also did was really make apparent how FF4's story was NOT a masterpiece (for all that nostalgic fans will defend it to highest hell.) It tried to make epic scenes out of bland generic crap, and it only made the scenes look silly.
Just look at the scene in Myst. You know, a scene where a town is burning and there's a little girl crying over her dead mother...you'd think this should have some powerful visuals and audio. FF4o/a did a decent enough job considering the time, I suppose. FF4DS turned the scene into...more memetastic than anything. Cecil's yelling "WHY!!!!!!!!" certainly doesn't help, the scene feels rushed rather than just "oh, SNES game, ok" and Rydia's "I HATE YOU!!!!" really did not need that DRAMATIC ECHO, which actually made it harder to take seriously, rather than add emotional impact It really just made the scene sillier rather than improve it.
I will grant that the added Golbez stuff was nice, since hey, NOW GOLBEZ HAS BACKSTORY! That's something the ENTIRE FF4 CAST DIDN'T HAVE! The added flashbacks for Cecil/Kain/Rosa did absolutely nothing but tell us stuff we pretty much already knew, and were cheap. Honestly, FF4DS really just exemplified how poor FF4's plot is and how badly it aged, instead of actually fix up what was wrong with it.
Part of why I don't want an FF5 or FF6 remake is cause I don't think the remakes will necessarily be better than the core games, and to be frank, both games have aged considerably better than FF4 so they really don't need one.
Yeah, we basically agree on the FFIV remake. I think it's pretty decent, but can't make up for the game's underlying weakness. If you dislike FFIV less than I, though, I can see how you could like it.
Not much further into FFIII yet. Got all four characters now, think it's kinda cute how they get staggered just a little bit. I like that they're actually characters, even if they're obviously gonna be pretty one dimensional. Never really been a fan of the total generic, particularly with a cast of four. Finding the interface pretty clunky, not a fan of the load times (which aren't, admittedly, terrible, just long enough to bug me). Warming up to the graphics (I did with FFIV too, but it took a while).
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FFIV falls in to the same trap a lot of Square's games find themselves in: they set their sights very low. FFVI was based on opera structure, sure, and it does well with it. But FFIV? Comic books. Not awesome comics, but like 70s and 80s Claremont-style stuff. That's why everyone dies all the time and nobody ever stays dead.
I mostly enjoy the original FFIV for a combination of nostalgia and its sort of eager diligence in selling everything that happens. But remaking it seems to be counterproductive; when you start voicing some of those lines, they become really dumb.
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FFIV? Comic books. Not awesome comics, but like 70s and 80s Claremont-style stuff. That's why everyone dies all the time and nobody ever stays dead.
Well, this either explains why I like FF4 so much or like '80's Claremont X-Men so much.
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WKC - This game plays like a slowed down and retarded FF12 but it isn't so bad. Them giving you an avatar that does nothing plotwise was pure genius! Its like they knew you wouldn't give a fuck and had your avatar reflect that. The scene in the castle where Yulie is about to get stabbed and your avatar stands right next to her doing nothing is pure comedy.
I think the avatar character was just tossed in late in development or something. It's the only thing that makes sense.
Onlines been fine though but its just terrible so little people have a mic. Also town building is terrible and serves no real purpose.
You get a discount on stuff in your shop, and the stuff in your shop depends on how you build. There's also some unique stuff in the shops at higher stats but I never managed to get that far. It's only worth it if you plan on doing high rank online stuff.
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Chaos Wars - Up to chapter 4 now. Trying to figure out how to get... Poly-tan or something? FAQ said to buy 100 items in the store, so I bought a bunch of cheap 60 Dia items and a few status items and the fight's still not showing up. What the hell?
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Shadow Complex: Got foam, beat the Return of the Spider-Tank, then found the way forward blocked by hyperspeed-breakable boxes. Guess I should go get the Friction Dampener, then.
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Wolfenstein 3D - Cleared Chapter 2.
Also played a bunch of demos, which have been disappointing for the most part. The Tales of Monkey Island and Sam and Max Season 3 demos are far too short and Crackdown 2 is more of the same, only darker and with a more confusing HUD.
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Xenosaga 3: PLAYABLE ALLEN!!! ^_________^
In other news, shionisstillabitch. Lia Sargent's voice-acting helps tone it down a little compared I-want-to-punch-in-the-face-never-talk-again voice actress from XS2, but she keeps pulling out the spoiled bitch card and basically being ridiculously harsh and cruel to her friends, who are all infinitely more interesting and sympathetic than her.
Even worse than Shion is Kevin. WTF. He is stupid and the game's attempts to make him sympathetic fail hard. And any attempt to make him seem -threatening- is completely negated by our glimpse at his teenager-douchebag self. Also... Roth Mantel ... >.>;;
The lack of pretty cinematic cutscenes really takes away from any visual appeal that the previous two games at least had going for them. Although I like the XS3 KOS-MOS design far more than the hideous abomination that is XS2 KOS-MOS.
More importantly, PLAYABLE ALLEN! His bow-thing seems out-of-place in Xenosagaland, but whatever, it's the only bright spot in playing this thing.
*pokes Snow* MOAR Abridged Plz.
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Cleared all characters in Immaterial and Missing Power on Normal.
Query: My Yuyuko replays are encountering problems. It would start off well, but somewhere around the second and third spellcards, the replay becomes off. Yuyuko starts attacking and dodging things that aren't there, and Suika's spellcard declarations becomes off-sync by one compared to the spellcard displays. Eventually, when Suika reaches Pandemonium, she just starts running around until the spellcard display catches up, whereupon Yuyuko in the replay just stands still as Pandemonium activates. I've tried making four replays so far and I still encountered the same problems.
I don't encounter this problem with the other characters.
I'm using ver 1.11 of IaMP and 1.1 of the english patch. I've tried switching to static backgrounds on my latest replay to no avail. Anyone know what's possibly causing this?
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Xenosaga 3 Abridged has taken a second seat to XF for now. Addiction must be treated.
XF - 1-12! The puzzle maps were... pretty pointless. Past that, HOLY FUCK SACRED SLAYER OC THIS THING IS EVIL
Also, I love Edna.
EDIT: Labyrinthia and Clarissa both have Sacred Slayer OC! Maybe I'll detour Levin so he can have it too, but I like focusing a lot and he's almost CL5 at Elementalist. On the other hand, Labby is almost CL6 at it...
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Xenoblade-
The Radiata Story NPCs are REALLY getting on to my nerve.
When you say 'Radiata Story NPCs'... do you mean actual cameos? Or are your AI-controlled companions just recruited stupidly like RS PCs and their AI is so worthless that they might as well be background color?
I just... didn't think Xenoblade was a tri-Ace game, so I'd be surprised if they were cameos?
Also... does it have any references to the other Xeno-whatever games? (Hopefully not Shion, and sadly probably not Xenogears even if it -is- related in some way.)
I see copies of it in the store all the time, but I have an American Wii, which means I can't play Japanese Wii games on it... >.>;;
By Radiata NPCs I mean the NPCs in this game behaves the way the NPCs does in Radiata story. 24 Hours a day, morning and night, they do different things at different time. Then their behaviors actually change after you help them do their random fetch quest. The first thing that stands out would be the widow who had bad relationship with her children, and the main character's co-worker has a crush on her. And after a series of side quest, they'll start to behave differently and relationships change.
And since they have fetch quests for like everything, and I am a completionist who wants to unlock everything on the relationship chart, I willingly drag myself into a deep abyss of grinding fest.
Also, this game has no relationship to Xeno, but somewhat similar themes. Also, do not forget the sex bot look alike.
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At least you can change the clock whenever you want to.
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inFamous- Woo! All stunts unlocked. I can just breeze through the Evilmode playthrough now. Not that it will be a COMPLETE breeze, but hard difficulty hasn't been THAT much harder as of yet.
FFXII- Killed the ROGUE TOMATO! Through the treasury and just met Bal Solo and Franbacca. Amusing enough.
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Alpha Protocol- The Double-cross ending fucking rules.
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Far Cry 2 - This is what you get if you try to cross FPS and GTA and do it horribly. Fragile but nigh unlimited health! Lots of guys to shoot but you have to travel long distances to do it! Everyone you meet wants to shoot you! So on your long distance travel to get to places to shoot dudes you run into dudes to shoot heaps! Then they respawn because you took a wrong turn because your map is shit and you have to hold it out instead of shooting dudes.
Got bored of shooting dudes and being frail after a couple of hours. Then it crashed anyway. And I am done with it. Smells like console port as well which is really disappointing given the pedigree.
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inFamous- Blitzing this now. The mission to protect the medical supplies is so much easier when you know what you're doing. Beat Sasha, who was about the same as she was in normal. I hesitate to say anything was changed, really. Into the Warren now, where as expected, Dustmen are a bitch. At least getting the power back on helped things. REALLY helps having the floating powerup back. Can't wait for the shield and the rockets...
Evil powers are fun. The bomblets on the grenades are almost better for crowd control than the final Good grenade power that automatically restrained enemies caught in the blast.
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Yeah I think playing evil the only power I really wanted from Good far more than the Evil version from what I got was energy from Headshots, but being console shooter wasn't as good as it could have been (for all that head hitboxes are pretty generous).
Edit - For reference the Evil version is when you headshot a guy you can make them explode, which while kind of cool is also fairly redundant since you know you just headshot the guy.
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Well, it only helps when they're in a crowd, which you should be using grenades or rockets for ANYWAY, so yeah, exploding headshots are kind of redundant. Arc Lightning is pretty cool, for all that I only use it slightly more often than I used the good one... which is to say I use it at all.
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Shadow Complex: Man I'm dumb. I looked everywhere for the Friction Dampener upgrade that would allow me to run through those damn blue barriers. Backtracked 'til I couldn't backtrack anymore, tried to sequence-break the vertical wind tunnel in the room with the stationary rocket launcher (which I totally could have done if it didn't force me to aim at the back of the room instead of the ceiling, even with no soldiers there), grenaded everything in sight...you name it. The solution: crawl under the bloody things. Headdesk.
Anyway, I got the bare-bones Omega Armor and am now punching the crap out of bad guys. Sweet.
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Cleared all characters in Immaterial and Missing Power on Normal.
Query: My Yuyuko replays are encountering problems. It would start off well, but somewhere around the second and third spellcards, the replay becomes off. Yuyuko starts attacking and dodging things that aren't there, and Suika's spellcard declarations becomes off-sync by one compared to the spellcard displays. Eventually, when Suika reaches Pandemonium, she just starts running around until the spellcard display catches up, whereupon Yuyuko in the replay just stands still as Pandemonium activates. I've tried making four replays so far and I still encountered the same problems.
I don't encounter this problem with the other characters.
I'm using ver 1.11 of IaMP and 1.1 of the english patch. I've tried switching to static backgrounds on my latest replay to no avail. Anyone know what's possibly causing this?
IIRC there's some weird known issue about Yuyu replays desyncing. I don't know if there was a fix to it, since the only time I recall it mentioned was in the data for the netplay application for IaMP which already fixed it(for netplay).
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Ah, I see. Thanks for the info. Any idea where I can get some more info on it? My Google-fu is proving to be not so good in this regard <<
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inFamous- NOW it's getting difficult. Some of the submissions are a pain, like Night on the Town (which, BTW, SASHA MISSIONS! AWESOME!). Thats one HUGE swarm of enemies. Doesn't help that Dustmen seem to be able to take TWO rockets and live. Normal ones. Not Conduits or Rocketeers/Machine Gunners. This... should be interesting! Finished rescuing the hostages on the boats, stopped before the one where you have to traverse the junkyard.
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Ah, I see. Thanks for the info. Any idea where I can get some more info on it? My Google-fu is proving to be not so good in this regard <<
'fraid not. The only time I've heard much of anything about it was looking through Cowcaster(the netplay app)'s documentation.
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FFT:WoTL- I has a Ciddy. Ciddy r broke. What's a Dark Knight or a Zalera against a Ciddy, Holy Sword Geomancer Agrias with Tynar Rouge and Ninja Ramza? Toast~ Complete and utter toast *^_^*
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WKC - Evil Short Fat Mustache Man: Watch as I summon 3 bosses at once on you hahahah! You stand no chance against all of them!
*I transform into the White Knight who 3HKOs them all of them with MT and is like 20HKOed back*.
ESFMM: Impressive! But did you know I can fuse these bosses together to make the ultimate beast? Even your White Knight is no match so now watch as I sacrifice this women I've kidnapped! With my Plot bullshit you will be defeated.
Princess: Behold my even bigger plot bullshit!
ESFMM: NOOOOOO! Curse you heroes, I shall return to defeat you a couple of hours from now *Flies away*
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inFamous- Hatbot seems to like this game. Anyway, through the bus mission and captured Alden. The bus mission was and wasn't as bad as I thought. Protecting the bus was not that hard, but getting to the bus on top of the hospital WAS. Soooo many enemies, so many death turrets. I forgot that rescuing the bus had no time limit, so I kept try to speedblitz it. Once I slowed down and systematically got rid of the enemies surrounding it, it wasn't that bad.
The shipyard mission was good times though. Somehow I managed to do Right Back At Ya (hitting a grenade back at an enemy and killing them with it) not once, but THREE times! Luck. Pure and simple. Attacking the park for The Arrest was the easiest on the day. The Conduit was... managable, since I could take the time and pick off the arms and take it down. Still absolutely dreading the prison mission.
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Pokemon - Uber Elite Four beaten up. Meh, think they really didn't do this as well as they did in FRLG; the problem is that the first four are all around Level 60-64, whereas Lance is 72-75. So either the first four (especially first three) will be too easy or Lance will be too tough. In FRLG, Gary was definitely the best, and a nasty bastard, but the others certainly weren't pushovers. Anyway, I had my two Level 70 ubers so they definitely helped make things easier; first three were total jokes, but Karen was actually competent enough to fell a few pokemon (not getting raped in the face by Mewtwo helps). Lance was pretty fun. Ice Beaming Mewtwo was not kind to his pokemon, and I'd probably have found him easy except I foolishly allowed him to get paralysed by a Thunder Wave from a Gyarados I already knew had it. Still one-shotted the Dragonite and Altaria so that was cool. Charizard still sucked, Gyarados was annoying for the aforementioned Thunder Wave but still isn't going to rival Wallace's for scariest Gyarados in the series. Salamence... well. He gave me a damn good scare. I sent Jumpluff out against him, only to watch Sleep Powder get cancelled by a Lum Berry. Flamethrower fortunately left Jumpluff with 5 HP, so I switched out into Ho-oh who scared 'mence into switching out, and later finished the job.
Garchomp was the real problem. If Mewtwo hadn't been paralysed it'd be another story, but as is he could waste the already injured, paralysed Mewtwo with Outrage, and outrace Ho-oh's attempts to Recover easily while laughing at what passed for damage. I was about to give up (I'd already lost Crobat by this point, who valiantly did most of the work against Gyar but got paralysed and eventually grounded) but sent in Jumpluff, figuring that surely he'd be outsped and one-shotted. More fool me, Jumpluff went first (despite going second against 'mence, weird EV/IV/natures at work) and Sleep Powder + Leech Seed + flashflashflashflashflash with Choice Scarf Togekiss to tie him up with flinching and I win. Twenty level disadvantage? What's that? God Jumpluff is awesome.
Not as tough as Uber Gary but eh, that's fine, since he's not the FRUE FINAL CHALLENGE in this game.
So yeah, final(?) team:
Mewtwo - Psychic, Ice Beam, Barrier, Amnesia - It's Mewtwo. Wish I could buff his offence or heal, but defensive buffing is cool too.
Ho-oh - Fly, Sacred Fire, Recover, Safeguard. I'll probably toss Safeguard for Sunny Day or something like that, since I have two fires and it messes up Hail.
Jumpluff - Sleep Powder, Leech Seed, Flash, Giga Drain. It says something that I consider deleting his only attack from time to time. So good at what he does. Arguably the overall MVP of this playthrough.
Crobat - Fly, Poison Fang, Confuse Ray, Roost. The other arguably MVP. My main problem has been deciding what the hell to do with that second attack slot; Poison Fang isn't really great, but eh, the rando-Toxic is cool. Fly dominates his game anyway, especially now that he has Black Sludge for regen. Roost is so good, it means that the only thing he's actually weak to is pyschic since he can heal and avoid any other weaknesses (nobody ever uses ground on him since enemies can't predict Roost). Hax speed + Confuse Ray + Black Sludge + Fly dominates otherwise.
Ninetales - Nasty Plot, Flamethrower, Dark Pulse, Confuse Ray. More fast confusion is good, buffing is great. Mostly overcomes my inherent dislike of fires, best fire type I've used... um... ever? Probably ever. Says so much.
Togekiss - Air Slash, Aura Sphere, Flamethrower, Extrasensory. Choice Scarf against fights I expect to mostly outspeed him (which is most of them), Choice Scarf otherwise for savage beatdowns. Works pretty effectively, 60% flinch did save me a few times.
Girafarig (BP Agility is cool, but it's about all he has now that his so-so stats (mine has about 0 SA IVs to boot) have definitely caught up with him) and Feraligatr (demoted to HM slave, he is good at that!) are the two I benched for the ubers.
Oh yeah I also beat the Clair/Lance double battle, didn't find it too hard since I got twice as many pokemon as anyone else.
Just Ash left!
Devil May Cry - Up to Mundus.
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God Jumpluff is awesome.
Damn straight.
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Oh yeah I also beat the Clair/Lance double battle, didn't find it too hard since I got twice as many pokemon as anyone else.
That one was really nasty for me. The rival had Typhlosion and got OHKOed by Gyarados unless I sent out my Intimidate Arcarnine. I think his Gengar also got OHKOed and his Crobat got 2HKOed. Intimidate would cause Gyarados to Thunder Wave the Typhlosion which would buy me another turn or two before all all the rival's pokemon were gone, but I still would usually have to deal with two pokemon at once with a pretty significant level advantage against my one pokemon. I think my winning strategy involved getting enough Calm Minds up on Gardevoir until his pokemon couldn't damage Gardevoir very well and then sweeping.
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Mana Khemia: Beat Tony and Renee again. Awesome scene there. Muppy get, I am NOT going to like him if he doesn't change a lot. Still not a Roxis fan, still not a Tony/Renee fan, everyone else is relatively awesome. Think I'm mostly up-to-date with Flay/Jess/Anna character quests, prioritising Jess > Anna > Flay at the moment (since I've heard most of what happens in Flay's already) but Anna/Jess are likely to swap.
Have I mentioned how much I love synthesis in games? Seriously, this game is pure Yoshi-bait and I'm disappointed in myself for not getting hold of it earlier.
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Finished all levels but 9-7 and 9-8 in NSMBWii, missing star coins in four other levels.
I have to say that I really underestimated the Propeller Suit before; while the reliance on Wiimote shaking still feels gimmicky as a control method, it is amazing on any level where most/all the difficulty comes from platforming instead of killing enemies. I managed to beat 9-3 and 9-6 on the first try while getting all the Star Coins with it, after dying repeatedly on each level without it. I also decided to unlock of the game's Super Skills (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuSofgOZQxg) hint videos for entertainment; I no longer consider the Mini Mushroom pointless anymore, even though it's only used on about two stages normally.
That said, lately I've been watching a 4-player Let's Play (http://demoniasanctus.webs.com) of the game, which is simply amazing. The sheer depth and variety of ways to screw over your 'allies' in this game is a spectacle to behold.
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Finished all levels but 9-7 and 9-8 in NSMBWii, missing star coins in four other levels.
I have to say that I really underestimated the Propeller Suit before; while the reliance on Wiimote shaking still feels gimmicky as a control method, it is amazing on any level where most/all the difficulty comes from platforming instead of killing enemies. I managed to beat 9-3 and 9-6 on the first try while getting all the Star Coins with it, after dying repeatedly on each level without it. I also decided to unlock of the game's Super Skills (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NuSofgOZQxg) hint videos for entertainment; I no longer consider the Mini Mushroom pointless anymore, even though it's only used on about two stages normally.
That said, lately I've been watching a 4-player Let's Play (http://demoniasanctus.webs.com) of the game, which is simply amazing. The sheer depth and variety of ways to screw over your 'allies' in this game is a spectacle to behold.
The game really shines when you're playing multiplayer. Me and my sister have been doing a runthrough of the game and it's been a ton of fun. The amount of lives loss between when we decide to be cooperative and when we decide to sabotage each other is astounding. I'd also like to second the praise for that LP. It is hilarious all the way through and well worth watching.
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Shadow Complex: Almost done. Got the triple jump and hookshot, and got massacred once when I triggered the final battle by accident.
Soul Calibur IV: Started. It's...not too different from SC3 at the fundamental level, but it's still fun. Plus, netplay. Now I just need to get back into practice so I don't get slaughtered every time I go online.
Bayonetta: So this is what happens when Clover decides to stop being so darn restrained. Hilarious, often disturbing stuff. It's very much a successor to Devil May Cry 4, with the classical European setting and the quasi-angelic monstrosities. The addition of a second basic-attack button allows for a dizzying number of combos, and Witch Time is a pretty great mechanic. I do miss the simplicity of the style meter, though. Combo numbers are way harder to make sense of in the middle of a crazy fire/fist fight. Finished the first two chapters with Gold ratings so far.
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/me gnaws on Shale.
FE9 - Marcia smash everything.
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I've been playing some Mario Galaxy 2. I have about 60 stars so I feel that now I can form an educated opinion on it. It's definately deserves all the great reviews everyone's been giving it. It took all the things the original Galaxy did and really builds on them to make a better game. The graphics and especially music are both outstanding and the level design is really clever. The challenge is also really good. The normal levels are about as challenging as usual for a Mario game, but the comets are usually pretty hard and offer a much greater rise in difficulty than Galaxy 1's comets. Yoshi and the new power ups are also really well used. Spring Mario still sucks though.
The game does have a few flaws. There are too many of those rock shooting monsters. They were in the original Galaxy, but they're practically everywhere in this game and it's kind of annoying to have to deal with them in every level. I also wish that they would have a bigger galaxy with 5 or 6 stars and about the size of a Sunshine or 64 course every once in a while. Even if it was something like once every 2 worlds it would be nice to have a large expansive level to balance out the short gimmicky ones. Other than that it's one of the best games out on the Wii right now and really worth playing.
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inFamous- Hard mode sure knows how to pick it's spots. Climbing the tower was made slightly more difficult than normal due to lots of rocketeers infesting it, leading to a couple falls. The battle at the top was a whore since EVERYTHING was either a grenadier or crab-spewing, rocket launching conduit.
Battle with Alden was about the same, though he spammed fireballs much more often in his last stage, which made most of the platform you stand on inaccessible. Took me about the same amount of tries though. It's good to know what you're doing.
Stopped immediately after. I dread the coming Historic District.
I also forgot Hard Mode cuts down on the XP you get from enemies (though not from missions). Getting the amount I need to get the evil upgrades, especially the 12k needed for the last stage of the Lightning Bolt, will be a bitch. Just have that and Shockwave left though.
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TWEWY: Picked this up again to see how much I have left to complete. Only got 226 Shutdown PP for not playing the game in over 2 years. Fail.
Completed the Black Planet sets, Wind/Wood/Fire/Mount set (cute effect), and the other minor sets. Still have a ton of regular pins to max though.
AWDS: Working on Survival Mode trophies. Finished Turn Survival in 48 turns with Kanbei and Sonja. 8-)
Edit: 47 turns right after I posted this.
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Bayonetta - Chapter V. What the fuck is up with randomly turning off Witch Time in boss fights? Not cool, game. Especially against bosses who ignore hitstun. And never stop moving.
What I'm basically saying is fuck you, Jeanne.
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Devil May Cry - Beat this!
Overall a fun game, I made my criticisms well-known but otherwise I dug it quite a lot; solid experience. The game is hard, makes no apologies about it, and expects you to be good. That's fine, it gives you a lot of satisfaction when you overcome a nasty challenge.
Bosses are the toughest of course, and the game is merciless almost from the beginning here. I don't think Phantom would be the best boss if he fought late in the game, but since he pretty much serves as the guy who -forces- you to figure out a lot of how the mechanics work (I can say personally I didn't use Devil Trigger or a lot of evasive tactics before fighting him), he is that in practice. Still was to me even after watching someone else fight him for an hour! Overall, Phantom > Nightmare > Nelo Angelo > Mundus > Griffon to me, and none of those inequalities are especially close. Nightmare deserves note because, even more than the others, I hit some point where I finally, truly understood how to fight him, to the point where when I fought him for the third time I kinda embarrassed him with only one reset. Mundus was kinda disappointing, really, but I'm happy enough since I wasn't really a huge fan of the shooter section of the boss fight. It wasn't terrible, but there really seemed to be no real strategy beyond "never stop moving ever" which is kinda disappointing. Plus my random bias which I'm sure nobody here will have sympathy with here: I think reversed vertical movement is stupid and needs to stay in flight sims. Half my deaths in this part of the battle were from this! Nelo Angelo; I have nothing specific to add about him beyond that he was fun. As for Phantom,
SPIDERS ARE ALWAYS EVIL BOSSES. (Except in RPGs.)
Weapon-wise, I liked that the different weapons had real uses. Handguns were usually my favourite for bosses because of the mobility; Grenades were terrific for certain randoms that it stunned nicely, but I'd switch to a few exceptions here and there. Didn't get too much out of the Nightmare Beta because of how late it was, and never really liked the shotgun much, seemed to do what the grenadegun did and not nearly as well. Of course I'm probably missing good uses. Melee weapons... clearly performed better against some enemies and situations, too, although I never did use the unmodified Force Edge once I got Alastor; I figure this is normal?
Aesthetic-wise, well, you can really see DMC3 did what was needed to this series. The storyline is ridiculous but just not ridiculous enough; DMC is kinda OG1-level ridiculousness while DMC3 is... well, I've seen enough cutscenes to know that DMC3 is pretty much in its own tier here. This seems like it'd be nothing but an improvement. Music is kinda forgettable overall, a few fairly cool boss tracks but nothing to gush over. Also, liiiiggggghhhtttt.
The game reminds me of MMX1 in a lot of ways: start of a series, has some mechanical hangups which get fixed in later games, fun experience overall. Obviously there are plenty of differences, but yeah. So... 7/10 or so.
Pokemon - Beat Ash. Which means I'm done Soul Silver. So... two rants for the price of one, sure, why not?
Final level was 56-57, barring the two ubers who were 72-73. Total playtime was about 56 hours. Endgame, for what that's worth, had both those numbers around 40. Still undecided between Jumpluff and Crobat for overall MVP, Jumpluff was more important for bosses and awesome at capturing but Crobat was damn good at bosses and randoms both. I think Roost is quietly the best gym leader TM in gen 4? But obviously it relies on my "fuck items" playstyle.
I used the same team as for the Uber Elite Four, with the notable change of Mewtwo getting the Choice Specs. This was quite helpful, as it allowed him to one-shot Pikachu who I was otherwise expecting to have a lot of trouble with since my team has neither ground attacks nor electric resistance of any form. Overall Ash wasn't too bad due to Mewtwo being that damn good, but eh, it wasn't a solo or anything (Jumpluff was second most important!) so could be worse. Beats item spamming and I'm not sure how easily a fair team can take him down. Actually probably wouldn't be too bad, a good enough ground type can probably take Pikachu, and the Snorlax screams "set up on me". But yeah, with no Pikachu counter I did what I had to.
Anyway, overall? Well, HGSS is certainly much better than Diamond/Pearl. The gme isn't ludicrously slow (if still notably slower than Emerald and Fire Red/Leaf Green), and pokemon availability is actually notably good. The sheer number of legends is a pleasant surprise (four ubers and four vanilla legends even before the three runners?) and I don't even care about such things too much. Pretty wide variety of most types available beyond, say, Dark, which is excusable enough. It's a good remake, fixing most of GSC's obvious flaws (GYM LEADER BALANCE). It's still probably the easiest Pokemon game but it's no longer embarrassing and there's a lot of stuff to do. Pokeathlon was a fun enough diversion, and might have been the series' best minigame to date if Voltorb Flip didn't exist. Voltorb Flip was an absolute barrel of fun and made me kinda happy I wasn't using almost any Pokemon who benefitted significantly from its rewards since it'd feel like cheating after the hours I sunk into it.
I'm going to have to think where I rank it compared to FR/LG. It's not as good as Emerald because it lacks Em's finely balanced challenge and isn't as fast, but FRLG... hmm. I'll think about it. More pokemon availability is sweet. Probably a 7/10 regardless. Quite a theme today!
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Grenade gun was way better than it should have been, because you could roll or jump to cancel the reloading animation and triple your rate of fire.
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Melee weapons... clearly performed better against some enemies and situations, too, although I never did use the unmodified Force Edge once I got Alastor; I figure this is normal?
It is. I'm pretty sure Capcom even wanted you to do that. Force Edge is pretty much just a placeholder until you get Alastor.
Given DT is linked directly to your weapon, they didn't want you to have DT before Alastor, so they just gave you a lesser sword for the early chapters, then you get Alastor, and Force Edge just gets ignored from here. Alastor is stronger, has DT, has techniques, etc.
Further proof of this is if you look at all the Dante related stuff for DMC1, he's usually holding Alastor, not Force Edge; see the DMC1 Box Art as an example. Heck, Viewtiful Joe, they talk about Alastor being his sword even (and when he swings, Lightning comes out of the blade); they really weren't subtle with how Alastor was to make Force Edge Obsolete, and Force Edge just exists for a placeholder weapon until you get Alastor.
(Remember that Viewtiful Joe predates DMC2, so Rebellion hadn't been thought up yet! Obviously, Rebellion is generally regarded as Dante's trademark Sword from DMC2 and on. I do find it weird that they made a whole new sword for Dante in DMC2 though, seeing as Alastor would have been a fine Trademark weapon, *AND* how Dante's starting DT Element is Lightning anyway. Ended up working out anyway cause DMC3 = Prequel = They can't use Alastor + Force Edge Origins Explained here = Rebellion works nicely as the Sword here.)
After beating hard mode, the game gives you access too "Legendary Dark Knight" which in addition to being a costume change, Dante also starts the game with "Yamato", which is basically an Alastor Clone. Only reason I can think of for doing that is for the sake of DMD mode, if you wanted to start a fresh game; that first mission is *HELL* watching videos of it just cause with minimal items and the worst Melee weapon, enemies take forever to kill.
LDK, it allows you to have DT for the short spurt of time before you get Alastor, and its really quite amazing how much easier that section becomes when you have your own DT to counter the enemies.
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S&M3 They Stole Max's Brain -
So this episode's opening gimmick is an ace-attorney-testimony-alike sequence which really doesn't work well with voice acting/models. And the inability to step backwards aside from going to the end and restarting. And each option automatically advancing you to the next segment.
Fortunately that doesn't last all that long.
Only some old toys for the maingame this time sadly, although one which didn't get anywhere near enough use previously gets far more of a chance to shine here, and the viewfinder is applied in a less appalling way than before.
I found this episode to be fairly enjoyable although the trailer somewhat hyped it up as being far more noir than it actually is, that being mostly contained within the opening segment and vanishing completely halfway through. It also seemed to be shorter than usual. Fairly apathetic towards the plot hook for the next episode.
Some of the animations seemed really phoned in also.
Disgaea DS -
Partway through Frozen River.
Game is pleasant enough so far. Especially since as far as I have seen so far NIS know what the peoples want and that is every icon on the screen counting as a touch control.
The ability to move people to take part in team attacks/area effect healing/etc and then cancel their move and do something else with them afterwards is vastly disturbing.
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I used the same team as for the Uber Elite Four, with the notable change of Mewtwo getting the Choice Specs. This was quite helpful, as it allowed him to one-shot Pikachu who I was otherwise expecting to have a lot of trouble with since my team has neither ground attacks nor electric resistance of any form. Overall Ash wasn't too bad due to Mewtwo being that damn good, but eh, it wasn't a solo or anything (Jumpluff was second most important!) so could be worse. Beats item spamming and I'm not sure how easily a fair team can take him down. Actually probably wouldn't be too bad, a good enough ground type can probably take Pikachu, and the Snorlax screams "set up on me". But yeah, with no Pikachu counter I did what I had to.
With regards to a "fair team", remember that there are 16 gym leader rematches to potentially build up experience on. If you stick to a team of 5-6 Pokemon instead of rotating 12 like I did (<_<), then that exp should get your levels a lot higher than usual for Pokemon. The rematch format is a real pain and I can see skipping it entirely, but it's far more interesting than just grinding endlessly against randoms at least. There is also the Pokewalker, which depending on your lifestyle and how much you play HGSS each day can potentially be worth quite a bit of exp.
Red's Pikachu isn't that dangerous in my opinion because aside from being neutered by Ground types, you can also scarf a physical attacker to outspeed and probably OHKO, especially if it has the Earthquake TM.
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hinide: Like I said, nobody on my team had a Ground attack. I think the only one even capable of learning one was Mewtwo, who didn't need the help. Well, Ninetales can learn Dig I guess, but I'd already used that TM even if I was willing to consider this (which I wasn't). Yeah, I think this is the only time I've ever played Pokemon in which I've just let the Earthquake TM rot in my inventory (though to be fair, it'd be a decent pickup for Fera if I was willing to dump Surf). Pikachu just had me kinda worried for the raw sweeping potential; Snorlax and Lapras lack the speed to pull that off, although I guess the three starters all have the potential to do it?
Where is the Choice Band in HGSS, anyway? With how available they made the other two Choice items I was surprised I never got this. *checks* Oh, Battle Frontier, lame.
Phoenix Wright 3 - Replaying this, finished 3-1. Hmm, for some reason I can't put my finger on I am much less excited about replaying this than I was 1 or 2. PW2 makes sense, it's my favourite and all... but I like PW3 better than PW1, so what gives? Maybe I have some weird nostalgia for the first game or something.
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WAXF - Just beat 1-14. Due to a bad bit of planning on my part, I got a reset there, but putting Ginny back into Geomancer for the fight (it's fine, since her main class, Fantastica, is more about the OC) and then everything played the way I wanted it to play.
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And...FE8 game finished. Hardest map was definitely 19 (Fog of War in Rausten) by far. Enemies are actually competent there on Hard Mode. Not too much else to say - maps made of monsters died fast.
Final stats!
Eirika
Lvl 5, 33 HP, 10 STR, 20 SKL, 18 SPD, 18 LUK, 13 DEF, 15 RES
*LVP. Massive liability on pretty much every map. Gave up on her by level 5. Awful growth - I couldn't have her fight things, as the counters tended to kill her. Needed silvers to break defense. Defenses were decent, at least...everything else was below average, sometimes by a lot. Still my best Eirika ever >_>
Tana
Lvl 13, 37 HP, 19 STR, 16 SKL, 27 SPD, 21 LUK, 12 DEF, 15 RES
*Ended up still being good, despite the awful stats. Was really looking up last time I posted (when she had picked up from looking awful!), but then fell down. ;_;
Natasha
Lvl 16, 45 HP, 25 MAG, 16 SKL, 26 SPD, 30 LUK, 19 DEF, 30 RES
*...damn, she turned out well. Even caught up on SKL! Mauled monsters in the last chapter, and was one of the 4 MVPs of chapter 19 - she took on a whole hoard on a pillar by herself, and slaughtered them all.
Vanessa
Lvl 13, 41 HP, 20 STR, 21 SKL, 26 SPD, 15 LUK, 11 DEF, 14 RES
*Defenses are a little low, as is the speed and luck, but the others are good. Pretty similar to Tana, overall.
Neimi
Lvl 13, 42 HP, 21 STR, 18 SKL, 29 SPD, 22 LUK, 16 DEF, 15 RES
*Thank god the STR caught up. She picked up a lot after a rough start. Fast, damaging, awesome archer. The SKL is a little worrying, but...eh...
Lute
Lvl 12, 36 HP, 19 MAG, 13 SKL, 20 SPD, 24 LUK, 9 DEF, 21 RES
*...wow. Kind of gave up on her, really - her growths just died after promotion. The MAG growth in particular is just awful.
Tethys
Lvl 20, 33 HP, 4 STR, 4 SKL, 27 SPD, 27 LUK, 8 DEF, 17 RES
*Eh, she dances. Low on defenses, higher on SPD/LUK. Works.
Marisa
Lvl 16, 52 HP, 22 STR, 29 SKL, 30 SPD, 30 LUK, 17 DEF, 14 RES
*...yes, I have good luck with Swordmasters of the female variety. Holy hell, no RNG abuse, and she still turned out awesome. One of the main MVPs at the end, and probably the best...she tore the entire left side of chapter 19 apart on her own.
Amelia
Lvl 13, 50 HP, 25 STR, 24 SKL, 25 SPD, 25 LUK, 20 DEF, 17 RES
*One of the other MVPs. Just...mauled things. She took physicals the best (though Natasha, Marisa, and Neimi weren't far behind), and could maul things. Wielded axes at the end - chopped things up goooooood.
L'Arachel
Lvl 14, 30 HP, 24 MAG, 19 SKL, 25 SPD, 27 LUK, 16 DEF, 28 RES
*Decent enough. Low luck and awful HP, but held up well enough. Ivaldi smash!
Syrene
Lvl 12, 39 HP, 20 STR, 19 SKL, 22 SPD, 27 LUK, 15 DEF, 20 RES
*Turned out decent enough! Oddly ended up being the overall best Falcoknight...oddly. Had good growths with her, and she basically took on a few hoards by herself. Helps I leveled her a bit on the map she joined, so she could actually fight things and not die!
Myrrh
Lvl 20, 39 HP, 20 STR, 20 SKL, 20 SPD, 3 LUK, 20 DEF, 20 RES
*...yeah, capped all stats but luck (gained none! Awesome!) and HP (average or so!). Also an MVP - she basically went from starting level to max pretty fast. Still had 25 charges when she maxed out with little problem.
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hinide: Like I said, nobody on my team had a Ground attack. I think the only one even capable of learning one was Mewtwo, who didn't need the help. Well, Ninetales can learn Dig I guess, but I'd already used that TM even if I was willing to consider this (which I wasn't). Yeah, I think this is the only time I've ever played Pokemon in which I've just let the Earthquake TM rot in my inventory (though to be fair, it'd be a decent pickup for Fera if I was willing to dump Surf). Pikachu just had me kinda worried for the raw sweeping potential; Snorlax and Lapras lack the speed to pull that off, although I guess the three starters all have the potential to do it?
Where is the Choice Band in HGSS, anyway? With how available they made the other two Choice items I was surprised I never got this. *checks* Oh, Battle Frontier, lame.
I was thinking about something like Heracross, which should be able to OHKO Pikachu just with STAB Close Combat. In your case it just happens that your one big physical hitter happens to be Flying type.
Dig is actually storebought in Celadon, although it's a bad idea for Ninetales anyhow.
Choice Band was available via the Winner's Path Pokewalker route that stopped a few days ago. I dunno if you downloaded it in time, but it's a pretty good way of stockpiling Choice items for competitive play/gen 5 transfer, although as an event course it's obviously not something that is meaningful for in-game purposes. I have 6 Specs, 6 Scarves, and 3 Bands on my save file, which I stopped playing a while back save for Pokewalker transfer.
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I will readilly admit I have never been terribly tempted to unpack my Pokewalker from the packaging it came in. <.<
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Pokewalker breaks the already easy game to pieces. Earlygame Kangaskhan anyone?
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inFamous- Blitzed the rest of this. Abused a large battle sub-mission to grind out the XP I needed to get the rest of the Evil upgrades. After that it was just a matter of finishing out the story.
The missions on the helicopter were much easier than I remember, mostly because I approached them more intelligently. Taking down the radar dishes was cake. The anti-air guns were harder, but also not that much of a problem, nor was the second half of that mission.
Final boss was another deal. Much faster, his moves do much more damage, and he varies his patterns much more. It was ridiculously frustrating. He's divided up into three sections, each comprising 1/3 of his health bar. The first and second stages I think I had ten tries on each. The third stage though he sort of calms down and stands around a lot, letting his summons do the work, but when he DOES go into action it's crazy if you haven't taken care of everything else. You HAVE to keep your eye on him. But still, pretty easy compared to the other two. Got it on the third try.
Platinum gotten. Woohoo. Totally worth it. It's a fantastic game.
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Magna Carta 2:
It is a pretty serviceable game (although it plays all the JRPG tropes HARD). I like the combination system in the game. Basically you deplete stamina every time you attack, and it slowly regenerates when you aren't attacking/using a skill. When you finally deplete your stamina you go into an overdrive mode that means that for the rest of your attack string (including however many basic attacks you have left + a skill) you do 1.5x damage. After that is done though you are in overheat and can take no action for a good amount of time, and you have about -50% to -100% stamina that you have to regenerate back before you can do anything. That is where the combination system comes in. If you overheat someone and then switch to someone else (this is just a button press), they start a 'chain' that increases the new controlled PC's damage by 50% for a time equal to how long the original is overheated. If during this 'chain' the second PC is put into overdrive and caps it off with a skill, you get to fully replenish the stamina of both characters. There is some danger in this because if you time it wrong you are stuck with two PCs who are out of the fight for a decent chunk of time.
Of course enemies suck ass so badly it isn't funny making the downside kind of moot! Pity. Oh well, still a decent system and the game has time to give enemies that aren't laughable pushovers.
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Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia - Beaten! Feels good to beat a game since I haven't in such a long while. Think the last game before this one was...DQ4? Either way, it's been some time.
Thoughts? Well I love the whole Metroidvania approach these DS CVs have continued to follow, so it's easy to say I adored this game. I finished the game with around 92 % completion. Not sure if it goes over 100 or not in this one, but I hadn't farmed too mnay glyphs or backtracked for missed items all that much. My favorite glyph to spam had to be the nitesco one (aquired from those green skeletons thing-a-ma-jiggers.)
Also, the Dracula in this game has to be one of my all time favorite forms of the boss. Not because he was hard or anything, but because he was so gosh darn cool looking to fight. Ax kick to the FACE!
If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 7/10 or something.
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PCB Easy- Just picked this up again to show my mom. I almost beat it on the first try! I got to the final card, which I typically need about two lives to get through and I only had two bombs and no lives. Ah well.
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FE9 - I just beat Day Break's nigh-endless ass. Currently, my whole main army is promoted, so I guess it's time to post stats and evaluation.
Ike - L1 Lord, 35 HP, 18 Str, 8 Mag, 18 Skl, 21 Spd, 13 Luc, 15 Def, 9 Res. Ike's been generally serviceable, but thoroughly unspectacular. His Strength sorta came in bits and pieces, and those bases suck - thus, his offense just didn't impress for a while. Being stuck with Swords doesn't help either. Oscar support is godly, though. tanktanktank
Nephenee - L2 Halberdier, 20 Str, 5 Mag, 22 Skl, 22 Spd, 12 Luc, 20 Def, 9 Res. She has an Arms Scroll and Boots fed to her. Utterly, utterly badass - she just got uber level-ups in general and fixing her two primary problems turned her into a killing machine. She's holding Vantage and Wrath - and while Wrath hasn't seen much use, Vantage helps her a bunch with lol ohkos on the frail. Hell yes.
Oscar - L1 Paladin, 18 Str, 7 Mag, 16 Skl, 17 Spd, 8 Luc, 17 Def, 9 Res. Rather average, but an average Oscar still reams shit. The Ike support is uber, and Oscar just tanks way too well this way. Pally mobility+Hit and Away = cookies.
Marcia - L2 Falcon Knight, 22 Str, 4 Mag, 18 Skill, 22 Speed, 11 Luck, 18 Def, 17 Res. She's Talisman'd, but otherwise, -what the fuck-. I've always had this tendency to get saddled with uber Peggies (even Thany followed the mold), but this is ridiculous. Marcia has fucking awesome offense on me, and if that wasn't enough in addition to all the awesome Peggies already have, she decided she'd be a total tank too. Completely godlike, and the Kieran support is also excellent.
Kieran - L2 Paladin, 15 Str, 3 Mag, 16 Skl, 19 Spd, 12 Luck, 15 Def, 7 Res. Strength-screwed, but this isn't a big deal, honestly. Badass Paladins are badass, and Kieran has Oscar/Marcia supports for more badassery. Axes are also great and mitigate the Str issues.
Mist - L1 Valkyrie, 37 HP (Seraph Robe'd), 12 Str, 18 Mag, 10 Skl, 17 Spd, 21 Luc, 8 Def, 18 Res. Holy hell, the promotion bonuses are -nuts-. Otherwise, typical healer.
Boyd - L1 Warrior, 46 HP, 18 Str, 3 Mag, 17 Skl, 17 Spd, 11 Luc, 11 Def, 6 Res. Defenses kinda suck and the Strength could be a bit higher for Boyd standards, but he got somewhat speed-blessed. This is more than enough to make him excellent at what he does. Mist/Titania supports.
Jill - L1 Wyvern Lord, 36 HP, 18 Str, 7 Mag, 21 Skl, 17 Spd, 8 Luc, 16 Def, 7 Res. Notice how she's inferior to Marcia in every relevant stat (no, HP and Skill are -not- relevant). This honestly doesn't matter much, since the Laguzguard is really helpful on Jill and she gets the typical flier goodness too. Definitely strong, and even facing uber Marcia competition, I always reserve a spot for her. Mist Support A.
Astrid - L2 Paladin, 36 HP, 19 Str, 6 Mag, 19 Skl, 21 Spd, 10 Luc, 14 Def, 16 Res. Juuuuuuuust a bit blessed in Strength there. Astrid is really fun and useful, and I'm betting axes will make her a blast, especially off the Strength.
Titania - L7 Paladin, 36 HP, 15 Str, 5 Mag, 15 Skl, 18 Spd, 15 Luc, 13 Def, 8 Res. Her stats no longer stand out, but she's been way too useful for the whole game so far, and she can still stand up stat-wise with most of my party. S in Axes is also sexy. Ike/Boyd supports. So far, she's my MVP for the overall game.
Mia - L1 Swordmaster, 31 HP, 17 Str, 8 Mag, 19 Skl, 22 Spd, 11 Luc, 14 Def (Dracoshield'd), 10 Res. She had durability of -fail- until promotion (still looks bad even post-promo) and Swords aren't exactly a great weapon type to specialize on. Often wanted to dump her, but she seemed to at least grow well, so I kept at it. She's still overall weaker than a unused Stefan, which probably says something about -her- and Stefan.
Soren - L1 Sage, 40 HP (Seraph Robe'd), 4 Str (Energy Drop'd), 21 Mag (Magic Drop'd, but it wouldn't matter much - he was close to cap when I used it, and he was L15), 19 Skl, 17 Spd, 12 Luc, 9 Def, 19 Res. Turning out quite well. Speed is pretty average, but the durability is far less horrible than I thought it'd be. Getting kinda Def-blessed at least let him stave off lolohkos. FE9 mages have... issues, though.
Volke - L20 Thief, 29 HP, 19 Str, 1 Mag, 20 Skl, 20 Spd, 14 Luc, 11 Def, 6 Res. Who cares, Thief offense.
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WKC - Finished and as expected the plot is just blarh. So much is unfinished it isn't even funny, like the Knight of Balandor guy Cyruss I think his name was. So he randomly goes to Faria to invade with a force of four soldiers!?!1 and has a total of three scenes where he crys about the kings death and then the game ends? He is the most pointless "main" character ever and he just seems to be an excuse to have Nolan North in the game.
Yeah they'll explain it and I'm sure he'll have a big role then but the point standss regardless, he is completely pointless.
Characterwise the best is Caesar which comes as unexpected tto me and the best plot twist is the black market one. All the others were cliche and easy to see coming but that black market guy just comes out of nowhere and hey you don't even find out who he is so hows that for a plot twist?
Beyond the plot the gameplay is a laughably easy experiance. No enemy can ever even 3HKO their damage is so fricking bad it just isn't even funny. A toddler could beat this game and to prove it I'll review the bosses "epic" ratings.
Belcitane form 1 - Has no durability, slow due to charge times and has 10HKO damage. But hey he has Poizn!?1
Belcitane form 2 - Has shedloads of Hp now. Too bad he still has 10HKO damage and has lost Poizn.
The Sun King Grazel - You'd think with such a bad ass name and title he'd be a good fighter? You'd be very very wrong. Belcitane level durability with twice the damage which is still shit damage.
The Black Knight Dragias - Is Decent? Shitty 5HKO but massive speed compensates for the damage, has a good amount of Hp as well and has some decent healing (heals for 1100 when the party average per turn is 300) and unlike other bosses knocking her down doesn't stun her for ages. Gamebest boss I think.
The Black Ursurper Shapur form 1 & 2 - Massive and I mean massive amount of hp so we're heading for the typical final boss witth oodles of hp and huge damage right? Wrong! He can either spam 8HKO damage or charge up to deal 4HKO damage.
Such horrible horrible bosses. Yu Yevon and Evil Gaia owns all these lamers so badly it is extremely funny.
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Phoenix Wright T&T - Up to 3-2 now. Hmm. One thing I really need to do this playthrough is sort out my opinion of Godot. I'm still unsure how to take him. I just saw the scene where he gets hyped as this new super-dangerous prosecutor... but of course he's never prosecuted a case in his life. So surely this hype is tongue-in-cheek, mocking the hype previous prosecutors got. But it seems shockingly played straight otherwise. Kinda the story of Godot here, the game can't seem to decide if he's an incompetent joke or this scary nemesis for Phoenix. Maybe I'm just missing something.
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I saw it as both. His reputation is a joke, but his vendetta against Phoenix (based in stupidity though it is) is still real, and dangerous because of the power of his position.
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Hmm. That's probably the best way to look at it.
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ToV- Believe I'm up to the hated healerless part of the game! Finally glad that the plot stopped using bad stalling tactics and actually started moving. Also found the 2 Hunting Blades fight to be surprisingly decent (Well...I should revise that. The Hunting Blade that wasn't Nan was decent. Nan was there), but I am incredibly disappointed that Yuri didn't off them. He had just said that he learned that he had to be harder (Which made no sense at all), but...he should at least cut off one of their hands and neutralized them. As he even says in the fight, they are fairly brainless but incredibly destructive.
Oh right, obviously seen Gale Dog too by this point. Kind of played around with it. Not sure quite what to make it of DLwise. Gut reaction is that...at some point in long boss fights, the timing will fuck up a little and people will get in attacks. Still...not at all sure how I quantify this. Hmm, I suppose using it immediately and this trying to immediately attack will result in Repede running a lot, which meant that intelligent AI could run away a little, force him to keep following until it wore off and then smack? Hmmmmmm.
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Dhyer, Gale Dog can be refreshed. So there is no timing problem, just recast it before it wears off.
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Right, I'm aware of that. But there's no graphical indication for when it wears off, and given the extremely large number of turns he'll need to polish off some enemies, it doesn't seem unreasonable that every now and again the timing might slip a little. I really should use the next boss fight and see how well it holds up there.
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Of course, an hour or two after I write that I discover Repede's skill Free Running which now pending testing could take me back to a theoretical square 1 on him. Seems between that and giving him two extra ways to regen TP, he likes doing that!
Also, beat the Ruins Spoiler boss. Thank god about the spoiler because knowing that every time Raven was saying things about his ancient age of 30ish was incredibly grating. Sucked as a boss though despite the pure evil of activating overlimit knocking several characters down->using a high powered fairly widespread MA. At the least, caught me by surprise the first time. Despite that, fairly wimpy otherwise.
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fairly wimpy otherwise.
But the secret mission!
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Is one of the easiest in the game? You just recover and whack him immediately after the MA.
Magna Carta 2: Very generic, yep. At least it is getting harder now.
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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.
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Phoenix Wright T&T - Up to 3-2 now. Hmm. One thing I really need to do this playthrough is sort out my opinion of Godot. I'm still unsure how to take him. I just saw the scene where he gets hyped as this new super-dangerous prosecutor... but of course he's never prosecuted a case in his life. So surely this hype is tongue-in-cheek, mocking the hype previous prosecutors got. But it seems shockingly played straight otherwise. Kinda the story of Godot here, the game can't seem to decide if he's an incompetent joke or this scary nemesis for Phoenix. Maybe I'm just missing something.
Well, part of it is probably satire too.
Read this article for more info: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_253/7530-Phoenix-Wrights-Objection
Personally, I love Godot. He's my favorite villain in the series.
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On the other hand, having just finished 3-2, I can safely say he ranks fairly near the bottom of the list of "major" PW characters for me. I just don't find his ramblings to be particularly funny (I get what they're satirising, it doesn't work for me), and there's no satisfaction in beating him (despite the fact that there should be since he's so rude to Phoenix) because he's such a bad prosecutor. In 3-2, the defendant does more to damage your case than he does, I'm pretty sure. <_<
I've read that article, and yeah, it's good stuff.
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FE8- Fail less, Moulder. Getting OHKOed by an enemy knight is just mind bogglingly bad. That was on map 8, I think? Whichever one is right before the pathsplit.
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XF - Act 2 begins!
* Hello-DojimathedralWaddleDee is now known as Hello-shutupragnarthedralWaddleDee
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Final Fantasy Summer Challenge (Beat FFs I-X/X-2/XII within 2 months) is go. Barely played FFI, outside Elfland. FF3, just cleared the Tower of Owen. I forgot how annoyingly grindy FF3 (DS) earlygame is.
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Annoyingly Grindy? Funny, I never grinded once in FF3DS (barring one instance where it was to get Thief to JL71 for Gungnir, but that was against pathetic FC enemies mid game) >_>
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Mostly just wandering between towns a little, but I had to do some extra training before Djinn's Cave, Wyvern's Nest and the Tower of Owen.
But, y'know, Nepto's Palace was fine!
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I never stopped to grind at any moment in FF3DS either. Those places you mentioned aren't even particularly difficult.
EDIT:
WAXF - 2-2. Okay then, two Sentinels ain't enough and I need classes with better move than Elementalists to get up to the first ledge. At least everybody was doing essentially dualclassing before, but I'll need to check Gadgeteer's MAG in order to find out whether Gadgy Clarissa is a proper carrier for Elementalist skillset or not. Alternatively, I could just grab another level in a random fight, since most of my party is near L20. Of course, if I didn't have a stray Drifter hanging out in Sentinel, this would be more annoying. -ON THE OTHER HAND-, this probably explains the Sentinel +1 armor pieces I got just beforehand. Go figure.
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Congratulations, you've now reached the point where I told WAXF to fuck off in favor of something with actual game design.
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You've also reached the point where it stops pulling that kind of thing.
Ironic.
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To Shale: the weird part is that is the first time WAXF ever actually -annoyed- me with its design. All the other maps besides the prison mission I found very fun and rather flexible even with the class railing. -This- mission ended up poorly designed due to something that should be independent of classes, which is where it actually gets to me. Whatever, I'll just pick different classes and mangle it all the same once it goes.
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Maybe (I still refuse to believe that anything approaching proper stage design came out of the XF braintrust), but I ended up playing Crisis Core that much sooner as a result, so I regret nothing.
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Warning: Super-long and full of SPOILERS, if you care.
So I finally finished Xenosaga 3.
http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,5135.0.html
I promised chat a rant. It ended up far longer than I expected.
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Not enough Shion hate.
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Oh. If you want to suffer more, beating the game unlocks new Database entries. Check some of that shit out.
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Not enough Shion hate.
Well, I had to save some for Kevin, Mary, and chaos!
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Nice, Djinn. You really hit the nail on the head with Shion in particular.
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Always love a good rant; that was great. I think you covered some pretty excellent points with Shion, Kevin, and the series' general pacing and writing issues. Obviously I don't agree with absolutely everything you wrote (or I wouldn't have a reasonably high opinion of XS2 still) but it was still a well-written and highly entertaining read; sums up almost everything you could want about the series' failings.
EDIT: Also, have to third the "Zuh?" at needing to grind in earlygame FF3DS. I could maybe see having to grind for Garuda or Cloud of Darkness but the earlygame? That shouldn't be an issue unless you think running four Monks is a good idea or something like that.
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Always love a good rant; that was great. I think you covered some pretty excellent points with Shion, Kevin, and the series' general pacing and writing issues. Obviously I don't agree with absolutely everything you wrote (or I wouldn't have a reasonably high opinion of XS2 still) but it was still a well-written and highly entertaining read; sums up almost everything you could want about the series' failings.
Oh yeah, I suddenly remember that I wanted to bring up a point you mentioned in chat while we were talking. You left before I could tell you.
You mentioned how XS3 smacked of being full of last minute rewrites, and how T-elos in particular should have at least been hinted at before XS3. I personally disagree, to a point. I get the impression that XS3 was basically exactly as it had been envisioned from the beginning, the 'tacked on' feel stems mostly from the huge amount of cut content that was XS2.5, Pied Piper, and the attempts to squeeze it all into a third game. T-elos, in particular, actually WAS mentioned waaaay back in XS1. It was in on a computer console in the Proto-Merkabah, where Kevin would have been designing her. It shows a small bit of her design plan and mentions her by name, so there's no chance that she's a last-second addition. Her role may have changed slightly, but there were always plans for Lesbian Robot Fights.
I'm not sure if this is really said in -defense- of XS3... it's just something that I felt you should know since it colored my opinion of XS3 somewhat differently from yours.
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Interesting. I'm surprised the fanbase never keyed in on this, since "alternate KOS-MOS" would have attracted a lot of attention, and the fanbase was very good at noticing small things and figuring things out IIRC.
I still think XS3 feels like a huge leap away to talking about different, unrelated things in general, though yes, the deletion of "XS2.5" is probably a large part of that. Regardless, it doesn't work.
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From the player's perspective, having a story in mind from the beginning but never getting around to actually setting it up isn't that different from pulling a plot twist out of one's ass.
Edit: Yay, kicked Jeanne's ass in Bayonetta. No deaths, either. Had to go back and redo the chapter from the start to get back in the flow of things, but it worked. Bought the bat form and got midway through C6 before calling it a night.
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To Djinn: very well-written rant, and entertaining. Also, for someone who ended up hating the series by its conclusion so much, I can't help but notice how kind to it you've been -even so-. The Shion comments were pretty spot-on, the emphasis on why she failed so badly as a character was very precise.
Also, to Niu from Djinn's topic: -how many people do you see giving SMT plot credit around these parts-? >_> Not to mention even SMT doesn't take its retarded blasphemy as seriously as Xenosaga does, and XS, from what I -already- know, paints a misanthropic, excessive derailment of religion that plays a far bigger disservice than SMT's admittedly adolescent nerdrage. It ends up even -worse-, because you can see it has an at least educated background and foundation, which are used to... ultimately create an even more childish picture than SMT's.
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AAI- Maggey Byrde fails. Stop being such an insufferable pity whore.
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PW3 - Maggey Byrde fails. Stop being such an insufferable pity whore.
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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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FE8: So, with all the talk I see everywhere... Started playing on Saturday. Beat it Sunday. Final time was 16 hours. Bleh, sure didn't feel that long.... Went Eiraka route because... well I dunno. Ephraim annoyed me I guess? Doesn't really matter. Things were fairly easy, and the monsters were just unfun to fight.
So in the continuing tradition of talking about characters because who cares about anything else... here I go! Characters ended up in the 20/10 range because i didn't feel like grinding them to 20/20 for no real reason. So I'm sort of guessing at where their averages are based on what I could lazily find.
Eiraka: Was probably going to cap Strength, Skill, go above average for Defense and Res, and end up below-average for Speed and Luck. Weird. Paired her up with Seth because I like him and it helped her damage out.
Ephraim: Forced use on the last two chapters? Screw you too game. Less because he was a liability, but more because I already had my team.
Seth: Started using him once Eiraka promoted. Got Strength every level up. Would have capped too. Most of his other stats would have ended up average.
Gilliam: Gained Speed! And got a seven stat level up once! Was already above 20/20 Speed at 20/11. I made him a General. Sadly, we would have ended up average or below-average in every other stat. But speed!
Vanessa: Got replaced by Ephraim in the last Chapters because she was my weakest link. Despite being A Support with Lute. Tch. Made her a Wyren Knight. Would have probably ended up average on everything except Defense where she would be above. Would have capped Speed and Skill.
Neimi: Ranger, paired with Colm. Would have capped Skill and Speed; gone above-average for Strength, Luck and Defense; and been below-average Res.
Colm: Rogue kill machine. Would have capped Strength and Speed; been above-average on Skill and Defense; and been below-average on Luck and Res.
Garcia: Fighter, paired him with Gilliam. Strength gain machine. Had 16 Strength at level 12 unprompted and hit the cap before level 20. Would have capped Strength; was above-average for Defense; would have been above-average for Skill and Speed; and below-average for Luck and Res(like everyone). For absolute hilarity, he killed Valtar with a Hand Axe crit.
Lute: Went Sage. Would have ended up with above-average Skill; but below-average everything else. Ouch. Still murdered things handily though.
Natasha: healer. Don't care.
Joshua: Swordmaster, paired with L'arachel for comedy. Would have capped Strength; but been below-average on everything else except Res of all things which would have been above-average.
Tana: Wyren Knight. Already capped Speed; would have capped Strength and Luck; was above-20/20-average on Defense; would have been above-average Skill, Defense and Res. Had the best Stat gains jeez....
L'Arachel: Healer, don't care.
So..... yeah....
Gilliam and Garcia did most of the work. Then Colm and Neimi. Tana did worse than with her stats would, but still managed to never die despite all the bad luck that gravitated towards her. Eiraka was actually kinda Strength starved in the early game but her Lord levels boosted her big time.
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Bayonetta: Well, after the grind that was C5, 6 was a nice breather. Lots of fodder to smash, a ridiculously easy boss and a new toy to play with (killer ice skates!) - fun times. I used the tons of halos I picked up there to get my first accessory, the one that regains health when you taunt, and then took down Temperance. Fun, God Of War-ish fight (in a good way!), and it made me finally use a health restorer. Man, those things don't do much, do they? I used a Mega and got maybe a third of one health bar.
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DMC3 - Wait they randomly changed the controls from DMC1? Despite it being a game from the same system? Why would they do that? *goes to controls menu, makes controls the same as in DMC1* *blissfully plays game until Chapter 3* Wait a second, why can't I activate those sword switches? Oh, apparently it's because "melee attack" is now the same button as "examine", which creates a conflict, and there's no way to remap examine to any other button. Well fuck. *remaps melee attack, starts learning new controls for no damn reason* gj Capcom.
Fun enough game otherwise so far, though too early for more in-depth comments. The style is pretty awesome, and the opening of Mission 1 remains one of the best things ever. Though I will say I liked Vergil better when he didn't talk.
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To be fair, they made that change in DMC2, and DMC3 just didn't change it back.
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I have no problem with them not changing the control scheme back, then, but the "unmappable examine button which clashes with other remappable actions" is pretty stupid and really needed to be fixed if it was in 2.
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Yeah, that one you can blame them for. IIRC DMC2 had that same problem.
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Though I will say I liked Vergil better when he didn't talk.
Definitely need to play his mode then.
I think he gets around one-two line(s).
Yes, I know that's unintuitive.
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Not to mention even SMT doesn't take its retarded blasphemy as seriously as Xenosaga does
Snow, your misunderstanding starts right there. Especially considering Kaneko's style of freedom of interpretation. What Kaneko has done with Selenen just recently is far more of an offense to Jesus than XS can ever do (not that I disagree with it, though).
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There is a difference between subtle analogy and blatent outright statement. SMT does the former most often, lately.
The difference is, you see, people can ignore that stupid crap if they want to.
Also, while SMT has down outright statement, it's worthy of note that they never make it feel like a commentary in any normal sense. SMT1 had angels being overly law-oriented dicks and demons just being "chaotic" and still killing everyone mind you but they were more natural law oriented, etc, etc, and none of it felt like any kind of direct commentary because of the setting being so warped.
Also because well what the hell at least it's remotely open to interpretation that God could just be vengefully law-oriented. Most people aren't going to agree but hey.
I don't think it's open to interpretation, no matter how you read the Bible, that Mary Magdelen had booby cannons and that there was some magical girl boy behind Jesus and etc, etc, it's biblical fanfiction and completely ridiculous/unfitting the setting even if you saw it as pure fiction/not funny like Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. It's a bad way to go about things.
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So accurate, Djinn.
So painfully accurate.
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Yet more evidence that Xenosaga would have been better as "URTVs fighting each other using self-generated nuclear blasts, featuring a cyborg and Jungian philosophy."
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SMT doesn't get hated on because it uses religious paraphenallia from everywhere to talk about purely philosophical concepts that are disengaged from religion entirely. Xenosaga uses philosophical paraphenalia to talk about religious paraphenalia in ways that have nothing to do with the religions of the philosophies. Essentially the SMT stuff is fairly minimalist and tends to talk about some fairly shallow philosophical concepts to give your dungeon crawler a plot. XS stuff is fairly (Poorly) highly educated references to philosophical concepts to make a really shallow flashy movie full of stupid and wank loaded up with a crate full of COCKSCOCKSCOCKSCOCKSCOCKSJESUS.
The difference is monumental.
Edit - Oh and you know, SMT actually tends to do it in fairly interesting and even kind of unique ways which is certainly something else for a video game. Is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army a particular deep concept? Not really, it is much more like a really awesome B Movie, but the concept certainly carries all that B Movie charm with the flair and high concept nonsense it needs. That is definitely bringing something fresh to the table. Even if you are going to restrict yourself to the core series, SMT 1 and 2 are approaching 20 years old now. SMT3 definitely stepped up and while again being fairly shallow, did bring something new and fairly unique even to the core series.
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I don't think it's open to interpretation, no matter how you read the Bible, that Mary Magdelen had booby cannons
You're obviously reading the wrong version!
Megaman Zero Collection: Needed something to tide me over until DQ9, so I figured 4 games for a decent price should be good right? Unfortunately, I find out later that these happen to be the four hardest MM games ever made. For example, I finally figured out a strategy to beat Aztec Falcon without getting hit - except that they also throw in a time limit on that fight and you can't beat him with that method in time. Luckily they threw in an Easy mode on this game with infinite lives so you can actually get to play through it.
SoaL: Also replaying this. Up to Horteka.
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Also, have to third the "Zuh?" at needing to grind in earlygame FF3DS. I could maybe see having to grind for Garuda or Cloud of Darkness but the earlygame? That shouldn't be an issue unless you think running four Monks is a good idea or something like that.
See, endgame? No grind whatsoever. Doing sidequests is more than enough to blitz the entire endgame dungeon with absolute ease. But, hey, guess what? Dwarven Hollows, and more grinding needed. Manticores are shredding my team apart - 3 fights with them and I'm running back to heal already. (It's not like I'm spending hours and hours grinding levels... Just usually enough to get some equipment/levels to survive. Oh, and running War/Thf/Blm/Whm at the moment.)
Also, bored of FFI already. Will come back to that later, gonna start FFVI for now, methinks. Been meaning to replay that again anyways.
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See Grefter re: my thoughts on SMT, pretty much, with a dose of "SMT is upfront about taking stuff and skewing it. Xenosaga wasn't, apparently did it worse than SMT does on a bad day, and almost sounds like it hamfisted it harder than SMT's 'yeah, this is how it works. So?' tends to go."
Related note:
Devil Survivor: Day 7, beaten up by an evil dream potted plant's gimmick.
Strange Journey: Getting off my ass, stopped looking for Red Rider and just moving on. Approaching boss of F.
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FFXII- Out of the prison. Getting used to the system now and starting to enjoy it. Doing the two hunts that opened up along with Basch before going on with the story.
Oh... and... WHAT? That's some rapid change of heart thar, Vaan.
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Also, have to third the "Zuh?" at needing to grind in earlygame FF3DS. I could maybe see having to grind for Garuda or Cloud of Darkness but the earlygame? That shouldn't be an issue unless you think running four Monks is a good idea or something like that.
See, endgame? No grind whatsoever. Doing sidequests is more than enough to blitz the entire endgame dungeon with absolute ease. But, hey, guess what? Dwarven Hollows, and more grinding needed. Manticores are shredding my team apart - 3 fights with them and I'm running back to heal already. (It's not like I'm spending hours and hours grinding levels... Just usually enough to get some equipment/levels to survive. Oh, and running War/Thf/Blm/Whm at the moment.)
Also, bored of FFI already. Will come back to that later, gonna start FFVI for now, methinks. Been meaning to replay that again anyways.
And yet, beyond maybe some difficulty due to resources in Djinn's Cave, I find FF3's early game pretty routine without grinding. No, its not EASY, just I never thought I needed to grind.
Did you do the Tower in the Castle (I wanna say "Samite" but I could be mistaking the name)? Has a few randoms, a pseudo-boss Monster in the Box, and nets you a damn good sword (Wight Slayer). That could be the culprit here...
But either way, FF3DS was not a game I really grinded ever in, barring the "Get JL71 Thief" thing. Well, I guess my first playthrough, paranoia made me grind to get out of Job Sickness with my 3 Dragoons, only to learn that 3 Dragoons vs. Garuda in this game is overkill (relative to FF3o where you practically NEEDED 4 if you wanted to not tear your eyes out against him), but those were exceptional scenarios (albeit, if there's a boss that needs grinding, Garuda is it, CoD aside.)
You are using a Black Mage with a Bow, right <_<? Because odd as it sounds, Black Mage is very competent physical fighter using that, and can even run back row damage.
Oh... and... WHAT? That's some rapid change of heart thar, Vaan.
If you're expecting good writing with regards to ANYTHING Vaan does, you're going to be disappointed <_<
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Not even expecting good writing. Even average writing would pick that up.
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Strange Journey: Getting off my ass, stopped looking for Red Rider and just moving on. Approaching boss of F.
That boss can be pretty nasty. If you can get one, try to bring a demon with Dekaja.
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Strange Journey: Said boss thrashed... kinda. Was somewhat intimidating but Luster Candy and Debilitate handled it decently well (though I quickly figured out debilitating it into negatives was baaaaad.)
Now in G-
OWOWOWOWOWOW RANDOMS KICKING MY ASS HOLY SHIT DIFFICULTY JUMP. Welp, time to fusion magic for a bit.
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I think the general rule with buffs and debuffs is that you can get away with +/-3 but go any further and most bosses will dispel it.
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Red Dead Redemption: I've put in about 20 hours in the past three days with this game. Multiplayer is full of griefers, though I got to try a co-op mission that was interesting. The open world is full of lots of nothing, and it's frustrating having to go from one end of the map to the other for lots of the story missions. I'm in Mexico now, looking for treasure and picking butterfly plants and getting taught by some old gunslinger.
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FF3 stuff
Yeah, did the stuff at Castle Semite. (I'm sure that's the wrong name - that's somewhere in FF2? I know the place, though - the one you meet Ingus at) I actually died on my first run or two through that place, typically enough. >.>
And yeah, my Black Mage has a Killer Bow right now, methinks. Or Great Bow. Whichever's better. I don't use the physical much, since I'm usually spamming Blizzards at the moment (hi Fire Caverns!)
On that note:
FF1: Training! Mostly grinding for money here, trying to get enough for Lit2/Fir2/Cur2. Got 2/3 so far, so nearly there! Then I'll go train at that place near Pravoka that has late-game enemies. <3
FF3: Argh fucking Fire Caverns asddgfhfd. Died to randoms, then trained a bit. Got through, died to Salamander twice - Fire Breath is OHKOing at least two characters, usually three. But Ingus survives!!11!1one! Need more training. Just enough to have Luneth survive Fire Breath, or for Refia to get 2-3 more casts of Cura.
FF6: Blitzed through the early sections, grabbed a load of Relics in South Figaro and continued. Vargas fell surprisingly easily - I remember having trouble with him on my first playthrough. Edgar continues to be overpowered as all hell early on - NoiseBlaster is <3<3<3. Got the Genji Glove because I saw the other conversation on my other playthrough and wanted to see what happened if I refused to help. Saved on the Lete River.
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On FF3: wear more fire-resistant gear, I think those already exist by then.
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Some, but not much. Think I equipped everything I had, although I know I missed the Ice sword that's in that dungeon on my last run, so that'll make things slightly easier.
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They certainly do: the Ice equips, from the Dwarven Hollows. Might want to turn one of your mages into a Red Mage in order to be able to use them.
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Right, Semite is FF2. It definitely begins with an "S" though for that castle, I believe; I know its NOT Saronia though.
Fire resistant gear is gotten from Ice equips; FF3DS sort of fails for not telling you this. I mean, it'll have shields say "Protects against status" and nothing else. Then again, FF4DS told you the elemental resists of an equip, but failed to tell you that ANY status protection exists (to FF4DS' credit, game does state Immune or Guard or something, instead of just "Miss" when a status is resisted.)
EDIT: Damn! Elfboy beat me to it :(
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Fire resistant gear is gotten from Ice equips; FF3DS sort of fails for not telling you this.
...Right. This explains a little. I was working under the assumption that Ice armours blocked, y'know, ICE.
Guess that'll make this slightly easier when I try this again tomorrow. >.>
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Fire and Ice resisted the opposing elements until FF5, where they finally decided to be more intuitive and make Fire resist Fire, and so on. FF4 actually took it a step further and made Fire stuff give you Fire weakness and what not.
Similarly, Diamond Stuff gives you resistance to Lightning; this was actually kept true in FF5! FF6 removed it, though I wanna say FF12 brought it back, and I think FF12 may have even done swapped resistances for the elemental shields, but I can't say I remember offhand. FF12 elemental resistance is a blur beyond "Wind Breakers resist Wind, Black Masks Absorb Darkness, White Masks (I think?) absorb Holy", cause those are the 3 things you care about for super bosses.
This is yet another example of why FF3DS needs punting for the in game documentation. They HAD the ability to tell you crucial things like elemental resistance, but the game does not. I could forgive it in FF3o, cause back then, the idea of "in game descriptions" hadn't been thought of, so whatever. FF3DS, if they can say "Resists Status", why can't they say "Resists *element*"? Blindly equipping stuff is an artificial way to increase challenge, afterall, and is more a case of "bad polish."
Though honestly wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those "YOU MUST KEEP THE NATURE OF THE ORIGINAL GAME IN TACT!" nonsense Japanese gamers decided should be, which led to the stupid "Save Pointless Final Dungeon with the hardest boss in the game (and probably hardest final boss in the series) right at the end...and this dungeon is NOT SHORT."
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AAI: 5-3. How the fuck is this arrogant, incompetent fucktard allowed to tell ME what to do in my own district!? Man, shove your grudge against me up your ass, Lang. Otherwise the case is good! Kay is hilarious, the three cameos are all quite good. Still, Lang does a lot to make me like it less; I was finding the lack of clearly antagonistic rival kinda nice.
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FF7 CC:
Finally finished. Only took around 2 years. The last 2 to 3 scenes are some of the best scenes in the game (especially the 4 years bit). Past that, mm...combat's a little dull (final in particular was very disappointing) sans the optional stuff. Quests take up a crap load of time and is pretty much why it took so long (most of them being the EXACT same thing) since they aren't exactly interesting either. I've done more than 50% so I can say at least half the quests are like that! Game's largely fluff, does a better job as a prequel than FE7 (omg accomplishment!), but then what doesn't? Still, pretty solid, but not stellar. A 6/10 game or so for? Has its definite moments, but yeah, not something that hooked me from start to finish.
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I generally agree, emphatically second you on the closing scenes. I've always been pretty meh about FF7 plot, but Crisis Core actually got me pretty interested, no small achievement in a spin-off title.
Agreed also on the combat, that common issue where the most interesting stuff is optional, but doing the optional stuff unbalances the game and renders the plot fights even more meaninglessly boring.
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I was finding the lack of clearly antagonistic rival kinda nice.
Dammit people stop skipping AJ
Disgaea Infinite: Gotten a few endings. Short visual novel distraction with amusing enough writing, watching NISA even poke fun at their own previous translations is great. The PoV change gimmick is pretty neat. Will probably try to fill up the list of endings.
LFT: Started MR4M, up to Wiegraf 1. Bomb supremacy.
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I'm not skipping AJ, I'm just playing them in
the order I'm interested in them chronological order. :) What can I say, Edgey is sexier than Hobo Phoenix.
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Mind, Klavier is probably the only compelling reason TO play AJ.
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Really? Personally can't stand the guy, I'm just there for the Hobo-Fu which is truly mighty.
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Suikoden Tierwhatever - Started this up after reading Djinn's babble about it from a while ago. A few things to say after getting up to Grayridge and watching a few scenes.
Worst possible implementation of the DS touch screen ever? I am assuming it is some kind of mandate that you must have some kind of touch screen functionality or some shit. Pro tip, don't make the stylus fucking useless during regular gameplay and then expect people to use it for conversations. Don't highlight a dialogue option if you aren't going to make the A button select it. Really annoying because about 70% of the time the first option is the one you want to pick anyway, so you have to hit down then up to pick it. Shitty shitty shit shit UI is annoying when I am playing a game when testing the implementation of what is essentially a new UI for a program at work (when I am working overtime for testing at that!) is a serious irritation and amazingly bad timing.
The game starts with and got marketted with a neat concept. All 108 Stars of Destiny are pretty much dead. Shame the real game is about interdimensional travel so the interesting plot point is just a vague story hook and not the actual interesting plot that was hoped for. Nope you still get to start as a clueless 15 year old kid instead of a grizzled war veteran. Suck it Konami, go back to Suikoden 3 style.
Corrupt religious figure! Cackles evilly on like his fifth line of dialogue. Innkeeper's daughter pretends to work with him so she can reveal his corruption? Not a bad plot point albeit not overly original! Revealing this to the party and her father by sneaking into your room at the Inn to give you a midnight snack after presumably sneaking out of the church she was absconded to? That is retarded!
Sooooo yeah. I think this is going to be one of those games. I play it and it makes me go "Oh man I really could go a 2D sort of console RPG right abouts now" and all it makes me want to do is replay BoF IV on my PSP. So I might dislike the game a bit irrationally just because it isn't really what I want to play, but that is fine because by all reports there is enough rational reasons to dislike it anyway.
Edit - Oh and most underwhelming application of multiple dimension Star of Destiny plot potential ever? Possibly! I had flashes of having half your stars from one world and the other half being their opposite counterparts from the other world so having 54 mirrored Stars of Destiny in a concept that could have been ripped straight from Chrono Cross and then not fucked up would have been fun. Oh well.
Edit 2 - Not that it matters, but posting after Shale did.
I thought we had been over this and you had learned not to make getting around painfully slow guys. S1 was pretty annoying but at least you had Gremio or Viktor to throw a Holy Rune at most of the time. We won't go over Suikoden 4 boats again. Not even having a movement speed modifier is a new kind of bad though. Snail racing the RPG is going to bring me endless glee.
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Agreed also on the combat, that common issue where the most interesting stuff is optional, but doing the optional stuff unbalances the game and renders the plot fights even more meaninglessly boring.
That's what you get for playing on Normal, you pansies.
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Agreed also on the combat, that common issue where the most interesting stuff is optional, but doing the optional stuff unbalances the game and renders the plot fights even more meaninglessly boring.
That's what you get for playing on Normal, you pansies.
Hey, I'll play Hard Mode eventually! I just...kind of...need to get the game back first...
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Started Tales of Innocence since it's in English (http://www.absolutezerotranslations.com/2010/06/29/tales-of-innocence-patch-released/) - so far so good. It's not terribly good writing-wise because well, derp, it's a Tales of series and I never quite like them for their awesome story, but the hero's tolerable so far, and the battle system is Tales of battle system.
Currently equipped the Obsidian to Luca which is a ridiculous sword that restores TP faster than I can use it without going overboard on Skills Only. Yeah.
Just two hours into the game. Level 13, got a pretty nice setup for my team and the game's pretty easy so far so I might crank difficulty up from Normal.
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Worst possible implementation of the DS touch screen ever? I am assuming it is some kind of mandate that you must have some kind of touch screen functionality or some shit. Pro tip, don't make the stylus fucking useless during regular gameplay and then expect people to use it for conversations. Don't highlight a dialogue option if you aren't going to make the A button select it. Really annoying because about 70% of the time the first option is the one you want to pick anyway, so you have to hit down then up to pick it. Shitty shitty shit shit UI is annoying when I am playing a game when testing the implementation of what is essentially a new UI for a program at work (when I am working overtime for testing at that!) is a serious irritation and amazingly bad timing.
Yeah, there's hardly anything redeemable about the gameplay. It's like being back in the PS1 era, only less polish and touch-screen controls!
The game starts with and got marketted with a neat concept. All 108 Stars of Destiny are pretty much dead. Shame the real game is about interdimensional travel so the interesting plot point is just a vague story hook and not the actual interesting plot that was hoped for. Nope you still get to start as a clueless 15 year old kid instead of a grizzled war veteran. Suck it Konami, go back to Suikoden 3 style.
Don't worry, we get back to this eventually~! Perhaps knowing that will actually detract from how awesome the focus-switching is... hmm...
Corrupt religious figure! Cackles evilly on like his fifth line of dialogue. Innkeeper's daughter pretends to work with him so she can reveal his corruption? Not a bad plot point albeit not overly original! Revealing this to the party and her father by sneaking into your room at the Inn to give you a midnight snack after presumably sneaking out of the church she was absconded to? That is retarded!
Diadora is the villain you want to be looking at for anything resembling interesting.
Edit - Oh and most underwhelming application of multiple dimension Star of Destiny plot potential ever? Possibly! I had flashes of having half your stars from one world and the other half being their opposite counterparts from the other world so having 54 mirrored Stars of Destiny in a concept that could have been ripped straight from Chrono Cross and then not fucked up would have been fun. Oh well.
Actually... yeah. I'm gonna have to agree here. They touch on it here and there, but they really could have down more with this idea, and that's kinda sad. I haven't finished the game yet, so maybe it gets awesome towards the end?
I thought we had been over this and you had learned not to make getting around painfully slow guys. S1 was pretty annoying but at least you had Gremio or Viktor to throw a Holy Rune at most of the time. We won't go over Suikoden 4 boats again. Not even having a movement speed modifier is a new kind of bad though. Snail racing the RPG is going to bring me endless glee.
You get one these around midgame. To be honest, I can understand -why- they did this, there's so little opportunites to actually use the battle system that they seemed to need something like this to get any kind of battling in. Not a good design choice, no. There's really not much to say for a lot of the design choices.
Fedecca is hot, make sure you get Fedecca to get the most out of the game.
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Dissidia: Been playing a lot more of this other than my usual "one match a day" lately. Mastered Story Mode in entirely, including all 10 Cosmos reports, only 2 Chaos Reports left (Kefka and Ex-death). Have Firion, Terra, Cloud, Sephiroth, Squall, Zidane, and Tidus at level 100. Most recent action worth caring about was getting the 100 Battles in Lunar Whale course accomplishment; I got 91 with Squall before getting the "Hey, this accomplishment exists!" and went "God damn it, I was that close?" Tried with Zidane, failed cause I still don't quite have a grasp on his combos and all that, then decided this would be a good opportunity to practice with Sephiroth (one of my intended Mains) some, and sure enough, it worked! It was also AFTER I did all this that I read that Scintillations main use comes from being a guard usable right after a Dodge...well, shit, that would have been nice to know!
Also got a crap load of AP since I've been using AP builds (so I could master certain characters much faster in terms of CP manipulation)...and recently started making Drop rate Builds (Which I often forget to replenish at the PP Shop, GO ME!) so I can get more gear faster, hopefully make more Ultimates which very few PCs actually care about, cause generic weapons apparently end up better in the grand scheme of things!
Anyway...
So after doing all that, easing up on Dissidia, went back to something I started briefly, and decided to get back to cause I have to give it back in like a month or something:
TWEWY: Up to Joshua Day 3. My opinion of the game...hasn't really changed since I first started it. Really just not getting into it; thankfully it seems shortish, but otherwise, mrf.
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Really? Personally can't stand the guy, I'm just there for the Hobo-Fu which is truly mighty.
Probably the biggest reason I haven't played AJ is because, well, it sounds like Phoenix kind of a tool and that what happens to him in the time between 3 and 4 is really anti-climatic. I've spoiled myself on a lot of the game due to reading the PW Wiki, mostly trying to find a reason to play it, and the answer to me is A PROSECUTOR WHOSE LIFE GOAL ISN'T TO ANNOY YOU? YESZ. Now, we'll see how well it is implemented.
AAI: Finished 5-3.
SPOILERS!
I actually think it is pretty bad. Kay is hilarious but otherwise the case isn't very funny, and the murder plot is so convoluted that I think the logic is extremely hard to follow. There was one in particular... there were THREE! people involved in the kidnapping, not just the father/daughter team. Like, okay, there were three people involved. That proves absolutely nothing and that could have been just about anyone but somehow you use this to pull Lance in. I was caught on that snag for a while and once I got it (by FAQing it) I rolled my eyes at how utterly stupid it was. In general, the murder was just... written really badly. The plan is sooo stupid and they could have just cut out the crap with RESTAGING THE SHOOTING and just exploited the fact that her handprints are on the gun. That would have been so much more like something someone in real life would do!
The biggest problem with this case, however, is Lang. Lang is a Grade A douchebag, an arrogant twit, and somehow he has power over the most powerful person in the district. You can't just tell the head prosecutor to fuck off after the entire PW series establishes that they can do whatever the fuck they want! Now, if Lang had tried to argue that Edgey was involved in the crime and thus couldn't try to solve it, that would make more sense. Otherwise, Lang uses terrible logic (I will blather incessantly about how you don't need evidence in the real world to arrest people (lulz) but when you are trying to arrest people, you MUST HAVE DECISIVE EVIDENCE!!), he's a total tool who loves to beat his own chest (like El Tigre, except really fucking annoying instead of awesome), and THEY TRIED TO GIVE HIM A SOB STORY ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? AND THE SOB STORY IS OH MY GOODNESS A PROSECUTOR DID SOMETHING TO HIS GRANDFATHER ONCE OR SOMETHING?
I guess one thing good about Lang is that he does say what we all wanted to say about prosecutors. He has really good music and art too. Otherwise, he is like second to the blather machine Godot in annoying chars in the series.
I also 'like' how Jacques Portsman comes in with PERMISSION FROM THE CHIEF OF POLICE. lulz, we are prosecutors, we control the chief of police.
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You get one these around midgame. To be honest, I can understand -why- they did this, there's so little opportunites to actually use the battle system that they seemed to need something like this to get any kind of battling in. Not a good design choice, no. There's really not much to say for a lot of the design choices.
Fedecca is hot, make sure you get Fedecca to get the most out of the game.
That is easy to do. Increased movement speed = Increased encounter rate. Games have been doing that for how long now?
But of course I am going to get every star. This is me playing a Suikoden game. I have a walkthrough open on my iPhone. (Another point against it for portability. Had the same issue with ToE on PSP when I bought it. I actually did mean to play through it on the go when I got it! But then remembered all the crippling FAQbait and just haven't got back to it. That is as someone who has already played and really enjoyed ToE and has a memory for obscure and hidden crap. I just forget all the little hidden things in ToE because there is so damned many of them).
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FF3: Got the 'Ice' equips and went back to take care of the Fire Caverns. Fire Breath was now just a low 2HKO as opposed to a borderline OHKO. Was fine using Cura on every Fire Breath until he attacked Arc in the same turn and I lost my Black Mage. Then he did the same to Refia. Oh. Ingus died a little after that, so I tried healing Thief!Luneth. From full health, he fell back into OHKO range. "Fuck it, ATTACK!" *kills* "..." 50 DAMAGE PHYSICAL KILL YESZ.
Get more jobs, change Ingus into a Knight. Now I'm in a tree.
Edit: Also, checking my notes, Meeple: Castle Sasune.
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Bad Rats -
Not a fan. Played through a bit over 20 levels; don't believe I will bother continuing.
Every level that I played required you to knock a ball into a particular object, even when that doesn't make sense (such as into the side of a horizontally-oriented pair of scissors, or pushing things which ought to be far too heavy for it to push... especially since this is supposed to be physics-based). This gets old fairly fast but it is not strictly a major problem.
I go to put a rat on an incline, and the game will automatically rotate it to match the angle of the incline. Following this a good deal of the time despite the game having rotated it to match the incline, and the game snapping the rat to the incline when you're close enough, you aren't allowed to put it there because it's snapped to such that it clips into the incline. Assuming that I do get it on the incline or just leave it in midair just out of reach of the snapping, I want to turn it around because it's facing the wrong direction. The game proceeds to flip the rat horizontally ignoring the angle that it's been rotated to, so if it was facing left-downwards after flipping it it will be facing right-downwards instead of right-upwards. This is tremendously unhelpful, especially since the manual rotation controls are kind of annoying to use. Not to mention that they're worthless a good deal of the time - rotating a cannon rat will rotate the cannon on its base, but rotating an archer rat will rotate the entire rat, and aiming particularly high or low will just result in the rat falling over when you start things up.
At least the game can autorotate rats correctly even if the snapper can't perceive the effect this has on their clipping. With autorotation of boards it isn't so great. Numerous times I was trying to position a board over a gap and the autorotator decided for god-knows-whatever reason that I wanted one end of the board to sit across a platform that was above the gap in question, rotating it ludicrously out of position and through the upper platform. Did mention that you can only use the manual rotation controls if the item is placed somewhere? So you have to hope that you have enough room somewhere to put the board and unrotate it yourself, or move it to other locations and hope that the autorotator will shift it back in the direction you wanted it originally.
Puzzles are 2-dimensional only, and it would follow that the pieces were locked into a two dimensional plane. They aren't. While it is somewhat amusing to see a Balloon + Rat randomly spiral out of the puzzle towards the screen the first couple of times, this shouldn't be possible, especially since you have limited time and attempts (ludicrous amount of attempts to be fair, but the time limit isn't so). Furthermore, running out gives you a full-blown game over. In this style of game. What.
Randomness is even apparently a factor in general, which is very very wrong. I looked at the dev solution to a map I didn't think I had even begun to approach the right way, and the dev solution -failed-. It's possible that it was just a problem with the dev solution, but I saw people speaking about it randomly happening to the dev solutions on other maps.
So one time I beat a map, and on going to the next map I found that it was the same as the previous map. Except the solution plan provided didn't match the map layout at all. I ran with my previous solution and the next map was also the same as before with another new solution layout which didn't match it. I went back to the main menu and loaded this map up with the password and it changed the difficulty level on me. This was about the point I decided it was not worth continuing.
Did I mention that the game required me to disable DEP on it before it would run.
Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent -
First off I will just state that TTG apparently still haven't fixed the problems they have been having with multiple monitor support since this game also died and had trouble coming back up if I touched the resolution. There go my hopes that it was a problem limited to S&M3. At least I found out that altering my second monitor to be a duplicate instead of an extension resets enough of whatever to allow the game to even start back up, so I don't need to restart the computer for it any more, but it still should be highly unnecessary.
I don't mind the graphical style in general. There are a couple of points where it grates, mostly when characters cross the screen on snowmobiles at around 3 frames per second, but in general it is nice and different.
Much shorter than I was expecting. In case you weren't aware yet, the game is similar in gameplay to Professor Layton, so to compare to that... Professor Layton 1 has, according to an FAQ, around 120 puzzles in the maingame, and half of those are optional. Puzzle Agent has 37 puzzles in the main game, 10 or so of which are optional. Yeah. I get that it's not only episodic in a manner of speaking, but it's also a pilot/test episode and as such may be smaller than a regular episode, but still. Also sort of ends on a cliffhanger when as I understand it it isn't guaranteed to get any sequels. Tsk.
Ended up getting one 4 and several 7s, with the rest 10s. The game is sneaky and provides, as far as I can ascertain, no facility for manual saving so you cannot get a perfect score through saving. Sadness.
Disgaea DS -
Starting episode 7.
I was not expecting there to be an unwinnable map (duplication dragon) in this style of game and ended up looking up a 'solution' for it as I was sure there was some trick to it I wasn't grasping ._.
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Red Dead Redemption. Beated, with 83% completion. I'd have to say I wasn't impressed. I mean, it's a good sandbox game, but I really didn't like the non-coop multiplayer (why in the world didn't they make the minigames playable, like Poker and Liar's Dice) and it's an Idiot Plot where half of the story missions are just filler. A good game, but nowhere near what I was hoping from it, probably 7/10.
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Tales of Innocence: Four hours further into the game and I STILL haven't switched Luca's weapon. He also STILL hasn't run out of TP ever - on that note, no one has. The AI is quite sparing with the TP, it seems - the exception being Iria due to having a good 25 TP skill that is spammable and that the AI loves to chainspam. From Healer to Greatest Damage Dealer? It's more likely than you think!
Got my party matchup complete. Let's see... Fifteen-year-old brat (probably) x3, then a kid no older than twelve and an old timer in his twenties. Fairly standard jRPG lineup, but the twist is that they're all reincarnations of past heroes!! ... k.
So far I've only seen two cities, finally setting off to find a third. I'm hoping it's indicative of a long game, not "lol i troll u, we only have four cities :3".
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Strange Journey - Right, this game exists. Time to go wander around a large sector looking for a way to disable plot armor.
Tales of Innocence - Kleptomaniac church girl get.
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Disgaea DS -
Starting episode 7.
I was not expecting there to be an unwinnable map (duplication dragon) in this style of game and ended up looking up a 'solution' for it as I was sure there was some trick to it I wasn't grasping ._.
If this is the map I'm thinking of, not only is it winnable, but you'll be using it for easy-grinding eventually. It's just designed for a much much higher level than you are, and the storyline isn't going to punish you for not grinding to that point yet. But this is Disgaea, so you could.
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Blaze Union- Went through Route C.
It is a very straight forward route that consists nothing but:
Nessiah: "Bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana bankan bakana bakanaaaa!!!!"
The route might as well rename itself as Nessiah's Bakana route. His level of fail and screw up has gone hilarious.
Xenoblade- I. HATE. RADIATA. NPCS.
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I get the feeling Niu likes NPCs having scripted actions based on in game Time of Day schedules! Just a hunch!
TWEWY: Just beat Josh 4. Oh look, another plotwist...which I had more less figured out already, so the SHOCK factor wasn't really there.
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Oh, no one figures out that plot twist.
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Blaze Union- Went through Route C.
It is a very straight forward route that consists nothing but:
Nessiah: "Bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana bankan bakana bakanaaaa!!!!"
The route might as well rename itself as Nessiah's Bakana route. His level of fail and screw up has gone hilarious.
Sounds like what you'd expect from a Yggdra Union prequel. They have to set up the screwed-up situation that Yggdra inherits.
Do you know how the other Routes play out? Is it just like YU where you basically choose your ending in the final map? Or are there multiple story paths during the main chunk of gameplay?
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Blaze Union- Went through Route C.
It is a very straight forward route that consists nothing but:
Nessiah: "Bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana bakana!!"
Nessiah: "Bakana bankan bakana bakanaaaa!!!!"
The route might as well rename itself as Nessiah's Bakana route. His level of fail and screw up has gone hilarious.
Sounds like what you'd expect from a Yggdra Union prequel. They have to set up the screwed-up situation that Yggdra inherits.
Do you know how the other Routes play out? Is it just like YU where you basically choose your ending in the final map? Or are there multiple story paths during the main chunk of gameplay?
There is three routes, the splits were determined by what map you choose to play in the earlier half of the game.
Route A is the historical route, which is a full load of tragedy and shows you how Gulcasa ends up as the man he is in Yggda Union.
It is a huge irony though. "理不尽を壊すのだ" he says, yet he himself become the most unreasonable being in the end.
Anyway, Genocide is pure brokenness when you get to use it yourself.
Route B is an alternate route that deals with twins. It reveals why they got abandoned and all that. You'll have to fight Odine, Yggdra's dad, who loves to Jihad you in the face. Anyway, it turns out that the twins got thrown away by an evil minister who is plotting for a coup. This route has two end, one is a happy end where Aegina reunites with Yggdra. Another one involves Emilio lost her mind to her Bronga blood and fuvk things up. The evil Emilio end is there specifically made for the Yggdra haters, she gets killed in that end. Yggdra anti-fans were overjoyed when that end was discovered.
Route C is the happy end route, it has the least amount of casualty in all routes. The content..... well, BAKANA!! BAKANA!! BAKANAAAAA!!! Nessiah literally ran out of his vocabulary and bakana is the only thing he could possibly say. He just kept on digging his own grave, over and over.
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I've been keeping a log of my FF Challenge, so will just be posting that here. >.> Easier than rewriting stuff randomly.
Wednesday 30th June:
- FF3: Bought Ice equips and went back into the Fire Caverns. Fire Breath was only a 2HKO now, but was a problem when he used it and then killed Arc in the same turn. Then did the same to Refia. Ingus died a little after this, and Luneth couldn't do anything useful. "Fuck it, I'll attack!" *50 damage, kills* "..." 50 DAMAGE PHYSICAL KILL YESZ. Inside a tree.
Thursday 1st July:
- FF3: Some trainings around Hein's Castle (Tree). Quicksaved after barely any progress (which was only done because I had spare time while palying FF6. :P)
- FF6: Lete River Ultros is a bitch. Barely lasted through that fight. Edgar/Terra/Banon scenario is laughably easy. Locke scenario is deceptively difficult, with the enemies in the cave near South Figaro killing Locke and then Stopping Celes. Died again on enemies in South Figaro. Finally got through and got through the siege on Doma. Shadow left just before the Phantom Train, but ghosts and lots of healing got me through that - the boss fight is hilariously easy, and the first of many bosses in this game to have shitty durability in practice. Moved on and got Gau, then got back to Narshe. Very nearly lost on the Narshe Kefka section - kept dying, but somehow managed to avoid them reaching Banon, before beating Kefka on attempt #2 with Edgar/Celes/Locke. Terra flies away, and Edgar/Celes/Sabin/Gau take the castle over to Kohlingen/Jidoor. Saved outside Jidoor. :)
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Route C is the happy end route, it has the least amount of casualty in all routes. The content..... well, BAKANA!! BAKANA!! BAKANAAAAA!!! Nessiah literally ran out of his vocabulary and bakana is the only thing he could possibly say. He just kept on digging his own grave, over and over.
Blaze Union, Excalibur-version?
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FFXII- Through the Lhusu Mines and the Leviathan. Halfway to the Rathwall Tomb. Stuck around Lhusu a bit to kill the Nidhogg. That was a bitch, but managed it. Party is Dagger Vaan who also is the item bitch/backup mage, Bow Fran who is the primary healer and mage (though she does cast less than Vaan, since I'm in control of him most of the time), and Sword Basch. Basch has some pretty sick damage at the moment since I got an Ancient Sword from a chest a while ago.
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- FF1: Training! Got enough for Fir2/Lit2/Cur2 and went to train near Pravoka. Just a couple of fights there is enough to get Ice2, so got that, some lower levels spells, some other Lv 4s (Pure, Slp2 and Fast) and a few levels. Dreading the Marsh Cave, hate that place. >.< Gonna train to about Lv 13 before tackling there. >.>
- FF3: Got to Hein with everyone alive, was pretty confident. Until he used Blizzara. Oh. Guess I need more training. >.>
- FF6: Bought craploads of stuff in Jidoor, re-equipped the whole team. (Hadn't bought new armour since.. South Figaro, maybe? Weapons were from Narshe, though.) After forgetting the order of gameplay, finally made my way to Zozo and.. promptly struggled to survive against repeated SlamDancer fights. Got to the top of the tower, Espers get! Locke/Edgar/Sabin/Celes make their way back to Jidoor and the Opera House, where I blitz the Ultros fight with a lot of Phoenix Downs on Sabin in order to Fire Dance my way through. Over to Vector, where I lose my way completely in the Magitek Factory. After some exploring (and opening EVERY DAMN TREASURE CHEST), I find Kefka, soon followed by Ifrit/Shiva. After getting those, I find the nearby save point. *head-desk* Off up the stairs, where I suddenly realise that, hey, changing Espers is a GUD IDEAR. Boss fight here is lolworthy, more ESPARS kthx.
OKAY WHAT THE FUCK. Since when did Number 128 have INSTANT FUCKING DEATH TO EVERYONE? Fighting, just about surviving, and then *Blaster, everyone dies* Okay, fuck you too, game. Beat it second time round, didn't run into Blaster. >.> Got Terra back and went to Narshe, then the Sealed Cave. Zombie is a fucking EVIL status in this game. Died to Zombie Sabin and Terra. Swept the Sealed Cave on the next run, got to Vector. Tintinabar get! Off to Thamasa, where I blitz the burning building. Man, I remember struggling on that the first time through - HOW?! That was hilariously easy. The cave with the Goddess Statues proves to be simple too, with Ultros being pretty much owned by Phantom right up until the Relm section, which is over in seconds. Saved just after that, and I'm pretty damn happy with today's progress.
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- FF3: Got to Hein with everyone alive, was pretty confident. Until he used Blizzara. Oh. Guess I need more training. >.>
No you don't. Blizzara OHKOing is perfectly normal. He just doesn't use it often at all, you can cope with just reviving.
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Hein's difficulty is linked largely to his AI. He often spends time wasting his turns on shit like status. Generally speaking, while the EXP you get from bosses rocks, I honestly wouldn't get too worried if someone dies in the process. Its more trouble than its worth, and you do get fully healed after each boss fight.
Also, your mages shouldn't have problems surviving Blizzara. Defense differences are pretty drastic, and one of the incentive to using Mages (Red Mage included) is they take significantly less damage from Magic.
That said...
TWEWY: Josh's arc beaten, onto Beat's arc.
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MMZC: Finished the Easy Scenario. Thoughts on the games:
MMZ: Ridiculous difficulty, but the three weapons were balanced pretty well (i.e. reasons to use all of them at times).
MMZ2: A bit saner than 1, but horrible weapon balance. There is really no reason to use anything but Saber during the game (and Shield Boomerang as subweapon to block). Chain is wretchedly bad damage.
MMZ3: Now this actually feels like a Megaman game. Easiest of the 4 games, especially the bosses. Back to good weapon balance again. Also yay Gradius Options and double-jumping.
MMZ4: Big shift in design here. The Knuckle probably has some utility if you know which enemies to kill with it, but it's not really worth experimenting with much. Difficulty is back up, second-hardest after 1. Although the Gradius Options are even better than the last game - to the point that you actually have to turn them off because they kill things too fast (like when you need a bomb enemy in a certain spot).
SoaL: Stumbling around the Dark Rift.
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Playing some Dragon Age. Usually my Dwarf runs around smashing in skulls with a giant hammer, but sometimes he likes to fuck.
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Also, your mages shouldn't have problems surviving Blizzara.
Oh. Guess I need more training. >.>
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Route B is an alternate route that deals with twins. It reveals why they got abandoned and all that. You'll have to fight Odine, Yggdra's dad, who loves to Jihad you in the face. Anyway, it turns out that the twins got thrown away by an evil minister who is plotting for a coup. This route has two end, one is a happy end where Aegina reunites with Yggdra. Another one involves Emilio lost her mind to her Bronga blood and fuvk things up. The evil Emilio end is there specifically made for the Yggdra haters, she gets killed in that end. Yggdra anti-fans were overjoyed when that end was discovered.
Route C is the happy end route, it has the least amount of casualty in all routes. The content..... well, BAKANA!! BAKANA!! BAKANAAAAA!!! Nessiah literally ran out of his vocabulary and bakana is the only thing he could possibly say. He just kept on digging his own grave, over and over.
Rewriting history prequels are fun!
What actually happens in C route... is it just all-Nessiah, all-the-time? Also, A-path seems like the canon ending needed for Yggdra Union's timeline to work... I'm guessing that this means that C-ending is also an 'alternate route' like the B-endings?
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Look, I know you're interested in the game, but could you please take it to PM? I have no idea if this game has any chance of ever getting over here but if it does I'd like to not know half the plot before release. Niu is bad enough about spoilers without someone egging him on.
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Playing some Dragon Age. Usually my Dwarf runs around smashing in skulls with a giant hammer, but sometimes he likes to fuck.
And you just ruined Dragon Age's plot for everyone planning on playing a dwarf!
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(http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/8610/egadc.jpg)
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Playing some Dragon Age. Usually my Dwarf runs around smashing in skulls with a giant hammer, but sometimes he likes to fuck.
And you just ruined Dragon Age's plot for everyone planning on playing a dwarf!
No, MF did. You'll notice I never specified WHO.
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Strange Journey - Beat up an oversized snake, wandering around trying to find the ghosts of bosses past.
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AAI: 5-5. Soooooooooooooo good. Mental scarring is a go.
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Also, your mages shouldn't have problems surviving Blizzara.
Oh. Guess I need more training. >.>
Not necessarily either. I know Blizzara overkilled my Black Mage Arc and Hein wasn't a scary boss anyway. You just cope and go ahead, you have Phoenix Downs for a reason. >_>
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AAI: Done! I'll be writing up a nice entry for it in a bit, but yay~
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AAA has crafted:
(http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/6208/rickyritzhair.jpg)
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FF13: Closing in on the end of Chapter 10. I hope this game ends soon because this entire chapter has just been a mess and did a royally good job at pissing me off >_>.
VPDS: Speaking of things that piss you off, wow. Just...what happened Tri-Ace? I only played like 3 hours, and there's already a list of annoying/bad things popping up -
a) No damage projections? I mean, okay, for a chain, understandable. But for a menu cast spell?
b) I can't adjust my facing after doing certain actions? Great, so I have to adjust the way I move towards where I want to go. Feels needlessly silly
c) Sin requirements/Super Sin requirements feel dumb since every enemy becomes chip, chip, Overkill. Also hard to do on some enemies.
d) Why is everything so freaking slow? From menu loading times to even skipping PWS animation, it feels sluggish. This was not the way VP/VP2 were. And is probably the killing factor here.
e) It would also be nice if your descriptions were more accurate and there was a bit more documentation floating around. Outlining enemy movement when selecting the enemy would also be nice instead of just telling me how far they moved.
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While I am all for the criticising of VPDS' many faults, I don't think facing direction actually means anything? Could easily be wrong here, and if I am, then yeah, that's stupid.
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Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth: Finished!
Spoilers within!
I think this game is pretty sweet overall, if you couldn’t tell by the fact that I beat it in like 1/30th of the time that I beat the next fastest PW game. I can’t decide where it ranks among the games other than that it’s definitely better than 1. Before 5-5, I was definitely kneejerking it below 3 but 5-5 will make me reconsider this.
So what do I like so much about the game? Well, Edgeworth is one of my favorite characters in the series due to his appearances in 1-3, 2-4, and 3-5 and I think the game is very good at making him seem much shier and more introverted than Phoenix. He is definitely more lost-in-thought than the at times gung-ho and talkative Phoenix. I think they do a really good job at portraying him in 5-4 as this kinda bratty kid who was raised by freaking Manfred. Having him as a cameo in the case was awesome.
I don’t think I could do an epicly long rant because I am lazy and my hands are already starting to hurt but~
5-1: Nice introduction. I think it’s on par with 1-1 and 3-1 in quality or so~ I think it’s a bit better for everything except Maggey Byrde which lowers it down to 1-1/3-1 level.
5-2: I like this case quite a bit. It’s quite neat. I found it pretty fun to figure out what happened and there’s no glaring flaws or anything like that. There’s a little something missing though, and I dunno what it is. It’s a decent case but can’t really compare to things at the top.
5-3: This case I already went over, but I find it comparable to 1-2, which I’m not all that fond of.
5-4: My biggest complaint here is that it is too easy. I love interrogating the Judge and figuring out Gumshoe’s secret. Baby Fran is kawaii. Nice mystery too. I am quite fond of this case just for the various “Wow, cool!” factor.
5-5: The Hallmark case of the game. Very well-executed, has enough mental scarring for my taste, and I quite like the case up to the very end where it suffers from PW-syndrome – aww geez can we just get this over with??!
Overall: 5-5 > 5-4 > 5-2 > 5-1 >>> 5-3! Yo.
Oh, the game also has the best music in the series and the best art. Edgeworth actually looks like a bishie like he seems like he's supposed to throughout the series!
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Well from what the game suggests, if you're struck from behind/side, then its easier for you to be stunned. Attackers hitting stunned opponents have a greater chance to generate red gems which leads to more attacks. So yes, if the game's documentation is correct, then it should do something.
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Oh right, I remember reading that too now. Yeah, stupid.
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AAA has crafted:
(http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/6208/rickyritzhair.jpg)
(http://img514.imageshack.us/img514/4141/jerryseinfeld.gif)
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Look, I know you're interested in the game, but could you please take it to PM? I have no idea if this game has any chance of ever getting over here but if it does I'd like to not know half the plot before release. Niu is bad enough about spoilers without someone egging him on.
Sorry, I figured Blaze Union would be a pretty safe game to ask about in regards to spoilers. For starters, I didn't think anyone hear cared about Yggdra Union series. But also, due to Blaze Union's status a prequel game telling some backstory on YU, I don't think there's too many big spoilers to be found that YU itself doesn't reveal.
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AAA has crafted:
(http://img375.imageshack.us/img375/6208/rickyritzhair.jpg)
(http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/6913/brainslug.jpg)
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*shrug* I always thought it was stupid that you could face any direction you wanted after doing moves in FFT. So VPDS's change was welcome. You're not going to attack an enemy and then turn your back to them when you're done. VPDS punishes you for rushing out and playing hero in the middle of battle by having enemies gang up on you.
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On the other hand, if you attack on a diagonal (which, unlike FFT, is something all but 2(?) PCs can do), you're at the mercy of the game's random whims of which of the two directions you face. Also from a realism standpoint, I don't see why you can't attack an enemy and face another easily enough, especially if e.g. you're an archer attacking a distant enemy then turn to focus your attention on one beside you!
I'm all for SRPGs which get rid of the time needed to make that facing direction decision... but the way to do -that- is by making facing not matter.
Also, almost every SRPG ever made punishes you for rushing out and playing hero, that is not unique to VPDS and has nothing to do with the facing direction thing which just smacks of bad polish.
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I don't know. Facing direction seems like something that it makes sense to not give you control over. If they do it, then fine it adds a little bit of strategy at the cost of time after each turn. But at the same time I kinda feel that forcing you to remain facing the direction you attacked in adds a little bit of strategy too. It doesn't seem like something you should dock a game for.
Magna Carta 2: At the endgame, basically. With all of the Kan Costs -1/2 stuff floating around I can access really powerful skills quite readily. I prefer not to use the ultimate skills because they take forevvveeerrrrrr to animate, even if they freeze time and do ginormous damage. Bosses are actually pretty capable of laying on the hurt now, although randoms are still complete garbage who are incapable of doing anything other than be timesinks. Have I mentioned how much durable randoms that do no damage are a horrible design choice? Let me do that again because they really really are.
Anyway, look forward to thinking about a stat topic for the game. Not feeling the plot or characters (surprise) although I will give points to the game for having a grade S Evil Sexy Bitch. Claire is wicked, beautiful, and somewhat crazy and realizes this.
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There's no strategy in hoping that you face the right direction after you make a diagonal attack.
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Its one thing if the game is consistent and its "You always face the direction of your last attack." Not saying I suppose this, but at least you know what's coming ahead. But then, the diagonal thing still exists (though, there could be ways around that, such like "Which way you face depends on which way you were facing before hand" as a random example) for moves with more than one range.
Being at the mercy of the RNG for stupid shit like that is just lack of polish.
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Not that it really matters, given how badly VPDS fails at being challenging and strategic in most all fronts anyway and the way you face ends up being mostly irrelevant in practice. This, of course, in no way excuses the braindead mindset VPDS kept when building up its general design ideas regardless.
XF - 3-5 or something. The plot is like the horrible culmination of all the cheese in the moon and in Switzerland and it's glorious. I haven't had this much fun with a villain cast in fucking years.
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Oh, since this is the What Hats Are You Wearing? topic for this page, in part:
<Laggy> ...
<Laggy> you got a killer kabuto?
<SageAcrin> Me?
<Laggy> Yes.
<SageAcrin> I did?
<SageAcrin> ...
* SageAcrin looks.
<Laggy> Or I am staring at the wrong profile.
<Laggy> Hotrod, ushanka, killer kabuto.
<SageAcrin> ...
<SageAcrin> I'll be a son of a...
<Laggy> And beanie.
<SageAcrin> When the fuck did I get that!?
<Laggy> I don't know.
<SageAcrin> ^_^
<Laggy> Go make Trips rage some more.
<Laggy> http://www.tf2items.com/profiles/76561198014931847
<SageAcrin> Some time in the last six days.
<Taishyr> *cry some more
* SageAcrin checks history, that's all he can get out of it. Huh, I...know I flip through the item screens awfully, awfully fast sometimes.
<SageAcrin> "FUCK NO TIME FOR THIS PEOPLE DYING", etc.
<SageAcrin> Must have been one of those.
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I fucking hate square grids, to be honest. Hexes, please.
(Thank you, Civ 5).
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Me and a bunch of friends went down to the local yugioh tourny to see how we matched up but they chickened out because their decks weren't ready/didn't have the money, so I was the only one entering out of us all. The Decktype I use is Vanilla. For those not familiar with the game there are five types of monsters, Normal which is mostly known as Vanilla, effect, Ritiual, Fusion and Syncro. Vanilla cards are widely considered worthless because they lack effects like the other types but that is why I love them so much. Smashing snobs who use cookie cutter decks worth huge amounts of money with a deck of "Worthless" cards is so much fun.
My Deck isn't yet at a point I could call perfect but its still decent enough win me 3/4 of the duels I had.
Monsters: 19
10 Vanilla 1900s
3 Gene-Warped Warwolf
3 Blue Eyes White Dragon
1 Marshmallon
1 Morphing Jar
1 Sangan
Spells: 13
3 Heart of the Underdog
2 Hand Destruction
1 Lightning Vortex
1 Heavy Storm
2 My Body as a Shield
2 Ancient Rules
2 Symbols of Duty
Traps: 16
2 Skill Drain
1 Call Of The Haunted
2 Birthright
2 Justi-Break
2 Dark Bribe
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Starlight Road
2 Curse of Anubis
2 Ultimate Offering
1 Torrential Tribute
Total cards: 48
Extra deck
1 Stardust Dragon
The duel that stuck in my mind was:
Vannilla vs Ancient Gear deck
First Round: I was surprised to see Ancient gears, but no doubt he was more surprised to see me run Vanilla. First round went to him as while I had the traps to stop him I couldn't use them due to the Ancient gears effects.
Second Round: From the reactions he was giving it was like he had a bad hand so he stalled with swords which gave me time to get 5 1900s out onto the field. Then he pulls Ancient gear Golom (3000atk), the super version (4400atk) and the dog gear (2000atk). He had bluffed of course but so had I! Its true that I can't stop Ancient Gears when they attack due to their effect but I had an ace up my sleeve in Skill Drain. He was unfazed of course and attacked anyway.
Me: Activate Trap card! JUSTI-BREAK!
Him: What the hell does that do?
Me: Simple. You touch a vanilla monster and all your effect monsters go boom.
*His whole monster field wiped out*
Him: Damn I've lost this.
*I attack for 10,000 or so lifepoint damage*
Third round: This one lasts much longer because we both kept drawing massive amounts of defencive cards but I got him in the end. He once again relied on his Super Gear (4400atk) to win the game and it did... for me that is! I used Curse of Anubis to render his Golom weak and powerless allowing me to destroy it. Then one of my lovely Vanilla Monsters gave his life to power my Symbols of Duty card.
Me: I activate Symbols of Duty.
Him: What does it do?
Me: I have to destroy one of my Vanilla monsters to use it but then I can bring any monster from the grave to the field.
Him: Any?
Me: Yes such as your 4400 atk Golom.
I went on to win of course with his own monster. Besides this duel everything went pretty standard but people there used more varied deck types so it was overall more fun to play this time round. Normally 99% of people run the same deck against you which gets annoying buts it nice to play against other decktypes for a change.
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Apollo Justice: Just finished 4-1. Spoilers!
Pretty good, although lacks humor which is a bummer. I was trying to decide if I liked it or 3-1 better and I decided on 3-1 on the grounds of having a much better defendant and being funnier due to said defendant.
After thinking this, a minute or so later, I realized that they are the same person, even though they really don't seem like it. I don't really like PW in this case, I think he is needlessly mysterious like most old people are in games despite being 33.
I really like the plot twist and I especially like Apollo, though. He's so cute and innocent! I feel so bad for the utter aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawkwardness of the situation he is put in. Stuck between a rock and a hard place. I really wanted there to be even a tad of closure on the case but there wasn't even an epic breakdown. A little bit of a disappointment, but it was still a fun, breezy Case 1. I just started 4-2 a bit ago and we'll see how that goes!
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FFXII: Went from Rabinastre post-Shiva explosion to post-Viera camp. Fun times. I'm at least enjoying the gameplay. The story can be good when it wants to be! Which is more often than not! Unfortunately the character writing is hit and largely miss. Balthier is fun and generally seems to be the only one who has an idea of what the fuck he's doing. His ego is, dare I say, refreshing.
I want to stab each and every one of the writers and scenario people when I saw the inevitable "Vaan steps into Rassler's ghost/ghost fades into Vaan". And they do this multiple times. I guess they thought they weren't being subtle enough. I really hope this isn't leading to Ashe/Vaan. There's like, literally no chemistry there. At all. If the game can limbo under this generously high bar I've set for it, I'll be fine with it. Not putting any money on it though >.>
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Chronicles Of Mystery: The Tree Of Life -
Considerably better than the Scorpio Ritual. A good deal of this is due to a fairly expanded setting, and there are also less absurd moments/puzzles than in Scorpio. That said there are still some annoying puzzles, such as when you have to make a smoke bomb by cutting open a firework and shoving bits of plastic into it. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some folk wisdom that is widely known to people that have access to fireworks, but there was not really any indication of how to go about things provided in-game.
The developers did not improve their handling of endings between Scorpio and Tree, with Tree duplicating Ritual in Sylvie ending things on autopilot and the main antagonist at that point being aghast which then just snaps into credits with no closure. At least there was one question from Scorpio answered in this game, so maybe if there is another made they will see fit to provide some tidbit about the ending here in it.
Some bizarre choices for FMVs this time around, the one that most comes to mind is Sylvie pulling a bucket of water out of a well. That is what I call true FMV-worthy material.
Alpha Prime
Decent. Pretty. Ending did not provide much in the way of closure. I am not happy with closure-lacking-endings in general. Tsk.
In order of worthfulness, I rank the weapons Sniper Rifle > Gatling LE > Rocket Launcher > Grenades > Shotgun > Pistol = Flamethrower > Hammer.
The driving segment controls horribly woefully. I hope that it's supposed to be that way due to low gravity, but either way it was a pain. Also why does a fully-enclosed buggy share your health meter.
The ReCon was pretty interesting for a couple of levels after you first get it, but then they stop giving it much of anything to do, which was saddening. In the later levels there are even some things which you could use the ReCon for in earlier levels but you can't now, for some reason (such as setting off mines remotely... there are even some cameras later on which you can't ReCon into when cameras were pretty much always hackable earlier, if bizarrely thin on the ground). Not that I really care about the cameras since I never found them of much use anyway as you can't see where the camera itself is situated until after it would have been useful to know.
All up, it has increased my desires to replay Metroid Prime and BoF5.
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FFXII: Went from Rabinastre post-Shiva explosion to post-Viera camp. Fun times. I'm at least enjoying the gameplay. The story can be good when it wants to be! Which is more often than not! Unfortunately the character writing is hit and largely miss. Balthier is fun and generally seems to be the only one who has an idea of what the fuck he's doing. His ego is, dare I say, refreshing.
I want to stab each and every one of the writers and scenario people when I saw the inevitable "Vaan steps into Rassler's ghost/ghost fades into Vaan". And they do this multiple times. I guess they thought they weren't being subtle enough. I really hope this isn't leading to Ashe/Vaan. There's like, literally no chemistry there. At all. If the game can limbo under this generously high bar I've set for it, I'll be fine with it. Not putting any money on it though >.>
Well, there's at least one thing you won't be disappointed about by the game!
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I want to stab each and every one of the writers and scenario people when I saw the inevitable "Vaan steps into Rassler's ghost/ghost fades into Vaan". And they do this multiple times. I guess they thought they weren't being subtle enough. I really hope this isn't leading to Ashe/Vaan. There's like, literally no chemistry there. At all. If the game can limbo under this generously high bar I've set for it, I'll be fine with it. Not putting any money on it though >.>
Regarding VaanxAshe:
No, the game doesn't actually promote this. Oh sure, it does go that sappy "Vaan helps Ashe get over her dead husband" but they never hook up. FF12RW and FFTA2 both SECURE that this isn't the case, rather than being a vague "well, maybe they did but we didn't want to say it!" Vaan is suppose to hook up with Penelo. I hate Penelo, personally, but at least they avoided the cliche "Guy gets girl only cause man and woman can't interact on any sort of personal, emotional, dramatic level without it BEING LOVE!"
So yeah, there will be at least one thing that doesn't completely piss you off! Though, by the time you realize this, FF12 sort of...forgot it had a plot.
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Balthier and the random love lorn Viera kind of hint at the pairing of the game/etc as well iirc.
FFIII-DS-Just did the Ice Horn thing. About to go to the Fire Crystal mountain I think. I have to agree with Yoshi to an extent - the randoms in this game are little turds :P Haven't had to do any extra training but had two game overs in Owen's Tower, once because I ran of Phoenix Downs and randoms were being evil with criticals and L2 spells and what not, twice because I got to the boss but Luneth was ded again (he'd went down to a Blizzara that did over 200~ damage from a random earlier on and I had no way left to revive him. Third time lucky! :)
Things have been easier since. Is there anywhere I can buy Phoenix Downs just in case though?
Got the Wight sword earlier in the game which really helped with the randoms there.
Running Luneth as Monk, Arc as WMage, Refia as Black (yaay Bows!) and Ingus as Warrior~
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I have to agree with Yoshi to an extent - the randoms in this game are little turds :P Haven't had to do any extra training but had two game overs in Owen's Tower, once because I ran of Phoenix Downs and randoms were being evil with criticals and L2 spells and what not, twice because I got to the boss but Luneth was ded again (he'd went down to a Blizzara that did over 200~ damage from a random earlier on and I had no way left to revive him. Third time lucky! :)
See, yeah, I was avoiding using Phoenix Downs, which probably made things a little harder. You can't buy them in FF3, so it's worth keeping hold of a few for the last dungeon(s) - Crystal Tower is EVIL.
I'll post logs sometime later from the last few days, but simple version is: FF1 - More training, FF3 - Cave of Tides, FF6 - About to land on the Floating Continent.
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Apollo Justice: 4-2. It's okay so far, but the case hasn't done much to hook me yet. I haven't gotten very far so that's okay, but I haven't really been motivated to play more.
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FFIII-DS-Just did the Ice Horn thing. About to go to the Fire Crystal mountain I think. I have to agree with Yoshi to an extent - the randoms in this game are little turds Tongue Haven't had to do any extra training but had two game overs in Owen's Tower, once because I ran of Phoenix Downs and randoms were being evil with criticals and L2 spells and what not, twice because I got to the boss but Luneth was ded again (he'd went down to a Blizzara that did over 200~ damage from a random earlier on and I had no way left to revive him. Third time lucky! Smiley
Well, no one said FF3DS is easy, just "You shouldn't need to grind" was all we said. Which...you pretty much agreed with in your statement "I haven't had to do any extra training."
Generally speaking, FF3DS gets progressively easier on randoms, but bosses remain fairly competent throughout (they tend to vary between "rather difficult" to "relatively easy, but not a complete pushover"; its completely arbitrary when these occur to. Best to just assume every boss is decent and approach seriously...unless its Xande, you're expected to mock him!) The main exception is Temple of Time cause of the Lightning Spamming Randoms, though the difficulty of this dungeon is partially hinged on if you did anything optional at the time; otherwise, randoms get progressively easier.
Things have been easier since. Is there anywhere I can buy Phoenix Downs just in case though?
No. This is one of the reasons you pretty much always want someone with White Magic, at least up to level 5, for Raise.
This is one of those "Why didn't they change it?" things relative to FF3o. FF3o didn't have store-bought Phoenix Downs, but the idea of store bought resurrection was probably geared as a bit too good at the time. I guess FF2 had it, but FF2NES ALSO had one of the most limited inventories ever, so you were still rather restricted in that regard.
The game does fully heal you after every Boss Fight though, which is handy; admittedly, not helpful mid dungeon, but if your entire team but one character dies at the end of the boss fight, all you're losing is a bit of EXP, which while sucks, isn't going to make or break the game.
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Been fiddling around with a lot of things, only two of which have gotten sustained playings.
Dwarf Fortress - Ended up trying a new experiment. This time instead of just burrowing a fort, I've decided to just dig down in the middle of a decently wooded plain and then build a fort on top of where I started going down. This has ended with lacking iron and other things needed for steel, but has left me with an abundance of silver. Aside from that, it's been fun to design the castle on top of my catacombs which I've been using mostly for the Trade Depot, noble's quarters (given the two officials I have are leader of the guard and trader/mayor who need to be at the entry point), barracks, and weapons depot. Also has let me build some proper courtyards outside, which have been walled to keep them safe. Soon I should have catapaults in place upon each tower, and a small store of rock in the towers (or possibly underneath) so that if a siege ever comes, I'll be well set up.
LFT
Archael convinced me I needed to play and beat the latest version. Up to Chapter 3, just taken one crack at Orbonne and failed hilariously.
Chapter 1 - Still mostly easy. Getting the Longbow before Dorter is nice, and meant that I got to use my Archer to really take advantage of the nice tall buildings. Sand Rat Cellar is pretty cleanly still the hardest battle in the chapter, despite the only improvements being the job improvements. Tragically, my first run saw my Priest get a lethal crit to the face from Grefter. Third time proved to be the charm, though. Algus, despite some able help from Super, proved unable frighten Ramza, helped in part by Ramza getting killed fast when he was the next in line to speak, and did not take long to follow Ramza.
Chapter 2 - I think this is the first time I had no issues with LFT's return to Dorter. Couple this with Mustadio not having a single battle where he was a dumbass (He jumped onto the tower and stayed there, in the following battle he didn't get fancy and just shot his summoner to death, and he spammed Seal Evil in Zigolis) led to Goug being the hardest battle here. The thieves and summoners hit hard, while the archers meant that I couldn't hide weakened party members, and revival typically saw the person dead before an action could be taken. Golgarand was tricky, but effectively beaten on the first try (the real first try involved three crits that would not have been lethal had they not been high damage crits, and my missing everything that had a hit rate below 95%). Oddly enough, the MVP for that fight was Secret Fist, as that was what got all three knights. Gate to Lionel was tricky, but Wizard Ramza fried Gaff, while down below it was touch and go, and I think my survival hinged on my Mediator (with White Magic) making one critical dodge in the first round.
Other contender for hardest battle of chapter was surprisingly Queklain. First attempt saw me a) forget how to dodge Nightmare in setup, and b) not prepare for his surprising new friends. Three sleeping PCs and a brutal, brutal gutting later, and I was toast. Second attempt saw me avoid the Nightmare, and trying to help out Thunder Wizard Ramza by ditching the Wizard Mantle for Rubber Shoes when Quek simply walked up and tossed Bio 3 on my party, letting my Counter Magic do a lot of work for him. From this I learned that my people have much better MA than Quek, and that Ramza needs MEv if I'm not going to kill him with those counter magicked Bio 3s. Also, those knights can reach everyone and hit like a truck. Both revivers fell, and I didn't have the offense. Attempt 3 saw things start roughly similar, except this time I had made some changes so I had an actual knight, and my one person with Phoenix Down came in as a Chemist. Fittingly, I think the AI made killing him a priority and he never actually got a turn. The real hero of this fight was the Thief though, in that the AI never targetted him, and he was constantly running around sinking Charge+5s into Queklain while the rest of the party was simply trying to survive. I won the third go, but definately a much improved fight.
Chapter 3 - Not much to say here other than Ignore Height ninjas vs. Goland is fun. And ignore height bow knights against Zalmo is also oddly fun. Because who doesn't enjoy stripping the man naked before beating his face in. Lost the first fight against Orbonne, but that was really my fault. I mean, really, pitting a calc against lancers? What was I thinking? Currently at a place where the core group is pretty damn competant, but the special PCs need work (Though, in about two battles worth of JP, Mustadio should get PD and then he'll be fine, then he can get Throw Item and return to Engineer).
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Phoenix Wright 3 - Almost done! 3-5 suffers a bit on the replay because of the flaws in the underlying plot which don't hit you until the end of the case on the first playthrough, but it's still a lot of fun!
Devil May Cry 3 - 7 missions in the books. Honestly, I've gotten exactly what I expected out of this game! In terms of silly awesome scenes. In terms of gameplay, I've gotten exactly what I expected... from DMC2. Bleh. It feels like such a needless step back on multiple fronts, but the most glaring:
-Where the fuck is my Devil Trigger? I'm told I finally get it now, but that took too long. I never realised how important devil trigger was to my enjoyment of DMC; quite apart from the strategic openings it creates, it allows you to feel like you're always in the fight; a good run and a Devil Trigger will leave you able to take another hit or two.
-Boss fights are pretty snooze-worthy in general. They're not always -easy-, but they've so far largely been a matter of discovering a trick or two and exploiting that for a simple victory. Take Vergil 1, who is absolutely unable to deal with the simple strategy of "shoot him, wait for him to teleport into melee range, dash away as he starts to attack, shoot him and repeat". I know that DMC1 had far fewer boss designs, but every one of them felt far more clever and well-thought out than anything in DMC3 so far; the only remotely worthwhile fight being Agni and Rudra.
-Mooks are similarly less interesting. Every new mook in DMC1 brought its own array of nasty tricks which you'd have to learn. The monster encylopedia was my best friend, then. Now the monster encylopedia is gone, which alone is sadness, but I also don't really feel like I would need to refer to it often. Most mook fights feature far too many numbers of scrubby enemies whom you fight in an uninteresting manner. At time, it feels closer to a musou (it's still not one, don't get me wrong) and to me that is not a good thing.
-I've had to consult a FAQ to figure out where to go at least once, now. The game seems to hand you a lot of random plot items and not tell you where they go; have fun guessing! Exploration just feels less cohesive, now. This is, I acknowledge, my most vague complaint here and I probably can't defend it too far (so I'll have no rebuttal when someone inevitably says "Elfboy I never had a problem with that; you must just suck!"), but there you go.
On the other hand, air dash is a cool surprise that adds a fun option in combat, and having a button to switch equips is a very welcome addition. Camera's probably a bit better too. So it addressed some of my biggest complaints with DMC1! Just screwed up some more important stuff. Oh well. Still fun enough of course. Also, I liked the level with the three trials (C6, I believe?).
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Saturday 3rd July:
- FF1: Training! Completely decked out the armour on my party, excluding the Black Belt. Gonna get the last two Lv 4 spells on my White Mage and then try the Marsh Cave - shouldn't be too difficult with Fir2/Hrm2 spam, right?
- FF3: Ugh. Went to grab treasure chests, heal, went to fight Hein, nearly got killed by randoms, went back to heal... Am I EVER going to beat him on this run? >.<
- FF6: Met the Espers, went back to Thamasa. This scene is so.. ;___________; Anyways, can now reach the Floating Continent but, since I plan on using Gau, I'm off to collect some Rages from the Veldt first.
Sunday 4th July:
- FF1: Grabbed another spell! Only one more to go before *shudder* Marsh Cave...
- FF3: More training. Still reluctant to fight Hein now, since I'll lose all this training if I do lose. >_<
- FF6: Went up against the Floating Continent entry thing. All was going well until I failed to kill AirForce before its little countdown finished. :( Back to training on the Veldt, I guess...
Monday 5th July:
- FF3: Beat Hein! Finally! Another last-turn physical to kill, though. Got an airship and crap-loads of money from Castle Argus. Met Aria, got a crystal shard (Kirby, anyone?) and entered the Cave of Tides. Cockatrice killed me twice, and Kraken got me once with 2x Blizzara - screw you and your erratic turn order! ;_; Got Kraken the next time - only White Mage Refia left, but she could fully heal and then used a couple of Zeus' Wraths. To Amur, which has awesome shops for my team - buying Luneth two Boomerangs allowed him to OHKO pretty much every random in the sewers, and Viking Ingus (as he now is) has been packed out with armour to abuse Provoke if needed, and a couple of Battleaxes for smashing. Still annoyed that Arc apparently can't use better bows, though. >_> Refia takes hits like a piece of paper, and died against the Gigantoads attacking the 4 Old Men. /facepalm. Got Levigrass Shoes, went to go to Goldor's Manor, ran into a Vulcan along the way. Nearly shredded my team, managed to flee, died on the way back to Amur. I knew there was a reason I originally stopped playing at this point. >.<
- FF6: Tried the Floating Continent run again. Died on, like, the 4th fight. :(
Worked out earlier that I give myself 61 days to complete this challenge, meaning I should be completing a game every 5 days. I've been playing for 10 days now. Uhm... Hopefully I'll beat these three within the next 5 days. >.<
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TWEWY: Finished. I just broke down near the end and started doing "Retry on Easy Mode" cause there were bosses that were just annoying, I was losing my patience and I wanted the game over with.
Game was a very unfullfilling experience. I mean, yeah, its original and creative, but that doesn't mean its GOOD. A fine example of how "new" doesn't necessarily mean its going to be good. I feel the game is the Anti-CT; they tried to do a whole bunch of complex bullshit, with lots of depth, and it only detracted from the game (where as CT kept things relatively simple in terms of its original ideas, and was enjoyable as a result.) Wasn't fond of a Stylus-based Tales system; in fact, some cases I found the controls just weren't responsive cause of sensitive hit areas, or whatever. Plot, while not exactly cliche, just didn't catch me at all. The whole "EVERYTHING IS A MYSTERY!" got old; after a point, my general thought was "ok, what's this guys secret. No, don't pretend its something simple, since I know that's not the case." I was right pretty much every time.
Or at least, rather, I could tell WHEN a plot twist was going to occur; I didn't know what the twists were, but I was basically like "Cue major twist in 3-2-1..." and...yeah, that's what happened. And the twists weren't really that interesting, it was mostly just a 30 Xanatos Pile Up that ultimately ended on a super happy note.
Plot progression was a drag, since it was always just "Go to x area in Shibuya, fight a few noises along the way, maybe stop in a shop to do things, then beat the boss." It got repetitive, and just more annoying when the game would lock up areas to make it longer. Now, yes, jRPGs could be argued that the only difference is "You go to new areas, but its the same deal!", but I dunno, it gets tiring seeing the same few areas over and over again.
Back to battle system, I found it boring, but at times, outright frustrating. Pins sometimes didn't do what they were advertised too, gimmick enemies are just not fun to fight in a system like this, and the split screen thing just made micromanaging in a non-fun way that I basically said "Fuck it, AUTO BATTLE" most of the time, cause the characters would have a bunch of weird stuff I couldn't remember. But wait if your buddy is getting their ass kicked, you're screwed anyway, so you can't just ignore them. Seriously would have preferred a general Solo RPG experience, rather than forcing Gameplay/Plot Integration with the Sync system.
Lastly, the music. I just can't stand it in this game. EVERYTHING IS J-POP/ROCK. Its tiring hearing the SAME SINGULAR VERSE of the same like 10 songs over and over again. I don't care if you're trying to capture MODERN JAPANESE SETTING, fuck it, Modern Japan just isn't very intriguing (Persona 4 is another example of that), or heck, Modern Day settings in general, and the music just made it worse. I was hoping for Elevator Music after a point, cause the excessive use of J-Rock/Pop just...ugh.
3/10 game. I don't care if it sounds like I'm whining. It was more boring than Wizard of Oz. See, Wizard of Oz, game started off looking good, just mostly got monotonous, outside of a few boss fights. TWEWY gave me a bad impression from the game's start, and then there were things that I flat out despised about its gameplay (Oz, for all that its boring, it didn't really do anything majorly bad; just didn't do anything RIGHT.) So yeah, I don't care if you ignore my opinions of this game, I really didn't like it at all. The game is original, I won't deny that, but to me, that's its only real advantage.
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It's cool Meep, you have a right to your opinion. And you did try to justify it, at least.
Your complaints about the plot don't really feel justified to me, though. Seriously, "I could tell when a plot twist was coming"? That's like complaining that you know someone's going to get murdered in a mystery novel...
I don't really agree with any of your points about the complexity, setting, progression, and music either, but I can at least see how it might not suit your tastes.
Your complaints about the battle system really do come off as someone whining because it's too hard, though. Which is odd considering TWEWY's sliding difficulty scale is about as adjustable as you could ask for... And you went so far as to criticize the game for integrating plot and gameplay? Really? If all you wanted was a solo RPG experience, then play a different game, there are tons of Solo RPGs out there. The game requires you to master some physical and mental skills that you often don't have to use as a gamer and that's what makes it interesting. You sound a bit like my parents when they couldn't get the hang of using a controller or a DDR mat.
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DMC3 - Okay, so as soon as I finally decide I'm far enough into the game to write a negative post about it it starts improving notably. Yay devil trigger, yay bosses who are actually interesting.
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Your complaints about the plot don't really feel justified to me, though. Seriously, "I could tell when a plot twist was coming"? That's like complaining that you know someone's going to get murdered in a mystery novel...
Reading the context, I think the problem is less about knowing when they were coming and more that there was no way of knowing what it was beforehand. Plot twists are all well and good if they are done in a way that makes it obvious on a replay - see: Baten Kaitos; Phoenix Wright: JFA - but that sounds like the more obscure, ridiculous type of plot twist that is there just for the sake of having a twist.
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-Where the fuck is my Devil Trigger? I'm told I finally get it now, but that took too long. I never realised how important devil trigger was to my enjoyment of DMC; quite apart from the strategic openings it creates, it allows you to feel like you're always in the fight; a good run and a Devil Trigger will leave you able to take another hit or two.
Fun thing about DMC3 construction is that this becomes irrelevant every single replay, IIRC. Game lets you keep everything when you try another difficulty mode, and that includes DT.
Of course, then you keep your stats then, but while Hard can't hold up to that very well, Very Hard is perfectly capable of stomping you with two good bars of life.
Take Vergil 1, who is absolutely unable to deal with the simple strategy of "shoot him, wait for him to teleport into melee range, dash away as he starts to attack, shoot him and repeat".
Yeah he gets better on higher difficulties but honestly he's kinda boring until DMD.
DMD is one of those things where a lot of the design decisions are iffy but Vergil 1/2 end up awesome fights. Go figure.
Most mook fights feature far too many numbers of scrubby enemies whom you fight in an uninteresting manner. At time, it feels closer to a musou (it's still not one, don't get me wrong) and to me that is not a good thing.
Yet another thing that changed on higher difficulties. Archers go from "lol I back up and die" to "SUDDEN HALF YOUR LIFE GONE AT SHORT RANGE"(This isn't even just a DMD thing, Very Hard does it.), and honestly once I stopped crying and started looking for ways to deal with that it was a pure improvement. Pretty much all the mooks get better.
Oddly, the enemies that are more interesting later on Normal don't change much on higher difficulties and just irritate me there. (Thinking those weird angel enemies, but you haven't seen those yet.) And Chess Pieces are still only entertaining thanks to terrain and placement. Which was their point, but... eh, oh well.
-I've had to consult a FAQ to figure out where to go at least once, now. The game seems to hand you a lot of random plot items and not tell you where they go; have fun guessing! Exploration just feels less cohesive, now. This is, I acknowledge, my most vague complaint here and I probably can't defend it too far (so I'll have no rebuttal when someone inevitably says "Elfboy I never had a problem with that; you must just suck!"), but there you go.
Yeah, the game kinda tried to pretend it's non-linear, like the start of DMC1 did. It then proceeded to triple the raw amount of area DMC1 had, and make things still "Bring X thing to Y room. Which one's Y? Why, didn't you notice the one line description thing we had that vaguely hinted it?". Didn't work too well, annoyed me a little on the first playthrough. Fortunately everything outside of the initial area of the tower is...well not truly linear but very good at telling you where to go.
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FE6: Beaten done and all that snafoozy. Final time was a bit over 24 hours. Mainly because of leaving the game on while I watched TV.
Since no one ever actually cares about the maps, let's just get right on to character crap aw yeah!
Roy: 20/6 HP 43 Str 23(Above-Average) Skl 23(AA) Spd 22(AA) Luck 24(AA) Def 17(AA) Res 11(Below-Average) BOOTS
So Roy turned out pretty damn god considering he's Roy. Early on he was damn useful since he gained strength damn near every time while no one else did. Which ended up with him being the only one capable of hurting the bosses. And that's where he got all his levels. But that also lagged his weapon skill behind badly too so I had him busting walls near endgame to get the skill up. A support with Lilina and C with Alan and Lance.
Allan: 20/12 HP 51(AA) Str 25(CAP) Skl 18(AA) Spd 23(AA) Luck 21(Above20/20) Def 15.0(A20/20) Res 3(BA, also haha that's all from Promotion bonus)
Yikes, he was way better than I thought. Except that RES. Good thing it never mattered. He ran around tanking and murdering things. Despite being stuck with absolute junk weapons the entire time. A support with Lance and C support with Roy.
Lance: 20/16 HP 50(Below 20/20) Str 24(A20/20) Skl 23(B20/20) Spd 25(CAP) Luck 9(B20/20) Def 16(A20/20) Res 8(Average)
He on the other hand was probably going to end up worse. Yet despite all that I still game him everything. Killer Blade, Killer Lance, Killer Axe, Javelins, Durandel. A support with Allen and C support with Roy.
Thany: 20/17 HP 47(A20/20) Str 20(A20/20) Skl 28(CAP) Spd 28(CAP) Luck 28(A) Def 12(A20/20) Res 12(B20/20)
Yikes she turned into a beast. I could usually just let her fly off and return with the ravaged limbs of her enemies. And all of this without a single support.
Lugh: 20/13 HP 38(AA) Mag 20(AA) Skl 24(AA) Spd 25(CAP) Luck 16(AA) Def 8(BA) Res 14(BA) BOOTS
Fast, accurate and pretty damaging. Nothing compared to the crack Lilina was on, but he was still pretty good.
Clairne: 20/12 HP 38(A20/20) Mag 15(A) Skl 20(AA) Spd 25(CAP) Luck 28(AA) Def 5(BA) Res 23
All that HP certainly helped her when an enemy spawned right next to her; ouch. She healed a lot and wasn't that good an offensive caster. So yeah.... A support with Rutger and B support with Klein.
Rutgar: 20/17 HP 54 (B20/20) Str 23(A20/20) Skl 29(CAP) Spd 28(B20/20) Luck 14(A20/20) Def 13(B20/20) Res 9(A) BOOTS
My kill leader. He slaughtered so much so fast it was all a blur. The support with Clairne raised his crit chance to over 80%. I almost wish I grinded out another crit support to see if I could hit 100. A Support with Clarine.
Wendy: 20/3 HP 43(AA) Str 18(AA) Skl 17(AA) Spd 16(AA) Luck 15(AA) Def 15(AA) Res 8(AA)
I have such good luck with armors. Despite all this though, she sucked in practice since I had to Arena feed her. A support with Oujay.
Oujay: 20/10 HP 53(AA) Str 21(AA) Skl 19(AA) Spd 26(CAP) Luck 23(AA) Def 15(AA) Res 7(AA)
Jeez, I didn't realize he had better than normal stats considering he was mostly just filler to boost up Lilina. A support with Wendy and B support with Lilina.
Lilina: 20/18 HP 41(A20/20) Mag 30(CAP) Skl 24(A20/20) Spd 25(CAP) Luck 20(B20/20) Def 11(A20/20) Res 16(B20/20) BOOTS
My other kill leader. She capped both magic and speed before promotion than capped both again damn near instantly. I gave her the desert BOOTS because I felt she needed them the most. Than things just got silly with her zooming all over the place and killing everything with Fire. A support with Roy and B support with Oujay.
Geese: 20/8 HP 54(A) Str 20(BA) Skl 19(AA) Spd 16(BA) Luck 16(A) Def 14(A) Res 1(A)
I wanted an axe user and he looked the best. Despite the overall suckitude of his stats, the crit bonus from BERSERKER allowed him to stand up decently.
Lalum: 20 HP 24(BA) Str 2(A) Skl 2.(A) Spd 20(CAP) Luck 22(BA) Def 7(AA) Res 11(AA)
I wanted to make you waste your time reading this. Though seriously, more defense than Clairene? The hell?
Miledy: 20/5 HP 42(BA) Str 23(A) Skl 17(BA) Spd 18(BA) Luck 8(BA) Def 17(BA) Res 6(AA!)
Yeah, despite everything being crummy because she's being held to 20/10; she's a flying tank. Already stronger than Thany ha.
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Suikoden Tierkreis - I have ranted about how bad the menus are in this game. That is not what we are going to talk about today. Today we are going to talk about the main character.
This guy is your text book stupid main character. He says the dumbest shit and completely stuns everyone around him with the dumb shit he says. This is actually one of the most refreshingly well done standard male leads in an RPG I have seen for a while. Outside normal Suiko stuff he isn't a silent main for a good start. But get this, he is not actually stupid. He doesn't actually say dumb shit. He says simple things. They are almost always logical. They are incredibly idealistic and at the start they are somewhat naive, but from where I am up to? He is just straight up practical. Sure he isn't a cold calculating mother fucker who will leave you out in the rain because you are dead weight or anything. But hey you are both fighting the big bad right? Cut the bullshit, lets go kick them in the balls.
Hey guy you are treating people like shit? Yeah I am going to not listen to anything you say now bye.
Then you get the bits where you can pick his dialogue and it is awesome. LUKE I AM YOUR FATHER JOIN ME AND TOGETHER WE CAN RULE THE GALAXY AS FATHER AND SON! JOIN PARTY Y/N? Response choice of FUCK OFF COCKSCOCKSCOCKS or "Depends what the conditions are" where he says that he would think about it if the conditions were he never had to listen to what the other guy had to say even though being assigned as the head of a large portion of the military. There is a lot of options like that which make the ally units go WTF MANG? And then the hero talks idealist smack.
I am actually really enjoying that part of the game. The menus are seriously flawed and it is still snail races the RPG, but it is a refreshingly blunt and relatively intelligent take on your naive idealist mains. I think CK described it as Justin done properly, which is close but underselling LeatherDaddy a fair bit for the scope of what he is doing. Justin is ADVENTURE! and blind and stupid to his surroundings. LeatherDaddy is "Let's topple this corrupt religion" and focussed on it while knowing to ignore things he doesn't have control over. Oh noes he can't visit other worlds! Whenever it comes up he goes "That is a shame, oh well" and people are still stunned because he really wants to visit them and cannot. There is just other shit to deal with. The overstated line "We'll never know until we try." actually works pretty well because it actually IS the entirety of his philosophy. It does get used a bit much in the dialogue, but I am going to play the low blow and say RPG DIALOGUE PLOT. It isn't exactly normally subtle or anything.
Am I enjoying the overarching plot? Not really, it is all fairly predictable, as much as it deviates from Suikoden standards, it still has plenty of it there at heart and it just isn't as compelling as Suikoden 5 was. That said however, there definitely is something positive I am getting out of the game. It is just a damn shame none of it is the actual gameplay.
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Of course, then you keep your stats then, but while Hard can't hold up to that very well, Very Hard is perfectly capable of stomping you with two good bars of life.
Solution: Use Vergil to play through Hard, then switch back to Dante for V. Hard.
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Of course, then you keep your stats then, but while Hard can't hold up to that very well, Very Hard is perfectly capable of stomping you with two good bars of life.
Solution: Use Vergil to play through Hard, then switch back to Dante for V. Hard.
Wait, the Difficulties are linked between characters? That's pretty neat if so.
Oh, speaking of Vergil...
It may come to your liking that Vergil starts the game with Devil Trigger, so that complaint doesn't apply to his mode. Even a Fresh Vergil has DT. Of course, to play as Vergil, you need to beat the game once as Dante as is, but still, Vergil lets you start with a Fresh character, and still have access to DT from stage 1.
I suppose one way to get a "Fresh Dante with starting DT" in DMC3 would be to play through Easy Mode, pick up no Upgrades, then start Normal mode. Granted, this doesn't prevent all the Red Orbs you can, but you could always math how many Red Orbs you gained, and just never drop below that amount, if you wanted to do things "Honorably." Though, why DMC3 lacks a Legendary Dark Knight mode like DMC1 has is beyond me (LDK in DMC1 was basically made so you could start a fresh game WITH DT, near as i can tell. The whole "You are Sparda" thing was a cute little extra of course. Or does Sparda Outfit in DMC3 actually have that?)
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Wait, the Difficulties are linked between characters? That's pretty neat if so.
Yep. Beat a difficulty with either character, and you unlock the next level for both.
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Almost done with Dragon Age. I'm still disappointed with the lack of genuine revenge options. Like, why can't I subdue Howe and then make him watch as I execute his family BEFORE I kill him? The revenge never got intense enough for me.
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Suikoden Tierkreis - The overstated line "We'll never know until we try." actually works pretty well because it actually IS the entirety of his philosophy. It does get used a bit much in the dialogue, but I am going to play the low blow and say RPG DIALOGUE PLOT. It isn't exactly normally subtle or anything.
This stops soon enough. The game -does- realize that saying that all the time is annoying, and tries to utilize it more frugally later on.
Am I enjoying the overarching plot? Not really, it is all fairly predictable, as much as it deviates from Suikoden standards, it still has plenty of it there at heart and it just isn't as compelling as Suikoden 5 was. That said however, there definitely is something positive I am getting out of the game. It is just a damn shame none of it is the actual gameplay.
This just makes me wonder how far into the plot you are and how much you've spoiled yourself.
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Just recruited Chrodecilled and Asad. Think it is the start of Chapter 7 or something. Haven't spoiled myself on to much but can kind of see where it is heading.
I will give the game this, the specific reasons for getting Asad to join up was unexpected, I had read that you lose the ability to change your marks temporarilly at some point and had thought it might be because of that, but it wasn't. Oh well.
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Chrodechild is the best recruit ever.
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Up to The Cardinal Virtue of Justice in Bayonetta. PAradiso levels were fun stuff. Brutal toward the end of C11, but fun. Also got my 360 hard drive set up, and now I can play XBox Originals. Yay!
Ninja Gaiden Black - BREAKING NEWS YOU HAVE CERTAINLY NEVER HEARD BEFORE: This game is hard. Up to stage 4, and keep dying to Black Spider Ninja before I get to the checkpoint. Aaaargh exploding shurikens.
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Final Fantasy 7: Ultimate Nerf War Crisis HardCore or something
Hardest boss in the game defeated?
So. FF7CC on Hard. It starts off insanely difficult (learning the system + not very many save points in the first fight-Wutai mission), but then becomes basically doable and fun by the middle. This is thanks to the ruthless defensive setup Zack can use - for the middle of the game, I pretty much always had 2 HP+ materias, Barrier, MBarrier, a Cure(ga/raga), and some attack spell for range purposes / phy. resistant enemies. Those are your 6 slots, so no room for anything too fancy, but Zack's physicals seem better than the fancier other options anyway. However. The game becomes deliriously hard again in the final dungeon - OHKOing randoms if you don't have Barrier up, and minibosses that like to toss out 8,000 damage Flares, etc. But most importantly, the problem is that Zack has been stuck at 9999 HP for some time now. It's nice that I only need 1 HP+ materia now which frees up a materia slot, but without the ability to uber Zack's HP, there's just no margin for error, and huge HP enemies means you need to stay perfect for awhile. Plus (M)Barrier can't be refreshed before it runs out; it's fine if I just have to notice that Zack is taking more damage, better recast, but in the final dungeon it becomes "watch for when the array of rotating statuses starts skipping the two since a slip can be deadly."
So. Before this I'd have said that Sephiroth was the toughest boss, and he was pretty good. 2 Game Overs on him, and that fight was suitably awesome. His Draw Slash if unevaded / not blocked does 7500 damage or so pre-Barrier, and you can get mobbed by the crystals easily enough - especially if you're foolish enough not to equip a Dragon Armlet. He'll also resummon the crystals if you dawdle after killing them, and Heartless Angel->quick slash was death the first time he pulled that on me. Still, he's doable enough. Hollander was annoying, but much like the Shinra grunts, he can be handled via massive Death spam on his worms and chugging Ethers like a druggy.
So. What is the actual toughest boss? Well, to make the final dungeon easier, I started farming Missions, but I was hitting something of a wall there too - the same "the damage is too high" problem. There was only one solution: Find myself the accessory that removes the HP cap, and make all these other fights doable again. There's a set of missions that hand out various "break X limit" items, and it was clear that the last of them would be the HP limit one. Here's the boss fight:
1 G Paladin
2 Belzecues
The G Paladin is actually fairly wussy alone - good HP but he's EASILY stun-locked and can be slaughtered one-on-one no problem. If you ignore him, he will Wall himself (good taste), has a Combo Attack if you somehow get stuck next to him and let him hit you, and will shoot his Gunblade at you (requires that you either be close to him and strafing to dodge, or else use an actual roll-dodge). Energy is a ranged shot similar to Gunblade but more damage, but also more setup time to disrupt him. And oh yes. He has DISPEL. So no more Barrier / MBarrier for Zack in a game which basically revolves around getting a good defensive setup going.
The Belzecues are doggies. Fast doggies - they zoom around the field - but fairly frail. It only takes about ~8 castings of Hell Thundaga to kill them, or 3 full Zack physical combos from behind with auto-crits to off 'em. Theoretically they can be ID'd as well - when I tried equipping Death, I got "Miss" rather than "Guarded" on them, but we're talking 0/40 batting average here. However they *bring the pain*. 3200 damage a hit, and they generally have a two-hit combo (though if you roll early, what'll often times happen is the first will miss but the second hits). And they have a HIGH CRITICAL RATE. Not sure what exactly but it's at least 20%. So yeah, a crit will do ~6500 damage (if Barrier is not up) when Zack's HP is capped at 9999. And a two-hit combo with one a crit will do 9500 damage. Lastly, they've got Disenchanting Tentacle, which is two hits of extreme overkill MP damage - like 1500 MP damage when Zack has ~300-350 max MP. Like the normal physical it's two hit and the last hit has a wide swath, so once again mistiming a dodge means that you might evade hit #1, but kiss your MP goodbye on the second hit. And oh yes, if you're thinking about, say, trying to free up some Accessory slots by getting rid of your Headband for say +60 Vit on Defense (not that Vit seems to do a whole lot in this game) their attacks Stun Zack as well, and needless to say Stun is still pretty much Zack's death warrant.
You can see how this goes. Zack gets chased by evil doggies around the field while the G Paladin dispels Zack's defensive buffs and snipes him. Pretty much any kind of hit tends to require healing to be safe, and you can only recast Wall so fast, and you can't safely stand still to cast a spell if doggies are currently chasing you. And oh yes random criticals of doom, often hitting right after a Dispel. If you aren't having enough fun running around trying to keep up you also get to toss an Ether if you let Zack get hit by a Disenchanting Tentacle.
Well. My new apartment does not have a washer / dryer, so it was laundromat time yesterday. It was also time to beat this damn fight so that all the other fights can become doable. It took about 12 deaths, but it's finaaaaaaally over. Think I might have gotten lucky on a Hell Thundaga ID somewhere? The Belzecue presence definitely seemed less than it should have, and I stayed as far away as possible while zapping with Hell Thundaga. The G Paladin got a zap if I could target him and saw him prepping Dispel, but was otherwise ignored. Eventually I took advantage of the Dogs bad durability, and once they were dead the fight's cake. But man. So much slow loading of mission, Zack hugging walls, then Zack taking a nap like 30-45 seconds into the fight. I even went to the trouble of buying the Healing Wave materia by the end and equipping it, since Aeris would also make the fight cake thanks to cheaty invincibility, but alas it didn't kick in even with the materia equipped.
Final setup for that fight:
Wall
HP++ (+520%)
Curaga
Healing Wave (boost DMW chance of Aeris)
Hell Thundaga
Status Ward
Now the game will cry as Zack's HP has now jumped from 9999 to 20,000 (swapped Healing Wave for another HP++), AND Zack's HP can get even better than that again thanks to overhealing limits. Woo.
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Beat the Momohime [Jinkuro] side of Muramasa: The Demon Blade, working on Kisuke's story now.
Visually, the game is fantastic. Beautiful animations, absolutely fantastic background art, lush colors, lots of variety, and very attractive character designs (well, on the female side; Kisuke is eh).
Soundtrack is a mixed bag. I really enjoyed one of the earliest BGMs used in Momohime's route (can't find official names anywhere but some guy on Youtube uploaded it as [Dusky A]) and figured I might be in for a classic OST. Then it turns out that I would find almost every other track in the game to be bland and forgettable. <_< Oh well.
Plot is light for an RPG but okay for an action game. Game definately feels more like an action game with RPG elements rather than a full-fledged action RPG ala Star Ocean/Seiken Densetsu/Tales/etc., so that's alright. I was thrown for a bit of a loop by the absence of an introduction cutscene, though, since even Mario games have those nowadays.
Gameplay is... mmm, trying to express my thoughts on this at least semi-coherently. There's I believe at least 7 different basic attack motions, all of which consist of pressing A + maybe a direction, even parrying projectile attacks; this is the first game I've ever seen where you can and will parry attacks accidentally in the process of beating up other unrelated enemies. This creates a very fast-paced battle system where you can slash your way through foes effectively while playing casually and not worrying about what exactly you are inputting for every single move. On the other hand the game does feel it is genuinely harder to play at a super precise technical level than an action game with a slower pacing and a more Street Fighter-style control scheme. It's still fun either way, and I'm glad that the game is lenient enough that you don't have to master the combat system and pull off completely flawless boss fights to progress. I do wonder to what extent it's a matter of gameplay being harder to master than something like Mario vs me just not being good at this particular genre.
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w00t! Final Dungeon of SuikoTierkreis! The last leg of the game isn't quite a masterpiece of storytelling, but the world-building remains strong all the way up to last dungeon. There's some subtle reveals to some of the questions posed throughout the game right at the end here and you have to make sure to make a big once-over of your castle to get all the scenes. Still, nicely told without coming out and stating the obvious about some of the more sensitive questions raised.
The main villains' motivations are kinda hit-or-miss, but at least the game recognizes that people who do bad things aren't just terrible people, and the player can at least understand where the villain is coming from (and he doesn't have any stupid Freudian excuses like an abusive mother or what-have-you).
Final parties! SPOILERS and such.
Team "Citro: Represent!" - Hero (I named him "Tier"), Liu, Jale, Luo-Tao
Team "Magedom Prettyboys! (And Manaril)" - Asad, Shams, Manaril, Roberto
Team "Swordchicks and Librarychicks" - Chrodechild, Fredegund, Sophia, Diadora
Team... Furry? - Diulf, Nimni, Ordovoc, Marica(?)
And I didn't even have to use any non-plot-important people!
Not the most efficient setups, but I managed to get fighters/healers/mages in each group and who cares? It's SuikoTierkreis, the game is already rolling over and dying simply because I managed to get this many people over level 30 (Hero is at L52).
Should be fun, looking forward to the ending.
Also, 108 Stars of Destiny GET! Fuck you, Namna! I shouldn't have to get 107 stars just to finally activate a scene that will trigger your final recruitment scene, you fail dolphin-faced freak!
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Thanks Yoshi, thanks Meeple~
FFIII- Saved outside Goldor Manor. Already had two resets in there >.> Recap -
*Tower of Owen - Had to run through it three times due to turd randoms hating on Luneth.
*Salamander - Took like five or six attempts attempts to defeat, don't remember for sure because after having to redo the dungeon over and over I kinda blanked out >.> At any rate the darn thing didn't use Fire Breath at all on the attempt I finally defeated it. Ended that section of the game at L16.
*Hein - Thankfully only one reset here due to Blizzara. Second attempt he didn't use it at all despite the battle dragging up and eventually ending with only Warrior Ingus and Refia using L1/L2 spells ;o
*Kraken - One reset from randoms in the dungeon but Kraken itself was easy especially since I tried out Blizzaga on a whim which did niice damage (I thought Kraken might be immune/resistant to it) Also have to mention Ingus with Blood Sword here which made most things in the dungeon a joke.
*Sewers - Yaay Blood Sword! *^_^*
Party is L21 AVG now. What seems to be working best is dual wielding Ingus with Blood Sword and the next strongest sword I have so I've mostly just been having the others defend.
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Ooh, if you're struggling with Goldor Manor, do what I did and have a Thief with two Boomerangs. Helps out a LOT - my Thief Luneth is getting a borderline OHKO on pretty much everything in there.
Tuesday 6th July:
- FF1: Got the last Lv 4 spell for my White Mage and entered the Marsh Cave! Oh god the paralysis spamming it burns. ;_; Had to leave again after grabbing the treasures from the top route because I was low on health and Cure/Cur2s. =/
- FF6: Tried the Floating Continent again, died to Chupon's Fire Ball. Tried again, died to AirForce again. Tried AGAIN after some more exploring/stocking up on items, managed to beat AirForce only by having Sabin tank a Wave Cannon. Very nearly died on the Floating Continent! Went to grab Shadow and use a Tent, ran into a Dragon before I even reached the Save Point - Sabin only survived because it missed while I was running! Anyways, some tough fights around here, but mostly blitzed through (literally), with some fun with Gau's Rages and Shadow using Cure on Misfits. Saved near the Airship jump point, ready to lose to AtmaWeapon!
Currently losing to AtmaWeapon now - just lost for the first time, mostly thanks to that evil evil evil Mind Blast -> Flare Star -> Meteo section.
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Well done to SnowFire. Now have fun with the rest of the missions, especially the ones with enemies that OHKO you HP limit or no HP limit.
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Tales of Innocence:
Just beat the Japan place. Story-telling is still Tales story-telling at its finest. My current dungeon entrance went something like this: (SPOILERS)
Gatekeeper: "This place is dangerous, there's a violent killer inside."
Hermana: "We're strong!"
Gatekeeper: "Sorry little girls aren't strong. Denied."
Luca: "But we fought him before and didn't lose!"
Gatekeeper: "You're still kids."
Ricardo: "But I'm an adult and I fought the violent killer before!"
Gatekeeper: "Oh, I see. K then, good luck."
Lol Tales. They're pretty gullible, too.
Still, fun little game. Battles are still interesting without just spamming the same thing over and over (even if Iria just spams Successive Bullet over and over and over because the damage output is RIDICULOUS) and I guess I still like the characters. Need more Ricardo skits, too much focus on Iria/Spada/Luca.
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Strange Journey - Cleared Sector F, doo de doo~
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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
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Fe7: Yeah, normally I wouldn't talk about this before I beat the game, but it's hot and I feel like being a whiny bitch.
So I was in Lyn's tutorial and up to the balista introduction map. Three enemies make a beeline to Lyn and kill her, despite having a sub30 chance each. Normally I wouldn't care, but she had gotten a six stat level-up and when I reloaded she only got two. God, this isn't even a good bitch but man...
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Wild ARMS 2:
I was on the verge of beating this...so I just decided to get it done and over with today. So I finished around 3-4 dungeons in one sitting, including the final one, which for those of you who forgot, is actually quite long. And tedious. Stupid monster doors.
General thoughts...well I played the game in bits and pieces, so some of this might not be totally accurate. For the most part, the game at its time is quite good. However, I would say it didn't really age well at all, especially compared to other games that were published within that age (like FFT for example). Some of the reasons for that would include pretty much the lack of any challenge at all, some really bad puzzle levels and the ENC system not being fully wired out like it has in WA3 and onwards.
I'll give the game some credit in that I was following a guide for most of it to get through it quickly (Final time was around 28-29 hours), but even still, randoms don't do anything because you easily outspeed and OHKO and bosses have damage that can't get past Lilka's healing. I think this is why the FP conversion rates in WA3 went way down because the gain rates in WA2 are just insane. Then when you have maxed out HP Regen PS skill, most bosses don't even come close to 3HKOing. The only part I ever died at was at the end with the Roots. I didn't really bother using anyone sans Ashley, Brad and Lilka, so I had to send the next best person who I believe was Kanon. Long story short, boss got lucky on a string of status hits. Oh and that's the other thing. When Lilka isn't there, you have Tim. And his MT healing skill that heals off the 3HKO or worse damage. So uh...yeah.
ENC system definitely wasn't as good in these early games. Yeah, they give you the ability to cancel as many times as you want. But Red !s exist, and the only way to really avoid them is by power levelling, which...doesn't really exist thanks to WA2s EXP curve. As for the puzzles, some of them weren't too bad. However, some others were quite cryptic and I doubt I would've gotten it in one shot without the guide. The map layouts on some of those dungeons are also terrible (hi Trapezohedron), which is compounded by random encounters in puzzle rooms. Thankfully, all future generation WAs avoid this problem! Guess Media Vision learned from their mistakes quite well.
Overall, game is around a 6/10 to me. There are some additional issues with the pacing and the game didn't really grab me. But I primarily blame this on the fact that it just didn't age as well as other PSX games. MVP of the game is either Brad or Lilka. Lilka keeps the entire team healthy at nearly all points before regeneration. Brad has loads of HP and thus was the most durable person and could dish out the damage. The others ranged on various shades of meh, but were at least servicable to some degree. The best characters though, were Meeple and Sage Liz and Ard. I don't think I laughed as much as seeing these two on screen when playing a PSX game nowadays.
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Interestingly, using Lucky Cards (that is, using them at the start of every boss fight) keeps your levels consistently high enough to avoid 90% of randoms. I think this was honestly an oversight; the ENC system in thsi game seems more meant to make getting through old areas easy if you want, rather than a resource conservation tool like it is in later games (I mean, WA2 doesn't use any resources at any time for anything, so the only reason to skip randoms is because you don't care if you fight them).
Not that it invalidates your point, having randoms in puzzle rooms is fundamentally retarded and should never happen in any game ever >.>
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Thanks Yoshi. I'm currently using Luneth as a Ranger with two Boomerangs - is Thief better?
For FF6 methinks there's not enough Terra/Relm twink hax MAG abuse there ;-) Though since you're using Gau there's also the Wind God Gau thing.
FFIII DS- Saronia. Alus has joined as a guest. Game just hit me over the head with hints about dragoons, equipment in the tower and an NPC handing me a Wind Spear >.> Ironically I had been using a Dragoon for a bit earlier.
Goldor's Manor- Defeated Goldor on the fourth attempt. Bosses in this game are weird, he didn't use Thundara at all on the winning run. I'd even went back to Amur and bought a harp for a Bard because I thought since Goldor's Protect seemed to reduce magical damage from my Black Mage that Minne might do the same thing and protect my party from his Thundara =P Switched Refia to Bard but yeah he ended up not using it at all after all.
The randoms were OHKO bait to Ingus with Royal Sword/Blood Sword so the journey through the manor was usually painless except for back attacks on my poor mages.
Before Saronia I explored the world a bit, bought three new harps for Refia and a couple of summon spells in case I decide to use an Evoker. I'm finding this game quite fun now, I've already seen Ingus hit for over 3000 on a random and now that I have the ATK boosting skill for my Bard CT's in her element *^_^*~
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Thief is notably better than Ranger for 3 main reasons, two of which are relevant RIGHT NOW:
-Gains Job Levels faster than any class with exceptions of Scholar (I don't expect first time players to use this) and Freelancer (pretty much pointless outside of some ultra end game set up that requires Mognet related things); Job Levels are important since every 14 is another hit, and I think it might be a slight increase to damage too?
-Much better speed. Thief pretty much always goes first, and the high speed = lots of hits, which does well to offset the lowish power of its weapons.
-Just better on long term. Thief's best armor at this moment is Ranger's best armor PERIOD, for example. There are other points I can note about why Thief is a better long term investment, but that gets into the nitty gritty.
The whole "Thieves make Magic Keys pointless" is a nice bonus too, since having one as the Party Leader (person running outside) means you can just open doors outright. Handy in Goldor's Mansion and Temple of Time.
Thief is a slight project job, basically. Its pretty unimpressive on the Floating Continent, but once you get to Amur, its worth spikes tremendously. The advantage of using Thief on the FC is getting those early JLevels to capitalize its use in the 2nd half of the game where Thief doesn't suck.
It reminds me of Locke in FF6, only even worse in the first half of the game which superior pay offs in the 2nd half, and the option is not forced down your throat in the first half only for him to be the hardest recruit to get back in the 2nd half.
And yeah, frankly, I think FF3's better part is its 2nd half, mostly cause you now have options to work with so the Job System is much better, and there's some degree of freedom in what you can do, etc. THis is ignoring the Final Dungeon which was STUPID cause of "WE CAN'T HAVE SAVE POINTS! THE ORIGINAL WAS PERFECT!" type whiners.
For FF6 methinks there's not enough Terra/Relm twink hax MAG abuse there Wink Though since you're using Gau there's also the Wind God Gau thing.
Wing God Gau is a pure WoR Set Up, given it requires the Merit Award, so not usable on the FC. Wind God Gau is also unusable in several versions of the game outright due to Merit Award inconsistency (FF6a even removed Wind God Gogo set up.)
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WKC: I have gone insane because I plan to plat this game. Currently at 22%.
SO2: Beat the crap out of Cynne in the tower as he lost his plot armor, I...really have no idea why he had it as they never give any explaination why he is unbeatable but whatever. Faced Metatron at the top of the tower who gave me a game over! I assumed it was another unwinnable bullshit fight and let him kill me resulting in a gameover.
It seems they are using the wisemen's actual names now and I'm not too pleased with it. Throwing around random angel names isn't fun or exotic, just lame.
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Much better speed
Ranger isn't as fast as Thief, but it's almost as fast (ties Ninja for second best), and certanly outspeeds most enemies rather reilably.
Otherwise, Thief is better overall, but Ranger has some points in its favour, namely that it is always back-row compatible, so it actually ends up ahead of Thief on practical durability despite no Fuma Garb (EDIT: on pdur anyway, not mdur though), and that it can make enemies with elemental weaknesses hurt real bad. Thief still wins, though, because it does have the better damage otherwise (due to JLs) and costs less money to keep going. It's just not as lopsided as you (or I used to) think.
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FFXII- Reached the Phon Coast yesterday, contented myself to doing all the Rank 4 and 5 hunts I could into today. Accidentally ran into Valera, got wiped. Oh well.
Pulled out a squeaker against Antlion too. Managed to keep him to eating just two minions, but one spawned late in the battle and he nabbed it, then started railing on me. Tried pulling out a Hail Mary Mist Chain and was probably the most successful I'd ever been, but it didn't kill him. As I'm about to wipe, Basch wanders over and hits him one last time and kills him. Whee. Also, on the way back, a Vampyr dropped a Zwill Crossblade, which is the second best dagger in the game. Woo.
Now that I'm fully geared with better stuff than what's storebought thanks to the Bazaar (and all the Monographs sans the Jar), I'm ready to move on! Have I mentioned I hate how quickly the equipment progression is in this game? I left Bur-Omistace with the best I could buy at the time, then arriving at Rabinastre after an easy trek there's new stuff. Fair enough. Then another easy trek to the Nalbina Fortress, more new stuff... uhhh... then getting along to the Phon Coast, brand new equipment there too! The hell? I learned my lesson, but it's probably a bit late in the game. >.>
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ToV- Just beat Heracles. First dungeon without Estelle was pretty rough, but Raven learning his healing move in the second dungeon actually took away so much of the sting of losing Estelle. Functions incredibly well as a back-up healer (Trying to fully learn Guardian Field didn't hurt too much either).
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Wednesday 7th July:
- FF1: Tried Marsh Cave again. Managed to get pretty far, lost my Black Belt a few fights before the Wizards. The Wizards fell to two Lit2s, but not before they killed off my Warrior. As I was leaving, some Scorpions managed to poison both of my mages, and they later failed to run from two Scorpions. :( Try that one again tomorrow. ><;
- FF6: Beat AtmaWeapon on the second try - first, I ran into Mind Blast -> Flare Star -> Meteo and couldn't recover from that. Second time, didn't even see Mind Blast OR Flare Star, which was nice. World of Ruin, and I still fail at catching fish. Seriously, I think it's actually just an urban myth that you can keep Cid alive. >.> Got to Albrook, and then on to Tzen, where I fail at the collapsing building three times and get bored. =/ Tried it again a little later, had to ignore a few treasures but managed to get through second try this time round. Finally, a character I hadn't completely abandoned in the WoB! Got to Nikeah, ship to South Figaro, and then into the cave. Had a brilliant fight (that panicked me a bit at first) in this part where a Humpty confused Sabin, who proceeded to use Mantra on it, hitting it for 9999 damage. >.> Got up to the Tentacles, who.. tore me to shreds. And, apparently, I hadn't saved since Tzen. :| Got back to the cave to Figaro Castle, saved just outside this time. >.>
Thursday 8th July:
Was out all day today so minimal progress. :(
- FF3: Entered Goldor's Manor and BLITZED THROUGH. Seriously, he was stupidly easy. Then managed to NOT SAVE and went and didn't buy Spears but changed everyone to Dragoon ANYWAY and forgot about the Gold Knight fight before getting Alus and died. DERP. After beating Goldor again, I bought EVERYONE Thunder Spears and got rid of the downtime from changing jobs before going to Saronia. Grabbed the Dragon Mail/Helms from the Dragon Tower and bought myself a few extra Wind Spears - yes, I freaking hate Garuda and want him to suffer. Think that's all the preparation I need, I can actually fight him tomorrow and should blitz through, hopefully. Will probably keep a Dragoon towards the endgame, although might ditch it if I decide I don't like the low speed combined with how much they seem to hate magic.
Oh, and CT? My endgame team is gonna be Sabin/Edgar/Relm/Gau. Sabin and Edgar are old favourites of mine and have Blitz/Tools, Relm has MAGIIIIIIC h4x and Gau has NightShade as soon as I get an airship. >.> So yeah, I will have some magic hax. ;)
And Meeple: PS1 version of FF6 (not Anthology, mind - stupid PAL/NTSC differences!) so no Merit Award, methinks, but still able to abuse it with Gogo.
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Dragon Age- On to Awakening. I'm not sure which main story branch to tackle first. I don't have a tank, though... haven't needed one so far, but should I head after the one Warrior recruit first?
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Ranger isn't as fast as Thief, but it's almost as fast (ties Ninja for second best), and certanly outspeeds most enemies rather reilably.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a few of the Daggers boost speed as well, making the difference greater than it looks on paper?
The back row thing is a point I'll grant, and for some reason was never thinking "When Thief doesn't use Boomerangs, Ranger has Back Row"; not sure why.
Yoshi: I was responding to CT there and noting that regardless of version, the point of the game you were in was kind of impossible to use it anyway!
That said, congrats on seeing the Mantra "Bug".
That being where a Confused Sabin hitting a low enemy will heal it for 9999 Health, due to the wonkiness of its targetting. Mantra is suppose to target everyone, then divides the amount of healing by the caster's full HP/# of targets-1. It then has its effect fail on the caster itself (while still technically targeting the caster.) This of course means that on the PC end, its perfectly fine but when confused? The Caster is suddenly *NOT* targetted, so the "-1" thing means its healing more efficient than it should. Not a big deal if there's 2+ enemies, but when there's only 1, suddenly that value is "Healing/0" which...well...<.<;
This has been your useless fact of the day!
Also, Tools sucks late game, use Jump <_< >_>
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't a few of the Daggers boost speed as well, making the difference greater than it looks on paper?
You're half-right. A couple daggers do boost speed, but so do a couple bows. Granted, thief can snag a larger boost, but yeah, ranger is still well clear of anyone else who isn't thief or ninja.
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Dragon Age- On to Awakening. I'm not sure which main story branch to tackle first. I don't have a tank, though... haven't needed one so far, but should I head after the one Warrior recruit first?
The other 2 branches give you companions that are pretty weak, so go for it
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Haven't had a chance to play much in the past few days - little bro borrowing CoD: MW2 and both my handhelds were charging. That doesn't mean I haven't been doing things that are game-related, though. Much like Shale before me, I manned up and finally got around to getting a console. In my case, it's the Wii. Does anyone have any suggestions on games I should get (both Wii and WiiWare)? Obviously, you can check my Backloggery to see what I already have.
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If you like Treasure shooters, Sin and Punishment Star Successor came out just recently and is pretty good.
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Tatsunoko vs Capcom is an easy-to-learn fighter. Hardcore fighting game players scoff at it, but it's plenty of fun for casual fighting fans.
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Dragon Age- On to Awakening. I'm not sure which main story branch to tackle first. I don't have a tank, though... haven't needed one so far, but should I head after the one Warrior recruit first?
The other 2 branches give you companions that are pretty weak, so go for it
I will admit, I thought of having Ovhren go tank. I really did.
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DMC3 - Vergil 2 beaten! omg plot twists. Arkham is a bastard, I like him. Also apparently even normal humans can survive being stabbed through the chest in this world, Dante doesn't seem so special any more.
Second third of the game was generally quite a good deal more fun than the first third.
XF - Started this up again. In the sequel to my Grandia 3 playthrough, I'll be taking an already challenging game and using half as many PCs as one should! Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Rules are:
1. I can only deploy a max of 3 PCs to each battle, unless more are forced.
2. No random encounters
3. No searching
Simple enough. I've already beaten everything up to and including the prison map, i.e. the challenge begins now. Prison was dead easy this time, funny what knowing the game does. Currently trying to decide who I'll mainly use and how I'll build them. Only thing I'm certain of is I'll be using Clarissa.
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FF4- Doing the optional dungeons in the Underworld. Right now I'm trying to decide between putting Edge in the back because he is a worthless incompetent nincompoop who can't keep himself alive or to keep Cecil in the back, who tanks the entire world worth of physical hits in the back. Right now I'm doing the latter and just allowing Edge to die since he's pretty damn bad. 2HKOed by a lot of physical enemies and does the worst damage in the party besides the healbot. Sign me up for the Edge fanclub! At least he's better than Yang, who is shit.
I wasn't quite high enough levelled to have Wall and Float and that was unfortunate. OH MY GOD I GOT AMBUSHED DID SHE REALLY USE 4 GAIARAGES IN A ROW?!?! Float makes those enemies trivial, but god they aren't without it. About to fight Leviathan now.
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XF - Started this up again. In the sequel to my Grandia 3 playthrough, I'll be taking an already challenging game and using half as many PCs as one should! Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Rules are:
1. I can only deploy a max of 3 PCs to each battle, unless more are forced.
2. No random encounters
3. No searching
Simple enough. I've already beaten everything up to and including the prison map, i.e. the challenge begins now. Prison was dead easy this time, funny what knowing the game does. Currently trying to decide who I'll mainly use and how I'll build them. Only thing I'm certain of is I'll be using Clarissa.
Amend challenge to "Only 3 PCs, and you must always use Tony as your fourth. Unless you're forced to use max number of PCs, then Tony must replace one of your regulars." This is the all-Tony, all-the-time Challenge.
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He said "challenge," not "easy mode."
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My sister and I have been working together these past few weeks and we were finally able to beat Round 2 of Pokemon Stadium. The game remained untouched for years until my sister decided to get the surfing Pikachu and beat the Prime cup and as a result all we had left was Master Ball Poke Cup, Petit Cup and Pika Cup. Poke Cup was fairly easy. I had an old team which smashed Blue version from about a year ago and I was able to beat Master Ball on a lucky run with it. Pika Cup and Little Cup required a little more effort and to beat them we had to play through the game twice to make teams for them.
We decided that to use a level 20 Kadabra for Pika Cup supported by an Arcanine with Dragon Rage and a Starmie with Thunderbolt, Surf, and Ice Beam. We used rentals for the other slots and the rental Exeggutor came in handy for a couple of the battles. On the winning run Kadabra was a complete beast and pretty much always got a critical hit when we needed him to. We also discovered that the key to winning the last match was that if the opponent had Alakazam as one of his three, keep Kadabra away from it to avoid Thunderwave. Arcanine was the weakest of the three we raised because his speed wasn't that good so most pokemon would got first and 2HKO him, but he did help out a lot when we needed to kill the Alakazam.
Making a team for the Petit cup was more difficult. Your options are severely limited and a lot of the really good pokemon are cut out due to the restrictions. You can't rely on a single pokemon like a Starmie or Mewtwo to sweep because of the rules of the little cup cut out most of the sweepers. Abra is probably the best choice, but even then his special falls short of the OHKO power Alakazam has. We ended up using a more balanced team of Horsea, Ghastly, Magnemite, Machop, Bulbasaur, and Abra. The levels were split so that all of the pokemon had 26 except for Gastly and Bulbasaur who were level 27 (Ghastly learns Hypnosis and Bulbasaur learns Razor Leaf at level 27). If I were going to do it again I probably would have given the extra level to Abra, Bulbasaur almost never got used. Ghastly, Abra, and Machop were the ones who got used the most, although Horsea and Magnemite both had their moments. There were a suprising number of opponents who only had normal type attacks so Ghastly was especially useful there although Abra was probably the MVP for his sweeping ability.
It was also in this run that we learned that the rental pokemon aren't that bad statwise. The rental Bulbasaur beat my Bulbasaur in every stat except speed despite being two levels lower. The rental pokemon generally had better stats than mine until I gave them stat boosting items and even then they only had a small lead over the rentals. If the rentals actually had good movesets there would really be no reason to train up your own. This does make me wonder though, if the rental pokemon had such good stats, how did the opponents manage to get stats that were much better than the rentals?
The playthroughs to make the team were probably the best part especially the run through for the Petit cup. We decided to use a lot of pokemon we hadn't used before so our final team was Poliwrath, Gyarados, Dodrio, Flareon, Hitmonlee, and Electabuzz. Physical STAB was really good ingame in the 1st generation. I was always suprised by how much each hit of Hitmonlee's double kicks would do. Hitmonlee is also much better than Hitmonchan since Hitmonlee actually gets good attacks and has the stats to use them. Dodrio was also extremely effective. Gyarados was overpowered pretty much throughout although at the end the others started to catch up with him. Electabuzz was also a lot of fun. His attacks weren't overpowering but they were usually enough to get the job done and he was the fastest in a team of fast pokemon. Flareon also surpised me because his special stat was really good. It was the best in the team and was never that far behind his attack. He was awesome early one because you get a Double Edge TM right after getting Eevee so you could use his attack. He lagged until he got Flamethrower, but once he did he was really effective against most of the E4. Poliwrath was the disappointment since Gyarados mostly did his job except better. However, Lance's pokemon didn't seem to like attacking him so he had use there and water is an awesome type so it never hurts to have two of them.
The original pokemon games still hold up really well and are a lot of fun to play. The pacing is excellent and once you get past Celadon you have a lot of freedom to do things in the order you choose. Silph Tower also stands out as the best dungeon in all of the games for me. The AI is bad, but that just gives you more freedom in your pokemon choices. Overall, it just shows how solid the concept of Pokemon was that the original game is as fun as when I first played it.
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Ninja Gaiden Black: Game is still hard, and also very rewarding to play. Well, except for level 9, where it decided that screw melee combat, what the people really want is finicky platforming areas and first-person shooting. Bad Team Ninja! No ninja-cookie!
In level 10 now, working on the double electric snake battle. Stupid sweep attack hitting me when I'm clearly jumping over it...
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FF4- Doing the optional dungeons in the Underworld. Right now I'm trying to decide between putting Edge in the back because he is a worthless incompetent nincompoop who can't keep himself alive or to keep Cecil in the back, who tanks the entire world worth of physical hits in the back. Right now I'm doing the latter and just allowing Edge to die since he's pretty damn bad. 2HKOed by a lot of physical enemies and does the worst damage in the party besides the healbot. Sign me up for the Edge fanclub! At least he's better than Yang, who is shit.
I wasn't quite high enough levelled to have Wall and Float and that was unfortunate. OH MY GOD I GOT AMBUSHED DID SHE REALLY USE 4 GAIARAGES IN A ROW?!?! Float makes those enemies trivial, but god they aren't without it. About to fight Leviathan now.
Only real way to make Edge useful is to take advantage of his array of gimmick weapons. Species Weakness Weapons and the Elemental Claws tend to mesh well with him, as does the status claws. Otherwise, yeah, at best he's basically just there to help soften up enemies for Rydia's inevitable nuking with his own magic.
But otherwise, yeah, Edge kind of sucks for a good part of the game. Outside of FF1's Ninja (whose more just "DAMN YOU THIEF FOR SUCKING ASS!"), Edge is probably the worst Ninja in the series? Maybe I'm forgetting a lackluster one, but even if we take a loose definition for someone like Armarant, I'm pretty sure he has Edge beat since Armarant was similar to Edge in picking up later in the game more so than earlier, but before then is more "Non-stellar" rather than "lackluster."
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your dedication to fairness is surprising dude. I always felt Colosseum deserved nothing less than Mewtwo rapage >.>
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Amarant is clearly a martial artist to me.
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Well, that's fair; I'm mostly just saying that even if you say Armarant = Ninja, he still probably deserves more respect than FF4o Edge.
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Not to mention, FF1 ninja isn't that bad. He's just not the healbot, and is competing against the absurdity that is FF1 Knight. He puts up a pretty good fight with the Red Mage, and blows the other two out of the water.
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your dedication to fairness is surprising dude. I always felt Colosseum deserved nothing less than Mewtwo rapage >.>
Most of Stadium does deserve a Mewtwo rampage for being a cheating bastard of a game, but unfortunately that's not an option for all of the cups. Starmie and Alakazam can be adequate replacements for Mewtwo in Pika and Poke cup, but unfortunately there are no good "break the game" options for Petit.
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Not to mention, FF1 ninja isn't that bad. He's just not the healbot, and is competing against the absurdity that is FF1 Knight. He puts up a pretty good fight with the Red Mage, and blows the other two out of the water.
Yeah, FF1 Ninja in and of itself isn't bad. Just when talking about the FF1 Ninja, you have to bring up Thief, since you can't have one without the other.
Its the same case as hyping an FE Character who becomes strong after Promotion, but ignoring the fact that they spend half the game un-promoted; yeah, they end up good, but you still gotta deal with a failure for half the game, and that still should be held against them.
Hawk's Light Side Classes in Seiken Densetsu 3 are another example of this, given Ninja >>>> Ranger; the Tier 3 classes are much closer in worth, but the two Tier 2's, its just ridiculously one sided (Stat Downs, Higher Strength and Shurikens vs. TRAPS!!!, Sleep Powder and Change Form, GEE I WONDER WHAT WINS! Oh, but Ranger has an FST!!! Pity those are overrated ESPECIALLY on Hawk whose got a ludicrously awesome Level 1 Tech)
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Dragon Quest 9 - INNKEEPING PLOT
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XF - Started this up again. In the sequel to my Grandia 3 playthrough, I'll be taking an already challenging game and using half as many PCs as one should! Nothing can possibly go wrong.
Rules are:
1. I can only deploy a max of 3 PCs to each battle, unless more are forced.
2. No random encounters
3. No searching
Sounds like this would make some of the puzzle maps basically undoable, or at least undoable without some kind of massive AI cheese. Notably I'm thinking of some of the "stand on switches" missions - the one in Chapter 4 I believe would be flat impossible without some spare bodies before Labby can solo it, and the early Chapter 2 mission (2-2?) where you have to have two Sentinels stand on switches strikes me as being pretty brutal as well (though that one could MAYBE be done with cheapo "put equip switch on everyone, enter the battle nearly naked, run the top team out of FP, spam Gadgeteer Fatigue healing on your own team, equip change to Sentinel armor, have solo guy slaughter a bunch of 1 HP wimps...." but then again those enemies might have had wait-FP up, now that I think about it.).
Anyway, curious to hear how this goes. Gooood luck with the last missions of Chapter 1 + first half of Chapter 2.
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For 2-2, use more Elementalist OC on your Sentinels.
Yeah, there's a puzzle map in C4 that requires more than 3 people, obviously I will use more for that.
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YOU ARE BREAKING THE SPIRIT OF THE CHALLENGE IN THAT CASE YOUR CHEATER
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How is that Alma SCC going?
And where are my Persona Maps OK?
Edit - Suikoden Terikdkfriakes - Stuff. Recruiting lots of people. Some minor amusement with LeatherMan wishing the woman who claimes to be his destined lover was a dude. Trading is pretty boring. I didn't think it was going to be this bad, then prices of unlocked gear just escalates absurdly.
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Monkey Island (Special Edition):
Me: This is a pretty standard point-and-click adventure style game. It's kind of fun but I don't see what all the hype is abou....
*Gets to the governor's mansion, sees subsequent scene*
Me: That was... that was... that was... MAGNIFICIENT!
*Love scene between Guybrush and Elaine*
Me: Can't.... stop... laughing... must... breathe...
*"That is fitting because you fight like a cow"*
Me: Best point&click ever.
So yeah, I can see why Shale&Co. worship this game. It's a fucking riot. Also I like ocasionally hitting F10 for the art-style dissonance between the original and the remastered special edition. Very cool little feature.
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FF4- Doing the optional dungeons in the Underworld. Right now I'm trying to decide between putting Edge in the back because he is a worthless incompetent nincompoop who can't keep himself alive or to keep Cecil in the back, who tanks the entire world worth of physical hits in the back. Right now I'm doing the latter and just allowing Edge to die since he's pretty damn bad. 2HKOed by a lot of physical enemies and does the worst damage in the party besides the healbot. Sign me up for the Edge fanclub! At least he's better than Yang, who is shit.
I wasn't quite high enough levelled to have Wall and Float and that was unfortunate. OH MY GOD I GOT AMBUSHED DID SHE REALLY USE 4 GAIARAGES IN A ROW?!?! Float makes those enemies trivial, but god they aren't without it. About to fight Leviathan now.
Only real way to make Edge useful is to take advantage of his array of gimmick weapons. Species Weakness Weapons and the Elemental Claws tend to mesh well with him, as does the status claws. Otherwise, yeah, at best he's basically just there to help soften up enemies for Rydia's inevitable nuking with his own magic.
But otherwise, yeah, Edge kind of sucks for a good part of the game. Outside of FF1's Ninja (whose more just "DAMN YOU THIEF FOR SUCKING ASS!"), Edge is probably the worst Ninja in the series? Maybe I'm forgetting a lackluster one, but even if we take a loose definition for someone like Armarant, I'm pretty sure he has Edge beat since Armarant was similar to Edge in picking up later in the game more so than earlier, but before then is more "Non-stellar" rather than "lackluster."
Yuffie.
Anyway, he's gotten progressively better in each remake I've played, I will say, though part of that is owed to FFIVa's weird bugged ATB making him use Inertia Canceller +2 from WA4 all the time when you caste haste on him. And hey, he's actually really good in TAY (infinite itemcast blink, haste and protect will do that).
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Yuffie.
Yuffie has one of the best double growth weapons, is one of the only PCs with Back Row compatible weapons (let alone all of them are, something shared only with Vincent), and has a healing Limit. Factor all this in with FF7's Materia system giving a Floor to how bad someone can be, and Yuffie very easily outperforms Edge.
And that's not even factoring in the Conformer, which is probably the single best Ultimate in FF7 due to how it ignores like EVERY damage penalty and its Power Up effect only sucks against things its OHKOing anyway.
Anyway, he's gotten progressively better in each remake I've played, I will say, though part of that is owed to FFIVa's weird bugged ATB making him use Inertia Canceller +2 from WA4 all the time when you caste haste on him. And hey, he's actually really good in TAY (infinite itemcast blink, haste and protect will do that).
Edge makes the least use of FF4a's bugged ATB actually; generally speaking, it tends to kick in on slower characters more than faster characters. I remember it definitely working more on Rydia and Palom than Edge. Regardless, looking at the Algorithm FAQ, speed apparently has zilch to do with the Auto ATB Gaining Factor, and gaining MORE turns is actually WORSE for it, since it means more opportunities for that screwed up bug to be used against you, and have the enemy steal the turn.
Can't speak for FF4TAY though. But FF4a Edge is debatable LVP (alongside Kain) for the final dungeon, and doesn't really get worth anything in the Lunar Ruins until you can start handing him Hero Shields or something (Durability isn't very good, Throw's still expensive as fuck and not worth the damage it does, enemies just kind of shrug off status, which Yang can do anyway AND Yang crushes Edge on durability, while being similar in speed. Honestly, Edge's big niche would be dual wielding Hero Shields, but you don't realistically get that.)
Honestly, there's little defending FF4o/a Edge; he has some twink potential in the Lunar Ruins and that's about it.
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Thanks for the feedback about Thief/Ranger Meeple and NEB =-) I ran around with Luneth as a Dragoon for a while after defeating Garuda (actually I used three Dragoons to defeat Garuda at L25 >.>) then switched him to Thief. I actually had him in that a bit earlier too but wasn't impressed at the time and wasn't aware of the long term benefits =/ He's currently having to play catch up in job levels but oh well. Pretty much been my project PC, the one to try out a variety of different jobs with <.<
I have the Invincible and all Four Fangs now. Returned to Doga's Manor only to be plunged right into another dungeon after doing the Ancient Ruins and Cave of Shadows so decided to quit for the night. I got the feeling that things were heading into end game though is that correct?
/me nods @ Yoshi
Have fun with that FF6 team. Sounds good (two brothers and a pair of ass kicking chibis :D)
Yeah didn't know Gau couldn't get it till later Meeple. Who can get Wind God on FC again then?
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No one can get Wind God set up on the FC. The lack of Offering and Merit Award mean at best, you acn have Genji Glove + Cyan for 75% chance of Wind Slash (25% chance of Double Wind Slash), which...isn't really anything to write home about, given his Magic Power is low enough that Mog/Gau's lower rates are still better, and requires Front Row (which doesn't apply to the IAF sequence), and requires you actually steal the 2nd Tempest anyway.
The Wind God Gau (and Gogo) set up is, specifically:
Merit Award + Offering + Stray Cat Rage. This allows Tempest's Wind slash to hit at 4x damage whenever it kicks in on a Catscratch, in addition to when used by Gau, its Tempest going off Gau's massively inflated battle power (he has 99 base, which is like 4x that of Sabin's whose otherwise game best; obviously, this was meant to balance out the fact that he can't use weapons.) Ok, technically, Offering was not part of the ORIGINAL set up, it was just Catscratch + Tempest, just Offering was something discovered later which could be used to augment the effect dramatically (Offering also does NOT halve Wind SLashes damage to boot.) I say this cause Master Zed haunts me with those statements <_< >_>
It also has other, less obvious applications. Numblade from Primordite Rage, for example, if used with Tempest can randomly use an MT Unblockable Stop that has wind slash's animation.
I have the Invincible and all Four Fangs now. Returned to Doga's Manor only to be plunged right into another dungeon after doing the Ancient Ruins and Cave of Shadows so decided to quit for the night. I got the feeling that things were heading into end game though is that correct?
Yeah, but its advised you do Side Quests first, since with the Invincible a bunch open up. Fargabaad, Leviathan, and Bahamut all come to mind (the latter two are on the Floating Continent, and the more significant side quests, Fargabad is mostly just some extra equips lying around that may or may not be useful depending on your team.) However, I suggest doing these (at very least the latter two) *AFTER* you get your 4th set of jobs, only to give any of those you may be using some extra JLevel time. Those 4th jobs are basically gotten in like the first room of the next plot dungeon (which KIND OF chains into the Final Dungeon; you have one last Overworld moment before going into the real final dungeon.)
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For 2-2, use more Elementalist OC on your Sentinels.
Yeah, there's a puzzle map in C4 that requires more than 3 people, obviously I will use more for that.
First off, does Sentinel have the worst Magic score in the game? I'm not sure but it's bad. Secondly, I'm pretty sure the vertical tolerance on Elementalist is too low to work on that map? I'm pretty sure I examined to see if that would work and I don't think it did - there's a 10+ panel difference or so there. I guess you'll find out when you get to that map. Well, if you beat the "onrushing troops trying to sneak into town" map which quite possibly might be more annoying, since cheesing the AI would be rather more difficult there.
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Factor all this in with FF7's Materia system giving a Floor to how bad someone can be
I have a hard time giving Yuffie or anyone else in the cast credit for anything due to this. No differentiation means I can use anyone for anything and it doesn't matter at all.
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First off, does Sentinel have the worst Magic score in the game? I'm not sure but it's bad.
It's fairly poor (not worst, that honour goes to Secutor), but Elementalist EQ does exist and I expect I'll have it by then; Elementalist is a class I expect to get a lot of use out of since it just hits so hard.
Secondly, I'm pretty sure the vertical tolerance on Elementalist is too low to work on that map?
It's too large from anywhere except the switches themselves, so whoever stands on them can lob elementalist spells at the area above.
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For 2-2, use more Elementalist OC on your Sentinels.
Yeah, there's a puzzle map in C4 that requires more than 3 people, obviously I will use more for that.
First off, does Sentinel have the worst Magic score in the game? I'm not sure but it's bad. Secondly, I'm pretty sure the vertical tolerance on Elementalist is too low to work on that map? I'm pretty sure I examined to see if that would work and I don't think it did - there's a 10+ panel difference or so there. I guess you'll find out when you get to that map. Well, if you beat the "onrushing troops trying to sneak into town" map which quite possibly might be more annoying, since cheesing the AI would be rather more difficult there.
Ragnar is actually really good on the Sentinel switch map. In Sentinel he can actually reach up to the top with his boomerang when standing on a switch. I imagine giving him attack high/low and penetrator should allow him to reach all the units up top if memory serves me right. Right, almost forgot that Berserker isn't until after that level, without that I think Ragnar can only hit the archers, nevermind on that. Labby can also reach up there with lightning, though the horizontal range limits what she can actually hit. Once you kill the weak archers there's not much the other five units can actually do to you. if you do kill them from below. The biggest roadblock I can think of is killing the sacred slayer up top, it has rather good durability and if you end up killing the archers and the lower level reinforcements before touching it then you're dealing with a durable unit with full healing that gets like a 180% bonus to it's speed. The best bet for that level is probably using a Gadgeteer with devastate gems to just blitz rape the top after you take care of the crappy archers from below, the main trick making sure you don't place the Gadgeteer in the mist of the enemies until they can double after their speed boost.
XF level speculation Aside, right, I play games too.
Recently acquired and played through the SH series. Found the games to be thoroughly enjoyable, though I'm not quite done with three yet, just need to finish the final dungeon. I think I would rate two and three equally, for different reasons, with one being below them both by a rather large margin. Three, felt like the best polished version of the battle system, while two pretty much had better everything else. I seriously could not stand the early half of three, first with the New York music that made me want to strangle kittens, to Frank idiocy. That said, that battle system is fun, and I generally enjoyed the targeting mechanics of attacks/spells, and also plotting the deaths of bosses before they could get turns.
Played P4 between SH 2 and 3 to give myself a break from the Judgement ring, had a blast with that, found the game an overall improvement over P3, my negative thoughts about the game can pretty much be summed up as "Go die in a fire Teddie/Yosuke." Other then those two, the game was really enjoyable.
Started BoF4 about two weeks ago, despite my general loathing of the first two games in the series, mostly because I wanted to be able to vote on more Chelle battles, though I ended up only getting halfway through the game so far due to ARGHKFDLJSLFKJJDS:KFJSDFjLleljel camera. The camera in this game seriously drives me insane, I don't know what the developers were thinking with it. Monster skills are also turning out to be annoying to learn and generally being faq bait to learn for half of them, which makes me go ugh because none of the BoF faqs are organized well at all. I do find it amusing at least how Nina is turning out to be the tankiest character that I've used so far, and at the same time also the best damage dealer and healer >.>. Ryu so far is surprisingly average. Hopefully I can urge myself to finish the game soon enough, but this series is turning out to just not be my cup of tea <.<.
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I've got some issues with FF3ds. I feel like the game suffers from a severe lack of documentation (equipment/class/etc.), something expected in older games but expected to be fixed in remakes. FF1psp did for the most part, for example.
I also don't like how much the game punishes you for class-changing. The only times I feel the need to grind (at about halfway through the game) is when circumstances force me into unfamiliar class combinations. I've a predeliction for physical classes, I suppose, which probably doesn't help.
Stalled out anyhow for now for Pokemon SoulSilver. 16 badges, some decent challenge. Ditched my starter and a flock of peewees roundabout badge 6 for pokemon I actually liked (rather than monomaniacally retiring anything fully evolved). Challenge spiked for a bit since everything I had was desperately underleveled and I made some bad type choices (kinda on purpose).
Team's pretty stable now. Ninetails/Ampharos/Lapras kinda sorta provide coverage of the elemental types, Honchkrow/Mismagius/Yanmega kinda sorta cover the rest. If I'm still playing the game when the safari zone brings trapinch->Flygon online that'll probably bump... someone. Strongly considering Lucario over Yanmega, too, again if the Safari Zone provides. Mamoswine sometimes moonlights to deal with electric, but levels are a problem and I can't be assed to bring it up to speed.
Since I still compusively Exp-Share train, levels're sitting relatively low, I think, in the mid-40s. We'll see if Blue's doable right now or if I need to do more sidequests (not that there's many left... Got Mewtwo and Suicune, so birds, groudon, probably the odd dungeon I've missed).
Accidentally killed the Snorlax and then realized it'd been hours since I saved, which made me grumpy.
Pretty impressed with the game, overall, though. Good challenge, lots and lots of stuff to do, generally pleased with interface and so on. I'm such a whore for novelty that I expected to be easily bored by a remake, but that hasn't happened. Think I prefered my sketchy emulated Platinum, overall, so I might pick up a real copy of that one of these days. But more likely when I'm done with this I'll be good for pokemon 'till Black/White come out in September.
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Glen: Monster skills are the most irrelevant thing ever, seriously. I only got, like, 5 on my playthrough, and still beat the game with ease. (In fact, if you're doing this for DL voting rights, you've a good argument not to use them anyway, and they're really not needed.) Honestly, the best thing to do is just grab them when you know you can, but not bother otherwise.
JAD: D'you mean the, uhh, Job Adjustment Phase? Really becomes nothing at certain points in the game - fly back to Canaan, fight weak randoms there, problem solved. That said, lack of documentation is :head-desk:, yeah.
Friday 9th July:
- FF3: Healed up and went to fight Garuda - he killed Arc before he could even jump and took out Ingus after the first one, but the second jumps from Luneth and Refia finished him. <3 Went to Doga's Palace and cleared the Cave of the Circle to get underwater Nautilus! Using that, went to Doga's Village and got every damn White Magic spell possible - sold pretty much any weapon I didn't plan on using, so I now have everything but 1 Lv 1 and the Lv 8s for Refia. Current party is Thief/Dragoon/White Mage/Knight. Entered the Temple of Time, played the Song of Time and-- *shot*
Entered the Temple of Time and... got killed by the first set of randoms. Wait, what? Okay, sidequests then. Underwater Cave is easy, grabbed treasures. Got bored here, so went towards the Crystal Tower because WHY NOT? ...Oh. Because it apparently results in a Game Over. Welp, off to do the Underwater Cave again, I really need to save more often. >_>
Cleared the cavern again, went off to the Saronia Catacombs to fight Odin. Got there with absolute ease, OHKOing most of the randoms, grabbed Gungnir first try and then... got hit with Zantetsuken. DAMMIT! ;_; Second time, Gungnir took 3 tries, but I survived longer thanks to some Jump h4x. Still didn't win. :(
As a quick question, is Zantetsuken ITD or something? I've already seen that it apparently ignores row, which makes Odin pretty brutal in and of itself, and I'm wondering if Protect will save me.
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For BoF 4 FAQs you either want to use Billy Lee's or Dalez' at Gamefaqs, they both have pretty much all the info you could want in the game. Billy Lee's is more concisely put together (About half the file size) at the cost of some usability. Dalez' is a lot more user friendly with providing information but has a lot of excess in there (level comparisons and stuff). They aren't the greatest for usability though and definitely lack the more recent trends of integrating search phrases into your index that has taken off between the 9 years ago they were written and now. That does mean they have avoided the stupid shit like naming the version after female characters at least.
Learnable skills aren't as bad as they seem. The most obscure good ones are all locatable somewhere else. The most obscure to learn first thing is Shadowwalk which you can learn from Knight form when Ryu gets it.
Oh and you can learn skills from Ryu when he is in Dragon Form . It isn't overly useful, but it gets you a few skills with minimal effort. You can also learn ... 2 skills I want to say from Confused party members but that is mostly for obscure knowledge and uh early game free casts of Phoenix with Nina.
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Strange Journey
Started this bad boy up while I was flying to Puerto Rico.
Has all the SMT goodness I love in a handheld which is awesome and the script seems adult oriented to boot! Yayness~
I just finished the first dungeon/area. All I have to say is Jimenez is awesome. I just hope he doesn't go where I think they are taking his character. I need to collect moar demons!
Gotta catch em all or something!
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I've got some issues with FF3ds. I feel like the game suffers from a severe lack of documentation (equipment/class/etc.), something expected in older games but expected to be fixed in remakes. FF1psp did for the most part, for example.
Yeah, I don't get this one either, frankly. In FF6 and on, the games have been really good about in game documentation, labeling the essentials or letting you have access to them. FF1 and FF2 remakes eventually started labeling things, I forget if FF4a and FF5a fixed this too (FF5a had middling documentation at least; it told you a few things but not enough. Like you'd learn that the Ribbon resists Status IIRC, but it didn't tell you that Diamond Gear halves Ligthning.)
FF4DS at least didn't completely fail it up; told you attack powers of spells, hit rates, and elemental weaknesses. It did not however tell you Status Resistances (or if they even existed. FF3DS at least said "Resists status" albeit wouldn't say which. FF4DS didn't even have THAT much, you just had to see the "Guard" thing appear and you wouldn't know what was protecting you), and even more stupidly, it told you one of Resistance or Absorption but would NOT tell you the other for enemies. I mean, if the game just grouped the two together, that'd have been enough, since ultimately it'd equate to "use a different element"
Honestly, you'd think those two games would at least have FF6 Level In-game documentation, where it told you the basics needed, like Elemental resistances across the board, status resistance on equips, what stats are getting boosted, etc.
FF3DS I guess feels like they were trying too much to capture the ORIGINAL GAME!!! at times, which defeats the purpose of making a full fledged remake, and thus is retarded. What's especially stupid is FF3o went out of its way to tell you "Strength Up!" at least when you equip something like Excalibur. Sure, it didn't say how much (I think they were always +5 though), but at least you KNEW a stat was being raised due to an equip. FF3DS...well, it does highlight a stat in green indicating "This stat is being augmented through equips!", but you wouldn't know what's doing it unless you checked your stats EVERYTIME you equipped something which is tedious.
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JAD: D'you mean the, uhh, Job Adjustment Phase? Really becomes nothing at certain points in the game - fly back to Canaan, fight weak randoms there, problem solved. That said, lack of documentation is :head-desk:, yeah.
Well, it exacerbates things, and I'm not sure good game design should encourage you to waste time fighting meaninglessly easy enemies... But what I really mean is how the game's attack formula (number of hits, specifically) is constituted in part by job level, so every time you switch to a new class (like, for the first time) you take a substantial hit to your attack command, and you'll almost always be behind those who stay the course in a single class (another point in thieves' favour, by the by). I'll believe that this becomes less of an issue as the game progresses (job level affects magic too, but not as strongly), but right after the second batch, especially, the penalties are pretty heinous.
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Arc the Lad 3: I've been replaying this and it's been really fun. The dialogue is easily the best part of the game. It's lighthearted and consistently funny and the cast really starts to build chemistry once you get Cheryl because the back and forth between her and Lutz is really good. I just finished the first Academy base to get the water orb back to Testa. Apparently the boss there has a skill called "Whupass Beam: Annihilate all moving things in range. Canned." It's too bad that most people who played the series got burnt out on 2. More people need to play this game.
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JAD: D'you mean the, uhh, Job Adjustment Phase? Really becomes nothing at certain points in the game - fly back to Canaan, fight weak randoms there, problem solved. That said, lack of documentation is :head-desk:, yeah.
Well, it exacerbates things, and I'm not sure good game design should encourage you to waste time fighting meaninglessly easy enemies... But what I really mean is how the game's attack formula (number of hits, specifically) is constituted in part by job level, so every time you switch to a new class (like, for the first time) you take a substantial hit to your attack command, and you'll almost always be behind those who stay the course in a single class (another point in thieves' favour, by the by). I'll believe that this becomes less of an issue as the game progresses (job level affects magic too, but not as strongly), but right after the second batch, especially, the penalties are pretty heinous.
Regarding the 2nd JObs, in fairness, Knight is a pretty meager Job in terms of damage. Its slow and for a good part of the game relies on weak weapons. Doesn't upgrade between Blood Sword and the Ancient Sword, which is like 3 dungeons worth of equips where most other jobs get some form of equip upgrade, and after you get Defender, which is good for a while, it doesn't upgrade until the final stretch of the game from that and its notable.
Warrior side steps this issue thanks to Axes, and Dark Knight, once you care about them, gets Dark Swords to keep its weapons good. Knight's the only real physical job that is stuck with meager weapons for such a long period of time, to compound its other offensive issues.
The other physical Jobs...well, you get the Water set shortly after the Fire set, so the JLevel difference isn't major between those two, if still notable compared to Wind Jobs, but those will work themselves away. The Earth Jobs are hurt some, but not that much; Mages don't rely on JLevels as much, and 3 of the jobs are Mages, Ninja has such an awesome speed stat combined with its strength and strong weapons that it can actually do good damage in spite of the lack of JLevels, and Black Belt...ok, that one has issues, and makes me go "What the fuck were they thinking? A Job that's ESPECIALLY JLevel intensive gotten THAT LATE!?"
Ranger I wanna say is the only other physical job from Fire? If so, we've more or less covered that earlier.
JLevels are 14 per extra hit, so while yes, its important, its not major unless the difference is staggering, albeit, more prevalent early on where 1 hit is far bigger a factor due to your lack of hits to begin with.
Anyway...
Yeah, the Fire Jobs aren't worth much for physical damage. Geomancer's cool, but not physical damage, Scholar has the awesome boss fighting Item Throwing capabilities and gains JLevels at an absurd rate. Knight is mostly a defensive Job, Ranger is more a gimmicky physical job. The new real physical jobs for Offensive worth are the next set with Dark Knight (can use actual equips now, albeit, the armor lags a lot since it doesn't upgrade from FC stuff until Fargabad; it can still go back row and spam Soul Eaters though), and Dragoon (Thunder Lances are storebought immediately.) Viking is like a Knight-alternative, so that's more "You use this for a tank, not for damage" thing kicking in.
That, and Warrior is like the best damage for physical jobs in the game; ignoring all its other benefits, Advance Alone pretty much sells it.
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Just want to say that Cave of Darkness aside, Ranger is better at physical damage than Dark Knight! Bleh Dark Knights.
As a quick question, is Zantetsuken ITD or something? I've already seen that it apparently ignores row, which makes Odin pretty brutal in and of itself, and I'm wondering if Protect will save me.
It's magical, so use people with good MDef to survive. Reflect Mail on anyone who can use it (you get one in Odin's dungeon, and there was also one in the Underwater Cave), Red Mage with shields, mages in general, etc. Alternatively you can just try to blitz past it, since once he's using it he's near death... which approach you take will probably depend on your party.
Also, did FF3o actually tell you an equip raised stats when you equipped it? That's... um... ahead of any FF until at least 5, if so, and baffling that 3DS got rid of that.
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Yeah, FF3, when you equipped something, it'd state Strength/Agility/Vit up! It wouldn't tell you by how much, just that it happened. It would also tell you about the Elemental Strengthening for that matter, though I can't seem to tell if that actually DID anything in FF3 (either its bugged and doesn't do anything *OR* the effect is so minor, you just fail to care), so whatever to that.
FF4 obviously doesn't tell you; you can see its effects sure (for Strength and Vit anyway), but FF3 did that anyway, so its still clearly a step back. FF5 finally said "Hey, here's an equipment menu that tells you stuff!" which FF6 had as well!
...then FF7 decided to take it off for god knows what reason, going back to requiring cross referencing. Especially obnoxious in FF7 cause just about every equip has a hidden stat boost (usually to magic) so it was such a psyduck moment. FFT and FF9 thankfully went up to (and in general, surpassed thanks to In Game Help Menus being easily accessible) FF6's standards again, FF12 got a little worse, but was still better than FF5 about it.
So yeah, the fact that FF3DS didn't have it is exceptionally weird.
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XF challenge log~
1-4-B (prison)
Not really part of the challenge per se, but since a lot of people have trouble with it, here goes. Replica and Rob Turn are both used to distract the boss as the main force of villagers move past her. Levin kills the two Fantasticas nearest him, while Tony and Felius distract the enemies near the back, making sure they don't advance forward. I do actually heal the old man once but it turns out to be quite unneeded.
Also worth noting at this point is that Clarissa has spent some time in both Elementalist and Dandelion Shot, enough to have both OCs mastered.
1-5 (jelly blobs)
So yeah, I can recruit people now! After some experimenting I discover that yes, it's quite possible to get generics with much better total stats than the plot PCs, and despite the elemental weaknesses they carry this is just too good to ignore. Felius just isn't good enough to be competitive, and Labby's stats are just game-worst overall. Clarissa draws into the main party because 20% resistance to all is cool, Sacrifice is awesome, and Encourage is really handy (and unlike Turn Shift, actually cost-efficient). In general I'm speculating that MP is going to be a potential problem in this challenge, managing it will kinda be key. This screws over a few moves which have high costs which don't lead directly to victory, namely Turn Shift and Cancel Strike. ... I still expect to use Turn Shift quite a lot, but yeah.
Anyway, I hire two generics, named Elayne (better HP/Mag/Eva than any plot PC, better Atk/Def/MP than all but one plot PC respectively, average Rfx, below average only in Res and Aim) and Vin (better HP than any plot PC, better Atk/Res/MP than all but one respectively, above average Aim/Eva/Rfx, below average Def/Mag). Maybe I shouldn't have settled for a below average magic stat but I wanted at least one PC to be strong in all of Atk/Aim/HP/MP, and with those qualifications you can't be too picky.
So yeah, not too much to say about the jelly blob fight as it's mostly prep for the swamp battle. Everyone is Elementalist so that they can learn the OC for the battle that comes after this. Light all torches, nuke blobs with fire as they come out, simple stuff. The gremalkins are a little more ostensibly troublesome because they have 30% resistance to all elements, but not only does this still leave them open to 3-4HKOs from my Elementalists, they get one-shotted by Sacrifice, and there are only three of them. One of them does hit me with HP Down which means I do have to watch for damage a little but uh not really, the blobs only attack if you're adjacent to one after it has run as far from the swamp as it can on its turn.
For some reason this battle gives 17 CSP instead of the 9 I'd expect it to yield, I guess maybe lighting torches is worth 2 apiece?
Elayne and Vin snag Elementalist OC, Clarissa learns Elementalist EQ.
1-6 (swamp)
Definitely the first tricky battle of the challenge. A large number of the enemies are on a 4h plateau towards the end of the map, so magic is the only way to kill them besides Labyrinthia (who might as well only be good at magic) and Tony (who is a decent option here, though I don't actually use him). I guess Felius can too but Upper Hand strikes me as too MP-inefficient, not to mention its range is problematic. I decide to give it a go with my main party, anyway.
Clarissa: Dandelion Shot; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book + brooch)
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Elementalist OC
Vin: Fantastica; Elementalist OC
I avoid Elementalist itself because it would mean needing to trek through the swamp, which aside from taking ages causes annoying poison.
Anyway, hit weaknesses, profit. Simple enough, although most of the enemies here have Magic Blocker which can muck things up a bit. First real problem is Samille, who as a geomancer is highly elementally resistance. Sacrifice is used to take him out, combined with Slow Down to make sure he doesn't go too heal-happy with his berries. Berries are definitely used to patch up damage from Samille and the elementalists, not to mention Sacrifice; Gadgeteer pays off here of course.
The plateau is the real problem. I do pay for using generics here some as the elemental weaknesses aren't too pleasant, although they aren't always hit so I guess it's not as bad as it could be. I nuke and heal well enough (cursing Magic Blocker whenever it kicks in). At one point I do lose Vin, but I toss a Revive Fruit so it's all good. Moving away from the pillar to safely heal is of course an option, and one I use with Clarissa to make sure Sacrifice stays at full power. More problematic is that my MP reserves start to run low. El Jackson himself is a pest since he actually resists all elements and has loads of Res, so he doesn't take more than 20-30 damage from anything. Except Sacrifice! So yeah, Slow Down + Sacrifice is again needed here. I end up killing him with the very last Sacrifice Clarissa has; if it had hit magic blocker, it'd have meant a reset, especially since Elayne was also out of MP by this point and Vin would not be capable of dealing with the rest herself with her few remaining shots.
Elayne and Vin master their respective current OCs.
1-7-A (collapsing guardian shrine)
99 turn limit on this battle; it's actually one which is helpful to use less PCs in anyway, since you burn fewer turns that way. So yeah, not an especially hard battle, even though it's a little nerve-racking at first since by turn 40 I'm not sure I had killed any enemies yet!
Clarissa: Dandelion Shot; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book + brooch)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Elementalist OC
I decide to rout all enemies to maximise my Exp/CSP gains. Clarissa goes left to deal with the four Elementalists, because she resists their stuff. She also turns out to be quite capable of OHKOing any of them when she hits a weakness, just needs to worry about Magic Blocker (which she hits twice). Vin goes right because Secutor is the most physically durable thing my party has (yeah, earlygame options who aren't Felius aren't very good at this), and she has enough oomph to one-shot all but one of the enemy secutors in that direction, two-shotting the other. It's still a little scary since the secutors are pretty damaging (3-shotting with Hard Smash), but they miss sometimes and they're strangely bad at swarming (I think the PC on the central path acts as a weird sort of distraction), plus I do have healing, so yeah. Elayne just goes to grab the treasure then kill the Sentinel in the middle, who is a death tank with over 500 HP. He's so tanky that, between his use of his own healing berries, I'm not able to finish him off until Vin comes around from the back and helps out. Over in 70-something turns.
No resets yet! We'll see how long this lasts.
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FF6 Eviltype - Quasar is satan.
Y'know, I've seen a few people on the FF6 board say that Eviltype gets easier late in the game. Generally I suspect these people just level up a whole bunch, which intrinsically makes all versions of FF6 not too tough, just the nature of the game and Eviltype didn't seek to change this. Still, wandering through the final dungeon, which, while nasty at points (Outsider/Madams gutted me once or twice, but hell, they're capable of this in vanilla if you get unlucky/aren't prepared), didn't seem like the hardest part of Eviltype, and the first three bosses kinda folded without too much trouble (Atma got his Ultima runic'd, Inferno and Skull Dragon didn't make much of an impression this time). I was thinking "hmm, maybe those people have a point?"
Then Gold Dragon happened. Killed me once, came back and made sure everyone blocked lightning, still tough. Man those physicals are something else. Then Guardian, who was fairly easy (as I've said before, I actually approve of this - he's too far from a save point and sandwiched between other nasty bosses).
Then Goddess who just kept ruining my party with Overcast (I only had one Safety Bit, Relm/Shadow were foolishly on other teams), Quasar (aw yeah strong MT 2HKO that hits both sides), and all sorts of random pressure moves off multi-acting. Very tricky battle to stay on top of in general. At least Overcast is only used once! Think I had four resets here. Poltrgeist I think was good for one, and again Quasar was a big part of it! Just wasn't expecting it, good overall fight otherwise, though I had probably my strongest team here (Terra and Offering/Black Belt berserked Setzer). On the other hand that team did have Mog who somehow turned into my party megascrub (just too far behind on spell learning), so maybe not. Doom was the easiest but still very tough overall. Beat me once using Dark Hood! Repatched the game and won for reals. Just Kefka left! Uh oh.
Oh yeah and somehow I ended up with Strago in the one party that didn't even see Quasar. Go me!
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SPOILERS FOR MEEPLE FANTASY 6!!!!
MF6- Finished! Had two resets on Kefka, one reset on Altima out of the final dungeon bosses. I think Terra may be a little too overpowered with Doublecast Ultima (especially once you get Nirvana allowing you to spam it) but meh, whatever. Ghaleon seems like the scrub of the trio, I beat him down pretty easily with my scrub party (to be fair, it did have Doublecasting Lina and Ryu with Terra Break). Kefka is pretty difficult especially at low HP when he starts using Meteo and you are scared to damage him or else get Holy'd. Final team against him was Tir (unable to do damage to him but had the Onion Armor), Lenneth, Ginny, and Yuri. I would complain about Tir's utter awful against the final boss except I savestated before it started so I wouldn't have to waste time with the rather scrubby tower people before him. I overall think the Kefka sequence takes too goddamn long considering that he's a limit boss, but using savestates made it tolerable~
Fun game, I really liked that a lot of the characters had their own niches and all of them felt good at various points in the game. I'd say... well, if you assume that, say, you use Rolf in the first half of the game, I'd say Shady is the only PC who doesn't ever have a niche (except for stupid Arena BS but the Arena is so bloody annoying that it's hard for me to swallow doing it, and Meeple told me I had to give the Father's Coat! ;_;). Terra is the Endgame MVP, Tir is great at a lot of points but terrible against the final boss, Yuri is MVP for a while, Fayt is really awesome as soon as you get Double Jump, Ginny is OMG HAX as soon as you get the eight hits with her, but she starts getting pretty bad toward the end of the game aside from hax healing. Lenneth trails off hardcore in the second half of the game until basically NV3 (she's a good healbot though). Vyse is never really the best but there are a few fights when you are soooo happy for MT Image and I really like his techs in general. I think Vyse was handled really well. I used the Level 7 a lot! I think Elfboy questioned my genius plans but fufufufu. (*runs away*). Ike is never really that good, but he’s quite decent when you get Short Axes. Kinda strug lategame though. Laharl is a Jeigan and well I’m not good at Slots so he was especially not great for me! Didn’t really use the wankiest Ryu of them all much, nor did I use Lina aside from ALMOST SOLOING GHALEON~ Didn’t recruit the Foomy. And Rolf, well, he was dumped pretty early and I felt like he was a lost cause to get spells for.
This was a pretty fun romp, for all that.. it can't help but share FF6's problems, like the entire second half of the game being kinda dull and the final dungeon being suck. Arena (or uh… MORRIE’S MONSTROUS PIT!) is psyduck. >_> But being the silly that I am a got a lot of the crap anyway because I wanted to see the shinies.
THE WRITING IS AMAZING! I would think someone wrote the game while drunk but no it’s just Meeple.
I love the spriting. Just really freaking awesome, kudos to both Djinn and Meeple!
*whips Meeple* Playtest your own game, fool! I had several times of encountering borderline unwinnable fight due to laziness~
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Saturday 10th July:
- FF3: OH FUCK YOU ODIN. Had everyone at full before fighting him this time, decided to try Protecting Knight Ingus for survivability. A turn after I Protect him, Odin starts spamming attacks against him and the rando-turn order means that Refia can't heal him in time, so that was completely wasted. He then takes out Luneth, followed by Arc post-jump, leaving me spamming items with Refia to try and kill him. Strangely enough, didn't work.
- FF6: Decided to train for a bit, since the FUCKING TENTACLES ARGHLEEAFDGFDSHd. Finally reached them and... this time, RunningShoes actually seemed to prevent Seize, so Celes just set up Safe and Regen and spammed Bolt2, using Antdot where needed. Once we were down to just the lightning Tentacle, revived Sabin and Edgar and spammed Fire2 - Edgar got Seized and killed right before the Tentacle died, but whatever, I won. :) Over to Kohlingen, where I get Setzer and head over to Daryl's Darril's Darill's Darryl's Daryll's Da~rr~il~'s Tomb. Randoms here used Zombie a lot, but also dropped Revivifys so that's mostly okay. Presenter is an easy but annoyingly long fight. Dullahan started by applying a LOT of pressure, until I realised DERP RUNICKS and kinda owned him hard. Falcon get! Went straight to Jidoor and grabbed Golem and ZoneSeek, then off to Duncan's House for BUM RUSH. Off to Mobliz after that, where Phunbaba gets owned repeatedly, despite getting rid of Sabin and Edgar for the final fight. Went through Mt. Zozo after that, running from Borras occasionally to get to Cyan, before going to grab Gau from the Veldt. Grabbed a couple of Rages while here before going off to Jidoor, not for Relm but for the NightShade encounter. :) After getting that, and one or two other Rages, back to Jidoor to get the last member of my final party... tomorrow. >.>
Idly, yes, the FF3 attempt was before I knew Zantetsuken was magical, and I'm currently fighting Chadarnook on FF6. NightShade spam to the rescue again?
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Monkey Island Special Edition: Finished. Hilarious game for a few sections of the game, although the titular Monkey Island kinda sucked. I didn't like how much empty moving around you had to do devoid of good humor (except for the three-headed monkey. That was awesome). But then you got back to Melee island and it was glorious. I can see why the game is considered a classic.
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Yugioh: I come once again 3rd. Am I doomed to forever claim bronze?
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MMZ4: Beaten on Normal difficulty. O_O at the Mod cards unlocked for MMZ3 now. Free double defense that doesn't penalize you? Yes please.
DQ9: Gotten. Heading to Stornway. Specializing in whips and sex appeal fans and litheness at the moment.
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Playing DQ9. The third boss was a complete pushover compared to the second, though this was probably because the generics didn't have a dungeon to go through to catch up to MC until just now.
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The Lost and Damned-First GTA4 expansion pack! Honestly not that great. Felt like more of the same. The racing was fun, it was really satisfying to bat someone off the bike and roll into first place. The gang wars thing took way too long to complete and was really repetitive. The new weapons didn't really add a whole lot. The sawed-off sucks and I replaced it ASAP, the grenade launcher is a poor man's rocket launcher, but the Assault Shotgun destroys worlds and completely bent over and raped the last part of the game. There's nothing else really different besides the motorcycle gang aspect, but all that ended up being was a few crappy minigames and being forced to wait on some bad AI units to stop running into things. Story was the usual GTA4 brand of depressing.
The Ballad of Gay Tony-GTA4 Expansion number 2. Much better than Lost and Damned. They actually put some damn effort in it! The story missions are funny, fun to do, and a big step up. The new weapons are all useful and fun to use. Auto-shotgun with explosive shells rocks face. The characters were actually funny and entertaining, and it has Brucie in it! On the down side they basically copy/pasted Gang Wars and they still suck, most side missions are so bad I eventually gave up and just blasted through the story. <3 Golden Helicopter. All in all this one was actually worth paying money for.
Assassin's Creed 2-Assassin's Creed 1 was enjoyable but extremely repetitive and simplistic. They fixed a lot of this in the sequel. No more cookie-cutter investigations before assassinations or obvious game padding. I mean there's still collectathon objects but you don't have to do anything with those. The parkour is still "hold down a couple buttons" but they added a few twists and to be honest any attempt at making it more complicated would probably ruin the sense of zen you get from flawlessly running from rooftop to rooftop. The combat is still heavily based on counter attacking with hidden blades, but I guess there's weapon variety if you're into that???? It's pretty fucking brutal leaping down from a rooftop and spiking two dudes through the neck. Also they added in the headquarters thing from Suikoden for some reason. Something to sperg out about!
Sidequests were actually pretty enjoyable. Beat Up is basically the same thing over and over again but at least it's over with quickly, courier is kinda lame, but the racing owns and the assassination contracts were excellent. There are a ton of them but they never feel repetitive and they keep throwing new things in so it doesn't become routine. My favorite is the "Kill 10 Heavy Weapon Guys in 2 minutes" because when pulled off perfectly it rocks so hard.
Story's utter conspiracy nonsense and I love it. Because you see Thomas Edison set up Nikola Tesla, and then became friends with Henry Ford, and then THEY CAUSED HITLER!!!!! Also they assassinated JFK so they could pull off the moon landing or some shit, I dunno. Aliens or something. Also every single famous leader in history had magical guffins so basically every human achievement in history doesn't count. It's fantastic. Spoilers I guess if you care:
The final boss is a fistfight against The Pope. Seriously. 10/10 goty
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Just finished Fornstrand in the Last Remnant. Back in Athlum; shivered when I saw the duo I hated on the first disc.
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Heavy Rain: Complete. Feel slightly guilty for cheaty "check a FAQ and see if I just screwed up" in a few places but usually it was fairly obvious when "oh crap I didn't want to do that let me hit start real fast before it autosaves the wrong choice." But great game. High production values, does a fine job at giving you more options that matter than most games, and the plot is excellent. Would definitely recommend it.
Minor nitpick (SPOILERS do not read really don't): So where were Ethan's visions coming from, the ones with kids drowning? Coincidence? And I guess it's also just a coincidence that the Killer decided to snatch Shaun just before Ethan had a blackout? Unless the killer was constantly tailing Ethan which doesn't seem to be implied. Not to mention that the letter was already in Ethan's house before the kidnapping occurred... okay, that's explicable, that's the Killer showing off I guess, but ack. The big issue is the origamis he found in his hand... I guess Ethan subconsciously identified himself with the Origami killer months before the game really starts? I can respect red herrings to try and throw off the scent, but all this together seems WAY too convenient, especially when the Killer presumably didn't know about Ethan's problems (just that he tried to save Jason). I assumed that either Ethan's wife or Ethan's psychologist had to be "in on it," or the Origami Killer themself, for a good length of time until I decided that they couldn't possibly be guilty because they never appear in the game after Chapter 7 or so.
Dark Holy Elf: You beat that sentinel in 1-7? Impressive. I don't recall seriously trying but I guess he's not as bad as advertised - I seem to recall testing claimed damage and he seemed to shrug off nearly anything that wasn't Sacrifice, so I never pursued that path. I take it the mission instantly ends when all the enemies are dead even if you don't escape?
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The 99 turns one? Pretty sure it's all about escaping since theoretically you can beat and an enemy and still die in a theoretical roof in.
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That's what I thought, but got the impression from the post that DHE thought all he needed to do was kill everything. Granted, if you kill everything, then a lot fewer turns are being used, thanks to the extremely loopy "all turns are equal" mechanic.
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FF6 Eviltype - Beat! No resets on the final battle, for all that it was terrifying. Main party was Terra/Celes/Relm/Setzer. Terra/Celes had Hero Ring/Ribbon, Relm had Gem Box/Gold Hairpin. Relm had the most key spells somehow (Life 3, Quick). All the girls had Flare and other usual stuff (Life 2, Cure 3, Shell, and Rasp/Osmose are especially notable for this battle, go Phoenix and ZoneSeek!). Setzer was definitely not as well-set for spells but that wasn't why he was around. He had Black Belt/Offering and helped tear through everyone but tier 3. Tier 3... I had a plan to blitz it but then I wussed out. Meteo one-shots people it hits, and even with Life 3 and so on this was mildly scary with Pearl Winds propping it up and Life 2 if I screw up and don't kill them at the same time. So I MP-killed the healer (wrong choice? Yeah, probably, but whatever) and then took out the main boss. It does cast Meteo at low HP, and this is scary (think it's a low-HP counter too) but I was nevertheless able to blast by it, pick up the pieces, and finish off the healer. Yay.
Kefka is Kefka, I hate Revenger with a passion. Life 3/Shell of course is a given. Unfortunately Kefka is a douche and likes to use dispel, especially in phase 2. Phase 2 is hella scary. Goner one-shots everyone in my party though nobody once Shell is up, funny how that worked out. Eventually I figure out that recasting Shell is a hell of a lot more important than recasting Life 3, since the only thing that needs Life 3 if Shell is up is Havoc Wing, and eh. Life 2 is full revival anyway. Still, this phase is threatening as hell and I'm not 100% certain I wouldn't have won it if Setzer hadn't used a desperation attack, charming Kefka. Yeaaaah. I thought this might be an instant win but I wisely still rebuffed myself when it happened, because sure enough, HP loop for phase 3 knocks him out of Charm. Anyway, phase 3, with my superior strategy form the getgo, is definitely scary but less so than previous. Ultima, well. Does about 90% of my party's HP towards the higher end of its variance? Not enough, twinked Cure 3 is totally MT full healing. (To be fair, the party lacked HP boosters, but still.) Anyway, yeah, mostly just a matter of healing immediately and only attacking when Kefka can't counter from here. I think he actually loses some of his threatening skills in this phase (Revenger and Havoc Wing), making it arguably easier than the previous? Although that definitely wasn't my feeling last playthrough. Eh. Depends on the party, I think I had better healing this time, but less skillset awesome otherwise. Anyway, yeah. Was still a very relieving moment when I saw I'd beaten him.
Despite the lack of resets (I played very carefully and, I think, quite skillfully) I still maintain the final battle is the hardest challenge by Eviltype. Actually the only other thing that comes close to me is Goddess, so yeah, still definitely don't think the game drops off late!
I arguably made an error in not bringing one of Strago or Gogo for Big Guard. Crazy to think about. I don't think I've ever considered either "ultimate party" material ever in vanilla. But it's so helpful for any boss who kills repeatedly (which is a lot of lategame bosses) or Kefka due to Revenger. Setzer also feels immensely improved to me despite NO technical improvements because his physical setup which is kinda overkill in vanilla totally isn't here, nobody blitzes single targets half as well as he does.
Quick got shockingly little use overall, though I did use it once or twice as MASSIVE BAILOUT. MP cost is kinda prohibiltive without an Economiser. Congrats Sage, you got me to care about Economisers in FF6. Have a cookie.
I was around Level 35 this time, which is a little low. Not entirely sure why (I skipped Ebot's Rock but that really shouldn't matter much; didn't bring Celes on the FC which is of course a factor but shouldn't be -that- big, I've done it before), just odd luck for a while in there I guess. Anyway, FF6 is such that stuff tends to be quite beatable at lower levels, with only the MT defence-ignoring spells reaaally punishing you for lower levels. And I was above the threshold at which those would pull OHKOs.
So yeah! Not much to say, great hack obviously or I wouldn't have played it twice. I'm still rather impressed with how highly-balanced it feels.
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Snowfire: Yeah, the battle has two victory conditions: routing or escaping. I'd have escaped easily even had that been the only victory condition, mind. The Sentinel is borderline physically immune, but goes down to magic well enough, though hardly quickly due to the HP. What makes him scary (I've fallen for this before) is that if you try to sneak past him, he'll use Heavy Strike and push you into the abyss for an instant game over. As long as you don't try to do this, though, he isn't scary; he won't move since he's trying to lull you into this trap.
Dhyer: I don't think the turns thing being based on individual turns is unreasonable. Labyrinthia even says that the fighting is causing things to collapse; fewer people means less activity and such. (This doesn't justify some later turn maps, but hey, I think it's more mechanically fun this way anyway personally.)
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Idun, you are playing LR 360?
Oh you poor, poor lost soul. Well, have fun with the base battles.
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Alpha Protocol- I like G22, but I'm going to kill everyone else this time. It's... quite enjoyable how soon I got the "execute 4 major characters" perk.
If I end them, they can't pass on information about me.
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Just realised there's a Mystery Gift Jirachi available for Pokémon. Whew, so close to the ending date, too~
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1-7-B (Levin's return) (1 reset)
Levin is forced for this battle, separate from the others. Also forced is Clarissa.
Clarissa: Dandelion Shot; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC
Levin: Elementalist; Martial Mage OC, Martial Mage EQ (coat)
Hey folks, guess what Elfboy's favourite earlygame class is.
I don't make any setup changes on my two attempts, just a matter of minimising the hits enemies get against me as I blast them down from range. Levin has more than enough firepower to take down everyone on his own side, ditto the other two. Everyone has berries to heal and can pull back some if needed (enemies come to you to eat their death, anyway). None of the classes I'm using (hell, none of the non-Halberdier classes available right now) have great durability. In hindsight I think I should have deployed Felius and plugged the gap where a bunch of enemies come from, since he really is that durable at this point, but eh, winning run I didn't feel too threatened anyway, so might as well get the combat bonuses for someone I intend to use more.
Of note, there's a Secutor who starts close to Clarissa who resists all elements. He of course gets Sacrificed.
1-8 (Magnus, he who makes you care about VP) (1 reset)
I buy some nectars.
Clarissa: Dandelion Shot; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Elementalist OC
10 enemies to cut through here, and it's quite a bit of trekking to get through the map. With Object Attack and 3-climb classes this can be shortened, but I don't feel like doing this, especially since, as always, I want to defeat as many enemies as possible.
Several enemies are Sentinels, which ensures Elementalist use for optimum damage. Resources are a little tight for this battle as such, but nothing too bad. I approach enemies carefully so I take very little damage, but still lose most of my VP during the course of the battle. In hindsight I probably should not have equipped defensive gear on Clarissa or Vin (the apron is too good to pass up) since I so rarely took damage, but so it goes.
Magnus is a tricky bastard, because he adds (target VP - target max VP) to his already competent Secutor damage. We can't have that shit going down. Mystic a Nectar. At this point I discover Item Effect Up doesn't affect Nectars. Fortunately I have a second, but... am out of MP to mystic it with, so I just give it to Vin who needs the VP most. Magnus resists all elements, so Sacrifice goes to work, with Clarissa hiding a stage below so Magnus can't reach her. Vin also smacks him around with some Hard Smashes after using Slow Down, and Elayne decelerates him. Vin grabs the Gella Card treasure right before the closing Sacrifice.
Oh, and the reset I had? Came from putting the Nectars ON THE WRONG PC. Yeah, I mistakenly put them on Vin instead of Elayne, forgetting who had Gadgeteer OC. The first attempt also had Elayne as an Elementalist instead of Gadgeteer, hence the mistake. I decided I didn't need the extra firepower/resources to get through the map, and turned out to be right, albeit not with too much space to spare.
Tier 2 classes open up! Not too impressed with this batch, but I imagine Sacred Slayer, at minimum, will see some use, as will Heavy Strike, although the 24 MP cost is a little alarming.
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Sunday 11th July:
- FF6: Oh man I am so far behind schedule it's not even funny. Anyways, blitzed through Owzer's Mansion using Nightshade h4x, saved before Chadarnook. I've realised I've been pretty good at not hoarding items in this playthrough, which is strange for me - I'm usually one of those people who doesn't want to use, like, Elixirs in case I need them on the final boss (and then end with about 20 in my inventory after beating said boss.) AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. Okay. Wow. Chadarnook starts off as the Woman, changes after Gau smacks her once. From here, the demon proceeds to: get Charmed, AuraBolted twice (for about 2k each), Drilled twice (for about 2k each), misses himself three times and... oh yeah. Morphed Terra Fire2s twice for about 9k on each. Total damage taken in this fight: 0. Man, I love the h4x here. Relm get! So, I now have my main 4, but I want a full party of 12. I think I'll skip Shadow and Umaro - I'm getting Gogo for more NightShade spam and Mog for Moogle Charm, so it's two of Shadow/Umaro/Locke, and I think Shadow and Umaro give me the least - at least Locke gets me Phoenix! So, off to the Tower of Fanatics to pick up Strago, then off to get Gogo, since that takes all of 10 minutes. ...Or, y'know, it might've, if not for the FUCKING ANNOYING ENEMIES. Seriously, I remembered the enemies here being harder than most, but.. not quite this much. DERRRP. Forgot to save at the save point. Got crushed by a ceiling. Got killed by TapDancer/Coverts on the next two runs and decided to save this dungeon until AFTER I've got Locke/Mog.
In other recent news, I also hate the Phoenix Cave, having got lost several times and needed to backtrack through half the freaking dungeon. Eventually died thanks to ignorance and being left with NightShade Gau against 4 enemies and chip chip chip chip *Charm* *Charm* *Charm* *Charm*
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1-7-B (Levin's return) (1 reset)
Levin is forced for this battle, separate from the others. Also forced is Clarissa.
Clarissa: Dandelion Shot; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC
Levin: Elementalist; Martial Mage OC, Martial Mage EQ (coat)
Hey folks, guess what Elfboy's favourite earlygame class is.
SECUTOR
Ahem. Man, those XF logs are so much more entertaining to read now that I know what they're about! Speaking of which, need to play moar. I'm only at 4-2!
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Monday 12th July:
- FF6: Phoenix Cave didn't prove to be half as problematic today! Locke get, Phoenix get. From there, went to grab Gogo, and that dungeon seemed relatively simple now too. Hunh. Got Mog as well, finishing up my party (screw you, yeti and ninja!) Just about ready to tackle Kefka's Tower now, but firstly, equipment! Checked through all 12 of my characters, equipped them with the best I could, then went searching around the world for the best equips I could buy. Nikeah proved to be useful, but only stocked swords. What gives? :( Albrook is even more useless.. AHA! Thamasa, maybe? ...Turns out, Thamasa is useless, despite being the obscure place that you leave 'til the end of the WoR. I just need one good katana for Genji Glove/Black Belt Cyan. ;_; After getting some better armour from Kohlingen, I give up on getting a weapon for Cyan and go to the tower. Teams are Locke/Gau/Relm/Setzer, Celes/Gogo/Cyan/Strago and Terra/Edgar/Sabin/Mog, in that order. ...aaand dead before I even need to switch teams. Alright, try again, swapping Terra and Locke, since Terra and the Figaros are all pretty good. Aaaand dead again. God fucking dammit, I hate the damn Outsiders. Forget it, that can wait 'til tomorrow. For the rest of today...
- FFX-2: So, I always start this from scratch - using an NG+ on a challenge just seems like cheating to me - so I'm actually gonna be relying on a lot of Songstress/White Mage abuse early on. Add in the fact that I'm gonna be doing next-to-no sidequests and I'm really gonna struggle on levels at some points. Thankfully, it's also a hilariously easy game to break, and I'll make sure I get Full Throttle early on, at least, so I won't have a problem on it. Blitzed through the opening and Gagazet, stealing a few accessories from the Leblanc Syndicate, and then arrived in Besaid. Got through plot scenes before stopping for tonight.
Anyone able to tell me where I grab the Moogle Charm? I'll probably grab it if (when) I die again, 'cause I freaking hate the Outsider fights still. >.<
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Right behind the spot where you recruit Mog, literally.
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I think its also worth noting that Cyan maybe one of the worst characters to run any sort of Weapon Based set up with unless he's using the Tempest. Weapons are generic and offer no real boosts. Heck, Tempest aside, he's basically worse than Sabin in everyway in this regard, and Sabin's like the perfect example of "NOT A PHYSICAL CHARACTER DESPITE THE ARCHTYPE AND STATS".
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Genji Glove is generally fairly poor in the WoR anyway (no shield leads you to taking double the physical damage you normally would, to say nothing of losses in areas such as elemental defence, MDef, and MBlock), and if I were going to run a Genji Glove/Black Belt setup, I'd choose a character who could use the Drainer to repair the large amounts of damage they'd be taking.
Anyway, XF updates.
1-9-A (detector use)
Before this battle, tier 0 equipment is storebought. Yay. I already have the sword from 1-7, and I also pick up a halberd (just for the next battle), two books, a shield, an apron, and a brooch, all versions that emphasise the obvious offensive stat (ATK/MAG) or EVA.
Not much to say here, I deploy Clarissa and Levin as Excavators and the map pretty much works like normal.
1-9-B (Mathis, the armoured sacred slayer) (1 reset)
Three PCs here anyway, all forced. So this is pretty much a normal playthrough. This battle isn't trivial anyway, so is worth noting.
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Felius: Halberdier
Levin: Elementalist; Martial Mage OC, Martial Mage EQ (coat)
The first three enemies aren't too much trouble, Blast even one-shots two of them. Part of me wonders if dashing past them wouldn't be a better idea, but I kinda doubt it, you don't want them sneaking up behind you as you deal with the boss.
The second group of enemies is three Sacred Slayers, one of whom is Mathis, a deceptively tanky boss. He has the hard attribute, 556 res, and 40% resistance to all elements, so very little works at all effectively on him; you're basically stuck with either using anti-hard weapons (axes, halberds, and hammers at this point) or Sacrifice. Physical OCs don't work here regardless of weapon, which always seemed mean. And of course, assuming you leave him for last, you have to deal with his ridiculous 2x speed boost from all his dead allies, and bust past that healing. In hindsight, I probably should have made Levin a Fantastica for Slow Down, even despite the large hit his damage would take, because his damage would probably still be adequate for everything else and controlling the boss is fairly key.
Regardless, despite one reset in which I failed to keep track of my HP and he doubleturned me for 50 damage each time and killed Levin, he's manageable enough. I lower him to just above half HP and then find a turn where both Clarissa and Felius are both going to go, and they can finish him off. Levin tries to chip in with Cancel Strikes but never actually hits, and Mathis is immune to Rob Turn; still, such tactics are fortunately unnecessary.
Clarissa mostly used Encourage in events leading up to the boss (unless she was called on to heal), making this the first battle I've made notable use of that ability.
1-10 (Rupert on the cliff)
This battle is a complete joke. I'm not even going to bother listing my skillsets beyond the fact that Clarissa spent time in Sacred Slayer, Elayne Gadgeteer, and Vin Secutor, and even that is barely worth noting due to the amazing 4 CSP you get from this battle.
Kasselratt gets two-shotted by Elayne's elementalist spells, and everyone else gets wiped out with similarly little difficulty. There's even a cliff to abuse if it were needed. Not sure what they were thinking with this battle. I don't bother with Rupert although I guess he is worth slightly more Exp! Whatever.
1-11 (puzzlez)
All Felius and Levin, pretty much a normal playthrough here. I have them as Excavators with Halberdier/Martial Mage OC for mobility and ranged attacks for all the puzzle maps, then Felius as Secutor and Levin as Sacred Slayer with Martial Mage OC equipped with a book and coat for the battle at the end. It's not really too challenging, just need to watch HP since one death is game over.
Notably, generics gain exp/CSP from this battle, as they do every battle in the game... definitely a small advantage they have in that every plot PC misses some battle/exp/csp time during 1-9 (Labby), 1-10 (Felius and Levin), and 1-11 (Clarissa and Labby). I make use of this time to give both my generics Geomancer OC.
Not really the most exciting section I'm afraid. Currently I'm focused on planning for 1-14, the one where you defend the town.
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Genji Glove is generally fairly poor in the WoR anyway (no shield leads you to taking double the physical damage you normally would, to say nothing of losses in areas such as elemental defence, MDef, and MBlock), and if I were going to run a Genji Glove/Black Belt setup, I'd choose a character who could use the Drainer to repair the large amounts of damage they'd be taking.
Pretty much agree with this, yeah. Though, last playthrough, I did run Genji Glove Terra throughout most of the WoR, but then Terra feels the loss of Shield less than others due to a variety of reasons; naturally that applies to Celes too, though Celes doesn't get Apocalypse in the aftergame, so when choosing to raise one Physical vs. Magical, if you do that , the whole Apocalypse vs. Save the Queen factor makes it obvious who gets what (though, if you get 2 Illuminas, this entire argument is moot.)
Honestly, Terra, Celes, Edgar and Locke are the only characters I could see using Genji Glove to any real use. All 4 get Drainer and Illumina, as well as Atma Weapon if you really like, and some extra minor stuff like Man Eater, Gradeus and Excalibur (ok, the latter is shit outside of FF6a if only cause its around for all of 5 minutes...well, no, its good if you beat Goddess before Doom I guess?) for weapon swapping purposes; the former 3 also get Ogre Nix and Locke gets Valiant Knife, to further compliment Illumina for raw damage, meaning the whole 2 hits thing may matter more, as "Break 9999 without Charge Times, Gem Box or Offering" is a neat little boon, if not largely relevant.
And of those 4, only Terra and Celes can really make up for the loss of a shield thanks to the Minerva covering the elemental concerns (and adding 10% M. Block as an extra bonus), especially since Edgar should just go Dragoon if he wants a big physical damage set up, and unless you're using Setzer, Locke probably should be that primary candidate for Offering.
Anyone else though, you'd have a hard time convincing me would make any real use of Genji Glove.
...ok, FINE, I'll submit that maybe if you get 2 Dragon CLaws, Sabin attacking an enemy weak to Pearl could be useful...I guess.
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Finally managed to get SRW@ to work, and so have been playing that. Gotten up to Chapter 17 with Kusuha as my main on the Real Robot Route. Kusuha, Kamille, Combattler, and oddly enough, Slaygar in his Core Booster, have been my MVPs so far. Though, Raideen is putting up a fight now that I have him. The Mazinger Z is not only oddly ineffective so far, but is also feeling the Giant Robo muscling in on its turf. Style-wise, it's easy to see how this is a pretty old version of things, I mean, just the difference between the sword attacks, especially Discutter, between @ and @G is huge, but it's still there. If nothing else, they had fun with the attack sequence for Berserk EVA-01.
Anyways, mostly playing this for three things.
1) Want to see the SRX Team in action on the playstation.
2) Evangelion in a SRW. Probably my favourite super robot series, so yeah.
3) The SDF Macross. Dunno why, since I've never seen the original Macross in any of its forms, just Plus. But I do.
Willing to lable this as two .5s at this point as I've played through the first episode of Evangelion, but not actually recruited them, or the SRX team yet. And while I've gotten two SRX levels, not gonna be truly satisfied until lategame where the SRX itself should show up. Though it does amuse me that even the R-Gun's first appearance here blows out the OG1 R-Gun.
Anyways, not likely that I'm going to be improving this checklist anytime soon as I've had my fill of the game for a bit, and will be swapping back to LFT for a bit. Izlude was cocky, and I'm looking forward to getting him and his little Gate too.
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Cataclysm- Redridge is now unbelievably fucking awesome.
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Tuesday 13th July:
- FF6: Okay, completely changed the teams. Teams are now: Terra/Gau/Locke/Cyan, Celes/Gogo/Mog/Setzer, Edgar/Sabin/Relm/Strago. Died on the first fight with Celes team on the first run, which means... well, the team with CYAN is good enough to get through its first section! Hooray! This time, no dancing with Mog locking myself into shitty status that doesn't even work on the Behemoth I'm against. Second run, I run out of MP as I reach the end of Terra team's first section, so go hunting for good Osmose targets. Thankfully, the room I'm in has enemies that do 2000 damage and die or NOTHING AT ALL if they have no MP left. Fun! Also saw a Desperation Attack for the first time in this playthrough here. >.> Yay Riot Blade! Team Celes is somewhat more challenging to use, still, but gets through to Atma on this run, which makes for the first single-part boss I've fought since getting the NightShade Rage. Gogo gets Charm in before Atma gets a turn and the fight turns into "Yay, I can restock my MP with Osmose!" I'm dreading the point where I actually have to FIGHT A BOSS now. (Seriously. NightShade is broken as all fucking hell. This is fun!) Anyways, opened up the path for Team Terra and then moved to the switch by the weights before going to Team Edgar. Fighting enemies is weird now, but Bum Rush and Cure spam takes care of things easily enough. ...Or maybe not! Like I said, fighting bosses was something I was dreading, and Inferno shows why. Took out Strago early, and then Edgar/Relm couldn't keep their health up while trying to bring him back. Sabin eventually got chipped down as well, and I am ;_;. Second time, I keep Strago alive long enough to take out both arms, then realise OH HAI ZONESEEK BOSS IS SPAMMING BOLT GUD IDEER RITE? So yeah, fight became somewhat trivial after that - Relm and Strago spam Cure2, using Osmose when needed, and Edgar/Sabin spam Drill/Bum Rush. Stuff happens, I continue on, reach the other switch by the weights. Aaand switch to Team Terra and.. die?! What the hell? ;_; Okay, try that one again from post-Inferno. Okay, that run was much better. Got to Guardian with Team Celes, Gogo hits Charm on turn one. Seriously, NightShade is freaking broken, and I love it. Save point after Guardian - yay! - and I run off to beat Poltrgeist. I then.. get stuck. For FREAKING AGES. Because I forgot to hit the switch down from where Guardian is. DAMMIT. >.> Moving on from there, I hit Goddess with Charm from Gau and that fight is over in minutes. Now for the non-lame team, Team Edgar, vs. Doom, which is still kinda lame, just in a "Bum Rush and heal" kinda way instead of a "NightShade and sit back" way. Falls pretty easily, and I sort out equipment, Espers and relics for the final fight. Relm has now been replaced by Gogo, because double the NightShade OR Bum Rush hax is fun! So I effectively have the two brothers and two flowers in my team. So. Kefka1 has 3 obvious parts, 2 of which get Charmed within seconds. The other hand isn't doing all too much, and this round's over pretty quickly. The next one has 4 more obscure sections, and I lose track of which one Gau's got Charmed. I lose Sabin and Gau at one point and Edgar has to restore some MP, but I eventually end with one part Charmed while I heal up, and then move on. The next has two sections, and gets in a WhirlWind/Pearl Wind before I can Charm it - Gogo then Charms the female side while Gau/Edgar/Sabin take care of healing. Next thing, the woman uses.. Calmness? And DIES?! uh. kay then. THE FUCK?! ASFADHGFJHGFadsdfhgfj. Okay, so the other half used Calmness after that, did nothing to itself. Then used it on Sabin, killed him, then died. urk. Edgar/Gau/Gogo/Relm for final form. At least this only has one part - first turn, Gogo Charms him. Game, set, match. It's pretty funny seeing Kefka kill himself with Havoc Wing. :) So, that's 1 game down in 2 weeks - I'm seriously behind schedule, but I'm actually making some progress now, at least.
- FFX-2: Gathered the numbers and entered the Besaid cave. Blitzed that place, although nearly died against the boss. Grabbed the sphere, left, etc, etc, this is all hilariously easy. Off to Zanarkand, blitzed through PLOOOOOT and.. actually struggled on the randoms. hrm. Got a Garment Grid from Isaaru and entered the cave and.. wait, there's no save point in this dungeon? Fuck, I didn't save earlier 'cause I thought there was. White Mage Pray spam doesn't work when the boss attacks the White Mage repeatedly, and Paine falls eventually. Game Over, last save was back in Besaid, fuck that, will continue tomorrow.
And as for the Genji Glove use, Cyan had minimal magic and I wasn't gonna spend an age teaching him spells when I didn't need to, so I just gave him the most useful crap I had. It was Genji Glove for extra damage on someone I couldn't give a crap about survival on or STAR PENDANT. (Okay, not quite, but close.)
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1-10 (Rupert on the cliff)
This battle is a complete joke. I'm not even going to bother listing my skillsets beyond the fact that Clarissa spent time in Sacred Slayer, Elayne Gadgeteer, and Vin Secutor, and even that is barely worth noting due to the amazing 4 CSP you get from this battle.
I have to ask, what -is- the winning condition on that fight anyway? I went in, killed a couple losers, my Fantastica got the chest and then Clarissa killed an Excavator guy and lololol fight ovar.
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Defeat four enemies.
Yeaaahhh.
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Breath of Death VII: The Beginning - An RPG that I bought, downloaded, played, and beat (Except the aftergame dungeon) in less than six hours with all my characters at L32. I'm giving serious consideration to putting this in my top ten games of 2010. If you own an X360, you should buy this game. It's 80 points ($1), it's a DQ/EB-style RPG without (much) grinding, it lets you customize your level-up bonuses to a degree, and it has a French Zombie Edge Eblan.
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Defeat four enemies.
Yeaaahhh.
... yeah I don't get it. Man, beating Rupert would be -reasonable enough- even.
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Quick got shockingly little use overall, though I did use it once or twice as MASSIVE BAILOUT. MP cost is kinda prohibiltive without an Economiser. Congrats Sage, you got me to care about Economisers in FF6. Have a cookie.
Cookie~
Yeah, the massive bailout value is why I love that it's still in and that I didn't change it's effect.
It's actually practical...ish...with a Golden Hairpin, I recall trying that at points. Issue is, of course, that you need to somewhat hamstring offensive setups to field a Hairpin.
So yeah! Not much to say, great hack obviously or I wouldn't have played it twice. I'm still rather impressed with how highly-balanced it feels.
The weird thing is when I went back to it recently(I have a 1.1-b1 on my HD that needs to be playtested, that includes all the skillset changes I plan for the final version. I still need to rewrite Sketch...sigh, that'll be interesting, thinking of making it mostly show off enemy weaknesses as a kind of hint system. What the hell, that's almost how it's portrayed plotwise. Also need to tweak a few equips...I didn't even know where a Rising Sun was found, for instance. >_>), I was kinda shocked by how few things felt off.
I thought sure I'd disagree with more of my decisions with a fresh mind going into it, one that barely remembered them, but I don't. I did a lot of Esper spellset changes(Why yes Fenrir 10x teaching Drain IS very me. As is me making two +2 Speed Espers. Namely Raiden and Ragnarok. ahahaha.), but I didn't have that option in FF3USME when I first made it.
Most of the changes are to, of all things, status...and making statuses stand out more individually. Specifically making ID and ID-check things stand out more. I have no idea if some of these tricks are going to work, I'm trying to shove off Gravity and a higher end ID check onto two statuses that I have no idea if I can make them play nice with it. Only thing I plan on ever changing status-wise is making a few more enemies null Muddle. (This is more a commentary on the fact that nearly nothing blocks it.)
The rest is to making Strago a little more versatility oriented and a little less one-note. (You'd be amazed how mediocre L5 Doom *still* is if you make it ignore all immunities. I'm hoping to make Dischord have the same check as gravity attacks, we'll see how that works when I bother playtesting this thing. >_>)
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Resident Evil 4: Got a different copy of the game so I can finally complete the last third...so I did!
Game was fun, and better than I expected. Well, no, let me rephrase it:
I never expected the game to be bad. I always said to myself that it looked like it was good for what it was. However, at the same time, I also said "What it is just isn't for me." I felt like the game had its merits, but it just wouldn't appeal to me, so I kept pushing it away. Ultimately, I decided to crack down and try the game myself cause hey, as someone who likes Capcom games, why not at least try ONE game in the series, and probably play the game that was apparently geared more towards general audience rather than the hardcore series fans, let alone regarded as the best in the series, right?
(I can already tell you that I would not like RE0-3; I played some of RE2, and found it atrocious and kept asking "WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS GAME!?" RE4 I played the demo of a bit, and went "Well, at least it feels playable" but was overall not impressed, but hey, improvement!)
I ended up having more fun than I expected, in the end. Game manages to just to do well as a "Kill Things with Guns" game while not being a generic shooter at the same time. Its fun shooting a guy in the head, running over, kicking them in the face, knifing them while they're down! Ammo felt limited, but not scarce at the same time. Felt like you had actual control over Ammo, which from what I remember of RE2, is different than those games cause they were like "If you don't headshot, YOU MAY BE IN TROUBLE LATER!" Here it was more "Try to be conservative; your resources are limited." Game gave you plenty of tools to help you conserve ammo too. The Roundhouse Kick, barrels to explode, random little booby traps like shoving ladders on enemies...yeah, fun little things!
One thing the game didn't do well was boss fights though. Well, the last few were fine ("It", Krauser and Saddler) but most of the others were boring. Salazar especially was annoying, and if I ever replay this game, he's getting a Rocket Launcher TO THE FACE. Mostly cause bosses lack health gauges (partially cause some are gimmicky), too many QTE related dodges that come out of nowhere, and they were slow paced. The game just isn't well suited for long drawn out fights.
"It" worked cause it was more a "Stay alive" first half followed by a quick straight up combat 2nd half that didn't last too long. Krauser was mostly survival until the end, and just getting around with a looming threat. Saddler was pretty straight forward "Shoot the weak points til you get the Auto Win Button!" complete with terrain hazard fun happy times! (Nothing like slamming a large "I RAPE YOU" Spider with a bunch of STEEL BEAMS out of nowhere)
Inventory...well, I'm not a major fan of limited inventories, but RE4 handled it eloquently. You had enough room to hold things, it encouraged using items instead of hording them, and you could manipulate your items to have more room. Making it "realistic" for once actually helped out, instead of felt like being a limiting factor.
I do wish this game had a Mini-map in the corner though; just been a nice convenience instead of having to repeatedly cross reference the map. This is a general complaint about games that lack this though. I remember having the same thoughts about Crisis Core for example, asking myself "Why isn't there a minimap?"
And of course, the writing. Capcom clearly was satirizing the Resident Evil games with this one, and recognizing "Hey, we do good when we're not being serious, so lets apply it there!" and well, it worked. Albeit, RE4 was more subtle about its humor and silliness, so the game sort of PRETENDS its not being silly, but honestly, I look at the game and go "there's no way the writers weren't chuckling as they wrote this." If nothing else, Salazar pretty much proves that. Capcom knows they do silliness good, so why not exploit it!? Nice to see they can pull it off while being subtle too, contrast to, say, God Hand or Devil May Cry 3, games where "Subtle" does not apply...at all.
So yeah, 8/10 game or something. I have to admit, it was more fun than I expected, and generally a well done game, one I can understand where the hype comes from. I'm actually kind of interested in RE5 now, though, it sounds like they only put half of what made RE4 good in the game, shoving the other half of the series stuff back in, which sounds like a bad thing, so I dunno. Maybe when the price goes down or something.
I'll get to Ada mode soon or something though!
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Xenogears: Pseudo-Speedrun. That is to say, I am not optimizing my times, nor am I, say, running from every battle until I calculate I need the money or anything like that. I'm just blowing the game apart while skipping anything that I think would cost more than a few seconds. Some notes on various things.
Pregame plan- I decide I want to nab one Ether Doubler ASAP. This involves having the 38,000 G to spend on the thing when you first visit Nisan after rescuing Margie. The moment you leave Nisan to advance the plot, you can't access this shop again until you get the second Yggdrasil. I figure going in that, as long as I conserve money and buy only essential gear/upgrades, I can pick one up here and save myself sailing halfway across the world later.
Lahan- I immedately manage to fuck something up, and go up to Citan's house before triggering the plot to advance (I talk to Dan but forget to talk to Alice). Otherwise, not much to say. Checking Fei's bed nabs you 200 G, and the last tree on the mountain path, if you jump into it a few times, nabs you a spider. The spider you give to Chu-Chu during her introduction scene for an Ether Veil, a fairly useless accessory that sells for 5000G. So yeah, this is by a wide margin the biggest payout you get in the entire first arc of the game and is a must have. Otherwise little to say, battle here last seconds and are utterly non-threatening.
Blackmoon- I always remember this as a very long dungeon. Instead it takes about 15 minutes, just running straight through and ignoring the treasures.
Dazil/Desert/Aveh Transport- Nothing to report.
Stalagmite Cave- I pick up the Iron GWhip because it's about a 5 second detour, but sell it. YOu do, however, have to spring for Balthazar's engine upgrades; you fail to break Calamity's defense without them, and grinding up to sufficiently damaging deathblows is obviously out. It costs 2800 to get both Weltall and Brigandier new engines. New frames and armor are a waste, thanks to Wild Smile, however.
Bart's Base- Biggest note here is not to upgrade any gears. Straightforward fights otherwise, Heimdall is never more useful~
Bledevik- I lose some time here trying to remember the correct order to talk to the people by the water grate, the hide and seek kid, the nun, and signing up for the tournament. I also opt to win the tournament (you can lose safely, and the first opponent is pretty capable of killing you if you don't pick up on his counter gimmick), thinking that the wedding dress would boost my funds... turns out it's only worth 1000 G and is a waste. Ah well. at this point, when you go back to the yggdrasil, you can cash in your spider for the Ether Veil, making it a good time to hit the shops and sell off stuff in general.
Nisan- Except, of course, even after that I end up with just under 30,000 G. Shit. I opt to say fuck it and grind. This ends up taking over 45 minutes, more time than sailing to Nisan from Aquvy would have taken assuming a little luck on randoms and a lot of running. Even allowing that I sped up a few battles with it, it's not a big gain because Fei just doesn't have the Ether stat to get Guided Shot out damaging his physicals assuming upgrades. It probably helped the most on...
Desert Despair- Dora's head cover makes it a prime target for Guided Shot since I did get the Ether Doubler. It's got better than average Mdef, but I'm still breaking it better than I would the defense. Rewinding a bit, I opt to fully upgrade Weltall at the random gear shop here, before the Elly's squad series. This is probably wise, since I don't have teh Rosesols to spam Guided Shot and Sword/Claw Knight can add up offense very, very fast. I also nab the Magnetic Coat on the way up. In general twinking for Response is a money saver, because Response is added to HIt, and Response/2 is added to Evade. 3x Magnetic Coat is a great defensive setup we'll see at least once more here.
D-Block- No point to winning these fights, so don't. After that, the game decides to mimic spending days in prison by not telling you what to do. So; talk to hammer at the bar, try to leave town, return to the bar, go back to the dorm. At that point, you hook back up with Citan and things get linear again. First time in the game you should really upgrade character equips, be sure to pick up 3x metal jacket and metal helm. Anyway, the battling tournament is pretty easy. Once Rico shows up for the sewers, you'll want a map (GFAQs has one with all the murder sites marked.) I save some time not examining a murder site, then promptly lose it because I missed the keys and had to backtrack for them. Dungeon goes pretty quick, but Redrum is a longer fight than I remember (it is, however, very controllable, so low risk of loss as long as you have 2 zetasols for revival purposes.)
Kislev- first stop is the central government district. Before heading up to see the Kaiser, I detour to pick up the Power Magic in the basement. I manage to fuck up the crane about 10 times before getting it right, but supposing you were optimizing the time doing it once should be worth it; even sans Ether Doubler, this thing lets Vierge put out around 1000 damage a turn, letting Elly match L1 deathblows every turn. In other words, it'll kill enemies in one hit and speeds up FIS-6 by a good two turns. Anyway, I nab the Memento Chain because hey why not. Once Rico's capture, head to the residential district to meet up with hammer, then back to D-block. I break out a guide book for directions through the air vents.
Once you get Weltall back, you can access a gear shop before starting the next boss series. I ended up upgrading Weltall's frame and engine, while leaving it with an Ether setup. This turned out to be stupid; Guided Shot does about the same damage as an X attack to Elly's crew here, and without multiple Magnetic Coats I don't dodge them enough to say so. I also rather dumbly don't refuel Weltall after the upgrades, and end up beating Claw Knight with about 150 HP. After this it's trivial; rico could solo the remaining stuff, and tossing the beam coat on Stier means that he doesn't even take damage against Domina.
Goliath- I upgrade Viege's frame, which I proooobably didn't need but I also didn't have to upgrade it in the next arc, so either way. As mentioned previously, just the Power Magic sends Elly's basic spells into the 1000 damage range, which is more than anything here can withstand.
Thames- When controlling Bart on the yggdrasil, Citan is in the Gear shop and Rico examining Steir. Since you're right here, this is a good time to buy some needed accessories; 5 E Circuits. We'll be putting three of these on Vierge, while taking the Power Magic she had and the remaining two for Renmazuo. Otherwise we don't need to do any shopping here; Vierge blows the fuck out of both Haishao fights. I could be wrong though; sans Ether Doubler, you might need some extra defense on Weltall and Vierge to get through the fight. In general, now that it's available, always buy the armor that boosts both defensive stats. ALmost every enemy has SOME ether attack to drop on you, and you can't dodge those. Anyway, I also nab the Lunar Rod on a whim, and I think it paid off overall.
Wels Ship/Ethos HQ- Hurray, party choices matter! I decide to go with Citan/Billy/Elly for the entire time Fei's gone. This is also when you should go back to Nisan and get the Ether Doubler (and, in fact, could probably afford two. If so, do it, both Elly and Billy benefit greatly.) Anyway, both these dungeons are short and straightforward. You'll need to buy some new armor, and should pick up the Silver Beret (between it and the Dervish Dress, Elly has the highest defense in this arc. Seriously.) Anyway, Citan's empty equip slot should probably get a Speed Ring. It turns out that once you break 13 speed, the system goes a little crazy and spawns infinite turns~
Zeboim Ruins- You'll want a guide for this thing. Anyway, nothing of note except, of course, the bosses. Keeping Elly's Lunar Rod ends up trivializing the Elements fight because Seraphita? Not immune to sleep. As long as you survive turn 1 and get Elly a turn, you've won. Id meanwhile was a long slog involving a great deal of Zetasol use. I'm not sure if there's a surefire way to speed this fight up because ultimately what's slowing it down is Id's ability to kill people whenever he wants. I suspect room for improvement at any rate.
Babel- Okay, so, in preparation for this, you'll want to upgrade everyone's armor (I mean, everyone you use). I badly want to bring Citan to use in the upcoming Shevat tunnels (in turn because I want to beef up his deathblows for Solaris), but ultimately opt for the optimal team of Fei/Billy/Elly. Billy and Elly OHKO every enemy in this section with Ether Gun/Spells respectively, and the bosses are one and two hit KOed by Aerods. None of the treasure here is vital, so it's just matter of the jumps which.. well, honestly it's hard to describe the right way to do them in words. Makes me which I could upload video of me doing it.
Shevat- and we're caught up. I've bought a full upgrade set for Steir, and three power magics for Seibzehn (to experiment with Controls twinking more than anything). My plan for the generators is Elly vs 1, Fei vs 2, Billy vs 3 and Rico vs 4, leaning on Magnetic Coats to provide Fei's defense, OHKOing with Jessie Cannon, and just using my standard game tactics for the other two. We'll see.
I'm currently hovering just over 16 hours. I figure I can probably squeak in under 21 for disc 1. After that I'm less sure; I've heard times like 5 hours for the meat of Disc 2, then another hour for the final dungeon and 45 minutes for the ending, so I'm looking at between 27 and 28 hours at the current rate. We'll see I guess.
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I already said this in chat, but I wholeheartedly support almost any speedrunning endeavor. Props to you, CK. Also, I hope you don't mind, but I saved the little chat we had regarding E.Doublers and DBs on the DL wiki. In other news, I also got my tuner seemingly to work after the reformatting. We shall see what happens. The sound is kinda low, but still existent, thankfully.
Also also other news: I got up to the last chapter in FF13. Hurray. Currently building some Tier 2 weapons that don't suck because my weapons have severely horrible boosts. Arth's guide on GFAQs is pretty much the only resource you ever need.
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Congratulations Yoshi :)
Also yaay speedruns - I'd comment more but I haven't played Xenogears!
FFIII- Final dungeonz. So far lost once to hey look where does this warp pad in the middle go to, three times to Cereberus, twice to a Green Dragon and once to Cloud of Darkness proper. Also had to reset once due to my DS crashing. That makes what nine runs through the tower including the one where I eventually decided that I might as well exit and save all the treasure that I had to recollect every time :P During my last attempt where I got all the way to 'weakened' Cloud of Darkness I spent a while on the world map before hand to raise my Thief's JL so I could steal Protect Rings from King Behemoths but I got bored and left it. They might have helped I dunno.
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Wait,you lost to Green Dragons *TWICE*? Ouch, talk about shit luck, the 3 Dragons in Syrcus are pretty rare encounters and running into them once and dying is bad enough; having it happen twice is fate playing games with you!
The 3 Dragons (Red, Green and Yellow) are all exceptionally hard by random encounter standards and beating them is far from trivial; they do have a low chance of dropping Onion Gear though! Either way, dying to them is nothing to be ashamed of, I'm more just shocked you ran into one twice without looking for it!
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Got Breath of Death at Doma's suggestion. Not regretting it at all. The little game is quite enjoyable.
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Devil May Cry 3 - Beat this. CHESS BATTLE is epic, also pretty tough! Better than most bosses even, I loved all the gimmicks even if they were mostly ones I'd seen before... lots of stuff to keep track of. I had a decent amount of difficulty with Arkham too mostly because I'm reliant on Trickster and the game took it away from me for the second form. Found the blood missiles pretty challenging/unintuitive to dodge too but mostly had the hang of that by the end. Mostly. Vergil I got soundly raped by but then found him quite easy as soon as I realised that his purple orb attack leaves him horribly open so I could hit his horrible melee defence. Regen gave that battle an interesting spice, at least.
Game got less stylish towards the end mostly because Vergil is a terrible wanker. Arkham is too, really, but at least the game has the courtesy to realise this. DMC3 without style = :(
I think the only boss I had more than three resets on was Nevan. Game had a few other kinda competent bosses like Agni/Rudra, Leviathan, Vergil 2, Quicksilver, and Arkham, but nothing even remotely approached the crafty challenge I was hoping to see. Oh yeah, I enjoyed that shadow Dante as a boss fight, but it was sadly a joke once I figured out what to do.
Overall pretty fun, but it's no DMC1. It's easier, didn't really get me to use different weapons in the same way, and most of the bosses felt much less well-designed to the point where it was mostly finding one gimmicky weakness to beat them with. Also never really found myself enjoying mooks (Mission 19 and its MORE DURABLE SINS kinda drove the point home; no that's not what they needed, game), and the start of the game is annoyingly slow (all the pre-DT bosses except Agni and Rudra are especially dull). I've been told it's much better on harder difficulties, but eh, not going to find out any time soon.
And when I do pick the game up again, no, I won't be playing Vergil mode, because, as I said, Vergil is a wanker. Dante for life, yo.
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Got Breath of Death at Doma's suggestion. Not regretting it at all. The little game is quite enjoyable.
Saw the trailer on youtube. Looks really fun, but damn they need an artist who can draw at least Toriyama-level.
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And when I do pick the game up again, no, I won't be playing Vergil mode, because, as I said, Vergil is a wanker. Dante for life, yo.
Vergil mode has exactly one cutscene and he doesn't talk during it. There is no wankery, only gameplay (pretty darn good gameplay, too - although some of the jumping segments are a total pain in the ass).
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BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
Rounding out unlocks and story mode before Continuum Shift releases, because BlazBlue plot is seriousness business. 100% completion on everyone but Noel, Jin and Ragna at this point. Because I like to do plot relevant PCs last, apparently. Not actually taking too much time to practice or get the mechanics back down, since CS is changing a fair amount. Anyhow...
Honestly, aside from being utterly batshit, BB plot is actually pretty fun, as long as you have a high tolerance for random quantum physics butchering and HOLY SHIT TIME LOOPS. The characters are well defined, the story modes know to mince serious with humor and the characters are all played to their individual stereotypes. The game DOES revel in each character's general stereotype (seriously, every single BB character is pretty much an anime archetype directly) but they're well written and, at least on the English side, wonderfully voiced. The game definitely could have done a little better at making certain facts a little more clear, but overall, just playing through the story modes and getting full completion will spell out most important factors.
World of Warcraft
Paladin is up to 50-something. AoE levelling is fun.
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I've been told it's much better on harder difficulties, but eh, not going to find out any time soon.
Just remember, it's not much better on DMD.
DMD is more fun for bosses, but mooks go from "Hey these guys are great fun." on Very Hard to "FUCKING DIE ALREADY". If you're having annoyance at enemy durability on Normal, at any point, ever, never play DMD ever.
*Hypes Very Hard some more.*
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From what I've seen and heard of regarding DMD, it sounds like "Never play DMD ever!" is generally a good idea regardless what game you're playing, unless you really hate yourself.
Makes me wonder why they even invented Hell and Hell mode in DMC4...well, I guess its cause DMD wasn't HARDCORE!!! enough for some people, they decided to make a mode that's as bullshit as humanly possible, just to show the usual "Be careful what you wish for!" thing.
More games need a Very Hard mode though; having something between DMD and Hard is cool stuff, and I need to get to trying that. Or heck, even if they just made Very Hard basically "Dante Must Die without enemies Devil Triggering", that'd be enough for me (the increased damage, AI, etc. would be enough for interest; basically, its Dante Must Die mode without the "Enemies can randomly go into Fuck You mode")
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The main draw of higher difficulties for me isn't that they're harder so much as that you get all your tricks from the start of the game, against enemies scaled up enough that you need those tricks. It's the only way to play the entire game with a complete set of options, and I can't think of a game in the genre that doesn't benefit from that.
Ninja Gaiden: Up to the last three bosses. To reiterate what I said in chat yesterday, this game is awesome at mook combat but completely drops the ball on bosses. Where the stages are about fast, reflex-intensive action and are really well-designed, bosses are about standing in one place and dodging every so often while waiting for an arbitrarily chosen move to make the boss drop its guard. Attacking without waiting for that move, no matter how wide-open the boss seems to be, just buys you an automatic dodge. Alternately boring and frustrating, which is not a fun combination. Sadly, all I have left at this point is bosses.
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FE3DS - Started this, got up to C5. So far, so acceptable. Biggest change so far is probably the arena, which is now a fairly cheap (120-130g right now, cost probably goes up with level) means of training accessable from the battle prep menu starting on C5. There's no money in it and it wears down weapons, but it strikes me as an overall improvement, seeing as how you can see the stats of the guy you're fighting against before you fight and the fact that the standard FE arena would probably be abuseable as fuck with the existance of Casual mode. The other changes I've noticed seem relatively minor, all things considered.
DQ9 - Got up to Alltrades Abbey. Class changing should follow soon~
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ToI - More fun with mining! Been grinding quests for Grade. Not even sure why!
DQ9 - Distracted me from ToI. Up to Dour Bridge. Current team:
Yuusha - Level 15 Gladiator. Went to level 17 as Minstrel. Currently trained in Swords to level 2 skills (Dragon Slash, Atk+10 with Swords), Warrior lvl 2 skills (Whistle Boy, some other forgettable skill) and Gladiator to 3. Can't wait until Paladin. After all I am on a righteous crusade to eradicate all evil. Or something. Plan to grab some speed perks from Ranger and Thief classes when I can.
Pino - Level 8 Ranger. Terrible class. Boomerang does crap damage and it's the best weapon I can get for it. Skills are also unimpressive. So far he's trained in Monk skills and Thief agility for first-turn War Crying. Was my best damage-dealer for a while until Yuusha caught up - Venom Knife is ridiculously good until he swapped to Monk. Gonna change him back to Thief at level 11 Ranger, then stay in it until I've enough agility to make him a Warrior.
Simba - Level 18 Priest. Pretty much the mainstay of the group right now. Does solid damage due to spear training, has the Str to make it matter, and enough resilience and MP to carry me through dungeons. Lacks good damage options beside stabbing, but he's usually casting Buff, Heal, or using his Coup de Grace, probably the best in the game: Multiheal + Status Curing. Not sure if healing is full, so far it's been!
Niode - Level 19 Mage. Debuffer. Sap still works wonders on bosses. Crackle's good damage (on par with the Gladiator, and it's Group), Bang is handy in a bind and Acceleratle is never a bad thing to have against speedy bosses. Doesn't run out of MP, thanks to Staff of sentencing having innate Woosh. Only trained in Wand and Spellcraft. Considered unlocking Mage Knight and having a gander at it, but seems to be Final Fantasy Mage Knight who infuses weapons with elements, and I'm not really signed up for that. Definitely will go Sage later.
Sooo fun little game so far, curious if it'll hold my interest until I finish it.
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BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger
Rounding out unlocks and story mode before Continuum Shift releases, because BlazBlue plot is seriousness business. 100% completion on everyone but Noel, Jin and Ragna at this point. Because I like to do plot relevant PCs last, apparently. Not actually taking too much time to practice or get the mechanics back down, since CS is changing a fair amount. Anyhow....
They seriously needs to make that Taokaka movie, I most certainly is going to prep order one if it ever come true.
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RICHARD and I managed to set up FBA with Street Fighter 2 - KOHRYU edition. It was the best thing ever. Final score? I think I won around 20-25 matches, the great vice president won the rest (I think we had 36 matches in total). The part about this game is counterpicking mid battle. Although you can only do in neutral stance! Tentative character thoughts:
Ryu: Has the dreaded KOHRYUKEN. What is it? It's basically a Shoryuken, but it also shoots a Hadouken at the same time. This move is so broken (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeI3_W603l4). But only the LP version. He also has air Hadoukens, anti-air hadoukens and homing hadoukens. Has the better tatsu, but worse KOHRYUKEN. But a KOHRYUKEN is a KOHRYUKEN. Which is to say it is broken.
E.Honda: No recovery time means you can actually stun lock people with the headbutt. Has a blind spot inside his 100 hand slap that is somehow in front of him. Oh it somehow manages to hit from behind *psyduck*
Blanka: Electricity seems to suck people in. Meaning once you knock down, you can keep doing it for infinite damage?
Guile: HAS AN ANTI GROUND SONIC BOOM. Also has pringle booms.
Ken: The best KOHRYUKEN. Probably the best character in the game because of it
Chun Li: Has INVISIBLE AIR THROWS where her hit box doesn't have to touch yours.
Dhalsim: INVISIBLE YOGA FIRE? Dunno :(
Zangief: I couldn't do anything with him :( Damn 360 motions.
Balrog: Kills people up close if they do not have a close range melee special move. This is surprisingly few. Also, doesn't seem to have his trip or the headbutt
Vega: Can climb off screen! and...uh...comedy option?
Sagat: Pringle Tigers as well as TIGER FLAME OHKO but requires extreme close range. Also raped by KOHRYUKENs due to his size.
Bison: DIVING BISON into DANCING BISON. Pretty much the only thing you need to know. His kneestomp seems like its useless :(
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Saw the trailer on youtube. Looks really fun, but damn they need an artist who can draw at least Toriyama-level.
Setting your sights a little low there, huh Djinn?
Don't worry, though: the next game (http://zeboyd.com/2010/06/11/cthulhu-saves-the-world-press-release/) will have better graphics. And Cthulu as the main character. Supposed to come out in August.
Now, speaking of games that are actually out now, DeathSpank! Played through and completed it earlier today. Can be summed up as a semi-funny short Diablo clone with very limited equipment, but full of charm. The combat is good, though I was entirely melee only until I got the final bow, at which point I became ranged only. I like the food items being a gradual healing - it forces you out of battle in order to restore your life or relying on potions. Money is next to useless (so, like Diablo), the sidequests are simple but rewarding (so, like Diablo), and there are Sabertooth Donkeys (so, like... wait, what?). It's decent, but nothing mindblowing.
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I played the trial game, the writing was entertaining enough. That's pretty damn short for a $15 XBLA game, though.
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At the request of Richard, I shall get Rush a better sword. And I shall cheat.
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Pokemon Heart Gold - Y'know, during my vacation, I'd thought I'd get to play more and build up my team some. Not so. Nephew managed to forget his DS, bogarted mine, and whined and complained an unbearable amount whenever he didn't get it to the point where my sister would yell at me about not letting him have his way. Well, whatever.
Got all the way to the point just after Bugsy to defeating Whitney. Kangaskhan with a Shell Bell and Alakazam with Choice Specs destroy worlds.
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Saw the trailer on youtube. Looks really fun, but damn they need an artist who can draw at least Toriyama-level.
Setting your sights a little low there, huh Djinn?
Don't worry, though: the next game (http://zeboyd.com/2010/06/11/cthulhu-saves-the-world-press-release/) will have better graphics.
I'm 100% fine with 8-bit retro graphics.
My point was that whoever these guys got to draw their promotional art is sub-Toriyama-level.
It's not even so-badly-drawn-it's-cute-like-a-little-kid's, it's just badly badly drawn.
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Trinity Universe - Chapter 12, Kanata story. Almost at the end, I think.
Game's amusing, and somewhat fun, but is hurt more by lack of polish than any IF game I've played so far, which says something.
Battle gameplay goes like this. It's similar to the Legaia series where you input a series of buttons to execute skill which you can chain together. There are some differences though.
1) AP storing (up to 3x base) is actually a lot more useful.
2) Characters only get up to three unique button sequences. All of the others are universal. However, the actual skills executed by the universal ones differ.
3) Each skill can only be used once per turn. There's a good reason for this: there are skills that are as simple as XXXXX. If a skill could be used multiple times in a turn, then XXXXXX would execute that skill twice (on the last two X presses). That would be stupid.
4) Buttons are input in real-time rather than on a menu. After the first button is pressed, AP starts dropping so you need to be quick on doing the next one. Unfortunately this leads to mashing buttons to minimize AP loss which leads to accidentally inputting buttons more than wanted which leads to death.
5) Hit count increases damage as well as the IM gauge (used for EX attacks). This is why (1) is true.
6) EX attacks (supers) take no AP. At all. They just take up 2 gems on the IM gauge. They don't do all that much damage on base but they rack up a lot of hits, which increases the damage of everything else after it.
7) Characters can chain their turns together. This keeps the hit count which leads to higher damage for the later characters. In addition, each time you chain, the party gets some bonuses as well as the character you chain to. The party bonuses are usually stuff like increasing EXP, money, and drop rate, but sometimes you get boost to the IM gauge which helps a lot. Characters generally just get a stat boost and it's not even that useful half the time (woo more evade oh wait I killed everything). You can even chain "wait" together on turns to store up AP and get those bonuses, which helps quite a bit.
It's a pretty neat system in theory but in practice it doesn't work so well (mostly because of (4)). The game also doesn't let you view what the button sequences for your skills are once you start a person's turn (you can see them BEFORE that, at least). So either you need to check everything before and memorize your chain (...for all four characters...) or use a text document. Hint: Use the latter. It's not easy to memorize the sequences since different weapons have different universal skills on them (e.g. one weapon might let you use XXXXX but another one may not). Fortunately all of the universal skills are really easy to remember.
There's some cool customization things you can do though. Characters can equip up to four abilities, which are all universal. They come in tiers, and characters can only equip skills in a slot greater than or equal to the skill's tier (so a tier 3 skill can be equipped in slots 3 and 4, but not 1 and 2). This is actually the only way to heal, but healing and Mana Release are about the only things it's good for.
Mana Release is an ability that requires special mention. Each character can equip a managraphic to their weapon. Managraphics are designs on the weapon, but they actually do matter outside of aesthetics. When attacking with a managraphic, you'll get mana of that type after battle, which is then used for synthesizing other managraphics or meteorites. When using Mana Release with a managraphic, it will release the field effect attached to it. For example, the one I've been using most of the game is the Love managraphic, which regenerates 500 HP to everyone (ally and enemy) per turn. A lot of them do elemental damage, though there's some more interesting ones like making all magical attacks miss.
I just unlocked meteorites, so I haven't been able to do much with them, but they seem pretty neat once you get more. Each character has up to three rings that can hold a bunch of meteorites (3 for the first, 5 for the second, 7 for the third, and a core, I think?). Meteorites have special boosts (such as stat boosts or even stuff like adding status to attacks) that depend on how close to the center they are. Equipping a meteorite on the core slot gives a much larger boost than equipping it on ring three. What's really cool is that certain combinations of types of meteorites can grant extra bonuses. For example, equipping a blue (defense) to core and then two more blues to a ring reduces all damage taken by an extra amount. The core is considered to be on ALL rings, and all of the combos depend on the core, so what you put on the core is very important. Fortunately all of these combos are documented in-game, though you have to buy certain items to unlock them (not like that's hard).
For game flow, it's a straight up dungeon crawler. You go see some events in town, then you go into a dungeon, then you repeat. The main goal for (most) dungeons is to get to the gravity core, destroy it, and then get out within the time limit, or you drift. After destroying the gravity core (or sometimes if you wait too long the dungeon will drift anyway), rare items randomly show up in the dungeon, so it's actually worthwhile to go look around for a bit afterwards, just as long as you make it out in time. If you drift, you have to wait for a UFO or something to come by to rescue you. I've only done that once just to see what happens. I think you lose a bunch of money for that too.
There's also another "time limit" for dungeons: lurkers. If you spend too much time in a dungeon, this black aura thing will spawn in a random spot and chase you. If it catches you, you fight a lurker. And probably get your ass kicked, because that's how lurkers roll. Usually the best way to deal with lurkers is to run the fuck away, whether outside of battle or inside battle. If you run away long enough outside of battle, the lurker will just vanish, but it'll come back later. I once had a lurker vanish like that and then spawn right next to me immediately after. So not as planned. If you run away in battle it'll also vanish, but you risk wiping that way.
Difficulty's pretty solid. Kind of easy at first, but after a few chapters it takes off the gloves. Once you get used to the system more, it starts becoming a bit easier but enemies can still wipe you out if you don't take them seriously. Especially bosses. Healing is kind of hard to come by early on, and even later when you have more healing, you'll do much less damage on turns you need to heal due to the hits system.
Plot's kind of whatever. Who cares. Crossover game plot. The dialogue can be pretty amusing though, since the game doesn't take itself seriously at all. I mean, I already saw a Phoenix Wright reference, a few Disgaea references, a Yu-Gi-Oh reference, a few memes, and Final Fantasy 4 plot mocking. SRS FKN BSNS this game is not.
Music's decent. The vocal's played on the world universe map, so it's heard a LOT, but it's so happy and catchy I don't care. Dungeon themes range from meh to somewhat good. Battle themes are generally solid but totally owned by Grand Design from Cross Edge. But then again so is like everything ever.
So yeah, despite its flaws, I'm somewhat enjoying the game. It's not really something I recommend unless you actually have tolerance for this kind of stuff, though.
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The system sounds so cool in theory, but I've already been burned by IF fail with GoC... and you say this is -worse- when it comes to buggy programming?
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Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn:
Completed. Final time, around 70 hours(I left the game on too much. And take way the fuck too much time at intermissions.).
General thoughts;
The only real bad point on FE9 is the one I commented on before; There are a few really irritating, very hard stages. However, they are entirely frontended, leading to hard but much more controllable and fun maps. 2-F is really awesome, despite being very hard.
Sadly, I couldn't keep my resolve not to save abuse much. Oh well, save abusing in this case tended to be saving every couple of turns in case I made a really stupid, really obvious mistake, which I constantly made. I don't do checking enemies well. sigh.
The good points are all still across the board good. It's a prettier game, it's a better game, the balance of characters is generally great, the scenario system encourages using the entire cast(In an FE game! With a few exceptions.). So many good ideas. It's not perfect, but it's great, high 8/10 game probably to FE9's 7/10. Which in turn both rank higher than any other FE for me. Good stuff.
Plotwise the game is better than any other FE I've played, but this says rather little. I'd have appreciated 3-F more if it wasn't a ripoff of a SRW@3 stage(No, really. Ideon bad ending does very close to the same kind of foreshadowing, in a very similar way, for very similar reasons. It is just as creepy/awesome there too.), but it's still stylish as hell. Some of the plot points are decent enough twists so that I actually care instead of snoring through the plot. It's too bad that some of the more interesting plot points are marred and the game goes "lol play it again". No screw you I'll just find spoilers thanks(Actually to be honest, for all BoF5's flaws, it did not have a horrible idea no-win choice that could be avoided on NG+. You guys screwed it up worse than BoF5. Have a cookie.). But otherwise, relatively good stuff, humorous at points, decently stylish at points, tried at least, in other words.
Incidentally I started writing this part(that is, the non-character stuff) during the ending's character info roll, glancing back occasionally to see people's text boxes, and *finished the whole thing*. And the credits are still rolling now. The ENDING DOES NOT SAY ANYTHING SPECIAL. IT IS JUST EVERYONE LIVES HAPPILY EVER AFTER FLUFF. This is the most unecessarily slow ending ever created. What the hell?
CHARACTER ROLL:
All stats are taken as of either Final-5 before dealing the final hit or from the pre-F-1 save depending on if they were final team or not. Skill sets aren't going to be available for anyone but the final team since I stole every single skill off everyone else(of course).
Final team stats, in order of the character's appearances:
Micaiah: L20/20/18. 50(Cap)/19/40(cap)/30/31/40(cap)/21/40(cap). I don't think she actually got any stat boosters, oddly, BEXP just shored up her bad stats very, very well. Shade/Paragon for added skills. Physic and Fortify Rexaura for final weapon(dur). SS on both weapons, used Arms Scrolls to boost Light to SS because I had five from the 4 stages. (Every 4 stage but 4-5 and the 4-Fs has an Arms Scroll hidden on it. Go figure.)
MAGE LOOOOOOOOORD okay more of a priest in the end. Micaiah's kinda awesome and kinda disappointing at the same time. There's no point in the game where she's not at least somewhat useful, and depending on her unstable speed growth(as you can see I got that working pretty well) is iffy but if you get good speed you are in business for her early game damage, as she cracks people like eggs when she doubles. After Part 1, she...no longer is impressive on damage but has staves. And for Part 4 she has staves harder! Because you see Physic storeboughts for 4-F. Yaaaay.
Downside is that she really is not impressive on damage late(although, due to Res being sooooo important for 4-F later stages-White Dragons and Spirits namely-she can take hits pretty well for a bit there.). Oh, her raw stats support the damage okay, but her speed just isn't high enough. Even capped, it's 33, I believe? Awww. Still, she's really neat.
Meg: L20/19/18(tee hee~). 60/36/11/33/32/30/35/32. All stats were capped but Magic. SS Swords/B Lances/D Axes. Don't believe she got stat boosters. Chosen weapon of Alondite, Celerity/Parity for skills.
Meg's...very interesting. I recall a quote from the Serenes forums often when I see her: She sucks when she starts and is not special lategame.
Granted, my Meg here is misleading-she doesn't gain that kind of crazy stats without a lot of BEXP(10k I put into her in the Tier 2 range before promoting her at L19. I needed another Sword user and she was the most practical person that wasn't Stefan. Stefan is awesome but kinda boring to have alongside Mia.). However...her stats pretty much crush this notion entirely. She compares decently at L3 to an L10 Edward. Having a much higher level Edward than that when you get to 1-5 is...unlikely? Edward is often hyped. Edward...has a ton more Swordmaster competition, whereas Meg's caps are simply completely different. I just can't feel it.
And in the end, you get someone that on average hits 32 Res. 32 Res is awesome and completely fucks with 4-F-3 when added to her defense(My vote for hardest stage in the lategame overall, although the nature of the next two punish certain kinds of teams brutally. I love 4-F as an overall series of stages, by the by.). 40 Defense(her defense while equipped with Alondite, if it caps, which admittedly is not a guarantee) is gamebest non-Laguz I believe, but this is crushingly academic.
So...yeah that statement is full of shit. Ahem.
Jill: 20/20/18. 55/35/10/37/35/35/35/22. All stats but Defense and Skill were capped. SS Axes, never touched her lances. Don't think she got stat boosters-I had a hard time keeping track of these, for the record, as I just tossed a bunch around during 4-F and never used them beforehand. Yes, this is stupid, shush. Anyways. Skills were Parity and Adept. Urvan for weapon, naturally.
Kill leader at 117 kills. Second best overall character in Part 1. Had a ridiculous four stat carryover. And why yes her caps are batshit so she's still nuts in Part 4. And she's great in Part 3. And what the hell it's almost like she dominates everything! Well, with the carryover I got. Maybe not so much without.
I don't really know what to say, she doesn't stand out in any given stat hugely. She just dominates as far above average(But not extremely high) across the board and is good at the start and...yeah. Flying but the only weakness is Thunder...yeah. Canto...yeah... Were it not for Nolan existing and being in the hardest chapters of the game, and ditto Sothe, she might get hype for being the best character in the game. Then again if they didn't exist I wouldn't have played the game to the end. Or past 1-3. So that's academic.
Elincia: */*/20. 50(cap)/30(cap)/29/34/35(cap)/40(cap)/22/35. I think she got a Dragonshield, and I know she got two Magic Dusts or whatever the Magic booster is. No Angelic Robes though. Amiti/B on Swords/S on Staves/Imbue and Disarm(Look I was running low on 10 cost skills) for equipped skills.
Elincia's interesting. She's dominate in a very weird way throughout the game. Initially, her stats are quite crap for Tier 3...but she's...Tier 3...at Part 2...she is in fact probably the first Tier 3 you will see...well, maybe you can get Geoffrey to it, but otherwise it's Part 3 and at least three or four stages into it. She's 2-P. She's around for multiple decently hard stages. She's a flying healer with Canto. She has a 15 Might Brave Sword that is unbreakable...oddly the last isn't that special, defenses simply get too high to really abuse this later, and early she just vacuums EXP if you try to abuse it. Considering she can heal and usually there's someone that wants a heal, there's just not enough reason to. Her growth is great(385 total). She got some carryover in Skill/Magic for me and still didn't cap either, go figure.
Nothing really negative to say about her in general-she's clearly awesome. But the way she's awesome vastly changes throughout the game. Early on her stats suck relative to her level, but she still can beat the hell out of things thanks to her stats being awesome for the time, giving you a solid get out of death free card. Later, when they're good, she's better off healing. Pretty interesting.
Marcia: L20/20/18(huh, lots of people ended on 18.). 50/32/18/36/36/35/28/34. All stats but Magic capped. SS Lances/C Swords/Wishblade. Nullify/Miracle for skills. Retrospectively Nullify isn't good for 4-F in general. Oh well, was killer until then. Don't think she got stat boosters but I'm not certain as usual.
Marcia's...well, she got a very good carryover, which helped her out hugely during 2. Standard badass pegknight build, really? More concrete durability than usual but FE10 requires that to keep a good Pegknight afloat. Otherwise, dodgy, doesn't hit very hard but does it twice period and has huge mobility. Huge help on 2-F, ended up doing a lot of the work during 3-9 so she got a lot of EXP there, and in the end she just did very well with BEXP levels for Strength, so she made it on the final team. That and the Res. That Res is great for 4-F. Strength doesn't matter as much when you have the second best weapon in the game to sling around. Not a huge amount to say, she's very traditional, very well placed(I have very little good to say about people out of 2 that aren't named Marcia, Elincia or Haar.) and just does very well.
Ike: L*/20/20. 65/37/12/40/37/30/32/19. All stats but Magic and Res capped. SS Swords/whatever Axes who the fuck uses his axes?/Ragnell/Nihil/Miracle. I forget if he got any stat boosters, don't think so though.
Ike got a six stat carryover. Ike on Tier 2 is almost(not quite) good enough to be used at endgame. Ike is fucking nuts. Look at those stats. LUCK AND RES ARE THE ONLY ONES THAT REALLY STAND OUT AS CRUSHINGLY HIGH. Well, speed's highish too...but...who cares really. I mean seriously what the hell. He has his downsides(Aether, suckass Res) but these serve to make him feel...only okay during the last few stages of the game. That's...all. And with the competition that late that says so little.
Ike kicks ass. Nothing new. The most you can say is that BEXPing and transferring stats for him is unfair. And that's kinda a duh. Oh and seriously game, you had no fucking reason for him to use Ragnell all game and you give it to him with two stages left in FE9.
In 10 you have a great reason for him not to have it and you give it to him like two stages before he really meets up with Sanaki at a logical time. You give it to him earlier than you needed to. What the fuck?
Mia: L*/20/19. 50/31/13/40/40/35/25/21. All stats but Res and Magic capped. SS Swords/Vague Katti/Pavise. (I just realized I never equipped the other Pavise. Oh well.) Can't recall if she got any stat boosters, don't think so.
Mia's insane. She may well be much more insane early on-where she has, what, 28 speed *starting*?-than later, where her Res and support type don't make her stand out as much as Zihark, but who gives a damn? She crushes things with ridiculous speed at overkill levels at all times, and that's good! And she's a Swordmaster after Steel Blades have shown up, that's better! And what the hell am I supposed to say bad about her? I mean really, not much exists. She's a very standard girl Swordmaster build on industrial strength crack. That's all there is to it, she does what she does insanely well. #3 on total kills. Yeah.
Shinon: L*/20/20. 60/36/15/40/34/27/32/24. All stats but Luck and Res capped(but MAGIC WAS CAPPED YAY~). SS Bows/Double Bow/Adept/Daunt. No stat boosters.
#4 on kills. Shinon is...damn. So insanely good at everything. Tanking? Yeah he does that. It's not necessary for an archer. He does anyways. Huge damage, yeah he does that once bows start really rolling(Silver), but he's never bad at it at all. Fast, yeah. Res...sucks but that is a theme with some of the more dominate characters oddly. Luck hurts his evade but his concrete is so good that it doesn't matter.
Then he gets the best weapon in the game. I mean...that wasn't necessary, was it? Oh and Marksman gets 3 range on bows. That's not necessary either! Cripes. So damn good.
Reyson: L25. 48/8/18/16/22/38/12/34(Transformed. May as well use those stats.). Ended up getting Paragon, because no one else needs it and what do you give a Heron? Provoke?
Reyson's very good. Kinda boring but very good. Really gets huge milage out of the Laguz Stones/Olivi Grass(I did not abuse these enough throughout the game on anyone. I admit this. Laguz were still good. This is because they are a massive mass of prepromos that don't entirely suck on levelup, by and large.), then has Canto/good move/four person Galdr when he's transformed. Not special if you don't abuse those. At all. But hey, that's dumb and you should do it! Ignore me being dumb.
Also he has HP, HP are cool. Just um don't let anyone get a swing at him untransformed. HP won't help then. (At least, unlike the other Herons, he can indeed sorta kinda sorta take a hit then sometimes. That's better than nothing.)
Naesala: L34. 69/40/14/44/50/30/32/38. All stats but HP, Magic and Defense capped. Angelic Robes was used. SS Strike. Adept/Cancel for skills.
Naesala is awesome. Hey look guys it's someone that shows up at Tier 3 L7 equivalent and can completely curbstomp everything in early 4 chapters. While gaining EXP and Strike levels! It's no guilt smash! It's like cookies that don't make you fat! It's not fair!
Well, then someone hits him with a crossbow and you come back to reality. But hey, he probably lived. Exceptionally good character, the "effort" it takes to make him good(and indeed you really do want that SS Strike, his damage was clearly waning during 4-F-1 which is where he finally got it.) is not effort at all but instead just having a very good character smash people up during a stage that is badly suited to many other characters. Well and having him smash up 4-P but that has suck-ass EXP for a 4 stage and he still gets 5~ a kill so whatever. Feels dumb not to use...except that Giffca exists, so there is that as an option to swap him out for. But he's more fun. The evade is hilarious, it's too bad it's not rewarded more, but his concrete is still fine enough.
Sanaki: L*/*/19. 45/14/40(cap)/33(cap)/31/40(cap)/16/39. Rexflame/does anyone really care, she could swing Rexflame/Paragon/Shade. Got two Strength boosters and an Angelic Robes. Hi Tal.
Kinda funny. If you bother to boost her up, she's useful for...4-F-4. Otherwise she never really stands out much except as behind the lines sniping, not that she's horrid at that. Cymbeline makes her stand out a bit more than she would otherwise during the earlier 4 chapters, but unfortunately her strength cripples her ability to use Rexflame(notice the two Strength boosters that barely make it no slowdown to swing), and her Speed isn't likely to cap either. They needed to look a little more closely at her good/bad stats. Or just not try to make a character that was oriented towards project that late, when the ultimate gains would have been useless if the character hadn't been forced...
Oh and that stone of her's is so useless. :( *Hypes it in the DL anyways, IT ALMOST MAKES HER...um...below average instead of horrible at taking hits.*
Nailah: L39. 70/40/12/48/40/40/40/28. Got a Talisman. All stats are capped besides Res and Magic. She may have had other stat boosters, but I can't recall. Pass/Nihil for skills.
Okay, Part 1 Nailah is not really Nailah. It is this huge force of nature, much like the other temp you get of similar power during that time, that sweeps the area of enemies and gives you a difficulty slider for the last few Part 1 stages at the cost of boosting later Part 3 DB stages. This makes her no less awesome during that time, but it's important not to overuse her.
When she finally permanently joins? She's...interesting. Balanced at everything with hugeass...Skill. I really should have given her the other Pavise. Oh well, no use worrying about that now. There's nothing she really stands out as bad at at any point during 4, she hurts, she, interestingly, has an EXP gaining option even if you're worried about her vacuuming up EXP(one that makes it easy for low level people to pick up kills, which is the more important part of it. Too bad it sucks for anything but EXP purposes and should be forgotten if you're playing for time efficiency and not EXP efficiency.). It's hard to really speak strongly on her because she's so damn good at being so damn high end balanced. She has the might of Ike(and a weapon that is as good if you ignore the 1 vs 1-2 Range thing), the speed of Mia and better defense than most people. What do you want?
Tibarn: L37. 72/44(Cap)/4/48/42/34/36/26. Nihil and Renewal for skills. Oddly stopped a bit short of a lot of stat caps I think.
Tibarn...well, he's the best one of the set out of the box, I believe. Which is pretty good, as it's a set that is very much defined by it's out of the box potential. He also has the potential to get insane amounts of EXP on 4-5, also good. And in the end...he...smashes things to bits anyways just as well as any of the less stable or more tweaky Royals do, with the worst thing I can say about him being that his Res is meh(and he evades enough so okay.). Oh and I can't recall him having to deal with crossbows. That's good. (If there were any it was on 4-2 and I still can't recall it. 4-5 surely had none.)
He smashes things. It's just that he tends to stand out less than Nailah(who had the earlygame), Naesala(who takes a little time to get rolling) and Caineghis(more on him in a second), for me. Now does that make him worse than those? Helllll no. I just got very comfortable with his utterly nasty stats and as such thought less about him. He's cool though.
Caineghis: L40. 80/48/8/46/40/35/46/20. All stats but Res and Magic were capped. Nullify/Nihil for skills. (Goes well with Fortune. >_>) I think he got two Speedwings.
Okay Caineghis with the kind of speed I gave him is fucked up. Caineghis with one Speedwings is fucked up. Actually Caineghis without help is fucked up, you just need to abuse White Pool. 75 frigging Attack. 75! (I think he starts out in the high 60s? Or was it low 70s?) Huge durability to physicals! Magical durability tends to get balanced out by the huge HP! Good out of the box or with speed boosting! HE DID 80 DAMAGE TOTAL TO THE FINAL BOSS. I mean, I'm impressed here is what I'm trying to get across. Sure, you don't have him early, but he stands out late if you can get him speed. And if not, he still probably stands out late. I just don't know because I got him speed.
Honestly he in the end impresses me the most of the Royals. Downside, he doesn't show up as much, no earlier time around. Oh well.
Kurthnaga: L35. 69/46(cap)/16/30/32(cap)/29/44/38(cap). S Strike. Ire/Resolve/Provoke. He got three Secret Books. No really. Also a Speedwings.
Innnnteresting character, very interesting. On base he doesn't seem that valuable, except for a part that gets underrated easily and reasonably.
You see, he is a character that you get forced on you with a 1-2 weapon with infinite charges, 30 in both defenses and 55 HP.
Now, Meg up there is better than that at everything, but that's not at L20 Tier 2. There's a lot of room for growth here is what I'm saying. And it grows up to 40ish defenses. Which...nothing else in the game matches. Now granted he's an unstable little bastard(HE GAINED ONE SKILL NATURALLY), but that's kinda cool. And he swings for...well, Attack there is 69. On a 1-2 weapon.
How do you make that practical though? Simple, give him Resolve, Provoke and Paragon, and have him walk up to the front line on 4-F-1 and use a Laguz Gem. Why, yes, everyone on the stage *is* attacking him no matter who else you had assault the line, and...he lives through it as it turns out, thanks to Resolve(won't otherwise), and gains huge WEXP/EXP.
He gained nine and a half levels doing that. This is how you make Kurthnaga useful enough so that you can ditch Sothe instead! (Notice the lack of Sothe for final team.) He gained the S Strike on 4-F-3, and I completed the first three stages in 10/7/9 turns. Kinda slow, but not ridiculously.
Downside is that he's only so-so for 4-F-4(He won't double spirits ever. They won't deal damage to him though. So, it's not that bad. And he does do a pretty decent chunk, he just can never one-shot them.) and the only way to make him deal good damage on 4-F-5 is to get him hurt enough to kick on Resolve. And of course it takes three skills that you may value enough to have on other people. Personally...I don't. But, milage variance.
He's pretty cool even if you don't level him, as support, but I respect ditching him. He's just so easy to make very solid, if not spectacular. And to be honest just having him draw that much fire was good on 4-F-1. >_>
Ena: L30. 64/28/40(cap)/30(cap)/26(cap, sigh)/22/26/40(cap). A Strike. Resolve/Imbue/Ire(ripped off Miracle and Renewal to fit it all). Got the last strength booster. Just for laughs.
Sigh. Good support, Blood Tide is great, with Imbue she's mindless and dies only in extreme circumstances so just toss her wherever for the most part.
Sigh. Terrible power.
Sigh, why the fuck doesn't she get a high Speed cap, her growth there is fine and with high speed she could have been at least genuinely good at poking at White Dragons and stuff. I guess.
I dunno, she works as she is, I just wonder why they went to such effort to make her offense unsalvagable. She makes endgame Soren look good.
Nasir: Was at his base stats/level. Never got a kill. L34/74/14/48/26/16/19/24/42/S Strike for the record. I did give him Ire! I also stole his Nihil~
Um if Nasir kills something in the last two stages it's because Ire kicked in on a Spirit.
On the other hand he dies the first day of never and has the best of the support abilities, both in theory and in practice, thanks to a bunch of speedy bastard enemies late.
So I respect him! He's awesome! He just doesn't hurt things. Situational awesome too, if he'd been available from the start of 4-F he might be relatively overall *worse*. ...but probably not, White Pool is too awesome.
Incidentally. 10 Speed Cap? Really? You're going with that game? ._.
NON-FINAL TEAM:
Sothe: L20/20/8. 47/28(cap)/14/35/33/34/19/22. Cancel/Vantage for skills, SS on Knives and Baselard for his final weapon.
Got ditched for Nasir. I regret nothing. Sothe's 4-F performance neither gives him the durability, the evasion, nor the damage to really deal with it, thanks to his late promotion, stupid issues on 4-3 about actually doing damage(and you probably end up making him find items anyways) and his MAXIMUM 46 ATTACK. When Micaiah's outdamaging and outtanking you...there's...quite likely something wrong there, and that's exactly what can happen if you stick with him after Nasir shows up! ow.
Now, before that? Oh, man, Sothe's 4 showing is ENTIRELY NON-REPRESENTITIVE. He's awesome during Part 1. In fact he is a godsend and if he gained actual EXP he would be the best character in the game thanks to how frigging hard Part 1 is. Part 3? Oh he still does fine, just make sure you keep him in Beast Killers(his may as well be Prf weapon of doooooooom. I figure it's not Prf just so Heather is better than she would be otherwise. That and so they can sell you a bunch of them without it looking odd.).
Sothe is bloody awesome. Just, not for 4. Before that he's great, he holds his own fine during 3 and is so, so, so much of a lifesaver during 1.
Gareth: Never used. For the record: 82/44/10/20/14/20/42/18/S Strike.
Who is this person and why is he the worst character in the game in practice while potentially having been good if he'd shown up earlier?
...
*shrugs, moves on.*
Edward: L9 unpromoted. 24/9/0/15/14/9/6/3.
Sacrifice of the DB #1. You need to ditch a few DBers. Edward pissed me off and got the axe.
You see, Edward is an evade tank. He can't dodge ever during Part 1. And...while he dodges well late enough so do people named Mia, Zihark, and Stefan. Stefan takes no effort, Zihark is during the DB chapters and is prepromoted and great and Mia is...see above.
So his main selling point was "Does not die in one hit." during the early chapters. Good stuff for that part of the game, frighteningly enough, but...he didn't double stuff anywhere near enough and his damage took forever to kill anything. blech. Meg got used instead of him because her starting concrete durability had a notable edge on his L9 durability you see there, and her speed on Tier 1 is just as good as his, and she was six levels lower and hence leveled faster. I regret nothing, again.
Leonardo: L5 unpromoted. 18/8/0/13/10/7/5/4.
Hahahaha Skill/Luck/Res oriented Archer in a game with two unbelievably good Archer options. He runs off that damn bow and guess what that still does nothing for him in the end because Double Bow. OH BUT BUT HE'S AVAILABLE EARLY yeah 18 HP and 5 defense and they don't gain reliably enough in those few levels for me to feel secure using him? Screw that. If Marksman had really killer Luck/Res/Skill caps he might be worth considering...well one out of three isn't bad but Marksman doesn't do much with it's Skill anyways. And Shinon can hit the cap anyways. So screw it. Sacrifice #2(and last, not counting the person no one sane uses.).
Nolan: L20/20/1. 53/28/9/28/29/26/20/14.
Oh god, Nolan. Nolan might very well be the best character in the game overall, despite not making it to endgame. This is because he is a godsend during a majority of the hardest stages in the game during Part 1, and Part 3 he's excellent in as well. There's nothing wrong with him long term, even, he could have easily made it to the finale. He just didn't. Starts out being able to take multiple hits and doing solid damage and still gains EXP, and in Part 3 gets a nice unique axe that makes him tankier and has the power of forged Silver(and more hit than even forged Silver can reach, which is an interesting advantage and actually sorta notable.).
He or Sothe one is basically a requirement for Part 1, in my books. In that sense he just kicks ass, period.
Laura: L16 unpromoted. 24/5/19/13/15(cap)/18/8/14.
Is a walking Heal Staff for the DB Part 1 chapters(and can be used for this in Part 3, I fielded her still even then). Don't let it get hit~ oh you did it broke. :(
You could probably get by without her, but why?
Incidentally I should have saved a Master Seal for her. Would have helped. Cleric's Speed cap is something.
Ilyana: L13 unpromoted. 23/7/13/13/14/7/3/9.
Barely used her. Might be her starting stats in fact, I dunno.
She's bad. She is however really available. Load her with stat boosters! Watch her be average! But ON EVERY STAGE. THAT IS..........not worth it?
She's kinda useful when you first get her in the DB, but stages are starting to slack off enough so that ditching someone for their lack of potential is pretty readily doable within a couple of stages, so that's what happened to her.
Aran: L20/17. 45/26(cap)/6/26(cap)/19/13/25(cap)/10.
You see those stats? He had those for like ten levels. He just had like five less HP and one less speed or something.
He's pretty funny. Traditional Armor Knight but in...Soldier/Halberdier progression. Why? Well they do tank pretty well, so why not I guess. Or something?
He's damn useful during the DB stuff, and...stunningly good filler during Part 3 and 4, where his durability holds up even as late as 4-5(he doesn't take hits well on 4-5 but he does in fact take them.). He amuses me greatly due to this. Using him during 4-F makes you ridiculous though. I'm just saying. He's cool for what he is.
Volug: L18. 52/24/6/26/30/15/20/10. S Strike.
Interesting guy. Halfshifted he is a L20/15 prepromo with lousy stats for that. So he's FE7 Marcus. On chapters that desperately need this. And who gains a better weapon for using him a lot. why no I have no problem with this WHATSOEVER. God damn, he's not as standout as Sothe or Nolan but he sure as hell helps, and is a decent part of why the later parts of Part 1 are just not as hard as the early. He's your bailout until 1-9 or so. (Where you get better bailouts anyhow.)
During Part 3-and even 4-he does fine as long as you take off Wildheart. TAKE THAT DAMN SKILL OFF. Ahem. He really needs S Strike to be much there, but that's not too hard to get(I got it boss abusing, though, so I'm not certain how hard it is to get. You know that one prison escape map where you only get the good BEXP by the soldiers slowly puttering off the map? Yeah he ate all the Vulneraries off the boss while they puttered out.).
Tauroneo: L*/20/3. 47/30/16/29/27/18/27/25.
Part 1? Well you de-equip his weapon and watch him draw so much fire that he glows red. He is so damn good at doing this it's hilarious.
Later? Oh well later he's clearly outclassed by Gat-*Looks at Res.*-er well his other stats are...actually...um....hey wait he's pretty good isn't he?
I mean, there's too many badass spear users, but I guess if you somehow didn't have one he could be a considerable option. He's funny like that. I expected him to not be useful during Part 4 and was very pleasantly surprised. Nifty.
Zihark: L*/11. 34/23/6/28/27/15/17/12.
I really respect Zihark. I just somehow never got EXP on him. Him starting prepromoted(and hence not getting EXP very well in Part 1 in general) is part of it but I don't understand how he never got kills during Part 3. Oh well. He's clearly damn good, clearly the main reason why you should not bother long term with Edward(as you get a higher Res lower Luck version of him that's prepromoted during the same chapter set) and clearly has an awesome support(Earth~). What can I say? I kinda regret that level there. :|
Fiona: L9. Never used. 25/8/6/8/10/7/8/6.
See those stats?
You get those stats when people are promoting if you are ditching people.
I...what the hell.
I respect her more than the other people I violently avoid using. That's something?
Tormod: L*/6. 34/13/18/17/21/15/12/14.
You know if he stuck around he'd be pretty cool.
He instead shows up for a bit as a prepromo that won't gain EXP. He's useful there, ish.
Then he shows up in the middle of a huge firefight 4 stage as L6 Tier 2 Mage.
um. Tormod that's not how you do it. yeah no not much respect for him. He could have been good. As it is he gives me Celerity. YAY!
Muarim: L19. 58/36/6/28/22/12/30/18.
Hey. He's like Tormod! Except he shows up later and has 30 defense and 36 Strength instead of nothing whatsoever! Cool!
You're still not using him after the stage he pops up on, but at least he scratches paint while he's there instead of being a horrible liability.
Vika: L13. 38/18/10/26/30/14/14/14.
Hey, it's Muarim! Except speed oriented! And with a bad weapon! So...still can't scratch paint!
Waste of 400 total stat growth I tells ya. I respect her more than Lyre, at least if you somehow got her rolling she'd be notable.
Also notable for being a non-Heron Laguz that starts below L15! I think she's the only one.
Rafiel: L16. 34/2/16/2/12/33/6/28.
Hey it's a Heron that can't fly, doesn't get Canto, has bad movement no matter what, and can...always Galdr four people, even without transforming.
...
Nope, that's still not worth it.
To boot, his availability is the worst and his durability is special. And I don't recall any stage where I felt like he was necessary, or even that useful, thanks to stage designs. Woo~
BK:
Don't have his stats handy. They don't matter. He is a badass temp and will be missed.
Godspeed, you magnificent bastard, you ate everything that annoyed me on 1-F. EVERYTHING.
Nealuchi: L23. 54/22/8/18/36/25/22/20.
Nealuchi is the best character no one ever thinks about. He's there at times he's useful. He has Canto and flies. He almost got S Strike for me. But he doesn't do a lot of damage or take hits that get through well, and a lot of enemies while he's around in the earlier parts punish him pretty well. So he doesn't stand out.
He's a cool bird though.
Leanne: L12. 30/0/12/4/18/34/6/24.
Best Heron in the game.
Okay, not on base. On base she's better than Rafiel, thanks to the better move, Canto and ability to chant up two people no matter what, transformed or not.
However...I really find 2-P a stage that would be far harder to deal with without people dying(Nealuchi or Marcia) from back luck without the ability to Canto two people constantly(and if you fuck up they tend to just swipe Leanne. You then chase them around. Yakety Sax, sadly, does not play.). And 2-F is my candidate for hardest overall stage that gives you a wide range of options to work with and some actual EXP. (As opposed to 1-3 which does none of the latter.).
I...just never had Reyson for anything that felt that hard. So, I respect Leanne a ton due to positioning. She's cool.
Haar: L*/20/8. 55/35/6/31/28/20/34/14.
Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar.
Haar is the best character in the game during 2-F. 2-F is hard. He is the best despite EVERY SINGLE MAGE HAVING THUNDER(and there are a lot of mages!). He then shows up a lot more than you'd figure and pulps things with huge raw Attack and huge mobility.
Downside, well, he's not as fast as Jill, and the Res is awful. So ultimately Jill won out over him. But without carryover that may well have been him in the final team. He's awesome. Linear, but that line tends to go through everyone in his way.
Brom: L*/8. 40/21/4/18/21/19/26/9.
Hey it's Aran. Except he has axes. And has more speed. But less power and skill.
Why didn't I use him as lategame filler again? Is mystery to me now. Oh well.
He's pretty good during the C2 chapters he's around for, nice wall. Using him late is a sign of mental illness, much like Aran.
Nephenee: L*/20/12. 55/29/14/35(cap)/34(cap)/30(cap)/31/27.
Well she kicks ass. Start's merely okay but she has the same thing going for her as FE9-Swordmaster type with lances-and while Lancer(I forget the name in the US version. PAL version actually changed a few class names. Don't ask me why. Tier 3 Halberdier is what I mean.) caps don't reward this as much, they do reward her tanky defenses.
Allllmost made it on the final team, but Marcia's higher speed and mobility made her more appealing. Neph is awesome though, during 2-F she held off the bottom left contingent by herself, with the aid of a batch of Vulneraries. Towards the end she started doubling and ate her way down the stairs. So much fun.
Heather: L*/12. 33/16/9/24/28/21/13/14.
Hey, she steals things when you have no one else that can! And she finds items easily when you have no one else that can! And she opens chests when you have no one else that can! Well, except late, when you have someone else that can.
Oh, combat? meh.
Actually she's pretty good in a fight during Part 2(hard to hit and damage isn't hideously horrible), which explains the fact that she's actually gained levels. She's pretty decent, but why anyone would use her long term for more than item gaining is beyond me.
Lucia: L*/20/2. 45/25/16/33/32/20/18/21.
Awesome during Part 2!
Um. Then she shows up in Part 4 and is forced and a liability until you can get her promoted.
And then she's bland.
I gave her a dratted Silver Blade and she...could kill things but not unless they were damaged first. Oh well, unlike Tauroneo she's pure prepromo and cleanly the worst Swordmaster type overall at endgame.
But no, really, awesome during Part 2.
She got those 50 kills she had somehow and it wasn't mostly in Part 4, I know that.
Lethe: L21. 51/18/12/26/24/18/18/20.
Tier 3 L1 equivalent. With those stats?
meh. All things said and done I do not respect Lethe as anything but filler in this game, despite her having solid growths. However, she is around for some decent Part 2 stages.
At least she's decent filler, in other words, at a decent time. See the Brom/Aran comments about using her long term as much else besides backup placefiller.
Mordecai: L17. 58/28/2/18/18/16/34/8.
Much more unbalanced filler than Lethe, but...32 base defense(he gained some for me)?
Sure okay. Honestly he works better during Part 2 than Lethe does. Nothing really doubles him, the mages don't hit weakness on him by and large and 32 defense. Also, not a Cat. Worse long term, but I'm not using either long term, so who cares?
Also, why would you use Lethe long term with Ranulf existing, anyways?
Geoffrey: L*/18. 40/25(cap)/8/24(cap)/24(cap)/21/20/16(cap).
Carryover of Speed/Defense helped him out mucho. He was really useful during Part 2 thanks to that.
...
What, you want me to comment on him after Part 2? Hahahaha I didn't even use him once.
Also, "Lance Pal" sounds kinda wrong as a class name. I'm just saying.
Kieran: L*/12. 42/22/6/20/20/17/18/12.
Fillerfillerfiller. Good filler! Required filler!
Still filler! Why would use use him late?
He sure as hell owns a lot of the Crimean Knights at least.
Astrid: L*/2. 33/15/8/18/17/17/10/14.
WAY TO GO ASTRID.
YOU GOT CARRYOVER ON STRENGTH, SKILL AND SPEED AND YOU COULDN'T DOUBLE THINGS, BREAK DEFENSE OR HIT ANYONE AFTER 2-3.
Which you're better off not killing people on for the BEXP that you get for not killing people.
Makalov: L*/7. Starting stats, so...37/18/5/17/18/20/17/9.
Elfboy's probably right about him being not as bad as Astrid.
I'm still not sure he's much better than Carryover!Astrid though. Five levels on her gave him...negligably more offense and comparable hit rate and speed, and while the durability is better(Good!) he does not attack from range.
Oh well, who cares. Both suck. Someone give me two more Kierans.
Danved: L*/10. 40/17/9/23/21/19/16/13.
Oh, they gave me another one. Except he uses spears and isn't mounted.
...well not quite as good, but close enough. Useful filler, out of the box. I do not care about much else with him. Sure didn't use him long term and it's hard to figure why you would. Male Halberdiers in this game are all temporary for usefulness. Pretty good for that temporary though?
Calill: L*/7. 33/9/20/18/18/17/11/17.
Best fire mage? Yeah probably. Enough better than Sanaki for me to care?...not really? I have enough healers for Endgame 4 already, and one Strength booster is probably worth 13 levels of EXP.
Although you can reasonably prepromote her.
The point is she's fighting with the person that is the second worst forced person in 4-F. Sigh.
Titania: L*/20/12. 51/34(cap)/14/34/31/24/28(cap)/26(cap).
Why do Gold Knights have such bad defense caps.
Well, never mind that.
Anyways, as you can see, Titania is a badass still. Just because her caps suck and she didn't make it to endgame in large part because of them(and because Jill's are sickening and wrong) does not change this. She kicks ass during...a lot of stages you don't really need more kickass in, but what's some more kickass more or less?
And of course she's absurdly useful during the 4 pathsplit. Yeah, nothing wrong here. Well, a lot wrong here, but in the good way!
Soren: L*/10(yes!)/7. 38/17/34/29/25/13/13/27.
Interesting choice here. Initially I was going to ignore him. Then I noticed that he could be promoted without much damage if I BEXPed him up four levels and capped off his speed. Then I decided that was a waste and just promoted him. On net...he actually was pretty useful. He got Discipline, so he could swing Rexwind(not that I ever had him do so), got C in Staves, and did quite well at picking off people, softening up people, and healing.
In short, by this game's standards he's a glowing mage success story. In that he was useful for more than a stage or two.
Mist: L*/20/4. 39/17/27/25/28/35(cap)/17/29.
Best healer for a subset of people!
Useful during pathsplit as an extra healer!
Only a lunatic would use her during 4-F! Well or someone that likes three healers.
The total lack of offense is pretty offensive, honestly. 17 Strength is depressing, and there's no way to do anything with her Magic stat at all. (Well maybe cards. I never checked.) Why? The same reason they made Ena's offense suck. Because they could. ._. She even had carryover and it couldn't salvage the offense, nor could her silly Prf sword. Even at cap she has under 40 Attack I think(Although she can use Alondite, for...still sub-Sothe damage. She slightly breaks his damage with Vague Katti~). Oh well.
Rolf: L*/4. 35/19/3/23/19/15/14/11.
Well he's better than Leonardo. If you wanted two Snipers, either for short term reasons or because you're weird and don't mind one of them lacking Double Bow, he'd be fine enough. I just can't really say he outclasses Shinon, the level gap alone(considering Shinon's stats are excellent) is enough to make me frown at that.
But no, he's quite good in his own right, I just was not interested. Nothing personal.
Boyd: L*/20/7. 60/37/7/31/25/20/29/15.
GOOD JOB BOYD I CARRY OVER SPEED ON YOU AND YOU GET SPEED RAPED.
Yeah not a character that can afford that. He still made good filler, though, for the 4 pathsplit(Note 29 defense.), but no *way* was I using him for 4-F. Ever. Even if his speed hadn't gotten raped though...he's really meh and in a team full of people who are good. Oh well.
Oscar: L*/20/8. 50/27/15/30/30/30(cap)/22/19.
Wow he's boring.
He's not bad, he stabs things fine.
He's so boring.
Good filler for the 4 pathsplit. Kinda outclassed during Ike chapters though.
...man he's boring.
Gatrie: L*/20/7. 52/34/11/31/27/18/35/23.
Initially I was mostly going to ignore Gatrie.
Then I realized that was stupid and I was being stupid and used him to huge effect as 4 filler. He's definitely fine. He kinda bores me, but he's fine. I don't even know why he bores me. Oh well.
Rhys: L5. 27/8/24/16/14/22/7/25.
BISHOP/SAINT CAPS VS RHYS GROWTH PLOT.
He's one point from capping Magic there, I think. I don't know what they were thinking with that whole line's caps, but "Useful attacker" was not part of it, I'm sure, despite getting big Magic growth. "Person who can take hits" wasn't it either. I initially didn't think he looked too bad, but the more I've examined him...
Ranulf: L30. 59/30/12/36/32/27/30/20. S Strike. Got a Satori Sign.
Participated in my "Hey Laguz with Blossom is a neat combo also hey they can really abuse Flourish!" experiement.
If Cat transformations didn't SUCK ASS he'd have been a real force! As it was he was good filler and really nasty when you know he only had to fight a few things. Oh well.
Kysha(this is what my copy of the game calls him and I go with it~): Never used. L18/55/20/6/20/22/14/20/10.
er.
okay then what was his point supposed to be?
someone help me out here. In some ways, as a design decision, I respect him far less than the next, much worse, character, just because he has no real conceivable point. He is, however, less offensively bad.
Lyre: Never used. I still had to put up with her as a temp though! 47/14/12/22/22/16/14/16.
Okay, she:
A: Has 22 Attack. Mist outdamages this on base thanks to Florete.
B: Below average defenses.
C: OKAY HP.
D: Is a cat, having gameworst transformations as such and usually running out of meter within a few battles.
E: Is project. Now assume you kill some things with her, her 3.85 or so growth kicks in!...and it's mostly on speed and skill!...so she still does no damage!
F: Ignore her and move on.
G: Give her a rating equal to the letter above this one.
Janaff: L30. 57/32/4/38/34/31/26/16. Got a Satori Sign.
Ulki: L30. 60/32/8/34/36/25/22/22. Got a Satori Sign.
The two best characters to be largely irrelevant.
Seriously, let's review. You have, during the part of Part 3 they're around for:
A huge amount of badass Tier 2 people who desperately need EXP for the Part 3 split.
And then you have two people who are Tier 3 L10. Yeah they crush everything in the way in 3-7, 3-8, 3-10, and 3-11.
For those that forget, these are the stages where
A: They're neutrals(IIRC, in 3-7) and you are curbstomping the DB.
B: There are lava rocks pelting stupid enemies constantly for 10 in one of the easiest stages ever, albiet a hard one to do fast.
C: The threat is bows killing Elincia. Well, they can save her there. By being bow targets. Um. This is also the only threat in the entire stage and Elincia has a small army, so it's mostly academic as long as you move at a moderate pace.
D: RETARDED BRIDGE PLOT. Well, they are useful for this just to get the stupid map over with.
So...one stage in practice that they're good on.
Now they're badass on the split and are the best filler ever, but so is Skrimir and this doesn't keep me from calling *him* badass but pointless. So eh.
Sigrun: L*/20/1. 38/21/17/25/26/28/23/26.
Good filler for the split, good for the bridge chapter, nothing more.
:| I wanted her to be good, she's cute.
...what?
Tanith: L*/19. 36/22/10/23/24/23/19/21.
Meh. Better than Sigrun but does not come in as close to promotion so in practice a bit worse.
They're both split filler. Fine at that but not much more.
Man she crashed almost as extremely as Shinon blasted upwards.
Skrimir: Did not gain a level(somehow, I used him a fair deal, he just never got kills.). For reference: 66/38/6/28/26/24/32/18.
Yeah he's like the hawks except he has one less useful notable level and can't get a Satori Sign without extensive use(or wasteful amounts of BEXP).
On the upside he is better if you were to actually use him. But why? Even if you wanted to there's a good argument against it later.
Stefan: L*/*/8. 53/27/7/37/36/20/21/16 for reference, as he never gained any EXP.
Really solid(albiet boring) if you need a second sword user for 4-F.
If you don't just swipe his sword. He's not as good as a build up swordmaster but he's not supposed to be, he's supposed to be dirt easy instead. He's cool.
Oliver: L*/*/8. Never used. 48/22/31/22/20/28/18/32.
TERTIARY HEALER OPTION IF ALL THE OTHERS DIE.
Otherwise um.
Also is it just me or is having him be alive the most random thing *ever*? Let alone his recruitment?
Bastian: L*/*/10. Never used. 45/21/35/27/24/21/20/32.
Uh...he's...not bad...not bad, for a mage.
It's a much worse insult than not bad for a girl. I mean, look at Mia.
Also he came in with SS Wind(dunno if this is due to carryover WEXP or if it's normal, but.). That's neat!
Otherwise...not much to say here.
Volke: L*/*/15. 53/31/5/38/36/19/27/22.
Er okay I guess you could use him.
Objectively he's fine, but the issue is that Sothe gets forced on you and he competes for the(singular) SS Knife.
So one of them gets offense hosed. Now, Sothe sucks in 4-F anyways, but Volke isn't much better at it either...
I dunno, he's kinda pointless considering people like Stefan and Giffca exist? *shrug* Too bad.
Giffca: Never used. L36, 73/46/8/44/36/28/40/22. Got Strength carryover from FE9.
You know....after seeing how much hell Caineghis raised I can't help but regret not using Giffca a little. He is seriously badass, with the only downside being that you can't just gemspam mindlessly on your Dragons/Heron but instead have to...make Ena use Olivi Grass, oh no LOSS OF ENA OFFENSE no.
I kinda wonder why they gave you two Caineghis and one doesn't get Formshift and that's the only big difference though. I mean, I'm not complaining, it's just kinda silly.
Renning: Never used. L*/*/16. 56/31/18/32/29/14/27/23.
Almost as random as Oliver!
Much better than Oliver!
Still not really notable. Swordsman...meh use Stefan. Now if he'd been a lategame Axe/Lance user we'd have been in buisiness for useful lategame pinch-hitters. As it is no.
Annnnnnnnnd that's it. This took me three hours to write. I blame Meeple.
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The system sounds so cool in theory, but I've already been burned by IF fail with GoC... and you say this is -worse- when it comes to buggy programming?
You should know that there is no bottom threshold for IF failure.
Anyway, Blaze Union is getting ported, soon you shall see the true terror.
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Bayonetta: Chapter 15, almost to the end. The last Jeanne fight was pretty damn awesome...didn't really care for the Space Harrier level, though. 15 itself was a nice gauntlet, marred a bit by huge enemies in tiny spaces. Got a lot of mileage out of the accessory that uses magical counters instead of turning on Witch Time, in the Alfheim (no Witch Time against burning enemies...yeah, that's getting beat legitly), and against the gold Grace & Glory.
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Chapter 14 totally needed to be 2 chapters, so I didn't have to go through the Space Harrier stage EVERY TIME I wanted to fight Jeane 4. I mean, yeah, the Space Harrier is cool, but it seriously overstays its welcome, and its keeping me from fighting probably the best fight in the game, stylistically.
Regarding Burning enemies with no Witch Time...
I actually DID beat that one "legit"! You just need to learn a few gimmicks regarding Burning Enemies. One of them is "The Whip does not count as melee" <_< >_>
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I'm not going to replay that chapter until I've gotten Eternal Testimony. Infinite missiles should make it way less annoying.
Edit: Yeah, I should probably try using the whip. Haven't even touched it in actual combat.
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I've also heard a rumor that the Durgas can hurt burning enemies, as well.
Of course, I've only heard that as a rumor. I've yet to be able to test it.
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I remember trying the fire one and finding it didn't work out, being disappointed. I think it only works in the lava stage, and not on Alfheims.
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What about the ice skates?
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Felt like you had actual control over Ammo, which from what I remember of RE2, is different than those games cause they were like "If you don't headshot, YOU MAY BE IN TROUBLE LATER!"
...Headshotting is all but useless in all the main games before 4 baring 0 where its actually a good option. 1 & 2 didn't allow you to target and in the third one you had to go so close to the zombie it just wasn't worth it as they'd get you. 0 for all that people say is the worst RE got it completely right as headshots made zombies stumble back and shotgun headshots just made their heads go boom. Anyway, RE2 is not a conserve your ammo game like RE1 was because you more then enough ammo to kill whatever you need to kill.
WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS GAME
Why do people like alone in the dark/silent hill/clock tower/etc? It being Survival horror is why. Going through streets/houses/labs full to the brim of monsters you can kill but will want to avoid, solving puzzles while creatures are trying to chew on your brains, running from near unstopable badass monsters such as Nemesis are all cool reasons why. The combat being shit matters not as it isn't the main attraction.
shoving the other half of the series stuff back in, which sounds like a bad thing, so I dunno.
RE5 is the worst in the series which won't mean much to you but you should heed it regardless. RE5 is RE4 but with a horrible main character (Chris Roidfield), worst setting, retarded Inventory system, twice the amount of generic enemies, loads of reused bosses, a far worse villain cast and some pretty serious character derailment all round.
Meg got used instead of him because her starting concrete durability had a notable edge on his L9 durability you see there, and her speed on Tier 1 is just as good as his, and she was six levels lower and hence leveled faster. I regret nothing, again.
Ike kicks ass. Nothing new. The most you can say is that BEXPing and transferring stats for him is unfair. And that's kinda a duh. Oh and seriously game, you had no fucking reason for him to use Ragnell all game and you give it to him with two stages left in FE9.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZd-Bi8wBpI
:P
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZd-Bi8wBpI
That's fairly random.
It is, however, awesome because it shows that they coded a 0 mobility for ground units on that stage.
I can't even imagine why you'd do that besides dedication to logical coding.
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Random comments to Sage, since yes I am crazy and read overly long posts:
Meg: Yeah, that statement is indeed full of shit. Yeah, you have crazy Meg, but even average Meg is very good at what she does at endgame and you can see why. Meg is just hated on in some communities as a bit of a meme, I could rant about why but it's not really relevant so I'll be nice. ^_^
Elincia: I definitely came away with a different impression of Elincia: fighter first and healer second, at least later on. In part 3 I basically agree that she's a healer first just for exp reasons, but she is of course a death cannon if you need her. Obvious enough. Anyway, very little in the game breaks 40 Def, and against anything with less her damage is as good as a Swordmaster's and only gets better from there... the difference being that (a) two shots at Stun is so much better than any other mastery/crit rate can hope to be, and (b) give her Dragonfoe and she kills everything in E-3 without taking a counter, something nobody else can claim (although Cain comes damn close, IIRC. Regardless, Cain is awesome and doesn't need Dragonfoe).
Shinon: Pretty much what you said, with the caveat that his strength is actually a little shaky (21 base at that level, combined with the weakness of bows, unreliable growth). He has all the weaknesses of the sniper class until you get the Double Bow which are why he's usually considered inferior to the hax tier of GMs, but he's still excellent and probably the best pure archer of the modern series. His other stats rule (even the ones that barely matter) and of course we all know about the Double Bow, and only one other good unit can use it.
Volug: Just for the record, you can leave Halfshift (the skill) equipped, it becomes an optional command in part 3. So this is a good idea just for the bailout (same reason it's a good idea on Ranulf, maybe). The S strike is easy to get by part 3, and he basically tears said part up. Good endgame too!
Zihark: I have that problem with him too, he's good but I don't use him enough. He has enough faults in part 3 (maps which are brutal on avoid strategies, low luck) that I tend to not use him a ton there, and his lategame is good, but only good; Mia is better due to starting level alone. He's still a great unit, but yeah.
Vika: I've gotten her rolling, and yeah, she does have some payout. Not objectively worth it, though! She gets what credit she gets because it's impossible to perfect 1-8 without her.
Nealuchi: Is Vika. Less valuable considering Vika's one shining moment, but more generally useful otherwise. Then leaves forever and is too weak to seriously consider once he rejoins, although better than Vika.
Haar: Well, I don't agree he's your best character on 2-E because Elincia exists; not only does she kill everything instead of just everything with 16 speed or less, but she can heal (Haar can better take a hit from his weakness if need be, since he's only 2HKOed with ~10 crit instead of OHKOed with ~60 hit, but Elincia can avoid taking said hit far more easily and there are quite a few fewer crossbows than thunder mages).
Past that he's the best character in the game from 3-2 until whenever Titania promotes, uncontested, and one of the best all the way until endgame (where, admittedly, he falls off fairly hard). Oh yeah and flight + canto completely breaks like half of his maps (2-E walls, 3-2 swamp, 3-3 fences, 3-4 cliffs, 3-7 river, 3-11 HOLES, 4-3 desert). Haar rules. There's a reason he's the most valuable character on the speedrun by far.
Lucia: Hey, she has game-best crit due to her Elincia bond! And Wyrmslayers let her instantly ground a few annoying enemies in each of her chapters! Past that yeah. At least she finally got one chapter to be awesome in, and at least even her late effort is still better than in FE9!
Lethe: Her long-term's better than you're giving her credit for (better than I gave her credit for until I used her, too). She pretty much never stops pulling her weight and has a damn solid endgame like all non-tiger (and possibly non-Lyre) beast laguz due to crazy mastery rate and 30 CP, now with no gauge issues! Other than the late push (which is somewhat moot due to royal competition anyway), she reminds me of those competent but uninspiring prepromos like Geitz except she's around forever.
Kieran: His fillerfillerfiller role allows him to continue being used into part 4, especially if you drop a Master Crown on him because you want to chipprshred 3-9 for some reason. His endgame sucks (although... better than SOME people, having used him there...).
Makalov: Maybe with carryover he'd be worth using! Anyway, if you get him rolling, he's actually good filler for Part 4, but putting in that effort just for part 4 filler barely seems worth it, and like Kieran his endgame sucks, though this time it's due to "mediocre strength and sub-34 speed" instead of "can't even double generals".
Calill: 13 levels of exp... well, she can easily get a fair bit of that in 2-E, and then a -lot- in 3-9 (free Paragon for your two favourite CRKs here, and if Marcia typically snags one, that still leaves a second). Not to mention she can go to 4-5, which is not only great for mages, but an exp feast. So she has a far, far easier time of reaching speeds where she doubles and kills things, without Rexflame even in the case of slower enemies. She hits Res in endgame and that's fairly desirable (half the auras have low res, red dragons, even whites and their generals) so it's something. But before endgame she's not really great. Just better than Sanaki. <.<
Rolf: Well, the strength growth makes him worth considering over Shinon, that gets monstrous pretty fast. And the speed, which is his weaker offensive stat, well... 1 point below Geoffrey, 13 levels lower. 1 point above Makalov and Boyd despite a huge level disadvantage. etc. Given that part 3 is the easiest part in the game I don't really mind sinking some levels into someone a bit projecty, although even then you have to be ready to take the better of him or Shinon depending on RNG whims for both. Or hell, using both isn't a horrible idea for endgame, hilariously, if both turn out well - Brave Bow off Rolf's strength matches Amiti against everything but Dragonfoe situations).
Lyre: Actually, you underrated her: she matches base Mist for attack! Says so much. Anyway, feed her an Energy Drop and you have someone who has some merits as a project, maybe. Except that Ranulf, Lethe, and (later) Volug are all better. Soo yeah. Worst character in the game? She has a case.
Janaff and Ulki: I think you're underrating 3-10 as a map a bit. Otherwise, yeah, not defending that 3-7 (you can control them here, by the way; but who cares, 3-7 is the biggest joke in FE history) or 3-8 needing help (though it is a time for them to build strike level). That's still two maps in part 3! Anyway, the hax hawks pretty much rule forever at anything you need them to. Janaff in particular.. do you send him to the desert where a flier with his stats is welcome? Ike's path where his +5 to night vision gives him invaluable utility on top of his combat? Tibarn's path where 4 authority stars make him a tank and there are tons of thickets and swamps for his flight to pay off in? You just can't go wrong. Aside from lacking Formshift the two end up pretty similar statwise to Naesala (double everything, great durability (better in Ulki's case), great mastery rate), and Naesala vs. Janaff vs. Ulki is a pretty common debate.
Skrimir: I don't really think Skrim is badass at all on the desert unless you give him a Speedwing (the most contested stat booster in the game), most things can't be doubled by him here. Endgame's even worse. And he can't fly. And takes longer to reach L30. Yeah I'm not seeing the comparison to Janaff/Ulki, really.
Bastian: His SS wind is indeed innate (also: you transferred Bastian? what?) and his starting map is a great one for mages AND he's often the best choice if you need a third staff user in endgame! ... still not much to say here.
Volke: I think you're underrating his 4-F offence a fair bit. Yeah, he screws over Sothe further, but still. He compares quite well to Stefan, no Wyrmslayer but on the other hand he has crazy crit which actually lets him do really well against low-luck dragons! ... okay, I'm biased towards Volke, because he (see also Stefan, Lethe) was one of the only competent endgame PCs I used on my HM playthrough. But still! He really is kinda Stefan-like. And impressive in 4-5 due to Tibarn-blessed avoid.
Giffca: For what it's worth, dragons really can use stones instead of gems juuuust fine (that gauge is haxy). You can free up another gem by not using Reyson. Regardless, you have 15 gem uses for endgame, which is enough for three Gem-users. Hard to hold the gem against Giffca. He's just some stat points and "no turn 1" down from Cain and obviously very very good, although seldom used because of the similarity + inferiority to Cain who already inspires boredom. <_<
Renning: I actually think axe/sword is the best weapon combo he could have had, short of SS bow (filler Double Bow user? Thanks!). Hammertime E-1, wyrmslayer E-3. Otherwise, what you said.
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I basically agree with most of your comments otherwise (including on PCs that I commented on), I just enjoy talking about FE10. ^_^
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I've also heard a rumor that the Durgas can hurt burning enemies, as well.
Of course, I've only heard that as a rumor. I've yet to be able to test it.
I'm betting it's their traps that can hurt them - the delayed shock and firebomb. Waaaay too much of a pain to set up, though.
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Elincia: I definitely came away with a different impression of Elincia: fighter first and healer second, at least later on. In part 3 I basically agree that she's a healer first just for exp reasons, but she is of course a death cannon if you need her. Obvious enough. Anyway, very little in the game breaks 40 Def, and against anything with less her damage is as good as a Swordmaster's and only gets better from there... the difference being that (a) two shots at Stun is so much better than any other mastery/crit rate can hope to be, and (b) give her Dragonfoe and she kills everything in E-3 without taking a counter, something nobody else can claim (although Cain comes damn close, IIRC. Regardless, Cain is awesome and doesn't need Dragonfoe).
Hmmm, IIRC her strength is a bit backended and mostly due to growth? That's probably part of the impression there. That and the 20ish defense bugged me...and someone pretty much always needed healing on every Final stage.
You're right about the the Stun/Dragonfoe stuff. I kicked myself repeatedly for forgetting Dragonfoe during F-3 and making a hard stage harder, afterwards. Her Skill, however, screws with Stun a bit-Marcia's odds of Stun are actually comparable, for instance(Two shots of low 20 range vs one shot of high 30 is basically comparable.). Then again, there's very few other valid Secret Book targets(I just dumped them on Kurth for laughs.), so that's a reasonable thing to do.
Edit: Wait, right, her Skill is 34, not 24. How did I misremember *that*? Never mind the comment there then.
Volug: Just for the record, you can leave Halfshift (the skill) equipped, it becomes an optional command in part 3.
...well darn.
*eyes pile of Wildheart scrolls.* I so would have given Ranulf one if I'd known it was command based. I often thought that he could sorta kinda float it(especially after the Satori Sign) and it would have helped make him much more useful in intense parts of the game, but the niche use of higher stats was just too much of a loss.
I assume it just freezes the gauge? Or possibly runs it down if there is any but doesn't shift you at 0?
Vika: I've gotten her rolling, and yeah, she does have some payout. Not objectively worth it, though! She gets what credit she gets because it's impossible to perfect 1-8 without her.
oooh, that makes sense. I failed to perfect that, or even come very close. (I think one person survived. Only time I really gave up on BEXP seriously. Partially because it's not very *much*, ultimately, but I still lost like a level's worth.)
Haar: Well, I don't agree he's your best character on 2-E because Elincia exists; not only does she kill everything instead of just everything with 16 speed or less, but she can heal (Haar can better take a hit from his weakness if need be, since he's only 2HKOed with ~10 crit instead of OHKOed with ~60 hit, but Elincia can avoid taking said hit far more easily and there are quite a few fewer crossbows than thunder mages).
Oh, Elincia...probably is better just based on the fact that you get Physic right before that, if nothing else and just for starters. Right, I forgot that.
For raw combat...ehhhh I dunno. She does more damage and there are less enemies hitting her weakness, true. If one connects though, she is *dead*. There is no such issue with Haar and Thunder. They just hurt. Quite a decent chunk, but not one of them on the entire stage comes very close to killing him IIRC. I think their evade rates to their respective weaknesses are about the same too.
Then again I'm hyping Marcia on the same stage, so clearly it's viable. I think my issue there is that she gains nothing from it more than anything, so I tend to think of her less...doesn't mean she's not better, though, so fundamentally I agree.
Kieran: His fillerfillerfiller role allows him to continue being used into part 4, especially if you drop a Master Crown on him because you want to chipprshred 3-9 for some reason. His endgame sucks (although... better than SOME people, having used him there...).
ehhh I don't think I needed filler quite that badly.
Having said that if I didn't have carryover Geoffrey he would probably have ended up getting a lot more EXP, so fair enough.
Makalov: Maybe with carryover he'd be worth using!
Maybe if he wasn't the worst Paladin in 9 he'd get carryover~
Lethe: Her long-term's better than you're giving her credit for (better than I gave her credit for until I used her, too). She pretty much never stops pulling her weight and has a damn solid endgame like all non-tiger (and possibly non-Lyre) beast laguz due to crazy mastery rate and 30 CP, now with no gauge issues! Other than the late push (which is somewhat moot due to royal competition anyway), she reminds me of those competent but uninspiring prepromos like Geitz except she's around forever.
I actually agree totally on the last part. My issue is that FE10 tends to have higher standards and I rarely find myself needing that kind of character.
Still, you're probably right. I think, in general, my Laguz ratings are slightly low-I didn't make myself really use Olivi Grass/Laguz Stones until Part 4 in general, and while that doesn't totally skew your view(I mean, I know how good Laguz are with them, obviously, I used damn near every Laguz during 4.), it does warp it a little on an emotional level.
Wish Olivi Grass was just a normal storebought. It's not really that much different from buying weapons then, and Part 4 had the right idea. Make it cost more if you want, that'd be fine.
Calill: 13 levels of exp... well, she can easily get a fair bit of that in 2-E, and then a -lot- in 3-9 (free Paragon for your two favourite CRKs here, and if Marcia typically snags one, that still leaves a second). Not to mention she can go to 4-5, which is not only great for mages, but an exp feast. So she has a far, far easier time of reaching speeds where she doubles and kills things, without Rexflame even in the case of slower enemies. She hits Res in endgame and that's fairly desirable (half the auras have low res, red dragons, even whites and their generals) so it's something. But before endgame she's not really great. Just better than Sanaki. <.<
2-E is a little dangerous for her-tons upon tons of Range 2 weapons pop up. 3-9 I actively found her a liability on and was unable to protect her-she didn't *die*, but I never could get into attack range. Dunno how to explain that gap besides that I didn't use her enough in 2-E, and IIRC I sniped people with Meteor for kills constantly.
Might be that I just needed to know where 3-9 enemies were coming in at so I could actually keep her safe. If I'd taken the upper path with her, she'd have been fine. So...mmm. 4-5 yeah that's a fair point if you want to get her up to speed, and she is notably good there(beasts vs fire).
Sanaki, in fairness to her, actually has no real problem getting EXP, though(although it won't match 4-5's output), thanks to 4-3 utterly hosing the mobility of people-it is dirt easy to keep her safe while she trucks around at twice the speed of most people and snipes them. The one time being a mage is worth something.
(Hey, wait, wasn't she the one that made the comment in 9 about having no clue why the hell mages truck around at high speed in deserts?)
Janaff and Ulki: I think you're underrating 3-10 as a map a bit. Otherwise, yeah, not defending that 3-7 (you can control them here, by the way; but who cares, 3-7 is the biggest joke in FE history) or 3-8 needing help (though it is a time for them to build strike level). That's still two maps in part 3! Anyway, the hax hawks pretty much rule forever at anything you need them to. Janaff in particular.. do you send him to the desert where a flier with his stats is welcome? Ike's path where his +5 to night vision gives him invaluable utility on top of his combat? Tibarn's path where 4 authority stars make him a tank and there are tons of thickets and swamps for his flight to pay off in? You just can't go wrong. Aside from lacking Formshift the two end up pretty similar statwise to Naesala (double everything, great durability (better in Ulki's case), great mastery rate), and Naesala vs. Janaff vs. Ulki is a pretty common debate.
Went with the "YOU GET A BAD ITEM!" route for them. I have no regrets given how long I, having no info on how exactly that swamp fight worked, chased that little bastard around 4-5, even *with* them to help. So they're pretty good.
People seriously argue them vs Naesala, though? Naesala's raw evade is much better(than Janaff, Ulki I don't know thanks to his skill), his raw strength is higher, and(most important to me) they start with As on Strike unless I'm misremembering. I guess that's based on them having use during the 3 stages.
I might be underrating 3-10, but not a lot. There's something on the order of a dozen units supporting Elincia, which actually have fairly okay stats-the only real challenge is making sure none of them die for BEXP. If you're willing to lose a few(namely the healers, who, unsupported, will definitely die as they're idiots) the challenge to the stage is mostly just making sure Elincia doesn't die and that her troops don't get totally massacred for *major* BEXP drain(which starts happening a bit after the healers drop).
Bastian: His SS wind is indeed innate (also: you transferred Bastian? what?) and his starting map is a great one for mages AND he's often the best choice if you need a third staff user in endgame! ... still not much to say here.
WEXP carries over regardless of if you had L20 promoted, I thought? I may have misunderstood Serenes there, but I thought I saw it happen for people I didn't cap.
Volke: I think you're underrating his 4-F offence a fair bit. Yeah, he screws over Sothe further, but still. He compares quite well to Stefan, no Wyrmslayer but on the other hand he has crazy crit which actually lets him do really well against low-luck dragons! ... okay, I'm biased towards Volke, because he (see also Stefan, Lethe) was one of the only competent endgame PCs I used on my HM playthrough. But still! He really is kinda Stefan-like. And impressive in 4-5 due to Tibarn-blessed avoid.
And Lethality is actually not that bad on his low might/high skill/staring down dragons and spirits of weirdly tanky build, either(if I can get milage out of the worst Occult in the game on Sothe, the version that actually KILLS THINGS should be pretty useful!).
(Skill/2 Occults aren't too bad in practice, unless they're Bane or, to a much lesser degree, Aether, and the things that get them tend to have high skill. So commonly that things like Marcia Stun are out of place levels of frightening!)
Skrimir: I don't really think Skrim is badass at all on the desert unless you give him a Speedwing (the most contested stat booster in the game), most things can't be doubled by him here. Endgame's even worse. And he can't fly. And takes longer to reach L30. Yeah I'm not seeing the comparison to Janaff/Ulki, really.
Don't...beast Laguz tend to truck around the desert faster than standard ground units?
Not that I'm really arguing, but he was able to get to the fight from my recollection. He was just slow, kinda like how armor knights are in general(as opposed to in the desert, where they are useless).
He has doubling issues but...does he if he gains a natural speed point? 25% growth and L5 Tier 3 equivalent means he can gain a couple levels during 4-P and it's a coinflip. I'm not hyping him too strongly, nor was it really a *direct* comparison-Ulki and Janaff are better, unless you decide to abuse the Royalty skill cap boost on Skrimir and give him sixteen million useful skills, which is a monumental waste, and even then I'm not sure. It was more "They're useful until 4-F, at which point I'm not going to bother.".
Giffca: For what it's worth, dragons really can use stones instead of gems juuuust fine (that gauge is haxy). You can free up another gem by not using Reyson. Regardless, you have 15 gem uses for endgame, which is enough for three Gem-users. Hard to hold the gem against Giffca. He's just some stat points and "no turn 1" down from Cain and obviously very very good, although seldom used because of the similarity + inferiority to Cain who already inspires boredom. <_<
Well, yeah, it's not a real problem to use him, that was what my comment about Ena was about. (Knew Dragon gauge was haxy, but that applies just as easily to Olivi Grass use anyways. I tend to respect the Grass more in practice just because it's so much easier to use well than Stones.)
Renning: I actually think axe/sword is the best weapon combo he could have had, short of SS bow (filler Double Bow user? Thanks!). Hammertime E-1, wyrmslayer E-3. Otherwise, what you said.
mmm, the alternative is Spears/Bows. In many ways, I respect the Sword/Axe legendary weapons the least-Vague's 1 range(though excellent otherwise), Alondite has hit issues that the others don't, Urvan is 1 range like Vague.
Both the Spear and Bow are the two weapons I respect most in the game, on the other hand. So, while the former's a better combo, lacking one on either, for whatever reason, would be *awful*. It's not entirely impossible to end up with no archer, either(Screw up with Shinon by leaving Provoke on him and getting into trouble. Wham.), although ending up with no lance user seems pretty difficult.
So in some ways I agree with the usefulness of that combo but on the other hand losing either of those two legendaries for 3/4/5 use is really painful.
The important thing is that he basically couldn't have done worse than the combo he had. SS Axes/A Swords would have ended up much superior, as it's very hard to not end up with two good sword users, thanks to how braindead easy Good!Mia is and how Stefan is fine out of the box, and it would have allowed for the same useful combo.
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For raw combat...ehhhh I dunno. She does more damage and there are less enemies hitting her weakness, true. If one connects though, she is *dead*. There is no such issue with Haar and Thunder. They just hurt. Quite a decent chunk, but not one of them on the entire stage comes very close to killing him IIRC.
They have a fairly alarming crit rate against him (high single digits), so I personally will not expose him to thunder mages short of making an error. YMMV, this is a bit of a playstyle thing and matters less if you battle save a lot.
2-E is a little dangerous for her-tons upon tons of Range 2 weapons pop up.
She can abuse the ledge on the left side of the battle very badly, however. -50 hit on top of the authority stars is crippling. She has much better range 2 offence than anyone except maybe Haar, to boot, so she's actively helpful at this.
3-9, I dunno, I never had trouble keeping the hits she took fairly low. Again, she can abuse the ledge, and the map is very chokepointy.
Naesala's raw evade is much better(than Janaff, Ulki I don't know thanks to his skill), his raw strength is higher, and(most important to me) they start with As on Strike unless I'm misremembering.
They start with A's, but have five maps (easy though some may be) in order to get this to S by the time Naesala joins. 7-8 attacks per map? Not unreasonable for PCs who double everything, and that's before any potential Flourish hype.
Avoid... not really, check out the luck stats. Before authority, base Janaff has 98, base Ulki has 117 (game-best), and base Naesala has 104. This is ignoring that Janaff/Ulki have time to gain levels (if not many) before Naesala joins, as well as the fact they'll probably have a B support (+5, assuming with each other) by now. It also ignores that Naesala is on the worst path for dodge-tanking. Naesala does have better avoid growth (235% to their 195% and 150%), granted. So basically Naesala has a small win over Janaff but a significant loss to Ulki.
Strength, yeah. It's not much of a lead over Janaff (1 point), but it is over Ulki. You're right, of course, that the main part of this argument comes from the extra part 3 stuff. Maybe emblematic of how the FE community overrates availability, but I dunno. It is a better fight than you'd think, Formshift aside. And how much shifting concerns matter to you is pretty much the biggest "your milage may vary" thing ever. It's definitely a comparison I can see going either way.
Don't...beast Laguz tend to truck around the desert faster than standard ground units?
Yes, although only when shifted, and flight is still useful for canto and getting over those random cliffs scattered around the desert map.
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Doublepost oh no they are the worst thing ever I can't believe we allow people to make them.
1-12 (leypoints and paigoels)
A bit intimidating because paigoels on leypoints are stat gods and hit hard, and they all start near a leypoint which they will focus on accessing. This is also their weakness; you never have to worry about them swarming you.
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elementalist OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Geomancer; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Geomancer OC
Rush so I can access my attack spells (the paigoels all have a 100% weakness) and Replace more easily. Vin is a bit vulnerable here and does die, but the other two enjoy their protections from elemental spells (Geomancer EQ and Clarissa's innate defences) and are only 3HKOed. Revive Fruit to the rescue, anyway. Even using that was avoidable, aside from the beginning, you can take everything at your own pace. Replace gets them off the leypoints where they can easily be smashed. For even more fun, if you replace a paigoel onto the leypoint of its opposite element, it takes 9999 damage and dies instantly.
1-13 (argh petrify) (1 reset)
This map introduces reinforcements, and consists of 6 rhinoceroses, two gremalkins, and a tarrasque. The rhinos are the problem, because they can turn your PCs to stone. Only someone with Mystic or Item Range Up can heal stone, and it's potentially very fatal. I lose once as my PCs get successively petrified then shattered.
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Geomancer OC
Strategy is simple enough, I make sure to keep my Gadgeteer behind my other PCs, armed with Pygmalions to use if need be. Inevitably Elayne does get petrified, so the other two PCs guard her from attacks. Beyond that, the usual strategy suffices. An axe allows Vin to beat things up, while Clarissa tosses in Sacrifices, Encourages. Elayne lobs spells and heals from the back. It's a little nervous while my only person who can recover stone is petrified, but otherwise, not bad. The "boss" tarrasque is a joke and gets raped by combination arts.
1-14 (town defense) (1 reset)
Oh god. I have no idea how I have only one reset here; this is by far the hardest battle in the challenge before the third set of classes.
Clarissa: Elementalist; Dandelion Shot OC, Dandelion Shot EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Sacred Slayer; Elementalist OC, Geomancer OC
Vin: Sentinel; Fantastica OC, Geomancer OC
The game provides two ways to wall multiple enemies at once: Widespread Shut Out and ZOC. I make use of both. Elayne spends most of her turns dropping large Shut Outs wherever she can; Clarissa is assigned the main task of actually making things die. The initial wave isn't too bad because the terrain messes up the Berserkers, and once the Excavators fall, the main threat from them is past. Unfortunately a much bigger threat occurs once three are dead: two more Berserkers and an 8-move Geomancer appear at the left side of the battlefield, and they have a much straighter shot to the exit. Vin's main job is to block them off, Heavy Striking them into the pits when possible. Unfortunately the Geomancer sneaks by anyway; very fortunately he's still in Replace range, so I swap places with him, forcing him to run by me again, this time pushing him into the pit. Aw yeah Heavy Strike.
The other two need to hold off the last two or so berserkers and another rush of geomancer + 2 berserkers similar to the one on the left, only this one without pits to help out. I very, very nearly get overwhelmed here despite my repeated Shut Outs and attack spells, but Vin makes it over just in time. I end up finishing things with two PCs out of MP using up my last Revive Fruits, but yeah, clever use of ZOC is able to keep things just under control.
Side note about ZOC, since I wasn't 100% sure about how it worked until now myself: it stops an enemy from moving from one space adjacent to you into another, UNLESS that movement is the first panel of movement the enemy does that turn. So it works best when you're not already adjacent to them, just close by.
1-15 (zombie invasion)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Elementalist; Sacred Slayer OC, Gadgeteer OC
Ragnar: Sacred Slayer; Stormrider OC, Anti-Critical, Stormrider EQ
Sanctify is pretty much the only sane way to take out 14 enemies who aren't incompetent and have a chance of auto-reviving, so I make very, very generous use of it. Not too much else to say, Sacred Slayer OC takes care of healing too, so yeah. The second batch of undead can be tempted to bunch up together for Widespread Sanctify, which is a good thing because otherwise this battle would test my MP reserves.
I mystic both a Lucky Card and a Potential Egg in this battle because there are so many dudes.
1-16 (Stronach is an (undead) idiot) (1 reset)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, DS+Elem. EQ (book/brooch)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC, Sacred Slayer OC
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC
This battle is fairly random, and even more difficult to control on this playthrough. The enemies are competent enough and if they gang up/use smart moves it can be hard to save everyone at once. Anyway. Encourage/Turn Shift can help in the early going; resources aren't a problem for me here, since there are so few enemies compared to the last two maps (and the next two). There's no especially ingenious strategies otherwise. Smash with high damage moves, heal, Slow Down the occasional enemy who can't be controlled otherwise. Pretty tough but it's hard to see it walling any sort of playthrough.
I mystic a Lucky Card here, this proves fairly pointless as Clarissa/Elayne would have hit L20 without its help, and Vin misses by a few exp.
2-1 (Kappa swamp) (2 resets)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Elementalist; Gadgeteer OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Gadgeteer EQ (apron)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC
Multi-reset battle at last! It's not the hardest battle yet despite this, but it certainly is competent. 12 enemies, and they've got fairly good stats. My first two resets I made stupid mistakes and didn't have enough Revive Fruits to compensate for this. As a result, I play very conservatively the third time, making no real attempt to abuse the kappa. The first two berserkers charge forward into the swamp and die. I then move forward to the second island, drawing forward Diego and the nearest Enigmancer. Enigmancer uses Prevent which is super-annoying (shoulda brought Felius for water resist + status transfer to draw it off? Possibly!). Once both of them die, reinforcements show up. Two of the striders, a berserker, and a grappler come forward immediately, and this is the tricky part of the battle, controlling them and keeping healing down and GRR ACCELERATE it is annoying, even though it doesn't happen often, two turns in quick succession from someone as accurate/non-total-fail at damage like a grappler is a pain. Once they're dead the rest are easy enough.
I'm annoyed at myself because (a) I waste two Revive Fruits making sure Vin survives the battle only to learn at the end that dying erases all your Exp boosts anyway so this is a total waste, and (b) I realised as I completed the battle that I could probably abuse Geomancer to jump across the battlefield then draw everyone into the swamp for more kappa abuse. Oh well. In fact I did that last playthrough pretty much. Oh well.
Vin hits Level 20 too, obviously.
2-2 (sentinels and elevators)
Clarissa: Sentinel; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Sentinel; Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC
Bit of a tricky one. The enemies aren't as good as 2-1's, aside from the boss, Sharp, who is a bit of a bitch. Still, there are a LOT of them, and well, the elevator gimmick makes things a little tricky here.
First things first, one sentinel activates the first elevator, Vin hops on. Then both sentinels go activate the second. I have Elayne on the central switch, from which she can lob elementalist spells at most enemies. Clarissa can hit fewer of them, but that's okay. Most are quite frail and can be one-shotted by Vin. The real problem is that Vin doesn't have enough healing. A lot of this is my mistake, I give her two Potion Berries and two Revive Fruits, thinking that my sentinels will die and I can summon them up to the top level! I grossly overrate Strider damage, even with a height boost, against sentinel defence, and this is never a danger. Anyway, she dies once after I clear out 7 of the upper enemies through a combination of elementalist spam and Vin, and also Feeble Mind away Sharp's MP so she can't last indefinitely. After I do this she starts moving and attacking. I try to Heavy Strike Sharp off the cliff but miss both times. :( That doesn't help.
Anyway, during all this five reinforcements come from the south. They're easily dispatched by my elementalists sentinels, though. They come to you, have big weaknesses, etc.
That done, revive Vin, have Elayne heal her, and send her upstairs again. I try to get my MP back and MP Burst backfires, sigh. No big, kill Sharp with physicals although she slugs me back well enough with her 2x speed. This leaves a Secutor who can be baited and killed. Of course, by now, Vin is near death again, and needs two hits to drop an Elementalist, who refuses to be baited. She kills me, revive and get her up there again, use my very last MP to heal Vin one more time, kill puny elementalist. Victory with everyone out of MP, everyone except Vin out of VP and at 1 HP, aw yeah.
Almost have the third batch of classes! Definitely looking forward to the options provided by Enigmancer (can't beat Devastate for efficient damage, really), Berserker (yay move), Grappler (I hate Accelerate, but I'll still take it), and Strider (Drop Kick yesssss, also aim boosts).
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XG:PSR
Shevat (Cont)- More or less just as planned. With Seibzehn carting around 3x Power Magic, Maria's first ether (the one costing 2 EP) does like 600 damage. This is good, because... well, actually, I should break down the shevat tunnels.
Anyway. There's three enemies down here. GImmicks, who have unbreakable defense and don't take ether damage (or at least not the elemental kind)... but have 6 HP. If you'll remember your XG damage calculations, you know that you can't do less than 1 damage barring blocking. So yeah, trivial. Second, we have Forbidden. These guys lose their first turn, then on the second and every turn thereafter deal damage equal to their lost HP. So, basically, if we kill them we hit them hard and fast between their turns. They've got good defense, though... in fact, at my levels (and with Elly still rockin' the Lunar Rod, even though nothing here is susceptible) I don't break their defense. Anyway, they've got 500 HP. Last are Tears. These always come in groups of two. They're fairly puny, but if you kill one, the remaining one essentially gives itself every buff in the game, or something to that effect, meaning it generates turns from the aether and gains a new MT attack that causes death. I flatly run from these fuckers.
Anyway, Seibzehn is equipped with 3x power magic, causing Maria's first ether attack to deal 600 damage, or what might be called "trivializing the bloody dungeon". I also manage to get lost by misreading the FAQ I'm using and lose a few minutes there.
After this is teh Gate Defense series. I use the setups from before (Elly vs 1, Fei vs 2, Billy vs 3, Rico vs 4) and it's all just as planned. Fei has a scare as I realize he can't break white knight defense (because he's skipped three upgrades), but it turns out that even with no Ether amplification, Guided Shot OHKOs them. BIlly works out beautifully, OHKOing the power gear and easily weathering the white knights. Rico slogs through with no problems, since he's using the most recent upgrades. Optimally, if you'd bought a second Ether Doubler, Bart is probably better here; with an ether setup he should pull off the same OHKO trick using YggDepthChrg, and you'd really only need to give him HP rather than the full upgrade set Rico had. He'd also get the jump on the power gear and shorten the battle a bit. But, I don't have that so it's not worth it.
The rest of the shevat sequence isn't really losable.
Nisan Defense Force- I end up eating reset here (I am shame); I haven't upgraded character gear in AGES, and it turns out that the randoms here are pretty well top of the line offensively. Anyway, Bart is forced, and I round out the crew with Elly, reasoning she's less likely to die than Maria. Properly upgraded, battles are slow but in my favor. 'boss' fight falls over dead. Aerods~
Gate 1- Bart is still forced here, so I opt to bring Seibzehn over Vierge; 'cuz, uh, Shakhan's gonna get a COUPLE turns and Vierge would be OHKOed due to going half the game without upgrades. I've had easier fights here, but still not a good showing for Shakhan.
Gate 2- Swap Chu-Chu for Seibzehn. OHKO with Aerods. 2HKO with Graviton Cannon (because I only have one ether doubler). Yeah, elements blow.
Gate 3- Fei/Elly/Maria. Since I'm still stubbornly conserving money, all the randoms down here OHKO the fuck out of Vierge and Weltall. Crescens isn't quite so lucky, and actually gets three turns off because I fell juuuuuust short on some damage, but still not a hard fight even if Vierge did buy it... I think. Maybe it was Weltall.
And we're caught up. At this stage, looking over the upcoming game, I'm debating the merits of sacrificing speed on the mage gears (Viege/Renmazou/Crescens) in favor of full ether amp, ie 3x Power Magic. If so, I'm going to want to buy those in Shevat, now, because I'm not sure if they stay on store lists in the anima dungeons. 'sides, I totally want to see what I can make Thor Wave do to poor Vendetta.
(Solaris? Man I dunno. We'll see how the Lunar Rod fares here, and how many things I can flee.)
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She can abuse the ledge on the left side of the battle very badly, however.
ooh. I think I kinda flinch at that because of the DB chapters(where a mage gets one-shotted trying to do it if something gets through, as I learned the hard way.). Game taught me bad habits sometimes.
They start with A's, but have five maps (easy though some may be) in order to get this to S by the time Naesala joins. 7-8 attacks per map? Not unreasonable for PCs who double everything, and that's before any potential Flourish hype.
Completely unecessary EXP sinkhole that could be used to make much better filler of the rest of Ike's troops for 4 than...well, any other group can make. Ever. Even people like Rolf could easily be trained up during 3-7 and 3-8(both stages are extremely controlable.). Rolf is a ridiculously good 4 filler with very little work.
Big waste of EXP for no really major gain over Naesala? Eh. At least with Volug there's a survivability question(That is, you may not survive if you don't use Volug, or someone equally as much of an EXP sinkhole. This is a question...basically all the time. DB chapters are nasty. Also, long term, EXP lost in DB can be made up later easily enough in Part 3, so long as they don't end up toooo behind.).
Now, granted, you can have them abuse Flourish. But only one of them. (Only one copy in the game and all.)
The thing about shifting is that the FE community underrates the absolute effect a little, I think. I'm not really sure I feel competent to state things too strongly-I mostly didn't Olivi Grass abuse, as I said-but that never has stopped me from talking before.
Yes, by and large it's a convenience thing, and yes, if you're very good at strategy you can make the impact minimal. I'll accept that. I'll also accept that I am not optimal at FE style strategy or even very close.
However...the issue is that, if a unit is considered a good target by the AI, by and large it swarms them, particularly if it's a good unit(as it's quite aware they'll take more hits to bring down). And the AI prioritizes Laguz just to run down their meter, if they're the only target they can attack without getting countered-and often they are due to a lack of 1-2 weapons(I love this. FE10's AI is shockingly competent. The only time I can rely on them to be stupid is when a skill is involved. Quirky, maybe, stupid no.).
Hawks -3 per battle. It's not really hard to get into a situation where you're forced to rely on them picking off people, despite their good on paper front line swordmaster+-type stats. Three attacks and one turn loss is -13.
So in short, to minimalize the impact you have to either itemspam and limit the times they can attack, or attack and limit the amount of attacks they can take when enemy turn rolls around. They can't just step up and brawl. This is way more true with cats(and indeed it's badly limiting-picking things off is much harder for a cat AND they have worse meter...), while Dragons cheat and can almost totally ignore their meter, popping an Olivi Grass once every couple of turns even at the front lines with full assaults wailing on them.
Now, obviously that does not make them bad. Good Laguz are great. But unless I'm crazy, no amount of strategy can actually keep transformation from limiting your options, and that really hurts them more than you'd think. Unless they're Herons or Dragons. Then they basically don't care.
Of course with Ulki and Janaff there's still enough Gem to go around for one of them anyways by 4-F, much like there is for Giffca. And only a crazy person wouldn't use all three during the split. So it doesn't really matter there. >_>
Just as a general statement... I kinda feel like there's an unspoken viewpoint within a fair deal of FE10 players that use Laguz a lot, that a Laguz is, as long as you're playing well, just as good as Beorc with the same stats would be, and that because their Strike levels go up and because they gain levels fine later, that they're unmitigatedly good, when I read FAQs or look at Serenes or GFAQs or whatnot.
That's...a little inane. They're prepromos at huge level gaps that can't solo a situation without freezing in place and spamming items, and Strike level gains come at a huge, huge EXP cost. This is the equivalent of paying someone three or four BEXP levels of EXP, often, for +5 Strength and an according +5 Strength cap boost-a choice that would mostly get scoffed at when put like that, as raw might, while good, tends to be a lot worse than balanced stat growth that you can place anywhere. They're still good, but the downsides are clean to them between their build and their level, and it feels strikingly like using them constantly like a Beorc is totally missing the design point of "Short term problem removal". And they're just as good at that without grass spam, which is why I didn't even bother for much of the game.
(boy that tangent got long.)
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Completely unecessary EXP sinkhole that could be used to make much better filler of the rest of Ike's troops for 4 than...well, any other group can make. Ever. Even people like Rolf could easily be trained up during 3-7 and 3-8(both stages are extremely controlable.). Rolf is a ridiculously good 4 filler with very little work.
Why does it matter if they're an exp sinkhole or not? They gain something out of it (strike level), same as someone like Rolf would. That's pretty much their equivalent of exp, since their other stats... basically don't need much help anyway (they're already faster than most units' speed caps, extremely durable to non-crossbows, etc.).
EDIT: If you're going to argue that Janaff/Ulki don't even need strike level to be good filler, then that's fair, but doesn't make them sound any worse as units to me.
So in short, to minimalize the impact you have to either itemspam and limit the times they can attack, or attack and limit the amount of attacks they can take when enemy turn rolls around.
This is very true, and pretty much what keeps laguz from godmoding with generally broken stats (well, the good ones. This is why units like Kyza and Lyre are so fraught with problems, they -don't- have good stats). Basically, you have to choose between a good player phase and a good enemy phase, unless you're facing nothing but 1 range enemies (it happens! This is why Volug dominates part 3). However, the good news is you have that choice, unlike, say, Snipers who will never have a competent enemy phase before endgame. Still, it's why they're not as good as their raw stats suggest, as you note.
I disagree with your comments on exp, however. There's no exp ranking in this game. If you're choosing between using, say, Janaff and Rolf, then sure, Rolf gains more exp while Janaff only gains strike, but... if Janaff is better while both are "levelling" in part 3 and then still better as a filler in part 4 (I'd say both of these are true, but even if you disagree, bear with me for sake of argument), what does it matter? You're clearly better off using Janaff than Rolf (or both). It's kinda reminiscent of the arguments against earlygame Titania in FE9 which are now generally agreed to be rubbish; yes, she gains very little exp, but it doesn't matter because she's the best unit at the time and using her makes the game easier compared to not using her. Obviously part 3 is so filled with powerful units that the contribution of the hawks isn't going to be as good, but the parallel applies.
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I disagree with your comments on exp, however. There's no exp ranking in this game. If you're choosing between using, say, Janaff and Rolf, then sure, Rolf gains more exp while Janaff only gains strike, but... if Janaff is better while both are "levelling" in part 3 and then still better as a filler in part 4 (I'd say both of these are true, but even if you disagree, bear with me for sake of argument), what does it matter? You're clearly better off using Janaff than Rolf (or both). It's kinda reminiscent of the arguments against earlygame Titania in FE9 which are now generally agreed to be rubbish; yes, she gains very little exp, but it doesn't matter because she's the best unit at the time and using her makes the game easier compared to not using her. Obviously part 3 is so filled with powerful units that the contribution of the hawks isn't going to be as good, but the parallel applies.
For the former part...the difference is that Rolf will likely gain as much Might and gain other stats, whereas Janaff just gains the might. In other words, there's no real *conflict* of "If I use Rolf, Janaff becomes unusable.". There is just "Rolf gains three times as much from the same amount of kills.".
(Rolf is a bad example here because he actually probably will, thanks to his low starting levels and high strength growth, gain the same +5 to Strength short term that the Might boost is equivalent to, along with other stats. There is more questionability when you're talking about +2/3 on all stats on one person and +5 might on another.)
To put it simply, they don't *conflict*-Janaff starts off excellent and won't gain nearly as much as Rolf. So why short him? Two good people are better than one slightly better person, is the logic.
In practice, of course, there is a question of if you're bringing Ulki or Janaff into Endgame, due to defenses being quite high... but they simply have to compete with Giffca, non-Naesala Royals, Stefan(whose stats are remarkably close, whose caps are remarkably close, and who comes with a 22 power weapon that is stronger than anything they can produce), and anyone that has been normally built up who can swing an SS.
It does depend somewhat on the positioning of the Laguz and how much EXP we're talking about here, obviously. For FE10 late Part 3, we're talking a lot of high teens enemies IIRC for...most of the latter half, it oddly leveled off. This is...actually a pretty bad gap between Janaff and anyone under Tier 2 15, they gain something along the lines of a quarter of a level for the equivalent of his 2 WEXP. It's not efficient. Of course, now you have me wishing I knew the exact calculations for this, there is a definite line to be drawn here for where it does become efficient. Probably when there's no competition that you care about gaining over 12-15 or so EXP a kill(Ulki and Janaff get two WEXP pretty much every time in Part 3, but they usually kill the target.).
(Interestingly, the conclusion I find myself drawing after this gaming philosophy viewpoint expounding is that if you can't find a way to get any of Naesala, Ulki and Janaff to SS without blowing a lot of EXP, you should say screw it and just use Giffca. I can find...absolutely nothing wrong with this logic, it's the same reason I don't respect Skrimir after the two forced stages. Stop being so good Giffca.)
Of course, this, again, does kinda fly out the window considering that, if you don't mind losing a slot(and indeed you can get away with this in Ike's chapters-there are people that won't make good filler, or that will with quite little EXP and don't care.).
For the latter...nah, Titania's not the right parallel at all, for multiple reasons.
Firstly, Titania is an excellent character because she is available during very hard chapters, and chapters that, moreover, are nigh-impossible to kill everyone on since they're timed. The EXP she is "draining" doesn't exist for other people, as, if she wasn't killing those people, they would never die.
Secondly, the parallel only applies if someone else can't kill enemies as fast as Ulki/Janaff. Again, see my statement on how many people a Laguz can handle and how often they can run until transformation gauge replenishing, potentially. If this was another group-any other group, actually-I'd agree. As it is I'm not sure they don't, in practice, make things slower, although it varies on who we're replacing them with(Replacing Ulki with an L1 Rolf is going to get you tons of EXP and make the EXP comparison look bad, but it's also going to take for frigging ever to end anything with.).
There's certainly a question and one that would take rather ridiculous amounts of microanalysis and subjective arguments to actually hash out, ultimately, I think.
Thirdly, BEXP is much more of a question in Titania's favor. It is pretty strenuous at all times to reach the BEXP requirements in FE9; One of the few things FE9 simply did better was setting it's turn limits to logical things, FE10's are all over the place. So, Titania use could easily get you more EXP than not using her, even ignoring other things.
In Ulki/Janaff's case? Well, 3-7 has no time EXP(Then again, their kills are moooostly free there if they take the west side...well as long as they don't get one-shotted.), 3-8 has 20 turns as a limit(.........), and 3-10/3-11 are ten turns.
Now...3-10 in general has to be completed around that to avoid risk to Elincia, so most of the same statements I've said before about how I feel about it still apply. 3-11 would be an excellent point for time, and indeed there's just one problem with it. For whatever ridiculous reason, it's a Seize mission, meaning that Ike has to be shuttled across the map and has a one turn delay when he's dropped. So...your hawks would have to either break out ahead or your entire force would have to be flying. If the latter's true, they...will be unable to attack part of the time in a mission you have to pretty much intelligently full-tilt across with every flier you have to complete in 10 turns, making them inferior to every non-Laguz flying option you have. In that sense, they're vastly inferior as not using them probably won't change your ability to get BEXP, compared to Titania.
Of course they're still good on 3-11, but I've said that.
Post preview edit:
EDIT: If you're going to argue that Janaff/Ulki don't even need strike level to be good filler, then that's fair, but doesn't make them sound any worse as units to me.
Oh, surely, but that only applies up to 4-F. I thought the Naesala comparison assumed S Strike-without their worth as filler, relative comparisons to each other, are kinda...not there. I never really called them bad at all. It was more that they're extremely good but their positioning is extremely bad, and their availability isn't really helping it as much as you'd think on paper.
mmm. Thinking on it, I think the thing that really bugs me about Naesala vs them is that you can, if you wish, pull out Naesala for 4-F out of the bag and he will have that S Strike and still be useful. *Very* useful? No, not until he beats on mages, White Dragons, spirits, whatever, for a decent chunk of time, but he holds his own decently. 47 Might, ignoring levels gained later, is Sothe-at-cap-with-Baselard damage-not impressive, but off the mobility it can hold okay for the first two chapters while he gets going on Strength growth, and he'll end at double swinging Meg offense.
Janaff, the stronger of the two, will have 40. Huge gap. Single lowish-for-the-time Elincia swing levels of damage. It's much harder to surmount that gap, particularly as, for them, it's more about that Strike than it is base stats(and Naesala's caps and growth are both better for Strength to boot(Albiet, not *much* better than Janaff, Ulki is pretty substantial though. Ulki has other advantages, but *those* won't surmount the 36 Might he'll have at that point, either...), as well as the fact that he starts at a lower level and hence gained EXP faster.)
If you partially build them up, like normal characters, having them attack with everyone else, they...will become as useful as Naesala is when you get him, after draining a lot of EXP from other people, for Endgame, assuming they don't fall short and drain still more EXP during 4(Less extreme, as they're breaking 1 then at least.). 35 is a lot of enemies to eat. Whereas, if you don't...they'll still have 40 which is fine for 4-non-F.
Basically it feels like favoritism as much as what I did with Meg's Tier 2 14 or so+ levels, by BEXPing them. Sinking a lot into one character to make them better. I just expect more of that than "Well he'll be as good as this other person. If you ignore the useful skill he has.". A lot of FE10 is about optimising where your resources go, lategame, so that 4-F is as managable as possible, to me. Ulki and Janaff don't use their resources well when given them. It doesn't make them bad, since you use them instead to deal with situations instead of considering them as a long term option.
I mean, to put this into perspective: Nailah in Part 1 is about fixing situations. She fixes every situation, ever, flawlessly, at the cost of it's rewards(besides items). You get what you pay for.
Volug is an out for many situations until very late in Part 1, and still gets Strike levels. You get what you pay for...and a bonus of him being better later for it. You get more than you pay for(Rating Volug highly is something I approve much of.).
Meg gains gradually and will be a good character later and is useful now. She is meant to be used as part of an overall strategy but will gain much more from it short term. You get what you pay for.
Ulki and Janaff fix...a few narrow spectrum situations. (Before 4. During 4, pre-4-F they are badasses. No arguments here.) If they were removed I have no doubt all of those situations could be fixed without a lot of real effort outside of possibly 3-11, before 4. (They are clearly good outs for all sorts of situations during 4.) That doesn't mean they should be ignored, any more than it means you shouldn't use Ike because you can get by without him. Those situations are things they're excellent at. But, much like a 20/20 Ike, it might be better to think "Is this worth it?" before just doing it. The answer is...yes, just as long as you don't overuse them, based on extreme short term.
If you put them into way more than those situations they're needed for, if you put a lot of items on a team that could at the time use the cash to keep them transformed, if you use them for situations they're not necessary in, to build them up, if you take away EXP from other people, you get...something that's not as good as Giffca and less versatile-if possibly more statted-than Naesala. That's not getting what you pay for to use them like that. You get what you pay for using them to destroy bad situations, and they just won't hit S like that. There just aren't quite enough of them until 4, and Naesala's gaining WEXP along with them then.
Again, unless you use Flourish. Which makes this conversation pretty academic. It's not like it was hard to get(2k at a Bargains shop). Slows down your fights, but as demonstrated 3-8 is not exactly something that rewards speed objectively. So who cares, short of time efficiency?
Of course you can use it on Naesala too during Part 4. It's probably not hard to get all three to SS if you're ignoring time, just boring and not worth it, honestly(Naesala as I mentioned isn't really hard with consistent use and just tossing Flourish on one and the other to 4-5 should do it.). But then again...ultimately based on potential Naesala tips them out a bit thanks to Formshift and +4 Speed cap that can reasonably be reached. So if you're doing it for long term and just squeezing every drop out of all three...it's still not worth it.
But hey by then you probably could field all three and replace some Beorc with them(Whoever you'd have use Alondite and...uh....okay that's probably not practical but hey.). >_>
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snip
8345 words. And these are general thoughts? ... Wow, Sage. Wow.
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A bit late but on DMC3 - IIRC Special Edition made the original's easy mode the normal mode, so I can definitely understand complaints about the lack of difficulty. You really should give the harder modes a shot.
Personally I even enjoyed getting decimated by DMD but then it's my second favourite game so I'm probably a bit weird. I still plan to go back and SS rank everything someday but I imagine I'll struggle to even beat Hard Mode with how out of practice I am.
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Nah, it made the original's normal mode the normal mode. The US version of the base game had all the difficulties shifted up a notch, so easy was Japanese normal and normal was Japanese Hard.
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Is DMC3 Easy equal to DMC3SE Normal, or DMC3SE Easy? I was never sure if US DMC3 removed Japanese Normal from the game, or Japanese Easy, relabeling Normal as Easy.
I do know that Normal = SE Hard, Hard = SE Very Hard, with DMDs being equal though. Though, DMC3SE Hard to DMD seems like a ridiculous jump in difficulty, relative to other Hard -> DMDs, to the point where that logic may have been why they considered futzing with difficulties? Either way, DMC3 is a game that strikes me that a "Very Hard" to smooth transition into DMD was very much needed.
Can't speak for DMC4 of course. DMC1, watching videos, DMD doesn't look like a tremendous step up from Hard, at least before the DT Nonsense; enemies are definitely hitting harder and more durable, but its still all the same enemies you fight ("Wait, what's a shadow doing in Mission 2, LET ALONE A TIGHT CORRIDOR!?" still applies to Hard), with the same general AI and the same new tricks (Griffon's little new trick is a big one.) Jump is large but reasonable, where as DMC3's DMD seems like a huge jump relative to hard, contrast to Very Hard where it seems to be akin to Hard -> DMD in DMC1.
EDIT: You know, thinking on it...DMC3SE's Hard Mode didn't alter enemy availability, did it? Maybe I'm misremembering, but I don't remember fighting enemies particularly earlier than in Normal Mode. I know Very Hard does this (the LP made that clear), but not certain about Hard Mode.
I know DMC4 definitely did what DMC1 did with hard Mode, as you definitely do NOT fight Blitzes as early as Mission 3/4, let alone as Nero before the Boss Rush *shakes fist*
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DQ9 - Putting ToI on hold for a little.
Just got my sixth plot item! One more to go before the arching plot advances.
Man, the recent boss was a tough cookie. Acts twice, does both damage and MP Drain (~ 8 MP, which is fairly significant given Midheal costs 4, and the Priest had an MP pool of 80), can buff magic defence, and knock people prone, and cast Boom, and cast Dazzle. Tough nut to crack, but I got her down! Bounce for the win.
My team:
Yuusha - Level 23 Gladiator. He has perks in Warrior (+resilience), Thief (+agility), Ranger (+agility), Paladin (+resilience) and Gladiator (+HP). Trained in Swords. He's pretty much my physical power house, but due to having so many talents in speed he's not necessarily the strongest physically speaking... heh. Greatest weapon, though! Tanks magic due to Magic-resisting armours.
Pino - Level 25 Thief. He has perks in Martial Artist (+agility), Thief (+agility) and Warrior (+resilience). Has Daggers almost mastered: the only he thing he lacks is Omnivocational, which lets him wield daggers on any class. This can be ridiculous given there's pretty good status effects on daggers. Currently the fastest, who can Heal and Squelch. Damage is on-par with Yuusha due to his high training in Daggers, but he's fairly weak on resilience. I mostly use him to batter enemies quickly with Warcry, or hit them right before the Mage hits.
Niode - Level 26 Mage. MVP. Only has perks in Mage, having almost mastered Wands and Spellcraft by now. Crackle consistently hits for 80~100 damage (which rivals Pino and Yuusha), but she's due for a new attack spell as far as I'm concerned. Current spell line-up is Frizz, Acceleratle (MT Agi Up is ridiculously good for combos), Crack, Crackle, Bang, Sap, Kasap, Fuddle, Bounce. Her Wands give her Caduceus (high stun on demons), Magic Ward (increases MDef), some spell to reduce enemy Mdef, MP regeneration in Focus Pocus and Magic Seal for silence. Ridiculously speedy, and rivals Pino in durability. This probably says more about Pino than it does of Niode.
Simba - Level 18 Paladin. Highest def character despite the lowest level. Takes damage and doesn't afraid of anything. Has perks in Priest (+magical mending, Benediction), and is trained in Spears and Shields. Has a few useful tricks to help out Niode's suspect durability with Buff, Whipping Boy, Whistle and Protective Spikes. The Coup is also good, fully negating all offensive effects for two turns, excluding the casting turn. Doesn't have Midheal like he did as a Priest, though, but the Priest's durability was ass. Now he's a good back-up for damage, and doesn't die even if you beat on him with a full round of attacks.
Currently going to attempt the Paladin equipment quest. Need to kill a specific monster with Protective Spikes, which sucks since it's a counter and not TOO awesome on offence. Item quests give you an armour that's a lot better than the armour I can get right now (okay, not entirely true - finally replaced the Mage's armour), and at level forty it seems it'll grant me another piece of equipment... or something!
I've absolutely no clue where to go now and there's no walkthrough. Lounging at xenophobe isle but heh.
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East of Batsureg, go there. Wormwood isn't until later. That is, go southeast of Batsureg, straight east, and then north to find TotallyNotHogwarts.
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Oh, thanks Xeroma. I was wondering what I needed to do and DragonQuest games are so typical in not telling. :V
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MGSPW: Solid game and far better then portable ops. Also you get to build your own Metal Gear to use on the fools who oppose you and that is crazy awesome.
My progress is beating the Hind after recruiting Otacons father and Hideo Kojima?!1?
WKC: Who tests the online quests in this game? I just did one where you have to protect a 0.7 pc hp NPC from two bosses at the same time who BOTH OHKO HIM. I got it in a couple of trys due to abusing physical immunity Barriors but damn that quest is retarded.
Anyway I'm GR8 and doing the same old thing. Kicking that ugly mother Big Red's Troll punk ass all over the desert.
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The system sounds so cool in theory, but I've already been burned by IF fail with GoC... and you say this is -worse- when it comes to buggy programming?
I haven't played GoC.
And did I mention any bugs? I'm pretty sure I did not. In fact, I don't think I've seen any! There's just stupid design decisions and lack of polish. These are very different things!
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Resident Evil 4: Just beat Separate Ways. Fun little way to tack on an extra 5 hours to the game. Simplified version of the game that's mostly just blowing up more enemies, but hey, games good at that! A few unique sections relative to Leon too (namely the turret part.) seeing the plot from Ada's PoV is kind of meaningless since, well, RE4 plot isn't exactly very intriguing to begin with, but whatever, I got an explosive Crossbow, so I really can't care!
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Been out for a few days, so minimal progress. :(
Wednesday 14th July:
- FF3: Phew, finally! Got to Odin after doing a training run to him before - managed to beat him this time, thanks to Arc avoiding Zantetsuken via Jump, which went on to be the finishing blow. Went off to the Temple of Time after that, blitzed it pretty easily (a few new weapons really make all the difference in this game, don't they?) and grabbed Noah's Lute. Woke up Unei and entered the Ancient Ruins, quicksaved about halfway through and stopped for the day.
Thursday 15th July:
- FF3: Got through the rest of the Ancient Ruins, got a new airship. Completely re-equipped inside and sold all the old crap I don't plan on using - I'm happy with my team as is now. Went over to the Cave of Shadows, saved outside. Yeah, that's all. :(
Friday 16th July:
- FFX-2: Did Besaid again, then went over to get Gun Mage because I hate Zanarkand, apparently. Blitzed that one, so wandered over to Zanarkand with my new levels. Swept through up until the boss, which... killed me with a double Damocles Photon. DAMMIT. I need more training, but I really hate having to grind for levels, especially in a game like this. >_>
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Friday 16th July:
- FFX-2: Did Besaid again, then went over to get Gun Mage because I hate Zanarkand, apparently. Blitzed that one, so wandered over to Zanarkand with my new levels. Swept through up until the boss, which... killed me with a double Damocles Photon. DAMMIT. I need more training, but I really hate having to grind for levels, especially in a game like this. >_>
How do you possibly lose here? It cannot doubleact. Do you not have any healing at all? Shell, if you really want to go the battle without healing.
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What part of FFX-2 is this?
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XF. The update that includes that battle.
2-3 (meowsery)
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC
Felius: Secutor; Halberdier OC
Levin: Elementalist: Martial Mage OC, Sacred Slayer OC
Levin is forced, Felius is forced but doesn't immediately appear on the field, so I can only control two PCs at first.
Everyone gets miseried at the start of this battle. Two ways to get around it, have Felius reappear and Status Absorb people, or have people die and get revived. Levin being a squishy underlevelled elementalist has this happen quickly enough, so from there on it's Levin providing healing and some blasting support (some Blast but mostly elemental) while Vin tanks. There are quite a lot of enemies here and this proves quite a grind; the initial rush is tricky to deal with, as are the Gadgeteers below. The secutors below prove easier because the cliff abuses them and then there's a sweet chokepoint where only one can attack. Finally I head up to the top area, which is I think what causes Felius to appear. So I should have done that earlier, oh well. Felius uses Status Absorb so Vin can start Heavy Striking things. Ending is sliiightly tense because Levin is out of MP, Felius is silenced, and Vin is out of VP/HP, but not really a big deal, Forcefield keeps Vin safe well enough. A much harder battle than I remember, but still the easiest battle in part 2 so far.
Third set of classes!
2-4 (the gate) (4 resets)
Remember how I said 1-14 was the hardest battle before the third set of classes? That's because I knew this came after that little benchmark. Hardest map so far? Oh yes. Hardest map in the game? I'm inclined to say yes, in a normal playthrough. We'll see here. This map actually doesn't get... -that- much harder with 3 PCs. It still gets harder, though, and it can ill afford to do so.
Clarissa: Geomancer; Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Vin: Berserker; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC
Labyrinthia: Gadgeteer; Arcanist OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
The main problem with this battle is just how hard the enemies hit. Sentinels have Heavy Strike, which hurts a fair deal, but even worse are the elementalists, who 2-shot Labby almost regardless of what class she is in and do a serious number on everyone else. I end up turning Clarissa into a geomancer for two reasons: their armour combined with her innate resistance lets her only be 4HKOed by elementalists, and Translate lets her skip quickly to the back of the map.
Vin is a berserker beacause their mobility is valuable for getting through the sentinels quickly. Also, a Charging Thrust from range 7 or 8 immediately drops an elementalist into critical. And she has tons of HP. She also casts Rush (as always) which is invaluable.
I play around with different classes for Labby, eventually settling on Gadgeteer. Although it doesn't have the movement and speed of Excavator, its Mystic is actually useful unlike Excavator's OC, as is its ability to carry items. Arcanist OC is there for Warp (after Rush, 10 panels of mobility is awesome) and Replica (basically cancels the turn of one enemy and, if it's a sentinel, pulls them out of the way).
The main strategy is to get everyone to the gate before criticalling the third enemy, then quickly make the escape before being overwhelmed by the reinforcements (the reinforcements include Geos with Shut Out, this is pretty instantly fatal without Dispel on hand). The other main part of the strategy which I eventually key in on is to NEVER enter the range of the elementalist on the left (further from the treasure chest where Clarissa warps in). Besides that, it's a matter of surviving as best I can and dropping guys into critical.
The escape itself is very risky, but by starting near the gate, it gets far easier. I have Labby toss a gem to knock the last enemy into critical - I don't like using gems much because of their price, but here, the quick hit effect is worth it given what has to come next. Clarissa abuses Turn Shift to get everyone else quick turns here, even using it the turn she gets out. This is useful because Vin, who was tanking the sentinels, starts two turns from the gate, so I need to get her those two turns quickly. Fortunately one Turn Shift gets used on the turn Clarissa herself escapes, so... yeah. Over before the reinforcements can act, and previous experience states this was pretty much necessary.
Whew.
2-5 (sentinels in the streets)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elementalist EQ
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC
Not too hard a battle (not trivial either), but I'm not very happy with how I play it, a bit lazy and I lose all the bonuses from a Potential Egg I mystic at the start because everyone dies at some point. There's really no excuse for that. Sure, most of the enemies are decently hard-hitting sentinels, but I still play rather poorly.
No reinforcements here, just a straight slugfest. I turn on that orb which I've ignored on previous playthroughs but I don't really notice it doing much. Devastate is pretty cool and MP-efficient at killing things, which makes it a nice addition to my toolbox. Don't have much to say otherwise.
2-6 (Asgard)
Clarissa: Elementalist; Dandelion Shot OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Dandelion Shot EQ
Elayne: Fantastica; Sacred Slayer OC, Enigmancer OC, Elementalist EQ
Vin: Gadgeteer; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC, Weapon Block
Protip: Asgard sucks.
Well okay, he's decent if you don't know what you're doing. But since I do, ahahaha. Keep out of 1 range, use Feeble Mind (ignores his barrier) until he's out of MP. An Asgard with no MP can't do anything but launch physical attacks, so whatever, debuff him and hit him with a wrench and Sacrifice + heal and yeah not much to say here, his HP isn't even that impressive in this first fight.
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What part of FFX-2 is this?
Based on Besaid vs. Zanarkand, going with "Chapter 1" <_<
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I need four more cosmosands!!
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Dead Rising: Just bought this. So far, fun little game! Beat the first case and what not, now gotta kill time before the next opens up.
Darkstalkers Chronicle Chaos Tower: Given a Buy 2, Get 1 free deal at Gamestop, I basically got this as the free game and figured why not for getting some more familiarity with Darkstalkers? To be honest, I wasn't expecting much, since the PSP port of Street Fighter Alpha 3 kind of sucked, due to poor controls and what not (something I remember not being a big deal on the PS1.)
Plus someone told me the game would be COMPLETELY UNPLAYABLE ON A PSP cause of the combo system and what not, said it would make SFA3 look totally playable, etc. They were rather adamant about this!
...all that is bullshit. This game handles perfectly fine on the PSP. The controls are responsive, and work fine enough on the D-pad. Its obvious the person who said this never actually PLAYED this port. I don't know how the original game handled, but I'm honestly not having any qualms with regards to the controls, so if its "inferior" to the original, its in such a way that'd be a pure technical thing that's not really notice-able outside of people who obsessed over the original game.
That said, seems like a quirky little variation of Street Fighter games, which is fine! Should work as something to kill time if I want to load up something quickly for a quick fun fest. I was hoping SFA3:Max would fulfill that role, but as I said, the game just didn't handle well on the PSP at all; this game seems to lack that issue!
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FE7: So beat this. And at long last my minor goal of completing all three GBA Fire Emblems is complete. Yay. Final time was 22 hours about. This really felt like the weakest of the three games.
But who cares, stat time!
Eliwood: 20/6 HP: 42 Str: 22 Skl: 14 Spd: 19 Luc: 18 Def: 14 Res: 12
So, Eliwood was pretty crappy. If he had gotten to 20/20 he might have been decent, but he was just so weak overall it wasn't worth trying to get him kills once he promoted.
Nils/Ninian: 19 HP: 30 Str: 0 Skl: 1 Spd: 25 Luc: 24 Def: 10 Res: 19
Why did I even add this here? Oh well. Sang/danced gave an extra turn. The ring boost was essential for killing the Dragon for sad, sad reasons.
Hector: 20/17 HP: 54 Str: 28 Skl: 11 Spd: 24(CAP) Luc: 17 Def: 28 Res: 12
So, early on Hector got utterly screwed with Strength gains. Eliwood was ahead of him for a few levels. Once he neared promotion he started gaining Strength while also capping Defense and Speed before. Once he promoted his gains rocketed up. Speed capped before level 10 and everything else made up for the terrible Lord start.
Lyn: 16/5 HP: 39 Str: 13 Skl: 19 Spd: 21 Luc: 15 Def: 12 Res: 9
She just got screwed beyond belief. I promoted her before 20 in hopes the Str bonus would help but it didn't. her terribleness was why I needed to use the Ring to boost Hector against the Dragon. She couldn't hurt it.
Rebecca: 20/20 HP: 42 Str: 24(CAP) Skl: 25 Spd: 27 Luc: 21 Def: 8 Res: 17
Her strength gains were on crack. Though her other stats aren't spectacular, her damage output made up for it all.
Florina: 20/20 HP: 46 Str: 23(CAP) Skl: 23 Spd: 28(CAP) Luc: 30(CAP) Def: 10 Res: 16
The other strength gain crackhead. And her stats worked so much better for her with that too. She was probably the only character sans Ninian who never came close to dying.
Lowen: 20/16 HP: 57 Str: 19 Skl: 12 Spd: 24 Luc: 18 Def: 19 Res: 8
Kent was turning out really bad, so I switched over to Lowen who had better stats in everything despite being levels lower. He was a mobile pseudo-tank who was covering the map-half Hector wasn't. He really couldn't damage a thing though.
Guy: 17/7 HP: 46 Str: 17 Skl: 25 Spd: 23 Luc: 12 Def: 9 Res: 5
Like Lyn I promoted him early to help alleviate his Str woes. And it actually worked. He was still unimpressive as all hell though. He was stupidly frail and he was always getting hit even in forests.
Priscilla: 10/6 HP: 24 Str: 11 Skl: 14 Spd: 15 Luc: 15 Def: 7 Res: 15
Healer early promotion yay! Too bad she was utterly terrible at everything.
Serra: 17/14 HP: 39 Str: 20 Skl: 12 Spd: 22 Luc: 12 Def: 7 Res: 26 BOOTS
Now her on the other hand, was a total awesome fest. Sure, she had extra levels -- a lot of extra levels -- but even near-perfect growths would have evened the two out.
Sain: 20/20 HP: 51 Str: 25(CAP) Skl: 18 Spd: 23 Luc: 15 Def: 16 Res: 13
Aw yeah, Mr Badass reporting for duty. The final of the strength gain crackheads. Capped before promotion, and immediately as possible after promotion. His Speed always kept up enough for him to double. Despite all his stats not being actually impressive for his Growth rates haha.
And that's pretty much it. Everyone else I used was just filler. Now I can kickback and finally stop playing these things.
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Friday 16th July:
- FFX-2: Did Besaid again, then went over to get Gun Mage because I hate Zanarkand, apparently. Blitzed that one, so wandered over to Zanarkand with my new levels. Swept through up until the boss, which... killed me with a double Damocles Photon. DAMMIT. I need more training, but I really hate having to grind for levels, especially in a game like this. >_>
How do you possibly lose here? It cannot doubleact. Do you not have any healing at all? Shell, if you really want to go the battle without healing.
Actually, I was spamming Pray with my White Mage Yuna, who doesn't have Shell yet, but she died to a Damocles and every time I revived her, she got killed again until I was out of Phoenix Downs.
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Disgaea DS -
Up to Point Alpha-III. The majority of my team has been faring pretty poorly recently so I have halted progression to grind a bit until everyone is at least level 30, which should be over fairly shortly.
Safecracker -
Didn't want to run and resulted in more having to mess about with settings. Tsk.
Only ended up looking up hints to one puzzle which was due to a failure in observation. Was fairly pretty and worth what I paid for it.
World of Goo -
Up to world 3.
Decent so far, although I don't think it's really clicking with me. As things currently stand I'm probably not going to try to 100% everything.
Abe's Oddysee -
Saved 96 out of 99.
Very good, but noticeably inferior to Exoddus in numerous ways (as to be expected really since Exoddus came out later). I had detailed a number of examples of this but I managed to go back somehow and lose it.
Time to replay Exoddus and see whether I have overbuilt it in my mind in the years since I last played it.
Left 4 Dead -
Played some of this with my brother. Fairly entertaining but I'm not very good at it.
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DQ9: Five Fyggs Filched. Only had resets on Garth Goyle (he had perfect AI, and Zing failed three times in a row...) and Equinox in a treasure map. Rest of game has been incredibly easy. Just have to remember to save more often. Being colorblind, I can't tell when the battery light on the DS changes color. :'(
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Friday 16th July:
- FFX-2: Did Besaid again, then went over to get Gun Mage because I hate Zanarkand, apparently. Blitzed that one, so wandered over to Zanarkand with my new levels. Swept through up until the boss, which... killed me with a double Damocles Photon. DAMMIT. I need more training, but I really hate having to grind for levels, especially in a game like this. >_>
How do you possibly lose here? It cannot doubleact. Do you not have any healing at all? Shell, if you really want to go the battle without healing.
Actually, I was spamming Pray with my White Mage Yuna, who doesn't have Shell yet, but she died to a Damocles and every time I revived her, she got killed again until I was out of Phoenix Downs.
Pray is awful, never rely on Pray. It heals 100 HP at endgame levels.
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And about 40 at the point I was at. It was enough for what I needed, right up until the point where Yuna KEPT GETTING ATTACKED.
But I've beaten the boss now, so it's not a problem~
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Pray can be useful... if you badly need to just outlast a boss or get caught up and use three White Mages. With less than that nothing fails to outdamage it. Or at least, that's the best use I found for it.
Why I even thought to use three white mages doing nothing but praying I don't know.
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I thought Pray existed just for "Free action for a White Mage to use so they can learn other skills!" Its also the first thing on the menu slot so its just a mindless button press when you have no issues winning a fight!
Though yeah, for actual gameplay merits, Pray is kind of just there cause White Mage wasn't allowed to have a physical.
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I can't seem to play just one game anymore...
League of Legends - Season one has arrived and with it comes ranked games! Also, they have a drfat mode in these ranked games. So that means only one champ per game now. So no mirror matches anymore. You start off by bannign two champs per team and then the draft starts. You have to wait yer turn to pick a champ and if someone from the other team takes the champ yuo wanted to play, you better have had a back up. It's a lot of fun, but the difficulty spikes like crazy.
Final Fantasy 14 -I got the Beta invite! *dances* I guess I'm not suppposed to say anything much else about it?
Strange Journey - I am in the third section and currently looking for a Megami demon so that weird angel can help me.
Shadow Complex - My gf downloaded this, so I started it up. Good lord this game is just pure AWESOME! I just got past the helicopter at the lake. I can see myself going over there and whoring the 360 just so I can play through this masterpiece. I don't care how it's presented. I love me some Metroidvania styled games.
Rock Band 2 - The other game I play over at my gf's house. I am trying drums for the first time after a long wait and me avoiding them for some reason. I have mastered Medium, but Hard is proving to be a huge spike in the difficulty. We shall see if I can get any better. The foot pedal is what's making it so hard.
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WA:XF- Was coincedentally replaying this over a string of months! Running errands today and picked it back up for a bit. Just beat the prison chapters in C1. Embarrassed to admit, but despite knowing how the first part worked, I still reset a few times because I got too impatient! Second part, Rob Turnedx4 the only at all threatening enemy made this nice. She got a turn, but used it to regular physical Labby.
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2-7 (Rupert and Grauswein) (1 reset)
Clarissa: Elementalist; Dandelion Shot OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Dandelion Shot EQ (gun/brooch)
Elayne: Elementalist; Enigmancer OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Gadgeteer EQ
Vin: Strider; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC, Weapon Block
Fairly tricky, 60 turns to destroy Grauswein doesn't give you a lot of leeway. Bows and Strahl Gewehr make excellent selections here, and give my party the needed range to get places and get things blown up. Elayne's job is to kill as many people as possible for CSP, and I'm able to snag a kill count of 4, which isn't too shabby. Rupert's damage is pretty competent here when he uses Speed Fang (low 2HKO) but with two Sacred Slayer OCs and Elayne focussing on killing everyone else but Rupert who starts nearby, along with Vin using Forcefield when she can't get in range to shoot a pillar with a bow, things go fairly smoothly.
First reset was due to my not respecting the battle enough and trying it without the ranged weaponry.
2-8 (Grauswein plot fight)
You don't even get rewards for this, so who really cares? Sacred Slayer controls the enemies well enough.
2-9 (berserker rush through the streets)
Clarissa: Berserker: Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elementalist EQ (book)
Elayne: Berserker; Gadgeteer OC, Gadgeteer EQ (apron)
Vin: Berserker; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC, Weapon Block
Like the 99-turn battle from Chapter 1, there are two options here: escape or rout. Routing might seem like an imposing task at first, as there are 12 enemies, half of them tanky, and you have a lot of ground to cover... but it's actually quite easy, because the enemies are extremely slow, and half a dozen of them fall quickly, so the total number of turns spent is actually fairly generous. And there's a lot of CSP/Exp here, so we want those kills.
Berserker on all, the movement is huge boon. Clarissa stays magey, which is quite handy with Rush, but a second would probably be impractical. The other two are both fighters and use spears. The first three waves of enemies die quickly enough, getting OHKOed by elementalist spells, decent Charging Thrusts do it too. The boxes in the way are practically designed to be destroyed with spears, so no problem there. Sentinels are trickier, since they have triple the HP of the rest, but still, Charging Thrust from range 8 doesn't care much about defence, and neither does Clarissa's magic. Clarissa burns herself out of MP soon enough between this and Turn Shift, and escapes once she does to give me more turns. Vin and Elayne clean things up quite nicely, with Rush Charging Thrust grabbing most of the kills.
Vin hits Level 30 here. Berserker's Exp Up is the big reason.
2-10-A (enter the Zortroa)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elementalist EQ
Vin: Secutor; Fantastica OC, Sentinel OC, Berserker OC
Vin really needs worthwhile skills from non-Secutor classes, doesn't she? Berserker OC at least provides Quick Step, though Rush usually takes priority so this is basically a waste. At this point I'm waiting for Secutor EQ (not much longer) before having her spend lots of time in other classes.
Ho hum, first Zortroa map and it's really dull. No reinforcements, and the enemy types aren't especially dangerous, just gremalkins and tarrasques and Dispel means max HP Down isn't even the danger it once was. So I go in with a pretty standard setup and Rush/smash things well enough, healing when necessary.
Elayne hits Level 30 after this battle.
2-10-B (Chelle and King Tarrasque III) (1 reset)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Dandelion Shot OC, Elementalist OC, Elementalist EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Elementalist OC, Sacred Slayer OC, Elem/Gadg EQ
Ragnar: Fantastica; Stormrider OC, Gadgeteer OC, Stormrider EQ
Forced Ragnar, so I shove him in Fantastica so he can play Vin's role. Physicals don't work too well here anyway, King Tarrasque III has hard status and enough evade to play hell with sissy axes.
Two rhinos and some Zortroa to deal with here, but for some reason I never see the rhinos use Petrify which makes them a non-issue. Also Devastate one-shots them. Zortroa are easily dispatched with elementalist stuff.
The bosses are the interest part. They're optional, but hey, CSP/Exp is CSP/Exp. Anyway, can't allow anyone to die, and generally both 3HKO or so. Tarrasque himself has a 25% elemental weakness, but has killer defences and Hard status. Chelle just has good elemental defence, mostly. Devastate proves to be my main method of offence as it hits both decently hard, with Clarissa using Fragile and Ragnar using Slow Down to get things under control. Rob Turn also works on Tarrasque, which is really handy because it keeps him from regenning. Simple enough, just need to watch out for both of them doing things like getting criticals and staying on top of healing.
And that brings us to Lefas Corner, and storebought +2 equips! Not to mention just plain having a shop for the first time since before 2-4. Yay!
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Saturday 17th July:
- ...Nothing! First day that's happened since I started the challenge. ;_;
Sunday 18th July:
- FFX-2: Heh, funny what a few skills do in this game. Trained enough to learn Life/Shell and then went up against the boss in Zanarkand again. Only saw Damocles once this time, and only used one Phoenix Down. Off to Kilika~ Which falls easily. The randoms here pose very little threat, barely outdamaging Pray/Vigour, and the boss was entirely ST, which makes it fall apart to the Garment Grid that provides Life/Cure spells. Off to Gagazet next, where I struggle against Ormi until I remember that Power/Armour Break exist and smash him completely. Djose to get the Letter of Introduction next, then off to smaaaash Logos in Bikanel, where I find Pray actually -does- outheal the damage of a boss, for all that he probably doesn't count. Lastly, off to the Djose Highroad, where Rikku gets to use Machina Maw and Ormi and Logos cry as a result. Chateau Leblanc is simple enough, although the massage takes me two attempts (>___>) and the fight against Leblanc/Logos/Ormi seems to drag on foreeeevvvvveeeeerrrr. :( Still won eventually, and learnt craploads with White Mage Yuna and Machina Maw Rikku. ^_^ Off to Bevelle, where I work my way through a few easy fights and finally reach Baralai. He's actually kinda challenging, but does fuck-all to Floral Fallal, who soon has him beat. On to Dark Bahamut who oh holy shit what the fuck damn Impulse is freaking evil. Yuna dies in seconds, and I make the stupid, STUPID mistake of using Assault. Welp, there goes any chance I had. Dead. >_>
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On to Dark Bahamut who oh holy shit what the fuck damn Impulse is freaking evil. Yuna dies in seconds, and I make the stupid, STUPID mistake of using Assault. Welp, there goes any chance I had. Dead. >_>
Impulse is 3/8 cHP damage, which is just pathetic, physicals suck, Megaflare is like a 3HKO but takes forever to charge...what kind of setup ARE you using?
He has HP so Assault is a Bad Plan, that's it.
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ACF Speedrun (the recording):
Finished the prolouge today! I learned a couple of new tricks while last minute practicing. Shaved 3 minutes off the prior check point time. Whoo!
http://www.youtube.com/user/TideRuglia#grid/user/81B2E8BB2C61C48E <-- For those of you that want to follow along
On a side note, does anyone have a good screen record for computer screens? RICHARD and I want to record the awesomness that is KOHRYU Street Fighter :(
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XF - Rupert just died. =(
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On to Dark Bahamut who oh holy shit what the fuck damn Impulse is freaking evil. Yuna dies in seconds, and I make the stupid, STUPID mistake of using Assault. Welp, there goes any chance I had. Dead. >_>
... ... ... ... ... !!?
WKC - I've got 38 S ranks now, 12 to go.
Plain trouble: That damn Captain Roberts needs help again but this time he is too injured to join in the fighting and thank god for that. The mission is saving his men by getting them medicine made of bee livers before they die. The boss fight is two dire waterspiders + some trashy minions which went far better then I expected as everyone knew what they were doing. I unleashed Senko-Jin to knock down one of the spiders and then the whole team unleashed massive beatdown to kill the first spider in under a miniute. Felt bad for the spider as I saw one of my team-mates smack the spider in the face with a Renzokuken.
Only Game in Town: Kill four goloms in 40 miniutes. I thought I wouldn't make this as I only had two people with me and it took us twenty minutes to take out two of the goloms. Thankfully we kicked into gear and defeated the other two with six minutes to spare.
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Disgaea DS -
Up to Point Alpha-III. The majority of my team has been faring pretty poorly recently so I have halted progression to grind a bit until everyone is at least level 30, which should be over fairly shortly.
Item World some stuff. Even if only up to F10, you'll be a lot more able to destroy worlds.
Of course, grinding character levels works too.
Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky - Chapter 4. After getting a Riolu the third time in a row in the character test, I decided to stick with it and got a Torchic to go with me. So far, I've been having fun and been avoiding some of the Outlaw missions, as the ambush outlaw missions rape me seven ways to Sunday.
Trials of the Pokewalker - I found someone else at work who has a Pokewalker! Item gaining will be a lot easier now, especially if I can get my other friend to lend me her Celebi for a bit.
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XGPR- Finished. Final clock (at save point) 25:47, beat Urobolus at 26:07, credits ended at 26:19. Game's been beat faster, but given I made two notable mistakes in the overall run which in turn cost me an extra turn or two in several boss fights, and that I wasn't trying that hard, still impressive. Although getting it under 25 by any notable margin would still take craziness.
Anyway, moving on.
Solaris- Before heading out, I buy enough Power Magics to deck out Elly (replacing her E Circuits) and WEltall. All told went more smoothly than expected. I opt to pick up Elly's Psychorod, but end up not using it; elly's offense is irrelevant except to kill Edef Down security cubes, and for the most part I only fight enemies because I realize Citan is very close to Festive Wind and want some power for the upcoming bosses. I ignore every sidepath here (obviously with liberal FAQing) EXCEPT I nab the Speed Ring S. This helps in both remaining ground bosses. I swap Elly for Emeralda, and equip her and Citan both up to 14 speed. Miang gets off an ID spell (the first time I've ever seen her use it. Seriously.) as I take out Grahf first, reasoning that my armor blows. Aside from that one death, which ate my last Zetasol, no sweat.
Vendetta- Fei gets 3x Power Magics. Due to my underlevelledness, I only have his Triangle infinity attack, plus he does something over 8000 damage with Flaming Hell anyway. Ramsus are pain.
FT. HURRICANE, INVINCIBLE MOBILE WEAPON- X, Ygg Cannon, T.
Sufal- Fei/Citan/Maria. For whatever reason, Graviton Gun doesn't hurt the support here much, although Robo Kick gets them. It does a number on the boss, though, and between her and Citan the fight takes, oh, a minute.
Anima 1- It turns out, anima dungeons are short when FAQing liberally. Fei/Elly/Maria. Maria makes use of the Speed Ring S, and thus gets a turn before every Element but Seraphita, who luckily EP-nukes Elly and thus they all eat Graviton OHKO. G-Elements doesn't fare much better, what with the 8-9k damage off elly and Fei, and another 5k off Seibzehn. So, two turns. This is Elly's last stand; while she's available in the next dungeon, she leaves after the boss fight with no chance to deequip her. I needs my Ether Doubler.
Anima 2- SECOND ETHER DOUBLER. Fei/Billy/Maria. It turns out that Rico's Omnigear change triggers the character swap bug, which causes accessories to... not... work quite right, and fail to add their bonuses. All my ether amp gear is disabled, and I probably could ahve saved a few seconds fleeing the fight, but I was pissed and wanted him dead. Annoying.
Mahanon- Deus cooperates and halves his HP twice, attacks physically three times, then halve his HP into kill range. Relatively short here. I take Citan in addition to Fei and Billy, because this is one less person for Grahf to kill; while I could definitely kill him without having intentionally upgraded since, uh, Babel, it'd take llike ten minutes, instead of the thirty seconds it takes to die.
Merkava- I mix up my fights here a little. It turns out RAMSUS has 28k, while Miang has 22k. I get scared for a minute, because Ramsus didn't die before getting a non-initiative turn, but he blows his second attack on another HP->1 and dies. Miang meanwhile DOES die to my first three attacks and doesn't get a turn, which is good.
Zohar- These fights are wusses. Billy and Maria makes Id cry, Xenogears would have to try very hard to lose against Grahf (although it's a slower fight than I'd like.) Xenogears swaps to a Response twink for the remainder of the game.
Endgame- I upgrade Renmazuo's and Seibzehn's frames (HP), just in case it comes up. Also because it's RIGHT THERE. I also buy the birds and nab the Speed Shoes, another bit of twinkery for Fei (mostly because, while Deus doesn't take that much extra time this way, it shortens the Urobolus fight a bit). The final dungeon is less drudgery than expected; the fight count is high int he first area, but I just flee the fuckers. The scond area meanwhile has a large central puzzle room, so woooooo no battles. Side areas also seem to have lower rates than the first area.
Deus himself I charge straight at. Since my gears are at base armor, they take a lot of damage from the, uh, one offensive turn he got. His next turn is used to launch the Miang/Elly angels, who do 3k or so to my shitty armor... enough to be worrisome, since they counter twice, with random targetting, to any attack. Fortunately, the RNG doesn't decide to rape REnmazuo, and the thing falls in about 4 minutes. Urobolus is annoyingly long for a fight I KNOW can't kill me, but so it goes. And that's it!
I'm surprised at how little the endgame punished my lack of character armor; I really thought I'd see something like 400 damage Grahf combos. Maria's awesome was surprising, although her lack of availability for the ONE fight it really mattered makes it sorta moot (woohoo, OHKO all four elements. So hard.) gear upgrades matter less than might normally be thought, but since part of my non-Tide inspiration was a no upgrades challenge, well, y'know. I knew what I could get away with and which fights REALLY needed the upgrades to speed up the process.
So yeah, not a bad way to replay the game.
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Very impressive, CK. Good read, too~
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Beat SH3 a few days ago, Lady managed to surprise me with her durability, not only did she have a notable HP lead over the previous boss, but it seemed like she also took less damage. So my only solution to one round her like the combo freak I am was to feed Hilda Fruity Fibers and abuse her slim mask form. Mask for Hilda for Godlike blah blah blah.
Decided to replay FF9 since I haven't played it in years and I honestly could not remember anything that happened out side of Beatrice plot rape into lolnecron comes out of no where. Just finished the Iifa tree, and I'm beginning to suspect that I have no memory of the plot because it is just horrible and I wanted to erase it from my memories or something. Things of note, Beatrice letting you're party live for no clear reason when she just led an assault where they slaughter Burmecia and whatever the sandstorm place was called. A two hour fight Lani where I sorely regret sticking auto potion on Dagger as Zidane fails forever at stealing the Coral Sword while a blinded mpless Lani reduces my potion stock from 85 to 7 while she repeatedly attacks dagger with a 25% hit rate, soon after which i come to the conclusion to say fuck it towards stealing and only make attempts until the boss is dead if the items can be acquired through a store eventually. Back to plot, removal of the mist after beating the Iifa tree, the first thing that comes to my mind when seeing this scene is "Wait, airships on the mist continent run on mist, the Mist just got wiped out suddenly with no forewarning, did Zidane and crew just commit mass genocide?"
At this point I'm just hoping that something I'm forgetting about later in the game will help explain plot fail away, but until then, ugh.
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Blazblue CS-
Finished all the story routes. Conclusion: Terumi is a troll and Kokonoe needs to get smashed in her face.
Also, this game seriously needs a stand alone button just for a forward jump.
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On to Dark Bahamut who oh holy shit what the fuck damn Impulse is freaking evil. Yuna dies in seconds, and I make the stupid, STUPID mistake of using Assault. Welp, there goes any chance I had. Dead. >_>
Impulse is 3/8 cHP damage, which is just pathetic, physicals suck, Megaflare is like a 3HKO but takes forever to charge...what kind of setup ARE you using?
He has HP so Assault is a Bad Plan, that's it.
Yeah, that was pretty much it. He's damn fast in comparison to my team (White Mage/Thief/Warrior, for the record - Thief's the only one close to his speed) and is double-turning Impulse, which suddenly makes it quite threatening.
But yeah, I was surviving well enough - tanked a Mega Flare easily enough, stayed healed up, and then... for some reason, decided to use Assault. And he killed Yuna while she was changing to Thief and it was charging, so... yeah. Dead.
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FFXII-Revenant Wings- Chapter Six: Act Five. Stuck. Managed to pass the previous fight out of sheer stubborness by retrying over and over - the boss was like fifteen levels higher than my highest levelled character and I only eventually managed to win by keeping Penelo and my healing Espers at range as well as winging it with Llyud so he could revive peeps as needed. However the current mission seems to shred through my characters like paper with my own attacks barely able to put a dent in the enemies. Vaan's Quickening doesn't seem all that powerful either as I found on the previous fight too.
Previously the other fight that I was really stuck on was the protect Fran one earlier in the chapter. Though I'd found other missions challenging before then this was the one that made me finally go screw this time to do some of the optional missions >.> Then I discovered I wasn't getting much EXP from that anyway so just sold some of the out of date treasures that I received from them as well as some stuff from my inventory - then used that to buy some new equips including the increase Mist charge one for Vaan. Once everyone was decked out in their most up to date equipment I went back to Fran. Still struggled but somehow eventually managed to win with everyone but Penelo, Kytes and my strongest Espers ded <.< Yaay for range!
Other fights that I found challenging include the protect Velis one and the one before the protect Fran one too but I eventually managed to pass them without doing anything optional. Oh yeah also the Belias fight I ended up soloing with Penelo as she buffed and healed Shiva and co, every time an Esper dropped I summoned more for Penelo and sent them after Belias until eventually he could take no more >.>
The Vaan solo map earlier in the game was tough too (I fail at being a ninja!?) but I eventually managed to get past the first two look outs and get a head start on the fire sword guy to pick up the treasure at the top by the exit point. Then I just made an exit dash from there. Had to buy the immune Immobilise accessory first though and decided not to bother about one of the treasures.
MVPs are currently Penelo, Llyud and Kytes I think. Of the original five Filo seems to be the most disposable and I even switched her out with a certain bangaa for a bit. Maybe that will change later though and Filo will actually turn out really good or something.
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I like the Last Remnant. I just finished Fornstrand, which really didn't yield anything besides an increased troop amount. I would have preferred an increase in leaders as I'm growing tired of generics. Not only that, but recruiting more generics drops your groups overall stats because of their lack of battle experience. I think I can see where the amount of AP can later become an issue, but thankfully Irina gives you a boatload for just being a group. Therefore, she's with Emmy though I'm debating on Torgal because Torgal is slowly starting to outshine Emmy. Plus, no Emmy quest. Not yet. Actually visited all the towns besides Nagapur to see if I had any more quests to do, and there are none. I have two *so far* that show up in Nagapur, and I'm currently doing one. So. Once I'm done with Nagapur, I'll move on with the game. I'm debating on just Harvesting, because Mr. Diggz is literally rocking since the Assistant quest which gave him massive digging exp, and getting upgraded weapons, but I think I'm going to wait. That way, some of my good items won't go to useless generics that I haven't developed. I think, I think, oh woe is me.
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Glen: Beatrix doesn't want to run around slaughtering people. She's NOT doing that. Its the Black Mages who are doing the butchering. She very clearly is not proud of these actions.
On the Red Rose, she thinks to herself what's the point of going to such lengths? The only reason she's doing this is cause of loyalty, but she's starting to doubt if that's even enough. Unlike Steiner whose completely blind going "NO! THE QUEEN KNOWS WHAT SHE'S DOING!" Beatrix is more starting to question her authority, but she's wise enough to keep it to herself for the sake of avoiding treason. This is why Zidane was ultimately able to reason with her. Had he not witnessed the sensitive side of Beatrix, I doubt he would have even tried the verbal attempt, but he saw that Beatrix isn't actually a bad person under that cold exterior of a self she shows on the battlefield, and that she's not really proud of her recent actions, but she's still duty bound, like any loyal knight.
Combine with the fact that to her, your team is *NOT* threatening, good chance she let you live cause there was no point in killing you. She's not an axe crazy murderer, but an actual sensitive human being, and she's willing to spare lives if necessary. Merely beating your team down to the point where they can't fight back is enough, especially since she already had what she came for.
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And the Mist thing for airships is probably similar to gasoline. If we stopped all gasoline production in the world our planes wouldn't all suddenly crash. The pilots would all be like "wtf we can't refuel" and not take off again after landing.
It's also possible that it took a few hours for the mist to dissipate, allowing them time to land.
Seems like an odd detail to be annoyed about.
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Or its like a pool of water being drained and refilled at the same rate; its being kept constant! But then you stop refilling it...so the water level starts decreasing as a result...but its gradual! How fast depends on a number of factors, but its not "WATER IS GONE GOOD BYE!"
I can easily suspend belief that the Mist dissipated slow enough that people landed safely, and at a rate that people noticed it was thinning out. honestly, though, this is not much different than your usual fridge logic jRPGs have, and should just be shrugged as a result; when generic suspension of belief can get you through the scenario, let alone some simple logical conclusions the game doesn't touch up on cause they don't wanna hammer you with facts, I'm honestly not gonna hold it against the game. Oh, I'll credit a game that totally AVOIDS relying on stuff like this (while keeping the explanation sensible of course), make no mistake, but considering how often jRPGs do this? Not something I can realistically hold against FF9.
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Aren't airships lighter-than-air vehicles anyway?
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Aren't airships lighter-than-air vehicles anyway?
By the real world definition, yes.
In Final Fantasy... depends on the game.
http://www.ffodyssey.com/editorials/bishop001/14.jpg
http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-02/art/ff12-airship-alexander.jpg
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/final-fantasy-ix-airship-wallpaper.jpg
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The thing about the Red Rose scene, is that Beatrice doesn't really start thinking like that until after Brahne summons Odin as massive overkill. And sure Beatrice may not participate in the actual fighting, but she is still the General planning the attacks and giving out the orders. The party openly falls for her diversion while protecting the tree, and if Brahne really just wanted the stone from the harp, they could have just as easily skipped slaughtering half the place and instead just have Beatrice ninja it like she eventually does anyways. Since the invasion was planned out by Beatrice, I have no problem assuming she has no problem with causing deaths, and so it just strikes me as odd why she would let a party live when one of the people is the race of the enemies, let alone when that enemy is actively trying to beat you after you organized an attack that slaughters the citizens of your enemy who are downright unable to fight. Sure the party might not have been an active threat to Beatrice herself, but that doesn't mean they can't come back and slaughter half her troops. I would think the thought would occur to her that the people she just beat could come back and kill her troops in a later battle, which is precisely what happens. Her not liking needless deaths when she sends her own actual Alexandrian troops in as a distraction when she could have just used more black mages strikes me as a downright contradiction. The third fight was really the only one that felt like she had proper reasons to leave you alive.
About the airship thing, probably overblown, but for some reason the general boat design just had me thinking the mist was kind of like water for the airship, and that it draining so rapidly could theoretically cause damage, probably something I shouldn't have thought so hard on, but eh.
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The game suggests Beatrix has been thinking like this for a while. Its a pretty blind stand point to assume that she only started thinking of it NOW. That's not what's going on. What's going on is that this is the first time we see a PERSONAL Beatrix moment; Beatrix in privacy (or so she thinks she is; obviously she doesn't know Zidane and co. are spying on her) is not the same person she is in public. In public, she's gotta keep this heartless cold general exterior, lest she shows weakness. People know her as this invincible warrior, she's gotta keep that facade up. But when she's by herself, she can drop it and start thinking emotionally and what not. That's really what's going on.
The only reason it happens after Odin is cause, as I said, its the first time we see her. This is the first part of the game we see Beatrix when she's just being a person, not a soldier, and we finally are seeing "Wow, maybe she is human after all", which also shows that while Brahne maybe evil, not all her subordinates, loyal or otherwise, are. And unlike Steiner, Beatrix is showing logical thought in the idea, rather than just blowing it off entirely as "NO! The Queen has some grand scheme that I just don't understand, and its for the good of everyone! I trust that!" I believe she was actually more like "Something is wrong, but...I can't really prove it. My loyalties still lie with her, but I won't deny the truth." And naturally, later on, when she sees Zidane was protecting Garnet, and Garnet was put under a spell, etc., that was the proof Beatrix needed to finally pull her Heel Face Turn.
And...I don't think the Invasion was planned out by Beatrix, she just carried it out. Remember, Kuja was charged with a lot of Brahne's strategic related stuff, including supplying her with all the Black Mages. In the scene where he's introduced, Brahne's even asking Kuja for how to deal with Cleyra. Beatrix just carried the plan out, and the Red Rose scene showed she very much wasn't fond of her actions.
Also, don't forget this factor:
Beatrix is a human being; she can hold back if she wants too.
The Black Mages, who did *ALL* of the killing, were puppets and weapons of mass destruction. The only thing they knew how to do was KILL, and that's all they did do. She didn't exactly have control of that. Brahne just told her "Send Black Mages in", and all they knew how to do was kill. Beatrix and her troops did nothing. And its naive to think she could run in, undetected when the entire village is on alert.
Edit: Actually, lets look at the script!
This is right before Beatrix's first fight:
Kuja: "Of course, Your Majesty. I will present you a marvelous display
of my power. I am certain that you will be most pleased. I was
wondering if you would gather your troops near Cleyra. I'm
certain those filthy rats will retaliate in full force, and my
black mages may not be enough."
Suggests that the whole plan was Kuja's idea in the first place.
Following the battle, she knocks your team to their knees, and then mocks you. Brahne tells her to come. If it makes you feel better, then just assume Brahne told Beatrix to come with her, not to waste time. Brahne wants results NOW, killing 4 people wastes time when Beatrix had already just won.
Next off....look at how long the attack on Cleyra took. Again, its naive to think Beatrix could just run in there undetected and get out easily. If she could, why not waltz in while the Sandstorm was still up, when they had a false sense of security? Simply put...she couldn't.
Reading the dialog...again, another case of "I don't have time to waste, you guys are beaten and not threatening, I'm leaving."
I dunno...I really think you're just slamming FF9 for things so many other RPGs are guilty of. I mean, FF8 is a far bigger offender here (not that people support FF8 plot.) Why did Edea, whose possessed by Ultimecia, who wants Squall DEADED THAN DEAD to avoid dealing with the time-loop...spare his life? Its far greater "What the fuck?" moment here. If it was Seifer who did, I could understand, but Edeamecia had no reason to keep Squall and Co. alive.
At least with Beatrix, the whole "She's got morals and is human too, you know" thing fits and makes sense for why she'd spare people. Again, she had no reason to kill your team; her goal was just "Get Jewel by any means necessary." Curbstomping your team was enough to get you out of her way, and even if you did follow, she'd just beat you again (which more or less happens exactly as I stated. Beatrix isn't evil, and has morals. And again, her troops didn't kill anyone; it was all the Black Mages, who are under Brahne's control. Beatrix was just using the troops, and pretty much entirely as a diversion.
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XF - Switch >>>>>>>> Eisen 1. Glory.
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Odin Sphere: Just finished Gwendolyn C2. Such a freakin' gorgeous game, and it plays pretty well (if monotonously) too.
Do I ever get more bags? Sixteen slots would be fine just for food and accessories, but when you throw in seeds and alchemy material it gets annoying.
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Oh right, I play games.
MK2 - Beat Raze's Path, got Lily Ending. Disappointing on Raze's end, there. So much potential for more... As for actual stuff, it was cute, fun, and pretty. Favourite part of the entire damn game was definitely either Buffacow or killing the damn final boss. One for hilarity, the other because it was about damn time. Don't really like Raze plot, overall. Feels weak and cliche, in a lot of ways, with lackluster writing. Also felt like they definitely could have done a little more with Ulrika's group there, since there was MORE THAN AMPLE REASON TO, but nope they just drop that completely never comes up again except for lame "is x why he's like this?" stuff. Blah.
Characters feel roughly balanced, with, oddly, Lily feeling like the weakest. Everyone else had something to contribute in order to help just SMASH, but Lily had tons of MP and lots of skills, with very little to do with them and was the weak mage. If anything ever had an Ice weakness, she was totally there, but far more things seemed to wall it when it was important, or just not be weak, and all she can really do is have Ice attacks. (Yes, I'm rating Yun > Lily here, because Yun can consistently do damage/lower defenses, even against fire-resistant enemies)
Gonna try to do at least a little of Ulrika's path before it goes back, but I doubt it.
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You are hyping Yun's 5% Defense breaking over Lily not running out of MP every other turn after using her best skill like Yun? I personally found Lily to be the MVP on Raze's path. Yeah, she trails off, but she gets GT, MT, decent and very early ST, and timed card skills (Not to mention that most of the better CS are magic based, so has that edge over non-Puniyo PCs. And Taro's Strictness is late and costly!). Before trailing off, she's basically solid on most every type of damage you'd want besides against those that resist Ice.
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Not to mention that most enemies who resist ice are weak to fire, so slap some fire common skills on Lily and she's basically always hitting high damage. I personally found the ice GT stuff just so good that I was using it even when some enemies resisted it, but it does vary by how much of her stuff you get; I forget the exact triggers for them (i.e. how much was synthing, how much was turning enemies into desserts). Generally seconding Dhyer that I found her the MVP on Raze's path.
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It was pretty easy to get her upgrades via desserts early. I basically had them all before I even realized that other character's had upgrades (or before they got 4th tech at times, IIRC), but it certainly didn't hurt that you got desserts by using one of your best damage sources at the time.
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Guess I just wasn't getting the right sweets, then. (also, didn't get her Sweets-getting move upgraded to doing real damage until late mid-game)
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Odin Sphere: Just finished Gwendolyn C2. Such a freakin' gorgeous game, and it plays pretty well (if monotonously) too.
Do I ever get more bags? Sixteen slots would be fine just for food and accessories, but when you throw in seeds and alchemy material it gets annoying.
You can carry...five bags, I think? Maybe six? They're on the expensive side but worth saving for.
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Mass Effect 2 - Replaying as a Biotic Douche. Being a renegade is awesome fun. Conrad Verner encounter is much better as Renegade. *Shoots dude in the foot* Now what were you talking about? Someone tricked you and is being a dick? Okay, I will go threaten to kill them and get a discount at their shop. Now I will lie to you so you go away. *Quest finished*. Good times.
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FF-RW- All is forgiven Filo! Wow it's possible to have the two enemy groups duke it out in that battle, leaving the left overs severely worn down for you. Easy pickings to finish off. Took a few attempts for it to work and at first I tried sending Filo around the corner by Ba'Gamnan's group until I realised that sending her flying over the hole in the ground was a better idea. On the winning attempt it was Ba'Gamnan left for me to finish off, ignored the non leader enemies remaining and did so. Again Kytes, Penelo and the Espers were my stronghold. Things were a different story when it was the other two leaders left though - those two have some teamwork going for them, especially considering one of them can heal >.> So yeah I'm glad I had a run where it was Ba'Gamnan left.
Chapter 7 wasn't too tough. Had retries on the first mission due to Kytes/Filo going down but once I decided to just solo most of the enemies with Vaan things were mostly easy from there, when I figured out the best way to get to all the treasure chests that is (had Llyud and Filo collect the ones near them too) =-) Once my party was all back together again the rest of the first half of the chapter was relatively easy especially considering the previous chapter. End of C7 was easy too. Yaay new party members!
Chapter 8 now. I has a Balthier, a Fran, an Ashe and a Basch~
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Final Fantasy III DS- Oh yeah I completed this some time last week. Can't remember posting about it so yeah. Ended up with L57 Ingus (Warrior), L56 Arc (Devout), L56 Refia (Evoker) and L54 Luneth (Thief) I didn't want to have to go through Crystal Tower/World of Darkness countless more times and/or grind myself out of the situation so I ended up putting everyone in the back row for Cloud of Darkness. Kind of wussy but oh well =/ Bahamut/Aura meant that Ingus was hitting for high damage even from the back row and he still had a the Blood Sword on for a health boost (it seems that every drop helps in this game) At the start of the battle I also had him help out by using Defender to cast Protect on peeps as well. Luneth and Refia also helped out with Bacchus's Ciders/Turtle Shells during this stage while Arc was casting Haste on others. Healing Light/Heatra from Refia also saw use during the earlier stages of the battle as well. Then once Aura and all the other buffs were up I started guarding while Ingus attacked. Unfortunately CoD still managed to kill Luneth at one point (Lightning was still doing heavy damage to him despite having a Ribbon and a Diamond equip on) and he never recoved from there, immediately going down again every time Refia used a Phoenix Down on him. CoD became trigger happy with Plasma Beam during the latter half of the fight so Arc had to use Curaga every round. He along with Refia was taking very little damage from Lightning which I was glad for. So it basically went Ingus - Advance, Arc - Curaga, Refia - Phoenix Down , CoD - Lightning/Plasma Cannon - Luneth *dies* until the witch could take no more pain from Ingus. She never even used her Haste until the very end (whereas she used it near the start the last time) and Ingus took her out immediately after that so yeah ;o
Might post more thoughts on the game later including what I thought of the different classes. The game had some issues but I'm glad I managed to stick with it until the end. Jobs are fun at least and I kind of want to use my clear game data to experiment with more of them now. Also my Thief is now at JL95 thanks to Crystal Tower/World of Darkness (meaning I should be able to get more Protect Rings very soon) *^_^*
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Emmy sidequest showed up after I finished a random lady's quest in Nagapur. Despite wanting to finish the sidequest, it is in Aveclyff and I've spent days on Quests. I just happen to hate Aveclyff and turned off the console. But once I am done with it some time tonight after work (unless I get out late), I shall go on with the storyline finally.
Also. Apparently I had already finished Fornstrand. I just never talked to Irina or continued any story in Athlum because I believe I would get caught in battles. Either way, I am sorely debating on removing Irina from my group. Boosted AP is great, support when others are attacking is great, bu~ut nothing particularly special.
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Let's finish up Chapter 2.
2-11 (Zortroa on the narrow ledge)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; DS/Elem OC, Elem EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem/Gadg EQ
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Sent/Bers OC
Pretty standard setup here, though the map itself is a bit tricky, and I don't play it exactly properly. This is one of the few XF maps where enemies start entirely up in your face, so no preparation time here. The Fairylights, which make up half the initial 12 enemies (8 more spawn when they're down to 4, same proportions), have high speed and against my party just go first, ganging up and inflicting Magic Down. Annoying, since my plan was of course to blow them all up with Devastate. I attempt to dispel it away but die in the process, it's okay. Vin and Clarissa retreat to where I can make a two-unit chokepoint with the help of a tree and revive Elayne behind them, where she doesn't have to fear Magic Down and can Devastate with impunity. This one-shots the Fairylights (as does Vin's Heavy Strike). Hooray for equipment upgrades!
From there on the battle gets increasingly controllable. Zortroa themselves are much better at annoying than they are actually winning fights.
2-12-A (Edna's forces in the desert)
Secutor EQ at last!
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; DS/Elem OC, Elem EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem/Gadg EQ
Vin: Grappler; Fant/Sent OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block
A pretty straightforward battle. There's a bit of a rush of enemies at the start but they all have elemental weaknesses and none of them are overly deadly. The last three just hide in the back like wusses. Not really enough foes to strain my resources, either.
2-12-B (Pale Ogres and traps) (1 reset)
Clarissa: Enigmancer; SS/Elem OC, Elem EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem/Gadg EQ
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block
Okay, now things get serious. I choose this battle to snag Strider OC for Vin mostly because of Strider's ability to detect and remove traps; the field is full of them and they can be quite deadly.
Pale Ogres themselves are menacing foes for two reasons: they have a sleep-inducing attack, which can pretty much wreck a party just like rhinos' petrify, and for some reason they have 800 attack, which gives them outstanding (often one-shotting) damage. I lose first time because of sleep, mostly; note the two Enigmancers thereafter to have a better handle on dispelling. Even with this setup there's a risk I die from sleep, but it's less likely.
Strider has a second thing going for it in this battle, besides the very obvious fact that it's an awesome physical OC with Drop Kick and Swift Shock, and that's the Mesmerise ability. -50% accuracy = Pale Ogres can't hit, lasts 3 turns, massively GT and can be used after moving so easy to nail all four ogres with. Mmm, doughnuts. It nails nearby allies to, but notice how both of Vin's allies are mages? You should.
The Zortroa themselves in this fight aren't nearly aggressive enough, if more of them ran forward to quicken the ogres things would get noticeably harder. But they aren't that bright and are easily picked off by Devastate once the ogres are handled.
2-13 (damnations)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; DS/Enig OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Enigmancer; Gadg/SS OC, Elem/Gadg EQ
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Sent/Stri OC
Every so often XF has fights which make you wonder what the game designers were thinking. The game is (rightfully) regarded as fairly tough, but then it throws out a battle like this one. I guess it's kinda decent if you're adverse to using Sanctify for some reason. Maybe.
As I am not, I should point out that I was actually able to win this fight without taking damage. No, that's a lie. I took damage once, from my own Widespread Sanctify. Kinda pathetic! Sanctify one-shots most of the enemies here, and it outranges them even before considering Rush (at which point my offensive potential just becomes gross). A few are only two-shotted but whatever. They'll mainly inflict disease, which would be an extremely deadly affliction if the damnations were paired with something that could actually, y'know, deal damage with something besides a 1-range physical off a 3-move monster with a crippling weakness.
Oh yeah, aside from Rush, Vin Heavy Strikes a couple of the damnations into pits. Hooray! Looks like Sentinel and Grappler will get to compete for "situational backup physical OC which moves enemies". Grappler's movement is more powerful, but Heavy Strike can send dudes into pits, and Forcefield is a hell of a lot better than Transport, as far as utility goes.
2-14 (paigoels and lava)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Grappler; Elem/SS OC, Elem/Gadg EQ
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Sent/Stri OC
Two pathetic battles in a row. This is 1-12 all over again, except that this time the paigoels don't get to leypoints. And they have worse stats for the time and face the tricks of tier 3 classes. This uh makes the battle quite a lot easier. I guess the 5% damage from lava tiles is supposed to be scary or something?
2-15 (Strahl Gewehr puzzle)
Fortunately this one is actually real. Nothing new to say here, it of course behaves exactly as a regular battle; setup is pointless besides "have Strahl Gewehr and Dandelion Shot OC", even a 3 move class can handle this. Clarissa gets 17 turns, but I only need 14, and I could shave one off by skipping the treasure box, but why would I? +3 sword is cool.
2-16-A (enter Alexia)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Alexia: Strider; Royal Fencer OC, Royal Fencer EQ, Leader's Duty, Strong Heart
With only two PCs, this battle is pretty much the same as a normal playthrough. Alexia goes Strider because Drop Kick is perfect for making use of her high weight and attack, and giving her much-needed range. Clarissa just takes the time to build up yet more CSP in Sacred Slayer. The elementalists can do quite a bit of damage to Alexia if they pick the right elements, but there's more than enough healing to handle the job.
2-16-B ("saving" Clarissa and Alexia)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Alexia: Secutor; Royal Fencer/Strider OC, Royal Fencer EQ, Strong Heart
Vin: Gadgeteer; Fant/Stri OC, Secutor EQ, Weapon Block
Now this on the other hand is quite tricky. Vin needs to run over and "save" the others, which really just means joining up with them because there's only so much she can handle alone. I have her go Gadgeteer because the extra healing resources are going to be welcome on such a long map, plus she's overdue to pick up a healing OC anyway. And long this map certainly is... 17 enemies? None of whom are overly frail? Yikes. I possibly should have packed some nectars because this battle is a large VP drain, as well as MP drain. Oh well. Plus side, VP drain makes Alexia quite speedy which is nice; there was never any doubt that I'd keep Strong Heart over Leader's Duty here.
The initial rush of High Cavaliers is quite dangerous, but Mesmerise once again comes to the rescue, as it leaves them totally harmless. Unlike Zortroa, they can't heal, so I'm free to off them with my elementalist tactics. Vin kills the Secutor on the eastern path to reach and join up. From here on I proceed carefully, taking on all the different enemies in turn. I do lose Vin at one point but that's all right, she hadn't built up massive kill bonuses anyway, and Revive Fruits exist. Also saves her some VP trouble late in the fight I imagine. I need to watch MP, but eh, that's okay, can always fall back on formation and combination arts to get some damge aaginst the last few enemies, and I do.
Chapter 3 time!
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Nier: How can he go down a flight of stairs on the left side of his house and come down on the right side of the first floor? I don't understand.
Anyway, game seems okay. Currently in some town where I have to fish to advance the plot or something. Also probably there was a better way of killing the boar than letting him stun himself constantly and plinking away with magic, but eh, worked. I kept thinking I was supposed to make him run off the railroad tracks, but I died trying to make it there.
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Cid: The boar is meant to be take on a bit later, since when first fought it has overkill durability and damage.
When fishing, just tilt the stick in the same direction as Nier. The key is that you HAVE to fish on the little cove past the cave in that town (where the massive number of seals are)... anywhere else and you won't be able to pull anything up. Fishing is near impossible if you don't do the sidequests in the right order (FAQ if you want to do that).
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It's beatable at level 5! Just...incredibly tedious to kill. But now I can mow down enemies with a giant boar, so it was clearly worth it.
Anyway, recruited ally #2. I knew this already, but Kaine's fashion sense is just lolwhat.
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lolwhat is being kind there
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Trinity Universe - Finished Kanata's path a few days ago. Final boss was a jerk. Actually killed me the first time so I went out to grind some levels. Came back and apparently I lost the first time due to RNG hate since he never used the move that killed me again.
Chapter 9 of Rizelea's path now. I got the ultimate weapons and penultimate armors before starting so it's been a breeze. Put it on Mega-Hard so maybe stuff will start fighting back sometime soon. Afterall, I've been skipping randoms so I should be somewhat lower levelled too...
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WAXF - *PIEDRAS BLANCAS.*
/me is speechless.
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Dead Rising: Ok, had to reset once or twice, and now I'm back just before the 2nd day! Killed Adam, got those two Japanese bastards successfully there and I hate them forever cause egads are those such morons!
I was doing fine saving Daniel...until I somehow fell into the big fountain WITH him and its impossible to get him out near as I can tell since you can't jump so...yeah, just said screw it, and turned game off there. At least I know exactly what to do with him.
Also, yay! Got my first speed boost upgrade. Really makes a huge difference for traveling.
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Pokemon Platinum: Decided to do a replay and to make it a bit more challenging I'm using Wally's team from R/S/E with the evolved forms of his pokemon if they gained them. So basically, my final team will be Gardevoir, Gallade, Magnezone, Roserade, Delcatty and Altaria. All of these pokemon are can be gotten reasonably early with the exception of Skitty who has to be transferred over. I decided to wait to really start the challenge at Hearthome because that's where Ralts are first catchable and fighting through the first couple of gyms with just a Skitty and Budew would be overly tedious.
I was really worried with how I was going to beat Phantina. Kirlia has really bad stats for a second evolution which when combined with the ghost weakness turns them into OHKO bait. To make things worse Skitty had no moves that could damage ghost types with Levitate (pretty much all of them). The trainer battles in the gym all went really poorly and I had to retreat to the pokemon center after almost every one. Fortunately, Phantina's first pokemon is Duskull who is buff bait. I decided that my best option would be to have Roselia buff it's special attack to max with buff and try to sweep from there. I also had a special defense up item which ended up making the difference because it prevented Mismagius from 2HKOing with Psybeam.
The rival battle on the way out of Hearthome was also somewhat difficult and required a reset. His Roselia and Buizel were no problem, but the Double Team/Endeavor/Quick Attack Staravia and Monferno were problems. My two Kirlias were able to take out Staravia by tracing its Intimidate back at it repeatedly and trying to hit with Confusion. The one reset came from Monferno pretty much sweeping my team since it OHKOed Roselia and 2HKOed everyone else. The second time I gave Roselia a defense up item which allowed it to survive a Flame Wheel. Roselia then Stun Spored it and the two Kirlias took it out. The playthrough is certainly very challenging right now. My next step is probably to rush up to route 210 to get Swablu and we'll see if the challenge stacks up once the Kirlias start evolving.
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Odin Sphere: On the one hand, this is one of the prettiest games I've ever seen. On the other hand, there's exactly one attack combo and it takes roughly three years to execute, there's no such thing as canceling after you hit the button, only the last hit causes any kind of stun (taking any kind of damage stuns the PC) and now that I'm in chapter 6 I'm fighting enemies that can kill me pretty much just by deciding to attack during that windup and cooldown. And god forbid you whiff, because then it's even more unsafe. Aaaaargh.
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Dragon Quest 9:
Completed. Around 40 hours.
When did I start this, a week ago? Huh. Fast turnaround for me.
Anyways, the good:
-Overhauled basic DQ mechanics. I cannot hype this enough, despite the impacts not being huge. Magic stats exist for healing and damage, but don't do a spectacular amount(it's a X points=Y damage boost equation that varies on the spell, I believe. Like, 200 or so Mending Might is enough to double Heal's base.). Guard rates(documented in-game), evade rates(documented for how much equipment adds). Deftness as a crit/evade/hit rate/pre-emptive stat, all with small impacts but notable. Defense being it's own stat(Resilience, which might work against magic? SOMETHING is working as an MDef stat but not sure what.). CHARM DOING SOMETHING IN BATTLE holy shit(randomly takes enemies turns the more of it you have. Get more of it, it randomly statuses enemies too. I don't think bosses even can null this effect, although I have never seen them get statused.).
Somewhat redone spells and spell tiering, although it mostly ends up in the same spots(With a few exceptions. Moreheal for instance may as well be HealAll for the maingame, it heals far too much to ever fail to full heal at endgame.). Totally redone %-based elemental system instead of the retarded full-66-33-0-what you want elemental weaknesses haahahaahaha system DQ had been using for ages. I'm not sure how much actually functions the same as the older games.
Hell of it is, it mostly ends in similar places. It's a lot of small polishes, as it's used now. It just makes me wonder if they're setting up for more extreme changes(there is a DQX coming around moderately soon.). Based on this, I have absolutely no objections. They know what they're doing on the core.
-Job system. Job system is DQ3's(complete with Dharma-er excuse me Alltrades-being about a third of the game in.). Goof-Off is replaced with Minstrel. Tier 2 jobs exist and you do an annoying quest once to unlock them for everyone(which, is a vast improvement on DQ6/7. And really it's sometimes quite easy. Paladin's like "Use the Cover clone skill ten times on someone in an area with fairly normal randoms. Complete!".).
The punch line is that they balanced the jobs well.
Martial Artist/Warrior have advantages on each other, thanks to the weird combo system earlier and due to Warrior's large defensive edge later.
Mage is mostly support-y but the offense doesn't suck thanks to signifigant elemental weaknesses and better overall damage(Still not great, but I didn't go very dedicated towards magical offense, which would have given my Mage a huge boost. No, I got TDL instead. >_>).
Minstrel is like a toned down version of the standard DQ main, and it turns out to work pretty well(Some low end healing, Zing, wind magic, etc, on decent stats. MP is a decently big deal for physical fighters, as many skills eat some, and Minstrel's the only tier 1 job that really gets MP and has a more physical orientation as a class.).
Thief worked very well early, although it's not...that great later. Oddly it's class skills(the ones you get with Skill Points) are pretty good for the aftergame(Randodungeons make knowing how many chests are on a floor more useful for instance.), but not much maingame. It's still a lot like Minstrel with a speed/deftness focus in the end, it just has crap for natural magic. But if you don't care about that the speed could easily be worth it. (Also it's one of the two classes with claws, so it ends up seeing use if you want to master Claws this year without grinding.)
Cleric is unbalanced. Only class I'd really say that off, but it's the only MT healing class(There's a couple of skills but they're not great subs.) and it's physical stats are competent enough. Whack is still good. It gets Insulatle eventually(I don't think it has Kabuff YET.). And MP fuels a lot of strong offense skills on weapons, so...
Tier 2 stuff on the other hand levels slower but is generally better classes, except...most of them aren't focused classes.
Gladiator is. It focuses on being Warrior+, although it's skillset is weirdly frontended while Warrior's is weirdly backended. But it takes hits about as well despite lacking shields and hurts like hell. Even slower but overall, if you ignore the fact that you can't start in it and have to level it up, it's just better.
The others though?
Armamentalist...makes Mages unecessary, although not entirely obsolete. Physical fighter with balanced stats and like every status/stat-debuff/Oomph eventually. yessssss. Good class. Pain in the *ass* to get however(Requires casting a Mage self-target buff skill on yourself, then killing a Metal Slime with that character. Twice. It's quite possible but annoying.). Also since it's a mage type, you have to get it rolling on levels before it can do much of anything useful, equipment doesn't get you by as well for the lower levels.
Ranger is kinda a weird Deftness oriented higher power lower magic Cleric alternate. It's pretty good but weird as hell. It also has the best class-skillset skill ever(Vanish. 3 MP, lasts like three or four minutes or until you're in a non-combat area, or until you get into a battle. Enemies can't see you on the world map. All non-boat randoms are visible. Shiny.).
Paladin meanwhile is a total slow-ass tank that can't die ever but is kinda middling at everything else. Decent healing but not special. The buffs are badass, though(this is where Kabuff went. Even better? It has Kabuff for magic. Yesssss.).
Sage is pretty awesome but it's gained far too late to be useful for the maingame(I haven't messed with it tooooo much but it seems like a Cleric, except instead of having physical stats it has a fuckton of MP, and instead of having status it more has EXPLOSION SPELLS. Which is a worthwhile trade.), and Superstar is surprisingly far into the aftergame, so no dice on really good explanations there.
-Puns. Punspunspunspunspuns~
-Lots of little polish things(like fifteen million Alchemy recipes being dumped on you at convenient locations, namely bookshelves which may as well be treasure chests for recipes now.).
Mixed:
-The game is easy. I respect why-it's an easy game to fuck up. The final dungeon is pretty hard, some of the penultimate bosses are solid enough so that there's a curve thankfully, a warning to tell you if your team is really way the fuck too bad so go grind or class change or whatever(And, incidentally, EXP is better done in this in the sense that your endgame randoms give like a fifth to a sixth of what a Liquid Metal Slime does. You don't have to just Metal hunt to get EXP if you screw up that badly.). Difficulty was clearly thought out a lot. But it's still kinda easy, and I'm not sure what they were going for with ramping it up late. It was clearly a concious decision too. Maybe they were encouraging you to use Treasure Maps if things went wrong? They do seem to like that system.
-Treasure Maps. Okay, this is the aftergame: Randodungeons. (There's fixed quests too, and a fixed dungeon that I have not puzzled out the point of the thing sleeping on top of it yet-I'm probably not quite done with the game for actually mucking with it. But, randodungeons are the bigger part.)
Are they well done? Actually yes, you go through a lot of smaller dungeons rather than HUGE HOLY SHIT ones, they have a curve, good constant rewards from the sounds of the higher ones(the early ones do admittedly suck), they're actually nicely done in many ways...except that *accessing* the highest end ones...requires grinding, as it's based on your level, from the sounds of it, if you can get a higher level dungeon. Not getting through them. Just accessing them. why. Oh well, at least it's never required.
The bad:
-Boat. *Sets boat on fire.* Why yes I do want the slowest water travel since Pokemon Gen 4 non-Platinum, non-avoidable randoms when every other random in the game is avoidable, *and* an unintuitive way to *get off the boat*(Ram a coastline for about half a second, straight on, until you get the "Disembark?" question. The fuck? Why not make a bloody button?).
Fortunately you have to use it like three times and you get a train for the aftergame, vastly superior.
Probably a high 7/10 or low 8/10 game overall? Very well done for what it is, a mass of DQ plot cliches, entertaining puns and better than usual, but rather throwback in concept, DQ combat. I liked it, but if you're not into DQ enough to at least like DQ8, don't bother.
Oh, and seriously, that 40 hours was with decent sidequesting and a ton of grinding. Give the game credit, it's short for once. Nice.
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WAXF - *PIEDRAS BLANCAS.*
/me is speechless.
YOUR CORPSES SHALL BE THE FOUNDATION FOR MY KINGDOM
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Dead Rising:
Dead Rising is really designed to restart when you screw up, just saying. When you finish the first few days and unlock the last part of the game you will probably want to be level 50 unless you are really good at the game.
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Early part 3 update.
3-1-A (Zortroa on the river)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Stri/Grap OC
The section of the game from late part 2 to early part 3 is generally one of the easiest arcs of the game, and I'm in full abuse of this, homing in on Class Level 7 for a few PCs, but particularly Clarissa (and Levin, not that you see him here; he's also sitting in Sacred Slayer).
This map itself has one new threat to deal with, and that's the vicious canine, an improved gremalkin, who has 50% resistance to all elements and a brutally powerful melee counter (which has a vertical range of at least 4, something I discover to my displeasure). Other than those two, who dislike Devastate and Drop Kick a good deal, the map is mainly Zortroa and Fairylights, nothing too bad now that Magic Down can be dispelled. There's also a tarrasque, hence Grappler OC getting some time to play; Ground Slam ignores the Hard attribute.
3-1-B (Forsaken Mutants)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Gadg/Grap OC
Much dicier than the last map, since mutants pretty much combine the best attributes of monsters and their Zortroa masters in one package, with the exception that they still have elemental weaknesses. Still, 9 of the 12 enemies here have some sort of annoying physical resistance, and half of them have one of the three deadly statuses in the game: petrify and misery, in this case.
I take out the enemies up to first, since they're less dangerous; three tarrasque mutants and three gremalkin mutants. Ground Slam again sees use to deal with the tarrasque types, but mostly it's Elayne doing the heavy lifting blasting and Devastating everything in sight. Once they're all dead, I clean off the statuses.
Second stage of the battle is trickier, despite the Zortroa's tendency to move towards me. Misery is a pain, so I keep my dispeller in the back (reaaally should have brought multiple dispellers, Gadgeteer OC doesn't really let me carry enough status healers). Petrify is similarly a pain, usual problems with it apply. Fortunately I have excellent luck with the 50% accurate statuses missing. This helps a lot. What also helps is the fact that they don't have too much MP. Widespread Feeble Mind would actually likely be an excellent tactic here, since they're quite happy to speed the process along with their expensive spells.
Regardless, no resets, although they certainly seemed possible..
3-2-A (Clarissa and Alexia in town)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Alexia: Secutor; Royal Fencer/Strider OC, Royal Fencer EQ, Strong Heart
Normal playthrough, see 2-16-A more or less. Same general strategies apply. Alexia has enough oomph to one-shot everything here with Revolver Sweep, Clarissa just continues mosying along and damnit Widespread will be MINE.
3-2-B (Myconids and Chelle 2)
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Stri/Grap OC
Myconids kinda suck, so even though this battle has me face off against eight of them (and eight of their zortroa trainers), it's really not too bad. Sure, confusion is pretty dangerous when they decide to use that and not their FOUR-TURN COUNTDOWN ON FRAGILE ENEMY OH NO, but I get lucky with its duration/effects. Only real note is this battle is of course a resource drag.
And then at the end there's the two bosses, who actually -are- competent. I screw up and don't realise Chelle is about to doubleturn me, she walks down twice and overkills Elayne. Lame, loss of Exp bonuses. :( Mesmerise stops her from doing that again, and also controls Tarrasque. Slow Down helps too, but even more significant is the fact that Chelle just doesn't have amazing durability - 600-odd HP is getting less and less impressive for a boss. Her speed and power are excellent but yeah, if she can't hit that goes away and she's easy enough to kill. Tarrasque as always is more durable, but far more easily controlled, and he doesn't have his regen in this fight. Devastations for all.
3-3-A (Chelle 3 and HOLY CRAP I GET HOW MUCH CSP?)
Condition for victory here is defeat Chelle. Labby suggests ignoring the enemies to get to her. Labby is a foolish fool.
Clarissa: Sacred Slayer; Elem/DS OC, Elem/DS EQ
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Secutor; Fant/Stri/Gadg OC
Standard setup applies here. There are three Zortroa trainers, three Mystic Kappas, and one Chelle, and as mentioned, Chelle is the only one who must be killed. But with each kappa death popping as much CSP into my hands as 15 surly Martial Guardsmen, there's no way I'm ignoring them. Sure, they've got good defences (Fragile nukes everything but the evade, which magic gets around) and resistances (50 or better to everything) but we have Devastate and Sacrifice, don't we? Yes we do. They have around 550 HP which is competent but not really slowing me down much, especially with only 7 enemies to spread the resources around. I do lose a PC because their damage/speed isn't bad, but even that would have been easily avoidable if I'd been more careful.
Chelle herself is the same as before. Actually she's a bit worse because she gives up her Atk+25% support, but Predator Barrage probably still one-shots most anyway. Not that I'm going to find out! Mesmerise and Slow Down and Devastate to death. I make sure to Mystic a Potential Egg. This proves mostly unnecessary as both Clarissa and Vin proceed to overkill the requirements for Sacred Slayer and Secutor L7, giving me my first L7 skills! Hooray! And Elayne's close on Elementalist now. She's also hit Level 40, yay for how this challenge focusses Exp.
3-3-B (Sinspawn Ammes Augst Weisheit 1)
Hey guys I use nothing but gravity attacks and give you 1 CSP. I'd complain but the battle music is frickin' sweet.
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Odin Sphere: On the one hand, this is one of the prettiest games I've ever seen. On the other hand, there's exactly one attack combo and it takes roughly three years to execute, there's no such thing as canceling after you hit the button, only the last hit causes any kind of stun (taking any kind of damage stuns the PC) and now that I'm in chapter 6 I'm fighting enemies that can kill me pretty much just by deciding to attack during that windup and cooldown. And god forbid you whiff, because then it's even more unsafe. Aaaaargh.
Just wail til Cornelius' Final Chapter. That will make you hate life...a lot.
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Odin Sphere: On the one hand, this is one of the prettiest games I've ever seen. On the other hand, there's exactly one attack combo and it takes roughly three years to execute, there's no such thing as canceling after you hit the button, only the last hit causes any kind of stun (taking any kind of damage stuns the PC) and now that I'm in chapter 6 I'm fighting enemies that can kill me pretty much just by deciding to attack during that windup and cooldown. And god forbid you whiff, because then it's even more unsafe. Aaaaargh.
Don't forget ground attacks exist, as they are useful for a variety of reasons.
Gwen can Guard.
Avoid 4-star and greater rooms when possible.
Use skills. Photon Burst does a LOT of MT damage (about twice as much as a full combo). Once you get Overload you should be able to smash through pretty much anything.
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I have Overload. It's quite strong, just doesn't do anything for my defense or add that oh-so-helpful hitstun to attacks other than ground strikes and combo finishers. Guarding does nothing against being surrounded or boss attacks, which are the big problems. ($#!*#$^%& Unicorn Knights)
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Poklemon Platinum Wally Playthrough: Just beat Wake so I'm up to 5 badges. Both the Kirlias have evolved now. The Gardevoir one evolved around Veilstone and Route 212 has a Dawn Stone hidden in the marsh which was used to evolve Gallade. Maylene was pretty easy. Gardevoir had just evolved and was able to 2HKO her Machoke and Meditite. Lucario was a bit tougher but Gardevoir was able to outslug it with some support from Roselia.
Wake however, was a terror. I went into the battle a bit overconfident because between Roselia, Gardevoir, and Gallade my team had a ton of Grass offence. Things started off poorly as I sent out Gardevoir first against his Gyarados. Shockwave left it's health in red and it used Bite and got a critical hit which OHKOed Gardevoir. I sent in Skitty to take a hit while I revived Gardevoir and Gardevoir finished it off. Floatzel was his next pokemon and after going over its moveset in my head I realized what a massive problem it would be for my team. I sent out Roselia first to hopefully paralyze it and it was quickly OHKOed with Ice Fang. I tried Gardevoir next and it was OHKOed with Crunch. I sent in Gallade hoping that the Drain Punch TM I gave it might let it win a slugfest, but Floatzel killed it with a critical Aqua Jet. At this point the only pokemon I had left was my injured Skitty so I sent it in and used a Super Potion on it hoping for a miss or something. It uses Aqua Jet and gets attracted by Skitty's Cute Charm ability. From here I slowly alternated between healing and hitting it with Return when it was infatuated and I was able to defeat it. Finally, I revived Gallade and used it to take down Wake's Quagsire. Unbelievably, a Skitty saved my ass againgst Wake.
My next step now that I have Surf will be to pick up the Moon Stone outside of Eterna for Skitty and then go catch a Swablu now that I can get rid of the Psyducks.
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Batman: Arkham Asylum-Beat this a few days ago. Really fun game, easily the best Batman related game ever. Fighting was fun, story was fine, good exploration, just well-polished all around. My only real complaint is that the jumping controls are damn awkward sometimes, the camera gets weird occasionally, and the final boss fight was retarded. Ended up with like 60% or so Riddler puzzles figured out, not going to bother with anything else.
Bayonetta-Just beat this a few minutes ago! Borrows heavily from DMC, of course, but it manages to find its own style and combat so it doesn't feel hugely derivative. The game goes ridiculously over the top all the time, and the pacing rules, it never feels like the game slows down or starts trying to pad game length. The constant checkpoints are a relief, considering how long some of the bosses take. I really like the boss battles, even if the Cardinal Virtues are pretty easy. The cutscenes seem to be roughly half awesome and half cringe-inducing fanservice. The striptease shit made me very glad nobody else was watching me play. Also, the camera is really, really shitty at certain points and sometimes it felt like I was fighting it instead of the enemies. Other than that it was a lot of fun.
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I have Overload. It's quite strong, just doesn't do anything for my defense or add that oh-so-helpful hitstun to attacks other than ground strikes and combo finishers. Guarding does nothing against being surrounded or boss attacks, which are the big problems. ($#!*#$^%& Unicorn Knights)
There actually is an item that superarmors you for like a full minute, IIRC. (Painkillers. Which, advertise as damage reducers. And do that too.)
Granted, there's sorta a question when the game's answer to "I can't fucking dodge crap" is "Here have one of those DMC invincibility items except nerfed.". But, details. They helped with all the stuff that made me want to stab things.
I recall thinking that Cornelius' defensive abilities are miles better than Gwen's overall and that Gwen made a terrible starting character due to this too. I should finish that game up, it is fun.
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Wild Arms XF: Restarted this since I'd basically had the worst class setups possible in my previous file and I needed to make -good- PCs this time through so that I would actually finish the game without wanting to stab myself.
Taking some pointers from the XF masters here, I've got some decently powerful Elementalist/Fantastica-focused mages, with a Felius physical/Gadgeteer build.
Progressing quickly enough, I just picked up the second set of jobs and I'm debating which classes to focus on now.
Clarissa has mostly Elementalist/Dandelion Shot stuff mastered, with the Fant. and Gadg. OCs for when those are useful.
Labby is a Fantastica with Elem and Arcanist OC/EQs mastered.
Felius picked up the Fantastica OC, and has mostly been alternating between Halberdier and Gadgeteer.
Levin is just a Martial Mage, and just picked up Fantastica OC.
I imagine that Sacred Slayer is a good choice for any of the mages, but I don't want to have them all in SS at once. Also, Felius, despite being my only physicaller is still dead weight most of the time. Need a better physical class to focus on, and Secutor just seemed pointless for him, since it required one-handed weapons for the only useful skills it had. I think I may make a beeline for Widespread with Labby, especially since I managed to pick up the CSP Up skill for her in Fantastica (took some grinding, but not nearly as much as I expected).
Not sure what to do with Levin, but I imagine that Clarissa will just start alternating SS into her rotation of DS->Elem->Gadg->DS, depending on the map. I'm dreading the upcoming maps because I remember them being such a pain in the ass last time.
Any class suggestions? Also, does anyone know exactly what determines how much CSP you get? The multipliers always seem weird, and the CSP amounts seem to vary between random encounters, too.
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CSP multipliers depend on your remaining VP, IIRC. The amount of CSP you get is 1 per enemy or something.
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Trinity Universe - Chapter 11 of Rizelea route. Everything is still easy. Summon Carrot is awesome.
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I imagine that Sacred Slayer is a good choice for any of the mages, but I don't want to have them all in SS at once. Also, Felius, despite being my only physicaller is still dead weight most of the time. Need a better physical class to focus on, and Secutor just seemed pointless for him, since it required one-handed weapons for the only useful skills it had. I think I may make a beeline for Widespread with Labby, especially since I managed to pick up the CSP Up skill for her in Fantastica (took some grinding, but not nearly as much as I expected).
Honestly, Secutor Felius with Halberdier OC is a better bet than Halberdier in practice (Upper Hand is probably the best skill in that set, his slugfesting skill isn't that great and polearms aren't very awesome weapons due to two-handed also getting to interfere with shields - Upper Hand nicely benefits from Attack +25%). But, truth be told, you're better off just making a generic for a physical class until -at least- Ragnar, and Ragnar has his issues too. Felius is just underwhelming.
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Djinn:
Actually, I got the info mostly from a chinese guide. And there is couple correction
50% VP under is+ .1
50-75% VP is +.2
75% VP and up is +.3
CSP+ skill equiped is +.4
Potential Egg used is +1.0
Special skill activation +.1 (as for the included list, I can't be sure since it is in japanese. But from one of them I think it said catch thrown weapon)
http://kos.sakura.ne.jp/waxf/class.html
As for what I've been playing today, it's frustrating adventures in the world of Trials HD - basicaly stunt bike driving. I was able to get to the Hard level courses without much difficulty, but I couldn't even clear the Hard tutorial. I've been lucky enough to unlock Extreme through rampant pushing forward (~150 bails per course), but I think that's where I'm going to end up stuck.
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Djinn:
Actually, I got the info mostly from a chinese guide. And there is couple correction
50% VP under is+ .1
50-75% VP is +.2
75% VP and up is +.3
CSP+ skill equiped is +.4
Potential Egg used is +1.0
Special skill activation +.1 (as for the included list, I can't be sure since it is in japanese. But from one of them I think it said catch thrown weapon)
http://kos.sakura.ne.jp/waxf/class.html
Ah, that would explain why Labby and Felius are getting skills so much faster than Clarissa and Levin. The slowpokes don't even get enough -turns- waste through their VP.
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FE3DS - Beaten. Final was pretty cool because dragons don't completely fail as enemies, for all that Medeus was kinda lol himself. Game itself could've used a few extra things like having units be able to rescue again, but all up it was a pretty enjoyable run and certainly better at keeping my attention than Shadow Dragon. Team for the final was Marth, Mage!FemChris, Cecile, Catria, Linde, Julian, Sirius, Caeda, Feena, Minerva, Merric, and Maris.
Marth: Well, his growths got a kick up from SD, so he's at least better at holding his own. Having a forced item that gives him +2 to all non-HP stats for endgame helps too.
Mage!FemChris: Mages are pretty good in this, due to tomes being about as silly in this as FE6 Anima was, so Chris the Customizeable Character (because alliteration is fun) did pretty well for herself, for all that I'd hesitate to call her the MVP of the run. Couldn't really take physical hits, but hey.
Cecile: Cecile is... pretty much Lyn on a horse as far as the stat spread goes, I think. Granted mine was an absolute freak this run and went and capped strength, but still. The durability is pretty uninspiring for a frontliner, but it's alright enough for the lower difficulties and her growths allow her a few cute options.
Catria: Possibly MVP? Maybe. Pretty nuts from start to finish.
Linde: Pretty awesome. Not only did they have her join early, they gave her a silly-ass speed growth and Nosferatu on top of Aura. Durability on both fronts was pretty disappointing, but hey, Nosferatu.
Julian: Filler. His growths are pretty awesome so if you can get past the fact that he starts with an E in Swords he makes for a fairly competent combat unit. Still, starting with an E rank is pretty ew, since it's pretty hard to be effective with just iron weapons.
Sirius: Is basically Seth who joins in C4 and has better growths. Starting off with A Lances/B Swords is pretty sexy too, since weapon rank takes a while to build up.
Caeda: Well Wing Spear hax isn't as good since there aren't as many armored/mounted units running about but she's still pretty awesome. Not quite as good as Catria but still.
Feena: Dancer. What is there to say, really?
Minerva: Token axe user. Pretty awesome at it, too. Overall, improved from her SD appearance, which was already pretty nice.
Merric: Well Excalibur's still badass. Too bad about joining midgame with unimpressive bases. He can play catchup, but man, talk about getting hit with the nerfbat.
Maris: 10 base defense on a Lv10 Myrmidon what the heck. Pretty solid option for a Myrm, at any rate, and SMs can actually dodge stuff due to getting +10 evade now. Navarre's probably better but hey.
People who got used but didn't make the final cut:
Luke: Was pretty badass and I kinda feel sorry about dumping him. Still, that speed wasn't really going anywhere after a point and double-attacking is kinda not trivial in this game. Still turned out to be a badass tank, though.
Rody: Got dumped early on. He's not *bad*, just he's the middle option of the starting three cavs and doesn't really have much to show for it aside from a superior LUCK growth. I imagine he'd pull ahead on the harder difficulties due to durability mattering more but as is, eh.
Gordin: Oh hey Gaggles still sucks.
Ryan: Uh he owns Gaggles.
Mallesia: Can Hammerne stuff. Too bad Hammerne got nerfed back to 3 uses. Looking at her growths she'd do alright as a mage, which is cool since E rank in tomes is less hideous a start than E rank in other weapons.
Palla: Used for a bit early on. Kinda sad how the game restricts you to 11-12 units per chapter (fewer for the gaidens), including Marth. So many good options just fall by the wayside.
Ogma: Like him! Still pretty good.
Yumina: And her! Staff whore. Of course pretty much the only staff that matters after C rank is the Fortify staff, but hey, she comes with a Rescue staff and I got some pretty good milage out of that.
Nagi: Used her to oneshot dragons on her joining chapter. Better than FE6/8 Manaketes at any rate.
So yeah. Minor issues aside (such as why does the game even bother throwing Earth Dragons at you in the final chapter when you have an item that gets rid of them at the start of your turn, that you literally cannot have progressed this far without, and enemy reinforcements show up at the end of the enemy phase, for instance, also the lack of rescuing and only Marth being able to visit villages) it was a pretty enjoyable ride. Wouldn't mind replaying it sometime in the future.
Also, for the Elfboys: Rankings are back.
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Odin Sphere: Finished Gwendolyn's story, started Cornelius'. He seems much friendlier to play than the Valkyrie - better coverage on his attacks, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay shorter windup and cooldown (especially for his guard-breaker).
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Also, spin~
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But he can't gracefully glide~
Ace Attorney Investigtions: Near the end of 5-5 I guess. I will just say that Yew is probably my favorite villain in the series besides maybe the villain from the last case in 2.
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Pyro has good taste.
Random: Yesssss.
Doma: Awesome, I'd been curious about that. *yoinks*
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FE7: Finished this, don't want to touch another GBA FE ever again.
As far as things went on this playthrough, I ended up doing a lot better with growths, doubly so since I attempted to at least work with the non-Hector characters.
Chapter 23 (or whichever one had the snow) was a bitch and a half. Whoever decided snow on an already -long- map was a good idea should be dragged out into the nearest parking lot and shot. Repeatedly. In the head. And then burned. With fire.
This aside, it's okay. Still not a big fan of it in the DL on the basis that FE duellers tend to be rather plain compared to others, but what can I say?
Anyway, character overview, starting with my endgame party (Lords, Nils, Athos, Lucius, Guy, Raven, Pent, Rath, Fiora, Canas)
Eliwood/Eliwuss: He actually turned out respectable on this runthrough, though his stat gains felt like they started to fall off around the end. Doesn't help that the last fight feels like it's meant for a smaller party.
Hector: Holy. Shit. And I thought he was a nightmare on my last playthrough. Once again, he pretty much steamrolled everything I aimed him at, and then some. His stats all-around were nothing short of insane (Even with -very- good RES), and he singlehandedly annihilated the Reed brothers in the final battle without even a scratch, with a little help from Nils and a Swordslayer to start. From what I've heard of them, that says a lot. MVP by far.
Lyndis: She took off this time as well, basically playing the role of a Myrmidon on crack. By the time she promoted, she was ripping through enemy forces with a mere Iron Sword. By the second to last chapter, though, she had a full complement of Silver weaponry and Killing Edges. Her stats lend very well to bow use as well, which adds a -lot- to her usefulness once she promotes. Was pretty much necessary for the unenviable task of taking out Morph Uhai in the final chapter.
Nils/Ninian: Always useful. Adds extra moves or buffs people. Very useful when you know when to use the buffs.
Athos: His stats are solid. But honestly, he didn't need to jump in on the action except once to heal the party after dealing with Morph Uhai. So I'm still not sure on how well off he is.
Lucius: Next best in the party for raw magic power. He's supposedly unstable, but turned out well. Very much a blitzing mage whose only problem is his absolute inability to take physical damage whatsoever.
Guy: For most of the game, I had to admittedly babysit him. He's unimpressive as a myrmidon, and between the seeming damage problems and his apparent issue with dodging compared to others, he was a headache. The second he promoted, though, he never failed to amaze. Especially with 65% Killing Edge critical rates. Took out Brendan, never got the chance to fight Nergal since his RES was bad enough that he'd get oneshotted exactly.
Raven: For all that he really did nothing in the final battle, he was generally reliable. Guy with less crit but more durability, power, and weapon variety. I say that's a decent enough trade
Pent: Uh...damn. This is a prepromo done right, really. Neglect/Get RNG-Screwed/get killed with Erk or Nino? He's still more than adequate for the job if you want an anima user. Doesn't hurt that he -also gets staves-, just in case you didn't feel like leveling up one of the healers (god knows it's a despised task). Invaluable against Wyvern knights whenever they showed up, oddly enough.
Rath: Yeah, I used him over Wil or Rebecca. My opinion, Rath's probable the best archer in the game once promoted due to his mobility and presence of a melee option. As a sign of me being way too used to D&D and its stat-split, turns out said melee option hurts like hell too. Became even more of a terror once he got Rienfleche. Because the S-rank non-spell weapons were still amazing.
Fiora: Yeah, I used her over Florina. Solid damage, amazing mobility and evasion, and a magic tank like no other. Okay, there is the problem of being weak to arrows (and the Delphi Shield or whatever got irrevocably lost in the chapter where it appeared. Fuck that map.) Pretty much took out Morph Kenneth and the nameless gespenst druid on her own with the Spear. Probably the only one I can see who -doesn't- benefit from the alternate weapon option gained, just because she's that good with lances.
Canas: Only dark mage in the game. And he turned out well for me. Good thing, too, because Luna use was a way around some of the less friendly bosses of the game (Ursula, Limstella, helped with the Dragon). With aid from Lyn, took out Morph Ursula pretty handily. Really, Luna's the big reason why he's useful. Flux has decent base power, and Nosferatu has some use, but...yeah. Also, feels like I ended up getting some decent stats with him altogether, since he didn't seem to ever have trouble dying once he got past the early phases.
Honorable mention goes to those who were regular party members but didn't participate in the final battle.
Matthew: Well, what can I say? The real problem with him is that he's a late promo no matter what you do, because there's only one Fell Contract and you get it via the goddamned Sonia map. More than pulled his weight once he hit Assassin, literally activating his instakill on the order of 5-6 times in the second to last fight. If it worked against bosses, I'd have brought him in the final chapter.
Louise: She's got an automatic A support with Pent, which mitigates her own issues. She also appeared when Wyvern knights started popping up like crazy, and finally gave me a use for those damned Ballistas. Still not as good of a bow user as Rath, but she's not bad.
Jaffar: I probably could have taken him into the final battle, really. Low HP, but it seems like no matter what, things had trouble actually doing anything to him. And that was with WTA. His critrate was better than Matthew's as well.
And now, the fail of FE7. Bosses.
Lundgren: ...he's nothing special as a villain, but at least seems to be doing enough evil shit on the basis that he's more of a villain than Nergal. That aside, he's got really good defensive stats for the time, and his Silver Lance isn't helping anyone any. I remember him not having too much in the ways of magic defense, but he simply doesn't -care- what with the fact that he'd probably oneshot the likes of Erk in-game. Immobile, but gate. Still has the most ineffective poison ever.
Uhai: Is there.
Aion: Is there, just to get made into someone completely mockable by the likes of Kishuna.
Kishuna: Appears to make half of Aion's group into free experience before disappearing, never to show up again. With no lines. Best villain ever.
Darin: Manipulated into megalomania by means of Ephidel. He's just a pathetic bastard who thinks he can rule the entire place. Lundgren did the ubertank thing a hell of a lot better than he did, though.
Ephidel: ...For someone who, I presume, was on the same level of power as Sonia, you'd expect him to at least bother doing -something- other than standing there, looking evil, having Jaffar kill people, and getting annihilated as Nergal leaves. Then again, looks like he was yet another Sage, so I don't think much would have really been lost there.
Linus: Uh...wow. Clearly rose to the status of one of the Four Fangs by means of nepotism, because he -SUCKS-. Barely memorable.
Jerme: Fails forever.
Ursula: Okay, I do have to give her credit for her range bullshit. She's respectable enough on that end, with enough magic power to take people out. Magic defense was also insane for the time, but she fell to a single Luna crit. ...okay, so that's more just demonstrating the usefulness of Luna. No real plot presence, as is usual.
Sonia: Okay, I have to give her massive credit for the fact that she chooses to be in the most annoying level of the game, and pulls Ursula's game off better than Ursula. Complete with more respectable defenses. Also has the argument for being the most villainous character in the game.
Lloyd: Oh hey I'm going to try to take on the people that killed my brother, and either get killed or kill myself afterward. Yeah. He'd have an argument (on top of much better positioning, since he actually has a gate) for being at least decently competent.
Denning: Uh, okay. I don't get the joke here.
Limstella: Most competent human boss in the game? She definitely has an argument for it, what with her solid defenses on both fronts, strong magic, and assload of HP. Can't evade too well, but she doesn't need to, arguably. Plotwise, just a direct minion of Nergal. She rates 'most competent boss' to me, though.
Nergal's Robot Master Refight Morph Collective: These guys...varied all to hell, really. I guess Nergal really was trying to be Dr. Wily here, though, since you even get their weapons when you kill them. In short, though...
* Morph Uhai: Holy SHIT. They pretty much fixed everything that was wrong with him, and he's scary as hell. Rienfleche is insane, as is his speed and power. Move wrong and he slaughters a party member with two hits of 35 damage.
* Morph Brendan: He likewise hits hard. But unlike Uhai, he lacks the speed, instead depending on the fact that he's likely to 2HKO people who have WTA on him, and OHKO anyone else.
* Morph Darin: He moves now. He still fails completely at life. Is pretty much the game's way of saying "here, have a free S-rank spear".
* Morph Ursula: Excalibur hits hard, and her RES is still respectable, though not as good as it used to be. DEF's rather bad, though, and her weapon's heavy.
* Morph Jerme: Amazingly, he sucks even MORE. Doesn't even drop anything.
* Morph Lloyd/Linus: These two deserve special mention on the basis that they have solid stats...before factoring in the A Support. Lloyd's the real terror here, what with having an actual critical rate off of Regal Blade, and I -really- lucked out with what I used on Hector there. Swordslayer crit took him out, and then Linus was rather helpless as he got subsequently killed with a Brave Axe crit. Had I not been so lucky, the fight would have gone a lot worse.
* Morph Kenneth: ...I don't ever remember running into this guy. Needless to say, the fact that he was still doing damage to Fiora after she got RES-buffed says something in his favor.
Nergal: ...he's there, he supposedly got turned evil by using evil magic, he wants to become god. He fails as a villain, and fails pretty spectacularly as a boss, too, given that he's been handing out S-ranks like candy and still can't OHKO anyone other than Guy. Mind, Hector can two-round him with either Armads or Basilikos, but the point stands that his stats fail to keep up with the awesome weapons you got earlier in the fight. Also, you'd think he'd take advantage of his S-ranks in magic a bit more.
Dragon: Lolwut. Plotless final that...almost does better than Nergal at being a boss. he's got something on the order of 120 HP, and monstrous defenses. If it weren't for the fact that those legendary weapons suddenly become way more useful than the S-ranks, I'd argue that he'd be a lot more competent. In practice, he was about equal, being taken out in four actions. Then again, bias due to generally good stats on all of my Lords (Especially Hector who was doing in excess of 50 damage on both the dragon and Nergal), and Luna hax.
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Odin Sphere: Finished Gwendolyn's story, started Cornelius'. He seems much friendlier to play than the Valkyrie - better coverage on his attacks, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay shorter windup and cooldown (especially for his guard-breaker).
I said it before and I'll say it again:
Cornelius should have been the first character you play as, not Gwen. He's more user friendly, and generally more lenient on mistakes.
Now, if it was for storyline reasons, I could understand the logic. But Cornelius and Gwendolyn don't really have much in common for story (actually, the one part where they cross paths is BEFORE Gwendolyn's Story, and she's more or less a cameo there just for shits), so there really wasn't much of an excuse here.
Hell, Cornelius being first makes more sense story-line wise if only cause it makes for a more logical introduction to the Pooka Town. I mean, its completely arbitrary and out of nowhere and you're like "What is this and why does it exist?" for Gwen's, where as Cornelius' story it plays an actual role! Also makes you remember that Ariel Coins and such are things you wanna spend last rather than trying to remember which is used for what.
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Kishuna: Appears to make half of Aion's group into free experience before disappearing, never to show up again. With no lines. Best villain ever.
* Morph Kenneth: ...I don't ever remember running into this guy. Needless to say, the fact that he was still doing damage to Fiora after she got RES-buffed says something in his favor.
Kishuna plot requires getting his Gaiden chapters, the third of which you only get in Hector's story. Using Renault also gets you some pre-game plot stuff. Not worth it though.
Remember Pale Flower of Darkness where you fight Jerme? If the sum of your magic users' levels is higher than your weapons users (ahahahaha) then you get a different chapter where you fight a fuckload of magic users and Kenneth as the boss. The only time I've gotten this was my Harem run, and that's partly because I counted Lucius as a girl.
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Actually, it's not all your weapon users, it's just Erk/Lucius/Priscilla/Serra vs. Guy/Raven/Dorcas/Bartre, i.e. there's four people on each side, so it should be fairly balanced. Since Nama used both Guy and Raven from the Hero Crest side but only Lucius from the Guiding Ring side, though, it makes sense that he saw Jerme. I usually see Kenneth myself.
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I somehow got Kenneth despite not using any magic users besides Healers.
FE8 Ephraim side: Beat this yesterday (I think). Path was harder(mainly because of Phantom Ship bullshit) and story less-bad.
Who cares, character listing woooooo!
Ephraim: 20/11 HP: 55(Angel Robe?) Str: 26 Skill: 26(CAP) Spd: 24(CAP) Luck: 21 Def: 20 Res 13
Jeez, Ephraim's praise is well-deserved. Despite getting multiple single-stat level-ups before promotion he still became a beast.
Eirika: 20/5 HP: 35 Str: 16 Skill: 21 Spd: 22 Luck: 18 Def: 11 Res 11
Inferior in all ways. Because I actually knew I'd be forced to use her I actually bothered to level her up.
Natasha: 20/4 HP: 35 Mag: 18 Skill: 14 Spd: 17 Luck: 19 Def: 6 Res 17
Wasn't gaining any magic early on but in her last levels she started. Actually managed to make it to 20 before promotion!
Artur: 20/9 HP: 34 Str: 22 Skill: 15 Spd: 19 Luck: 12 Def: 11 Res 22
He's so weenie-looking but dammit can he magic-tank. Not that it was really needed.
Franz: 20/9 HP: 43 Str: 19 Skill: 21Spd: 23 Luck: 11 Def: 18 Res 9
Most of his stats were decent, but he just couldn't get the 1RKO out most of the time.
Gilliam: 20/6 HP: 46 Str: 15 Skill: 11 Spd: 15 Luck: 7 Def: 26 Res 10
Tank blah blah blah. Not nearly as impressive as the Gilliam before. Yet he still would have ended above-average for his Speed.
Vanessa: 20/12 HP: 43 Str: 18 Skill: 25 Spd: 28 Luck: 15 Def: 15 Res 14
On Vanessa how awesome you were. Sending her out flying with Tana and the two of them took out half of the second-to-last map with ease.
Moulder: 20/9 HP: 39 Str: 21 Skill: 17 Spd: 18 Luck: 4 Def: 14 Res 13
Healer. What can be said? Nothing.
Amelia: 1020/1 (Armor/General) HP: 46 Str: 27(CAP) Skill: 26 Spd: 22 Luck: 26 Def: 17 Res 14 BOOTS
Managed to get her out of trainee levels in the two earliest plot maps she can be used in. Then turned into the usual trainee death-machine.
Colm: 20/5 HP: 36 Str: 11 Skill: 14 Spd: 23 Luck: 18 Def: 12 Res 8
Utter trash compared to my previous game.
Tana: 20/10 HP: 41 Str: 21 Skill: 13 Spd: 29(CAP) Luck: 27 Def: 14 Res 15
Despite the godawful Skill, she still rocked house. When she wasn't busy being a liability early-on.
Seth */8 HP: 36 Str: 16 Skill: 17 Spd: 15 Luck: 11 Def: 11 Res 10
????? Hey, I like Seth. Even if he also turned out fantastically bad compared to before.
Now the only thing left is FE7 Hector mode and I can stop playing these games.
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Odin Sphere: Finished Gwendolyn's story, started Cornelius'. He seems much friendlier to play than the Valkyrie - better coverage on his attacks, waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay shorter windup and cooldown (especially for his guard-breaker).
Oh, incidentally, save as much napalm as possible for Cornelius's last chapter. I'm not certain he has any other means of killing a specific enemy there.
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You can use the Curse potion but that is much less efficient.
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He has a few ways actually, but none that are inherit to his skill set linked like Mercedes.
Napalm is the obvious and suggested means of course. Goo Potions work too, but those aren't exactly the most common of things.
Deflecting Wizard's Swords into them works too, but this requires a Wizard to be alive. This wouldn't be so bad except that, IIRC, Wizards can SUMMON MORE OF THOSE ENEMIES which is *@(^U(@^.
well, you COULD kill them 1 HP at a time! Nevermind how long this will take, ITS THERE!
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That sounds unpleasant. Luckily Napalm is easy to make?
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IIRC, that stage is a dick and doesn't give you easy access to the Mandrogora that lets you create Napalm. So...basically make a lot in advance
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Storta like how Gwendolyn's story decided to take me to a stage with no materials for Healing Tonics for its final battles. Duly noted.
Edit: Also, I totally agree on Cornelius coming first. That or just rejigger the format into a Suikoden III sort of thing, where you can put down one story and pick up another midway through, with restrictions like having to finish a chapter in Gwendolyn's story before you play the corresponding one in Oswald's, to keep the overall story in line.
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Alternatively, they could have just done one of those ranking systems, where you have all 5 stories open from the get go, but the difficulty is indicative of which order you should go in.
Given Difficulty is generally hypothetical and not actual, even if Gwen were a 1 Star and Cornelius were a 2 star, it would be an improvement over the current format that forces you into Gwen first, who is not necessarily easier than Cornelius.
Really, just the option makes sense. I mean, Dissidia's a game that has a similar story telling style and it allowed you to do things in whatever damn order you please. Granted, order made some stories make more sense (Onion Knight -> Terra being the obvious one), and Difficulty rating was a good indicator of this, but just the option to do things in whatever order was certainly nice!
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I need something to play now that I've finished Dragon Age. Shale and Gref, suggest me something that's not shitty.
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Shale, you can probably just save yourself some heartache and stop playing now. OS only gets worse as it goes along.
DQ9: Yeah, Greygnarl died in 1 attack. Granted it was a Double-upped, 100 tension Crushed Ice. But yeah, this game is easy to break.
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Based on the recent conversations here, I get the sense that Vanillaware made Muramasa a lot easier than Odin Sphere.
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Muramasa's a lot more actually -fun-. >_>
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Muramasa's a lot more actually -fun-. >_>
I disagree. Muramasa gets old a lot quicker because 2 characters, and they operate exactly the same. Odin Sphere's item system needed to be far less clunky and there were some balance issues, but I enjoyed it a great deal more on raw gameplay.
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Pokemon Platinum Wally Playthrough: Up through Candice and now the entire team has been caught and everybody is fully evolved. There is no clear MVP as of right now, but Delcatty definately looks like it's going to be the LVP. Last time I checked Gardevoir had it beat in every stat which was definately surprising. It still has acceptable offense with STAB Return, but the defenses and speed suck so I'm not sure that it's going to be much use for the rest of the game.
Cyrus 1 is the next big fight after Wake and he was a surprising challenge. His pokemon just have a surprising amount of offense. Sneasal 2HKOed Gallade with Ice Punch and Murkrow OHKOed everyone except for Skitty and Swablu due to weakness hitting. I ended up losing the first time and on the second attempt I taught Skitty Toxic and just swapped pokemon until it died.
The Canalave Rival battle was easy. I had a pokemon who matched up well against against all of his pokemon. I thought Infernape might be dangerous but Gardevoir just OHKOed it with Psychic.
Byron was fairly simple up until his Steelix. He used a Full Restore after I had it weak and paralyzed and I didn't have enough Pokemon to wear it down again. Earthquake and 2HKOed all of my Pokemon except Altaria who was easily dispatced with Ice Fang. I ended up just item spamming until it ran out of Earthquakes and killed it with Gallade or something.
Candice was really easy. Gallade OHKOed Sneasal, Roserade OHKOed Piloswine, Gardevoir and Altaria wore down Abomasnow, and Magnezone 2HKOed Froslass and wasn't threatened by anything it could do.
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Muramasa is a lot harder than Odin Sphere on the harder difficulties. Mostly because it ignores your RPG statistics, enemies take much less damage and you always die in 3 hits. Of course, dying has no penalty Muramasa but some of the bosses become really :/.
Persona 3 Portable: Finish around the 70 hour mark. Even with more streamline menu navagation, long game is long.
Overall, P3P take most of Persona 4's gameplay enhancements like downattacks, allies taking mortal blows for the main character, co-op attacks etc. while speeding up the pace of the game with point and click menus during daytime at the cost of animated cutscenes. Female main prospective doesn't add anything extra to the plot, and the pink menus became an eyesore after just 3 hours. I do like the new S. Links, fleshing out some of the more bland PCs like Akihiko and Ken. For the two people at the DL that refuse to play Persona (I KNOW WHO YOU ARE AND KNOW WHERE YOU LIVE), it's still probably not enough to get them to play one and Persona 4 is probably still a better choice.
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I need something to play now that I've finished Dragon Age. Shale and Gref, suggest me something that's not shitty.
Errrr I can't think of anything with some longevity, but Psychonauts and Zenoclash are both cheap and Zenoclash might give you a day or so of fun. No where near as good as DA, but an interesting little indie FPS shooter/beat 'em up. Played more for some art style and to punch things in the face than anything else.
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Muramasa can be an absolute joy to play on some of the randoms, what with the flying around the screen like crazy and pulling off all sorts of attacks/specials. They pretty much heard Shale's complaint of a lack of attack variety and cranked that shit up to 11. Muramasa bosses CAN be ball-crushingly difficult on the hard mode though, yeah. Forces you to use the item/food system the game has to get the extra leg-up you need.
OS SHOULD get easier as you go along and get into the groove and figure out what items are good/what strats to use. The character variety is nice, at least.
But really these games get hype less for gameplay and more for the stunning visual style and story, which tend to be good times. I kind of disagree about Muramasa getting old fast because it is a much shorter game than OS, and you are constantly switch swords/styles. Not to mention the variety in attacks you have at your disposal allows for lots of twinking.
AAI: Just about at the end here. Thoughts later.
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FE3DS - Beaten. Final was pretty cool because dragons don't completely fail as enemies, for all that Medeus was kinda lol himself. Game itself could've used a few extra things like having units be able to rescue again, but all up it was a pretty enjoyable run and certainly better at keeping my attention than Shadow Dragon. Team for the final was Marth, Mage!FemChris, Cecile, Catria, Linde, Julian, Sirius, Caeda, Feena, Minerva, Merric, and Maris.
Marth: Well, his growths got a kick up from SD, so he's at least better at holding his own. Having a forced item that gives him +2 to all non-HP stats for endgame helps too.
Mage!FemChris: Mages are pretty good in this, due to tomes being about as silly in this as FE6 Anima was, so Chris the Customizeable Character (because alliteration is fun) did pretty well for herself, for all that I'd hesitate to call her the MVP of the run. Couldn't really take physical hits, but hey.
Cecile: Cecile is... pretty much Lyn on a horse as far as the stat spread goes, I think. Granted mine was an absolute freak this run and went and capped strength, but still. The durability is pretty uninspiring for a frontliner, but it's alright enough for the lower difficulties and her growths allow her a few cute options.
Catria: Possibly MVP? Maybe. Pretty nuts from start to finish.
Linde: Pretty awesome. Not only did they have her join early, they gave her a silly-ass speed growth and Nosferatu on top of Aura. Durability on both fronts was pretty disappointing, but hey, Nosferatu.
Julian: Filler. His growths are pretty awesome so if you can get past the fact that he starts with an E in Swords he makes for a fairly competent combat unit. Still, starting with an E rank is pretty ew, since it's pretty hard to be effective with just iron weapons.
Sirius: Is basically Seth who joins in C4 and has better growths. Starting off with A Lances/B Swords is pretty sexy too, since weapon rank takes a while to build up.
Caeda: Well Wing Spear hax isn't as good since there aren't as many armored/mounted units running about but she's still pretty awesome. Not quite as good as Catria but still.
Feena: Dancer. What is there to say, really?
Minerva: Token axe user. Pretty awesome at it, too. Overall, improved from her SD appearance, which was already pretty nice.
Merric: Well Excalibur's still badass. Too bad about joining midgame with unimpressive bases. He can play catchup, but man, talk about getting hit with the nerfbat.
Maris: 10 base defense on a Lv10 Myrmidon what the heck. Pretty solid option for a Myrm, at any rate, and SMs can actually dodge stuff due to getting +10 evade now. Navarre's probably better but hey.
People who got used but didn't make the final cut:
Luke: Was pretty badass and I kinda feel sorry about dumping him. Still, that speed wasn't really going anywhere after a point and double-attacking is kinda not trivial in this game. Still turned out to be a badass tank, though.
Rody: Got dumped early on. He's not *bad*, just he's the middle option of the starting three cavs and doesn't really have much to show for it aside from a superior LUCK growth. I imagine he'd pull ahead on the harder difficulties due to durability mattering more but as is, eh.
Gordin: Oh hey Gaggles still sucks.
Ryan: Uh he owns Gaggles. <----------------------
SOLD!!!!!!!!!
(ahem)
Also, for the Elfboys: Rankings are back.
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Damn Fudo. That's dirt slow for Eirika.
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Damn Fudo. That's dirt slow for Eirika.
Now that you mention that, I'm going to check my Eirika path save.
...
...
...
24 Speed at 20/11. Vanessa has 25 and she's 20/5
Then at 20/20 Eirika has 30 Speed hahahahahahaha.
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Mass Effect 2 - Finished Renegade play through, saved everyone this time. Game is awesome and people should play it and stuff.
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3-4 (Striders at the Guardian Shrine)
Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, Gadg EQ, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Fant/Gadg OC, Sec EQ, Atk+25%
I decide to switch back to Strider here because the climb is super-mobile. As it turns out from here, I decide to stick with it to get Aim+25%, which is pretty sexy. Anyway, this lets her navigate quickly and kill some of the enemies on cliffs. Otherwise this is a fairly straightforward battle, no reinforcements and nothing really exceptional on the enemy end. Elayne masters elementalist from this battle, and the other two hit Level 40.
3-5-A (Inside the shrine)
Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Fantastica; Enig/Elem OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Sent OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%
In preparation for the next battle which is probably unnecessary, I decide to get Fantastica OC on Elayne. I figure the more people who have it, the better.
Anyway, while Chapter 3 continues to, in general, not be tooo tough, this is at least a better fight than most of the previous (well, probably not the Forsaken Mutants or Chelle 2). Heavy Strike as always is to push people into the abyss but it's not really too necessary. What is, perhaps, necessary, is making sure the enemy Sentinels don't do the same thing right back! In desperation, Mesmerise stops that crap, and in general is very useful on this map. I split up here to cover the map in a reasonable length of time, which does make things a bit trickier, but I think it's probably worth it, CSP is good and all. The wave of reinforcements, which include a pair of quite powerful elementalists and some always annoying grapplers, throw a bit of a ripple into the fight but it's nothing that isn't manageable.
3-5-B (Edna makes the world a better place)
Clarissa: Fantastica; Enig/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/Fant OC, Elem EQ, Accelerate, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Sent OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%
Wow the final boss has terrible HP here, unfortunately that's no help to me! Fantastica for everyone, probably overkill but I figure it'll be handy to have later at worst. Once again I split folks up. Fright Knights... hmm. No major weaknesses (just a minor one to fire), so Devastate is generally superior. They have pretty good Def for the time (300) but it's not unmanageable and their evade is kinda low to compensate. They hit decently hard but not amazingly so, and can heal. Not really as good as they should be plotwise, but not something to take lightly by any means, I do lose a PC to them.
Heavy Strike is an option though not as effective a one as in the previous map due to the shape of things. Beyond that, it's a matter of cutting enemies down, making sure to heal so I can't be overwhelmed, and finally reaching Katrina and nuking her MP to bits. She doesn't fight back in this form, which helps.
3-6 (Samille, El Jackson, and the Shut Out wall)
Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/Elem OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%
Only seven enemies should make for an easier fight than this. It's not terrifying or anything, but yeesh do the elementalists hit hard. Over 500 magic? What is this crap. To make matters worse they have Reflect. Anyway, I don't really go in with a great anti-elementalist strategy so if this battle were any harder I could probably resort to that.
A single Widespread Dispel deals with the wall, and then it's a matter of getting in there, busting things up and healing as quickly as possible. Nothing too significantly interesting beyond that.
Items have reached the point where using them is actually cost-effective, I just need to train myself to actually do it.
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Freedom Force- Just started this. It's an RPG with comic book characters, what's not to love? The interface is as clunky as you'd expect from a PC RPG from the early 00's, but it still has sharp writing and the game is pretty. First mission's done, starting on the second. I need to be careful about bugginess, as the game has issues with windows 7.
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It has issues with Vista, too. Sound cuts out after a couple minutes of my playing it. Which wouldn't be a problem if text boxes didn't cut out shortly thereafter.
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Freedom Force- Just started this. It's an RPG with comic book characters, what's not to love? The interface is as clunky as you'd expect from a PC RPG from the early 00's, but it still has sharp writing and the game is pretty. First mission's done, starting on the second. I need to be careful about bugginess, as the game has issues with windows 7.
My favorite character? Mentor. That voice... FUCK.
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VA/sound keeps cutting out, sadly. I need to look more for a patch for vista/win7.
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DQ9 players, what do you think about using level 40 as endgame for stat topic? Pure class of course, multiclassing is another kettle of fish.
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Doesn't sound too bad to me
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grind moar
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Disgaea DS -
Finished. Final levels: Laharl 86, Etna & Warren (Warrior) 60s, most others 50s, Prinny Brigade 40s.
Lamington was overpowerful and I went back to grinding for a bit. I ended up spending most of my time then getting magic that I had no intention or ability to use though, so probably did not need to spend the amount of time that I did.
Whoever decided that being thrown onto the exit panel for Point Alpha-III shouldn't count as reaching it, leading me into thinking that it wasn't the 'secret' entrance after all and I had to manipulate the cannons into shooting a wall or something, needs to be punted.
Ending is not clear enough that Lam is spared. Maybe this is more noticable if you get a different ending first.
Any point to playing Etna mode?
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3-7 (Samille, El Jackson, and the power of friendship)
I have tier 4 classes now, but decide not to make use of them for this battle. I'm not exactly sure how to work them into my upcoming strategies, besides Debilitator for bosses and Emulator for... well, a bunch of things. Doubt I'll use Nightstalker much, its advantages aren't generally relevant on this challenge, and High Cavalier... we'll see.
Clarissa: Enigmancer; DS/SS OC, Elem/DS EQ, Widespread
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/SS OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%
Elemental resists everywhere here, hence the lack of Elementalist OC. Also, the enemies have various high-level skills like Reflect and Retaliation. The enemies fight in pairs and like to boost each other with Zone Effect, but it's not really a big deal, and it's mostly a matter of blowing them up in the usual fashion and watching out for the various defensive skills the enemies employ. I do fail to take my own advice and eat my own reflected Sacrifice at one point, yay 330+ damage! But besides that it's not too hard a battle. Mesmerise and Prevent both see some use at containing certain enemies.
3-8 (evil royal knights)
The coolest thing about this battle is that there's a generic royal knight named Kahn who has 1500 VP (this is insane, might even be game-best), more HP than the boss, and manly sentinel skills. Clearly a reference to the BoF4 guy.
Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/Elem OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%
I have rather little to say about the battle itself. It's mostly teaching you to watch enemy skillsets, since the royal knights actually play like various common classes (Sacred Slayer, Elementalist, Secutor, Sentinel) but if you don't watch for which is which you'll be in trouble. Esperanza, the boss, deserves note because he has a pretty solid set of boss immunities and non-fail HP, but offensively he's just another Sentinel. Highlights of this battle include tossing enemies off the bridge and then drop kicking them.
3-9 (Nightstalker status whoring) (2 resets)
Clarissa: Emulator; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Levin: Emulator; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread
Alexia: Sacred Slayer; RF/Stri OC, RF EQ, Leader's Duty, Strong Heart
This battle totally came out of nowhere and kicked my ass. Easily the best fight in Chapter 3 so far.
First of all, I decided I badly want to take certain emulator skills out of this battle, namely sleep, petrify, and misery. Not only are these good statuses to have in general, two of them totally hose some upcoming bosses who might otherwise be quite dangerous. I opt to use Levin because Execrate is that darn good for said spells. Levin has poor offensive stats which has made me generally shy away from him this playthrough, but good speed and MP and those are the only stats needed to statuswhore effectively.
Anyway, deciding to get those is a mixed blessing for the battle itself. On the one hand, Emulator is a great class; MP Regen and Conserve MP combine for someone who can use powerful skills for a long battle, and Exploit Weakness is a huge damage boost against anything with a weakness (i.e. everything in this battle, for starters). On the other hand, it means I can't kill all the Nightstalkers as fast as I'd like. There are five, each armed with a different status spell. Initially I figure I'll grab poison and disease too, but after it becomes clear how challenging this battle will be, I give that idea the finger. Neither status is particularly useful anyway.
My first reset comes brutally and quickly. The Nightstalkers start in status whoring range, and petrify/sleep/misery are all pretty much fatal. I scramble to keep up and repair what they do but it's hopeless and after a drawn-out fight in which the outcome is never in doubt, I die.
So I come back with Alexia in my party, as a Sacred Slayer, for one reason and one reason only, and that is to open the battle with Widespread Status Lock. Things go better this time but eventually I'm overwhelmed by NIGHTSTALKER PHYSICAL BLITZ once they're out of MP. They're just faster than I am (they're fast even for nightstalkers), and their defence-ignoring physicals wear me down eventually. Once again, not a swift defeat by any means, but a defeat it is.
In the winning run I'm more aggressive, quickly killing off the two Nightstalkers I deem expendable (Exploit Weakness hype goes here), and also make use of Mesmerise to control the surviving ones. It's not really perfect because Alexia can't re-Status Lock herself after 3 turns, and Mesmerise wears off fairly quickly due to nightstalker speed, but it gets the job done. It's quite a grind and people definitely die. In fact, I'm fairly convinced I'm going to have a reset here as at one point Levin is all alone against two nightstalkers and at critical HP, I gamble and have him put both to sleep. (I'd already tried this once and missed). 50% odds, but both hit, and I'm able to regroup and revive. To my great fortune, one of the two never even wakes up. I get all the status spells downloaded, and kill the last two nightstalkers. Battle over!
Or not. Apparently there are still 7 royal knights to kill. They're pretty similar to the last battle, only I have more offence due to Emulator and my shinty new status spell options (Petrify sees some use). However, I am -badly- worn down and out of revival, and the Sacred Slayers are supercharged by their dead buddies. I lose Levin during the fight against Esperanza and his Sacred Slayer buddy, and have to be careful about overwhelming the healing. Fortunately I'm able to do that, then finally proceed over and finish off the last three.
EDIT: Oh yeah, I realise that I probably could have had both Execrate and Widespread by now on Levin if I'd played my cards right, and goodness knows that would have helped a lot. Oh well, having to be in Martial Mage for Execrate is an acceptable cost.
Next up is Asgard and oh shit he has a lot of HP. Time to exploit boss status weaknesses~
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Finished up basically everything in Muramasa now; all 108 swords, every ending, both characters at level 99 with every accessory in the game, etc. I think Kisuke has a few of the white Enemy Lairs you need only beat once to get a sword remaining, but that's pretty irrelevant at this point.
Momohime really got the short end of the stick in terms of bosses - Giant Oni and Raijin are the two hardest ones in the game, IMO, with Chimera and Pig Demon to a lesser extent also giving me trouble. Fudo-Myoou's the harder of the final bosses as well. Meanwhile on Kisuke's side Dragon God stood out for difficulty (but still less than Giant Oni/Raijin) and... I'm not sure I even bothered with healing items against any of the rest. Maybe a few against Torahime.
Narukani bracelet is hilariously overpowered, though considering how much effort it takes to acquire it's fair enough. I deliberately saved all the harder bosses (save Dragon God, wanted the Nio Bracelet for Total Pandemonium) until after getting the Narukani Bracelet so I could effortlessly tank through all their worst attacks and lengthy invincibility periods.
All in all, Muramasa lived up to my expectations: a gorgeous-looking game with gameplay that never got tedious or punishing. Also optional difficulty modes for those who are better at action games than me, but I didn't touch those; still nice to have them.
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Nier: At least even the game acknowledges Kaine's a weirdo for fighting monsters while wearing lingerie.
Anyway, sometimes it's like the game's just sort of there, like when I'm running around doing random fetch quests for villagers, and then other times I wind up in a town where everyone's stricken with crippling narration syndrome. It was a pretty hilarious bit of fourth-wall breaking and I kept a save file just for that. "I can tell that the one called Nier is disappointed that the torn dress will be given no further description, but he hides it well." Hah. It was also a pretty amusing coincidence to find a town full of people stuck in their dreams right after getting home from seeing Inception.
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Borderlands: Beaten. Level 36 at endgame. Quite enjoyed even the singleplayer, multiplayer should also be quite enjoyable but it wasn't an option here. Was Soldier, mainly used Eridian Weapons/Sniper Rifles but everything outside Launchers was above 5 prof.
Needed a -bit- more visual variety but otherwise was quite fun visually, and the dialogue was enjoyable. Remind me to avatar a CL4P-TP sometime. Uh, Tannis was hilarious, as was Scooter. Fights were generally entertaining but this might be in part because I suck at shooters. Anyway, fun game, not sure what to say.
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Wild Arms XF:
Started this up again. Went from 2-1 to 2-9 in the past couple of days.
I feel like I ought to mention this, as I'm fairly vocal about the game's map issues-what everyone says is indeed accurate and the game has less things I consider issues as it goes on.
2-1, for instance, is pretty normal. It has a gimmick! You can...turn off, effectively. Or abuse to kill enemies. It is, in other words, not one-sided, not class related, is instead terrain related. And it's hard but not unreasonably so.
2-2's gimmick requires you to put two people in a job that I'd rather not put two people in(Sentinel)! Except...it's the closest thing to an actually optional gimmick so far. Which, is to say a normal team can actually have everyone do useful things on the map. As, that's what mine did.
Now, 2-3 was kinda a bastard. But...it's not a gimmick. As I found myself laughing at the time, a set of enemies I generally find more competent than the(not incompetent) stage before it, combined with OH FUCK UNCURABLE SILENCE IN A GAME WITH POOR PHYSICALS, is not really a gimmick in the standard sense, and in any other game-ones that hadn't had a bunch of limiting gimmicks followed by relatively weaker enemy forces-it wouldn't have stood out. As it is I just found myself baffled. It goes against the game's design philosophy so far. I can't really say that's bad, per se-my issue with XF is that, when it's going for gimmicks, it's boring as hell. This wasn't boring.
(2-3 does have a USE NORMALLY CRAP FELIUS SKILL gimmick. I prefer to ignore that on the grounds that if you can't manage the battle enough for Felius to get there you're dead, and if you can you probably can manage the battle anyways. That and I forgot the skill and had to be reminded of this.)
2-4 got hype as annoying. I don't see it. Except the part where there's a pointless three turn walk up to the enemies, followed by a vaguely slow paced weakening, and then a 15 second sequence where you watch a gate very slowly open. This is minor but irritating as it is a stage that is easy to screw up and I want those eight minutes back from my two retries. Otherwise I really liked the stage, though the OH LOOK TIME LIMIT RUSH RUSH oh yeah that kills you~ is a jerk move(one I shouldn't have fell for, though. The way to handle it is definitely not to try to run through the deathtrap with all enemies still live. Either kill them or get to the gate first.).
2-5 has a mostly cute gimmick that doesn't require you to deal with it and is a fine map otherwise. Not really special but fine. 2-6 is kinda sad in that it can only kill you if you screw up or don't know what's coming(It Barrier Storm'd a Replica, so I...summoned more...and it never used it again...um.). 2-7 is a nice timed map, 2-8..."Huh, wonder why the FAQ calls this easy, I barely made it to the enemy I was supposed to hit." *Crush.* *No damage.* "Oh. Plot fight.", 2-9 cost me a reset because I was lazy and didn't want to change my team at all(also I kinda didn't look at the map and realize how big it was), but otherwise was pretty reasonable. Would have worked better if I'd done more than just use Move 4 and up people and actually used good Move people, but.
Anyways, the point is yeah it does improve. It's nice.
Also, I would like to point out that a certain person in the Elesius sequence there:
A: Gives long knowledgable speeches to various characters about life and philosophy.
B: Despite being ill, kills ten people at once. With no build up beforehand for this ability.
C: Punches the fuck out of something.
D: Explodes.
It's Gawn+. I swear to god.
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I got the impression that, like Ferid in Suikoden V, the Queen married him because he was the biggest badass in all the land. This being a country built on the corpses of every OTHER country, and thus presumably filled with badasses.
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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.
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Also, I would like to point out that a certain person in the Elesius sequence there:
A: Gives long knowledgable speeches to various characters about life and philosophy.
B: Despite being ill, kills ten people at once. With no build up beforehand for this ability.
C: Punches the fuck out of something.
D: Explodes.
It's Gawn+. I swear to god.
XF just sorta cranks the cheese the series is know for up to eleven and then goes beyond the impossible with it. Just wait, it gets more insane.
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Nier: Acquired 1x Captain Skullhead. Out of curiosity, would refusing to petrify Kaine have actually led to another story branch, or just a cutscene game over? Also, guys, it's been five years. Fix the library already--the rain can pour right in and ruin the books. You didn't even move the fragments of the broken roof out of the building! Not even I'm that lazy!
Also, boo game, throwing a time jump at me when I haven't finished all the current sidequests. That was very rude. Now I'll never be able to give that melon to Yonah.
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I thought trollans was Cavia's business.
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Cid: It's a But Thou Must moment.
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Odin Sphere: At the midpoint of Cornelius' chapter, which means I can start eating out at the Pooka village. Hello, triple-digit HP increases.
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Suikoden 3- Decided to try another replay of this. It's pretty fun so far, the different perspectives offered in Chapter 1 is pretty awesome. I just love how villainous all the Zexen Knights (except Chris and Salome at least) come off in the Geddoe and Hugo chapters. Playing the chapters in different order makes things fun. Right now I just saved a kiddo with Thomas.
So far I am enjoying the replay more than I did in previous attempts. I think some of the dialogue is really stiff and awkward, but Geddoe's chapter in particular has pretty awesome dialogue. Chris's chapters have some good stuff too. Not a huge fan of Hugo as always but he's better than I remembered.
Boss random in area = harder than almost all Suikoden 5 bosses. For realz.
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Freedom Force- Just started this. It's an RPG with comic book characters, what's not to love? The interface is as clunky as you'd expect from a PC RPG from the early 00's, but it still has sharp writing and the game is pretty. First mission's done, starting on the second. I need to be careful about bugginess, as the game has issues with windows 7.
My favorite character? Mentor. That voice... FUCK.
NU-CLE-AR WINTER.... NU-CLE-AR WINTER....
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XF - Beat! Holy hell, I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I didn't have two PCs with Attack +25% spamming Invoke'd Six Shooters against the final. That was probably my premier offense tool against bosses and made their HP less scary, because sheesh 6000 XF HP running off XF boss stats is pretty frightening even with the level of twinking available (I was nearing 1k with Invoke+Six Shooter+Command Critical on Alexia after Fragile+Debilitator, and Hyper would likely bring that figure up, but fuck Ragnar), and that fight could've easily gone out of control. I probably lucked out with Katrina -massively-, but yeah.
Anyhow, will gather my thoughts on a later day about the game - there's a lot to cover and I need to sleep. But the rating I gave it probably says it all. I think only LFT is a cooler SRPG than XF from all the ones I played, and LFT is special.
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hyping a lolpatch as the best SRPG you played? try playing a real patch like 1.3, then compare this XF (which sounds like it has all the problems of LFT! wow, 1000 damage attacks! that's...stupid! use strategy in your battles, noob) to that
Trolling for humour, please don't hurt me!
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/me mails OK to Shion on Ice: When The Pantyshots Flash~
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Wizard of Oz- So....there's a way to go to a default non-insane control scheme, right?!
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Super Street Fighter 4. A friend of mine is really in to it, so I decided to brush up (was, at one point, a fair hand at normal SF4). I play Abel primarily at the moment, but played as Cody for a while because shit, it's Final Fight, and kind of liked him. Not sure he's particularly practical, but I like having the option to pick up a knife and start cutting a bitch.
Also, Abel's new ultra combo? I don't like it as much. Yes, objectively it is a better move. But he doesn't do that thing where he looks at his hand and his eyes go all crazy and he starts screaming at the top of his lungs.
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You get used to the track-ball, Dhyer. And given the style of dungeons it's at least more interesting than just holding a direction button!
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Suikoden 5 - Just saved Lordlake, woohoo. Shigure is pretty badass at first, Lyon smashes things but that goes without saying, and I just got Zerase so the broken is only going to cascade from here. Writing and the general plot construction remains top-notch on a replay. The major characters feel much more human than in most RPGs. Well, besides Lucretia anyway. And the silent main.
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Last Ranker- Hmmm?? Does the rankers gets weaker as story progress? Some of them does half the damage for no reason just because an event has passed. Though level indeed > all. The optional bosses kinda fall apart as long as Zig's level is over 40.
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WKC - I must have spent 10 hours doing nothing but beating Big reds ass on monday but I don't mind because I am finally GR10! YEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!
My reward? MOAR GRINDING! However it is of the material kind so I don't have to look at big reds fugly face for a while now.
Also, Abel's new ultra combo? I don't like it as much. Yes, objectively it is a better move. But he doesn't do that thing where he looks at his hand and his eyes go all crazy and he starts screaming at the top of his lungs.
I'd go as far to say his ultra 2 is the best in the game. He could do it full screen out of the blue and its still 50-50 if you're going to get hit or not because it becomes a guessing game. Do you wait to see if he holds it? If you do and he comes stright away you're getting hit. Do you use your ultra/or jump in the hopes he'll come stright away? Oh wait he held it so you've just fluffed your ultra/or not and are going to getting an ultra to the face.
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Pokemon Platinum Wally playthrough: I just beat Volkner and am about to head up to Victory Road. Levels are 46 all around so I'll probably have to grind a little because I would like Gallade to have Close Combat for the E4 and 53 seems like a good solid level to challenge the E4. The last few battles haven't been very challenging. Cyrus 2 was much easier now that I have Magnezone because Murkrow can't really do much to it and Magnezone OHKOs it back.
I got very lucky on the final Cyrus battle. I started with Gardevoir because I couldn't remember what his starting pokemon was. It was Houndoom but I decided to stick it out and hope Gardevoir could land a Thunderbolt before it was beaten. He uses Dark Pulse and Gardevoir flinches. I send in Altaria to EQ it and from there on I just get a ton of critical hits and other lucky breaks. He sends in Weavile next so I send in Gallade to OHKO it with a fighting move. It decides to use Fake Out which activates Steadfast which allows Gallade to go first the next turn and OHKO it back with Drain Punch healing all the damage from Fake Out in the process. Honchkrow is next so I send out Magnezone. It Heatwaves which 2HKOs and I use Discharge thinking it will also 2HKO but it gets a critical hit and Honchkrow is down. I sacrifice Magnezone against his Gyarados to revive Gardevoir and send it in to Thunderbolt it. Once again I get a critical hit and OHKO it although this one probably wasn't necessary because after Tracing Intimidate the Gyarados's damage wasn't very threatening. His final pokemon is Crobat so I send in Gallade against it. He Confuse Ray's Gallade but Gallade is able to use Psycho Cut which puts Crobat in red. The next turn Cyrus uses a full restore, Gallade snaps out of confusion, and gets a critical hit to finish Crobat off.
I also got somewhat lucky against Volkner. Gardevoir did most of the heavy lifting in this battle. He started out with Jolteon so I sent in Gardevoir to trace Volt Absorb. He uses Iron Tail twice and misses with it once and Gardevoir 2HKOs it with Psychic. He sends in Raichu next so I swap out to Magnezone. Apparently his Raichu knows Focus Blast, but it misses and I paralyze him with Discharge. The next turn I get a critical hit with Discharge and Raichu is paralyzed. Magnezone finishes it off with Hyper Beam. At this point he only has Electvire and Luxray left. Luxray is taken out by Gallade and Altaria, and I sent in Delcatty to bait the Electivire into using Thunderpunch and then swap to Gardevoir to get the Motor Drive boost and outslug it with Psychic.
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So far I am enjoying the replay more than I did in previous attempts. I think some of the dialogue is really stiff and awkward, but Geddoe's chapter in particular has pretty awesome dialogue. Chris's chapters have some good stuff too. Not a huge fan of Hugo as always but he's better than I remembered.
I believe I played through S3's storyline like Hugo - Geddo - Chris and then repeat. And to be honest, it makes the ending on Chris's storyline a bit too awkward. Glad you're liking it though, because I love S3 and people seem to collectively bash it.
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The DL in general is collectively Pro-Suikoden 3, actually. Those who bash it, from my experience, are those who were obsessed with Suikoden 2 and were expecting ANOTHER SUIKO 2 but instead got a different game entirely...cause god forbid a sequel should something different and original compared to its predecessor, let alone a VERY LOOSE sequel.
The funniest part is? These same people of course bash S4, with the reasons being that it...basically went back to being more like Suikoden 2.
So really, its just a clear case of unpleasable fanbase.
(S4 has other problems of course that deserve bashing, but I'm referring to a specific kind of fan here, not so much the general view.)
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S3 seems pretty widely-liked in most circles now, though it was certainly bashed a lot back when it came out.
Most everyone agrees that S4 is one of the series' weak links, regardless of their relative opinions on the other games. S4's flaws are just too obvious, and strung across multiple facets of the game, to not attract this.
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I liked S4 too, but yeah, definitely weakest. S3 is probably one of the strongest? S2->S3->S1/5->S4->Tierkreis, I think...
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I'm an unpleasable hate-base! I'm different, at least.
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Meeple,
Game bashing is just getting old to me. For clarification though, my statement was directed passed the DL community.
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Penny Arcade Episode 1: Cleared it. Game was a relatively short average-fest, but at least it wasn't outright bad.
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The only bad part of S3 is the game's gameplay. I'm all for experimenting away from standard turn based systems (ala S1/2/4/5) but when the implementation ends up being worse than those systems I'm not giving you credit for it (Your unit didn't attack because its pathfinding screwed up during the turn, even though the game said you could attack that round? HAHAHA. Fuck off game). It also has the problem of forcing you to trek across its uninteresting dungeons until lategame when you get the Vikis. Granted, in light of S4 this is a much smaller complaint nowadays.
Plotwise it's the best of the Suikodens (haven't played S5, probably won't); worse ideas and characters at its core than S2, but much better polish and execution. Considering none of the games really shine gameplay wise, this is what ends up mattering.
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SO1r - TRI-ACE PROGRAMMING
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So far I am enjoying the replay more than I did in previous attempts. I think some of the dialogue is really stiff and awkward, but Geddoe's chapter in particular has pretty awesome dialogue. Chris's chapters have some good stuff too. Not a huge fan of Hugo as always but he's better than I remembered.
I believe I played through S3's storyline like Hugo - Geddo - Chris and then repeat. And to be honest, it makes the ending on Chris's storyline a bit too awkward. Glad you're liking it though, because I love S3 and people seem to collectively bash it.
Just to clarify, I have played the game before and love it. Thus the replay!
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I know, and I'm glad you're liking it! I must aggrandize it.
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I was aware, Idun, just noting that S3 is generally well liked in the DL, so you'll find a lot of people saying its good.
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My sister's been playing Suikoden 3 as well. She also likes it!
Yaaaay Suikoden 3!
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Suiko-talk!
I personally enjoyed S5's plot more than S3. Better villains too, to be sure. S3 did some really great things with pacing and the trinity sight system that I'd like to see implemented in more games.
Gameplaywise, apart from the pathfinding issue that Zenny brought up, S3's skill-building system and partnering was a lot more sophistocated than S2's, and apart from that, the battle system is practically identical, so I've never really gotten the complaints that it was so different. Did a really great job with recruitment requirements, whereas S5 kinda dropped the ball there (though I personally enjoyed the recruitment stuff in S5, due to copious FAQing).
So... apart from a really good base concept and lots of returning Stars of Destiny, I don't really see the S2 hype myself. It's certainly better than 1 and 4, but it just feels kinda standard compared to S3's better battle system/recruitment/pacing and S5's better story/villains.
Storywise: S5 > Tierkreis > S3 > S2 > ST > S1 > S4
Gameplay: S3 > S2 > ST > S5 > S4 > Tierkreis > S1
Overall: S3 > S5 > S2 > Tierkreis > ST > S1 > S4
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In a contrast to my usual response to Djinn, I agree almost entirely with Djinn's lists and most of the things he said, too. Except the comment that S5 recruitment is enjoyable with FAQing. That is a great gap in our values.
I want to play Tierkries at some point but lazy.
Anyway, more XF. Time for updates from the sekret base.
3-10 (Asgard and the undead)
Clarissa: Enigmancer; Emu/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Emulator; Fant/SS OC, Elem EQ, Mag+25%, Accelerate
Felius: Fantastica; Ext OC, Eva+25%, Gadg EQ, Item Effect Up, Item Range Up
Bit of an odd setup here. I'd totally forgotten Felius was forced here, and I wanted a second Fantastica for Slow Down and Rush, this probably wasn't necessary however. I decide to have Clarissa grab IFF since she's literally one battle for it, even though Emulator is definitely a far better carrier.
Anyway, there are multiple Emulators with Electrigger and Dangerous Matter here, I make sure to grab both with both my Emulators. Otherwise, since all the randoms are undead, they're easy enough to dispatch with Sanctify. Felius' offence is laughably useless due to equipping a wrench, so he doesn't really... do much besides chip in the occasional berry, but he doesn't need to.
Asgard is, of course, the real threat, but with his 75% misery vulnerability there's a limit to how big a threat he can be. This is basically equivalent to destroying his MP, except it can be done in a single, long-range action. Even after this Asgard isn't quite trivial since his Barrier Fist does OHKO physical damage and I'm not packing Mesmerise, but Slow Down and Debilitator greatly limit the turns he can get, and Electrigger + Action Replay + Felius wrench physicals take him out quickly enough. There's a bit of tension as I'm distracted by his flunkies interrupting the fight who take two Sanctifies each to kill, but nothing too bad.
3-11-A (Misery blobs and Anchor Hook)
I consider doing this one with solo Alexia packing Status Lock and some Peppy Acorns, but then decide hey, might as well get the CSP, even if it pretty much has to be Extremist CSP.
Clarissa: Extremist; Emu/Enig OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, IFF
Elayne: Extremist; Enig/Fant OC, Elem EQ, Accelerate, Mag+25%
Vin: Extremist; Gadg/Fant/Sent OC, Weapon Block
Note the presence of Dispel and Mystic to remove Misery. All three PCs pack principally Peppy Acorns in order to heal themselves of the annoying status, too. Besides that, it's a matter of using Anchor Hook to proceed through the map. The blobs are killed with a combination of Anchor Hook to pull them into pits, Heavy Strike to do the same, and magic ranging from Electrigger to Petrify to Devastate. Not terribly hard as long as the misery issue is addressed. Rush to make Anchor Hook more usable.
3-11-B (Felius duel)
Felius: Secutor; Extr/Fant OC, Gadg EQ, Item Effect Up
Felius' defence means Weisheit can only do something like 15 damage to him outside gravity, which makes this battle very easy. I'm not even really twinked for it; Sentinel would be able to null out his damage entirely.
3-11-C (Weisheit gets serious)
Clarissa: Emulator; DS/SS/Extr OC, Elem EQ
Elayne: Emulator; Enig/Fant OC, Elem EQ, Mag+25%, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Grap/Fant OC, Sec EQ, Atk+25%
Finally Weisheit graduates from "bad joke" status. Still, he's vulnerable to gravity in this form, as well as Rob Turn (in this and every other form). Basic strategy is to hit him with Slow Down and Debilitator and then start using Rob Turn while Dangerous Matter makes my main offence. When the first Rob Turn misses, though, I come up with another, better idea; throw him onto the ground outside the central area. It's 4 panels below the main platform, which is too high for Rank of Death, AND too high for him to climb back up. So this becomes very easy. The same strategy will probably work for Weisheit 5, too.
3-12-A (Asgard's last stand)
Clarissa: Emulator; Extr/SS/Enig OC, Elem EQ
Elayne: Emulator; Fant/SS OC, Elem EQ, Mag+25%, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Fant/Extr OC, Gadg/Sec EQ, Atk+25%
Once again, Asgard's perilous vulnerability to Misery does him in, and this time I can slap Mesmerise on top of it for good measure so I don't need to fear Barrier Fist as much. Debilitator and Slow Down to draw out the effects, Electrigger and Action Replay benefitting from Exploit Weakness = kaboom. Three-man formation arts wrench attacks for some added spice. Fortunately the game knows better than to throw solo bosses at me after this. Elayne hits Level 50, yay.
3-12-B (A golem hunter never lies!)
Clarissa: Emulator; SS/Enig OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, IFF
Elayne: Emulator; Gadg/SS OC, Elem/Gadg EQ, Mag+25%, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Gadg/Sec EQ, Atk+25%
Twelve Asgards! Oh shit. Electrocute everything in sight, heal when necessary... the golems aren't bad on offence but with my massive-ranged 350 damage attacks they're kinda outmatched. Just need to be a little cautious as I do split up to cover the map in a reasonable length of time. Golems, sadly, are nearly status-immune (moreso than Asgard!) so that particular strategy isn't too helpful yet. Don't worry Levin, I'll use you eventually! Probably.
3-13-A (be kind, rewind)
A bit harder, certainly. The same basic offensive strategy applies despite the inclusion of undead; you'll note I already have two PCs packing Sanctify. With Sanctify and Electrigger hitting for massive damage, offence isn't really a problem. I keep Vin with a wrench because the golems are ceratinly the more numerous and dangerous enemies here.
The Smoky Specimen is the map's real danger. His speed is quite competent, and on his sixth turn, it's game over for you. Can you reach him in 6 turns? Not just by walking the old-fashoined way. A few strategies work here, such as IFF Grappler to toss PCs to him quickly, or a Nightstalker (particularly packing something like Blackout or Forcefield). However, I opt with the simplest strategy I have, which is to spam Turn Shift with my two mages like mad. Thanks to Emulator being the broken class it is, I can actually do this without deeply impacting my resources. I don't have to go all out, so I do stop periodically to blow things up with Sanctify (nailing 3 of the initial 4 undead with one, Vin takes out the other) and Electrigger. Finally, I reach the stairs and one range 6 electrigger takes out the bastard.
Only other thing worth noting is the golems who spam Spread Barrier from long range. Since they act all consecutively it's quite threatening, but nothing Widespread Heal and Turn Shift abuse isn't up to handling. If the rest of the enemies were better, it would be quite a problem.
And here I thought Turn Shift would be unbroken from this playthrough. Maybe not...
3-13-B (Queen of the desert)
Clarissa: Emulator; SS/DS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, IFF
Elayne: Emulator; SS/Extr OC, Elem/Gadg EQ, Mag+25%, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Gadg/Sec EQ, Atk+25%
The toughest battle in the Secret Base, and the second toughest battle in the chapter. However, note the lack of resets. Chapter 3 ain't that hard.
Much like the previous Weisheit battle, except the Grappler strategy ain't working this time, and gravity is no longer an option for speeding up the offence. Oh, and there's six rather pesky golems to deal with, too. Rob Turn is Weisheit's only remaining meaningful weakness, and it's one I am quite ready to abuse. It's not perfectly reliable, but it does stop a lot of Weisheit's turns.
The beginning of the battle is particularly dicy. Although Weisheit's first Rank of Death is easy to avoid, it gets tricky thereafter, and the golems demand attention. Fortunately Electrigger still does its thing, Elayne's two-shots all and one-shots some, where Clarissa's ranges from 1HKO to 3HKO but has Widespread. Rob Turning has to be a focus as quickly as possible, too, as does Slow Down and Debilitator. Sadly one of my first key Rob Turns misses and Vin is killed. From there, it's a very tangled mess of Turn Shifts, golem killing, Rob Turning, and reviving, and reapplying negative statuses. In total the golems claim a kill and Weisheit claims two more, and Clarissa gets dangerously low on MP, but I do manage things. The final offensive is mostly launched, after Fragile, in the form of Electrigger and Swift Shock/Drop Kick with Action Replay thrown in for good measure. Action Replay is pretty cool, incidentally. Clarissa is out of MP by the end which is certainly potentially dangerous, so it is quite a bit of a scape through, but in some ways the battle isn't as bad as I feared.
Chapter 3 is complete~
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Dead Rising: Gotta find some stupid spanish bitch now. Think this is the 4th Case File?
I tried fighting Cliff, died miserably. I did get to kill a whole bunch of cultists though!
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I didn't care for S3, but I had already played S5 which is better in just about every way.
The multiple viewpoint thing didn't work for me - it was basically just repetition. Playing later viewpoints should have revealed spoilarz for the previous ones so you say "Oh, *that's* why they did that." This is the one thing that Odin Sphere got right.
DQ9: Been at the final dungeon for three days, but can't bring myself to finish the game because I'm so busy doing quests and alchemy. This game is like minutiae crack.
EDIT: For Pokemon players, new wifi event starts next week. Let's you download Soul Dew plus the opposite Lati@s to your Heartgold/SoulSilver.
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Suikoden commentary from OK no one cares about...
S4 > STactics > S1 = S2 > S5 > S3.
I like S3's trinity system, but the game felt so slow and really did bore me overall. For all that elves lie about awesome characters being in S5, it is a good game, just...I probably need to play it again to get a better view.
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S4 > ST > S1 = S2 > S5 > S3.
Hilariously, this is exactly the opposite of my rankings (well, haven't played Tierkris yet, but wouldn't be surprised if that's where it falls for me). I'm a sucker for complex skill systems, I think S3 has the strongest battle engine of the series, and I like attempts, flawed though they may be, at creative narrative constructions. Also, easily the best villains of the Suikoden series, I think, especially with the epilogue chapter (2 dimensions? Impossible!)
4 feels like a flawed sequel to 2, 5 feels like an across-the-board improvement on 4, but 3 always seems like it was full of fruitful innovation that just got dropped in later games.
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ST here would presumably be Suikoden Tactics. Tierkreis isn't well enough played to make people's hierarchies yet (or, in a few cases, the people that have played it don't consider it as a Suikoden game)
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I think most people would like that list better in reverse, JAD. >_>;;
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why you be hatin' on me, girl?
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why you be hatin' on me, girl?
Maybe you're crazy?
I dunno. Have only played 3 so I can't really chime in other than to say that I like S3 quite a bit.
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Putting S4 above anything is just sad. It's like you were saying Suikoden was somehow too complicated.
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Putting S4 above anything is just sad. It's like you were saying Suikoden was somehow too complicated.
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Storywise... S3 > S2 > S5 > ST > S1 > S4
Overall? S2 >= S3 >> S5 >= ST > S4 > S1
While I liked S5 and it does some good stuff, it just feels too much like a Suikoden Paint-By-Numbers to really hold it up on high. S1 hasn't aged well and I never got a whole lot out of it. S2 was an utter and complete refinement to everything S1 did... and did it right! Iron Chef forever.
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Suikoden commentary from OK no one cares about...
Damnit people, IGNORE ME!!! MY OPINION NEVER COUNTS!!!
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Nier: Hunting down MacGuffins. I ran through the Junk Heap dungeon and everyone acted like I was done there, but I don't think I actually found a key. Weird.
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My only real regret with Suikoden I & 2 is how unpolished the localisation job seems to have been. "Jowy" and "Joey" come to mind. If I had the knowhow I'd definitely go into the game coding and correct that mistake, just because I'm anal about stuff like that.
When I heard they were ported to PSP, I admit I was hoping, begging for a localisation that did it right. I'm still kind of hoping a company'll pick it up, but my hopes are low. :(
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I didn't care for S3, but I had already played S5 which is better in just about every way.
The multiple viewpoint thing didn't work for me - it was basically just repetition. Playing later viewpoints should have revealed spoilarz for the previous ones so you say "Oh, *that's* why they did that." This is the one thing that Odin Sphere got right.
This was basically my view with S3 multi-view. Nice that you tried something different, but I didn't overall find them interesting or varied enough for what they were trying to do.
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Actually, Odin Sphere did it horribly, cause it DOESN'T do what you say. In some cases, it places things in completely illogical areas. One scene that sticks out to me...
*Gwen beats big giant guy, next scene*
Odin: Gwen! You've betrayed me! You are banished!
Me: Wait a minute, that guy was going to kill someone who had info YOU NEEDED, and was actually going against your orders, AND YOU KNEW THIS. If anything, SHE KILLED THE TRAITOR, not actually is the one.
*Velvet's story, we actually see why Gwen was a traitor in a scene dedicated almost specifically to Gwen!*
Ok, seeing what happened is nice...but that scene was important for Gwendolyn development, and we don't see it until Velvet's chapter? Its not a Velvet-centric scene, she's just "Kind of there." I can see not showing ALL Gwen related stuff in Gwen's chapters, cutting out the stuff that isn't significant to her story...but this scene was significant for Gwen in EVERY WAY.
I could forgive the moment if this stuff happened outside of the Chronology of Gwen's story, but it very obviously did not, and it is important for Gwen's story for MAKING SENSE in a completely Gwendolyn related way.
I don't think OS actually did something as bad as this anywhere else, but egads was that one of the worst stunts. Suikoden 3, if a scene was important for Hugo, THEY'D SHOW IT DURING HUGO'S STORY, like you're suppose to do. Furthermore, Suikoden 3 story happened all in the rough same continuity. Heck, actually, the game does do the "Oh, that's why this happened!" thing...right in Chap 1.
Hugo, we see the Zexen Knights burning the village, and we don't know why; we assume they're just pricks.
In Chris', IIRC, Salome just said "We'll attack the village, not to hurt anyone, but to divert their attention away from the battlefield" which while not exactly a "GOOD" thing, sounds far less douchy; the burning thing goes a bit too far and doesn't really seem to fit in with the strategy...
Until we see Luc's story where we learn there was FOUL PLAY AFOOT and such.
Maybe I'm remembering wrong, but yeah. There were plenty of scenarios where the game gives the "Why" from the other character perspective. Odin Sphere most definitely didn't do this, sans maybe Oswald's story as a whole, but that really felt more like a "Fill in gaps" as Gwen's has a bit of an indeterminate time jump, which Oswald's story is primarily dealt with showing what happened during (and...why he's suddenly on Gwen's side despite being her enemy in the game's intro.)
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I'm also very pro-Suikoden 3 despite finding the rest of the series terrible. (NO IT'S NOT ONLY BECAUSE OF SUIKODOGS, SHUT UP MEEPLE!)
Instead of having a silent feminine overly gay main character, you get three seperate dynamic characters each with their own storyline and they all speak. There's no stupidly annoying female sidekick (never played Suikoden 4 so don't judge me one this). Villains are bad but camp and hilarious. There's talking ducks. TALKING DUCKS THAT WIELD AXES. PCs are much more variable than what rune affinities they have. The buddy system means you enter less commands, which beats the stupid formation system which makes no sense. War battles are fun. Equipment management is serviceable and the game is easy to replay.
The only problems are the 1000 times you spent backtracking because Viki doesn't come sooner and the horrible music. Also I find Caesar the worst strategist which is awfully bad because I didn't like the rest of the Silverburgs either.
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I haven't played Velvet's story yet, but that scene made sense to me. Odin didn't know Brigan was a traitor (despite the whole thing with Velvet), and he wouldn't believe Gwen when she told him, thus leaving him with "My daughter killed our kingdom's greatest warrior. Well, shit."
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My only real regret with Suikoden I & 2 is how unpolished the localisation job seems to have been. "Jowy" and "Joey" come to mind. If I had the knowhow I'd definitely go into the game coding and correct that mistake, just because I'm anal about stuff like that.
When I heard they were ported to PSP, I admit I was hoping, begging for a localisation that did it right. I'm still kind of hoping a company'll pick it up, but my hopes are low. :(
S2's translation has all kinds of polish issues; look at the cruel and frequent abuse of punctuation marks. That all said:
S2=S3>S5>>>>S1>ST>>S4
S2 I put a hair ahead of S3. It's the little things in S2 that I really enjoyed (Trading, rune twinking, minigames in general), whereas S3 changed the formula up and did a good job with it. S5 has excellent plot and the combat isn't terrible, just too easy and the random rate+loading is too damn high. S1 is has some cool ideas and potential that S2 works on, even if it isn't nearly as good as the top three. ST is a generic SRPG that I need to finish. S4 is S4.
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I haven't played Velvet's story yet, but that scene made sense to me. Odin didn't know Brigan was a traitor (despite the whole thing with Velvet), and he wouldn't believe Gwen when she told him, thus leaving him with "My daughter killed our kingdom's greatest warrior. Well, shit."
Having only played part of Gwen's story, this is what I thought happened.
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I may be misremembering Gwen's story, but something huge and Gwen related happens in Velvet's story, which is the reason behind that, and Velvet's entire purpose in the scene is "She's there." Well, no, a little more than that, but the scene strongly emphasizes on Gwen there, making it questionable as to why it wasn't in Gwen's story to begin with.
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I liked Suikoden 3's perspectives a lot. No comment on Odin Sphere, I don't play games that I think sound terrible (hi Meeple). >_>
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I believe you there, I'm just saying that Gwen's story, as a self-contained tale, still holds together.
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I liked Suikoden 3's perspectives a lot. No comment on Odin Sphere, I don't play games that I think sound terrible (hi Meeple). >_>
In my defense for Odin Sphere, the game LOOKED pretty at Minimeet, and just about everyone was hyping it sans Trips at the time (well, I think Tal didn't like it too?) so uh, yeah, no precedent or something!
No, this doesn't excuse all the OTHER games I thought sounded bad but played!
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Clarification: In Velvet's story Gwendolyn aids her escape from the Ragnanival forces. During this scene Gwen pointedly makes sure to express to Velvet's pursuers that Gwen is acting of her own volition and in spite of her father's wishes. The point of this scene was actually to make more of a connection between Velvet and Gwendolyn, as this connection plays a role later in Velvet's path (Velvet is never seen again after this point in Gwen's path).
Gwen's path without this scene is a perfectly coherent story. It can be readily assumed that Odin put her to slumber because he had no choice in the matter after she killed a high-ranking general/noble. Had he NOT done so it would have seemed Gwen's actions were his own orders, or else he was giving his daughter free reign to kill whomever she pleased.
In summary there is no problem with this scene being in Velvet's path, as it serves a purpose there. It may flesh out Gwen's character a little more but there is nothing wrong with that happening in other paths at all.
Odin Sphere has one of the best mult-viewpoint stories I've seen in a videogame, if not THE best. Between the cohesion of the story and the rather badass timeline they give you, I find it hard to swallow it failing it for this one, perfectly excusable, reason.
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That was general commentary.
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Also, Gwen helping Velvet to escape was pretty well implied in when she killed the guy who was holding her prisoner, and the Ragnanival forces seeing her do it was implied by the fact that the Ragnanival forces saw her do it.
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Speaking of shit games the suck.
Suikoden Tierkreis - What not to do when designing side missions. Dumping the player in the middle of a low level dungeon after a plot fight.
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I imagine it would be a pain in the ass to balance, but if I'd done S3, the one thing I would have changed is split the chapters up more and make the chapters after the introductory stuff mutually exclusive. But I'm a big fan of not making the player sit through shit about characters he just doesn't care about at all. And then maybe as a new game + thing, you could play through all chapters the second time. But the first time, you'd have only a limited perspective on things, like your characters.
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Strange Journey - Whoo Sector H~. Also, the Sector G boss is in need of dropkicking.
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DQ9: Finally decided to finish it, and did so at 92 hours lol.
Great game, albeit way too easy. This is balanced somewhat by very limited resurrection being available. Only Priest, Minstrel, and Ranger have access to rez, and it's the crappy 50% chance of success version. Sage does not count, you don't get the class until the final dungeon. Also, MP is a really important stat now. The really good attacks cost huge amounts of MP, and most classes have very limited supplies. Spirit Bracer for accessory MVP.
For the most part the story was good. Nice to see a final boss with some actual motivation, and how it tied into the resurrection of the Gittish Empire. A few of the vignettes were lacking, (cough, Zere Rocks) but most were entertaining.
Thoughts on the classes:
Warrior: Barely touched it. No comment.
Mage: Good in the earlygame, kind of meh by the end. Needed higher single-target damage at endgame levels.
Priest: Probably MVP? Great weapon selection, lots of all-important MP, Zing, and right before you get to the bosses that need it - Multiheal.
Minstrel: Fairly good for a do-everything class. Good mix of abilities that you actually use in battles.
Thief: They wear heavy armor? Okay, whatever. Great speed and deftness make them steal monkies. Stealing works about 25% of the time with an appropriate leveled thief, so that's pretty much what I did with one for 90% of the game. They're pretty bad against bosses though.
Martial Artist: Go first and hit things really hard. What's not to love?
Ranger: I ignored this class for most of the game since the internet said they suck. The internet was wrong. It's everything you like about Thief, but with good support spells in addition for boss fights.
Gladiator: Slow, but hit hard and have the best physical damage skills in the game. Quite useful.
Armamentalist: Pretty decent party members all around. Have the good support spells that you like from Mage, plus a surprisingly good attack stat.
Paladin: Up there with Priest for MVP. Insane stat boosts (+100 Resilience and 80 HP?). They don't die to anything except magic - oh wait, they can buff that too. Forbearance = broken.
Sage: Unlocked it, but barely used. No comment.
As for weapons, loved Staff (Party Pooper+Martial Artist=win), Spear has Thunder Thrust and Lightning Storm is pretty decent for an ultimate. Sword kind of sucks, and Gigaslash/Gash are way too expensive. Fans are a bit weak but the ability to make yourself reflect breath attacks will certainly come in handy. Also has Hustle Dance, but there was always something else I would rather have my fan user doing. Didn't use other weapons significantly, but think I'll try boomerangs next.
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Updates are getting shorter because I am lazy. And skillsets are getting too big to post fully.
4-1 (Professional villains)
Clarissa: Nightstalker; DS OC, Elem/DS EQ, Widespread, IFF, Action Replay
Elayne: Nightstalker; SS/Enig OC, Elem EQ, Mage+25% IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Fant/Gadg OC, Sec EQ, Atk+25%
Lluvia has 172 speed, and when he gets a turn, he gives the other two turns, and Trueno uses said turn to one-shot someone. Not cool, with only 3 PCs, and 172 speed being quite fast.
Unfortunately for Trueno, he is vulnerable to Rob Turn. I deploy Clarissa, Elayne, and Vin for this battle, with Clarissa and Elayne as Nightstalkers to get the drop on the battle and give me two shots at Rob Turn via Turn Shift. From there on, it's a matter of spamming Rob Turn while attacking the brothers with Devastate and other attacks. Viento has high evade so physicals don't really work on him; the other two have high Def and Res which aren't nearly as potent.
4-2-A (Rupert and the river)
Clarissa: Emulator; DS/Elem OC, DS/Elem EQ, IFF, Widespread
Elayne: Emulator; Elem/Fant/SS OC, Elem EQ, Mag+25%
Levin: Martial Mage; Emu/SS OC, Elem/SS EQ, Widespread
Three bosses in a row with Rob Turn vulnerability? Sure, why not. I can't get too attached to this, though... anyway, Levin finally gets a chance to shine as we're finally facing human, non-undead, non-boss enemies, and decent numbers of them at that. 75% widespread petrify for all!
My setup here is pretty flawed for Rupert control beyond Rob Turn. I am able to nuke his MP, but he's still annoying because eventually Clarissa runs out of MP and I don't have either Debilitator or Mesmerise here, more fool me. Still, I manage well enough. It's made a bit trickier due to some bad luck with the status, so there are some nervous moments and a death or two, but nothing unmanageable. I still hate Sacred Slayers, incidentally. I always underestimate them until they are getting infinite turns.
4-2-B (showing off the tier 4 classes)
Three of each tier 4 class here, though none of the Emulators have new skills. Anyway, setup is pretty similar to the previous battle overall, dropping the boss-killing skills. Widespread Petrify and Exploit Weakness for all! Though, I do learn one annoying thing here; I had assumed petrified targets were always hit despite the listed hit percentage, but it looks like 0% still misses. Annoying, but fortunately this only matters for Extremists, and petrify still leaves them sitting ducks for Exploit Weakness beatdowns.
4-3-A (Paigoels and the offensive emulator skills)
Offensive emulator skills! Hell yes!
Oh, yeah, there's a battle here. Anyway, the paigoels have 1500 HP which is monstrous. That pretty much makes them bosses. Except you know what's not boss-like about them? Their petrify resistance. See you, losers.
The Zortroa have started putting Fantastica OC on top of their other tricks, and Slow Down is pretty annoying, but nothing that can't be handled. This map really needs more enemies to be threatening, seeing as they all have elemental and status weaknesses.
4-3-B (Chelle and the stealth stalkers)
Fuck Stealth Stalkers.
IFF Devastate and keep allies in range, blow them up. Elayne's is powerful enough to one-shot, even. I guess Clarissa's might be too if I shifted her to Elementalist but eh, not needed. I get lucky with the instant death, just kept some Revive Fruits on hand if need be. They hit pretty hard (3HKO damage, accurate) but nothing unmanageable. Petrify and weakness-nailing for the Zortroa, who are inept since they don't start close to their pets for once.
Oh, and Chelle? Vulnerable to sleep. 75% sleep is good times. Slow Down and Debilitate to make it all the harder for her to wake up, then beat on her with Devastates and Blast post-Fragile. Sleep is, apparently, a shockingly bad weakness to have. Who would have guessed?
4-4 (Professional villains times four)
Today's key to victory is: defence ignoring! Sacrifice and Innocent Blow are my friends, so Vin comes back out to play in place of Levin for this fight, as a Nightstalker. Elayne mostly plays support and healer. CLM Up lets Vin navigate all over the battlefield very easily, which helps her go up and kill the brother who is high up before joining the other two PCs. I take out the clones periodically with MT stuff but it's not really necessary, only the real deals to good damage.
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Resident Evil 5-Like RE4, but worse in every way. To start with, the bosses are all terrible. Part of it is because they're all either extremely blatant "shoot weak spot" or "use ________ gimmick in room to defeat them". I know that RE4 sort of had that, but they mixed it up with straight on bosses, bosses that were more of a puzzle than a straight up fight, and bosses like Right Hand Man that were more based on survival. Another part is that the bosses had no real stage presence. With bosses like Salazar or Saddler or Mendez you had plenty of time to see them in cutscenes and radio conversations and the like. This made the bosses more satisfying. With RE5 it's just 'reach checkpoint, GIANT SPIDER OUT OF NOWHERE'.
One good example would be the different El Gigante fights in each game. In RE4 El Gigante had a big weak spot you had to expose to damage him, but it also had a big arena to run around in, some stuff to collect, the additional 'hey it's that dog' factor, and was generally a well-polished fight. RE5's El Gigante fight involves you manning a completely stationary turret and just holding down the fire button until it dies. But instead of one weak point you have to shoot 4 weak points to get at the major weak point and ad;kad;laha;dslghsadgh
The plot sucks too. RE4 plot was silly, campy fun that didn't take itself too seriously, RE5 is just boring plot plot plot that's some nonsense about magical viruses who use magical DNA to create super soldiers and also here's Wesker. None of it was funny or interesting. The only real high point was the utterly ridiculous plot that led up to the final boss, which actually felt like an RE4 boss and was possibly the high point of the game.
The gameplay isn't that great either. The basics are the same, but it suffers from drastically reduced inventory space and an AI partner. The inventory space did not need to be cut down so badly. There is no reason to reduce players to 9 spaces for weapons, ammo, grenades, healing items, etc. All it does is slow the game down while I constantly micromanage space and wind up ignoring stuff I might otherwise need or use because there's simply no space for it. The AI partner is hit or miss. It does a good job of aiming, though the reliance on bodyshots makes it blow through weaker guns too fast for my taste. But it hordes ammo for actual useful guns until forced to use it, uses healing items indiscriminately, stands around enemies with one-hit KO attacks and otherwise can't be trusted for most things.
One thing that bugs me is that it starts offering up zombies with guns. What this means is that you have to slowly go from cover to cover taking potshots at bullet sinks until they're all dead, and then you go to the next set piece with lots of cover and do it again. It's another case of the game slowing things down to a crawl and making it feel more like a shitty Gears of War knockoff than a Resident Evil game.
Lastly, the game just feels uninspired, like Capcom just coasted on RE4's surprise success. There's nothing that feels as exciting or as fun as the assault on the base with the chopper or the Right Hand Man battle or Giant Salazar Statue out of nowhere. It's like the game just sort of goes through the motions of making an experience that's sort of like RE4, but at the end of the day is nowhere near as entertaining.
I played the shit out of RE4 multiple times, but I could barely get myself to try out Mercenaries mode before packing it up. So, so very glad I did not play 60 bucks for this game.
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Dragon Quest 9: Just beat the damn spider boss and got the 4th Fygg.
Gameplay is traditional dragon quest. I am using the default party of Minstrel/Warrior/Mage/Priest. I haven't played around with class swapping, although I imagine it could be useful due to levels being gained fast in new lvl1 classes and being able to dump skill points in either cross-class skills (swords for warriors/thieves) or the stat-up laden 5th skill for each class.
I just handed my entire party Special medicines for healing because they were easy to alchemise and having full healing on everyone is a godsend. Still almost lost to the spider because it was bloody fast with decent MT damage and could gang up ST on one person. I was really behind on equips/levels though, and as I haven't played with multiple classes I figure I'm pretty underpowered.
Got owned to hell by some horse boss named Equinox in an optional dungeon. This was retarded because that dungeon's enemies were of the same type as I'm fighting now, but the boss was like three times more badass than the (not pansy) bosses I'm fighting now.
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Speaking of shit games the suck.
Suikoden Tierkreis - What not to do when designing side missions. Dumping the player in the middle of a low level dungeon after a plot fight.
Yeah, Suiko Tierkreis side stuff never gets better about this.
Seriously, if you're this willing to sit through tedious gameplay you don't care about for a half-decent story, you should really just suck it up and play Soul Nomad. The story's better and you might actually -like- the gameplay. For all that it's N1-ish, at least it has some depth.
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The plot sucks too. RE4 plot was silly, campy fun that didn't take itself too seriously, RE5 is just boring plot plot plot that's some nonsense about magical viruses who use magical DNA to create super soldiers and also here's Wesker. None of it was funny or interesting. The only real high point was the utterly ridiculous plot that led up to the final boss, which actually felt like an RE4 boss and was possibly the high point of the game.
RE5 plot is so horrible it deserves to go into the pile of games capcom would rather not exist such as DMC2. Also as some smart alec will most likly call me out on saying just RE5 plot is bad I'd like to say RE0-3 have a good (Not a typo) plot that sets the setting and has good villains with huge presence in William birkin and Nemesis. *Raises Anti-ridicule shield*
WKC - Done with XP grinding. Now onwards to material farming!
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FFTA: Yikes. After crashing and burning against the final (stupid no-reactions law), I went back to do some more missions, and eventually wandered into Brightmoon Tor. After not saving for two hours. And with a team that had exactly one offensive spell (Protometeor). Climbing the tower was fine; I just overpowered everything with Dual Wield and Sidewinder. But the top....the pain. The pain.
I did finally manage to win, though! And now I know better. Currently working my way through the Kings (I beat the first one in the first two hours of the game, then didn't touch the rest until now...it's like fish in a barrel), and building Frimelda up for Way of the Sword.
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Brightmoon Tor: Starts easy. Then ramps up to "what the goddamn fuck?" and doesn't move from there.
I wonder if you'll get to The Final Challenge. (requires all 300 missions beat, which is easier than it sounds but) If you do, uh, I wanna be in chat to hear you bitch about it. <_<
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Sadist.
And I probably will. 212 down!
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StarCraft 2: Tosh is a badass.
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If I was to take one thing from RE5 other than Chris and Wesker themselves, it would be boulder-punching. It should be a bonus stage in MvC3 when you play as Chris or the Hulk.
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FFTA2: Beat the final boss! Twice! Because somebody in the programming staff hates life.
To wit: When you beat the game, you are presented with a prompt to save your clear data. When you pick a file, the first thing you notice is the "Cleared!" tag appearing on it. Then you see that the play time, level and number of missions completed don't change at all. Yes, the only thing it does is to apply that "cleared" flag to the file. Anything else you've done since the last time you saved is lost. And if you wanted to write your clear save over a backup file instead of your main save, like I did? Yeaaaaaaaaaah. Oh, and after saving, it immediately kicks you back to the title screen.
Must kill.
Anyway, 8/10 game. Very fun, reasonably well-balanced class system, inoffensive, ignorable plot, ate 60+ hours of my life. On to the aftergame!
Oh, and Al-Cid sucks.
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Mid C4 XF update.
4-5 (Final showdown with Rupert)
It's more Rupert. I approach him with the same strategy as last time, which is to Rob Turn spam him until I can get his MP down so I don't have to deal with his shenanigans. The swarms of randoms are a bit much for me to just leave alive, so I simultaneously work on killing them off, too. Fortunately most of them are quite frail.
Of course, there's a price to be paid for this, which is that Rupert starts getting ludicrous numbers of turns. At a certain point, trying to keep up with that proves fairly pointless, and I even let the various stat downs (Slow Down and Debilitator being the big two, but also Mesmerise) relax on him. I try not to let this happen until almost all the enemies nearby are dead, I just leave alive the High Cavaliers (since the HP is a bit much) and one Strider, which is low enough that I can use Heal to deal with any damage well enough. From there on, the usual Action Replay pounding away at the boss works quite well.
4-6-A (The end of King Tarrasque III)
One of the few Chapter 4 maps that actually has reinforcements, and the result is quite a slog. To be fair, this battle is harder than it should be because I forget to re-equip items, so I'm short on Revive Fruits. Anyway, there's a mix of Zortroa and jelly blobs at first, but only one jelly blob even has misery, so this is pretty simple to control. The boss himself is another matter. Granted, he's got nothing but a decent physical and Toxic Breath, but he's fast and has loads of HP. Only 3 move, though, so I kite him as much as I can while dealing with the other enemies. There are six Forsaken Mutants as support, and while only one has a truly annoying status (disease), it just ends up stretching the battle out quite a bit. I could write about my epic win which was in doubt right until the boss ran out of VP, but there's no real point since if I'd gone in with a real setup I'd have crushed this one.
4-6-B (Crazy for Katrina)
Lots of enemies with 500 attack and decent stats otherwise! And they're all status immune! (I bring Levin for this and discover this to my surprise, bit of a waste, but hey, he just healbots instead.) Of course, unless luck really goes against me, it's an easy enough way to carve my way out of. Exploit Weakness means 2HKOs are pretty common despite the high enemy HP here, Devastate nails whole bunches at once, and of course they're very good at damaging each other. I suppose Mesmerise is a pretty good option if control is needed, but I don't bother.
4-6-C (The Royal Knights are mind controlled)
Haha, the biggest rout yet. Eisen has two crippling weaknesses: sleep and gravity. I charge up to deal with him first, so he won't benefit from Crisis Rfx Up. Put him to sleep, hit him with gravity three times. From there on, I split into three, easily reducing each enemy to critical in 1-2 hits (one takes 3) with well-chosen elemental spells and gravity if needed. I only take two hits the entire battle, that's how silly things are.
4-7-A (Enter the anti-hero)
John Does! Eat Sanctify. The disease they inflict is annoying, so I make sure to have a few extra Medicines onhand, as well as two PCs with Engimancer OC, although I only bother to cure it after each wave.
This really only leaves the boss and his three pet John Does as worth worrying about. These John Does have quite a bit more HP than the others, so it takes 2-3 Sanctifies to kill. Charlton himself is very speedy, but I surround him, Slow him down, and then Action Replay Feeble Mind in his face until he can't do anything scary. Very fortunately Sacred Slayer OC makes him notably worse; Dark Destruction is an extremely scary attack (2HKO damage and 50% misery? Ew) but he generally prefers to use Fragile. Haha. A bit worried about form 2, though, since I won't have this luxury. Anyway, once he has no Feeble Mind there's nothing too scary here, I keep some debuffs on but don't have to be too religious about it since his physical isn't that amazing or anything. There's a bit of a scary moment as I have to heal disease and heal before he starts killing people but nothing too bad.
4-7-B (The Royal Knights are just idiots)
See two battles ago. Nothing about this battle is meaningfully different. Oh sure, the enemies have notably more HP and more long-range skills so I actually take damage this time, but I never actualy have to heal, Eisen still has 100% sleep vulnerability (before Exectrate), and elemental magic and gravity still combine to give me every type of damage I need to control this fight. The most notable thing is that one of the royal knights sits in a chokepoint and starts spamming long-range stuff at me, so I turn shift him until he moves out of the way. Yes, this battle is so pathetic I consider turn shifting an enemy a worthwhile use of my time.
ps don't use Command Critical against the royal knights
That does it for this update. Next up, we get to kill off some more villains! Including ones that make Ragnar talk. Always good.
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So, from what I'm reading about RE5, its basically the same transition the series made from DMC3-> 4, minus the redeeming features DMC4 managed to hang onto?
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Pokemon Platinum Wally Playthrough: I beat the E4 last night and it was fairly challenging. Cynthia, Bertha, and Lucian were still really challenging despite my team being slightly higher leveled than my previous teams. The rival battle was really easy. His levels were lower than I remembered and I swept his team with little trouble. He really makes a good measuring stick for how well you'll do against the E4. If you have trouble against him you'll probably want to level up some more because the E4 is a good 5-10 levels higher than he is.
Aaron: This battle is pretty easy. Most of his pokemon were taken out without much trouble, but Drapion gave me some trouble because it killed Delcatty and I made a bad decision and sent in Altaria next who got 2HKOed by Ice Fang. I think Vespiquen took out some of my weakened pokemon as well, but eventually I sent in Magnezone who OHKOed it with Choice Specs boosted Discharge.
Bertha: This was a really exciting battle that came down to the wire for me. I fully expected Roserade to be able to sweep most of his team and that didn't go as well as I expected. Roserade started off well by OHKOing Whiscash. She sent in Gliscor next and unfortunately Delcatty's Ice Beam wasn't strong enough to OHKO it so Gardevoir had to come in and finish the job. Hippowdon was next and Roserade 2HKOed it but got Yawned and fell asleep after killing it. She sent in Golem and I used an Awakening on it. Golem used Fire Punch and left Roserade at about 8 hp unfortunately Hippowdon had caused a Sandstorm and Roserade was killed before it could OHKO the Golem. I sent in Gardevoir and just missed the OHKO with Magical Leaf which lead to Gardevoir getting killed off by Golem since it had already taken a lot of damage against Gliscor. I think Altaria was the one who ended up finishing off Golem. Rhyperior was her last pokemon so I sent in Gallade to use Close Combat. I use Swords Dance first and Rhyperior Earthquakes leaving me with single digit hp and once again Sandstorm finishes Gallade off. At this point I only have Altaria and Magnezone left so I decide to take a chance. Altaria comes in and uses Earthquake which does less than a quarter of Rhyperior’s health. I send in Magnezone to kill it knowing that if Magnezone can’t kill Rhyperior, he will be OHKOed by Earthquake and I will lose. Fortunately, Flash Cannon boosted by Choice Specs is strong enough to finish off the Rhyperior and I beat Bertha with only Magnezone remaining.
Flint: Easiest of the E4 for me. Gallade is faster than Houndoom and OHKOs it with Close Combat. Rapidash comes in next and I send in Altaria. It uses Bounce so I use Dragon Dance and become faster than it then use Fly to avoid Bounce. Altaria sweeps the rest of his team with Earthquake except for Infernape who is OHKOed by Gardevoir.
Lucian: I start out with Delcatty against Mr. Mime. Delcatty actually manages to win this battle but it got a critical hit and Mr. Mime was able to set up both Reflect and Light Screen. Gallade comes out next and requires about half my team to beat it because of the screen support. Altaria kills it with Fly once Reflect wears off and Lucian sends in Espeon. I send in Gardevoir and start Calm Minding. This steadily reduces the amount of damage from Espeon’s Shadow Ball until it gets a critical hit and kills Gardevoir. I send in Magnezone who resists all of Espeon’s moves and is able to kill it with Discharge. Alakazam is sent in next so I sacrifice Magnezone to revive Gardevoir. Alakazam has nothing that’s super effective against Gardevoir so all it does is use Energy Ball to hit Gardevoir for little damage. I buff up with Calm Mind about 4 times and finish off Alakazam and Bronzong with boosted Thunderbolts.
Cynthia: As usual Cynthia provides one of the best challenges of the playthrough. I start off with Delcatty against her Spiritomb and manage to Toxic it and slowly wear it down but it ends up beating Delcatty while it is poisoned and its health is in the red. I send in Roserade next and while Cynthia uses a Full Restore I use Grass Whistle and manage to put it to sleep which lets Roserade kill it with Giga Drains. Togekiss is next so I send out Magnezone. It Aura Spheres Magnezone but Magnezone survives and gets in a good hit. Gardevoir finishes if off and learns through Trace that it thankfully has Hustle instead of Serene Grace. She sends in Lucario next and I have the least trouble I’ve ever had with her Lucario. I send out Gallade and it uses Shadow Ball which Gallade easily survives and I OHKO it back with Close Combat. Her big bad Garchomp comes out next and I shuffle pokemon around trying to figure out what can survive a hit against it. Unfortunately it can OHKO most of my pokemon so I decide to take a chance and send out Altaria. I Dragon Dance once and it uses Dragon Rush and misses. I use Dragon Claw and it does a little less than half it’s HP activating the Sitrus Berry. It uses Dragon Rush and fortunately misses again. It turns out that my first Dragon Claw got low damage variance as the second one is able to finish it off. Milotic is her next pokemon and I decide that Calm Minding with Gardevoir is the best way to deal with this. This takes three tries as each time it gets a critical hit once I have a few Calm Minds up. Eventually though I get all the Calm Minds set up and OHKO both Milotic and Roserade for the win.
As I said earlier I’ll probably do some of the after game but I’m not sure how much. I’ll probably end up doing full team evaluations later, but it’s been a really fun playthrough and it’s been cool to mix some pokemon I’ve used before and some I’ve wanted to but never have used.
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So, from what I'm reading about RE5, its basically the same transition the series made from DMC3-> 4, minus the redeeming features DMC4 managed to hang onto?
That's a fairly good comparison. While neither are necessarily bad games on their own, neither of them measure up at all when compared to the one that came before.
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Hey, does anyone know if there exists a database on what classes exist in Phantom Brave and what specials they naturally gain?
I'm aware there's a ton of classes, but it seems like for the most part, I'd never, ever use them all.
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NISA released a paper guide that has all that information. Your best bet is to torrent it.
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So, from what I'm reading about RE5, its basically the same transition the series made from DMC3-> 4, minus the redeeming features DMC4 managed to hang onto?
That's a fairly good comparison. While neither are necessarily bad games on their own, neither of them measure up at all when compared to the one that came before.
Eh, to DMC4's credit, while overall inferior to DMC3, it does a few things flat out better than DMC3, most notably, Dante's styles were handled better if only cause of the Style Switch button existing. Proud Souls was also cool; being able to go "Man, this upgrade sucks, I want something else!" and trade back was nice, even if I didn't use it much.
RE5 meanwhile, sounds worse than RE4 in every noteworthy way. Granted, haven't played it, but just about everywhere I hear more or less agrees with this, even people who think RE5 is a solid enough game.
(Pity, cause RE4 was the first RE game I found playable, and I even had a good amount of fun despite being convinced it was not my kind of game!)
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From what I've read, RE5 at least does sound like they took to heart a lot of complaints about weapon balance and went for making a huge amount more of them for variety, as well as a larger ammo variance. This may be a false impression(as I never hear anyone talk about it, I've only read about it in FAQs.), but.
It doesn't matter because this was the exact wrong thing to have to go with lower inventory space...but hey.
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People complained about weapon balance in RE4? That's kind of weird considering I found the majority of weapons useful in niche ways.
Unless they mean shit like "Why use the Rifle when the Semi-automatic Rifle exists?" in which case, I jsut felt that was "Some weapons get better variations later on, but it requires throwing away more money and starting back from scratch" which...felt like a justifiable reason for all their existence. Its not like the game gives you 5 Rifles and you only see use out of two; yeah, Semi-Auto is just better than the standard, but you also get the standard one so much earlier, it has uses just based on that alone, and replacing it with something better is not a bad thing if the better thing is gotten significantly later (Which it is.)
I dunno, weapon balance never struck me as a major deal in RE4, dunno why people would bitch and moan about THAT.
THEN AGAIN, people whine about random shit just cause they can, so expecting intellect out of fans is...well, yeah.
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StarCraft 2: Tosh is a badass.
Pffft, Nova is way cooler!
Anywho, done with SC2 single player on brutal mode. Did the extra missions as well to get my Kerrigan ghost icon! Unlike Brood War, this game actually had some challenge factor. The final mission on air mode is a pain in the ass.
This game was immensely well done. They found a way to make the missions unique even though this is an RTS. You see a lot of the same themes in missions as in BW (collect X resources, use small parties to do X, kill X base, etc.) However, almost every mission has something special about it that throws a twist into the old "train and kill" routine.
Upgrades also own. You get to upgrade various units on your ship between missions so you don't have to research stimpack every fucking mission.
The ONLY complaint I have is that most of the missions that introduced new units were usually "mass this unit and win or don't mass this unit and lose." The major exception was the goliath mission... Marine/Medic beats air a lot better than goliaths do.
Others shit:
Challenges- These were pretty fun. On some you get set units and have to kill set units with minimal losses. On others you get silly scenarios like defending a 6 pool rush. They weren't too difficult, but entertaining.
Online play- Same as beta basically. 5 placement matches and then a league. My only complaint is that my 5-0 placement teams keep getting put in Gold instead of platinum. Come on now Blizzard.
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From what I've read, RE5 at least does sound like they took to heart a lot of complaints about weapon balance and went for making a huge amount more of them for variety, as well as a larger ammo variance. This may be a false impression(as I never hear anyone talk about it, I've only read about it in FAQs.), but.
It doesn't matter because this was the exact wrong thing to have to go with lower inventory space...but hey.
The lowered infantry space was a pain in the ass, but on the other hand, not having the game pause while you look through all your shit made things a bit more intense. So there's that.
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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.
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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.
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Sage-Yes, the weapons are more balanced and there are more of them. There's some templates they still have, like the Red 9 knockoff or the Striker knockoff, but they're far more balanced so you can use whatever you like, really. Also every single weapon can be found without buying it at some point so you have time to play around with them. The problem is that I found money so hard to get that I only managed to fully upgrade a pistol, and was one upgrade off of a rifle, which kinda killed the sense of progression you got from RE4 and also made it impossible to play around with different upgraded weapons. You could argue that I missed too much treasure, but after glancing at a FAQ I don't think I missed too much, and also there's no treasure combining so it's not like the things you do get wind up worse for wear.
Also yeah some weapons were pretty unbalanced. I can't think of a single reason to use the Killer7 over the Broken Butterfly, for example, and you get the latter first for free in addition. There's also the striker, who possibly has the most overkill ultimate upgrade available. The Red9 and the other pistol whose name I can't remember were pretty evenly matched, but the Punisher was awful, the default handgun was only useful as a headshot gimmick weapon, and the Matilda blew through ammo way too fast and was aftergame anyway.
Also the difference between DMC4 and RE5 is that DMC4 actually improved on a lot of things and managed to feel like its own game, while RE5 sucked ass and felt like a lamer version of RE4.
I also disagree re: DMC4 being inferior to DMC3, but that's a discussion for another day.
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Hey, does anyone know if there exists a database on what classes exist in Phantom Brave and what specials they naturally gain?
I'm aware there's a ton of classes, but it seems like for the most part, I'd never, ever use them all.
Classes hardly matter - the biggest thing they have that matters is affinity so you slap weapons that benefit from those affinities and get you SP for those skills faster - and their specials usually come out from the get-go. The most notable classes are... Fenrirs, IIRC? and Archers for having initiative, and given it's SRPG -and- it's PB, the advantage is kinda meaningless once you tap into Unlimited Weapon Twinking Works.
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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.
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Arc Rise Fantasia - So I got to the first boss. He triple acts: summon -> fire 3HKO -> fire 3HKO. My healing couldn't keep up and he's pretty durable, so I lost. That's pretty damn brutal for a first boss! Going to try again.
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StarCraft 2: Tosh is a badass.
Pffft, Nova is way cooler!
Horrible lies!
Well, I've also gone and beat Starcraft 2. On Normal of course, because I would have broken my desk if I had to reload a mission because it takes 40 minutes.
The ONLY complaint I have is that most of the missions that introduced new units were usually "mass this unit and win or don't mass this unit and lose." The major exception was the goliath mission... Marine/Medic beats air a lot better than goliaths do.
That mean you used Wraiths?
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BlazBlue: Continuum Shift: Knocking out single player stuff to get my hands and brain a little more used to the game.
Tutorial Mode: Genius and the best inclusion I've ever seen in a fighting game. It'll probably still fall a little short, but having an actual, built in mode in a fighting game dedicated to introducing you to the mechanics and even individual character playstyles? Awesome. I'll actually investigate this at length at some point.
Challenge Mode: Again, a good idea, although already seen in S/SF4. Still, generally improves on it with the addition of the demonstration. Some issues with longer combos and the fact that they scroll off-screen and can't be easily seen, but its forgivable.
Legion Mode: Cute little quasi-strategy mode. Its throwaway, but enjoyable.
Story Mode: Meat and Potatoes of the BB single player experience. Enjoying it thus far. A little more visual novel-esque then the previous game (I think I went like, 10 minutes without a fight on Bang's story) but it works. I'd like to see a little more integration of gameplay and story, but eh. Its... actually pretty enjoyable and I'll go on more at length about this. Suffice to say, the cast has pretty amazing chemistry and are written vaguely competently. The english VAs are all pretty awesome. Its good times. I remain annoyed the DLC characters will not have story modes.
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Story/Gameplay integration???
I can't say I agree to the whole "I can't use Yukianesa!!" and "No D button against Terumi!!".
Anyway, gag routes>all
Help Me! Dr. Kokonoe>>>all
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Tutorial Mode: Genius and the best inclusion I've ever seen in a fighting game. It'll probably still fall a little short, but having an actual, built in mode in a fighting game dedicated to introducing you to the mechanics and even individual character playstyles? Awesome. I'll actually investigate this at length at some point.
Play more VF4.
DQ9: Getting a lot of quests done. Going to the Gamestop event today, so hopefully I'll get 30 guests in my inn.
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Abe's Exoddus -
Rescued 300/300.
Was as great as I remembered it being, with the addition of getting to see the ingame videos which were not included when I originally played it. Better than Oddysee indeed. Although I would say a fair bit easier. For one example, there are no areas where you have to open a permanent portal before starting to progress as you won't be in any position to open it later, of which there were a fair number in Oddysee.
Maru's Mission -
Decided to replay this for the heck of it. Good times were had.
SRW 2G -
Decided to replay this for the heck of it, but I'm not currently feeling it. Not sure whether I will keep at it or not.
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man, I need to replay that.
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Arc Rise Fantasia - Beat that stupid boss. Ended up getting some more cash to get L'Arc some MP so he can hit that guy's weakness for two rounds. Think I got a level for a few people there too. Still barely won. Only Ryfia and the BROKED GUEST CHARACTER were alive, and Ryfia would've died that round except BROKED GUEST CHARACTER dealt the final blow right before the boss attacked her. JUST AS PLANNED!
(PS: If all of your characters die, it's game over, even if BROKED GUEST CHARACTER is still alive.)
(PPS: The boss music was terrible and I had to listen to it like six times...)
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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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You'll probably want to build either swords or spears for Guv so he has offence once the game goes boss-happy (which it will in another 10-15 hours or so). Otherwise, those look good.
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First part of Schnell Ruins, in which we kill off a bunch of secondary villains who have potentailly overstayed their welcome.
4-8-A (Double Predator Barrage to the face) (1 reset)
Well, okay, despite the battle title, Chelle isn't the most dangerous thing here. That goes to the Stealth Stalkers. If I thought they were bad before, I was a fool. Now there's twice as many of them, they have twice as much HP, and half of them start right on top of me. Oh and they're fast and have good attack that has a 25% chance of instant death, as always. More or less I lose the first time because I don't have Mesmerise, and just can't kill them as fast as I'd hoped, leading them to repeatedly wipe out everyone but Clarissa (Soul Survivor for the win). Clarissa does end up surviving all the way to Chelle (although some of the stealth stalkers still live) but her attempt to cast sleep misses and gets a Predator Barrage as a reward.
Anyway, on the retry, I swap Levin out for Vin so I can repeatedly apply Mesmerise, while the two mages focus on IFF Devastate. Elayne kills the stalkers in two, or can combine with Clarissa for a 2HKO, so this works pretty well. I make sure to keep my PCs together because without a PC in the area of effect of Mesmerise or Devastate, the can't be used, even though neither has any meaningful effect on my PCs.
The top plateau has to be approached carefully as there are two Forsaken Mutants who use nasty status effects (Dispel to the rescue, of course) and Chelle whom you have to seriously respect position-wise if you don't just want to die. Getting her to sleep is crucial, and otherwise I just smash one Mutant with Elayne while petrifying the other. The mutants are the most durable such enemies in the game with nearly 600 HP, but fortunately they still have the elemental weaknesses and status vulnerability.
Chelle gets slapped with stat downs, but most importantly Mesmerise. Since sleep wears off randomly, and she -does- wake up once while I'm finishing off the mutants, Mesmerise is particularly important. Chelle washes all statuses off her if she ever gets a turn while not asleep (stupid triple-acting) so Turn Shift to reapply Sleep. Nothing too bad, but a little scary. I could spoil her badly with evade twinking but that hasn't been an avenue I've really found necessary due to Mesmerise. If I had Extremist armour, though, I could probably spoil this battle in general that way.
4-8-B (BUILDING KINGDOMS OUT OF CORPSES)
Ho hum. Vin doesn't get to play here since she has an earth weakness. Elayne is basically immune to the element, though, so that's a nice boon.
Anyway, Piedras Blancas doesn't really have much in the way of useful status weaknesses (besides Ragnar's Provoke, which can be a reasonably effective lockdown since Ragnar resists earth, but I don't bother). He does have a 25% weakness to gravity, which is notable since his HP is so ridiculous, and horrid evade, though. The Forsaken Mutants on this map have only around 330 HP, but have few (in one cases, no) elemental weaknesses, unlike most.
I move over to the nearest Forsaken Mutant, killing it with Emulator skills as I do, and Piedras moves down to meet me. My basic approach to him, besides healing off his initial rush, is to hit him with the usual stat downs and gravity, while Levin hits him with Cancel Strike to help keep him a bit under control. As time goes on, the other three Mutants suddenly start charging across the field, so I have to deal with them. I do a decent job of eliminating them from range with elements and petrify as usual, but then Levin gets hit with misery, and suddenly Piedras is free. Worse, at his HP range, he's free to use Devour on them. There are some panicked turns of trying to bait and control him, but I'll freely admit I get lucky that he never chooses to eat his ally. Eventually, I lure him into a Cancel Strike where other PCs are around him, and Action Replay it so I cancel multiple turns at once. Aw yeah. From there on it's easy enough to clean up.
4-9-A (Professional villains combine their strategies)
It's pretty much the first two fights against the Tormenta Triad combined into one. So we get a bunch of messy distracting enemies (who aren't very good, but still, chipping in for 40-50 damage when you can't actually kill them adds up) while the brothers themselves aim to set up ludicrous one-shotting damage. This time the brothers are spread out, so I have to choose one to concentrate on. Once again, Lluvia is quite fast (although a bit less so this time) so I opt for Nightstalkers to avoid getting wiped out before I get a turn. An opening combination of Turn Shift, Rush, and Rob Turn sees me stealing Trueno's ability to one-shot me well enough, and from there I'm able to kill him.
Unlike the first fight this doesn't make the remaining battle trivial. The remaining two brothers still benefit from Triple Mind, and, it turns out, this means they can -still- pull OHKO damage to Clarissa with their normal attacks (and not too far from it against my beefier generics) because Nightstalker HP is complete shit. Still, dispel brings them back down to earth, and from there it's just a matter of paying very close attention to which enemies will get turns and healing often to avoid dying from a combination of a real brother (who does about 150 damage) and a clone. Once the second brother dies, mop-up is fairly trivial.
4-9-B (One final torment)
I love this fight. Straightforward, simple, quick, and so easy to die if you don't play it right.
The brothers initially hit for 80-100 damage and act in fairly close succession, but otherwise aren't too scary. I switch back to classes with real HP for this one, and Slow Down one of them to mess with their turn order a bit. Otherwise, I focus on healing. Vin has the lowest MDef so the brothers often go after her, and I respond to this by having her use Forcefield, a random boon of opting for Sentinel OC for this battle. I Devastate and Drop Kick the brothers down into reasonable HP range (Debilitator on Lluvia to increase Vin's hit rate), with Elayne doing most of the hard work. At lower HPs I start chipping them with Electrigger, elements they resist, and Allowance until they're all 1-30 HP away from death.
Finally, I take the plunge, killing the one who is closest to getting a turn (Trueno) with a Clarissa Electrigger. Immediately the other two go up in stats a -lot-, but Elayne has the next turn and shoves Devastate down the throat of the one who is to going to get the next turn (Viento) so we're down to one. Vin has the next turn, as planned, but now she's facing someone with complete godmode stats and has a 0% hit rate on him. Lluvia's also getting the next three turns in a row, but Slow Down makes that only one, and he actually isn't able to one-shot anyone thanks to my good HP (comes close, though!). At this point Elayne gets a turn and although she can't quite break Lluvia's res, I'm able to set up some Turn Shift shenanigans with Clarissa to bring her over and drop Sacrifice on him, winning the battle.
EPIC STANDING ON LAVA
That'll do for today's update.
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Had some fun at the DQ9 Gamestop event. Got about 13 tags for my inn, quite a bit shy of the 30 needed to max it. Got a map with Moai Minstrels and Metal King Slimes, and another level 97 one with lots of S rank stuff including Platinum King Jewels. Unfortunately normal enemies in there are like grotto bosses at my current levels. Also got a Slime t-shirt for fucking win.
Also tried Zoma, but his physicals are doing over 300 damage to my Paladin. Not a good sign.
For those who missed it, there's another event next week, this time at Best Buy.
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Went to that event as well. Somewhere around 65 guests, which was awesome. Also one guy there was passing out 2 maps of interest, one that has the monsters needed for the Luminary quest(that's the Moai Minstrels, iirc) and another level 24 map that he says reliably spawns liquid metal slimes in a large room on the 4th floor. Nothing as nuts as a level 97 map though, the highest was the 53 one with the Moais.
So I should probably get around to beating the main game so I can mess with this stuff safely, huh?
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I can't see myself getting into the aftergame/optional stuff in DQ9. It's just such a pain in the ass to do even mundane quests.
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ToS2- Finished. Funny how the sequel to ToS manages to have a) a compelling romance as the driving force of its plot and b) probably the best overall villain in the series. Now, overall it's a weaker cast than either TotA or ToV; the supporting cast is much weaker (although skit quality is quite high, outside that the ToS crew is not very engaging here), and while the relationship writing is well above what you expect for this
seriesgenreJAPANvideo games... well, in general really, neither Emil or Marta is a great character on their own.
Anyway, setting aside the flaws in the ToS1 cast (summed up as "shut up Genis", "needs more Sheena", and "*faceplam at lloyd*") the only real quibble I have with the game is the control scheme. I'm not sure if it's the way I hold the nunchuck or an inherit flaw to the controls, but they're really loose and, more importantly, I managed to routinely punch in the wrong Arte because my <--> was reading as ^ or vice versa. Similarly jumping and launching attacks never came out right for me, although I often have that problem in Tales anyway.
Now, yeah, there's a bunch of llitle things the game does oddly, and most of them add up to a dead giveaway that it was a budget title meant as a cash in, but on the whole this doesn't reflect negatively on the game. In any case, it's a better game than the first Tales of Symphonia by a notable margin, 8/10 material. Not much to say otherwise, although I was annoyed that the game managed to lock me out of the last big sidequest even though I went well out of my way to hit the prerequisites. It's always the silly hidden mechanic that you don't even realize is there that gets you. Does explain what the Synch stat did though.
More may or may not be forthcoming. We shall see.
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CK, come on now, you know that "Screw you out of a side quest for whatever bullshit reason" are what Tales games love to do!
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Huh? The final sidequest is just "do the last mission in each chapter". Did you happen to just miss one? Wel, it isn't a big deal outside of the equips for TP->1 and Speed Casting Marta.
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It's not. I did all three prior quests (ALE) and the final one never showed up on Chapter 8's list. I had to search a lot to figure out why, but it turns out that each chapter has a Long and Short version of the quest list... and the final Hunter's Trophy is only on the long version of C8. It turns out which version you get is a simple stat check the first time you talk to a Katz that chapter against all of monster's Sync scores; as long as one has a high enough score (supposedly around 100 for C8), you're good.
This also means that, since you have no idea the game is making such a check, if you do or don't get it you wouldn't even realize it was POSSIBLE to do it another way. And of course, since it's one check, you have no idea if you did or didn't get it until you do/fail/quit a dozen quests to actually bring up the end of the list.
Didn't make a big difference on the final game (just putting, say, Lloyd in your party is enough to make up the gap in the final area), just very annoying.
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S3- Currently doing Geddoe Chapter 3. This game is way hard. Rock Golem kicked my ass twice, it was pretty embarrassing. Sharpening weapons rules.
I'm quite enjoying this game once again, even though Hugo chapters still bore me and such. Hugo 2 was at least short! I think I remember Hugo 3 being really long and boring though.
I have Queen with the Blood Armor and the Wind Rune, Geddoe has Lightning/Water, Ace has Water, Joker has Fire, Aila has Earth/Shield, and Jacques sucks. Shield Level 2 is silly good. I enjoy controlling this group the most I think even if I like Chris chapters overall better.
Also, man, Borus comes off as a dick in that early C3 scene. As Grefter said "Immaturity is not an explanation for murder." followed by "Man, once I murdered one child, I just couldn't stop! I'm such a nice guy."
Duke is a wanker.
Man S5 is so much easier than this game. :D
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Nier: Acquired 1x ending. Everything in the final dungeon got horribly brutalized. Partly due to overleveling from my doing too many sidequests (I don't know why I bothered with those, since I sure as hell didn't need the money for anything after I picked up the Phoenix Spear and it mostly just boiled down to too damn many trips through the Junk Heap. Stupid completionist urges). Spears are as unbalanced as hyped by Pyros; I didn't use anything else after they became available. Dash -> roll -> dash -> roll -> dash -> everyone's dead. Boss health meters started falling in two or three combos. Yeesh. Danmaku Queen and the final at least made it difficult to approach them.
So, second cycle...do you actually play as Kaine, or just get extra scenes?
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Second cycle starts at the un-stoning and only features a few extra vis-novel style scenes at the start/subtitles for what shadows say. It also features a voice inside Kaine's head. You still play as Nier. You still keep the broken.
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Bioshock 2 -Good but not great. Really felt more like an expansion pack or something than a standalone game, since it's basically just Bioshock with a new story tacked on and some minor adjustments to gameplay. Apparently playing as a Big Daddy only really means you get a Drill and some reskins of the pistol and machine gun. Maybe it was just me but I also seemed more frail than Bioshock 1, but maybe they upped it to counter Vita-Chambers.
The new mechanic with the Little Sisters was somewhat annoying but manageable, mostly because the game throws so much static defense shit at you. You've got Trap Rivets, Trap Spears, Proximity Mines, Mini-Turrets, anything you've hacked....it's very easy to hold off Splicers. Of course I rescued all the Little Sisters because I'm not a soulless monster. The new hacking minigame is pretty nice and long distance hacking was cool. The new plasmid abilities didn't do a whole lot though being able to befriend Big Daddies and other heavy enemies was helpful at points. Not that it matters, since the game is piss easy and I was drowning in money, ADAM, and ammo by the end. Big Sisters are basically just a stronger version of Big Daddies, they die pretty easy and drop sweet loot as well.
I'm really failing to see anything Bioshock 2 did that was a major departure from Bioshock 1 and failing. To be fair Bioshock was a great game and is still great today, but I wish they could have been less derivative. Even the story is like "Okay, it's Andrew Ryan but he's a Utopia-Justifies-The-Means Collectivist. And female. Also blah blah blah some stuff about family that didn't have nearly the impact of the first game."
So...disappointing I guess. At least the ending makes it pretty clear that Bioshock 3 isn't gonna happen. Didn't have a chance to try the multiplayer since I don't have Gold right now, but I doubt many people are playing anyway.
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FFXII- Finished Ye Olde Pharos Dungeon. Not quite as bad as I was expecting, really. Definitely not something to be taken in one sitting, but managable none-the-less. The bad thing is that nothing really happens until you reach the top is all. At least the Cid scenes/fight at the top are amusing. He's a pretty decent insanity type antagonist. The VA does a good job of it. The Gabranth stuff felt pointless though.
Doing whatever hunts I feel like before I finish the game.
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Darksiders: Zelda style game with gameplay akin to God of War so far! Except seems to lessen the shit I don't like about God of War, like mobility being better (especially the dodge), Quicktime event related kills are just "press button when enemy is near dead, game does the rest of shit for you" and none of this "Press 3 more buttons without fail or we kill you" nonsense and plot...well...LETS ABRIDGE SERIES IT!
Narrator: In the beginning, Angels and Demons were beating the shit out of each other. AND BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF EACH OTHER THEY DID. Then the COUNCIL!!! said "Shut up both of you and to your corners!" ...then humans were created, so a 3rd kingdom was born, but humans are weaklings. Angels and Demons made a truce not to attack until the Apocalypse, with the FOUR HORSEMEN being there to keep the BALANCE IN CHECK, by the COUNCIL's orders...and they'd leave humans alone. And the APocalypse won't occur until the 7 SEALS ARE BROKEN! BUt its not like THAT will ever happen, right?
*Modern Day*
Billboard Guy: Meteors are hitting across the country! I sure hope this isn't an omen!
*Meteors destroy city, demons start killing everyone, Angels appear, start fighting demons causing huge collateral damage, not giving a shit if humans are dying in the process*
Useless Humans: OH NOES WE'RE BEING KILLED!
*BIG OMINOUS METEOR appears*
War: Ok, bad ass hero here...wait, why do I look like shit? I am so killing whoever the artist of this game is when this is up.
Demons: RARR! WAR IS HERE! KILL HIM!
*War kicks their asses...effortlessly...*
War: Demons running amok, Angels flying around in high tech armor just cause they need to look remotely cool for once, instead of like pansies...yeah, its the Apocalypse alright! Now to kick som-...BLARGH!
*War loses some of his powers, and like 2 bars of health*
War: What the fuck is that? Screw it, I'm still powerful enough to kick ass.
Angel: HE'S NOT AS POWERFUL AS HE WAS BEFORE! KILL WAR!
*War throws a Car at the angel*
Angel: Stupid...gameplay....mechanics...being in his favor *dies*
*Numerous angels and demons getting their shit ruined by War later*
Female Angel: Look, Abaddon, ITS WAR!
Abaddon: What are you talking about Uriel? *looks* What are YOU doing here, Horseman? THE SEALS HAVEN'T BEEN BROKEN!
War: WHERE ARE MY BROTHERS!? Why am I the only one here?
Abaddon: WHY ARE YOU HERE!?
War: ...is this not the Apocalypse? Why is there a full scale battle between Angels and Demons then? YOU KNOW SOMETHING!
Uriel: Don't listen to him, Abaddon! We must worry about THE DESTROYER!
Destroyer: *large freaking hand grabs Abaddon out of nowhere, seemingly crushing him* Yes, WORRY ABOUT ME INSTEAD! Also, I am TOTALLY not a euphemism for SATAN!
War: ...yeah, I don't know how "Destroyer" can be taken as a Euphemism myself.
Destroyer: Good, now that we're on the same page, I will now...KILL YOU!
*War throws a car at the Destroyer*
Destroyer: ARGH! THAT HURT! But it'll take more than one Car to beat me *gets hit by another* STOP THAT!
War: Ok *Stabs the Destroyer in the face*
Destroyer: Grah! This gimmick fight won't last much longer, and I will totally beat you in plot!
War: Yeah, like that's going to happen. I'm the bad ass Main *War loses the rest of his powers* ...shit...
Destroyer: VICTORY IS MINE! *crushes War*
*in some other realm not ours*
Council: War, what the hell is wrong with you? WHY WERE YOU DOWN THERE? YOU WEREN'T SUMMONED!
War: Yes I was. Why the fuck else would I go down there?
Council: You totally weren't summoned!
War: How the hell do you know that?
Council: Well, explain where the other 3 are?
War: If I knew, I wouldn't be in this mess. But Abaddon, HE KNOWS SOMETHING! If only I could go back there and settle things straight.
Council: How do you expect to make up for your misdoings?
War: ...I just told you. I'm gonna go down there, beat the shit out of both sides til they start listening. The DESTROYER is up to something, Abaddon knows stuff...look, its not every day that a battle that is identical to the Apocalypse goes on, but its not ACTUALLY the Apocalypse.
Council: AND WHAT IF YOU FAIL!?
War: Well, I'll sort of, you know, DIE AT THE HANDS OF ONE OF THEM? I think that's justifiable punishment for "screwing things up" (this is totally not my fault by the way.)
Council: FINE! That works too, but we will send to you this WATCHER to make sure you aren't really fucking things up.
War: Why the hell would I side with either of them? The demons are just generic dicks, and Angels are over-self righteous pricks who are just as corrupt as demons, only they're prettier.
Watcher: Oh stop your whining, and just get your weapons ready so we can go.
War: Fine, fine.
Council: Also, seek out VULGRIM THE DEMON MERCHANT. He will prove helpful to you!
War: Wait, why are we siding with the demons? I thought we were suppose to be totally neutral.
Council: Well, you see, this guy sort of always wanted to make deals with us but we kept neglecting him, but recent events permitting, we decided it wouldn't be a bad thing. He doesn't exactly side with the Destroyer or anything.
War: I...see...well then, I'm off!
*Back on Earth*
War: There's something...different about me.
Watcher: Maybe its that you're a weakling now whose stuck on the Council's leash and we could just kill you anytime they want if they're big enough dicks? Oh, don't worry about me, I'm just here to report shit in case you DO go against your orders, I'm not actually going to help you or anything.
War: Whatever...oh look, how convenient, LOW CLASS DEMONS!
*beats them up, gets to top of tower*
War: How long have I been talking to the council?
Watcher: Oh, just 100 years...and there are no more humans by the way, they kind of died off within that time period.
War: Then the 3RD KINGDOM IS LOST!
Watcher: Are you done with the drama?
War: Yes, yes I am, off to find Vulgrim!
*some traversing later*
Watcher: I believe we've found who we are looking for.
War: Who? That weird masked guy over there? Well if you say so.
Vulgrim: WELCOME STRANGER!
War: Uh, hi.
Vulgrim: I got a selection of GOOD THINGS ON SALE, Stranger.
War: I see...
Vulgrim: WHADDYA BUYIN?
War: I'd like information on how to beat up the Destroyer. I'll give you these Blue Souls as payment.
Vulgrim: Ah, I'll buy it at a high price!
Watcher: What he means to say is "Go find Samael. He hates the Destroyer too and use to be as strong as him! Also, take this horn."
War: Right, off to find Samael it is!
Vulgrim: Come back anytime!
War: So, what am I suppose to do next then?
Watcher: Try blowing that horn at that door with a symbol on it conveniently located right where that yellow marker on your map is.
War: Ok *does exactly that*
Gatekeeper: WHO DISTURBS MY SLUMBER!?
War: I do, I want to get in.
Gatekeeper: YOUR REASON!?
War: To kick the crap out of the Destroyer eventually, I guess.
Gatekeeper: ...ok, later. *Gatekeeper walks off*
War: That was depressingly easy; not even a half assed boss fight?
Watcher: Don't worry, one of those will happen soon?
War: Oh?
Phantom General: *insert incomprehensible language here*
War: ...look, I understand demon speak, so you're not exactly hiding anything from me and I KNOW you know English, so we can please speak like that so we both don't sound like idiots?
Phantom General: Fine, fine, ruin my evil charisma while don't you.
War: Its why I'm here!
Phantom General: I thought you were here to kick the crap out of my warriors and free Samael.
War: Well, that too...wait, those were warriors? I thought they were Salesmen!
Phantom General: YOU WILL PAY FOR THAT INSUL-*ass kicked by War* blargh!
War: God damn it, I'M NOT BUYING ANYTHING. Fucking Salesmen.
Watcher: You just dealt with Vulgrim you know.
War: Yeah, but he actually had a name, so that's totally different.
Watcher: Oh complete this darn puzzle and just talk to Samael already.
War: Huh? Do what now? *War is spilling blood into a random symbol via odd statues*
Watcher: ...nevermind.
*Samael comes out*
Samael: WHAT DO YOU WANT, HORSEMAN!?
War: Your...help?
Samael: ...no.
War: Please?
Samael: Ok.
War: Wait, seriously?
Samael: I was just testing your manners! I am not as strong as I use to be, GO BRING ME THE BEATING HEARTS OF THESE 4 DEMON LORDS HOWEVER AND WE WILL BE ABLE TO STOP THE DESTROYER! Your first one will be that bat bitch Tiamat.
War: I thought Tiamat is traditionally a dragon.
Samael: BAT. BITCH. NOW GO! Oh yeah, take these wings that are totally NOT a rip off of God of War 2's Icarus Wings.
War: Right, so where's my next destination?
Watcher: According to our map...a lava cave followed by a large graveyard.
War: ...wonderful...
*After going through that*
Watcher: Oh look, another Gatekeeper.
War: Yo, Gatekeeper, let me through! I'm gonna beat the Destroyer.
Gatekeeper: A CURSE HOLDS ME HERE!
War: Ah nuts, this is just a convenient excuse to introduce another gameplay factor before I can enter, isn't it?
Gatekeeper: Yes, yes it is.
Narrator: ...no, I REFUSE to do a "Next time" stunt here. You can all shut up and leave.
Watcher: Well, you're certainly in a good mood.
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XF update, finishing off Schnell Ruins.
4-10-A (Katrina versus the Scorpion cosplay)
Katrina surrounds herself with a mix of Fright Knights (minor fire weakness) and Enfants Terribles (minor water weakness). I don't really have much to say about their offensive abilities because most of them are very easily killed from 20+ hexes away. Anchor Hook is my weapon of choice here, pulling the enemies into pits so I have two PCs running Extremist OC, with Rush to better enable them, while Elayne contents herself to magic-nuke the few who would be too annoying to Anchor Hook.
Katrina herself deserves note because this time, she doesnt sit willingly awaiting her demise but instead pumps 200+ damage into people off XF boss speed. Still, a good barrage of Feeble Mind does her in, and as long as I watch the turns her damage is easy to control since all her flunkies are long dead.
4-10-B (Giant Crow)
Same map as the previous, except all the mooks are Enfants Terribles this time. Doesn't matter, once again, grossly outrange enemies and Anchor Hook them so nothing they can do matters.
The Fear Guardian has loads of Res to make her harder to Devastate to death, but after Fragile it's quite doable. Physical defence is nowhere near so impressive anyway. Pretty easy, since the guardian is both slower and a weaker mage than Katrina. Prevent probably hoses her pretty badly;I didn't think to try at the time, though. 2900 HP is decent but nothing too bad at this point.
4-11-A (Charlton the summoner) (2 resets)
Just to set the stage for this one; three paths to Charlton each occupied by 3-4 John Does (the ones in the centre have around 500 HP, the others are frail). Charlton himself gets a huge buff, though, as he's picked up two nasty new tricks. Call Servant, which I can no longer wall just by surrounding him, summons a 500-HP John Doe to a square adjacent to him if one exists. And Energy Drain, non-typed damage which rapes very badly once he's beaten up. Neither of these cost MP, so Feeble Mind is no longer an attractive option, and he has no status weaknesses (nor Piedras' terrible evade) so there's basically no way to just cheap him out. This adds up to a boss battle which is actually very tricky. Hey, I was due for one.
Anyway, after some mucking about I settle on two Emulators (for as much MP as possible) and one Extremist (for a decent mix of attack and HP, as well as a useful OC). I blitz through the central path because it's the quickest, despite the durable enemies. Charlton isn't too bad at first, I just hope he doesn't use Dark Destruction (he only uses it twice in my three attempts), slap the three main stat downs on him, surround him as much as I can, and start attacking. At first, Energy Drain is quite weak, and he'll use it all the time which relieves some pressure. My mages mainly use Devastate which is quite handy as it kills the undead he summons at the same time (usually) in 3 hits, and even though of course he always summons more, this resets their turns (they are very slow). Once Charlton gets below half HP his damage starts to get too hard to handle, especially since the undead will periodically survive long enough to hit me with Disease. My first attempt I try to play defensively with Heal and disease-curing but eventually I get overwhelmed due to a combination of needing to do both of those, resetting stat downs, etc., and the undead start getting more turns as I do this. With him healing for as much as 300 HP he gets very hard to overwhelm at the end.
Second try I realise I need more turns (but Nightstalker's awful HP isn't really an option) so I start Turn Shifting like crazy. After some initial efforts I ignore healing entirely and just try to hammer him and the undead as fast as possible. I do pull this off, but come out of it so beaten up that I get finished off by the undead, very embarrassing. I actually had a Strider instead of an Extremist to get the treasure on this attempt, one of the reasons I switch to Extremist is to make this occurence less likely. But in general, on the third attempt, I play timing a little better and am not in such a horrible position when I finish Charlton off.
What I am is disturbingly low on MP for a lategame fight, but fortunately the remaining undead are easy enough to dispatch with (Widespread) Sanctify, so I split up and take them out without any real trouble.
4-11-B (the final puzzle)
Everyone told me I'd need more than three PCs for this one, and I agreed. Turns out we were all wrong. Not only is three PCs enough to win, but two is, so I use two just for the hell of it. Labby as Grappler with Arcanist OC, Clarissa as Emulator with Strahl Gewehr. Labby has no weapon so she'll always "miss".
Anyway, the map is divided into three main platforms (as well as two smaller ones on the side at the top). The second platform is easy enough to get across to, as it isn't much higher than the first, so Labby Heavy Throws Clarissa across (range 5) then Warps up there herself (range 6). Clarissa uses fire magic to light the first torch. It's the second jump that I thought was impossible, since the vertical jump is always at least 5, so Heavy Throw and Warp both don't work. However, at one single point at the very far right, the horizontal gap is only 3, so if Labby stands in the rightmost, topmost corner, and Clarissa stands beside her, Labby can use Ground Slam (infinite vertical range, 3 horizontal) to toss Clarissa up to the third platform. From there, Clarissa shoots the treasure chest, uses water magic to snuff the torch on one far platform, and uses any damn Emulator attack she wants to trigger the attack switch. Victory!
4-11-C (Alas, poor villain...)
Charlton uses Black Corrosion on everything repeatedly until the John Doe stats are so high that they outspeed and kill him with physicals. He can't Energy Drain undead so if I'm nowhere near him (preferably out of his 20 range attack, although it'd be doable even if the attack was true MT like I once thought) I'm safe, and his doom is assured.
But where's the fun in that? I'm feeling a bit of a CSP crunch after all. In particular, I realised during the last Charlton fight that having High Cavalier OC for Intrude and maybe even Quicken and Remain could be really handy for a tough boss fight, and the mother of all tough boss fights isn't far off. So I shove everyone but Vin in High Cavalier, and start hatching plans to Anchor Hook zombies to their dooms. Can't revive from that! Sanctify is also an option. Rush is of course great, and having skills to heal disease and heal is essential. Fortunately Extremist and especially High Cavalier have amazing HP, which reduces the threat of Black Corrosion wiping me out quickly.
I do inevitably have to step inside Charlton's range to do some killing, and even misjudge it once or twice which makes this much hairier than it has to be, but after I figure things out a bit better, Clarissa stays out of his range and Elayne often does too. Most of the undead actually line up for me really nicely, so I can anchor hook them fairly easily. I need to pull off some crazy shenanigans to ensure I actually kill 7 of them for the 8 CSP, but hey, that's what Turn Shift and Accelerate is for. I burn every last bit of MP and need to hope for some AI luck on a John Doe to try to disease Charlton instead of finishing him off, but I get it. Would I have reset if I hadn't? Yeah, probably.
And that's the end of Chapter 4. Final Act seems potentially rather worrying at this point; even though C4 was overall not as bad as I expected it showed some nasty warning signs for Weisheit somewhat and the final boss especially. We'll see.
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*War throws a car at the Destroyer*
Destroyer: ARGH! THAT HURT! But it'll take more than one Car to beat me *gets hit by another* STOP THAT!
War: Ok *Stabs the Destroyer in the face*
Awesome. I must play this game. Time for a related movie quote:
"You're not so tough without your car!"
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Meeple is covering Darksiders with far more brevity than the game itself comes close to being. Be warned, Darksiders is like Legend of Zelda mixed with God of War and a truckload of stupidly long boring dungeons.
And it isn't -bad- art Meeple, it is Warhammer/Warcraft art.
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SO1r - Holy hell this game's breakability hits a level of refinement that's comparable to SO2's.
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And it isn't -bad- art Meeple, it is Warhammer/Warcraft art.
In Meeple's defense, same thing.
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And it isn't -bad- art Meeple, it is Warhammer/Warcraft art.
In Meeple's defense, same thing.
You wound my heart.
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But you have no heart... not now, anyway. I mean, look at you!
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Beat OG1. Fun game, but nothing amazing. Shame people dislike robots in the DL.
Also started OG2 and man you can really tell five years passed between the games. Stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SziDbSthYDA makes me wish I was playing the PS2 version instead though.
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FF 13- Beat the plot boss in the Fifth Arc (Or...if there's more than I beat the first one). Man, and I thought I was supposed to get to some free roaming shit soon! Someone really needs to get in modern FF designers heads that if your battle system is not awesome, chaining long dungeons together with little else to break stuff up is a shit idea. Not like FF 13 has gone anywhere near FF 12's level yet, but I was sick of doing this in the middle of Ch 9, put the game down for a good long while, slogged until early chapter 10, put the game down for a good long while, and slogged more! Unless I'm really on the verge of something else, something tells me that the game is soon to be put back down for a good long while.
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And it isn't -bad- art Meeple, it is Warhammer/Warcraft art.
In Meeple's defense, same thing.
You wound my heart.
Fine fine, in Warhammer's defense, they are very good at making art of ugly things.
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Nier: Acquired 1x ending. Everything in the final dungeon got horribly brutalized. Partly due to overleveling from my doing too many sidequests (I don't know why
So, second cycle...do you actually play as Kaine, or just get extra scenes?
Extra scenes only. Unpleasant extra scenes with trolling to the maximum degree.
Last Ranker-
Complete it, how did Kouli beats everything so damn fast anyway???
Whatever, a good game overall, I am surprised at how coherent and refined this game is despite being made under limited budget.
The battle system is somewhat repetitious and the customization took a long while to open up. Yet, there are enough enemies with their unique quirks, who are actually not badly designed, to actually make you dig into that system. Pretty challenging game over all. Fights like those with Rosa and Norma really makes you plan on when to break them to prevent their big move and how to get pass over their limit phase. The only flaw that stands out is how gauntlet is somewhat overpowered, with breaking being so effective.
The pacing of the story is also good, things are happening pretty rapidly and dungeons are pretty short, successfully made the game more engaging even at the cost of cutting down exploration. Everything is to the point and thing barely drag on, something that modern RPGs are lacking.
The characters are surprisingly likable too. Zig is the silent, cool, somewhat anti-social type main done well. This shows especially when he became the top suspect in the city and how he quietly shows his frustration. The dynamic with his surroundings are also engaging, even with the everyday NPCs, some of them simply hilarious. On the other end, Yuli is an entertaining baby eater, like how he literally dances with his hand over his head when he made Fazz turned against Zig or how he must make more people in pain just so his favorite little girl would preach him to do goof. Awesome death scene too!! He couldn't take scolding from his favorite little girl. (Though, Missy's "Byebye Yuli, I am happy now" is indeed kinda creepy). And he managed to pull all these out without becoming a joke villain!
But then, limited budget is limited budget. How Beager's plot gets cut off is pretty "...." worthy. Welmar also lacked enough screen time to make his death impactive (yet, it still managed to shock me, imagine how effective would his death be if more time was given to him). Though, Rosa and Gargano are the one who needs the justice the most. They have to squeeze Gargano's entire plot thread in minimum length and rush everything through. Then the game ends before Rosa can even redeem herself.
You know what, I'd love to see them make Radiata styled sequel for this game, the cast is just so fitting for it.
Oh, BTW, Nojima, you did live up to my claim that you can write decent plot without Nomura behind your back. And consider the budget of this game, what you did is actually not bad. But... but...... what is with all the yaoi undertone by the end of game?? In such heavy dosage too!! They eloped right?? That is what they are doing at the end right?? I can already hear the sound of Rosa cracking the table in half!!!
Nomura you are laughing right?? You must be laughing when you see this ending!! How you have successfully turned him into a yaoi fanboy just like yourself!!! Not like I disagree with yaoi or anything. I am laughing too when I see that ending, but god, the spread of Nomuraism is a totally different thing!!
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FFXII- Beat! The Gabranth scene there made a whole lot more sense than the one in Pharos. They could have completely taken him out of that one and it wouldn't have mattered. Liked the battle scene. Vayne was a wanker to the end. He kind of looked like Vigo from Ghostbusters 2 before the buffness. Final battles were cake though. Ending was good though. Classic without being stupid or inane.
I enjoyed the game, all told. Not a whole lot, but I did enjoy it. 7/10 game? It reminded me of WA5 in a way. There at one time was a pretty complete and decent story in there, because it does poke out at points. During the process though it was thoroughly sundered and it's full potential lost.
It starts off well, then long stretches of time go by without plot, but they at least attempt to cover pretty much everything that had gone on. There's no bad leaps of logic or plotholes really, so that's a point in it's favor I guess. If things had been fleshed out in the story it really could have been good.
The gaps really hurt the character work though, but everyone had at least one good moment. Basch was good at the start and drifted off, Balthier was fun throughout. Penelo was oddly interesting (relatively) to watch with Lharsa. Ashe... not a fan of how she played out, but it wasn't terrible. Vaan was just kinda there but didn't annoy me as much as I thought he would. Fran, well... Berserker Fran was fun to watch at least! The intrigue between the Judges and the general Archaides thread was good while it lasted. Again, shame that the game didn't flesh things out more.
Gameplay was okay. I liked the gambit system all told, but there was too much of a gap between the regular content and the post-game content, which is sort of a misnomer since there's no New Game+. No I am not leveling 10 more levels to do Rank 7 hunts. It's at least not hurt by the lack of New Game+, there isn't anything after the final dungeon and nothing important to steal from the finals, so it doesn't matter. Can just boot up the save file from before you beat it.
Ended with, Dagger Vaan (Zwill Crossblade), Bow Fran (Artemis Bow) and Greatsword Basch (Ragnarok). My Zodiac Bravez were Aries Vaan, Pisces Basch, Sagittarius Fran, Leo Penelo, Capricorn Balthier and Aquarius Ashe. Didn't bother with any of the other Espers. Only got Adra since it was on the way to a hunt.
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You'll probably want to build either swords or spears for Guv so he has offence once the game goes boss-happy (which it will in another 10-15 hours or so). Otherwise, those look good.
For what it's worth, my Guv was boomerangs-only and I managed alright. I think the only bosses that gave me notable trouble were... Empyrea and the final? Oh, and a reset on Dhoulie. Huzzah for boomerangs!
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You'll probably want to build either swords or spears for Guv so he has offence once the game goes boss-happy (which it will in another 10-15 hours or so). Otherwise, those look good.
For what it's worth, my Guv was boomerangs-only and I managed alright. I think the only bosses that gave me notable trouble were... Empyrea and the final? Oh, and a reset on Dhoulie. Huzzah for boomerangs!
Other things could contribute to that, like good builds on other characters, high levels, luck with boss's chosen moves, etc. It doesn't change the fact that Guv really wants a decent sword or spear tech, like falcon slash or multithrust.
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No GIGATHROW hype?!
I built Eight as Courage/Swords, Yangus as Axe/Scythes/Humanity (for WHISTLE and KABUFF - he also gains Midheal and Golden Oldies, though those are high level), Jessica as Staff (Kazing at 100, and loads of support skills before that)/Whips (up to Attack+25)/Sex Appeal (Why WOULDN'T I build a skillset called Sex Appeal?), Angelo Bow/Staff. Any set-up works acceptably for anyone, though some are better than others (still haven't found a use for Jessica's daggers, for instance).
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With regards to War's art...
I didn't mean the ART was bad so much as the character design is pretty laughable. I mean, I figured Yahtzee was exaggerating here as he often does, but no, he was very much spot on; its like a WoW character shoving all the best things on with no regard for how good it looks, so your outfit looks like a garbled mess of everything. I've seen Soul Calibur Auto-Generated Characters whose designs make more sense than War's for crying out loud!
Thankfully, it is tolerable, as there's nothing offensive about it, just looks bad and silly. The art itself isn't bad, its a pure design thing.
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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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DQ9: Finally got to where I can beat Baramos (cough, at level 1) reliably. Used him to get up to 80 mini medals for the last item. Zoma is still too damn strong.
Party is currently Luminary (the hero), Gladiator, Ranger, Priest. Luminary sucks, but I still like it. Currently have the hero with sunglasses and a guitar so I can rock out on enemies in style.
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Oh of course, it is Warhammer art. Warhammer is retarded. Especially in the character design department. HEY GUYS I HEARD YOU REALLY LIKED CHAINSWORDS AND STUFF SO LETS MAKE A GAUNTLET CHAINFIST THAT HAS CHAINS MADE OUT OF PURE ENERGY SO YOU CAN PUNCH TANKS WITH IT OKAY THIS IS SO AWESOME.
BoF 4 - Been poking at this slowly. Just got Scias and started fishing at Ocean 1. All things told I have probably sunk almost as much time into fishing as I have the regular game and I even missed Lake spot 1 by accident.
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Beat OG1. Fun game, but nothing amazing. Shame people dislike robots in the DL.
Also started OG2 and man you can really tell five years passed between the games. Stuff like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SziDbSthYDA makes me wish I was playing the PS2 version instead though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ds46-Q3LUo4 (POSSIBLE SRW PLOT SPOILERS I GUESS.)
This is what I think of when I think of OGs and pretty. (Game's pretty in general though. The real quirk is that even low end mechs get pretty finishers.)
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WA XF: Still slowing chugging away at this. The battles just take so long that it's hard to keep any sort of momentum going. And if I manage to get into the battles, then the story segments are too long and unskippable.
I'm liking Katrina more than I expected.
Just got the third set of jobs. These things have all kinds of nice broken options as their second-learned skills. Except Strider. Why does Strider exist?
Any suggestions about this particular set of jobs? I think Enigmancer may have some kind of potential that I'm not immediately seeing.
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Strider exists because its OC is awesome. Swift Shock is Quick Hit, never a bad thing to have. Drop Kick is -finally- a long-range physical attack, and pretty much the most damaging one (depending on equips) too. Mesmerise is a pretty MT bilnd move, and Trail has situational uses, especially for the last PC.
Also Aim+25% is cool. Accuracy isn't really something you can take for granted in this game. As a carrier, all it really offers is that and 7 CLM, but eh, could be worse.
Enigmancer has Devastate, which is a terrific, multitarget, powerful magic attack. Toss in Rush and it's a great way to kill things (though it's decent even without). The rest of the OC has some decent situational uses, especially Dispel, which acts as both a classic dispel and status healer. IFF is terrific to stack on top of Devastate, obviously, but also Widespread and a few other things. And it's a 4 move mage, as a carrier.
Berserker has good overall stats and 8 move but can only move in a straight line. There's a couple battles where it's immensely valuable, but otherwise, you should play with the move and see if you can make it work for you. Quick Step's neat, the rest of the OC worth talking about needs a spear and a flat map, though is good then. MOV Up is a great ability, but takes serious investment to the point where I've never actually gotten it.
Grappler is my least favourite, but if you can make moving enemies and allies work for you, go for it. It's not terrible on damage, either; I'd like it more if it didn't show up at the same time as two other appealing options for physical characters. Accelerate deserves note for being rather potent for a L3 skill, though. I don't really like what it does to long-term strategising, but it's hard to argue with its bang for its buck; it's probably over half as potent as Rfx+25% and costs about 10% of the CSP to get.
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Oh, speaking of XF, I should post this too. Almost done~~
5-1 (No time for sin and Weis)
Weisheit and Asgard, together at last! I split up my forces here, with Elayne heading to the right to take out the golems there since she two-shots them, and the other two head up the left. This has the benefit of separating Weisheit and Asgard. I wipe out all the six regular golems, and when I do, four more arrive. Elayne isn't able to deal with this on her own, and gets killed by a combination of one and Asgard. Clarissa also dies on the other side, but Vin is able to retreat down a cliff (catching Weisheit above it where he can't do much), and use Revive Fruits until I get back in the battle. From there on it's a matter of wiping out the remaining golems. Asgard can nicely be ignored, as he's out of the battle now and will stay that way.
Weisheit himself is similar to last time, but easier now that I've separated him and his help. Spam Rob Turn and the usual three stat downs, profit. Pretty tough overall and what I did with Asgard arguably qualifies as degenerate, but oh well.
5-2 (Gate Victims)
Gate Victims are pretty durable for their unimpressive HP, with the flying attribute, ridiculous elemental resistances, and decent status resistances. Levin gets to shine here as he turns their 30% chance to be hit with petrify into 45%. I get rather ridiculously lucky with this, and even Clarissa's boring old 30%, which really helps. The harpies themselves have oodles of status ailments which are quite annoying, and they're quite damaging as they inflict said statuses. I lose a PC here, unshockingly, but it's nothing I can't regroup from. Fortunately, I do have the aforementioned good luck, and there aren't that many enemies/none are overly durable (I just kill some outright with non-elemental magic well enough), so this isn't too bad.
5-3 (Blackbird singing in the dead of night)
The clysmian is really shockingly wussy for the plot hype. 3500 HP is solid enough, but nothing that matters really is. Oh, she flies and has good physical durability stats, but the magic durability is lacking, and that's the important one if anything. I guess there are worse gimmicks to have, but when you start in front of all your support and Devastate spam is so good at carving you up, you'd better have awesome speed or damage or something. She's not horrid at these, and Prevent no longer works unlike the first fight, but eh, easy enough. Usual three stat downs are set, then Elementalist Elayne slaps on Devastate upon Devastate and I turn shift her to get more, the battle is short enough that I can do this. The Fright Knights eventually reach her and start trying to heal her but they can't keep up with the silliness of Turn Shift-boosted offence. Kaboom. Easiest fight in the final act.
5-4
Uh oh.
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WC3 - So SC2 babble got me interested, and when I get a new rig I'm going to get SC2, so I figured I may as well learn an RTS before doing so.
I'm... at the end of the Human campaign, I think? One of the last maps in any case. I do pretty well when fighting, and the maps where you don't have a base are my bitch since I got those skills from playing Footmen Frenzy. However, micromanaging my shit is... uh... yeah. Fortunately, my roommate knows all the keyboard shortcuts, so once I get used to those I'll do a lot better I think.
Also, the story is terrible.
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Makai Kingdom- Was looking for a game to play, remembered I had this and Devil Summoner from Miki. Just started it. I have to say, the VA for Zetta is *perfect*, and really helps set the tone for the game. It's making me smile and the combat looks fun enough.
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BoF4 - At about the same spot as Grefter, just not as slowly. Haven't fished yet or anything.
I'd like to say that I really, really like it, but... man, it might just be playing on a keyboard, but actually getting anywhere in a damned town is a chore, and some of the required mini-games are bad. Nice little package otherwise though. I like the battles, I like the characters, setting, music, etc. Nothing terribly stand-out (yet) but Fou-Lu is already pretty cool, and I definitely want to see where things head with him.
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BoF as a series has some shit camera issues, and the hide and seek game turns this into world rending rage. As you go, though, the towns tend to be small enough that you don't have the issue as much as I recall.
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Fucking Capcom.
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S5 - The scene after the Queen's Campaign is still plennnty effective on a replay.
Gameplay notes... lost the QC war battle because "enemy retreats... right into Roy!" happened twice in a row, awesome war battle system is awesome. For normal battles, so far I'm running 13 PCs semi-seriously: Prince, Lyon, Miakis, Belcoot, Isabel, Mathias, Richard, Bernadette, Shigure, Zerase, Nelis, Kyle, and Lorelai. I have three Magic Absorbs, six Double-Edges, a Boost, Power, a Fury, two Rages, and more Crazeds that I know what to do with (I don't like 'em much anyway). Worlds get smashed, I could give detailed PC notes but that probably belongs later anyway. Most of it would be pretty boring, holy crap most of these PCs are broken! Prince/Kyle/Mathias feel like the weakest of the 13, unfortunately in the former's case (gah no RH slot + below average speed). He's still decent enough mind.
The game is inferior to S3 in so many small ways it drives me up the wall (mostly remarking on this due to watching one while playing the other), from graphics (anywhere but cutscenes) to menus to interface to load times to of course the obvious things like recruitment and challenge. S5 does win the things it does very well though, such as translation.
Currently around 37 hours in.
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Blazblue CS- *Downloads update
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StarCraft 2: Tosh is a badass.
Pffft, Nova is way cooler!
Horrible lies!
Well, I've also gone and beat Starcraft 2. On Normal of course, because I would have broken my desk if I had to reload a mission because it takes 40 minutes.
The ONLY complaint I have is that most of the missions that introduced new units were usually "mass this unit and win or don't mass this unit and lose." The major exception was the goliath mission... Marine/Medic beats air a lot better than goliaths do.
That mean you used Wraiths?
Yeah on the Odin mission... they were useless outside of that mission.
Diamondbacks were freaking awesome, but not getting mediced means I didn't use them outside of their mission.
BCs are cool, but too slow. Only used them on their mission
You get Thors late... and they may have some value on the final mission, but I only used them on one mission and probably didn't need to.
Banshees were only used on their mission.
Firebats were only used on their mission... and even then only the 2 they started me with.
Basically... Marine/Medic/Tank beats the game minus the "use this character" missions, with Vikings for the final mission. (If you're doing air. For Nydus I just got to 200/200 and built Planetary Fortresses after that.)
Not saying you couldn't use all the other units if you wanted to, they'd have worked okay... just not as good as M/M/T.
Anywho, as of late I've been getting WTFed by battlenet. Our 4s team is 29-3 and stuck in Platinum. Meanwhile some 20-8 team got promoted to Diamond ON THE SAME DAY WE BEAT THEM 3 TIMES IN 2 HOURS. They seriously go L,L,W,L,W and get promoted... kind of annoying. I have a few other decent teams, but nothing with enough volume to be of note.
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holy crap most of these PCs are broken!
I disagree based on the games combat being a joke.
WKC - I now have 1 GR10 water blade, 4 GR9 blades for fire, wind, earth and non-elem. My armor is taking far longer to get but I have 2 GR10 pieces at the moment so 2 to go.
I could have worn the generals set ages ago but I hate that armor as GR10s seem to think its a uniform they must wear once they hit GR10. I guess its because it is so easy to make but seriously the armor is horrible.
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I disagree based on the games combat being a joke.
No, really?
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StarCraft 2: Tosh is a badass.
Pffft, Nova is way cooler!
Horrible lies!
Well, I've also gone and beat Starcraft 2. On Normal of course, because I would have broken my desk if I had to reload a mission because it takes 40 minutes.
The ONLY complaint I have is that most of the missions that introduced new units were usually "mass this unit and win or don't mass this unit and lose." The major exception was the goliath mission... Marine/Medic beats air a lot better than goliaths do.
That mean you used Wraiths?
Yeah on the Odin mission... they were useless outside of that mission.
That doesn't excuse anything!
Diamondbacks were freaking awesome, but not getting mediced means I didn't use them outside of their mission.
BCs are cool, but too slow. Only used them on their mission
You get Thors late... and they may have some value on the final mission, but I only used them on one mission and probably didn't need to.
Banshees were only used on their mission.
Firebats were only used on their mission... and even then only the 2 they started me with.
Basically... Marine/Medic/Tank beats the game minus the "use this character" missions, with Vikings for the final mission. (If you're doing air. For Nydus I just got to 200/200 and built Planetary Fortresses after that.)
Not saying you couldn't use all the other units if you wanted to, they'd have worked okay... just not as good as M/M/T.
Planetary Fortresses? You're the first person I've met who chose those over the Flame Turrets. Banshees shine on the Nydus final though. Since nothing else can reach the worms as fast as them.
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Isn't the fortress in multiplayer? Chapin's a tryhard tourneyfag, so that would make him gravitate toward it.
I never had luck with banshees against the worms. Too damn fragile, and all the overlords flying around mean they can't cloak their way to the worms. They were great for taking down the boss though. The worms needed to be battlecruisered.
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S3: Should I play as Hugo or Geddoe for my FC?
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Did you do either of them before? Hugo's got a pretty boring storyline as far as I know. I played with him as my FC. I hear Geddoe's FC path shows some more history on the Flame Champion.
iirc all Hugo's did was. Uh. I... don't think there was anything too unique about his PoV, even though he's the canonical FC.
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I've done Chris before and that's it.
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Ohhh. In that case, definitely Geddoe. There's not a LOT of extra story there, but it's more than Hugo has, and Geddoe makes a good flaming champion; the extra point of Fire grade he has makes him a lot easier to twink for it.
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And Hugo is decently effective with TLR?
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And Hugo is decently effective with TLR?
Don't kid yourself, Hugo is the gameplay choice. Not that I don't approve of Geddoe otherwise.
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Well, I meant "does he have a C in it like he does in Water?" more than anything. >_>
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B, I think. Not pathetically incompetent, and Chris with Water is better than Chris with Fire, god knows. The way I tend to play I usually bench the other two regardless, mind you.
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WC3 - Beat the human campaign. HEY LOOK GUYS ARTHAS TURNED EVIL. Yawn.
Undead next! Game is fun even if plot is terrible.
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Isn't the fortress in multiplayer? Chapin's a tryhard tourneyfag, so that would make him gravitate toward it.
I never had luck with banshees against the worms. Too damn fragile, and all the overlords flying around mean they can't cloak their way to the worms. They were great for taking down the boss though. The worms needed to be battlecruisered.
Battlecruisers just seemed way too slow to counter effectively. And I'd rather have their Yamato Cannons charged for a Kerrigan attack.
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HEY LOOK GUYS ARTHAS TURNED EVIL.
Wait, what?
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I know, it's stunning.
That he didn't turn evil like nine stages earlier and waited for the finale.
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HEY LOOK GUYS ARTHAS TURNED EVIL.
Wait, what?
For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king. For my father the king.
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*twitch*
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Frostmourne hungers. You shall know endless torment! Your pain shall be legendary! Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Your pain shall be legendary! Your pain shall be legendary! Your pain shall be legendary! Your pain shall be legendary! You shall know endless torment! For my father the king. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers.
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Why do you people remember Warcraft quotes that aren't "annoyed from overclicking" types?
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Because we played the campaign for over 5 minutes and it engraves it upon your very soul.
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We will be triumphant!
Wait that's Dynasty Warriors. Damn.
For the King.
War2. Dammit!
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I like swords.
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Welcome to Corneria!
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Frostmourne hungers. You shall know endless torment! Your pain shall be legendary! Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Your pain shall be legendary! Your pain shall be legendary! Your pain shall be legendary! Your pain shall be legendary! You shall know endless torment! For my father the king. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers.
No one orders me around. Tread lightly. I shall enjoy watching you suffer. Speak, fool! Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Your pain shall be legendary! You shall know endless torment! I shall enjoy watching you suffer. Your pain shall be legendary! You shall know endless torment! I shall enjoy watching you suffer. Your pain shall be legendary! You shall know endless torment! I shall enjoy watching you suffer. No one orders me around. Tread lightly. I shall enjoy watching you suffer. Speak, fool! Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers. Frostmourne hungers.
Good times~
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Back to Suikoden talk, Hugo does have a C in Lightning. THat said, you can kinda get away with this because the TLR's low level spells are still potent, and the thing is crazy fast. But more importantly, because the other two mains practically leave the party between the FC choice and the final dungeon (during which you don't have any True Runes), it doesn't really matter how good they are with the non-standard runes.
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It's not hard to get him up to B, which is servicable when you consider how stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid good the TLR is.
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Yeah, that's what I meant to get at.
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Shining Force 2- Started this! All the talk of Slade grabbing jewels in the beginning is pretty hot. Also, THE KING HAS BEEN KNOCKED DOWN! I know who the villain of this game is~
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Isn't the fortress in multiplayer? Chapin's a tryhard tourneyfag, so that would make him gravitate toward it.
I never had luck with banshees against the worms. Too damn fragile, and all the overlords flying around mean they can't cloak their way to the worms. They were great for taking down the boss though. The worms needed to be battlecruisered.
Yeah I never used Flame Turrets. I think I got bunker HP instead.
Banshees probably would be better against the nydus worms, especially with the broken energy research, but it wasn't really necessary since the 2 BCs they started me with worked fine. And something about zerging Kerrigan with MM was very rewarding.
AND, Planetary Fortresses fucking blow in online play. The only time I get them is for goofing off. Mules/Scan is too broken to pass up. I suppose maybe against some douche massing lings to patrol the map the PF could see some play... but meh. They rank right up there with Carriers in uselessness.
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Isn't the fortress in multiplayer? Chapin's a tryhard tourneyfag, so that would make him gravitate toward it.
I never had luck with banshees against the worms. Too damn fragile, and all the overlords flying around mean they can't cloak their way to the worms. They were great for taking down the boss though. The worms needed to be battlecruisered.
Yeah I never used Flame Turrets. I think I got bunker HP instead.
Huh?
It's Bunker Turret/Bunker Health
Planetary Fortresses/Flame Turrets.
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Aww whoops. Yeah I went Bunker Health and PF.
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EVAL ARTHAS QUOTES
You know for some reason they bothered me less.
Maybe it was because rar I eat babies was so much more acceptable than I AM A WISHY WASHY PANSY NANCY BOY WHO IS TURNING EVIL SINCE A FEW STAGES IN as far as the game rubbing it in went. In the end, evil Arthas is basically Luca Blight with a much more girly origin and not as stylish. That's not good, but it beats "I WILL DO WHAT MY KING SAYS EVEN IF IT IS RETARDED AND WRONG".
Also, "Your pain shall be legendary!" I actually liked. I don't claim to understand what I like in short VA clips, though.
This all reminds me strongly that I never did beat that expansion. Wonder where the discs are. >_>
Edit:
And now I remember "Illidan is out there somewhere.".
*twitch*
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Am I the only person here who liked the story of Arthas the paladin slowly losing his shit? It's really not cliche either, at least in Blizzard games and similar fantasy stuff characters like Arthas tend to stay squeaky clean.
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Beh, it's basically the plot of the Star Wars' Prequel Trilogy. Maybe it was kind of neat back then but the whole "slow descent to the dark side" thing's kind of old hat at this point.
It also doesn't help that the writing itself is just shit. The dialogue is terribly stilted.
Also: Speak, fool. No one orders ME around. Tread lightly. Frostmourn hungers. Speak, fool. Speak, fool. No one orders ME around. FOR THE LICH KING.
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S3: Did Hugo as the FC because I dunno why. I am stupid. Just beat the army battle with Yuber, Albert, and Sasarai.
Also, a complaint: The unwinnable fight before? Stupid as fuck. I have to either wait ten turns or lose 3 units and I'm just sitting here defending because I thought that was what you are supposed to do but it would just be NOT SLOW AS FUCK IF I JUST DIED. Grah.
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My blood cries out for the vengeance of my people's blood, which can only be made up with at least twice as much blood, or maybe three times as much blood, like if you went to hell, and it was full of blood, and that blood was on fire, and it was raining blood, and maybe that would be enough blood. Eh, but probably not.
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Two games getting priority right now.
Shadow Hearts 2
Going fairly well, managed to reach Asia, and have apparently found where Hojo worked before Shinra hired him. Also found evidence that no matter where he works he's got a thing for, ummm... mixing things with dogs. At least he's not the creepy necrophile. Karin has actually managed to pleasently surprise me recently, after her chat with Yuri. And... Anastasia continues to exist, which is more than most people can claim, Joachim mostly just being a foil for Anastasia at this point, Gepetto just being random old guy who knows stuff, and Blanca generally being either the Littlest Hobo or a jerkass anime main depending on if you get to hear what he's saying or not.
PS. Kurando is a dork.
SRW@ - About 2/5 of the way through the game, currently sauntering through the Dunbine intro pathsplit. So far as I can tell, their Aura Barriers null beam weaponry, which is irritating because this path gets three separate Gundam casts, which are lacking in the non-beam weaponry that can also hit flying types. From the looks of things, I'm about to get the Eva's to permanently join, and then on to SRX and Macross stuff, which should be fun.
Also, only have about 15 Exp points right now, and am doubting that I'll be able to get the real ending on this playthrough. Oh well, will give me an excuse to play the Super Robot version in the future.
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That's not good, but it beats "I WILL DO WHAT MY KING SAYS EVEN IF IT IS RETARDED AND WRONG".
Uther was fucking awful. Fucking AWFUL that way.
Anyway, they've framed up Arthas as pretty much always being a tool, no matter what. Back before he was a completely-obvious evil overlord, he was a nancyboy who would try to fight Varian Wrynn and get his ass kicked.
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As much of a complete and total whiny douche Arthas is he is soooo not a girlier version of Luca blight. Remember Luca's plot is "mummy got raped by badnits and daddy wouldn't do anything about it :( I HATES YOU DADDY AND REALITY!!!!11". For all Arthas douchery he at least has the fall back that he was being telepathically influenced by one of the most powerful beings on the planet and made bad choices in a rock and a hard place scenario in the lead up to his fall. He has you know, plot there instead of PIGS PIGS PIGS BURN HATE STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID STUPID.
BoF 4 - Up to the rescue Cray from the castle and realised I hadn't bought the Treasure Ball, thinking about restarting. Would let me fish at the fishing point I missed as well.
Mana Khemia 2 - This uh honestly this isn't very good, but I am kind of having fun. Ulrika's path. Pepperoni is Snow and only continuing to be more Snow as time passes. Up to Chapter 3. Not sure what I find so not very good though. It executes some of the finer gameplay irritants out of the way with the resource gathering system (O BUT WAIT FUCK THE MINI GAMES. Just like I called it when it came out, I -hate- these things, shock horror that I know my own tastes!) by just pouring alchemy components all over you. If you can get something you probably have like 10 of them at any given time outside of a few random ones that can be store bought (Night-In-Grape being the prime example). I am not sure, I guess it is the way a few to many recipes are locked out early due to some items just not being present. Clearwater being the one that is really bothersome early on. Lots of Ice weak enemies but can't make Ice Bombs, required ingredient for a fair few recipes that would be nice to have. First place it turns up is apparenty Storebought in Chapter 3 if I am reading things correctly. I am sitting on a bit to much AP and haven't really had any chance to make enough stuff to spend it on. Finally have all 5 characters, but don't even have more then 4 or so things on Enna's Grow Book, kind of annoying.
Geting support system earlier is muuuuch better so the gameplay is better than MK1. The plot is just sort of meandering around trying to crack jokes all over the place and they really don't connect at a funny:unfunny ratio. They improved the gameplay, but I am having issues understanding why this had to exist. I guess having no sympathetic characters in a character driven game can do that? Raze' path doesn't look any better though. Wooooo douches being douchey.
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Bayonetta: Oh right, I was playing this. Balder was easy, got gold on the first try with some piss-poor dodging and missing both "dodge!" QTEs because the timing is really narrow. Final chapter, though? Not cool. Huge giant boss enemy with many parts is fine. That worked great with the earlier Angel bosses. That plus a constantly shifting camera angle and attacks that blend into the background? Not so great.
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Girlier *origin story*, Grefter.
For all his faults, he probably manages the ultimate style as well.
(That's also kinda not fair to Luca, he was a bastard son and orphaned because of that until he was convenient to have around, or something like that. Such things make you bitter and kill-y. Arthas, ultimately, could have avoided becoming evil by having fucking balls.)
Am I the only person here who liked the story of Arthas the paladin slowly losing his shit? It's really not cliche either, at least in Blizzard games and similar fantasy stuff characters like Arthas tend to stay squeaky clean.
Frankly it was better than Warcraft 2 plot, sure, but...
Honestly Blizzard does cliche alien plots way better. That's sorta sad, but SC had your snarky generic human heroes, your honorable noble tough aliens and your "Gut everything that gets in our way" aliens and fundamentally I never felt any of the cliches done badly. Then there's Kerrigan, who went from sappy love interest to snarky asshole to *major* snarky asshole as a villian and amused me a ton during BW due to that(Queen bitch of the universe line goes here).
It also had Samir Duran, whose general existence and plot is entirely trolling the player.
Compared to that you have cliche paladin that goes evil and cliche elves that are assholes but are THE LAST HOPE and you have undead killing things with now evil Arthas. Arthas was, relatively, amusing, but in comparison it reminded me of being amused at Edmund Duke being an asshole. *Shrug.*
So it tends to get hit by comparison to that. It tried to be gritty high fantasy type crap instead of amusing jackassery and it wasn't really the writers strengths, was what it felt like.
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(That's also kinda not fair to Luca, he was a bastard son and orphaned because of that until he was convenient to have around, or something like that. Such things make you bitter and kill-y. Arthas, ultimately, could have avoided becoming evil by having fucking balls.)
I don't really know about Warcraft III, but I'm pretty sure Jillia is the bastard child, not Luca. Luca watches his mother get raped by bandits hired by people from Muse and Jillia is the result of that raping. Luca hates his father because he didn't do anything to stop it or something. He ran away instead of helping the mother.
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Well yeah if you are going for backstory then both are princes that trained a lot in fighting for whatever reasons. One trained as a paladin and one trained as a tremendously retarded douchebag. Sooooo uh.
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Yeah, Luca was the legit child. He openly says to Jilia in game "Why are you sad? He's not your real dad anyway!" or something along those lines when Agares (or whatever his name is) dies.
That said...
Resident Evil 5: No, didn't buy the game, just realized there was a demo and figured it'd be enough to say "Should I sink money into this?"
...wow, I can already see the problems relative to RE4. The controls are so unintuitive, for starters. RE4's took some getting use to, but that was more just "New system" type scenario. The buttons themselves made sense once you adjusted to the game, which you could do pretty easily, and getting use to the sensitivity, etc.
RE5, I still couldn't remember which was shoot, which was knife, which was "Action" etc. It lead to a lot of accidental fuck ups that didn't occur in RE4. Also, the inventory change on the spot is annoying; I don't care if it makes things "more intense", if you're gonna have on the fly equipment swapping, do it Mega Man style or something, not "Scroll through inventory while enemies kill you." Also, having "Equip" above "Use" for Healing items is incredibly stupid.
The partner thing just adds complexity that we don't need, leading to "Wait! I wanted that item, I didn't want to use the assist button there!"
...yeah, this convinced me to not spend money on it, glad I tried to the demo first! If someone lends me the game, maybe I'll play, but I can definitely see its worse than RE4. I know, just a demo, but RE4 didn't give me negative vibes when I played that demo; didn't interest me, no, but the demo didn't show off anything particularly WRONG. RE5...does...especially compared to RE4.
That said...
Darksiders:
Narrator: When we last left our hero...
War: ...don't call me that...
Narrator: FINE. When we last left our DICKISH JERK OF A MAIN CHARACTER...who still looks like a saint compared to Kratos...
War: Thank you.
Narrator: He was going to do some gimmick nonsense to release a Gate Guard from his curse.
War: So I have to go to these 4 marked locations on this map while this red hue is covering the screen, and do stuff there?
Watcher: That would appear to be our current goal.
War: I smell cheap means to force out more gameplay, but lets get this over with.
*First room*
Tutorial: WAR CAN KILL ENEMIES WITH AN AERIAL COMBO IN THE SAME EXACT WAY AS GOD OF WAR, BUT HE'LL HANDLE LIKE DEVIL MAY CRY 4'S NERO! KILL 5 ENEMIES IN THE AIR BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT!
Watcher: Oh fun, you get to fight in a cheap rip off of Devil May Cry Secret Missions, aren't you the lucky one?
War: Wait, I can beat the shit out of them as much as I want on the ground, so long as the last hit is in the air?
Tutorial: Uh...I guess?
War: ...*does exactly that, passes*
Tutorial: Stupid loopholes!
Watcher: That looked pretty fun, we should do it again sometime!
War: No.
Watcher: Why not?
War: You're just sitting on the side lines eating your Demonic Popcorn, while I'm doing all the hard work. Anyway, onto the other three, I hope they're...
Tutorial: YOU CAN KILL ENEMIES WITH THE AUTO FUCK YOU BUTTON IF THEY'RE WEAK! STRONGER ENEMIES WHICH IS 90% OF THE OTHER STUFF IN THIS GAME MUST BE STUNNED FIRST! KILL 50 ENEMIES WITH THE FUCK YOU BUTTON BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT!
War: ...so its just like God of War?
Tutorial: No! Its NOTHING like God of War!
War: How so?
Tutorial: ...you don't have to quick time event once the enemy is in "you kill them" now stance...
War: ...well, I guess that's SOMETHING.
*War succeeds*
Watcher: You're getting pretty good at this!
War: All it is was "Press one button at right time".
*next area*
Tutorial: I HAVE NOTHING USEFUL TO SAY! JUST KILL A BUNCH OF GUYS BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT!
War: Ok...and shut up Watcher, you are not to say anything after I succeed.
Watcher: You're not fun.
*next area*
Tutorial: THIS AREA IS COMPLETELY UNORIGINAL! JUST BEAT UP MORE GUYS!
War: *Sigh, he succeeds* Ok, back to the Guardian...
Guardian: I'M FREE!!!!!!!!!! *Walks away*
Watcher: How anticlimactic...
*War travels onward through a destroyed highway and city and such, some Vulgrim talking may or may not have been applied here*
War: Man, this high ways sucks; nothing but generic weaklings and...
*Large demons appears out of nowhere from opposite side of highway, throws a car at War*
War: ...oh you have GOD to be kidding me.
Large Demon: BLAAARGH!!!!
War: A miniboss, how predictable...
*War wins, proceeds onward*
War: Hmm...there is vile self-righteous pricks afoot...
Watcher: What do you mean?
*War points up to a bunch of angels flying around*
Uriel: Ok, HELL GUARD, have you found anything?
Angel Guy #1: Bunch of demon!
Uriel: ...ok, have you found anything USEFUL, like how we can get to the destroyer?
Angel Guy #2: Umm...not really...say, how many of us are still alive anyway?
Uriel: As many as the plot requires. Anyway...wait, I smell something...not of the WHITE CITY or the BLACK DEPTHS...
Angel Guy #1: Its clearly one of the Horsemen, I mean DUH.
Uriel: NO! It can't be that...BUT WE WILL FIND IT ANYWAY!
War: FUCK! They're onto me! Better do something big and actiony to get away...
Watcher: Wouldn't stealth be a better idea?
War: Pfft, stealth is for pussies! I'm FUCKING WAR!
*War proceeds to jump through a window, tackling an Angel flying on an Angelic Griffon, throws said Angel off the Griffon, uses the Griffon as a new mount*
War: HA! Now I can FLY to Tiamat's lair! I don't know how to fly this thing, so we'll just let this be a stupid gameplay gimmick section akin to that Pegasus Mode in God of War 2 spliced with Devil May Cry 1's Shooter section! ...wait, did I just say...FUCK!!!
*cue boring ass gimmick section that's exactly as mentioned above, lots of Angels and Demons die*
War: God damn, is this thing over ye-...
*Tiamat tackles War and the Griffon, knocking him to the ground, conveniently just in front of the dungeon where she is*
Watcher: AH! I see Tiamat isn't being very welcoming of visitors today, I see...
War: Do you...exist to do anything but have snide sarcasm and random "Over here" statements?
Watcher: Would you prefer a little blue fairy that reprimands you if you take 5 seconds to do a 6 second job?
War: ...right, on with the sarcasm!
Watcher: Oh, right, anytime THIS symbol appears, you can call me for random assistance.
War: Do I ever have to listen your advice?
Watcher: Technically...no...
War: Good, now to the dungeon!
*in the dungeon, War finds a COOL CRYSTAL SWORD*
War: New weapon already? And there's no strings attached? Cool! And it shines, so clearly it must be awesome!
Tutorial: THIS SWORD MUST BE GIVEN TO RANDOM STATUES TO OPEN UP DOORS! WAR WILL WIELD IT BEFORE THEN! NO IT IS IDENTICAL TO HIS CHAOSEATER BEFORE THEN SO THIS IS LITERALLY JUST A GLORIFIED KEY!
War: ...god damn it...
*War does that, nothing interesting proceeds to happen afterwords*
War: OH COME ON, this is the first real dungeon in the game, SOMETHING interesting should happen...
Tutorial: BOMB ROCKS CAN BE THROWN AT LARGE OTHER ROCKS AND EXPLODE! JUST DON'T HOLD ONTO THEM FOR TOO LONG!
War: ...I guess that's something...though, this almost feels like I've seen it somewhere else...
Watcher: *coughORCARINAOFTIMEBOMBFLOWERScough*
War: You say something?
Watcher: As a matter of fact I did, but you probably don't care.
War: You're learning! Oh look, another one of those Crystal Sword Key thi-...
*Large plant devours War, Quick TIme Event related escape*
War: What the fuck was that? Seriously...I can't even classify what the hell just happened...
Watcher: Oh just blow it up...
War: Hey, that's a great idea!
*Bomb Rocks it, grabs Sword*
War: You know, this dungeon feels like its missing something...but I can't put my finger on-...
*Block Pushing Puzzle appears, if a short one*
War: ...why, Council, WHY do you allow such things to exist?
*War grabs a Map*
Watcher: Now all you need is the compass, boss room door key, a new inventory item, and green tights, and you're set to save the world.
War: Good thing my goal is merely to RESTORE THE BALANCE, that's totally different, right?
Watcher: Only if you want it to be.
War: Speaking of treasure...
*Insert Legend of Zelda "You got an item" here, the dramatic variant*
Tutorial: YOU GOT THE CROSS SHURIKEN BLADED THING! THIS IS TOTALLY NOT A BOOMERANG RIP OFF CAUSE YOU CAN CHARGE IT UP AND HIT 5 ENEMIES WITH IT!
War: HA! Ranged combat, here I come!
*Rest of the dungeon is uneventful, if still lengthy, some of the rooms involve Tiamat fighting that Griffon for NO DISCERN-ABLE REASON, with one exception*
War: Big open room with no puzzles, a full healing chest to the left, this seems almost suspicious.
*Mega Man Boss intro: THE JAILER*
War: ...oh great...a large hulking bruiser who spawns weak minions that has clear weak points I'm suppose to use my bladed weapon to exploit. Well, better make the best of this!
*Gameplay segment over, including the "Press B to finish boss" factor, little guy pops out of the Jailer, looks around for War, who just pulls a Snake Neck Crack on him...and by neck crack, I mean "rips guys torso off"*
Watcher: Lets just skip to the boss right, shall we?
War: Works for me!
*Boss fight*
Tiamat: HORSEMAN! What are you doing here!? I didn't know the council was TAKING SIDES! Or did Samael buy your services!? In which case...perhaps we could strike a deal!
War: (I need to think of a bad ass way to say no...come on, think of one...THINK...I GOT IT!) YOU WOULDN'T LIKE MY TERMS! (Man that was awesome!)
Tiamat: ...YOU WILL DIE HORSEMAN! *screeches in annoying fashion* YOU REGRET NOT ACCEPTING MY OFFER!
*Cue boss fight involving Bomb Rock, Cross Boomerang, elementalizing Cross Boomerang, lots of fireballs, a Quick Time Event attack related defense, involving either War getting fried, or him falcon punching Tiamat away, and explosions*
Tiamat: NO! How could I be defeated!? I AM ONE OF THE CHOSEN!
War: Yeah, whatever, NOW TO KI-...
Watcher: NO! Rip her heart out while she still lives! IT MUST BE BEATING!
War: ...oh, right. *Rips out Tiamat's heart*
Watcher: Oh wow, that thing is coursing with power, no wonder Samael wanted it!
War: Why don't I just keep it and use it for my own?
Watcher: Cause that'd be too logical for plot progression. Anyway, back to the gameplay!
*War gets a Health upgrade from beating the boss!*
War: While I appreciate the upgrade, is there anything we WON'T rip off?
Watcher: Just jump in the teleportation portal and head back outside
*outside*
Vulgrim: WELCOME STRANGER!
War: Oh, its you...
Vulgrim: Ah, Stranger, you seem to be in a pickle. Without your feathered friend, stranger, you cannot escape.
War: And?
Vulgrim: Show me that heart, stranger, and I'll give you a bargain to go anywhere you've already been UNDERGROUND.
War: Cheap teleportation mechanics for easy world traveling, just for showing you a heart? Ok.
*Shows Vulgrim heart for one second, puts it away*
Vulgrim: Eheheheh, come back ANYTIME!
Narrator: THIS EPISODE IS DONE! STAY TUNED FOR NEXT EPISODE: Watch Us Rip off Games Even More!
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Well yeah if you are going for backstory then both are princes that trained a lot in fighting for whatever reasons. One trained as a paladin and one trained as a tremendously retarded douchebag. Sooooo uh.
Also one of them killed his father for power, the other because he liked the orphaned kid they took in as much (not more) than him.
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Honestly Blizzard does cliche alien plots way better. That's sorta sad, but SC had your snarky generic human heroes, your honorable noble tough aliens and your "Gut everything that gets in our way" aliens and fundamentally I never felt any of the cliches done badly. Then there's Kerrigan, who went from sappy love interest to snarky asshole to *major* snarky asshole as a villian and amused me a ton during BW due to that(Queen bitch of the universe line goes here).
It also had Samir Duran, whose general existence and plot is entirely trolling the player.
Compared to that you have cliche paladin that goes evil and cliche elves that are assholes but are THE LAST HOPE and you have undead killing things with now evil Arthas. Arthas was, relatively, amusing, but in comparison it reminded me of being amused at Edmund Duke being an asshole. *Shrug.*
So it tends to get hit by comparison to that. It tried to be gritty high fantasy type crap instead of amusing jackassery and it wasn't really the writers strengths, was what it felt like.
I'd also suggest that Blizzard is better at writing villains than heroes, and Starcraft has more bad guys. Every Terrain faction in Starcraft consisted of a bunch of assholes except for Raynor, the Zerg speak for themselves, and the EldarProtoss are run by a council of jerks until the Zerg take over half of Aiur and they grudgingly agree to finally support Tassadar's plans. Brood Wars, which has better plot than the original Starcraft IMO, consists mostly of four different villain factions (Kerrigan, Mengsk, the UED, the new Zerg Overmind) slugging it out with Kerrigan manipulating the Protoss and Raynor/Fenix to accomplish her objectives.
Warcraft III, by contrast, has three factions (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves) that are supposed to be good guys, so you have to watch a supposed hero(ine) like Tyrande act xenophobic towards the Alliance and Horde for half a campaign instead of unrepentent assholes like Mengsk or Kerrigan who at least have some charisma/personality while backstabbing their way to the top.
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SC2 definitely goes back to more good guys though.
Mengsk and Kerrigan are still asshats 95%of the time, but most of the supporting cast is now likeable people and a lot of them see a lot of screen time. (I'd go into this more, but can't without spoilers.)
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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.
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XF 3-person playthrough complete.
5-4 (final boss) (2 resets)
Not as bad as I'd feared, but certainly one of the hardest battles in the challenge. Both resets stemmed from a failure to get control of the battle, which is to be expected, I suppose. In the first, I let Shut Out lapse when the boss had around 4000 HP, she escaped, washed herself of all her stat downs, and came back and destroyed me together with her cronies despite my attempts to control her again. In the second, I got the boss down to second phase but then got overwhelmed by her support. Both problems were easy enough to solve.
Final party was:
Clarissa (Emulator): Had a large level lead on Levin, and 20% elemental resistance is cool. Had Devastate for crowd clearing, Sacred Slayer to use her deep MP reserves to give others turns (as well as Heal/Fragil), and Debilitator because someone had to. Widespread, IFF, Enigmancer EQ for notable supports.
Elayne (Elementalist): Did most of the damage, twinked for every bit she could get more or less. Devastate was the attack of choice for this, though she also had Sacred Slayer OC for all the same reasons as Clarissa. Support skills were most of the Emulator stuff (Action Replay, Conserve MP, Exploit Weakness) as well as IFF and Accelerate.
Vin (Geomancer): Odd choice given she hadn't spent much time there, but Shut Out and the armour are both godsends here, so it was actually a fairly easy one. Nice MP stat for a physical class never hurts. Also had Strider and Fantastica OCs (for obvious reasons), as well as Atk+25%, Aim+25%, Secutor EQ, Accelerate, and Attack & Heal HP (the last was basically filler, but it did actually see some use. Maybe).
Anyway, the basic strategy in a nutshell, is:
(a) Contain the boss with the three main stat downs as well as Shut Out (or she may teleport away and return with the benefit of her HP-boosted speed), and start depleting her HP. Do it quickly so as to prevent being swarmed by the randoms, who start chasing you after a few turns.
(b) When the boss puts up her shield, ignore her and go hunting the demon servants. Rush'd Devastate for all. A couple of the demons get trapped behind the firey chasms on the battlefield, which is great, since they can be ignored. I don't feel like fighting another wave of reinforcements; it's unlikely I have the resources for that.
(c) Break the boss' shield and continue the same strategy as (a). As her HP drops her speed rises and she gets more and more turns (by the end she's quite fast even under both stat downs) but with Debilitator her attacks are only 3-4HKOish, with maybe a 2HKO on Elayne if she goes for elementals. So it's easy enough to stay on top of healing since she has nothing instantly fatal like most other bosses.
Straightforward enough, I think. There isn't really much to add that can't be inferred from the setups themselves or the general notes. The demons themseleves are actually quite scary, probably because they actually swarm you instead of being easily picked off one at a time (or circumventable entirely) like in every other battle they exist. Hard Smash hurts a lot, especially after Fragile, and the elementals can smack the generics very hard and are quite competent in general. Mesmerise deals with the physicals, though, and Rush Devastate takes several out in a short period of time.
Fun fact: The final boss is immune to Replace. I actually had some plans surrounding this to lure her further away from her support but they didn't pan out.
Anyway, done! A few levels higher than normal due to only using 3 PCs (66 Elayne to 62 Clarissa, plus Levin who was in the mid-high 50's), and much faster than my normal playthroughs, at around 40 hours. Nice to know that figure can be brought down, though I did skip a fair number of scenes and ignored randoms and searching entirely of course.
Rough breakdown of class usefulness on this playthrough. Similar enough to normal but having three people does shift things around a bit:
Broken: Emulator
Far and away the most useful class from mid Chapter 3 on. Very, very little doesn't have an elemental weakness (hi, range 6 Exploit Weakness means 1.5x damage 300+ power = death for all), electric weakness, or status weakness (including most bosses), and to top it off it has game-best MP by far (hello, Turn Shift) and Action Replay. Oh, and 4 move/3 climb and one of the highest HP scores in the game because its innate skills didn't make it a good enough carrier. Allowed me to keep up with the crap the game throws at you late and come out with only 7 resets total in the second half of the game. And this is without random battles to beeline to all its skills ASAP.
Excellent: Elementalist, Sacred Slayer, Enigmancer
I should rant about this later, but magic has a clear leg-up on physicals in an efficient XF playthrough (not being a slave to the hit stat is the main reason, but more range and more available multitarget are also important). Elementalist provides the two pieces of firepower needed to power magic classes, while Enigmancer provides a good carrier, a great support skill, and a nice skillset (Devastate and Dispel alone are amazing). Sacred Slayer provides what is probably the best L7 skill in the game, and a broken OC.
Good: Fantastica, Secutor, Strider
Secutor is the physical answer to Elementalist, but the EQ comes later and the OC isn't as good, along with the inherent weakness of the physical side of things. On the other hand, shields are badass. Fantastica is all about the OC but the OC is that damn good so it has to make it this high on the list. Strider also provides a terrific OC (every skill in it except Trail saw significant use) and is an important part of physical twinking due to its Aim boost.
Decent: Extremist, Gadgeteer
Extremist has evade twinking which is good, but Mesmerise provides a more proactive approach. It also has Debilitator for bosses and some situational awesome otherwise. Gadgeteer has a more resource-intensive Heal, but it is more versatile at least, although nothing in its toolbox makes up for Turn Shift.
Situational use: Grappler, Berserker, Sentinel, Geomancer, Nightstalker
Grappler provides Accelerate which is a fairly nice boost to your turn count for little investment, and the OC has some interesting repositioning uses, although it's not a powerful class otherwise. Berserker is the go-to class for mobility, has Quick Step as a cool buff, and high stats in general although was rarely a main choice for me due to my magey party. Sentinel is the early 300-power physical move and maintains use later because it hits things into pits, plus it has the heaviest armour for Drop Kick (too bad the EQ skill is so hard to get) and Forcefield is situationally cool. Geomancer has an awesome EQ for dealing with elements, and an OC which is situationally great and needs to be ignored otherwise. Nightstalker is useful in those rare battles where getting turns quickly at the battle's start is really important (i.e. the tormenta triad) but doesn't have anything else to recommend it in a small, resource-conscious party.
Least used: High Cavalier, Excavator
Although I had a few people pick up High Cavalier's OC, I never actually made meaningful use of it. It deserves to be much higher in normal playthroughs but the entire skillset suffers in a big way when resources get twice as tight. At least the terrific HP helped visibly in one battle. Excavator has mobility which is cool on paper but rarely worth the tradeoff in offensive and defensive stats, and mostly obsoleted by Berserker/Geomancer anyway, and the rest of the skills are garbage outside the too-situational Switch.
Whew. Not sure what I'll do with the game next time I pick it up.
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L4D2- New mutation: Infinite machine gun mode!
4/5 expert clears on that note. Just need Dark Carnival.
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Warcraft III, by contrast, has three factions (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves) that are supposed to be good guys, so you have to watch a supposed hero(ine) like Tyrande act xenophobic towards the Alliance and Horde for half a campaign instead of unrepentent assholes like Mengsk or Kerrigan who at least have some charisma/personality while backstabbing their way to the top.
I was never really under the impression that the Sentinel Army was supposed to be heroic. Furion and his druids? Yes. Tyrande and them? No.
Anyway, I'm playing SC2 because I heard the campaign was fun and I figure that if I give it a month, people will start coming out with those adventure-y type maps with all the triggers. I never did manage to track down that goddamn epic SC1 map based on Dune again.
Anyway, the mission where you take a giant robot covered in guns and rampage through a city destroying everything in your path? I will not lie, I achieved full sexual arousal.
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Warcraft III, by contrast, has three factions (Humans, Orcs, Night Elves) that are supposed to be good guys, so you have to watch a supposed hero(ine) like Tyrande act xenophobic towards the Alliance and Horde for half a campaign instead of unrepentent assholes like Mengsk or Kerrigan who at least have some charisma/personality while backstabbing their way to the top.
I was never really under the impression that the Sentinel Army was supposed to be heroic. Furion and his druids? Yes. Tyrande and them? No.
Anyway, I'm playing SC2 because I heard the campaign was fun and I figure that if I give it a month, people will start coming out with those adventure-y type maps with all the triggers. I never did manage to track down that goddamn epic SC1 map based on Dune again.
Anyway, the mission where you take a giant robot covered in guns and rampage through a city destroying everything in your path? I will not lie, I achieved full sexual arousal.
Better hope Blizzard lifts that stupid "top 50 maps" or whatever shite then.
Ragnarök and Roll!
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Blizzard is also taking down maps that use "trademarked" products.
If they hold true to this... 90% of non Dota WC3 customs would not exist.
People enjoy bitching about B-Net 2.0... I fail to see how most of the features are a problem, but the custom map issue does suck. There are two sides to this.
Point: Customs are a "bonus" to the game so Blizzard can do what they want.
Counterpoint: These custom maps are NORMAL PEOPLE FOR NO PAY creating incentive for people like Rob to log onto Battlenet... thus helping Blizzard. Why Blizzard would stifle these people is silly. (I mean fuck, think how many people still play WC3 just for Dota.)
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Bayonetta: Beat normal. Final boss is still a festival of bad design, including the part where there's an instant-death vortex sucking you in and the only wya to figure out where Bayonetta is relative to it is to estimate where the center of the screen is, because the camera decides focusing on the vortex is more important than showing you the player character. Genius.
Luckily, the ending makes everything better. INFINITON PAUNCH.
Started hard mode, it is hard. Torture attack trial...against Gold Grace & Glory? Dick move, game.
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Blizzard is also taking down maps that use "trademarked" products.
If they hold true to this... 90% of non Dota WC3 customs would not exist.
People enjoy bitching about B-Net 2.0... I fail to see how most of the features are a problem, but the custom map issue does suck. There are two sides to this.
Point: Customs are a "bonus" to the game so Blizzard can do what they want.
Counterpoint: These custom maps are NORMAL PEOPLE FOR NO PAY creating incentive for people like Rob to log onto Battlenet... thus helping Blizzard. Why Blizzard would stifle these people is silly. (I mean fuck, think how many people still play WC3 just for Dota.)
Adding to that, if it weren't for Footmen Frenzy, to this day I still would not give a shit about RTS games. And now I'm sitting here playing WC3 and enjoying it.
So, yeah. Custom maps. Stop being stupid about them, Blizzard.
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Kudos to NEB for completing the XF challenge. That sounded fun and I enjoyed reading it.
DQ9: Beat the maingame. The final dungeon was crushed beneath the heel of my team. The three midbosses averaged a two-turn lifespan. Party was Troubadour (Fans/litheness)/Fighter(Swords)/Mage(Spellcraft/Paladin skill!!)/Cleric(Spears/Cleric skill). Strategy was a simple use of Egg on and Psyche up with the fighter to get up to 50 tension and Oomph/Sap to unleash devastation in the form of a Falcon Blade Falcon Slash every two turns. Quite reliable boss offense. Randoms were kinda durable because only the mage and fighter had decent offense.
Plot is Dragon Quest plot. Which is to say at points it is interesting (Marion) but not explored very well. Not having ANY regular chars other than Stella made for a more boring adventure in that regard though. The punnery was amusing but didn't make up for the lack of a story with actual characters to frame it. The NPCs could be neat but appeared and disappeared with one use.
Gameplay comments on classes and stuff:
Troubadour: I kept her fast and made use of Egg On regularly. Healing is useful in this game because you don't get MT healing until right at the very end. Had Zing and Midheal. I took her down the Fans route and was sorely disappointed. It was a very weak path with few if any decent skills. Breath reflecting would be nice if more enemies used them like in DQ4 or 5.
Fighter: RAR PHYSICALS. Gave her Psyche Up by spending a few minutes in Martial Artist but other than that was a pure fighter. Swords and the fighter unique skill tree. Didn't get much use out of Gigaslash because Falcon Blade Falcon Slash seemed to be more reliable offense for bosses. Always going last sucked, but hey. Swords are a good weapon type as they do nice damage and have the Falcon Blade/Slash combo, which is badass with Oomph.
Mage: Was just a source of MT offense and using Accelerate for bosses. I stored skillpoints because I didn't feel like going down Wands much, and had enough where I moved her around between classes for a while and got 100 SP. Then I dumped it into the paladin skillset to turn her from a horribly frail creature into the most durable member of the party (or about tied with the Fighter). In boss battles for most of the game I had her use Accelerate/Sap along with items and maaayyybe some offense magic if the boss had a clear weakness.
Cleric: Healing. Battery. I also gave her Spears, which made her the de-facto metal slime killer when she got Thunder Thrust (the auto crit move). She was of course invaluable both for dungeon spelunking and fighting bosses. ODDLY ENOUGH although I kept on pining for Multiheal throughout the game, I only got it like right in the middle of the final dungeon, and I used it maybe once because none of the bosses threatened me with MT damage at that point. It's kind of strange, but outside of Zing I think I could have been better off for most of the game by synthing Special Medicines (they are cheap and heal as much as Midheal)... Well, don't argue with the healer anyway. I'd have liked Kabuff or Kazing on her. And Multiheal I'm sure is useful against aftergame stuff.
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DQ9: Best Buy event was pretty weak, only got 4 new tags that I didn't have from the week before. Which means I'm going to have to play the beginning of the game 11 more times (on my second copy) to get up to 30 guests on my main file. Fuck you Japan. Did get a different t-shirt though! And Estark's map. He seems a bit tamer than Zoma - more MT, but no ridiculous physicals.
As for fans, they are rather weak in the maingame. The breath reflecting comes into play more with the Legacy bosses. Several fans also have nice added abilities. Attribeauty has metal-cutting property, so that + Fandango = dead Liquid Metal Slime. And the Critical series of fans increase Coup de Grace odds.
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Blizzard is also taking down maps that use "trademarked" products.
If they hold true to this... 90% of non Dota WC3 customs would not exist.
People enjoy bitching about B-Net 2.0... I fail to see how most of the features are a problem, but the custom map issue does suck. There are two sides to this.
Point: Customs are a "bonus" to the game so Blizzard can do what they want.
Counterpoint: These custom maps are NORMAL PEOPLE FOR NO PAY creating incentive for people like Rob to log onto Battlenet... thus helping Blizzard. Why Blizzard would stifle these people is silly. (I mean fuck, think how many people still play WC3 just for Dota.)
Adding to that, if it weren't for Footmen Frenzy, to this day I still would not give a shit about RTS games. And now I'm sitting here playing WC3 and enjoying it.
So, yeah. Custom maps. Stop being stupid about them, Blizzard.
I honestly don't enjoy the normal mode of Blizzard RTS play... damn near at all. I like gimmick maps, which their engine is great for and go sadly underutilized, but as far as "build a base, build an army, smash other dudes," I don't understand why anyone would play their shit over TA/SupCom.
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Bayonetta hard: Doing okay! Got gold/gold/silver on the first three levels, most of the way through the fourth. Cleared most of the Alfheims so far, except for the one that gives you limited kicks and punches against two Beloveds, because seriously, screw that.
So far it's definitely challenging but balanced. Good stuff, really forces you to dodge properly and attack with strategy. Oddly, the first verse of chapter 3 (the level of fire) got easier, because it has no flaming enemies. Weird choice.
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SH2 - Plot continues rolling along. Just dealt with Ishimura, and Roger Bacon redeems his earlier appearances. About to crash his place again for some fun.
Current party is Anastasia, Kurando, Yuri and Karin. Karin getting in for the 18 hit move of doom, and Anastasia for the general magical support. The other two should need no explaination as their stats are just insane.
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FF 13- Yeah, up to the open range part. Hmm, not sure how much I'll actually want to do though. Gorgeous areas, but the lingering spirit of FF 12 haunts it for sure! I'll at least look into the first couple of hunts, but seems like they'll involve lots and lots of running around, which is eh. Part of the motivation is that it seems that CSP is now definitely going to really ramp up cost wise.
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Current party is Anastasia, Kurando, Yuri and Karin. Karin getting in for the 18 hit move of doom, and Anastasia for the general magical support. The other two should need no explaination as their stats are just insane.
That's also the party that, after all the side-quest upgrades, has the highest hit count of any team combination in the game. Go go For the Children/Geuschbenst/Power Cannon/Heavenquake!?
Blazblue CS: I've been practice as Makoto. I'm not very good.
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Blazblue CS: I've been practice as Makoto. I'm not very good.
Just curious, since you bought it: what's your opinion on DLC for the game being released one week after the game was? It's causing quite a shitstorm on shoryuken.com.
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Did anybody not think it was coming? After they (a) released those characters as DLC-only in Japan and (b) didn't put them on the disc for the US version, it didn't take a rocket scientist to see how it was going to go. Why not just get it over with?
Edit: Also, in my rather arrogant opinion, releasing DLC a week after the game is unobjectionable. Charging an extra 24 freaking dollars to unlock all the new characters, now, that's bullshit.
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Just curious, since you bought it: what's your opinion on DLC for the game being released one week after the game was? It's causing quite a shitstorm on shoryuken.com.
Truth be told, I'm just annoyed that it took so long. I'd been hoping it'd be available the day the game came out, myself; that's also me not knowing when the PSN store upkeep time was handled, though.
If other people want to freak out about it, that's their problem. I just want to have fun.
I know it may just be me, but I honestly don't care about the extra cost, even if it is somewhat high. If I want it and it's available to me, I find a way to obtain it, and if I don't want it, I don't get it, right? It's just the way the economic world works.
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FF 13- Yeah, up to the open range part. Hmm, not sure how much I'll actually want to do though. Gorgeous areas, but the lingering spirit of FF 12 haunts it for sure! I'll at least look into the first couple of hunts, but seems like they'll involve lots and lots of running around, which is eh. Part of the motivation is that it seems that CSP is now definitely going to really ramp up cost wise.
Some of the hunts unlock teleports, which help reduce the amount of running around. You also unlock chocobos after a few hunts, which help as well.
I know it may just be me, but I honestly don't care about the extra cost, even if it is somewhat high. If I want it and it's available to me, I find a way to obtain it, and if I don't want it, I don't get it, right? It's just the way the economic world works.
And thinking like this is why businesses can keep getting away with robbing people of their money.
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BlazBlue: Continuum Shift - Got this. Did Ragna's story and Rachel's story. Tried some challenges but they were stupidly hard so screw that. Played a few online matches and got a decent win record on those I guess. Single player stuff is boring as usual though.
Starcraft II - Did a couple of campaign missions, got bored. Probably will have to move through this slowly.
Arc Rise Fantasia - Did a bunch of the guild quests. They're pretty boring and the rewards kind of suck but it let me level up my weapons a bit I guess. Also later quests need earlier ones to unlock anyway... Also, Cecille Falcon PAUNCHes things to death. 10/10
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I know it may just be me, but I honestly don't care about the extra cost, even if it is somewhat high. If I want it and it's available to me, I find a way to obtain it, and if I don't want it, I don't get it, right? It's just the way the economic world works.
And thinking like this is why businesses can keep getting away with robbing people of their money.
And the fact that only a few of your most dedicated fans feel like that is why it's an inferior way of handling things. See: PS3.
Final Fantasy 6 Eviltype:
1.1b9. AKA up to the scenario split. I should work on this a bit more so I can get the full thing released.
Pretty happy with the new steal list, Sketch seems to be working pretty well too based on the Moogle that can do it. Otherwise can't comment much on my own changes yet. >_>
Namco X Capcom:
Finished the first two stages.
The translation that's out there is rough(rarely drops out of the bottom boundary of text boxes and clearly could have used more proofing), but all in all it's servicable.
Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>
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Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>
NxC is -the- unbalance singularity if there's ever been one. It makes SH1 look perfectly balanced as a cast.
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Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>
NxC is -the- unbalance singularity if there's ever been one. It makes SH1 look perfectly balanced as a cast.
Well, it's not AHAHA NOT THOUGHT THROUGH kind of unbalance, at least, so far. It's more like underplaytested combined with so many weird ideas that they had a hard time figuring out how much they were worth.
Shion/MOMO for instance is below average but has a fair deal of range, which seems like they meant that to be their focus...but were afraid it would be too useful due to AP consumption on move, so they didn't give it a triangle move on long range. Ultimately this just makes it kinda poor.
Klonoa/Gantz?(Forget the other guy's name) on the other hand was about range, mobility, some weird things, etc, and designed to be useful when it used an omnistat buff that it starts with..in actual fact said buff just makes it average. Which isn't too bad right now but I'd imagine you know other buffs exist on other people.
Of course some of the unbalance is clearly on purpose(Gilgamesh is already getting plot hype so Gil/Kai being bad would be a surprise, and Monolith is a bunch of KOS-MOS fangirls), but.
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Gil and Ki are actually below average by the time they join permanently.
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Gameplay-wise this game is unbalanced. I don't know how else to put it and I don't think I've been playing long enough to say much more, but. >_>
NxC is -the- unbalance singularity if there's ever been one. It makes SH1 look perfectly balanced as a cast.
Well, it's not AHAHA NOT THOUGHT THROUGH kind of unbalance, at least, so far. It's more like underplaytested combined with so many weird ideas that they had a hard time figuring out how much they were worth.
Shion/MOMO for instance is below average but has a fair deal of range, which seems like they meant that to be their focus...but were afraid it would be too useful due to AP consumption on move, so they didn't give it a triangle move on long range. Ultimately this just makes it kinda poor.
AP on movement matters? You just have things hit you if AP is an issue, and the game is unbalanced enough to let you heal before you get attacked. There's a fair deal of "ahahahahaha not thought through". Shion/MOMO do become notably better, though.
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I didn't say they managed this well. They thought about it, they just didn't playtest it and didn't understand their own beast well enough.
Kinda surprised about Gil/Ki, they look like they have some decent later skills. Must be a stat problem. Or possibly just their epic comboability.
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Epic comboability. Gil/Ki become all about the tanking, which at least they do well.
EDIT: Speaking of which, epic comboability kills a lot of units. One of the biggest offenders is Hiromi/Tobi, who have absolutely insane mobility, good range -and- an insane attack stat - yet fail hardcore at offense because stringing together their attacks is an exercise in futility, and their sole branch abusing method is one of the fucking hardest in the whole game. Good luck stringing air combos with them at all.
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Y's vs. ED6- This is indeed a fan disk of hell. The actual game content is really not much. 70% of the game are illustration and music collections. Not that I object, consider a lot of those I don't have. Oh and god, is Lowe broken when you actually get to use him.
BB CS- Mu 12 is so hard to pro, the micromanaging she requires is kinda bullshitty in a FTG. But then, are those Ame no Habakiri stupidly powerful and good at evade hunt.
Kinda surprised about Gil/Ki, they look like they have some decent later skills. Must be a stat problem. Or possibly just their epic comboability.
The power balance in NxC is pretty clear cut. There is those who can do three loops or more and those don't. Gil/Ki can't, so they go down. At least they don't suck on other utility purposes, and passable as a front liner.
Though, I honestly don't find Klonoa/Gants to be that bad, seems to be an effective long range chipper and death kill stealer.
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Well, NxC is so goddamn easy (enemies utterly fail at damage and durability) that you shouldn't struggle to keep your -entire army- somewhat up to speed, and everybody to some extent is able to enjoy the ridiculous brokenness of the base systems. Even complete shit like Taizo and Hiromi/Toby are usable due to that.
EDIT: Also, some people get away with not being able to get extra branches every two or three hits. Notably, Demitri and Reiji/Xiaomu pull this off, as does Strider.
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But I doubt anyone would bother with Mitsurugi.
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That's because Mitsurugi isn't one of the people who get away with it. Also, thanks for reminding me of how badly he fails. Yay attack stat! Coupled with horrible mults, failure comboability and suckass durability and spells!
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Goddamned Teletori Spy
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Goddamned Teletori Spy
Teletori spy record against me:
One win. Stabbing me in the ass from gear to metal when I wasn't being proactive against spies enough, because I do that only after I get nailed.
One loss as he ate shotgun to the ass.
One tie as we both blew up.
One derp as he sapped my Sentry then missed the teleporter visible from that spot approximately twenty feet away.
I think he's about par.
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Lost Odyssey- Up to Gohtza. Hmm, guess the best way to describe this game really is mixed bag. Interesting combination of very cool and very lulzy. I generally like what they do with the dungeons, where even filler dungeons feel a little quirky and like they put some interesting work into them...just their interestingness usually comes with a slight side of annoyance (Navigating the Tower based on stealing items with your shit steal command? Interesting idea, annoying in theory). Annoyingness kept in check by generally very low random rate. They did feel skilled at making locations feel interesting and worth exploring, which is definitely very cool.
Battle system still works well within the construct they built; Random snow lizard boss wasn't as nasty as some of the earlier bosses (which were worth expletives at the game designers, so this is actually a good thing), but seeing him at one point doing 1.5x Cooke's HP was pretty nasty (...Even if that usually comes out to mid 2HKO damage). So battles overall are slight kind of cool, but held back by the game's innate clunkiness.
Characters are generally still all over the place. Jensen is dead-on OK. Ming may be a 1000 year old virgin wearing 2 visible thongs. The little boy is...well, okay, he feels like a random annoying boy. The game's humor is still the lulzy part. And yet, despite the horror that is the cast, it's buoyed by the innate sense of cheese...and that I was just playing FF 13 which had two out of the sky roundtable "We can do it" scenes that both had one person being randomly emo!
WA:XF- Just beat the mission near the end of the C1 (Defend the town). Worth noting only because of now many times I lost this battle the first time through. Considering if I'm going to swap in Ragnar, and if so, what I'm going to do with him (Maybe use him as a Gadgeteer hybrid and replace the one I'm using now. Did dump Felius and Labby early, although Felius' definitely got subbed in certain battles when I realized I found that the class builds I had for certain battles weren't working well enough).
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FFTA2: Finally got through a bottleneck I was stuck in. For something like 20 hours I couldn't pass "All Good Things...", one of the Witch of the Fens quests, because it needs a unit of Malboro Wine and nothing would drop one. Yesterday I'm at the point where the only quests that will even show up are Nu Mou of the Rupies, the Goug Watch missions, and running errands for the chocobo rancher (I only figured out how to capture chocobos on Thursday), and a random battle FINALLY gives me that damned wine. Suddenly three different quest chains open up. Yeesh.
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Bioshock 2: Played through the Protector Trials - basically extended ADAM gathering with fixed weapons and plasmids. Out of the first 18 trials, only one was really a "gimmick" one - basically you get lots of elemental plasmid powers, but no money or weapons. After clearing them, you unlock the final trials for each area, where you get all the weapons and all the plasmids you can get. At that point, the remaining gathers became (for me at least) "Summon security bot, summon *spoilers*, stand in water, win".
Borderlands: Beat Crawmerax. Stupid only getting hurt in weak spots.
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Ragnar's good for Hyper and for hitting those things (Deathstalkers?)~
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Onto Koenigsdorf today prior to putting furniture on lay-a-way.
Decided to do my base battles clockwise. Was originally going to tackle them in ascending numerical order, but do to the auguries of Pyro and Richard, I felt like being a bad bitch and taking on the most difficult base second.
Base 6 - Not particularly difficult at all. Just plenty of times where troops would reinforce - the battle took perhaps. . . 30-40 minutes total. Worse aspects about Base 6's troops were the mage troops. Now, I'm not that much of a bad bitch - poison bombs are my weakness and generally do fuck up troops for at least two rounds unless they dodge (which they didn't). So. I proceeded to kill all the mages first at the sacrifice of being flanked. I was flanked . . once or twice during the whole non-boss battle and their physical attacks only take out 1-55 +/no + 255 at max HP. So when my troops have 3200HP . . . Yeah, nothing to worry about. Boss battle - took out the mage troops first. Was pretty difficult, because the troops had more members and for SOME reason, attacked before my troops when I deadlocked. Even if I interfered, one of mine would attack and then a mage would. Gr. Boss wasn't particularly hard until he started giving me a run for my money after doing his ZEOMG MIRACLE. Thankfully Rush used his Remnant for NULL LOL, and our morale was so high since I defeated all the troops that I was able to Parry/Counter Attack/Deflect the majority of his attacks. Emmy Hundred Flowers and David Ex Machina's for the win.
Base Battle 5 - same as 6 for outside. Boss, not hard at all. His ranged phys attack was annoying, but that's nothing better than an analgesia like Refresh III or a Restorative Tincture II.
Base Battle 4 - unmemorable. Twins, fail. Even their attack fails. Even Hinnah's miracle fails - bitch was only taking out 300 each hit. No need to fret. ENTHRALLED two times, but all my troops alive + the ability to CURE THEM IF IT KILLS THEM? Yeah.
Base Battle 3 - Meh. See Base Battle 4. Boss unmemorable.
Base Battle 2 - See Base Battle 3, minus the fact that the boss had way too much HP.
SURPRISE FIGHT AFTER BASE BATTLES - I thought Gae Bolg was going to fuck me up, but at most, it brought my troops down to 2,000-1500 HP. What *DID* hurt was the friggin arm swing as it hits every troop member in the unit! I still survived though.
Saw that I'm oh so close to making the Sword of Seven despite my lack of money. Rush finally has a decent sword, despite the fact it's two handed and I've always had him on midsize. Koenigsdorf it is in a few.
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DQ9: Found a grotto where I can farm two rank 9 chests in 1 minute and 10 seconds. Not counting Pandora's Box attacks of course. Metal Slime gear is go.
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Nier: Smashing everything with ease, will likely wrap up second cycle in another sitting but just haven't had much time for videogames this week.
KotOR2: So yeah, got this. Will be a while before I play it since borrowed games come first, but am I correct in recalling that they actually finished the mod to restore all the cut content?
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Nier: Smashing everything with ease, will likely wrap up second cycle in another sitting but just haven't had much time for videogames this week.
KotOR2: So yeah, got this. Will be a while before I play it since borrowed games come first, but am I correct in recalling that they actually finished the mod to restore all the cut content?
I think it was a different mod that got started and finished in the time that the first one stalled out during.
Though that doesn't change the fact that there is definitely a content-restoration mod out there, so.
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Nier: Smashing everything with ease, will likely wrap up second cycle in another sitting but just haven't had much time for videogames this week.
KotOR2: So yeah, got this. Will be a while before I play it since borrowed games come first, but am I correct in recalling that they actually finished the mod to restore all the cut content?
I think it was a different mod that got started and finished in the time that the first one stalled out during.
Though that doesn't change the fact that there is definitely a content-restoration mod out there, so.
This is correct. It does not restore ALL the cut content, but that's because restoring all cut content (the Droid Planet in particular) is more or less impossible, as there are no assets for it anywhere on the disk. They did, however, restore a lot of shit.
The game is also actually difficult in places now. Unless your first step is making Atton a Jedi, I guess.
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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.
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Difficulty!
The boss in the quest with Yuniver from Melphina. The boss, itself, isn't difficult. It's his croonies that surround him strategically - each and every enemy has group attack/status attack moves which means you're pretty much sacrificing your flank to the boss if you want to take out the croonies first. Which I did. Had to try that battle twice. None of the bosses moves particularly hurt - Fulgurate gave him an extra move apparently but if I'm busy attacking and killing his support troops, it really only damages on of my units. Well. That quest is over.
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Shining Force 2: Just having a great time with this. Simple, straightforward, fun. S'why I love good old-school games. About halfway through. Just beat Taros and the Harpy battle. Rick is useless. Haven't tried out Elric yet. Probably will stick with May though.
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May's the best archer, for what it's worth - her movement is the best, and her attack is good, as well as her speed. Next best...Janet/Elric/Rhode, not sure which is better - Rhode has the highest defense, but I'm not sure about the rest after that.
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Mrf. Attempted to start up KotOR2 just to make sure it worked aaand it doesn't. The error message is uselessly vague (there is "a problem starting the program." Well, no shit,) so I dunno. Are there any known common problems getting the game running in general or on Vista in particular?
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Bayonetta: Doing pretty well in hard mode. Got two golds, two silvers and three platinums so far.....and just found out that those platinums don't count toward unlocking Jeanne. Curses. The one on Gates of Paradiso was a total pain in the ass to get, too. Ah well, at least there's no way aceing normal will be anywhere near as tough, just...time-consuming. got thre platinums in my entire first run, and one of them's on the prologue, so that's a lot of lengthy replays.
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Harvested Divine Metal~
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Puzzle quest:
(3:07:38 PM): I.
(3:07:38 PM): LOST
(3:07:40 PM): 53
(3:07:42 PM): HEALTH. ON ONE TURN
(3:07:44 PM): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
This game can be a *DICK*.
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Welcome to Puzzle Quest. Check your dignity (and free time) at the door.
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grind moar
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Puzzle quest:
(3:07:38 PM): I.
(3:07:38 PM): LOST
(3:07:40 PM): 53
(3:07:42 PM): HEALTH. ON ONE TURN
(3:07:44 PM): AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
This game can be a *DICK*.
Just 53? I've lost triple digits.
Granted, the setup last time I played could reasonably kill the AI before it could move. The game's twinking is preeeeetty good.
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Mrf. Attempted to start up KotOR2 just to make sure it worked aaand it doesn't. The error message is uselessly vague (there is "a problem starting the program." Well, no shit,) so I dunno. Are there any known common problems getting the game running in general or on Vista in particular?
http://knightsoftheoldrepublic.filefront.com/file/TSL_Windows_Vista_Fix;85439
I think this is where I got the Vista fix.
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Success! Thanks, dude.
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Success! Thanks, dude.
No problem bro. Have fun with your superior character writing and rushed ending.
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FFTA2: Home stretch! 35 quests to go. Going through the lands/forests/whatever of Loar sightseeing chain now. Then I guess I'll rest until the Camoa Cup opens.
Bayonetta: Getting platinum ratings in boss fights is hard. Except Father Balder, that guy's a total pansy.
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Success! Thanks, dude.
No problem bro. Have fun with your superior character writing and rushed ending.
Better than no ending, right?
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It's impossible for the restored content patch to be worse than no restored content patch. KotOR2 gave me the biggest case of nerd blue balls I think I've ever had.
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Scott Pilgrim vs The World: Andy, Djinn, Chiaki and myself played a ton of 4 player of this yesterday. It fucking rocked hardcore. So glad that it worked out getting it downloaded into Andy's PS3. I would've paid the money to buy it JUST for the game time today, and it was totally worth using one of my downloads. We made it to the last level before stopping for foodage and other reasons.
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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.
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inFamous: Beaten. Did good path, although I saw the inFamous sphere scene/ending.
Generally a fun game, with lots of cool gameplay elements (SUPER PARKOUR BROTHER). The game gets a point for having possibly the most frigteningly accurate enemies I've seen in a game, but still staying on the right side of the "challenging/frustrating" line.
The game's plot and character stuff is just bleh. I don't feel the need to care about it. This is of course okay because it doesn't put too much emphasis on the plot and has fantastic gameplay. I would complain a little about the need to rapid-press the fire button but you could work around that with other powers. I was annoyed at the protect-the-bus mission until I realized that you can infinitely time-slow snipe on any charged platform, which is just broke.
Not sure what I'll play next.
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Darken Forest. The mist has arisen.
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Prototype-Fun but seriously flawed. The platforming is so hard to control and floaty that it basically makes any of the finer platforming challenges incredibly frustrating unnecessarily. The problem is that they tie the parkour to one single button, which also happens to be the sprint button. Which means you're constantly platforming around at breakneck speed and bouncing off walls like a meth addict, and it's impossible to adjust your trajectory because the instant you stop sprinting Mercer un-glues himself from the walls and you fall down. Exploration also suffers, but at least you get a nifty Glide ability that helps move things along.
The targeting system is a fucking nightmare. I thought GTA3 was the last game that had such shitty targeting. You see, it seems to just randomly target enemies wherever. And in an open-sandbox game that's also sort of a zombie apocalypse roughly 80% of the NPCs running around at any time can be an enemy, even if they're not attacking or doing anything to you. What this means it that while you're trying to target the GIANT FUCKING TANK RIGHT THERE, the game decides you really meant the one guy with an assault rifle down the block. Or the random zombie five blocks away just standing around doing nothing. Or the water tank 10 stories up that you can't even really see. Or any goddamn thing. Switching the targeting around means the game will happily target every. single. fucking. thing. in a 20 mile radius while ignoring the actual thing you're trying to target.
Besides that combat is pretty cool. It's fun to run around causing chaos and beating up military. I have to say it's the first game that's let me kick helicopters to death. The different powers are fun to use even if the Whipfist is way overpowered compared to everything else. The ability to hijack helicopters and tanks is useful when taking down a base but otherwise nothing special. Generic weapons aren't very helpful nor add much to variety, I don't think I ever used anything beside the rocket launcher unless the game made me. One thing that really annoyed me was the later military bases, which are a major pain in the ass to take down. Not only do they have tons of health but almost immediately after attacking like 50 tanks and helicopters and guy with rocket launchers show up and spam you with rockets until you're knocked into an endless loop and die. I mean you can always hijack a helicopter beforehand and spam missiles from a safe distance but it's annoying they forced me to do so.
Boss battles sucked. Especially Elizabeth Greene. So it's one of those "destroy x amount of weak spots to get at core to actually do damage" bosses, and of course the weak spots have plenty of health on their own. This wouldn't be so bad but it's impossible to use your more powerful techniques because they're all close range and you just sort of randomly get knocked back and take damage if you try to close the distance, and if she decides to use her massive AoE technique at that range it's basically game over. At range she's got two homing projectiles that can put you in a stun animation loop and they're spammable without any real limit as far as I can tell. So to actually do any damage to the boss at all you have to hop around like a maniac slowly chipping away at 3 weak points while avoiding tons of projectiles that can knock the shit out of you at any time. But wait, there's more! The military is also there so there are tons of tanks and helicopters and the like running around. They're not actually attacking you, but the game still considers them enemies so often I'd wind up having them targeted even if I'm directly in front of the boss, which tended to fuck up my strategy.
If you take too much damage you can retreat and consume people to up health...but there are Hunters running around all the time and they're constantly pursuing you, so if you stop to try and consume they'll probably find you and knock you down before you can get any health. So you can forget any type of healing or regen. And of course once you've actually gotten to the core of the boss and started doing damage they're more than happy to show up and attack you from behind, wasting precious time while you deal with the stun effect.
None of the bosses are much better, though at least they take less time.
Story's a bunch of random nonsense and the characters suck. Mercer is utterly generic, bland to the extreme. Nobody else has significant screen time or any kind of personality. The story makes no sense and just randomly cuts a bunch of times without explaining anything or even the most futile attempts at making things interesting. Even by sandbox standards it's bad.
So 7/10 I guess? I mean I came down on it really hard here but I still enjoyed my time with it.
Halo 3-Sucks my balls
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PC or console for Prototype? The controls aren't very tight from my experience, but aiming wasn't much of an issue on PC, plenty of other issues though.
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Touhou 12.8:
https://sites.google.com/site/sageacrin/th128_01.rpy
I...
What the fuck is this game's Normal?
What the *fuck* is this game's Normal? My god. I mean, I cleared, first try, but jesus christ. It's harder than SA's.
Edit: Hammering this home, I tried Route B and *died out* at the final boss. (Route B is harder because Luna Child becomes the final boss focus for attacks. This produces some sickening PoFV Komachi style brutal crap.) Good god.
(Then again it is six in the morning and, despite that being eleven hours awake for me, nonetheless I am pretty tired.)
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The story makes no sense and just randomly cuts a bunch of times without explaining anything or even the most futile attempts at making things interesting. Even by sandbox standards it's bad.
I think there's supposed to be over a hundred of the "web of intrigue" targets. Making most of the backstory optional is urghhhhhhh.
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Well it's not even the backstory, which is pretty obvious if you think about it. It's shit like Dana being captured and then rescued comatose. He leaves her with the doctor and for the rest of the game she's never mentioned or seen again. You do enough consume events and you can confront Karen Parker about her betrayal but the scene just abruptly stops and it's never clear what exactly happened or why she did it. While chasing down Taggart Mercer acts all pissed but we've never seen this guy do anything to anyone and he was barely mentioned before you consume him.
It's like they just sort of ran out of time and went 'fuck it'
edit: Console version Gref.
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Arc Rise Fantasia - Managed to get to some commercial city that sounds like Carbuncle. Randoms in this game are largely pushovers. Bosses in this game are insanely badass. In fact, let me give a summary of the bosses so far!
Deathchanter (1/2):
The first form had a high 2HKO fire atta ck (around 60% PCHP) and he triple acts. Every phase, he spends the first one summoning a skelly though, so only double acting in practice. The guest PC tends to focus on killing the skellies, so you can focus on the boss...except he's also quite durable. You need a lot of turns to bring him down since your damage options at this point kind of suck. Excels take a while to charge and 3 AP cost is pretty steep at these levels. Once you take him down below 50%, he gets a new AoE dark attack that can also inflict sleep. Because he wasn't good enough. Should you survive the first encounter, you'll get to fight the second form pretty much right afterwards after a short dungeon. Here he has 3HKO damage with his physical and triple turns. Which can become a 2HKO anyway because of his passive ability (Deadly combination is a guaranteed crit, even though it looks like it only triggers 25% of the time). He also has a higher damage 2HKO move on a double action.
Loli Twins
The big difference in this fight seems to be whether or not you got the extra AP regen point before fighting. Niko already has his. Ryfia gains it next at level 12. If you fight them at level 11, you won't get the extra AP which strips you of an otherwise pretty big leverage. Damage is pretty nasty - each twin gets 2 actions and I think they deal 3HKOish damage or so? Possibly 4HKO damage, nothing to laugh about. The real problem is once they get their skills access which adds debuffs and the 3HKO damage is upped to a 2HKO in return. Durability isn't too hot, but with two of them, it'll still take a pretty long time to down both.
Big Plant:
Argh, 2HKO with status. Argh MT OHKO special move. Argh, switching between good magic defense/physical defense.
Death Scythe:
Has a high MT 2HKO attack (we're talking about 75%-80%) when not blocking. Oh, AND it added confusion so your other characters can fuck themselves up afterwards! Also high GT 3HKO (40% or so) with double acting. AND it can reflect physical attacks from time to time. Should you manage to survive and knock it down to 50%, it will drop the MT 2HKO attack for a ST 2HKO attack, but is stronger (85-90%) AND he can get a follow up turn right afterwards. Is an optional boss. BUT STILL.
Giant enemy crab:
It has a weak point that you should hit for MASSIVE DAMAGE. However, you have to fool around with the terrain. Oh and he has the typical ARF boss package. That is to say a very power 2HKO that is MT, a regular 2HKO ST technique that adds Defense down and Resistance down, and a randomly bad ass passive - in this case: Auto Guard.
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So much of the backstory for the plot for who betrayed Mercer, what happened to his sister and so on are just dumped half way through the game because of the spoiler plot issues, the reality is that these things no longer matter to Alex at all, so they are dropped. No point chasing up shit that doesn't matter anymore. The number of web of intrigue targets is pretty huge, but a larger percentage of them are key side mission targets and everything central to the plot is really discovered during the main plot. The only stuff that really floats around the free roam world is unimportant side stuff or stuff that you can fill in the gaps to work out.
None of that means that the writing is any good though. The concept that these things don't matter anymore are incredibly poorly communicated to the player and they just feel like dropped plot threads, so the feeling of them just running out of time just amplifies as it highlights those deficiencies.
Still feel like Prototype is a fun enough game that is worth the time, but for a sand box game with funnish plot it is the wrong place to look, if that is the side of the spectrum you want then you play inFamous, if you want serious plot then you will want GTA4. Prototype is the one you play for fly kicking helicopters and killing builldings with tanks (And grriiiiiiiind).
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Ok, three games on the jumper at the moment.
Shadow Hearts 2, managed to reach the final dungeon. Not entirely sure I like the direction Yuri's plot is taking, though I'll see how it pans out. Done almost no sidequests, and as they'd almost certainly involve more Shadow Hearts gameplay, I will not be doing them. I suspect this means I will get the bad end. Oh well, at least I will have kicked Kato's face in.
Godhand - Currently on Stage 6, and mostly enjoying this. Doing a good job of scratching my itch for something actiony to play. Combat is fun, and it's sense of style is pretty damn strong. The characters are also surprisingly strong, with Devilhand being the current leader, far and away, for worst real character. (Stuff like the Shuffle Rangers don't count) Action itch is kinda scratched for the moment, but it'll come back, likely before my brother is done with the game.
SRW@ - Having seen how many scenarios there are, I boggled. Then again, I'm also noticing that this game will not shy away from the occasional short level. Like the map with three enemies followed by the map with two (where apparently you get penalised for killing those two enemies? WTF). So, this game is going by surprisingly fast. It's also interesting to note how many enemy casts have ways to just shut down the entire Gundam cast, either by being flying with Beam nulling barriers, or by being Angels with their AT fields that only the heaviest hitters can pierce.
Either way, core units at this point are Giant Robo, Raideen, R-1/2/Gun, Huckbein Mk2, Com-battler V, Re-GZ, Z/ZZ Gundam, Getter Robo, Eva 01/02, and whatever that Dunbine upgrade is (Balbaria or something like that.). Mazinger works as filler now that it has Strike, and the Dunbine and Cybuster are around for other dodgy filler units. Macross just showed up, though it hasn't been useful yet, so I suspect that Valkyries will also show up soon. Also vaguely wondering when the Balmars are going to show up, as they've had about two appearances so far.
At present, I am at the point of the game where I must deal with Israfel. Naturally, I turned down brute force in favour of dancing like I want to Win. May get me less Scenario Points, but that is immaterial.
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TvC: tried out the online play now that I have a working wi-fi connection. Since I hadn't touched the game in a few months, I predictably lost quite a few matches. But I didn't do badly - many losses were very close, despite being against people with good records. There are three problems with their wi-fi matchup system though:
1) you get matched against people with hundreds of matches (and good records) even when you first start out
2) you frequently get matched up with the same person you just fought, even if you click "No, I don't want a rematch"
3) If either player disconnects, you get a loss. This happened to me twice when I was winning - the second time I already had "KO" on the screen when I beat him and it still gave me a loss.
DQ9: Got my whole party up to 99 and revocated once... which took the fun out of the game. Going from doing high-level stuff back to level 40 stuff is dull.
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BoF 4 - Finished. Tyrant and Astral weren't easy, but I had plenty of resources to spare at the end and only had a few deaths. Generally pretty excellent despite a lot of issues with visibility and controls in dungeons - Scias is a true blue badass, and some of the best antagonists in any RPG I've played. 8,9/10? Need to not go entirely on reaction.
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Shadow Hearts 2, managed to reach the final dungeon. Not entirely sure I like the direction Yuri's plot is taking, though I'll see how it pans out. Done almost no sidequests, and as they'd almost certainly involve more Shadow Hearts gameplay, I will not be doing them. I suspect this means I will get the bad end. Oh well, at least I will have kicked Kato's face in.
Which ending you get depends entirely on a choice you make inside the final dungeon, and has nothing to do with sidequests or gameplay of any kind.
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DQ9: Got my whole party up to 99 and revocated once... which took the fun out of the game. Going from doing high-level stuff back to level 40 stuff is dull.
So I suppose what you're looking to do is to master all of the passive abilities for the other classes and then just switch back to the Lvl 99 classes. Then take on the ultimate superbosses and stuff?
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I suspect this means I will get the bad end.
I think it's irrelevent but I'm not sure? it's just a yes/no question in the final dungeon iirc
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I suspect this means I will get the bad end.
I think it's irrelevent but I'm not sure? it's just a yes/no question in the final dungeon iirc
Yeah, when Yuri's Little Girl Spirit Guide asks him how he has decided to live (or something along those lines I don't really remember), your response determines what ending you get. I recommend at least Youtube-ing the scenes from the Man Festival if you don't do it. It's pretty entertaining, although if you hate SH gameplay it might infuriate you.
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SRW@ - Having seen how many scenarios there are, I boggled. Then again, I'm also noticing that this game will not shy away from the occasional short level. Like the map with three enemies followed by the map with two (where apparently you get penalised for killing those two enemies? WTF). So, this game is going by surprisingly fast. It's also interesting to note how many enemy casts have ways to just shut down the entire Gundam cast, either by being flying with Beam nulling barriers, or by being Angels with their AT fields that only the heaviest hitters can pierce.
Either way, core units at this point are Giant Robo, Raideen, R-1/2/Gun, Huckbein Mk2, Com-battler V, Re-GZ, Z/ZZ Gundam, Getter Robo, Eva 01/02, and whatever that Dunbine upgrade is (Balbaria or something like that.). Mazinger works as filler now that it has Strike, and the Dunbine and Cybuster are around for other dodgy filler units. Macross just showed up, though it hasn't been useful yet, so I suspect that Valkyries will also show up soon. Also vaguely wondering when the Balmars are going to show up, as they've had about two appearances so far.
At present, I am at the point of the game where I must deal with Israfel. Naturally, I turned down brute force in favour of dancing like I want to Win. May get me less Scenario Points, but that is immaterial.
IIRC the dance option gets you more skill points.
Not that it really matters outside of a few secrets you'll almost certainly miss playing casually.
That, incidentally, is part of the Gundams thing. Standard Gundams are massive project beasts and many of them get some truly sickening secret upgrades(as well as doubleacting) fairly soon, if you'd done that. Which, you haven't, so they tend to be sorta so-so after that(double-acting is at least not secret, just levels). But, yeah, they're weak before that, especially really early.
Alpha has secrets that would matter an irritating amount if the game was, er. hard. or if you couldn't field a damn good field of frontliners no matter what, the cast is simply huge and many people tend to be various levels of broken on either innate abilities like AT Field or statistics or large spirit pools, whatever.
It doesn't really matter, since you still have Macross and Gundam Wing, both of which don't rely on secrets and are sick as well.
And yeah I think SH2's ending doesn't care if you've done anything optional.
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I've actually found a really good FAQ for listing what the requirements are for each skill point, as well as showing how they're spread out over the various path splits. The main downside being that it doesn't give info on when a person will run (not to mention one case where an Exp Point bearing boss ran when they still had, like, 20k HP left. I'm not sure even a Valoured HTB Cannon will do that much damage at this point. Though hey, maybe it would if I went out of my way to unlock the thing's high Morale requirements and then also bought up it's power.
But yeah, Two Gundams and Brute Force both have the same potential for Exp points.
Ending also seems to be determined by these things. But honestly, yeah. This is a casual playthrough, so I'm not overly worried about doing the best at anything, and will take the bad ending.
Also, currently in the middle of Space Fold, or, Stage 32. Finally got the Valks, which are doing their jobs. Likely only going to be keeping Fokker of the Skull Squad, though Max and Hikaru might be kept around as filler. Also having fun with the upgrades to R1&2 as well as the Huckbein. R3 has shown up, but sadly, is not powered. The two Gundam Wing units I've been given are less than stellar.
Re: SH2. Likely going to end it in the next day or so. Glad to hear the ending depends on a choice made in the final dungeon so it'll be easy to check both. The Man Festival being optional is a bit surprising, but I suspect I'll lose nothing on missing it. Especially since it seems to involve gameplay.
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DQ9: Got my whole party up to 99 and revocated once... which took the fun out of the game. Going from doing high-level stuff back to level 40 stuff is dull.
So I suppose what you're looking to do is to master all of the passive abilities for the other classes and then just switch back to the Lvl 99 classes. Then take on the ultimate superbosses and stuff?
Done the superbosses already (at low levels - they optionally level up and get harder as you defeat them). Actually when you revocate you go back to level 1 in that class. So I have no level 99s at the moment. But you do get a semi-useful accessory for each class you revocate in, so right now my goal is to revocate each class once and get all of those items. I'll get the passive abilities along the way, but slowly. You get crap for skill points at higher levels.
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Quick Question:
If you were limited to buying one of these four games, which would you buy.
Also, if it's not too much to ask could you rate each game based on how much you enjoyed them...excluding the games you mightnot have played. (DNP or something)
Reasons behind this are I want to buy a new rpg, but I don't know what I want really. I only really want to buy one, possibly two games in the near future and all these games are old school cheap games found in bargain bins at the moment so i can splurge a little bit.
Megaman X: Command Mission, Ar Tonelico 2 (Mind you I haven't played AR T1, so I dunno if that matters.), Growlanser 5: Heritage of War, or Sands of Destruction.
Thanks!
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Of the 4, I enjoyed Growlanser more. However, aside from Tallychu, only MMXCM is the only well played game here so you're not going to get many opinions.
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MMXCM is good if you don't mind mockable plot. No comment on the others.
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Sands of Destruction is okayish if you don't mind chronic unbalance. Dunno about the others.
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SO1r - Beaten. Man, so much unbalance. Weird, though, I kinda like the game anyway. Probably a 5.5/10 game.
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MMXCM is worth playing. Combat's fun; everything else is silly nonsense but at least it doesn't try to pretend otherwise.
GL5 is...okay. See above except combat is somewhat less fun and the plot is dumb without actually realizing it.
I only played Ar Tonelico 1 but it was bad enough to convince me that I don't need to play anything else with Tonelico in the title.
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Get Growlanser 5. MMXCM is good too.
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SO1r - Beaten. Man, so much unbalance. Weird, though, I kinda like the game anyway. Probably a 5.5/10 game.
It's a remake of a SNES game. I don't think balance existed as a concept (outside of "Balance, World of, see: World of Balance.") in SNES RPGs. It's also a Star Ocean game and I know for a FACT it doesn't exist in those.
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WKC - Hit GR12 on sunday. GR12 is I have to say a bit of a hellhole. Gr1-11s all want your help the moment they see you because they see shiny equips while hardly anyone GR12-15 will quest with you, its all quite lame.
I'm all for helping people for a quest or two but they shouldn't expect me to solo Big Red 1 for them 50 times in a row wasting 2 hours of my time.
My GR12 stuff is coming along nicely regardless of little help.
GR12 Dark Cloud +7 water
GR12 Witchblade +8
Valkyrie Mail +8
Aristos slacks +9
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Monday Night Combat: I have a new addiction. A mix of TF2 and tower defense.
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Puzzle quest: Is still satan, but satan that I'm beginning to smash down. Got all the runes I can currently get, and also up to date on quests. I'm off to smite some Lich for daring to get in my way. ^_^ Yay abuse!
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:) :) :)
http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=9899
Extraaaaaaaaaaaa~
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Arc Rise Fantasia - Lost to a plant boss because the turn order FLAT OUT LIED THREE TIMES IN A ROW. The game was kind of decent before it pulled that BS. Managed to win the next time by doing actions in the opposite order it showed. Stupid game.
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:) :) :)
Extraaaaaaaaaaaa~
Wait, wait, wait: a new Touhou came out during DLC? Why were we not informed?
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Just purchased Disgaea 3. I don't have a problem. It was cheap, okay? IT WILL TOTALLY MAKE ME MORE PRODUCTIVE WHILE I PACK UP MY HOUSE AND MOVE somehow. It will also somehow help my thesis.
I think I'm giving up on WKC, which I've never actually done with a game I paid for. But if I sell it back now I might recoup a slightly less insubstantial portion of my terrible, terrible investment than if I soldier on for however many goddamn hours more the game lasts, and I'm just not interested in the multiplayer or the apparently endless aftergame bullshit. It's not even that it's the worst game I've ever played or anything (*cough*LegendofDragoon*cough*), it's just... slow and astoundingly mediocre, and my time is more valuable to me than it used to be, I guess.
(so why did I buy a Disgaea game, you ask? Well you can shut the hell up, smartass)
Just started the FF3ds final dungeon. Pleasingly tough, even in the watered-down remake. Ninja/Dark Knight/Dragoon/Sage seems like it'll carry me.
Replaying Bookworm Adventures (<3 <3 <3 <3 <3)
Oh, also just beat Dugog in a grind-free hard-mode warrior run in Puzzle Quest. Warriors feel noticeably worse than thieves (rogues?), thus far, and exceedingly better than druids, though playstyle is surely an issue.
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I might buy WKC if it is a Kirby game. (I think that acronym is Kirby at least!) Depends n if it is any good!
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It is White Knight Chronicles and I have heard nothing good about it.
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Well then screw you, buddy! I only want it if it's cute and pink!
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That's what she.....er he said!
/drumroll
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Clearly in two weekends you knew exactly what I was going to say during that entire post. Pawn both WKC and Disgaea 3, buy Enchanted Arms instead. Mediocrity is better than shit.
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:) :) :)
Extraaaaaaaaaaaa~
Wait, wait, wait: a new Touhou came out during DLC? Why were we not informed?
Talk to Alex more? He was actually playing it during the con. >_>
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So, in the time I've been away:
Got further on FF3DS, then got bored and stopped. Again. This time, I was at Cloud of Darkness! Just, y'know, using a different team that apparently failed horribly against her. >_>
Then went back to Mana Khemia and finished that. Vayne is actually amazing - Analyze is useful as all hell, and nothing beats three lots of OHKO damage in one turn. ._. Got Jess' ending, plan to watch the others on YouTube.
Now I'm back on P3, which is unintentionally hilarious in so many ways. "This is what my power was supposed to be used for!" *throws lightning at birds* Saved before the bad ending, then got that. Kinda dull. Now in the final block of Tartarus and spamming the crap out of amazing Persona - think I'm currently using some combination of Thanatos w/Die for Me!, Odin, Loki w/Repel Fire, Siegfried with all Auto-Ma-spells, Masakado... Just need to finish the Hanged Man link so I can get Attis and, in turn, what I assume is either Trumpeter or Yoshitsune.
Thoughts on these? FF3 is dull as ever - it's not bad, but nothing special. Mana Khemia is complete Yoshi-bait, what with all the synthesis and the amazing number of choices. They make the game stupidly easy, but it's still fun. (That said, I can't see how Isolde is champ-quality with MK boss durability.) P3 is fun, although I have got bored of Tartarus a fair few times - I much prefer the S-Link side of things to the RPG elements.
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If you intend on getting WKC2 then it might be worth at least finishing the game so you can jump stright into WKC2. WKC1 is a 20 hour game anyway. Where are you? If the game is just that unbearable then you can just skip everything and just fight the bosses as they do loltastic damage and are completely owned by the White Knight/Dragon Knight except for Master Shake who is frankly the only enemy who can actually Game over you.
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Suikoden 5 - Beat this. The heavy twinking certainly pays off in the final dungeon (aka the only fun part of the game's gameplay), which was quite competent last playthrough but got curbstomped this. Used Zerase, Killey, Nelis, Isato, and Bernadette as my main mages; Miakis, Cathari, Urda, Isabel, Belcoot, Richard, Georg, Mathias, and Shigure as fighters; Freyjadour, Lyon, Lorelai, and Kyle as something in between. Everyone but the mages had Double-Strike Runes, proving those drop too often/are too cheap/too good in this game. Otherwise, pretty obvious bias towards fast PCs with good rune freedom and offensive stats. The folks with one rune slot (except Georg, though even he was kinda disappointing) were all pretty mediocre by the end, as were a few others - Mathias can't really use his tanking well with an M range weapon, Kyle was generically disappointing, Shigure was too fragile for S range and lacked his offensive prowess he had early. The L range twinks were pleasantly surprising despite the lack of multiswings, since their damage potential was very high (second to Miakis) and they could use combos like Power + Double-Strike rather safely.
Lyon's boss was the toughest since it stunned most of my party on the one turn it got, but it also got loads of offence shoved down its throat such that Miakis alone finished it off round 2. Prince's group was the weakest and the only one that let their boss get in two attacks, but those attacks weren't all that scary so whatever. Final needed three turns to drop, and it went a little less well than I liked because I forgot to remove a Crazed Rune from Isabel losing some of my focussed fire. Oh well, at least she allowed me to two-round one of the spirtes. Final final party was the Sun users to use L4 Creation and tank Sun attacks, Bernadette for Kindness Rain and magical tanking, and three fighters (Miakis, Urda, and Isabel seemed my best choices, though I probably should have used Killey instead) to hit as hard as possible. Having two MT healers acting at different times (Bernadette > sprites > Creation > boss was the turn order) made the battle simple, despite Isabel taking something like 440 damage from the Sun Rune's magic attacks).
Yes, I do overthink Suikoden gameplay. What of it?
Got the best ending. Alenia and Zahhak really didn't need to appear in it, as has been ranted about before. Scenes I got this time that I missed last... the Roy/Childerich exchange lived up to the hype, Euram's transformation really didn't. The ideas behind the character worked, but the sudden turnaround just isn't really justified well. Overall, story is about what I remembered it to be - clever, with good writing, and some excellent, human characters... but it takes too long meandering about, its arms tied by being a Suikoden game, to be what it should be. Also silent mains. Bah. My opinion of the game remains unchanged - its strength is very obvious, but it has a scattering of weaknesses in almost every other area, from gameplay to polish to graphics to load times. Ah well.
Devil May Cry 2 - Started this. The game seems depressingly simple (tieing things up is too easy), which is about what I expected. It's very disappointing because otherwise this game seems like it'd, at the very least, be easily better than 3 - the platforming controls are easily the best in the series (innate double jump doesn't hurt), the environments and enemies are decently designed (also, infested helicopters? Awesome). I'm not really super-excited to play through it but it should be worth my time, at least. Is Lucia replay only?
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Lucia is the second disc. You can play them in whatever order you want; it's like Resident Evil 2.
Also, the other reasons DMC2 is not better than 3 are the lack of weapon variety (there are different swords, but they all use the same moveset), and lack of anything approaching entertainment in the cutscenes. Have fun!
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Aw, I was hoping to do level-by-level switching like SMB2 or MMX8. I figure by the time I'm done with the game I won't have the will to play it through with a different character, as happened with DMC3. Ah well.
Surprised they threw out the weapon differences of DMC1, too. Oh well, nobody accused this game of being a brilliant piece of game design.
4 doesn't really sound amazing either. I can't think of another series in which the first game was so clearly the best.
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4 has its advantages over 3, even though I hold up 3 as the best game in the series (the huge variety of weapon with hotswapping plus the different styles, along with humor value, tip it to me.) - Nero just has the one weapon, but a far deeper moveset than Dante's ever had for Alastor/Rebellion, while once you get Dante back he can hotswap between all of his weapons at once. Plus I really like the enemy design, aside from those damn parasite plants.
You should totally play God Hand and Bayonetta if you haven't already, though. When Capcom handed off DMC2 to a new team, the original guys formed Clover Studios (and later still Platinum Games) and continued being awesome on their own.
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God Hand is very much on the list of things to play in the near future. I'm a little less eager about Bayonetta but I'll probably give it a look if I ever get a system it's on.
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Well, I didn't buy Godhand for ME to play, so you better play it~
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Beat Psychonauts (downloaded on the 360 for cheap)...
Generally a good game. Solid gameplay, an amusing story, and Nightmare-Before-Christmas' style. While it may be frustrating for Obsessive collectors, the game is fun enough to warrant a play if you have the time.
The gameplay is quirky and fun even though it doesn't really challenge or amaze. It is a platformer/adventure style that has a lot of neat abilities to throw around. For example the Levitate ability, which allows you to run around on top of a ball of psychic energy, rolling faster and jumping higher than you could normally. Enemies tend to be competent enough to threaten you if you try something dumb, but not threatening enough to really make you worry. Bosses are typical puzzle-types usually and are almost always amusing. Big fat burly censor? Check. Girl Scout Den Mother who turns out the lights and has infrared vision? Check. Brain Tank? Double Check. Godzilla-style fight against a Mothro lookalike? You Betcha.
The game's plot is straightforward. Raz the young hero goes around his psychic summer camp solving problems and acting like a badass while gradually acquiring more psychic powers and toys. The ultimate goal is to Save the World. The twist of course is that the game is ripped straight out of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Art style and the humor/horror tone should make one think of Jack Skellington and crew immediately. As far as the crew of the game itself, the characters are pretty well defined all things considered. All of the fellow campers are fleshed out at least enough so that you can crack a smile or laugh at their antics. Whether it's Raz cracking one liners, Lily being tsundere, or Milia being a New Age Retro Hippie. Generally good enough to keep you interested, although nothing to write home about. Although the Milkman Conspiracy world is definitely something that should be experienced by everyone.
The game's problems pretty much all come up near the end. The very last level is a pain in the rear end for a variety of reasons. Fortunately the game is nice enough to penalize death with just a slap on the wrist, so it doesn't frustrate TOO much. Still, the very last few sections before the final boss fight will leave a sour taste in any player's mouth. Just frustrating platforming.
I'd recommend the game if you have the Xbox points or find it used for cheap.
Next up is Ys 7.
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Borrowed a friend WoW Beta to test it out, having a lot of fun with that but I really wish I had my own account. Sigh.
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Alternately, Psychonauts is $10 on Steam and is highly likely to be reccomeneded if it is on sale by those in the DL who frequently use Steam. I can vouch for the quality of the PC port, it is pretty solid.
Puzzle Quest 2 - Is Puzzle Quest. Assassin is broken. It is a bit slower than I would like, especially on the rare occasions where the enemy is chaining turns. Had a fight with a Ghost where I didn't get a turn for nearly 2 minutes, which is pretty boring when I am just waiting for it to die to poison. Ghosts just have a skillset that promotes more free turns though, so they are the exception to the norm. It wasn't threatening that whole time so there seems to be a lot less LOLBULLSHITANDYOUDIE than the first game had which is nice.
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Touhou GFW:
how do I stop sucking? Is there a trick like UFO's "get the reds"? I'd like to 1cc Easy....
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Freezing shots gets you shot power, bombs and more points towards lives. The more shots(and the bigger the shot), the larger these gains are.
Freeze a LOT more.
Otherwise, no. This game is hard, Hal did not 1cc Easy first try, Alex rammed into Normal multiple times before clearing. Game's lower difficulties are evil.
Lunatic meanwhile is kinda like running IN Lunatic with five lives on instead of seven. You don't quite get enough resources not to memorize the entire thing into the dirt and be bemusedly bored by it, but you can't really call it *hard* hard. (I've gotten to Stage 3 midboss on Lunatic now after half a dozen or so good solid tries.) Go fig.
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Romance of the Three Kingdoms X.
Decided to start a new game yesterday. So I started Xiao Bei, and then I captured two other cities. Got two prefects there, and I'm all cools. Then this Shi Zui upstart starts attacking me all the time, even though my archers are the best in the country, probably!
Decided to go FUCK IT after the eight attack and launched a full scale STOMP war against Shi Zui.
Result:
I now have nine cities, and executed the entire Shi family line. Oh, and I gained eight new vassals. :)
That'll teach them to mess with me. Now to hope my Alliance with Liu Bei will hold so I can focus on crushing the Yellow Turbans while juggling internal affairs.
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I didn't clear GFW Easy first try even with continues, if that gives you any indication of how hard it is.
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Touhou GFW:
how do I stop sucking? Is there a trick like UFO's "get the reds"? I'd like to 1cc Easy....
http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=9950 You could see if my replay could help? GFW is a lot about getting down the timing for how long it takes for Freeze to charge. Memorization helps, but isn't necesarry on Easy. Little things like "if you see the enemy charging up an attack start charging a freeze" also help.
Also bomb more, Perfect Freeze is a fucking awesome bomb.
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Lost Odyssey- Just freed Sed. Now there's a PC that I didn't find predictable! This was the part of the game that I saw a demo of ages ago before the game came out and made me think that magic had like a 25% hit rate and was atrocious! Don't specifically have a lot to say other than generally still finding the game enjoyable. Very good at spreading out plot and battle stuff. Actually, everything I said in my last post a few weeks ago re: the game's strengths and weaknesses definitely feels like it's holding very true.
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Feel like I don't post enough so yeah,
FF9: At the end dungeon, still do not like the story, will just leave it at that. However the battle system leaves a better impression then initial memories, with the characters being generally well balanced and yet at least somewhat diverse in roles, which is more then can be said for most ff games I've played. Haven't actually played for a few weeks because I got a sudden urge to play DotA out of nowhere.
So I find my WC3 discs and visit the DotA Allstars site, to find out, find out that there was a falling out and one of the creators branched off and developed League of Legends, ended up downloading that instead since it was free and since I apparently misplaced my CD Key for WC3 anyways. Played LoL for about two to three weeks, got my summoner level to 21, taking a break because it's a pain that you have to unlock champions by playing countless games, generally happy right now with my ~55% win ratio considering I had to relearn two new sets of heroes for each of the subsequent weeks I played. I also got the distinct feeling that while I was busy trying to unlock all the champions to get a better feel how they played, that a majority of players at that level had simply unlocked one or two that they liked and were filling out their rune pages for the in game stat advantage. The actual DotA style game play is still a blast, just started feeling I needed a break because the design of LoL is more so that of a grind if you're not willing to shell out actual money to unlock certain things quicker as a convenience, which if you choose to do actually makes it more expensive then your typical council game, yeah, not happening.
So in my decided break from grindyness I decide to start...FF12, sometimes my mind scares me. Played the game once before, got about 70% through I want to estimate? Never got around to finishing it for some reason or another. Just finished yelling about how Basch was alive at whatever that town is called. Did all the hunts up to this point, took two tries for the first elite mark, ended up going through about 50 potions, after which I question my judgment to do them as early as possible, but whatever. The second mark I manage to beat after running away once because of a bad start, second time I manage to set him up with blind silence and slow and just whittle him down slowly from there with way too much running back and forth with Balthier as the lead and spamming cure while Vaan and Basch whale on it for piddly damage, though at least Basch broke triple digits, poles are awesome. Idly considering farming a bit in that one room with endless skeletons in the mine because I distinctly remember having money issues later in the game and I ended up making like 10k both times I went into the mine because of that room.
BoF4, Haven't played, it's not like it's a bad game, I would definitely put it above average, it's just that I keep getting distracted by other games >.>.
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Nier: Yeah, had this on the shelf for a couple weeks. Not in a gaming mood. Anyway, just finished ending B. I totally expected the game to be all "Then Kaine goes off and dies somewhere lololol" for this ending. Instead I got Emil's bouncing, disembodied head. What.
Apparently I have to get all the weapons in the game for ending C. Bah. I already bought all the ones I could find near the end of this run, just because I noticed that collecting them all counts as one of the game's achievements and I had a ton of money so, hell, why not? But somewhere out there is still something I don't have, I think. Well, I didn't check the crazy junk shop kid, but I think he only upgrades them, not sells new ones? I'll be annoyed if I have to go dungeon-crawling to find something, since 99% of dungeon loot is random, useless crap. Oh wait. Please tell me I don't have to do any fishing for whatever's left.
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Lost Odyssey- Yes, I posted about this about less than 6 hours ago! However, seeing Sed's skills in battles actually felt worth posting about. First, Gun-Axe!...that he can't use as an axe. Kind of blows all it's coolness points immediately. And yes, Tolten is right, you can't say "Momma" when you are the game UOM. However, letting it slide for his skills:
Auto-Barricade and Protect or whatever you call them? Pretty awesome, since those feel like they cut damage about 40% casually and I'm not sure they wear off (Or at least...last a damn long time. If they wear off, worse for boss battles)
Double SP?! Well, this also seems awesome, but less so when I realize that it felt like keeping up with Immortal skills has always been too easy. Also, they gave Sed's skills crazy high SP costs and then...highly ramped up how much SP enemies give you (Random groups are giving 12; The last boss the four mages fought, which was a solid challenge, gave 10). Unless double SP effects the number that shows up on the screen after the battle ends. Which I'll likely figure out now that Seth juuuust learned it.
Double EXP?! Would be awesome in many games, but Tolten was at level 33 when Sed was a 35, and gained two levels before Sed gained one (Which so to say that I've not gotten the vibe generally in the game that EXP is horribly useful).
DOUBLE ITEM?! And we have a winner! Items in this game are kind of stupid. They are either far better ST healing (1000 versus like...300 off the weaker cure spell and maybe 600-700 off the strong one. However, items get stupid speed and the stronger the spell, the slower it is. So much better healing and much faster) and do maybe 50-60% of spells of the same power, but again, with ridiculously better speed. Of course, no Sarah or Ming to learn it yet and get speedy smash, but Double Item is definitely the best learnable skill so far I think (And he also has item effect up!)
Also, horrible, horrible song alert! Game, I like you, NEVER DO THAT AGAIN. That was one of the worst RPG songs I've ever heard. Also, Jensen started the game by visiting whores, has already gotten Ming completely shitfaced, said they just make out with death impending and now is starting to get bashful when they accidentally almost hug? This is as stupid as when they try to paint Ming as a good character and expect me to to take her seriously given the inanity that is her outfit.
The denizens of lower town in Ghotza...well, felt like they well proved why they were probably stuck in lower town. Response to 2/3 of their town's complete annihilation and the fact that they are now basically trapped in an inescapable icy hell was generally one of indifference (or the more sensible choice, heavy drinking. Somehow indifference was the far more common choice).
Stopped playing the game when I had both my controller's batteries crap out and finally figured out that's that what happened there. Also, realized that the game must have the lowest random encounter level in an RPG ever. Running through the backstreets of Uhra, I got through several screens before I was definitely sure that this was even a dungeon!
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DMC2 - Beat mission... 14? The one with the DMC1 cameo.
The game is frustrating because it's such an extreme case of one step forward and two steps back. There's lots of good enemy/boss ideas in this game but most of them are trivialised by the fact that even handguns tie mooks up now and some questionable accuracy on enemy attacks. (Also one or two bosses who can't deal with long range at all, the firey minotaur dude was the worst offender here.) Oh yeah, not that I really care, but maan, they dropped the ball on plot here. It feels like I'm seeing about half the scenes, which might be intentional to get me to play Lucia's path (fuck replay-only plot) but just feels unpolished. I have about zero sense of Dante's personality this time around as a result.
Game's still fun enough, and again I do need to hype the fact that this game does platforming and environments better than other games.
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Nier: Yeah, had this on the shelf for a couple weeks. Not in a gaming mood. Anyway, just finished ending B. I totally expected the game to be all "Then Kaine goes off and dies somewhere lololol" for this ending. Instead I got Emil's bouncing, disembodied head. What.
Apparently I have to get all the weapons in the game for ending C. Bah. I already bought all the ones I could find near the end of this run, just because I noticed that collecting them all counts as one of the game's achievements and I had a ton of money so, hell, why not? But somewhere out there is still something I don't have, I think. Well, I didn't check the crazy junk shop kid, but I think he only upgrades them, not sells new ones? I'll be annoyed if I have to go dungeon-crawling to find something, since 99% of dungeon loot is random, useless crap. Oh wait. Please tell me I don't have to do any fishing for whatever's left.
I don't think fishing gave you one. Just check an FAQ for the ones you missed.
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Little Big Planet -
My brother had me play through the majority of this with him (after he had beaten it solo previously). Fairly enjoyable, although I don't care much for the floatiness of the controls, and the auto-layer mechanics seem to hate me.
Final Fantasy X -
Went to pick this back up, found that I had no memories of what any of the sidequests I was currently doing were, went ahead and just beat it instead. Yuna/Doublecast/Flare/1 MP Cost destroyed worlds.
ICO -
Started on this. Just passed the gates having been closed on us.
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For what its worth, Elfboy, Lucia isn't so much replay only as much as extra mode out of the gate that you need to put in a different disc for. I seem to recall that I deleted my DMC2 data and I was able to play Lucia mode immediately anyway. To get the "most" out of the plot, though, you basically need to know exactly which chapters correlate with which ones (Lucia has a little more than half Dante's, so yeah, much shorter campaign, and the correlation is obviously not 1 to 1 as a result), which requires a guide or remembering exactly where plot scenes fall...which requires replaying the game anyway...
I would say "Try Lucia mode" except Lucia's differences from Dante are so minimal. They're there, but it honestly feels more like a tweaked version of Dante than a whole new character. Basically, think Mega Man vs. Protoman instead of X vs. Zero scenario. Granted, that also involves playing more DMC2, which I don't suspect you care enough about to do, so I'm not sure why I'd say that in the first place!
(For the record, Lucia's plot doesn't make DMC2's plot much better. The plot is still "Random evil corporation guy wants to revive demon with artifacts, GO KICK HIS ASS!")
I do agree that DMC2 had a lot of neat ideas, but the execution just kind of missed it. A lot of DMC2's conventions are in the later games, just refined and polished much better after all, so the idea was definitely there.
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Found my PSP adapter so I was finaly able to charge up that damn thing and play it again.
WA:X Hate hate hate, even after this long hiatus I am stuck on the same battle and can't seem to pass it. I guess I'll have to faq it, but regardless it's a fucking stupid fight. Don't kill anyone, get three mobs at low life AND then rush to the exit where reinforcements are....
WHY!?
It wouldn't even be an issue if there wasn't a turn limit, but there is, so it's fucking stupid. I rememeber why I stopped playing this oh so long ago.
FFT:WotL - Started up a new file because I know I missed a fuck ton of missbale gear, and well...I am a completionist for these types of games. At around the den of thieves fight trying to get a calculator so I can cheese my way through randoms. Frogging everyone is fun. Thank you CT times 4.
MMX:CM - This game is fun, in some sort of way. It seems like a very aged rpg for a post 2005 game. Anyways, just got Zero back and Spider did some shenanigens with his arm, but the gang is all together...so that means it's time to back track and get gear and explore crap I missed.
I haven't used Ciinnamon at all, so I think she will be in the front lines when I go back to old places...to test her out or whatever. I barely ever use Massimo, and Marino (most awesome name EVER) isn't too impressive right now. I still haven't found any real good sub weapons yet. I guess Heat Haze is good, but...
I'm giving all my WE gaining items and force metal to X.
Team usually consist of X, Zero and Spider cause that Ace of Clubs is awesome.
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MMXCM came out by 2004 at the absolute latest; I remember trying it right after finishing FM4 and quitting ToS in disgust. *Checks* Yeah, September 04.
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Word? Shows how much I pay attention to the title screen!
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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.
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Scar: Yeah, that XF battle is the hardest in the game almost certainly, and can definitely be frustrating. My advice is to cluster everyone riight near the gate before you drop the third enemy into critical HP, so that you can easily rush out. Having PCs with Turn Shift (Sacred Slayer command) to quickly race everyone out before the reinforcements can hit you with Shut Out is particularly helpful.
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http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=9956
Now, to go back to playing RPGs for a while since phew.
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Scar: Yeah, that XF battle is the hardest in the game almost certainly, and can definitely be frustrating. My advice is to cluster everyone riight near the gate before you drop the third enemy into critical HP, so that you can easily rush out. Having PCs with Turn Shift (Sacred Slayer command) to quickly race everyone out before the reinforcements can hit you with Shut Out is particularly helpful.
There's also lay points on both sides of the field so you can use that to transfer slower characters like Labrynthia over. Grapplers are also very useful for clearing the sentinels out of the way if you chose to charge up the middle.
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Lost Odyssey- Something about this game inspires me to update a lot. Anyways, third wipe out in the Hot Springs/Poison Gas cave (To be differentiated from my many wipeouts in the Black Out/Poison Swamp Cave). First time...group of 6 enemies got me, and I was barely not at the level where I could OHKO them. Second wipe-out also to them! I was waiting for Ming's All-Aquara to resolve (and I believe I was at the level where I could OHKO them now!)...but yeah, two turn charge time=I got unlucky and got smacked up too much. Third time...mother fucker, new enemies that have 450 MT damage! And such shitty HP, but not knowing what they could do, I didn't realize that leaving two of them alive for a turn meant I was eating 900 MT damage (On the bloody 4 mage party!). Ming lived...but then ate a crit while still charging damn All-Aquara (note that if it resolved, I likely would have lost anyways since rows would have saved the two back row enemies barely!). But yeah...I was just thinking last dungeon with three fighters that the game was ready to roll over and die (minus bosses), but so I was proven wrong. I'd say it goes to show that fighters are just that much better, but I think that a lot of enemies in this dungeon have substantially more HP (...maybe. Fighters still are that much better anyways). This dungeon is about as evil overall as the Black Cave was. People in this world should just never, ever go in caves (or battlefields...or cities. God, the people of this world are so screwed. I can't fully believe they lived 1000 years for the immortals to hang around!).
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And I said it inspired me! Probably also my last post since workweek starts again! Beat that dungeon. Boss was nasty. Knew going into it that he had auto-reflect (Against the 4 mage party. Thanks game!). However, Powerus+Combo=Mack at least does 1200 damage (Still...the other three mages would have been doing 1500 unbuffed, so still a pretty major thing). Grounda bombs did 750, but I only had 3 of those, so much smaller effect. Evil part was when he started using All-Aquara and used it twice in a row. MT healing is not fast in this game, but luckily the Magic Counter skill (which I randomly had on Mack) is actually Magic Null and Counter! So basically, Mack lived, and I killed the boss with only him alive. Scene after was kind of awkward, but yay full party again. Now all the immortals can learn the stupidity that is double-item!
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Dhyer you care way too much about Lost Odyssey. Well, at least you're enjoying it!
Ys 7: Played it, got hooked, marathon'd it to the final dungeon. There are so very many shiny things that I want, and all of them require the same rare ingredients from the final dungeon. Bah Humbug.
The game has been a blast, with loads of cool music, environments, and boss fights. The plot is pretty dang generic for an RPG but has at least one cool take on the traditional tale and is competent enough to keep you reading if not much else. But who cares about the plot? This game is all about taking pretty characters (and Dogi) and smashing the crap out of amazingly fun bosses with awesome music to enjoy said smashing to. This is it's premise and it delivers it in spades.
(speaking of pretty characters, Tia and Mishera are about as pretty as you can make a blue-haired girl.)
Random spoiler comment: MWAHAHAHAHA NO ONE EVER SUSPECTS THE FLOWER GIRL MWAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Sweet. I'm looking forward to Ys 7.
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I've been meaning to get LO for a while since Dhyer's always talking about it and it only costs like around a fiver here so why not? I can't think of any other 360 RPGs to get >.>
FFXII Revenant Wings-Replaying this because I missed a couple of missions the last time through so I did not get the perfect ending. Currently on C8 again. I don't know if I want to beat the rest of the game with the same team I used last time (Llyud, Penelo, Kites, Ashe, Basch) or put different characters in. Llyud and Penelo are probably the games MVPs for the most part and are invaluable as the only two with revival. Kites is surprisingly useful as well with his powerful AoE spells to exploit elemental weaknesses with. Basch is an amazing tank, I've somehow managed to scrape wins against overpowered enemies with him the only one left alive at the end of the battle before (on my other file) I really want to try Balthier though so I might switch Ashe out. Also Vaan with max powered up Anastasia might be interesting.
FFXIII-Replaying this because I want to use a different team and weapons from last time. I'm enjoying it more because now I have a better idea of what weapons and accessories for equipment builds I want to use. I farmed shrouds with Hope and Vanille near the start of the game which was something I didn't know could be exploited before. As well as using them before boss fights I have been selling some of them so I've been able to buy more stuff to upgrade my weapons more early on this playthrough. Mostly I've been using the stuff that drops from enemies to upgrade them though because I've fought a lot more battles this run, using a training spot against Gremlins in C4 with Sazh/Vanille and Frag Leeches in C5 with Hope/Lightning. By the end of C5 I had a maxed out Blazefire Sabre for Light and a L18 Hawkeye for Hope. I also have a maxed out Magician's Mark and Power Wristband. I am going to use Hope's house to farm Credit and Incentive Chips to sell and make lots of monies so I can max out a weapon for Vanille and Sazh as well =-) Or maybe just Vanille, I used Spica Defenders for Sazh last run so I might use Rigels or something this time instead. I wanted to use Hope's Siphon Boost weapon but turns out he doesn't get that until Eden or something =/ I used Belladonna as Vanille's main on my last run and though that's probably her best I want to see what I can do with Healing Staff w/th the High HP:Power Surge synth group this time. I'll probably build up the Pearlwing series for her later on for turtles because I want to see if I can beat my best win time with her - 1.35 (without summons and instant death) with Vanille/Snow/Sazh. Vanille was using Mistilteinn as the basis for her Nirvana and Snow had Umbra as his basis for Save the Queen (since that was the series he had been working with throughout the game for uber SEN tanking) but I know they can do better offensively. Though I might be using Fang instead of Snow this run. Probably Light or maybe Hope instead of Sazh too.
I'm using Power Circle for Snow just now but if I do decide to use him later on I might try the Rebel Heart or the Sacrificial Circle series. Snow is probably the only one I'd consider using a Paper Tiger weapon with anyway.
I'm also enjoying the game more this time because I already have the Platinum so I don't have to worry about it now. I've also just been stopping to look around and enjoy the areas more. They really outdid themselves with the waterworks in this game, Sunleth Waterscape and even the Carbuncle plant are very pretty to the eye there. Also the flowers, from Sunleth to the red flowers outside Palumporum to Hope's garden *^_^*
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Not only do I sometimes play games, I even occasionally beat them.
So, Shadow Hearts 2, beaten. Final party was Yuri, Karin, Anastasia, Kurando, with the only optional thing completed being getting the six soul drops. Not a huge effect, just means that between that and my imperfect control of the judgement ring, the final boss was pretty dang hard, lasting long enough to eat up all of my Pure Extracts. Granted, one of the harder parts of this fight hinged around the combo attack, which reminded me that a defend command exists after the first time I got hit by the thing and only Kurando/Yuri survived it, barely.
Ishimura I kinda felt sorry for since he was just doing his best for his people. While the final boss fell flat, because it felt like the game was expecting you to have sympathy for him, and I just didn't. I mean, his motivations were believable, but the moment he felt he needed to take the steps he did, sympathy was impossible. As for Nicolai, he worked well for what he was, which was basically scumbag to move the plot forward and also to act as a reason for Yuri to get involved in the second half of the game.
Godhand, reached the final fight. Starting with stage 7 the game starts to get fairly brutal, but Stage 8 takes the cake with it's boss rush followed by the two stage final battle which is where I currently am. This is gonna take some time to really just lay into, so will take a few days before really tackling it again.
Meeple Fantasy 6 - finally got past Kefka. Ended up using a four person party which makes a huge difference when you're in a durable fight that requires two-three people to play defense. Granted, this means that Fayt was beyond useless, and the Terra/Yuri party had to be allowed to die a few times and then scramble to catch up in order to preserve my stockpile of 3 Phoenix Downs.
Swapped people around for a bit after this point and reached Filgaia.
Terra, has been good since she has the unique Dark Sword for MP drainage. Means that after she starts learning level 2 spells she can start just spamming those with the occasional swing to restore her mojo.
Yuri, is Godlike. Dunno, could be the fact that I gave him the Imperial Seal and Ramza's Ring, and that his best weapon right now also boosts Magic, and that they were going through a chunk of the game where Phys Defense was stupidly high, but he's been pretty consistantly matching the rest of the party for damage with Demon Rays. And it's only around Filgaia where this has started tapering off.
Lenneth, is mostly Crossbow spam. I notice that Meeple assumes that people are going to be getting the Chain Saw as the Misteltine is a reasonable upgrade on the Bolt Crossbow (which was really needing it now). And let's be fair, it's a nice upgrade. But this means that she's just a decent support character at this point with ST damage that isn't notable.
Ike, drops a lot in usability after the Sheldar Snowfields. His weapon edge falling isn't as huge a deal, as compared to the fact that this portion of the game is mean to physical types. Despite getting the Ettard in the research facility, bringing him along is still a huge mistake as his physical against the human enemies is still pathetic, without even getting into the non-human enemies. And Hand Axes do not beging to compare to some of the other options you have for free. Floating Continent might be nicer to him, but I won't be finding out as I doubt I'll be able to justify his use over legitimately good characters.
Fayt, really does start to pick up in the midgame. His jumping isn't as big a deal as it could be thanks to the physical imperviousness of the arcs. However, the addition of Materia is huge for him. Pity I didn't realize just how many things I'd want to blast that immune fire and ice, but Tandle and Heal are both fairly potent.
Rolf, is hurt a lot by the fact that you can't use his skillset out of battle. I'm also likely to drop him because Blue Magic. Never have liked it all that much. That said, he does make a good second for almost any role, but not the primary.
Laharl, slots are disturbingly good, though he doesn't quite have the HP for a PoL heal monkey type status. Typically been two weaponing with him thanks to there being lot of unique weapons that are plenty good, but only he can use for whatever reason (one reason for Ike in the party is that Laharl cannot use his weapons). All in all, a good defensive support character.
Vyse, has only seen use in one battle. It was a hell of a battle, but his role was pretty much limited to Item Boy which tells me little about him.
McDohl, also incredably limited use. Sadly, was around for nothing important in recent play. This will change when I hit the floating continent at least.
Ryu, cannot have an accurate opinion yet as he's just starting to learn his skillset. That said, D-Dive... kudos to Meeple for getting anything this close to resembling the original "It's awesome, but I really don't want to use it" move.
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I've been meaning to get LO for a while since Dhyer's always talking about it and it only costs like around a fiver here so why not? I can't think of any other 360 RPGs to get >.>
I've been thinking of who else might get a lot out of the game, and I think you would.
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Darksiders Abridged: Episode 3: Horsemen Ride No Trains!
Narrator: When we last left our hero protagonist, he...
War: *Stabs Narrator in the face*
Narrator: GEEZ WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?
War: I'm fucking War, does it LOOK like I need an excuse for arbitrary violence for the sake of it?
Narrator: YOU'RE A PRICK!
War: Thank you.
Watcher: So, why aren't we taking that heart to Samael again?
War: Huh? *said while currently ripping out the spine of a zombie*
Watcher: You know, to advance the plot so you can achieve...whatever it is you set out to do?
War: Oh, right, that! Lets try that underground thing Vulgrim taught us about.
*Warps to some area which is all surreal and nonsense*
War: ...ok, no, I was definitely NOT in this place before, what gives?
Watcher: I think we have to walk from one side to the other to actually warp to our destination. You know, needless reason to drag out gameplay only so the artists have more of a job?
War: That just means less fodder to slice in half, doesn't it?
Watcher: Yes, yes it does.
*War reaches the other side*
Samael: Ah, you made it!
War: How'd you know I'd come out here?
Samael: Huh? Me? Oh, I'm just good at second guessing *hides the game's script*
War: Here's what you need, the heart of Tiamat...and its still beating.
Samael: Ah, good! Now, next off is THE GRIEVER
War: And where do I find "Griever"
Samael: NO! Its "THE" Griever!
War: OK, how do I find that prick?
Samael: You he's in the subway. But first you must do me a favor and kick Ulthane's ass.
War: THAT WASN'T PART OF THE BARGAIN!
Samael: Listen! By doing so you'll gain super strength and be able to actually reach the Griever.
War: Why didn't you say that in the first place?
Samael: Cause I don't like doing you any favors.
War: IOWs...you're an ass?
Samael: Strong words from someone whose about to hit a defenseless crow with a car for no particular reason.
War: *War is doing exactly that* Did you say something?
Watcher: Look, he's not gonna do things cause you tell him to! He's got a job to do!
Samael: GET AWAY! *Bitchslaps the watcher away* WAR! YOU ARE BUT A PUPPET ON THE COUNCIL'S STRINGS! DO NOT LISTEN TO THIS LITTLE FREAK!
War: Hm, what was that? *is about to hit another crow with a parking meter*
Samael: You have far greater power than the Council lets you know! But this little freak here is helping them restrict it! CUT THOSE BONDS NOW!
War: Well, no shit; the game kind of started with me losing these powers and last I checked, Amnesia was not part of my character...
Watcher: I'M PROTECTED BY THE COUNCIL! HURT ME AND YOU'LL CEASE TO EXIST!
Samael: DO IT! And you'll become a threat to the Destroyer!!!
War: Do what?
Samael: Get rid of him! WITH FULL ANGER!
War: Something related to violence? I'm game! *Attacks the Watcher in FULL RAGE!!! and gains super powers, the Watcher is fine*
Samael: THERE we go! Now that you have this, go find Ulthane and get THE BLACK HAMMER!
War: Gotcha.
Watcher: Wait, I'm still alive?
Samael: Depends on your definition of alive. Some might say you were never alive to begin with since you are part...
Watcher: Look, if this is gonna be a philosophical discussion, then we're taking our leave.
Samael: Fine, be that way!
*War proceeds onward through absolutely nothing special until...*
War: A green area with waterfall, blue skies, and...filled with life? What madness is this in a post apocalyptic utopia?!?!
Watcher: You do realize everything you just said contradicted itself, right.
War: Either way, this place is all green, THERE MUST BE A WAY TO FIX THIS!
Watcher: Why not just find Ulthane and kick his ass?
War: But I want to set this place on fire!
Watcher: Look, why not get this Griever nonsense out of the way first, then if we have time afterwords, you can set this area on fire.
War: Yay!
*They come across another Gate Guardian*
War: ...WAKE UP DAMN IT!!!!
Gate Guardian: I'm cursed too, you know.
War: ...*sigh* Does that mean...
Gate Guardian: Yes, yes it does.
Watcher: Oh fun! We get to do 4 more rooms of uselessness.
War: The only good thing about this is it means I get to kill more stuff, I suppose.
*Room #1*
Tutorial: USE WAR'S NEW CHAOS FORM TO KILL ENEMIES IN THIS ROOM BEFORE TIME RUNS OUT!
War: Wait, you mean I can't kill anything unless I'm in super form? What kind of bullshit is-...
Random Female Voice Totally Not In This Game: May The Rage Of the Council Fill Your Blades, War!
War: Wow, that was a lot faster than I expected, take that Kratos!
*beats the shit out of the room*
Watcher: That was quite amusing! Lets do it again!
War: No. And I'd appreciate it if you didn't comment after every single room!
Watcher: Bah, you're no fun.
*Room #2*
Tutorial: KILL EVERYTHING USING NOTHING BUT COUNTERS!
War: So I have to block and attack? *sigh* Whatever happened to good old "Slice things til they die"?
Watcher: No one ever said this would be fun.
*Room #3*
Tutorial: KILL THINGS USING OBJECTS ON THE GROUND! YES, CARS WILL RANDOMLY SPAWN AS THEY ARE DESTORYED!
War: Now THAT'S more like it! *Throws cars at everything in the room*
*Room #4*
Tutorial: MAKE SURE AT LEAST ONE SKELETON KNIGHT SURVIVES THE END OF THIS! YES, YOU'RE FIGHTING WITH THE UNDEAD AGAINST DEMONS. JUST SHUT UP AND DO IT! HERE, WE'LL EVEN TURN ON INTELLIGENT FRIENDLY FIRE!
War: ...oh, that explains why nothing is happening to the 5 Skeletons I DON'T want to protect when I slice them...
Watcher: Well, at least the rooms are done.
Gate Guardian: Good, now this useless gameplay stalling is over, you can continue with the plot.
War: ...plot?
Watcher: You know, where you beat up huge demons for their hearts?
War: ...I thought that was just business...
*War comes across a big hammer stuck in the ground, tries to pull it out, fails*
Big Scottish Ogre Thing: I believe you are trespassing on my turf.
War: Ulthane...
Ulthane: Ah, so ye've heard of me.
War: Give me the Black Hammer and I'll kick your ass.
Ulthane: DOn't ye mean "or".
War: No, I don't.
Ulthane: Well, there are two. One is that in the ground there, and the other...is me! I assure ye, the one in the ground is the easier.
War: IOWs, this is a prelude to a boss fight.
Ulthane: Ye're catching on!
*Boss fight ensues*
War: Take this! *Sword tinks on Ulthane*
Ulthane: Ye're throwing glass at stone, my boy!
War: Throw? Try this! *picks up an out of place car and throws it at Ulthane, nothing happens*
Ulthane: It'll take more than a car to harm me! ...and no, don't take that to mean "Multiple will work".
War: *holding two cars* ...well, there goes THAT plan *puts cars down*
Uriel: ITS WAR! KILL HIM FOR WHAT HE DID TO ABADDON!
Angel Red Shirt: Um, why?
Uriel: Cause...umm...we can't get back into the White City until he's dead?
Angel Red Shirt: Oh, cool! DIE WAR *gets hit by Ulthane's hammer and dies horribly*
Ulthane: Me and the boy were having a talk here, how dare ye interrupt us!
War: We could still beat the stuffing out of each other you know.
Ulthane: How about this, we have a little challenge. Lets see who kills more of these pigeons by the time we reach The Griever's lair, and we'll decide whose better. I'll even open doors for ye!
War: ...fine.
*The two form an alliance, and beat the shit out of angels for a while, aiding each other with puzzles, door openings, what have you*
War: Ok, Angels, stop being so bor-*giant laser comes out of nowhere*
Angel with a Cannon: HA! BEHOLD OUR LATEST WEAPON: THE ANGEL PARTICLE BE-*Gets his arm sliced off by War* HOLY MOTHER OF BOB!
War: Thanks for your gun. I shall call this...REDEMPTION!
Watcher: You do realize you're going to lose that gun when this sequence is over, and this is just a gimmick section for the most part like that Griffon one...
War: ...shut up! *says this while frying angels with said weapon*
Ulthane: Good, looks like ye have the pigeons believing who ye are...BUT I STILL DON'T!
War: I am who I say I am!
Ulthane: BUt ye didn't say who you were!
War: Irrelevant!
Ulthane: Well, now ye know what I have to deal with. God damn tourist angels won't stay out of my garden! Go beat up the Griever, and I'll believe who ye are.
War: Did you just totally change what you were talking about in the middle of your own line?
Ulthane: Ye got a problem with that? Now get going to the subway, "hoseman"
War: Fine!
*in the subway*
War: You know, it occurred to me. Everyone keeps calling me a "Horseman" but why the fuck do I NOT have a horse? That thing would be useful for traveling around and killing things faster.
Watcher: Is all you can do when you're not needlessly killing something is whine about it?
War: Hey, I can totally do...uhh...
*The Griever appears*
Watcher: How convenient, the Boss appears at the beginning of the dungeon.
War: This will be over in a *The Griever runs away after being blasted by a Redemption a few times* ...nuts...
Watcher: Well, get to it! We got a long oversized dungeon to go through.
War: I know, I know.
*Several rooms of annoying Bomb Puzzles, enemies spawning, swimming, what have you later*
War: Ok, this weird face thing better give me something cool...
*War gains Falcon Punch Tremor Fist*
War: Sweet! My 3rd Melee weapon! Now, where's an enemy to punch in the face.
Random Demon: RAR! I AM A GUY WHO IS TOTALLY NOT A MINI BOSS! FEAR ME!
*War Punches him in the face a few times*
Random Demon: Blarghle! *it dies*
War: Oh look, I can break crystals now with my fist! Finally, those damned things were getting annoying. Mock me with their shininess will they! WELL, WHOSE SHINY NOW!?
Watcher: ...they are...
*a few rooms later*
War: Ok, so I've been fighting a lot of the same nonsense here, there better be something new in this...wait, THIS IS THE FIRST ROOM OF THE DUNGEON! God damn circular dungeon-...
*Room locks itself*
War: ...ok, that definitely didn't happen before.
Angelic Demon: HORSEMAN! LETS DANCE SHALL WE!
War: Are you an Angel or a Demon?
Angelic Demon: What!?
War: Its exactly what I said! I mean, it doesn't really matter, but I like to keep track of how many of what I've killed.
Angelic Demon: DIE!!!!!!!
*War rips the illogical being in half with his fists*
War: ...so how do I tally that one up?
Watcher: Just put a Question mark and move on.
*Next room*
War: You know, for a subway, there's a distinct lack of trains here.
*War comes across a train related puzzle*
War: ...don't say a freaking word, Watcher.
Watcher: What made you think I was?
War: Cause you have a comment on EVERYTHING provided there's not another person for me to talk too.
Watcher: Oh just finish the puzzle already.
*The Griever attempts to stab War in the middle of a random tunnel*
War: ...seriously, Devs, is that your idea of a puzzle? I mean, I get it you're trying to selling the setting or something, but come on, this is just trivial. Anyone with half a brain would know "Don't walk to fast, wait for the stab, stay out of the shining light cause he'll probably strike again there."
Watcher: You put too much thought into that complaint.
War: This dungeon has given me plenty of time and inspiration to complain.
*A bunch of more stupid puzzles later that are not worth mentioning*
War: A big ominous corridor with two trains...well, there's nothing that can go-...
*The Griever grabs one of those trains completely out of nowhere*
War: ...I see how it is. *Throws the other train, the Griever does the exact same thing* Like you'd shove a block pushing style puzzle here and pretend I'd have to ignore it.
*next room*
War: Another Ominous room with a train and crystals...this one is wide and open...welp, I guess I hit a dead-...
*The Griever appears down and starts firing lasers at War*
War: Damn it, where's my Redemption? Also, what ever happened to a plot confrontation scene like Tiamat had?
Watcher: I don't think she can talk...
War: ...personalitiless bitch, HAVE AT *gets blasted by a laser* OW!
Watcher: Why not throw that train at him.
War: There's crystals in the way and...wait, right, I CAN SMASH THOSE NOW! *does that, but the Griever fries crystals turning them red, War punches a red crystal, burning his hand* OW! Bitch, what am I suppose to do now?
Watcher: Wait for the Crystal to cool down, then punch it while she's NOT firing lasers?
War: ...I knew that...
*Crystal smashing done*
War: EAT TRAIN BITCH! *Hits Griever in the foot with a train, she goes ballistic smacking into the tunnel dropping spikse on him*
War: How...ouch...the...ICK...hell...ARGH!...am I...OOF...suppose...MRF...to know...BLARGH...where these things...OW...will FALL!?
Watcher: Why not try BLOCKING them next time?
War: Why the fuck will that work?
Watcher: You haven't tried it have you?
War: Pfft, fine!
*War throws the Train back at The Griever, smashes her crystal guarding her heart, then more stuff falling*
War: Ok, so you want me to block? FINE I'LL BLOCK! *War blocks all the hits successfully by just standing there and guarding* ...I hate it when you're right...
Watcher: SEe!? YOU DO NEED ME!
*repeat strategy over again for a while, replacing Crystal Smashing with Sword Slashing the heart*
War: Ok, I win! TIME FOR AN OVERLY EPIC KILL ANIMATION!
*War slices Griever's arm off, slams the train into her face 5 times...then once more just for good luck, takes heart out*
Watcher: TWo down! Well, it seems...WAIT! I haven't finished talking! Don't go into that tele-*War does exactly that* ...porter...
*Outside, Ulthane is busy making something, HUGE HAMMER COMES FLYING AT HIM*
Ulthane: Ah, so ye've returned, with The Griever beaten, Horseman.
War: What are you doing here?
Ulthane: That's a pretty odd thing for YE to ask since I LIVE HERE.
War: Irrelevant! Answer my question.
Ulthane: How about I give ye this nice handy gun instead. I made it, but its too small for me, thus useless.
War: ANSWER ME! *holds Gun to Ulthane's face*
Ulthane: Ye really think a little gun like that is going to hurt me, despite how I kind took a car head on and LAUGHED?
War: ...
Ulthane: I helped ye, that's all there is too it. Now, my backstory is irrelevant and ye can get on with the story.
War: Fine, but I'll be wanting answers eventually!
New Narrator: Will War get the answers he needs? Will Samael get the heart of The Griever? Will I be able to finish this without War notic...
*New Narrator is hit with a car*
War: I hate people who talk too much.
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Iji: Beat this, pacifist run because it seemed more fun. Fun game, though would have been more fun if I could get it to work with my controller instead of having to use the keyboard.
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Castlevania: Harmony of Despair: No, I'm not playing it. Because I can't download shit on my XboX360 in Japan. I hate life. Someone else please play this and tell me about it.
PuzzleQuest: Addictive and cute. I may have to put it down soon or I'll attempt to stat topic it.
Half-Minute Hero: The best game ever. Tongue-in-cheek humor and a very endearing homage to the essence of RPGness.
You really do have to Save the World(TM) in 30 seconds. Luckily you have a Time Goddess on your side (well, more like your bankroll, the greedy whore), so you can stretch it out to almost 2 minutes!
I particularly like how each mission is presented as a 'new game' of sorts. Like, after you beat the first mission, the credits roll (skippable), and when the next thing starts, the title appears with the grandiose "sequel" feel.
I should probably stop playing this one soon too, or else I'll try to stat-topic it.
Resonance of Fate: I was going to jump right into Wizard of Oz, but I decided I needed to make sure all the 360 games I bought actually work on my Japanese 360. It turns out that all of them are region-free except for Enchanted Arms, which was only like $5 bucks anyway, so who cares? Anyway, after turning on RoF, I immediately decided to play -that- instead.
It feels a lot like SO3, only more streamlined, prettier, and a better cast. Tri-Ace does good things with ARPGs, and RoF makes up for how much apathy Infinite Undiscovery induced.
Gameplay aside, RoF's cast feels a lot like Wild Arms 1's cast, except that Jack is the main character and everyone is far better-written and actually humorous. And everyone uses guns. RoF's setting is WAo's, but with more Djinn-bait.
I dig the map setup too, though I wish there was a little more free-roaming the player could do earlier.
Also, I keep dying. I need to figure out how to break this game faster. At least the only penalty for dying is some gold for a retry. Though sometimes you get screwed even with that system. Protip: Save before fighting optional monsters 5x your level.
Currently playing 100% DL-legal style because Tide's stat topic is amusing. It makes levelling much harder... >.>;;
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I'd like to say I'm playing something but...
Well, I have.
Been working on trying to get the Extra route on GFW but so far I have only 1cc'd A-1.
However, I've been hard at work doing some translations for Touhou Souzinengi - GENIUS OF SAPPHEIROS, for the Western Touhou Community, so.
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I've been playing Sengoku BASARA 3.
Magoichi Saika on hard mode = Super easy mode. (´ー｀*)
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FF13-Chapter 4ish or so.
The game..is okay now I guess. It really took way too long to get started, far too much of the introductory shit is "mash A button, find cutscene, run through completely linear path". You don't get Paradigms or different abilities or any progress from level ups or...anything besides shiny cutscenes. Now that I do have all that, and some randoms actually require forethought, things have improved. Story may or may not be good, Sazh is awesome, don't have much of an opinion on Snow or Lightning, Vanille and Hope get on my nerves and I wish they were dead.
Question: Is there anything I should know about Components and crafting them with weapons before I get started? Any gamebreaking things I could do?
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FF13-Chapter 4ish or so.
The game..is okay now I guess. It really took way too long to get started, far too much of the introductory shit is "mash A button, find cutscene, run through completely linear path". You don't get Paradigms or different abilities or any progress from level ups or...anything besides shiny cutscenes. Now that I do have all that, and some randoms actually require forethought, things have improved. Story may or may not be good, Sazh is awesome, don't have much of an opinion on Snow or Lightning, Vanille and Hope get on my nerves and I wish they were dead.
Question: Is there anything I should know about Components and crafting them with weapons before I get started? Any gamebreaking things I could do?
The basic idea is to use the cheap components to build up the bonus exp, then use as many of the most expensive component you have at once to get the most exp. Nothing gets to gamebreaking with limited money and components early on. Building up your default weapons will serve you until chapter 11-12
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Alpha Protocol- I think I'm going to try "Karate moves only!!!" or as close to it as I can get. First few missions shouldn't be hard, at least. Defending the trace at the ruins in Rome will be a goddamn nightmare, though.
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FF13 item customisation works like this, organic things build up your multiplier, they tend to have low exp gains and usually are fairly obvious. Mechanical parts will destroy your multiplier but give the most experience.
So you can build up the multiplier to as high as it gets (3x from memory?) off of cheap junk organic crap (60 of the cheaper store trash will do it I think, by FAR the most cost efficient way to get it up), then dump as much of the one kind of material you can into the item. You can easilly get through the game until about chapter 10 without crafting anything, this works fairly well as it lets you build up a good stash of crap to dump all at the same time and it is also the point where you will have most of the stores unlocked as well.
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There are specific materials that you should purchase to minimize the costs. I remember you buy them in increments of 32, Barbed Tails was one of those. There's others. Like some sort of ooze?
But Eph and Gref have the basic gist of it anyway. Its obviously more advantageous to hold off upgrades over the long term since you spend less materials and therefore, will get bigger gains once you actually do have the money to buy things to repeat your multiplier and so on. There's a more detailed guide on it at GFAQs - I recommend reading Arth's if you actually care. It pretty much details the process and then gives you a layman's version if you don't care (AND it has other shinies without game spoilage)
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Nier: I have just been erased.
Four prompts for ending D. Well, you can't say they didn't warn you. And yeah, C & D were much more what I was expecting from this game's endings. Alternate final fight was actually somewhat threatening...comparatively speaking, as in the opener actually forced me to heal. Goes back to being ground underfoot after Ultimate Danmaku Barrage, but that's still more than could be said for anything else on second cycle. Hell, even the second half of the first cycle is pretty sad just due to the existence of spears.
Was that Lunar Tear always on the title screen, or only after getting ending D? I don't remember seeing it before, but the title screen in a game is one of those things I just tune out after a while.
Anyway, okay game is okay. Some signs of working on a budget are apparent, principally in that the game suffers from chronic dungeon recycling. There are a billion and one random item types that exist for I don't know what reason and I don't even know what to say about the plot. Hack 'n' slash is moderately entertaining before the game breaks in half though. Music is also solid and the central cast is fun to watch bicker (well, three out of four--I never got much of a read on Emil). Overall fairly average but it has its moments and I don't regret playing it or anything. I have to give it a few points just for that one town where the residents were stricken with compulsive narration syndrome.
~
Will probably start KotOR2 next because it's been eyeing me reproachfully for a couple weeks now. My assumption is that I should run a consular to get the most dialogue options out of skills and force abilities. Is this accurate?
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It will do the job yeah. Sentinel isn't quite as bad in KotOR 2 as it was in KotOR 1 though. Generally speaking I would just go with whatever seems the most fun. I know I did a play through as Consular that didn't equip any weapons. Not to punch thigns, but to block blaster bolts with his bare hands and to kill the world with lightning.
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ToP Narikiri Dungeon X- This is the case when ToD team needs to be dipped into the lava.... no, why is ToD team making a ToP team game anyway!!??
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Ys 7: Beaten. If I had to sum it up in one sentence... "Definition generic hack&slash RPG that does a few things extremely well."
When I say Ys 7 is a generic RPG, I mean it completely. The game does very little that isn't by the book. Silent protagonist? Check. Pretty flower girl? Check. Bishie silver-haired guy? Check. Collecting the 5 ancient elemental artifacts? Check. Princess incognito who is laughably obvious right from the get-go? Check. Plot twist that is pretty heavily foreshadowed? Check. Honestly the game stuck to the recipe pretty close. Very few of the characters even have distinctive personalities outside of their roles in the plot, even (Aisha and Dogi being notable exceptions).
But who cares? You don't play this game for anything like plot or characters. You play it for the combat, the music, and the character designs. The game's combat is fast paced and fun, with almost no letup in the action. You are constantly dashing around like a madman and unleashing a variety of attacks upon enemies as you balance moves that build energy, moves that deplete energy but deal lots of damage, moves that require a special gauge to use, and moves that have typing that nails a weakness. The combination of fast pacing with strategy for avoiding damage and managing your attacks makes for a memorable and enjoyable playing experience.
Ys is a series that is known for the music even to folks who don't play the games themselves, so it isn't surprising that one of the game's biggest draws is the music. Whether it is an overworld theme, a village didley, or a penultimate boss fight's leimotif, you are pretty much assured to be listening to something at least 'good' and almost surely "very good". A pretty good collection of stuff ranging from heart-pounding action (CROSSING RAGE!) to hauntingly eerie (The Sacred Wind). While little may stand out on it's own, the usage and overall quality if hard to argue with.
Despite being pretty generic in plot and characters, I would highly recommend this game to those willing to play a new (and relatively cheap at $30) ARPG styled game on the PSP.
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Parasite Eve 2 - Got this 2 or so weeks ago and have played it on and off over that time. Not that I don't like the game its just juggling other games and generally being busy means I couldn't play it much. Pretty far though as it is a pretty short game and phew the fricking villains. The mega corp (and their staff) developing this shit makes Umbrella look pretty damn sane. I mean shit theres a guy (Bowman) who sees the remains of a monkeys face after it exploded and loudly proclaims that truely this is the next step in human evolution (lolwut!?!). Then the fuck is crazy enough to put himself forward to be mutated so he can be one of the first to experiance the next step in "human evolution", thereby turning him into a 9ft tall random enemy. Yeah suck on that Bowman, you're just random generic garbage not even worthy of boss status.
In terms of the other characters I'm surprised Number 9 hasn't appeared yet as due to his body disapearing I assumed he was still alive. Kyle has turned from random shady nice guy to a right bastard saying shit like I shouldn't go into the dark as I'm likely to be eaten by a Grue. Fuck off man, I'll fuck up anybody with my bombastic science defying mitochondria powers.
Yakuza 3 - I've really been playing to many rpgs lately so I got this as I'd heard it was pretty good and I have to say it is. I'm loving the story and main (Kazuma) is so damn good. I'm finding myself really looking forward to see whats going to happen next which is something very few games do for me these days.
Currently in chapter 5 right after beating the mystery American in black. Stupidly he had a gun the whole time but only draws it after getting served in an ally and even then he only uses the gun so he can escape instead of capping Kazuma there and then. Its implied he doesn't just shoot Kazuma because of the huge amount of police in the area but its still shaky as the japanese police is downright pathetic and he could easily escape after killing you.
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BlazBlue: Online play has taught me I suck. And here I thought I was making progress.
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I think FFXIII is anti gamebreaking for most of the game. Even with all the stuff I have on the replay I've only been able to do so much with it. CP and equipment costs get more and more expensive as time goes by so even grinding can only be so profitable. I've just finished farming at Hope's house and am back with Sazh/Vanille. Despite racking up over 40'000 CP from the previous chapter to carry over for them I still wasn't able to max out all of their roles as far as they would go. I still have some of Vanille's MED and Sazh's RAV left to do. I also have 150'000+ in monies as a result of my farming though I haven't picked up the Healing Rod for Vanille yet. I suscept though that by the time I max that, buy and max new accessories for the duo and perhaps upgrade a weapon for Sazh that money will be seriously dented >.>
I've been thinking of who else might get a lot out of the game, and I think you would.
Any particular reason why? >.> I think I'll try and pick it up this weekend then. Of course now that I've decided to do that I probably won't be able to find it!~
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BlazBlue: Online play has taught me I suck. And here I thought I was making progress.
We should create a club.
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I think FFXIII is anti gamebreaking for most of the game.
The notion that FF13 would attempt to restrict your options in something just blew my mind.
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Urgh ranting about how FF13 is chock full of fake choices again, do not want, I am done with that.
City of Heroes - New expansion is out, kind of fun to piss about with.
DQ9 - About to get boat. Trying to unlock Gladiator and was thinking about doing Armamentalist as well. I get everyone naked, have half my party in level 1 jobs and slimes still run away. Fuck that is retarded. It makes me dread trying to do Armamentalist.
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Eh, Armamentalist wasn't that bad for me. Just be patient. I had my Hero use Wizard Ward the first turn while the other chars did normal attacks, hoping for 2-3 points of damage to put the slime just shy of dying, then have Hero attack the next turn hopefully for the kill. Probably got it in about 15 minutes of trying. Note that it's easy to find metal slimes by exiting and reentering Quarantomb and watching what spawns by the entrance.
DQ9: Stuff. Grinding grottos to find some good ones with lots of S-rank chests (or one with an all Metal King Slime floor). Best I've gotten so far is one with 4 S ranks, but they're in annoying spots to get to.
LoZ Spirit Tracks: Got this free with my second copy of DQ9, so what the hell. Ew, 100% stylus-controlled gameplay. No, I do not want Link to jump off that ledge because I didn't tap exactly right. Other than that, pretty standard Zelda fare. In the fire mountain place now, about 75% done.
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ICO -
Finished. Generally very nice, although there were a number of points where it was overly hard to make out vital features of the area that were somewhat aggravating.
Timed jumping puzzle in the waterwheel shed can go jump also. There were additionally a couple of times when I brought failure on myself due to only having skimmed the controls section of the instructions, although I lay part of the blame of the introduction of bombs on the fact that they were not remotely recognisable as bombs in that lighting.
End of the ending doesn't really make sense either.
Anyway, I mostly thoroughly enjoyed it. Good times. Unfortunately the place I bought it from no longer has Colossus in stock so I will have to expand my horizons.
Anyone know if there are any good overhead images of the castle complex?
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Shadow of the Colossus went greatest hits and is reasonably cheap on Amazon here. Dunno about availability in bizarro world, but the game sold pretty well in general and I can't imagine it'd be too hard to find.
It would be awesome if a castle map existed, but I dunno where one would be found. Pyro is the resident Ico hyper, maybe he's found one?
~
Worms Reloaded: Got this off of Steam because dudes were talking about it yesterday and I was reminded that the games had always sounded fun and I'd never played one before. My aim is really goddamn bad when I have to fire in anything but a straight line, but it's still amusing. Can't get sound for some reason though.
KotOR2: Started this up yesterday, meant to get through Peragus but it took longer than expected. It is pretty neat just for an example of how much havoc an HK can wreak when left to its own devices.
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Brawl: Picked this up for the GF's Wii. Pretty much just played Subspace Emissary so far. It's fun.
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I had the same sound issue. You need to download a new DirectX upgrade....uh...the Vice President had the link...
http://download.microsoft.com/download/1/7/1/1718CCC4-6315-4D8E-9543-8E28A4E18C4C/dxwebsetup.exe
Think that's it.
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DQ9 - About to get boat. Trying to unlock Gladiator and was thinking about doing Armamentalist as well. I get everyone naked, have half my party in level 1 jobs and slimes still run away. Fuck that is retarded. It makes me dread trying to do Armamentalist.
Normal slimes: The one with full tension dragon slash, if I recall? Have your hero egg on the one you want, have him defend. Spam War cry (Monk skill, need 3 skill pts or something?) with the other 2 members of your party.
Metal slimes: I just had everyone learn Wizard Ward and Metal Slash (Sword skill, 13 skill pts I think...), everyone casting Wizard Ward in 1st turn, and hoped that the metal slimes wouldn't flee.
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Normal slimes one was easy when I remembered Sleep is good times. Sleep + Confusion means bitches won't be bitches.
Metal Slimes I had everyone strip down ready to get their fuck on and grabbed a Poison Knife. With everyone else defending but my Wizard it took 2/4 Metal Slime encounters to kill one, the ID never kicked in, but Poison Knife can't miss and will always do 1 damage regardless. Enemies seem to be much less likely to run if you are not taking offensive action and have lower stats. Took a bit longer to hammer that all out in my head, but was quicker than grinding everyone up to level 10 needed to learn Wizard Ward.
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KotOR2: Done with Peragus. Obliterating a planet to facilitate escape, nice. Although I have to wonder why none of the hundreds of blaster bolts the Harbinger fired at you didn't cause the same result.
The proper way to break this game is to not level the supporting PCs until they can access Jedi classes, isn't it? Seem to recall reading that.
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That is one way you can break the game (same goes for the main PC unlocking the second classes ala the first game kind of, but not a big deal if you are going to stick with the same type of build). Another way you can break the game is to push buttons and do some kind of attack at all because this shit is stupidly easy.
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You actually can't do that with the Exile in 2. Second classes unlock for her at level 15 so there's no sense in saving her levels.
And it's really only a great idea for some characters. Disciple, in particular, goes from Soldier to Consular, so if you want to use him instead of Kreia for whatever reason it isn't a terrible idea to level him a bit in Soldier for the feats.
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Trying to "break" KotOR2 is like trying to break FF6 or Suikoden 2 or something. I'm just left wondering why you would feel the need.
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After playing enough RPGs, some people are left with a compulsive need to break everything a little harder than is truly necessary.
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That.
And I have been levelling the main because I figured the gimmick wasn't possible there due to them starting out jedi. Just Atton I've been waiting on.
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It is very easy to go to Korriban after level 15.
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Mafia 2 - It is alright, it is a lot less fickle and finnicky about stuff than the original Mafia was, breaking the law in general is much less of a big deal than it was in the original. Driving is much much less ridiculous, newer cars helps, but it is much less simulation driving in a GTA game and much more regular GTAish driving.
On the other hand it carries over some annoying as all fuck things, character death is a restart from the last autosave, how annoying this can be depends on the autosave points. Cops jump from being trivial to drop to absolutely insanely dogged and impossible to drop. Do you have a slow car on a long straight road? You are fucked. Is there are windy road you can drive down? As long as you don't run into anything, instant win! Same goes for on foot, are you out in the open? You are fucked, cops will keep spawning and you won't be able to get away. Are you in an alleyway with things to hide behind? Kill like 2 cops and then hide in the alley, cops will fail to find you eventually and be easy as to kill otherwise. They are insanely fickle about getting on you as well and when they get on you they stay on you like flies on fresh shit.
Do you have cops on you? You can't do fuckign anything, you can't go into your safe house, you can't go into a body shop to change plates, you can't do shit. If you are in a car in an open area then you are pretty much fucked. You can't outrun the cops well enough and getting out on foot just gets you gang raped.
So yeah couple all that with the house you have in Chapter 10 which is out in the suburbs? Yeah fuck you game. I had almost finished a mission where you had to go to a bar, pick up a dead guy and drive across the fucking city to dump the car in a car compactor. That loses you your car, so you have to go get another one then drive across the fucking city again to get home. I got home and clipped a car with a cop behind me "HIT AND RUN MOTHERFUCKER" I can't get away from the cops, I can't get into my home to end the mission. I get out of the car and try to fight them off. Keep spawning around me, no cover die. Auto save is back at dragging the corpse to the car.
Fuck that. Time to stop for the night.
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After playing enough RPGs, some people are left with a compulsive need to break everything a little harder than is truly necessary.
Some games have complicated methods of doing so. In others, a little rational thought will destroy the game. KotOR2 is the latter.
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DMC2 - Beat Dante Mode. The game's challenge actually picked up a bit towards the end, particular Trismagia (the three faces) who made me actually learn how to dodge some of their stuff. Argosax had monstrous HP and was quite a fun idea in general (basically a chimera of DMC1-2 bosses) but a few of his parts could be cheaped out with long range attacks. Wouldn't be DMC2 witohut that! Still quite tricky. Final was fairly easy though not trivially so.
What I said before holds. It's a frustrating game because it really feels like it needed some playtesting to reveal some obvious holes the enemies had. Mooks sucked (though occasionally were used well with the terrain), but at least they weren't overly durable, so they were just something to brush aside while exploring stages and waiting to fight bosses. Stages and platforming are probably series best, and there are some good boss ideas, but overall it just has too many flaws to be a great game. Gameplaywise I think it's probably about on par with 3 (though different) but obviously it loses pretty badly in other departments, since it's not especially funny 99% of the time and the plot is just lolwhat. Maybe a 5.5/10 overall.
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KotOR2: Ran through Citadel Station. Was a weird moment where the game decided to delete my allies right before the last fight against Czerka goons, which I really don't think was supposed to happen because I heard one of Kreia's battle voiceovers out of the blue while I was beating up on the goons solo. Fortunately they reappeared once I got down to Telos. Was briefly worried some crazy bug decided to kick my ass and I would have to reload and redo some stuff.
Highlight of the day was definitely telling the service droid to go fire on his owners. Nice subversion of Asimov's laws there.
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Yakuza 3 - Chapter 8-10 has heavy doses of MAJIMA! and thus is awesome for that alone.
Chapter 9 is the Triads (yes them) walk into Tokyo completely unopposed (where is the police? JDF?) and begin wrecking shit to find your friend so they can lead you into a trap and their leader can fight you 1 on 1.
Its funny how the only guy willing to protect Tokyo was Majima who is a crazy motherfucker while the smug twats like Mine did nothing at all.
Mine is now the main villain after killing Kanda easily. For good reason too because if Kanda went into my office and caused a billion worth of damage I'd kill him too. Sad the fat man died though, I mean yeah he was scum but he was harmless. I mean at first you think that he rapes a different women a day but then you find out he gets off women moaning so instead of raping them he gives them back massages (!?!). Very good massages as well I'm told.
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KotOR2: If Bao-Dur was any more mellow he'd be dead.
Jumped to Nar Shadda once I had freedom of movement. As is my usual M.O. in this sort of game, I can't really pass up opportunities to help people (for shiny XPs). So, needless to say, Kreia doesn't like me much.
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Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow-Brick Road:
I've been wanting to play this game since I was in Middle School. I grew up as a big fan of the Oz books, and sometime around being introduced to Final Fantasy 6, the thought came to me that the Wizard of Oz story would make a great base template for an RPG. After all, there was a simple journey, a small party of plucky heroes with well-defined personal goals, and tons of perilous and adorable monsters/witches to contend with. Add a little more RPG logic like "Scarecrow is weak to Fire, but immune to Status effects like Sleep" or "Tin Man is afflicted with Rust status effect when hit by Water attacks" and you have the makings of an awesome little romp through Oz!
Of course, in -my- version of the game, there would have been a lot more references to the colorful characters actually -in- the Oz-books. Not to mention a slightly more in-depth look at the fairly archetypal characters in the Children's novels.
MediaVision decided to go the opposite direction - apparently the original story was far too complex, so they reduced it to the bare bones and just made everything REALLY REALLY pretty.
While I like the storybook setting they added, and I would have been fine with having the relatively personality-less PCs, the utter lack of world-building is unforgiveable to me. If you're going to strip the series of all complexity, at least replace it with something of your own! An original take on Oz is always a welcome change to me, honestly. I enjoyed MacGuire's Wicked series immensely, and the musical version was entertaining, too. Even that crappy Sci-Fi original series "O.Z." or whatever it was called was at least appealing in the ways it tried to reinvent the series (despite Zoey Deschanel's bad acting ruining pretty much the entirety of the program).
But no, Wild Arms of Oz manages to have a less complicated plot/world/characters than Dragon Quest 4.
Well, at least the gameplay's good! The ratio system adds a nice layer of complexity and the battles are competent all-around. Very nicely polished. I must add that the game feels a lot more like Dragon Quest than it does Wild Arms. "DQ in Oz" is a more fitting nickname, despite being created by the Wild Arms teams.
Also, the aesthetics all-around are quite fitting. The artstyle is charming (though Dorothy's character art is a little creepy, her in-game model is quite well rendered) and suits the story book setting. The graphics are colorful (man, when was the last time I got to say that?! Like... Chrono Cross?). And the music, while forgettable, is appropriately laid-back, though not as cutesy as I was expecting from the opening credits.
The track ball feels pretty gimmicky, but it makes running around the world map slightly more fun, I must admit.
I just beat Flora (man, that was rough), and the first 3 Father Dragon fights (even rougher). Game is very well balanced and somewhat challenging, so I give it props for that. I keep petting Toto, hoping something will happen. So far, he seems to have learned 2 "New Tricks", but I have yet to see what that does. Does he leap in Interceptor-style? Man, that would be bad-ass.
Overall, I'm quite disappointed with the story, but it's still nice to have a definitive Oz RPG after all those years of daydreaming about it.
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Then you will be extra-excited to hear my Care Bears RPG is coming along nicely!
You were always hoping for some good old-fashioned combat via caring and sharing since you were a child, right?
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DQ9- Just kidding, I fail and didn't play anything on my trip because I am a bum.
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Yakuza 3 - Finally a boss with my name who isn't a pink fluffy cat! And he is the big bad to boot and dresses like Albert Wesker, Sega you just made what I'd be if I was American, in my 40s, an arms dealer and one bad dude. Also his death has to be the most crazy awesome thing I've seen. How many villains are killed off by being Dragon suplexed off the top of a building?
Mine was shit due to horrrible motives and the ending was lol inducing. So after all that shit a villain who disappeared half way through the game randomly shows up and shanks Kazuma? WTF!
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Crackdown 2:
Second verse, same as the first
A little bit louder, a little bit... well, not worse, but I wouldn't say better.
Played through it over three days. The game is pretty much Crackdown 1 + zombies. And well, that's good enough for me. But unless they show some serious changes, I won't be getting Crackdown 3.
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Metroid Other M: UNSKIPPABLE CUTSCENES IN MY METROIDS?! Okay, it's not that bothersome. If you really loved Fusion, I recommend you check it out. It's a bit frustrating though that you have to stop, enter first person, scan lock and shoot just to fire one missile and you can't dodge or see anything. Adam is still a dick.
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KotOR2: Acquired 1x eyeless freak, fanservice bounty hunter, crimelord who's really not a robot no sir, and HK. Nar Shadda' busy for recruitment. HK-47 is glorious. Ally convos are pretty nice (principally Kreia, though). I finished up Nar Shadda plot stuff last night then figured I'd talk through everything I could with my team one-on-one before going to bed. Two hours later, I went to bed.
Hit level 16, went Jedi Master just because it seemed the thing to do, what the exile shitting rainbows and all. Hitting Dantooine next.
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What I've been playing: MF6-maker 2000! It's really fun just playing around with the FF6 editor. However...
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
MF6 broke and I have to start all over again.
Spritesheets can be exported and re-imported in a clean MF6 Master file, but that might not solve the problem if the spritesheets themselves are somehow the cause of the break.
The file seems to be fine except that most of the large Monster Sprites are misaligned, so their tiles appears jumbled.
What's weird is that it's only -some- of the Monster sprites...
This leads me to think that it has something to do with a too-large sprite that was loaded, but I haven't messed with any monster sprites. I messed with -one- Esper sprite and did some minor Hex-editing to map sprites in my test copy of MF6, but that shouldn't affect my master copy (both versions have the same monster-sprite tile-sorting problem).
It could just be a glitched copy? Or perhaps I applied the MF6 patch to the wrong FF3 rom?
I lose the game.
Meeple, please send me a fresh MF6 Master File so I can try re-importing my PC/NPC sprite tables and see what's causing the monster-sprite tiles to break?
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I can send you one, but we should probably go over exactly what you're changing before you change it, rather than getting TOO ambitious and watching things explode on themselves again.
(we can do this in chat, of course)
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Chat is inaccessible at work. And doing it here means that Sage might be able to add his knowledge in.
I'm not changing anything you don't want me to or that you don't know about already.
The only edits I've been making have been to PC/NPC sprites/palettes, some hex editing for things like getting rid of Celes' 'chained-up' sprite since I can't edit its appearance, and the Seraphic Radiance Esper sprite (which I only added in the test files to see if it would work).
I haven't checked it out in-game yet, but in FF3usME, a bunch of the monster sprites appear have their sprite tiles mis-sorted. This is in both the Master File you originally sent me (which I thought I hadn't edited at all, but when I double-checked, there were a few signs that some PC sprites had gotten changed, so I must have opened it by mistake and edited it at some point) and in the Test files that I've been making all my edits to.
When I was looking through the Monster Sprites on ff3se, I noticed a bunch of ugly sprites that I started cleaning up (like Dante). And then I looked at it on FF3usME's list and I noticed that a bunch of the large sprites had the tile-sorting issue (again, only on FF3usME's display, I haven't checked it in-game yet since I don't have a save anywhere near any of these large-sprite monsters - it also doesn't appear on ff3se's display, so this could be a false alarm?).
Anyway, I checked the Master File (which has practically no edits to it at all) and the tile-sorting issue still showed up on FF3usME's display.
It could be a display glitch on FF3usME's part? It might have something to do with an incorrectly-sized spritesheet for one of the PCs/NPCs? I might have accidentally made a hex edit to it by mistake, though that wouldn't explain why it shows up in all three of my MF6 copy files (MF6 Master File that I wasn't going to touch, MF6 'updated file' that I was going to send back to you once I finished all the sprite updates, and MF6 test file where I fuck around to see what works and export/import spritesheets with wild abandon)
List of changes I've done since you originally sent me the file... for reference:
ff3se sprite editor:
-Redrawn sprites for: Yuri, Ike, Tir, Rolf, Leneth, Ginny, Vyse, Jelze, Imp, Prinny
-Added a Palette Header (row of 16 colors to the first sprite) to all of the 22 editable spritesheets not listed above
-Changed the color values for Palettes 0,1,3,4 (not reassigned)
-Reassigned Ginny's palette to 3, Vyse's palette to 4
-Cleaned up Monster Sprites for: Chocobo, Cloud/Zack, Garuda, Cerebus/Garm, Johan, Gades, a few others?
-Changed some color values for the Palettes of Monster Sprites: Zack, RedChocobo, T-elos
-Changed Esper Rayquaza's Sprite to Seraphic Radiance (I didn't intend to make this edit to the finished product, and I checked the Master File specifically for this change and it's still Rayquaza)
LordJ's FF3SpriteEd program:
-Edited Riding/KO'd sprites for: Leneth, Lina, Laharl
-Edited NPC sprite tileset for: Old Man, Young Man, Old Woman, Young Woman, Little Boy, Little Girl, Bird, Fish, Alice(Rachel), Eyepatch Thief, Esper Man1
LordJ's FF3usME:
-None that I know of. Though I played around with a test file just to see what it could do, I intentionally didn't save anything. Mostly I just used this to figure out what changes had been made (like... I didn't know that Siegfried had become Zed until I was looking through this).
Hex Editor:
-Changed all instances of Sprite $41->$06 (Chained Celes->basic Leneth).
-I attempted to change all of Vyse and Ginny's map sprite palettes to their new palettes... But apparently those are already set correctly according to the Hex values.
-I'm assuming I must have made a mistake here somehow, but that doesn't explain why it affected all three of my files.
I should probably test to make sure that FF3usME doesn't just have a display bug somehow... I haven't looked at how it handles an unpatched FF3 ROM or an unpatched Expanded FF3 ROM... It might have the same problem?
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Do NOT touch Monster sprites. I believe I elluded to you not to do that cause random bad shit can occur, as you just saw. Also, I'm pretty sure I told you to not use the Seraphic Radiance one, though, sounds liek you did that on your own personal test file; I do not want it in the final product either way (reading it...sounds like you were just doing it as a temporary thing though.)
Dante I didn't want "Cleaned up" for example; I liked the 8 bit thing I found and want to keep it that way (Dante Mk2 was just a half assed "hey, it looks different but close enough to Dante, lets stay with this pallette" thing). The Dante (and Dante 3) were both using exact colors as I found them. There's nothing to be "cleaned up" there; that's how I wanted them.
The Sprites have looked garbled in the editor for a while; as I said, do not touch monster sprites. Just stick to Map Sprites only. I hand picked a lot of sprites personally, and some of them are things like "hey, its Alma's exact sprite from FFT!" for example (I did kind of face palm when you said you "fixed" Asellus' sprite that one time. NO! I wanted her to use her SaGa Sprite damn it! That's part of the charm of summons! Most of them are ripped sprites/etc. from their home game!)
Basically...just leave the Monster Sprites alone. If something is messing up in game in terms of display, it may not be a sprite thing at all, but a formation thing (which I can fix easily enough once I get around to it.) I know you mean well, but again, don't touch monster sprites (I don't see how you could have "cleaned up" Cloud's sprite, for example, since that was a direct rip from FFT and unchanged as such.)
I can get you a new file tomorrow, in any event; right now, my computer's being a bit of a prick.
EDIT: That, and I'm going to bed soon anyway.
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The Sprites have looked garbled in the editor for a while
Oh, so it's just an editor display problem? Okay, that makes me feel better, that means I didn't screw anything up.
Do NOT touch Monster sprites. I believe I elluded to you not to do that cause random bad shit can occur, as you just saw.
If the problem is just with the editor display, then I haven't actually seen a problem yet?
Re: Monster sprite 'clean-ups'
This is literally what it sounds like. I'm not changing any sprites, I'm doing things like filling in blank holes that occurred when you loaded the sprites or really weird recoloring things.
For example: Your Garuda and Cerebus/Garm sprites lost their outline when you loaded them (I assume because they had a black background, so the sprite appears full of holes from where the black became transparent). I simply took the next darkest color and filled in the holes and added a thin outline so that they approximate the original sprite. I'm not doing any kind of wild changes.
Same thing for the Chocobo and Gades, though those were less obviously screwed up.
Cloud was simply slightly redrawn to fix the Zack sprite. The cleaned-up image actually looks like Zack has a face instead of a horrible black mess.
The 8-bit Dante is just ugly and I strongly recommend you let me redraw it. Especially since you're using a full 16-color sprite palette for 3 of these things. I'm not gonna force it on you, but seriously... it looks bad.
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Disgaea 3 - Sat down with Raspberyl Mode. Thanks to having a way, WAY overpowered Champloo, just about all the maps were a cake walk, and I was able to complete the mode in two hours. A cute little story extension, at any rate. Master Big Star picks up a sucky skill, Salvatore gets more awesome, and... Kyoko and Asuka get a little better I guess? Meh.
Super Hero Aurum also joined my party! Not with his final boss evility, but eh. It's still cool.
Been too tired to play much else, including my workout today. Guess that's the curse of insomnia. I seem to be missing every other day.
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Chiming in on the MF6 stuff (which should probably be in its own topic)... Meeple, Dante could really stand to look better. Unless it's a bizarre joke at how pixellated he is.
MEGA MAN SEVEN - Finally beat this. A bit of backstory here... this is the third time I tried to beat the game. Both of the previous times I came to it after playing MM1-6, and just couldn't do it. The game is so horribly clunky and mediocre, that playing it after being Mega Man'd out by the previous games, five of which are far superior, is just no. This time, I came into it fresh, and found it quite doable.
The game does a whole bunch of small things wrong, namely:
-Bosses who inflict some sort of condition on you that either ties you up for ages or leaves you unable to act until the boss puts you out of your misery sometime later. These are stupid. It's one thing to have it as a gimmick for one boss (e.g. Concrete Man in MM9 or Bright Man in MM4) but like half the bosses have them.
-Text speed and lack of sceneskip. Nothing unusual here. However, the worst offender is the shop, since I get lines for every action I try to do, and an awesome animation for each thing I buy. Good lord, MM8 upped the polish here.
-Clunky controls. Yeah, I get that they're different from MM1-6, and I find that okay. So were MM8's. So were MMX1-3's, and then MMX4's, and then MMX8's... all different! In no other game do I feel this unresponsive. It's hard to put my finger on. It's not always too big a deal, but for some precision jumping or sliding it gets frustrating.
-Way too much forced Rush Coil use (or some other upgrades I didn't get. Whatever it is, stop it). Think Wily stage 3 was the worst offender here.
-OH DEAR GOD THE LAST BOSS TAKES TWENTY SECONDS JUST TO SLOWLY STOMP INTO THE SCREEN. God, I don't even want to think about how annoying this is to all the people who actually find Wily 7 hard. (I just E-tank spammed him, beat the second form first try and the overall fight in three tries. Fight seems cool enough, but too much obnoxiousness to deal with there + just wanting the game done at that point = Elfboy no play nice.)
-The last isn't a problem unique to MM7, though it is worth noting that it's one of the last games before the series cleaned up its act and introduced a bunch of long-awaited improvements in MM8 and MMX4, namely saving in the middle of the Wily/Sigma levels, sceneskip, and mid-level continue points. Could be worse, at least there weren't 8 Wily levels or something inane like that.
Game's not all bad - I thought they did a pretty decent job with the weapons (Thunder was a good apology for Spark Mandrill's weapon, Junk Shield fun, Noise wave fun, etc.). Stage design was pretty dull, main thing that caught my eye was the weird floaty-water in Burst Man's weapon, that was nice but not much else was. Boss design was decent, it usually is. It's a decidedly mediocre entry into the series but I'm glad I finally beat it. Now to tackle MMX5-7... maybe. Haha, not any time soon.
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X5 I wouldn't say is worse than MM7 IMO. X6.... >_>;
X7 was just a big failed experiment.
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X5 I wouldn't say is worse than MM7 IMO.
Just because it is better than MM7 doesn't mean it needs to be played anytime soon!
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MMX5 is to MMX4 as, from what I understand, RE5 is to RE4. They took only SOME of what made #4 great, and applied a bunch of stupid extraneous shit in place of the already good stuff that didn't really add to anything.
The game is easy until the Sigma Stages, stage designs are either boring, or "Hey, didn't we see this in MMX4, only it was less half assed?", weapons are really weird, Zero's fighting style is less intuitive (MMX4, they had a nice button for Basic Attacks, and nice button for special attacks, and it worked fine! MMX8 did this too! MMX5 decided they should use all his new moves on basic attacks meaning lots of accidental moves get used, CAUSE THEY HAD TO BRING BACK THE Z BUSTER!!)
And then the way the game handles armor is just a "Why?" thing. I know some people don't care about armor collecting, but in MMX1-4, 7 and 8, the game had the whole "You got a part of your armor, congrats! Here, now it is equipped on you! Yes, you may look ugly with a helmet, boots, and no armor, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER YOU STILL GOT AN UPGRADE!" MMX5 doesn't let you get parts; its all or none! The game does hand you a full armor set right from the get go at least...
...if you don't choose Zero first. Yeah, game actually punishes you for picking the "wrong" character in the usual joke Pre-Maverick Stage. Oh but if you choose X, you lose the Z BUSTER!!!
...yeah, MMX5 is...playable, but really feels like a half assed attempt to recreate what made X4 good, try to add unique shit that did nothing to help the formula, and overall, a mediocre experience.
MMX7...yeah, I think Xer said it right; it was a failed experiment. It gets points for trying some new things, and some of the new things it tried DID get incorporated into MMX8 (most notably, the character swap system), but a lot of the ideas just didn't work out. I suppose the game did need to be made in order to see if the formula had any merit, and a lot of the ideas just didn't work out, hence why MMX8 just went back to formula for the most part.
I'd replay MMX7...if not for FLAME HYENARD >_<
MMX6...umm...yeah, lets...not get into THAT one.
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MEGAMAN PLOT
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Hey, my entire rant had (almost?) nothing to do with Plot! It was entirely gameplay related! Give me SOME credit!
...wait, I forget who I'm responding to for a second, nevermind.
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DQ9: I now have Cristo's hat. Life is good.
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Mental note: Get DQ9.
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Wait, you got Cristo's hat? I got his shirt.
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Note to self: Never be such a gigantic nostalgia sucker.
DQ9 - stuff, grinding because I am to tired to play properly on the bus.
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DDR Supernova - I hate life.
I don't really... But upping my dance time from 30 to 40 minutes only a week in threw me for an exercise loop. I failed one song so hard out of exhaustion that I just stepped back to take a breather and gave myself a penalty song in Game Mode.
I will get better and I will lose weight!
...Maybe I should get around to finishing Grim Grimoire or something.
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If you have a treadmill, what I did to lose the extra 140 lbs. or so I had in high school was to play a game while on the treadmill. Wireless controllers help for this. Run while playing, and only do the two together - that way, you are at least doing something active while playing the game.
...man, do I ever post about games anymore?
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Wait, you got Cristo's hat? I got his shirt.
You generally get hats when you talk to guests on your set birthday. I don't have Cristo yet so his might be different.
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Note to self: Never be such a gigantic nostalgia sucker.
DQ9 - stuff, grinding because I am to tired to play properly on the bus.
The self hate much run deep, minion. The hat is still cooler than you.
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You get up to 5 pieces of clothing from special guests:
1) Talk to them
2) Talk to them while hero is in their preferred class (For Cristo Kiryl it's Priest)
3) Talk to them while it's your birthday (set in Misc -> Profile, no penalty for making every day your birthday)
4) Talk to them after your inn has 30 unique tag guests
5) Talk to them after completing Quest 157 (has not been relased over wi-fi yet)
Some characters only have 3 or 4 items to give.
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Aaah, cool. I'll have to juggle classes/birfday around. Sadly I have no way to tag people right now, but.
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S&M 3 The City That Dares Not Sleep-
Finished.
It doesn't start off too well, trying to ride on fakeouts of oft-used puzzle styles while at the same time putting you through puzzles of general styling so it falls a bit flat. Things look up a bit once you get inside, but it turns out to be more bland than it appears at first glance. And the controlling sections are especially mediocre.
Who I suppose you could call the ultimate villain of this section is pretty dumb, and has horrible reasons for their actions, although it is possible that this is supposed to be more humourous than came across to me due to lack of understanding of the terms involved. Their later aboutface is also somewhat nonsensical as I would think that the cause would have happened numerous times before albiet on a more minor scale.
Section versus the currently tangential villains has a bunch of exposition which as far as I believe contradicts existing canon. It's all very well for them to say that the cake was a lie but they seemingly forgot that there were two cakes, and the second wasn't exactly in a position to be a falsehood like the first was relegated to. Of course it's possible that my memories of the second instance were cut from whole cloth, but I'm not about to replay the earlier games at the current time to check.
Ending has a copout, was completely expecting there to be a copout of some kind, but it really wasn't worth the buildup. Also doesn't really make any sense.
All that said, I would like to say that all up season three was better than season two.
Ceville-
Finished.
Rides references pretty hard. I have no particular problem with references but this game really feels like it would fall somewhat flat on people that don't have the proper experience. One incidental conversation, paraphrased:
Lilly: Hey, there's a horse here.
Ceville: Hm, I feel like I should read it a story, but I don't have any.
Lilly: What would you do with its teeth, anyway?
What is a regular person supposed to make of that
I don't remember anything overly referential factoring into puzzles however at least. Small saving grace. There are however -two- Portal references, both to the -same freaking line- that I personally don't understand why became a meme in the first place.
Interesting implementation of item envisiblising. Items onscreen which are valid combination targets will have their names show up in red instead of white like other items, and there's an option (which I believe is on by default) which causes them to show up in orange if you have an item which is valid to combine with them selected at the time. Further, the item names are valid click targets as long as you have them up, which is handy because the game has fairly dodgy hitboxes for items in picture form sometimes, and also there are a number of items in the game which as far as I could ascertain can't be clicked on normally at all (all incidental items, fortunately, I believe).
Game is also fond of having items which you'd almost need to be relying on this functionality to realise were there.
The game never really gives Lilly a reason for sticking around. In theory she wants to stop Basilius, but she has no reason to believe Ceville that Basilius is evil in the first place.
I would say that act 2 is the best part of the game, although it ruins its potential somewhat by making things more linear than they have any need to be. It takes until Act 3 for you to be able to use all three characters, but act 3 is short and much of it is taken up with getting items from characters to each other which is not the most amusing pastime. Then you effectively stop being able to use all three characters near the end of act 3 again. Tsk.
Disgaea DS-
Up to Sea Of Gehenna: Wasteland Of Woe in Etna Mode Finale.
My best characters from the maingame are inaccessible here and it has turned things into a slog. Currently grinding somewhat. Not sure that the comedy so far has really made it worth it, although there have been some bits that I found fairly amusing.
Robot Wars: Arenas Of Destruction-
Have 3 trophies out of an unknown amount.
In theory there should be enough customisation possibilities in this game to keep me entertained, but in practice I'm not sure that that is going to be the case. Currently using a wedge with a pickaxe and spikes on back and front.
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Scott Pilgrim: the Game.
Pretty fun alone, but greatly improved by having a Bro or more around to team up with. Beat it as Stills, because the other characters have a gross deficit of headbutting and uppercutting people in the balls in their arsenal of moves. I enjoyed his ending immensely. "And so Sex Bob-Omb signed a huge record contract and money rained from the sky, the end."
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We had 4 player going on at DLC5, Rob. It was glorious. I beat it with Kim there, and working on Scott now.
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I actually started playing as Kim for a couple levels. She seems to have a much shorter reach than Stills.
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Lost Odyssey- Since I'm nearing the end of the game, I'll tend to save the plot type stuff for my inevitable giant final recap of the game. What is worth noting is the bosses I've fought since last time (...by location at least since I don't remember all their names!)
Eastern Temple boss- Starts out easy. Gets double casting around low life and always uses one cast to cast Shadow (which 2HKOs the mages and of course is decent damage against everyone else!) This would be really bad....but he always uses the other cast for something useless! Could end up being nasty, but Double Item makes it the most managable boss so far.
Kakanas Tank- Owwwwww. This starts out painfully, and I figure given the absurb MT damage, maybe I should do some random sidequesting and see if it at least gains me something to make this doable!
Persona- If only Sarah had denied this was her! That said, it's unique darkness attack was brutal. Painful MT damage+Status that includes the chance of stone! This was pretty adept at knocking out characters, and pretty sure I ended up with at least 3 dead at one point! It's gimmick of switching magical or physical absorbing didn't hurt too much since generally you need at least a few people on healing, meaning only a few can really attack anyways.
Kakanas Tank attempt 2- Did a good number of the dreams and item hunts! Which led to...random Fire absorption! And turns out it's insane MT attack was Fire elemental. Ming now can't be hurt, although it manages to wipe out all 4 other party members! Also, unlike most LO bosses, since the big boss is constantly drawing power from it's support and can't generate the support, killing the two other tanks makes it a lot worse!
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Running a Nuzlocke challenge on Pokemon Ruby alongside a couple of friends. Writing up diary entries for it, so might as well post them here. Will give them their own topic if people enjoy reading them.
Chapter 1: A NEW START
Hey there! The name's Yoshi, and I'm the newest resident of Littleroot Town. My dad's the new Gym Leader over in Petalburg, so we've been forced to move. Only 5 minutes here, though, and I'm already making friends - a girl called May lives next door and the professor here was.. being attacked? Wow, good to see he's competent with Pokemon. That said, he gave me my new friend and my first Pokemon - RedTube the Mudkip (name courtesy of Jog). Me and RedTube are gonna go on an adventure together and become Pokemon champions!
I set off towards a nearby town, fighting Zigzagoon and Wurmple as I go, until I reach a Pokemon Centre. In the route to the north, I find May again, who proceeds to challenge me to a fight! RedTube was weakened here and was tragically killed, spelling the end of my adventur--
No, wait. That can't be right.
After progressing to this point again, I beat May's Treecko with relative ease and set back home with RedTube. I'm given a Pokedex by the professor here and told to go exploring, and off I set. However, with my first batch of PokeBalls in hand, I can add my first ally to my team - a female Wurmple, which I affectionately name Dr. House (named by Dragonite).
Well, I thought it was affectionate.
On towards the next route, I'm repeatedly attacked by trainers. I was always told trainers would attack other trainers, but this is ridiculous! This land is way too violent for me, and I refuse to subject too many of these Pokemon to this brutal torture. One per area, that's it.
...And for this area, it's another damn female Wurmple. This one's called Peach! (Also named by Dragonite!)
Petalburg City, and I go to visit my father. He's talking to a small kid who introduces himself as Wally. The kid's hopeless and I'm forced into helping him catch some random piece of crap Pokemon in the nearby route - thing is, the kid only goes and gets lucky and gets a damn Ralts! Meanwhile, I'm stuck here with two Wurmples. Ridiculous.
Finally, I can get out of this place and move on. I fight a few more trainers, although none of them are anything special, and manage to not find a Pokemon in this area, leaving me stuck with less allies than I should have. Dammit.
The area I've entered recently is a large forest, which I'm told is called the Petalburg Woods. I'm immediately challenged by another trainer before I can even enter the grass, and this guy's apparently a nice sign of my future - an army of goddamn Wurmple. Soon after, however, I find a new Pokemon - a Shroomish, which I end up having to heal against but eventually catch! Mario the Shroomish has joined my team! (Named by Shoj)
Not much further into the woods and I'm suddenly grabbed by some researcher and then attacked by some moron in a red hoodie. After beating away the moron, I was given a Great Ball, but I seriously need healing. Time to retreat back to a Poke Center back in Petalburg before returning here...
Back in the woods, I return to where I was and continue through the trees, killing Shroomish as I go - barely kept Peach alive at this point, which was a relief and a half! (Seriously, poison killed a Shroomish the turn it would have killed Peach. Shroomish just happened to go first.) In the next fight, Peach is fully healed and comes out against a Nincada, which she poisons, is healed and then... gets hit with a critical! Peach has fallen, and my team has suffered its first casualty. ;_; Mario comes in to avenge Peach (lol?) and the Nincada falls with ease, allowing Mario to learn Stun Spore!
Finally, I'm out of those woods. The nearby shop has some items behind it, which I decide to take, and I catch a Zigzagoon while I'm there, which is nicknamed Tails. (Named by Shoj.) The next fight leads to another level for Dr. House and an evolution into Silcoon! I'm getting a Beautifly! ...Dammit. >_>
I finally reach the next city and heal up my remaining Pokemon before heading back to finish off the trainers I missed earlier. I think I'll rest for today now, and explore this new city tomorrow.
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BlazBlue- Continuum Shift: Up to Challenge 10 for Hazama. Completed up through at least Challenge 3 for everyone else. Fuck Jin in the goddamn eye for his bullshit. High jump cancel into a fucking 2C my ass. Worse than Noel's. *grumble* *grumble*
My online career continues to pretty mediocre. Doing a little bit better with input precision, which, in turn, is helping me stay relaxed and in control for matches, which, frankly, is freakin' hard when you have Ragna/Makoto/Tsubaki blockstrining your goddamn face. Still dropping combos with relative frequency and still pretty bad at reacting to anti-air 5C/2C connects. Also cannot tech throws to save my life, but this is slightly counteracted by hotkeying R1 to A+B+C for easier barrier blocking and rapid cancels. Still want to huck my controller at the wall everytime I eat a 3K combo for failing a HOUTENJIN! input I really needed to succeed at.
Also, I very much appreciate the player named Ragna5B for destroying me without mercy in every match. Helpful in coming to understand Ragna blockstrings.
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Mega Man X8 - Beat this again on Hard Mode. At first I struggled like hell with this since I was rusty, but by the end I was more or less breezing - no continues needed for the Sigma stages for instance.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Have this. I've beaten the first two worlds. It's not really grabbing me like the first one did, but like hell I can justify why that might be when it comes to Mario games. Though honestly, the big reason is that right now I'd rather be playing...
God Hand - This game is awesome. The sense of style needs no explanation, it is good times. But it's also a hell of a lot of fun. Feels like a clear improvement over Devil May Cry for the simple reason that mooks are way, way more fun to fight - this was pretty much exactly what I was looking for! And unlike many games of this type, things only get more intense as you fight more at once, forcing different strategies. Boss fights are solid too, of course, and quite varied so far. God Hand meter and roulette are both implemented very well and work nicely as bailouts. Move customisation goes a little further than is necessary (do we really need over 100 techniques?) but fundamentally it's still well implemented given that design decision, because of the wonderful little preview screen that shows you exactly how long each move takes, how much damage it deals, and what special properties they have. Really, my only complaint of significance with the game is that the buttonmashing used for the various pummel-type moves is kinda annoying, to the point where I sometimes avoid using them even when doing so is the gameplay choice. This goes double against female enemies for reasons that should be obvious. I'd be happier if they were all like Suplex (i.e. one press), since I like their place in the game a lot (nice reward for keeping up pressure and quite satisfying)! The game also gets props for its scoring system which actually makes sense unlike DMC's... I'm clearly being rewarded for doing damage efficiently while avoiding it in return, instead of some bizarre style criteria. And tying this to sliding scale difficulty is pretty great, since it ensures the game's challenge is always tight. I guess it's kind of artificial to have challenge adjust to the player, but hey, even at Level 1, the challenge is competent, and there's always Hard Mode for the other extreme. Anyway, this is easily one of the best games I've played this year, up there with Metroid Fusion and Ace Attorney Investigations.
Anyway, midway through Chapter 5.
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Mmkay Dhyer it's time for you to break the game.
Use the Shield spells that absorb damage. They are ludicrous. As in "Absorb several times PCHP" ludicrous.
Valkyria Chronicles:
Plot is worse, main characters are much worse, side-characters are still charming, and gameplay is... better, I say.
Class balance and the nature of having multiple smaller maps makes Scouts less valuable (more like a jack-of-all-trades than a super mobile camp-capturer). Engineers are good at killing things they can walk up to due to the pistols strong power/low range, and long-range healing is a neat gimmick in theory. Shocktroopers are what you send in to have a firefight and are actually generally better than Scouts now at rushing to an enemy camp and taking it. Lancers are still what you sneak around to take out an enemy Tank. I imagine they will be more useful later as more tanks show up. There is also a new class, Armored Tech. They don't take damage from the front, have batshit insane defense vs. small arms, they have a melee weapon that acts a weak grenade over an area, and they carry a grenade. I put Avan in this and upgraded him to the Fencer class, which replaced the Wrench with a BFS that OHKOs everything I have seen except for another Ace Fencer that was crouched. They also get even nuttier defense. So yeah. Happy smashing ensued, even if these guys have the worst movement range.
Generally a fun game, and I recommend it to folks who enjoyed VC1.
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Metroid: The Other M
Played, beaten. Trying to get all the items now. Really solid gameplay. If you ever wanted Metroid Fusion to be Metroid Prime, and for Metroid Prime to actually be God of War, then this game is for you. The plot is terrible, though, and the voice acting makes watching the cutscenes really trite. Also, it makes you watch the credits after only beating 90% of the game, because I guess Metroid Zero Mission did that so they thought they could get away with it.
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Darksiders Abridged:
Episode 4: Ashes to Ashes, Dust to Dust, Big Freaking Sword to Enemy's Face
Watcher: When we last left our ultra violent, hero that hates demons and angels alike, he had just beaten the crap out of THE GRIEVER.
War: Oh no, not another one of yo-...wait, why are YOU narrating?
Watcher: Because the Council realized you'll kill anyone else who tries to narrate, so they put me who you CAN'T kill to do this.
War: That has to be against one of our contracts in SOME way.
Watcher: Whatever, can we continue on with our own story please?
War: Fine, fine.
*back in the actual story*
War: So, I just got this sweet gun with unlimited ammo, I need to test it on something. Damn it, where are those wimpy demons when I need to kill something?
Watcher: Well, you could kill those Crows over there if you really want to sho-...
*Watcher notices as all the Crows are laying on the ground in corpses, with green souls all flying to War*
War: You say something?
Watcher: ...never mind, shall we just get the heart to Samael?
*at Samael*
Samael: Ah, ANOTHER HEART! And it seems you and the Black Hammer are best friends now!
Watcher: How do you know that? You live in this little prison!
Samael: I have my ways *hides a demonic TV showing the latest news*
War: Here's the damn heart, now tell me where the next CHOSEN is.
Samael: Ah! Good! And I heard you had a run in with Uriel.
War: What if I did?
Samael: Did you have a boss fight with her?
War: Maybe.
Watcher: WE did. Just for storyline purposes, we sort of glanced over that part cause it was uneventful and she didn't die.
War: Damn it! I wanna be cryptic for once.
Watcher: Hey! Cryptic is MY job! Your job is to just be violent and kill things.
War: Fine fine. Anyway, she's convinced I killed her leader, Abaddon, when it was clearly the DESTROYER that did that.
Samael: Actually, it wasn't the Destroyer. It was some really strong demon named Straga whose probably one of the chosen, and you'll probably fight him again.
War: Wait, what? I could have sworn it was the Destroyer! The intro suggested as such!
Samael: Yeah, well, the intro also did a poor job of making any remote level of sense.
War: ...touche.
Samael: Anyway, those Angelic pricks all had strong devotion to their leader and will stop at nothing to get back at who killed him (which remember, they think is you). Especially Uriel. She totally had the hots for him, afterall.
War: Angels are capable of Adolescent crushes?
Samael: Yes, yes they are. Most beings are, in fact!
Watcher: ...wait, do you mean to say that you actually had a thing for Tiamat?
Samael: HEY! How did you...I mean...uh...about that next chosen! The Stygian Worm held in the arena by Demons is...
War: Wait, he's a high level demon and he's being...imprisoned by other demons?
Samael: SHUT UP! The specifics don't matter! What matters is you run to the Ashlands, kick its ass, get its heart, and bring it back to me.
War: Kick something's ass? I'm game!
Samael: Oh yeah, have you heard of the CHRONOSPHERES!?!?!?
*Dramatic music plays*
War: Yes, yes I have. (If only cause it'll make you NOT explain what they do.)
Samael: They let you control time.
War: (CRAP!)
Samael: The Demons learned how to use them...to a lesser degree. With full control one can slow down, speed up or even REVERSE TIME!!! But that's not important, what's important is that I'm giving you another random plot power upgrade that lets you use these things cause you're going to need them for the following puzzles to avoid these stinking bugs.
War: Uh, ok?
*War gets the power to control Chronospheres*
Samael: Now, GO GET THAT GOD DAMN HEART!
*at the Ashlands*
War: So, I see these blue orbs, touch them, time slows down, and I have just enough time to complete the puzzle, it seems.
Watcher: Yes, that would be the case.
War: ...didn't God of War 2 have that EXACT SAME GIMMICK?
Watcher: Please. You act like we aren't liberally ripping off games as we speak already. Just shut up and get on with-
War: *busy ripping Zombies in half* I'm sorry, what was that again?
Watcher: ...just open the damn door using the Chronosphere.
*A bunch of NEW kinds of angels appear*
Blue Angel: THERE HE IS! DON'T LET HIM GET AWAY! FOR THE HELL VANGUA-
*War throws Bomb rocks at them, they explode*
War: You know, when this "Adventure" is over, I think Angels and "Kamikaze Morons" are going to be synonymous to me.
*after many of those stupid aerial worm traps from the previous levels later*
War: Ah, a desert. We must be getting close. I think I'll walk into the sand and...
*War gets eaten by a giant worm, respawns at edge of sand*
War: What the fuck was that? HA! I won't be beaten by-...
*Same thing happens*
Watcher: Its called an Instant Death trap. You're suppose to use that Chronosphere over there and avoid being eaten.
War: ...I knew that.
*War does exactly that*
Bull Demon Guy: HE COMES! GET HIM!
War: Who the hell are these freaks.
Watcher: NEW Generic mooks.
War: Which means I get to slaughter them with massive prejudice?
Watcher: Oh absolutely!
War: NOW THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT! *War rips them in half...some literally* And now to climb this *gets saw bladed off* WHAT THE FUCK?
Watcher: Another Chronosphere puzzle.
War: Look, can we like...fast forward thing this boring section and get on with the fun stuff?
Watcher: Fun stuff? Like what do you mean?
War: Well, you see...
*Fast forwards to a section with big bull demons, one holding large grenade launchers*
War: ...this is what I'm talking about! An actual battle!
*after the battle is won, one of those demons drops a cannon, which War picks up*
War: HA! Now that's what I'm talking about! I shall name this cannon...JIMMY!
Watcher: Not as threatening a name as Redemption, if you ask me.
War: Doesn't matter, Jimmy and I shall DESTROY ALL DEMONS IN THIS DUNGEON!
*War runs rampant blowing up just about everything in this dungeon. This goes on for about 5 rooms involving mass destruction, explosions, and many suicidal demons as a result*
War: Ah, Jimmy, you are a fine...
*Demon punches War, he drops the cannon*
War: JIMMY! NO!!!!! DIE FUCKING DEMON!
Big Demon Guy: HA! Like you can...DEAR GOD! DID YOU JUST SLICE OFF MY LEFT LEG AND RIGHT ARM!? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?
War: GIVE HIM BACK!! *War slaughters the demon*
Watcher: (Note to self: Never get between War and weapons he's sentimental with)
War: These freaks will pay! Dear god they'll pay! For my name is...
*War gets eaten by another giant worm*
War: ...ok, what the hell?
Watcher: Its another Worm puzzle. this time, you need to rush between the towers which are safety points, before it eats you. Have fun with that, cause its going to involve lots of painful deaths if your timing is a little off!
War: God damn I hate it when I can't just kill things. Seriously, why can't I just kill this worm now?
Watcher: Cause you can't do shit while you're sinking in the sand, and thus it leaves you defenseless?
War: ...oh, right, that stupid handicap.
*About 10 deaths later, War reaches the end*
War: That was really unfun, who seriously thought that was a good idea?
Watcher: The Council did.
War: ...OH! In that case, IT WAS A GREAT IDEA AND I'M GLAD I SUFFERED THROUGH IT! ^^;
Watcher: (...wow, I didn't think that'd actually work, but...) The Arena is on the other side.
War: Arena you say? That means there will be things to kill!
*War opens door, gets ambushed by about 60 demons*
Generic Demon #7: HE CAN'T TAKE US ALL ON!
Generic Demon #8: YES! WE HAVE HIM OUTNUMBERED!
Generic Demon #9: YEAH! EVEN WITH THOSE 3 HEALTH REFILL ITEMS AND SOME OF US DROPPING HEALING ITEMS, HE STANDS NO CHANCE!
War: BRING IT ON! (Also, thanks for the tip!)
*War kicks some ass and then some*
*New demons RIDING HORSES APPEAR*
War: Wait, why do DEMONS get horses? I mean, I'm one of the Horsemen!
Horse Riding Demon: Shut up! I'm more awesome than...
*Demon gets impaled on the Chaoseater*
War: Like I was saying...
*New special fancy Demon who resembles one of the Horsemen appears*
Super Horse Riding Demon: Aha, you don't look so big from here, HORSEMAN!
War: You can look me eye to eye when I kill you! </actual line of dialog>
SUper Horse Riding Demon: HA! I got the horse, that's 6 legs! YOu only have two! What now!?
War: Falcon...PAWNCH!
*War smacks the Demon off the horse*
Super Horse Riding Demon: Ok, that was unfair! But you'll need more than that to...
*War slices the guys legs off, then impales him*
Super Horse Riding Demon: Blargh! Unfair...this was...suppose to be...an epic...boss fight. *dies*
*The horse goes out of control*
Watcher: KILL THE HORSE NOW! ITS MAD!
War: Ruin...I will not fight you!
Watcher: What!? Whose Ruin and where did it come from? KILL IT NOW OR I'LL KILL YOU!
War: I'll take my chances!
*Ruin kicks the shit out of War some offscreen*
Watcher: Oh come on, you thought standing in the way of a stampeding horse was a good idea?
War: Look, I'll admit it wasn't one of my better ideas, but...
*War mounts Ruin*
War: I GOT MY HORSE BACK BITCH! Now I cam a REAL Horseman!
Generic Demon #10: He's got his horse back! Quickly, we can beat him now!
Logical Demon: Um, sir, doesn't the horse give him MORE strength and he just took down a whole bunch of us *AND* some high class demons in the process>
Generic Demon #10: IRRELEVANT!
*things end about as you'd expect*
Watcher: Aww, what a touching reunion...BUT WE HAVE A STYGIAN WORM TO GET AND A HEART TO RIP OUT DAMN IT!
War: Oh, right, there's that. Say, with Ruin, I can now TRAVEL ON QUICKSAND! HA! That worm is totally getting its ass kicked.
Watcher: I guess I should tell you I saw a flashing thing in its mouth. But I don't think its that important.
*War challenges the worm, kills it with lots of gun shoots in the mouth*
Watcher: See? I told you it was relevant.
*War slices the worm in half, Shoryuken style, as a finishing move*
Watcher: Anyway, that was just a warm up, GO FIND THE REAL STYGIAN WORM!
War: Already did.
Watcher: Really, where!?
*War points to a huge freaking worm that's chained up by a mass of demons*
Watcher: Well, its chained up, so that's easy. Ok, go get the-...
*War starts butchering all the Demons in the way instead*
Watcher: ...well, I guess that's one way to get to the thing.
*The Stygian Worm escapes, kills all the demons*
*Mega Man Style Intro: The Stygian*
Watcher: War. Chosen Demon. Beating Heart. Fight.
War: Based on the way this fight looks, it seems to be a simply more elaborate version of that OTHER worm fight. So...
*War proceeds to just shoot it in the mouth a lot til its dead. Sure, some gimmick sections like it trying to eat him from below, having to slice off the metal thing on his mouth first, and splitting into multiple small worms appear, but no one cares about that*
War: AHA! I win...
Watcher: Just press the B button and get on with the cinematic kill.
War: Right!
*War jumps into the Stygian's mouth, the two go underground, War shoryukens his way out of the ground holding the heart*
War: HA! I win!
Watcher: Ah, another heart for Samael. You know, with all these hearts giving him power...you know, I'm starting to think this isn't a good idea.
War: of course it is! I get to kill stuff, he gets the hearts, we both get what we want! I fail to see what can go wrong.
Watcher: ...whatever.
Watcher: And so, ends the 3rd dungeon that wasn't quite as long as you'd expect and...
War: Seriously, are you going to be doing this for the rest of the episodes?
Watcher: Yes I am. You can either shut up, let me talk, and it'll be over faster, or...
War: I feel like this chapter was missing something.
Uriel: YOU DAMN RIGHT IT IS! I'M NOT ANYWHERE IN IT TO PISS AND MOAN ABOUT HOW YOU KILLED ABADDON!
Watcher: War, you thinking what I'm thinking?
War: That retreat might be a good idea for the first time in my life?
Watcher: Yes!
Uriel: HEY! You two get back here!
-
Running a Nuzlocke challenge on Pokemon Ruby alongside a couple of friends. Writing up diary entries for it, so might as well post them here. Will give them their own topic if people enjoy reading them.
Do we get to name your battle-pets, too?
-
So like, all the Megaman talk I've been seeing anywhere has convinced me to like, play MMX6 again. Why yes, I am brain damaged! And I'll show it too by going through with only unarmored X. Hahhahahaha.
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WA:XF replay- Beginning of C3. I only did one Creeping Chaos this playthrough, and interesting to see how it plays without the breaking! Using Clarissa, Levin and Ragnar and 3 generics. Also of note was that I still finding Ragnar only barely objectionable as a character.
Crisis Core- Wooooow, they really want you to hate Zack, huh? Didn't really much screentime in FF 7, but he's pretty horrible so far. Game feeling highly random so far.
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Also of note was that I still finding Ragnar only barely objectionable as a character.
<(^^)>
Lost Odyssey-Started this. Saved outside the wizard dude's mansion. I'm not supposed to be there, I was supposed to go to an inn but I decided to explore the town first. Started playing it in the middle of the night because I couldn't sleep but didn't do much before going back to bed. The opening reminded me of Legend of Dragoon of all things because of the ridiculously dressed troops, also of SO3's big war battle scene on disc one. The game has seemed really camp/cheesy so far but that might be because I had the sound off and everything just looked so silly! Also I thought "Balmore" was a man when I first saw the character in the game manual. On reading the profile ... Wait what that's a woman!? Cute in her first cutscene though. I might end up liking her more than Ming! Cooke is CT bait in character but looks like Mack has the more CT bait battle skills =/
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So like, all the Megaman talk I've been seeing anywhere has convinced me to like, play MMX6 again. Why yes, I am brain damaged! And I'll show it too by going through with only unarmored X. Hahhahahaha.
You are a brave (and stupid) man, my good sir! I support you 100% of the way on this endeavour! (Mostly cause its not me doing it <.<)
-
So like, all the Megaman talk I've been seeing anywhere has convinced me to like, play MMX6 again. Why yes, I am brain damaged! And I'll show it too by going through with only unarmored X. Hahhahahaha.
You are a brave (and stupid) man, my good sir! I support you 100% of the way on this endeavour! (Mostly cause its not me doing it <.<)
Speaking of brave and stupid things...
MMX6: God damn am I out of practice for this shit.
Opening: Alright, the only time I'm allowing myself armor and it doesn't go too bad. I do realize how terribly bad at games that actually require action though. I can barely dash jump so I keep winging myself on crap I should be clearing. Bss is lol, but I get hit repeatedly because I'm an idiot. On the other hand, I do play fancy with High Max!
Commander Boobhead: Picked his stage by accident(really!). First time as unarmored X. I'm just sort of randomly grabbing powers and stuff so I'm not going out of my way to rescue OBVIOUS REPLOID 86 or some things. Boobhead is a joke as usual, only my complete inability to not suck prevents me from actually going without damage on him. But hey, he still blows no matter what so zoop!
Rainy Turtloid: Because I am stupid. Stage is fairly tame up until the water pits or whatever you wanna call them. My complete inability to dash jump kills me like 4 times here. But eventually I make it to the final cave or whatever with 9 lives. Seriously, this game just throws lives at you! Anyway, because I'm dumb I spend most of those lives trying to invincibility frame my ass to the Shadow chest piece BECAUSE I CAN and eventually do it! Then because I'm a goddamn wimp I try the alternate exit because I figure Nightmare Zero or whatever the hell it's called would be easier. Too bad I never get to attempt that because I die until I run out of lives. Damn!
At that point someone else took over and ran through the level as Falcon X. He managed to beat Turtloid by the skin of his teeth on his last life. Damn, there goes my challenge.
Shield Sheldon: Yeah, I somehow manage to die because of those bug things that I never remember exist until I reach the stage. Once I get to the spike pits, things become worse because as we all know, I can't dash jump worth crap so I'm constantly falling into the pits. Though eventually I make it through to the alternate. Once there I die a few more times while using invincibility frames to grab the weapon tank(lol useless). I couldn't time the frame right to get the top reploids so screw it. I make it to Nightmare Zero and promptly get my ass handed to me twice effortlessly. Third try the luck of the gods is on my side but I still screw up. On my last life(yiiiiii) I manage to get enough of a handle on his pattern that I can deal with it and emerge victorious! Then I rage at myself for not getting the armor piece because I completely forgot. Until now when I remember it's hidden behind the fake wall at the start of the spike pit.
Infinity Mijion: Hahahahhaahhahahaha. I only make it past the first cable thrice before I'm down to my last life. And on my last life I remember/find out that Meteor Rain stuns his lousy ass so I can do this! Then I die from leaping into a pit. Damn.
Well, that's it for the challenge for... earlier today. Stayed tuned for tomorrow when I continue trying to play a stupidly unfair game with barely working arms. Ciao!
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Oh yeah on that note from CT.
Lost Odyssey - Started this, I don't have German option sadly, just Korean of Japanese, so bah, English it is. I got a tiny bit further, ie I saved outside the wizard mansion when I am supposed to be there. The first Thousand Year Door Dream Thousand Whatevers sequence was pretty well done, nice use of text crawl there, finally a reason for it to exist. Closest similar thing I can think of to use it for example was the way Subtitles were used in Nightwatch. The way they pop up and the font is used as a visual queue to what the text is saying and who is saying it in that case. Which works really well with the body language and tone in the movie. In the game it helps fill an emotional story with feeling and meaning to stop it from becoming stale prose.
DQ9 - Grinding stuffs because I play while I catch the bus. Got the last Fygg.
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Hey look, actual consistency from me! Let's all act shocked.
MMX6: So, coming off from last time I head back to Shield Sheldon's place to get the armor part, and see it's across a gap too long to dash-jump too. Dammit. And then I run myself out of lives running into spikes again.
Infinity Mijinion: Back to this plucky jerk. So, I head through, and remembering that Meteor Rain utterly punks Ilumina I ruin him both times. I head for the alternate and pick up the armor and heart(seriously, I've always hated how pointlessly not hidden this one was). I cruise through and make it to High Max. Fuck. So, since I suck so bad, I go through nine lives trying to whittle the bastard down and get my ass frazzled all to hell. Eventually, on my last goddamn life I get his ass. Yay.
At this point my mind gets kind of hazy despite doing this only six hours ago. I start it up again and I think I go for Blizzard WolFang's sorry ass. Despite getting a max stock of lives I'm down to all of three when I get to him because of that damn final ice block puzzle.
I go for Ground Scarvich's nightmare and clear out the alternate exit. The souls from that get me three Part slots. Yay.
Someone takes the controller from me and goes for Zero at Shield Sheldon. That ends in hilarious failure so no need of the challenge being ruined further!
After that I think I try Blaze Heatnix (YEAHHHHHHHHH), I manage to clear the first dumbnut but die to the freaking flames in the actual level ha. Second dumbnut kills me again but I beat it on the retry. I go for the upper dumbnut for my third one, only to be smacked down effortlessly so I go below and take that one out. The rising lava dumbnut gets all ten lives from me. URGHHHHHH.
I go for Metal Shark Player (YEAHHHHHHHHHH) and do rather well all told. Since I have the ability to, I make it to the armor part and get the alternate done as well.
I head over to Ground Scarvich again, and accidentally send myself into the alternate again. Well, whatever. Dynamo's still a wimp.
I go and grab the armor parts in Sheldon and WolFang's stages because I can now.
Infinity Mijinion: I'm now pretty beefy, so Ilumina does even less now. I make it to Mijinion and buster his and his clones asses to dust.
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Epic Battle Fantasy 3: Flash RPG found online that is pretty fun. Sat down with it for a few days (read: my latest save file records about 24 hours, so), and it was a fun romp all the way through. I played on Epic on my first availability (the other three difficulties being Easy, Normal (assumed default), and Hard) and was not disappointed. Had several instances of bosses royally kicking my ass, and I had about eighteen seperate game overs from the final boss, due to it being so hard.
It's here, if anyone is interested: http://www.kongregate.com/games/kupo707/epic-battle-fantasy-3
If there is actually enough people thinking it's fun enough, I could be convinced to try to come up with a stat topic for it.
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YOU ARE A DL MEMBER - YOU STAT TOPIC EVERYTHING. IF IT LOOKS TOO HARD, YOU FIND A WAY TO DO IT.
STATS
ARE
EVERYTHING
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YOU ARE A DL MEMBER - YOU STAT TOPIC EVERYTHING. IF IT LOOKS TOO HARD, YOU FIND A WAY TO DO IT.
STATS
ARE
EVERYTHING
Stat topic for MMX6 coming up. Eventually.
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YOU ARE A DL MEMBER - YOU STAT TOPIC EVERYTHING. IF IT LOOKS TOO HARD, YOU FIND A WAY TO DO IT.
STATS
ARE
EVERYTHING
That reminds me. CHAOS WARS STAT TOPIC, BITCH
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*points at Yggdra Union stat topic* - ANYTHING can be stat topic'd if you're dedicated enough! http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,5137.0.html
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YOU ARE A DL MEMBER - YOU STAT TOPIC EVERYTHING. IF IT LOOKS TOO HARD, YOU FIND A WAY TO DO IT.
STATS
ARE
EVERYTHING
What about games where certain party members can do infinite damage in one turn?
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YOU ARE A DL MEMBER - YOU STAT TOPIC EVERYTHING. IF IT LOOKS TOO HARD, YOU FIND A WAY TO DO IT.
STATS
ARE
EVERYTHING
What about games where certain party members can do infinite damage in one turn?
Joey's Rattata Like
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YOU ARE A DL MEMBER - YOU STAT TOPIC EVERYTHING. IF IT LOOKS TOO HARD, YOU FIND A WAY TO DO IT.
STATS
ARE
EVERYTHING
What about games where certain party members can do infinite damage in one turn?
Joey's Rattata Like
Feh. The DL isn't interested in dead things.
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Playing the Secret of Evermore Rebalance Patch (awwright!)
Recording it too, if anyone's interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2SXNE-g80
It's great.
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Nice~ Keep linking your updates, and I'll keep watching them!
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Playing the Secret of Evermore Rebalance Patch (awwright!)
Recording it too, if anyone's interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2SXNE-g80
It's great.
Rebalance patch for SoE? How does that work? Do they just readjust all the Alchemy spells to make more sense relative to when you get them or something? I'm just mind boggling cause SoE is just one step away from a Solo RPG.
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Arch probably made the patch. SoE 1.3 and all. Less lolgame
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No, he said REBALANCE patch, not "Anal Wanker Hard Mode That's Anti-Grinding That Requires Abusing Every Obscure Facet Of The Game To Complete The First Stage"
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You don't understand anything. 1.3 IS a rebalance patch for people to actually ENJOY the game with! It makes the game BETTER. EVERY GAME needs a 1.3 patch for the TRULY SKILLED.
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Running a Nuzlocke challenge on Pokemon Ruby alongside a couple of friends. Writing up diary entries for it, so might as well post them here. Will give them their own topic if people enjoy reading them.
Do we get to name your battle-pets, too?
Sure, if I'm in chat at the time. >.> I'm not naming anything myself, at least, so I take no blame for retarded names. :)
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LO- Cool Grefter is playing this too. Last time it was Enchanted Arms =-) On disc two now, just finished with the haunted mansion and recruited the fourth Immortal into my party. I am around L25 average with my characters but I've been running away a lot. Randoms in this game seem quite competent and I've been wiped out by them two or three times already. I should probably fight more but I worry about running out of resources. I agree with Grefter the dreams system is quite well done. I've missed five dreams already though, the five after "Hanna's Departure" I wonder if it will be possible to go back for them or if dreams will carry over in save data if there's any sort of achievement relating to them at all. Character wise I'm not sure I like Ming, everyone else is pretty cool or at least tolerable though. I'm still not sure I can trust Jansen but yeah. Keeps things interesting.
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Playing the Secret of Evermore Rebalance Patch (awwright!)
Recording it too, if anyone's interested: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG2SXNE-g80
It's great.
Rebalance patch for SoE? How does that work? Do they just readjust all the Alchemy spells to make more sense relative to when you get them or something? I'm just mind boggling cause SoE is just one step away from a Solo RPG.
Meeple, see the readme here:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/snes/patches/602readme.txt
It has a lot of changes that I probably never would have thought of making that actually make a good bit of sense (Leveling up one offensive spell levels all of them up slightly, for instance). Of course, I haven't ever finished it completely (Made it to Gothica before getting sidetracked last time) but I was fairly impressed.
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Apparently, that Readme file link doesn't work, so I can't really read anything <_<
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Apparently, that Readme file link doesn't work, so I can't really read anything <_<
;_;
Well here's the hack, I assume you can find it there:
http://www.romhacking.net/hacks/602/
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Guitar Hero 5-Okay my guitar has pretty much had it, so I think I'm not gonna bother with any more of these games after this. Like GH4, it has a setlist comprised roughly 90% of filler, 5% actual fun songs to play, and 5% shit songs that suck. Of course I'm not playing in a full band so that's not entirely fair but still it wasn't a very good game, GH:M is still easily the best of the post-Harmonix era. The best part is having Kurt Kobain come back from the dead, finding out you can put him in any position in band, and creating a band of 4 Kurt Kobains and then watching Kurt Kobain's character model sing a Public Enemy song with YEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH BOOOOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE in it. Unfortunately I couldn't change my band name into "Hey man, Nice Shot!" but oh well.
Final Fantasy XIII-This is game is FF7 if it took 20 hours for you to leave Midgar and then had a further 20 hours of dungeon crawling and sidequests followed by squeezing the rest of the plot into roughly 4 hours or so of cutscenes.
Seriously, pretty much all of this game is shit. The game is a fucking tutorial for like half its length! It's such a completely stupid decision and I am completely baffled as to why Square-Enix thought it was a good idea. "Walk forward, find cutscene, mash A button, repeat" should not be an accurate summary of half your game. To be fair once it opens up a little and you get to do some actual exploration through something that's not linear corridors, get the ability to change party members (over 20 hours in by now, mind you), and all that shit, it does get better, but by now it's a case of too little, far too late.
The story and characters aren't worth it. The story is a mess of boring shit I don't care about, with a bunch of shit that just wastes time and makes me reach for the 'skip cutscene button'. For example, Hope is angry at Snow because he blames him for the death of his mother. Okay, fair enough. Now he's babbling about actually getting revenge through murder and of course we all know that no such thing is ever going to happen. So the game forces us to watch cutscene after cutscene of Hope talking about how he's totally going to get that guy, like, you don't even know man, he's totally going down for sure because the developers will kill off one major character and make the other completely unsympathetic after hours and hours of effort, right? You could just skip every scene he's in from when Hope first opens his dumb mouth to when things finally get resolved in the most predicable way possible and not miss a single important thing. Vanille's ~*Tragic Backstory*~ works the same way. Just a bunch of wasted time.
It also doesn't hurt that both Vanille and Hope are fucking obnoxious until their plot threads are resolved and they basically just show up for a token line now and then. In fact, I don't think I really sympathized or liked a single member of the cast besides Sazh, who at least was fairly believable and likable, even if his plot shit was just as utterly predictable as everyone else. Lightning, for all she gets points for calling Snow out on his bullshit, winds up spending too much time being a bitch and has nothing but generic "I'm a badass!" lines besides. Snow is a retard and hero hero hero hero save Serah hero hero hero hero Serah hero hero. Fang's alright I guess. Villains suck balls and don't have enough screen time or presence for me to care, same goes for side characters.
Battle system...Paradigm system works well enough, though of course not having control over party members gets annoying. The Cyrstarium was a decent Sphere Grid knockoff, the unlocking level thing was a decent way to discourage grinding, crafting weapons and shit is super expensive and not really worth it. The monster hunts aren't bad but seem more in line for somebody who wants to grind for lots of CP even when you don't really need it. Battles were monotonously easy at first, actually got fun around the middle to the end, then at endgame became frustrating "I give myself 20 stat-ups instantly at the start of battle and can spam AoE stunlock attacks. Also there's 3 more more of me. Hope you ambushed!!!111" shitfests that barely seemed worth the effort to fight. But of course they make the spaces so narrow and the monsters so fast you have to either fight them or blow through your super expensive, rare gameplay skip trinkets.
tl:dr Game sucks, worst in the series since FF8
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Bioshock 2: Cleared out the Minerva's Den DLC. Half of the big reveal at the end I had guessed pretty much before I ever even started playing, but the second half surprised me a little. The ending was probably the best part of the entire game.
Red Dead Redemption: Got 100% completion in the single-game.
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LO - Okay, so I have been playing this wayyyy less than CT. Did like one dungeon since last posting? Stupid work. But yeah, getting all the dreams sort of kills them, because for some reason they decided that you needed to be able to get 5 or 6 in a row straight away. They are still good writing and the text scroll is well done, but after that many I am caring way less about text scroll gimmick and more about reading so I can get back to doing something. Game is fun enough.
I do have a question about how Slot Seeds work though, I assume there is a skill slot cap on each character (48 seeds in the game, 4 Immortals, start with 3 skills each, I assume there is a cap of 15), but on the off chance that there isn't I am stuck contemplating benching one of the Immortals just to jam more skills on other characters, I understand that they are the best characters in the game, but 3 uber PCs with tons of skills with a mediocre fourth might work better than 4 good characters.
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Notably later in the game, there are some accessories that give +3 and +5 skill (+2/+4 after equipping the skill!). There may be more that I haven't gotten yet. So at the very least, you can add 6 free skill slots pretty easily. I don't think there is a techincal max, but not 100% sure on that (thought I read that DLC unlocks a dungeon with a +25 skill item or something that ridiculous). Even so, some of the later skills that you can put onto Immortal make running all 4 of them at once sensible (Double Item!)
CT, the randoms? Watch out for the next dungeon, it's the most evil in the game for them. I was wiped out...three or four times against back row enemies with some nasty, nasty MT magic casting abilities. The dungeon was fun as hell design wise, but I didn't need to see the majority of it that much.
Dreams can be gone back and gotten later if desired. Minus 1 or 2, they don't unlock anything extra.
Random fighting doesn't give many extra levels (Steep EXP curves or something like that), just the SP.
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ACE:R- Jesus Yamato is Jesus yet again in this thing..... can he get any more broken? Long lasting SEED effect with Himat Fullburst cost only one tension!!?? A stupidly good multi target physical and Dragoon System that is both grunt and boss slayer?? And god, how thick is his defense after SEED? This is surreal, is From Software made of Kira fan boys??
And ahahaha at Lulu on how ironic his set up is.
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ACE:R- Jesus Yamato is Jesus yet again in this thing..... can he get any more broken? Long lasting SEED effect with Himat Fullburst cost only one tension!!?? A stupidly good multi target physical and Dragoon System that is both grunt and boss slayer?? And god, how thick is his defense after SEED? This is surreal, is From Software made of Kira fan boys??
And ahahaha at Lulu on how ironic his set up is.
Japan is made up of Kira fanboys, they just sell to them.
Tales of Destiny Remake:
Up to...um fuck I still can never remember Aethersphere dungeons. *Looks it up.* Mikheil. Near the end of the game.
Very, very good remake. Does suffer some of the flaws of the original material(notably Aethersphere is still essentially a 10 hour long dungeon bash with occasional minor plot and skits), but the battle system improvement is ridiculous; ToD was arguably the worst Tales in the series for battle system, while this basically has ten PCs that have actually well done skillsets.
Every single PC is interesting, varied, and good in different situations. Non-fail Hard mode? Yeah it has that too, I know, it's stunning. Good internal balance within skillsets, encouraging widely varying play? Yeah it does that too. Really good game, someone go set fire to Namco for not porting it.
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God Hand - Beat this. 90 resets in all, average level 1.7 (284/457/47/9 for kills by level). Took a bit over 14 hours. Game remained great fun right up to the end, very happy with it. I'm not going to rant more about it now because honestly my last post covered all the key stuff. The SERIOUS PLOT was a little disorganised but hahaha, like that's worth caring about. Ending was absolutely brilliant, I can't think of a better way to finish a game like that.
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Wild arms 5: Did the whole thing with the guy who loves his job a bit to much. Elvis was pretty awesome.
SMT3: Finally have this at last. Its not as good as SMT2 but still a decent game. Main has Fog breath, War Cry, Tornado, force boost, shock, elec boost, Heatwave and focus with his specs being str build.
Matador is one of the most well designed bosses i've faced recently. Good model design, the music while not just his seems like it was made for him and the difficulty is just right as he is meant to be a kick to the balls to the player. While made of papermech he still holds up well and you really have to prepare yourself for him to win.
Dante, Thor and the monk guy were jokes though and could do nothing but fall at the tidalwave of buffs/debuffs.
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Just played through the Overlord DLC for ME2. Two thoughts-
1) The main area you explore in the Hammerhead is really, really good-looking. It's like they took FFXIII but made an actual game out of it.
2) Holy fucking god the ending to that is colossally messed-up.
Still, some really good content that was enjoyable, challenging and interesting while being long enough to really get in to.
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I actually made progress today so....
MMX6(or how I learned that rules are meant to be broken when you can't dash-jump worth a damn.): So, in my unending quest to putz around aimlessly I went over to Metal Shark Player's stage to finally beat him. Except, near the end of the third area there's a very annoying jump that I just can't get through with unarmored X. Bt I do remember that WolFang's effect can help, so.... I head to WolFang's stage to get the alternate area and get the lives upgrade. Then for some dumb reason I forgot I needed the fire nightmare effect to do that. Oh well, I have the nightmare effect. Back to Metal Shark! Where I learn that the ice doesn't actuall help and I just weep silently. Ok, well, whatever. I have the metal block effect, I can go grab the last armor. Go to Heatnix's stage and... Oh god dumbnut 1 kills me? PS1 off.
So today, it's on!
Metal Shark Player: I head back here to try and use the WolFang weapon to bridge the gap. It doesn't work, dammit, but at least I get the nightmare effect up.
Blaze Heatnix: Right, dumbnut one gets its licks in but I beat it and head through an actual level to get to number 2. Number 2 gets my piddly life 2, but I get his anyway. Go through door, climb up, see nice pretty block! Do a bit of maneuvering to get up top, climb some more, save some reploids, get some lives, get cockblocked because one spawns right in the goddamn way and I don't have the anchor.
DIE.
Game off.
Metal Shark Player(FOR REALZ THIS TIME): I have to bit the bullet and use Falcon get through the stage. Since I'm doing that I... well honestly I don't get any advantages beyond the air dash because I already have the 1/2 damage part and the Falcon buster blows. Giga attack? Ha. Anyway, with the armor I can actually make it past! Grab the heart tank along the way, smash the miniboss, and smash the SHARRRRRK. Yay.
Blaze Heatnix: Alright, time to get the part and do this thing! Back as Unarmored X I somehow enter my playing nirvana and get through the first dumbnut with only two hits on me. Actual stage and I go through with one hit, and I still have half life once I'm done with the second dumbnut! Yay! ANyway, I climb back up and take out the cockblock with the anchor and complete the Shadow Armor. KICKIN" RAD. I continue on that path because I thought it led to a route that bypassed the third and fourth dumbnuts. It didn't. It led to the alternate. Dammit. Anyway, that area is a joke, I get an E-tank and smack Dynamo's pansy ass around some more.
And now I have enough SOULS to use 4 parts. Jeez.
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So Fuod, I have to ask you:
How's your liver holding up?
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So Fuod, I have to ask you:
How's your liver holding up?
My sanity is a bigger worry.
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I'm kind of assuming that's already gone, and that you're starting to get affected physically. Hence the liver question.
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DQ9: Did some solo powerleveling on my hero, now have all passive stat boosts with her. I've gotten to where I can grind Agates of Evolution at a decent clip, so I just need orbs now. Building up the Legacy-slaying team (Gladiator x3, Priest) for that purpose. Also have full set of Metal King equipment now, and all but a couple of the basic S-rank weapons.
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Crisis Core- Up to Modeoheim. The quick game flow makes the game very playable, despite the unevenness of the plot scenes. Missions are very doable, but also completely lacking in even the most minor of variety. Zack is at least less annoying than the early game, WTF is a Cissnei, and they really call Tseng "Sung"? Is there any word that has an "e" that sounds like that?
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I'm kind of assuming that's already gone, and that you're starting to get affected physically. Hence the liver question.
Well, my hands hurt from punching the cushions so much... so yeah...
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Tai will probably be much more capable of correcting me, but I would hazard a guess that Tseng pronounced as Sung is mangling a more Chinese sound to the name than a Japanese one. Tseng never being localised into something a bit more westen (Compared to the rest of the Turks) felt a bit odd, so I had suspected that may be the source of that.
Lost Odyssey - Up to disc 2. Short discs. Edit - Oh yeah I bitched about this in a half empty chat, but dude way to fail up a funeral. Your character design is always outlandish, but making a funeral director look like a clown is creepy as all fuck. Then after a fairly long cutscene with the death of a character, way to really hammer home the point by making the player run around 2 areas and find 10 items for no fucking reason. Good one dick heads, don't even bother writing any dialogue other than "you need to find these items" and "I found 1 of 10 of item". Oh and then make you do it twice. Why not throw a mini game in DURING THE MIDDLE OF A FUNERAL you could even stop the funeral to have the creepy clown funeral director give the player directions on how to play the mini game. Oh and make the mini game instructions tell you to press a button when you need to hold it. Just you know to drag out the mini game for a few more seconds of confusion while the player works it out. Wait no don't actually do that it was a joke. Goddammit. Of course now you have another cutscene sequence where stuff happens, but at least there is plot! Sure you resolved the main motivation of the plot to go forward, but I am not running around as a thousand upon thousand year old immortal invincible mercenary picking up sticks anymore. After all of that? Now you can save. So boring and all I wanted to do was stop for the night and sleep. I was so bored I had to do the next dungeon and end the disc otherwise I might not have gone back to the game. I needed the reminder that you know there was an actual game inside all this shit.
I like the game still, it is fun and is trying a few things. Square stuff IS interesting when it is trying stuff that doesn't completely suck endlessly forever in everything it does, but man when they miss they miss hard these days.
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I'm only passingly familiar with Chinese, but there is indeed a lot of phonetics/language fuckery going on there. This includes not only which language Tseng comes from (maybe Chinese, could very well be Korean), but also which romanization (Pinyin or Wade-Guiles) is used, or whether the romanization was based off of the Katakana rewrite and the Chinese/Korean was ignored completely.
So, I can't give a definitive answer. In any case, assuming the "e" in Tseng is a Pinyin "e" (maybe Wade-Guiles but I have no fucking idea), a better westernization is indeed "Sung."
Man. Even becoming passingly familiar with Asian languages makes me realize that everyone who bitches about name localization in videogames needs a nice kick to the jewels.
EDIT: Wait, I'm stupid. Let's just look at the Japanese version of the name. ツォン. Romanized, that's Tson (So-N). Yes, Sung is more correct in English phonetics than Tseng. Song would probably be even better?
And all of a sudden, I realize that Soul Calibur is probably correct in saying "fuck it" and changing the spelling of Seung Mina's name every game.
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I actually liked all the stuff they made you do for the funeral scenes. The whole plot thread really felt like it came out of nowhere that if they just brushed it off quickly it would feel so tangential and dismissive. Gave is a slightly grounded feeling which worked fairly well for me for all that I can understand just wishing the game would get on with it. Especially worked for me since it revolved so heavily around the game's super driving theme too.
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WA XF Replay- Up to 3-8. I couldn't resist and did fight one Creeping Chaos, but for the most part, I've been seeing how the game shakes out without the CSP overloading. I actually basically got all the skills I wanted around 3-3 before the new classes came (And generally tended to be a random assortment of skillsets/IFF/Widespread. I really still can not believe that IFF wasn't even the penultimate skill, but the 3rd from the last).
Running 2 fighters-4 mages. Hadn't used Nightstalker before so was disappointed to see that I wasn't going to be running around with my +25% ATK and AIM Bow Six Shooter of doom! Nevertheless, switched that one fighter over to Extremist, realize that that the accuracy up part of the Fantastica skillset was necessary to make Six Shooter have any point, and watched it (after admittedly 1 buff admittedly) unleash 425 damage twice. Granted, ST and needs buffing. Just shiny for the level of smash (Of course, throw on...3 more buffs and it hits near 2500!).
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near 2500
How?
If you have 500 ATK (pretty darn high) vs. 350 DEF, and use Hyper (750 ATK), Invoke (always hit), Command Critical (and hope for a crit, though Invoke admittedly makes them likely), Fragile, and Debilitator (131 DEF), that's... (750*1.5-131)/6*6*1.5 = 1491 damage. Even against 0 DEF that's only 1687. Mastered Extremist would multiply this damage by a further 1.5 and get you to the ballpark you are talking about, but I'd assumed from your post that you didn't have that.
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Man. Even becoming passingly familiar with Asian languages makes me realize that everyone who bitches about name localization in videogames needs a nice kick to the jewels.
I couldn't agree with you more here. The number of whiners about "OMG! THEY RETRANSLATED THE NAME FOR NO GOOD REASON!" need punchings. They even go so far as to act like name changes are a MODERN convention, when shit like this has been going on since ANCIENT GREECE/ROME (I mean, apparently, there's nothing wrong with Zeus having *2* Roman names in Jupiter and Jove, and neither looking anything like Zeus, but god forbid they spell an R as an L from Japanese -> English!)
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YOU JUST AREN'T A TRUE GAMER MEEPLE
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I'd rather have consistency than accuracy myself, but this is more a question of Asian languages not being spoken like they're written, which ain't exactly rare.
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I'd rather have consistency than accuracy myself, but this is more a question of Asian languages not being spoken like they're written, which ain't exactly rare.
Uh, Chinese, and... what, exactly? To my knowledge Korean is phonetic, while Japanese uses Kanji it does have a syllable based system, and ... well, honestly I'm not sure about Vietnamese, Cambodian, etc. But even Chinese has a phonetic system (pinyin). And one thing's for sure--Anglicizing the pronunciations (well... hell, any part of the language) any of these languages is fitting a square peg into a round hole, which I now realize was your point.
Anyway, time for some mental masturbation because it's the DL. Translation itself is a creative process (direct translation doesn't actually exist since the translator is acting as a filter), and if the translator's goal is to keep the pronunciation of name in tact and get Americans to pronounce it correctly, then varying translations is going to happen. Square peg, round hole, etc. However, another course of action is to not bother keeping the original names. Here, I'm with you 100%--consistency should take absolute precedence. Tina isn't Terra, and Terra is always Terra. The PW games get this head on by completely renaming everyone. But then you get people bitching about "OMG WHY DIDN'T THEY KEEP THE ORIGINAL NAME" so you can't please everyone on that one.
Of course, there's option 3--Fudge the phonetics and spell it like you'd spell the characters in romanji/pinyin. I don't think it works so well with voice acted games*, but it is fine if you really don't care about the audience pronouncing names correctly in their heads. Now, if you're going to argue that for the sake of consistency, different localization teams shouldn't pick different objectives with their names? That's a fine debate in and of itself, and I'm not sure where I stand on it. It's worth noting that it's not what happened here, anyway--Tseng should be Tsong in that case.
...Wait. This little interlude started because someone was bewildered by a more modern translation DEVIATING FROM FF7'S.
wat
I appreciate the opportunity to get all translation/linguistics-wanky, but... wat.
*Funny story. Before learning Chinese a little bit, I was really, really confused as to why they pronounced Zhuzhen "Jew-gin" in SH1's ending. And now I know.
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Oh, yeah. I play video games I guess. Um... 16 more scrap metals to my TF2 scout hat? Yeah. Relevance.
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/me looks up, looks back. Uhhhh hold on a bit...
Cantonese pronounciation Tseng is indeed pretty much "Sung".
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Chinese and Vietnamese (A "D" sound transliterates as "T", and no, I don't have the slightest idea why) are the main ones that come to mind.
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Chinese and Vietnamese (A "D" sound transliterates as "T", and no, I don't have the slightest idea why) are the main ones that come to mind.
Well, it's not that they don't sound like they're written, it's that they don't sound like English. Pinyin is very much the same thing--as far as Mandarin goes, "e" is more of an "uh", ji/qi/xi are jih/chih/shih, and zh/ch/sh AND z/s/s are those sounds but in a slightly different position in the mouth.
The reason for this is that the Chinese invented it. It's all arbitrary symbols to sounds anyway, and why should the Chinese care about catering to making their Pinyin representations mirror the Western ones, much less specifically the Anglophonic ones? Especially since, IIRC, Pinyin came about after China was part of the Soviet Union and the West was the Enemy.
IIRC, Wade-Guiles was a system designed by Westerners to describe Chinese sounds, so the sounds were represented by letter combinations that would approximate the sound in Western languages. But don't quote me on that one. Or that when Pinyin was invented. I'm going off of memory as I don't really have the time to look them up right now.
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Checking Wikipedia, pinyin was created primarily to help produce and promulgate a standardized set of Mandarin pronunciations for the sake of education and increasing literacy across the country. Bear in mind that 'dialects' of Chinese are distinct to the point where, for instance, Shanghai dialect is completely unintelligible to a Mandarin speaker like me; getting a single standardized dialect taught in schools throughout the country was pretty important for improving productivity and cross-country communications. Pinyin does its job at getting grade schoolers to understand how to pronounce words properly; it's completely internally consistent and the pronunciation makes sense to Chinese people; if Westerners have trouble with pronunciation, well, it wasn't originally designed for them.
Pronouncing Chinese correctly (or even to the point of sounding aesthetically pleasing, IMO) is hopeless without the capability to distinguish tonals properly. I prefer people use a less accurate pronunciation of my name in real life because the closest equivalent most English speakers can manage just grates on my ears.
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I've always thought Pinyin did a better job than Wade-Giles representing the pronunciation of "standard" Mandarin to anglophones. Guess that shouldn't be surprising, though.
Even leaving aside the rather significant issue of tone, no romanization method will be able to cover up the fact that Mandarin's vowels are just plain different than English's. They're simple enough for all that, and Mandarin's vowel inventory is smaller than English's (about six versus about 11, I believe), and much less likely to change contextually (though they do in dipthongs, and the two sounds written as 'i' in pinyin surface about equally often in complementary distribution, e.g. 'zhi' vs 'zi', 'shi' vs 'xi' etc.).
But regardless, even though a Mandarin 'a' is relatively similar to English's, it's still not the same (I think it's usually higher and maybe even a bit further back than our IPA 'a', but don't quote me on that), and casual listeners could hear it as all kinds of things, particularly when distorted by tone and rapid speech (to say nothing of mangling by native Japanese or English voice actors, god knows; Japanese's vowels are actually extremely similar to ours, and even more static than Mandarin's, which is why that romanization is so damn easy, but the Mandarin -> Japanese -> English transition will wreck all kinds of havok).
As a transliteration, Tseng to Sung seems pretty reasonable to me, for the record, though I'll agree that consistency is way more important than accuracy in these things ^_^
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casual listeners could hear it as all kinds of things, particularly when distorted by tone and rapid speech (to say nothing of mangling by native Japanese or English voice actors, god knows; Japanese's vowels are actually extremely similar to ours, and even more static than Mandarin's, ).
Are you talking about English or Mandarin there? I don't actually know what your native language is.
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Wade-Giles was created in the mid-19th century; I suspect that Mandarin has evolved linguistically since the creation of Wade-Giles. Pinyin has the benefit of coming about a century later and being sanctioned by the government that effectively defined and spread modern Mandarin. Regardless of intent, that's a huge advantage when it comes to representing pronunciation accurately.
Also, checking Wikipedia it seems both Thomas Wade and Herbert Giles were primarily stationed south of Beijing, in Hong Kong and Shanghai respectively. Makes sense for British subjects, but I wonder how much of the Mandarin they learned came from non-native speakers who might've changed/corrupted it slightly.
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Er, sorry, English is my native language; I've got pretty good Japanese and pretty basic Mandarin besides.
Japanese and English vowels are really really similar: their 'u' is unrounded, which doesn't actually sound that different, otherwise every Japanese vowel has a nearly identical analogue in most English dialects (I think they tend to be a bit quicker, but that's another thing I'm not sure of, it's been a few years since I took any linguistics, and also not a big difference regardless).
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near 2500
How?
If you have 500 ATK (pretty darn high) vs. 350 DEF, and use Hyper (750 ATK), Invoke (always hit), Command Critical (and hope for a crit, though Invoke admittedly makes them likely), Fragile, and Debilitator (131 DEF), that's... (750*1.5-131)/6*6*1.5 = 1491 damage. Even against 0 DEF that's only 1687. Mastered Extremist would multiply this damage by a further 1.5 and get you to the ballpark you are talking about, but I'd assumed from your post that you didn't have that.
Ah, you are throwing in a lot of debuffs I wasn't even considering. But the 4 buffs were Hyper, Invoke, and Sentinel's skill that stacks to 3x. I was estimating 2500 based on the numbers I was getting on average from Extremist at the last map.
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The Japanese A is fairly different from any English A's, but it's certainly closer to English A's than other letters in general, plus there's pretty much a strongly held to convention that most low vowels in other languages (vowels in which your tongue is lowest, e.g. the generic "aaaahhh" sound doctors have you say) get anglicised as A's. Granted, English has one low vowel it often writes with an O (the short o sound in "hot", etc.) despite the fact that the other uses of O in English are a mid back vowel like it is in most languages which use Roman script, but English makes no sense.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Dhyer, so back to RPGs. Oh, yeah, I forgot about Amplifier, I tend to dismiss it as impractical since it can't be used after moving AND has a hefty MP cost so the only way you get ahead in terms of damage per turn or damage per MP is to use Rush while doing the other setup.
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I'm here, so more language wank.
it's completely internally consistent and the pronunciation makes sense to Chinese people; if Westerners have trouble with pronunciation, well, it wasn't originally designed for them.
Glad to have some confirmation on that.
Pronouncing Chinese correctly (or even to the point of sounding aesthetically pleasing, IMO) is hopeless without the capability to distinguish tonals properly. I prefer people use a less accurate pronunciation of my name in real life because the closest equivalent most English speakers can manage just grates on my ears.
Since I don't actively keep up with my Mandarin, I'll admit I completely forgot tonals and that's because tonals are hard and I don't like them. :(
Re: NEB. The Japanese A most certainly isn't different from any English A. It's the same A as in Father. ... Isn't it? Maybe somewhere between "father" and "hot". Nevermind that this is going to differ depending on which English accent one has.
I agree with that last thing you said though. English makes no sense. At all.
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Hmm, Wikipedia in its eternal trustworthiness calls its A a low central vowel, which is what I remember (something in between the A in father and the A in cat), and something English doesn't have. The father A sound is generally low back, though blah blah varies by individual dialect. So it's different, but not by enough to matter since neither language has the other.
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NEB ninjas my post. With the same source, even (go wikipedia!)
If you differentiate the vowels in 'cot' and 'caught' (more likely if you live on the east coast), and if wikipedia's correct about low-centre, then the Japanese 'a' is between those two vowels. But even North American English speakers who make that distinction really strongly are unlikely to be able to hear the difference all that reliably.
Yay language wanking! To draw it back to games a bit, an anecdote: when a classmate of mine applied to Square to be a translator while we were living in Japan, they had what was basically a written test, with questions like how you'd translate 火剣, 炎剣, and ファイアソード respectively in the same game, which I always thought was neat (I think he went 'fire sword' 'blaze sword' and 'pyro sword' which I think was relatively uninspired, but anyhow).
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EDIT: Ninja'd by Dhyer, so back to RPGs. Oh, yeah, I forgot about Amplifier, I tend to dismiss it as impractical since it can't be used after moving AND has a hefty MP cost so the only way you get ahead in terms of damage per turn or damage per MP is to use Rush while doing the other setup.
Please stop talking about games in the Language topic.
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RS:MS
picked this up again, after trying to entice Gate to play it. Nearly done with my Claudia runthrough, which has been tricky because I'm trying to beat the game with every single PC, and the theme of her supporting cast was male scrubs: Dowd (the best of the lot by far), Gian (godly +3 BP regen), Patrick (who?), and Herman (what?!). About the only thing they're good for is having tons of LP: at least 12 per.
Beat 4 corrupted Elemental Lords, Jewel Beast, Death, Schirach. I'll finish this playthrough once I admit that this party isn't beating 10 Fatestone Saruin any time soon.
Side note: 10 Fatestone Saruin acts multiple times in a turn, and knows Fold Time, which ends the turn when cast. Which is a much more creative way of screwing you than spamming Deus ex Machina, but he does that too on occasion.
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You know, everyone can beat 10 stone Saruin. Just have everyone learn Illusion Body and spam Phoenix Arrow.
I'd rather have consistency than accuracy myself, but this is more a question of Asian languages not being spoken like they're written, which ain't exactly rare.
Technically, it is about Asian language can assign multiple pronunciation to a same symbol then the symbol functions differently according to the pronunciation. Then the function a symbol conserve is limited by its artistic structure, and it can not bare any meaning outside its structure. In other words, a symbol can serve multiple purposes, and how you pronounce it determines which of the purposes is being used right now. This is common in Chinese, and especially worse in Japanese.
And as the resident Chinese of DL, I'll just say this......
Fuck romanization, just fuck it.
It does NOT get the point across at all. Especially on how the vowels work... it made it harder then it really is.
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You know, everyone can beat 10 stone Saruin. Just have everyone learn Illusion Body and spam Phoenix Arrow.
I generally limit my PCs to their starting class skills with minor exceptions, so that's not an option I've left open to myself.
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Right, I play things.
DQ9: Picked it up from the Ciatos, playing through it. Fun enough so far (just got to being able to change jobs, and it's neat enough; unlocking jobs is a bitch and a half at times, though), can't say I've got too much to complain about. Sad part is, nothing to really comment on, either. It's remarkably... mediocre. Though having my main have blood-red eyes really makes the game for me. Especially in the prologue~
Suikoden III: Decided I'd actually play this. Done all of the Ch. 1 POVs, and am now at the beginning of Geddoe 2. Hugo is a bit of an emo wanker, Guillame is SO PEDO OMG, Chris needs to have her own damn opinion, and Geddoe is <3. Seriously considering skipping Hugo chapters, but I have a feeling that would lead to me genuinely missing out on parts of the story, as opposed to just different sides of what's going on. (Though he seems clearly the least important, thus far. He's had almost nothing that everyone else didn't already get, and even less than that.)
P.S. Council is DOUCHENIZZLE TO THE MACS.
EDIT: Is the main the only one who can get Egg On? Or, really, any other form of Tension building?
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YOu have to do all the chapters regardless, so it's just a matter of how sequentially you want the plot to be done.
PS: Thomas chapters are the bestest anyway.
BbS- Done. Fuller breakdown later. Need to record thought though. Dude. Sora was born and, instantly, sought out Ven's heart and healed it. AS A NEWBORN HE IS JESUS. Heh. Funny.
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Mage, Martial Artist class has a skill tree that teaches Psyche Up, which raises tension on the caster. If you want tension shenanigans I'd invest in at least one martial artist.
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EDIT: Ninja'd by Dhyer, so back to RPGs. Oh, yeah, I forgot about Amplifier, I tend to dismiss it as impractical since it can't be used after moving AND has a hefty MP cost so the only way you get ahead in terms of damage per turn or damage per MP is to use Rush while doing the other setup.
It was more a theoretical thought process than anything worthwhile! Although...I suppose if Royal Cheer stacks plus a horde of debuffs that really makes 2500 a very low number!
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YOu have to do all the chapters regardless, so it's just a matter of how sequentially you want the plot to be done.
PS: Thomas chapters are the bestest anyway.
BbS- Done. Fuller breakdown later. Need to record thought though. Dude. Sora was born and, instantly, sought out Ven's heart and healed it. AS A NEWBORN HE IS JESUS. Heh. Funny.
I am somewhat disappointed that the new hidden boss is still an Aqua mine bait. What does her mine cannot do anyway??
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The Black Cave Dhyer? Ouch yeah. At least those birds were easy though! I liked the dungeon design too. Hmm yeah haven't had much trouble with randoms since.
LO- Dungeon before the final dungeon I think? I have to fight six wizard dudes and they are a pain in the ass. I don't get it and I've tried defeating the experiments in the pods and then going back to fight them too only to still get wiped >.> Eventually I ran out of items from fighting experiments over and over and called it quits since it was the middle of the night and I was very tired by that point. Also I couldn't find a way back to the save point which rendered my experiment beating efforts meaningless <.<
*SPOILERS (Jansen/Ming related - don't know whether peeps would mind reading it or not but warning just in case - I haven't went into too much detail though about exactly what happens in a certain event *^_^*)
I am really enjoying the game for the most part which explains why I have been steam rolling through it for every new cut scene to see what will happen to the characters. My favourite characters are probably Jansen and Seth. Jansen is so silly but so adorable too with how he pretends to be a hard man/lout at first, trying to be cool and sauve and not letting his feelings show but the next minute saving a bird, worrying about Cooke and Mack, singing, trying to help Ming and generally acting like a sap around her. I thought something was up when she was staring at him on the return to Numara, when he went "Huh" to her scrutiny and when he was restless and called out to her after the boss fight but wow *^_^* When I found myself in control of Jansen in the area after that I just knew there was going to be a scene of some sort between those two but I honestly didn't expect that from Ming. She'd become gradually more tolerable over the course of the game (in part for me because of previous scenes with Jansen) but it still annoyed me whenever she took charge of things or received credit for them (hey I defeated the dino monsters not Ming who wasn't even in my party!) after being such a DiD early on but yeah I like her better now! I hope it isn't a trap! I really want a happy ending for those two *^_^*
Out of the two kids I think I'm starting to like Mack more than Cooke. He may be a baby but at least he doesn't go around kicking people! It's odd that I don't really like Cooke since the young female characters are usually my favourites (Peppita, Meru, Relm, Eiko, Vanille, etc) but yeah. Either those or characters like Aerith, Alice and Lucia so it's quite surprising that Seth is probably my favourite female character in this game. I like Sarah too but yeah. Hmm.
My party is Kaim, Sarah, Jansen, Cooke and Mack. I had a certain character in for a while instead of Mack so Kaim and Serah could learn Double Item + Double SP though. I decided to just use two Immortals and build a bunch of mortals up for Link Skills. Also to see what they'd be like as duellers in the DL. I'm mainly just using Kaim because he's the main really and though I usually switch out mains when there's an option to I'm glad I didn't here because of party splits. He's pretty well built up by this point and I like him enough character wise to keep him in unlike mains in some other games. Sarah I decided on because I didn't really like Ming back then, it makes sense to use her with Kaim because of plot and it seems like she has the potential to become the best mage in the game. Mack because Spirit Magic is cool and Cooke because hey White Mage, always handy and can't do any harm having two around (I've kinda built Sarah up this way as well) Cooke's actually been surprisingly useful lately, especially vs those darn experiments backed by Casting Support from Sarah. Jansen ... I love mah Black Mage *^_^*
If I ever do a replay I think I'll use Jansen and Ming because of plots next time. Also Seth and Sed also because of plots. Dunno if I'll use Tolten though.
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Language is games.
Anyway, though on this point.
As a transliteration, Tseng to Sung seems pretty reasonable to me, for the record, though I'll agree that consistency is way more important than accuracy in these things ^_^
I believe the reason Tseng was left as Tseng in FF7 rather than translated to something more akin to the pronunciation is to help divulge the fact that he is indeed foreign and not "native" like the rest but also not from Wutai like the named members of the cast that keep more Japanese style names. No idea where he is meant to be from exactly, but he is different from the rest of the Turks and Shinra, but not from Wutai.
Edit - DQ9 - Cash grinding with alchemy is boring and stupid, but easy to do on the bus and a thing to theoretically do. There being two recipes that you can do with storebought things. 30k bank roll to start doing Ear Cosy's is good, work your way up to 90-95ki or so and you have a cycle that earns you 20k for little work. Gold Mail gives bigger profit per item but requires a bank roll of 400k+ to get going. I don't think there is even that many damned items you can spend the money on that makes that remotely functional (it garners you about 30k profit per 99 items, so 1.5x as effective as the method that requires a quarter of the initial investment, only real benefit is that you have to stop at one less shop and I think the Gold Mail is on the first screen of Chest Recipes).
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More Secret of Evermore, yay! You don't even wanna know what kind of issues I had recording this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Fj4GAYEsEw
I have also been playing Metroid: Other M. It's better than most of the 'hatas have been saying, but I can definitely see why they dislike it. Trading open exploration for more action was a pretty piss-poor decision. I have no clue what they were thinking (even from a Japanese standpoint) with Samus's characterization.
I am just past the Varia Suit scene. LOL at giving Samus permission to use it right before it's about to be a non-issue.
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CT, you've gotten past where I have, but I'd imaging taking in a stronger party would help. Immortals really can get all the skills mortals have while having more HP. 4 Immortals+Sed is best party by far! Set everyone up with Auto Shield and Auto Barrier, everyone with 2x Item, etc...By the way, you didn't need 2 SP Ups. One in a party gives you the full benefit I believe.
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Edit - DQ9 - Cash grinding with alchemy is boring and stupid, but easy to do on the bus and a thing to theoretically do. There being two recipes that you can do with storebought things. 30k bank roll to start doing Ear Cosy's is good, work your way up to 90-95ki or so and you have a cycle that earns you 20k for little work. Gold Mail gives bigger profit per item but requires a bank roll of 400k+ to get going. I don't think there is even that many damned items you can spend the money on that makes that remotely functional (it garners you about 30k profit per 99 items, so 1.5x as effective as the method that requires a quarter of the initial investment, only real benefit is that you have to stop at one less shop and I think the Gold Mail is on the first screen of Chest Recipes).
From what I've found, grinding alchemy for money is neither necessary (you rarely need large amounts of money until you get ready to buy Chronocrystals) nor efficient. Killing Gem Slimes in grottoes is a much faster method. Of course you may not have a map with Gem Slimes, but they're pretty easy to find.
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Japanese A sound: From teaching the various correct English sounds to the kids, I've come to the conclusion that the Japanese A takes slightly pronunciations depending on the consonants surrounding rather than just being one set sound.
In general, it sounds exactly like the A in Father. This pretty much only changes in Y-A compounds.
Of course, this comes from children, so their use of their own language may not be properly formed, and it seems to differ more by person than by any usage standard (apart from the YA compounds being universally more "A as in Cat"-like).
Games: Ha, you thought I was playing something. *Patiently awaits CK BbS review*
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Hey, the review is separate from the What Games breakdown.
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Well, I'm not playing FFT on my phone, because Square has decided to continue it's five-year mission to disappoint me in all ways. Guess what? Even though it's just a PSP port, it's not even close to done apparently.
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From what I've found, grinding alchemy for money is neither necessary (you rarely need large amounts of money until you get ready to buy Chronocrystals) nor efficient. Killing Gem Slimes in grottoes is a much faster method. Of course you may not have a map with Gem Slimes, but they're pretty easy to find.
Or you know I might also not even have any Grotto maps at all. I honestly can't see money being terribly useful beyond this point, I am at the second last shop in the regular game, after that the only place you can spend money on is DQVC from what I understand, so outside of buying seeds whenever they show up in DQVC then anything else should be a known quantity that can be acquired through other methods unless I am totally missing something (highly likely). For the point of the game where it is useful? Vastly more time efficient than cash grinding by other methods. Considering you can do the grinding for it once you reach Batsureg with a quantity of cash that is not overly beyond your grasp at Batsureg I would say if you have interest in systematically destroying things then it is worthy of notice.
Now for where I am up to, it isn't worth it, I should really just push through and finish the game with the gear I had and used a tad more alchemy to tide me over, but that wasn't the point of doing it. I did it to see how it works and how practically it could be applied to leverage an advantage out of a game. It is most definitely no SaGa Frontier 1 Gold Bar abuse money maker, but it has its uses if you are into that kind of thing.
Now if you want your time spent playing to be fun and interesting and actually entertaining? Most definitely not. Stay far far away from Alchemy cash grinding, it is tedious and stupid and the gains are marginal.
That is another part of the fun of critical analysis being half of the fun of playing a game. You can do the dumbest most tedious shit on the bus to work and it is fun.
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Lost Odessey- I finally defeated the wizard dudes by having Jansen spam Primsa while Kaim and Mack took out the Gold Saint with Combo. After that I travelled around the world a bit looking for stuff and managed to received the "Well Travelled" achievement after unlocking the sidequest areas. Apart from buying new equipment, items and the Resurrection spell for Cooke didn't do much with those because I didn't want to be overpowered for the final. I did accidentally run into both Ming and Jansen's bosses and got creamed though. I might have managed to turn the tide for Jansen's but I didn't have any ID protection. I decided to go ahead continue the plot. Turns out the game wasn't finished with me for party split nonsense but I eventually managed to beat the two Generals using a Kaim/Jansen and Mack/Sarah duo where other combos didn't work. Boss in the Glass Chamber was a complete joke because I still had on the elemental protection accessories I'd equipped for the wizard dudes. After the plot events I became lost trying to escape from the dungeon before the time limit ran out but next time thank goodness for Sed who kept fixing broken parts I found which gave me more time to work with.
Final boss unlocked yay. Took four attempts, won on the fourth. First attempt lost to the Magic Beast. Second attempt defeated the Magic Beast with only Kaim and Mack still standing only for me to find myself facing the final with two under used Immortals. Game bit me in the ass for hating on Ming earlier on >.> Seth was better off and she actually ended up surviving the longest of the four but I simply didn't have enough healing, revive and status curing items to win. So back to the world map, put Ming in the party and fought a while in the Burning Lava Caves to build her up skill wise, etc. Also released the final Royal Seal with Tolten while I was there. Built Ming up more in the Snowfields, rearranged all the Immortals skills and headed back to the final. This time I defeated the Magic Beast and the final's first form only to eventually be nerfed by All Petrify in the final fight.
On the fourth attempt I won but it was close. Everyone was fully protected from status (Poison, Blind, Petrify) but eventually I ran out of full healing/revive items. Ming and Seth ended up dead, Kaim ended up doubling Healing Herbs on Sarah while she spammed L7 Black Magic. Fortunately I figured out the boss had an elemental pattern and I was able to hit the weakness each time with Sarah for massive damage. Funny thing is though it's Kaim that finished him off with a magic stone. Seth was abusing Double Item with those when she was alive too.
Ending levels were around L48 average. I actually defeated the Magic Beast at L45 first time but training Ming boosted levels some. Mack also learned 3 Combo in the process which I also had Kaim learn. Pumping out over 7000 damage per round vs Magic Beast helped tremendously.
Ending get. I have to admit I bawwed at the sad stuff. I also bawwed at the happy stuff. I am such a romantic sap >.> Anyway happy ending for me, I am satisfied. Lots of scenes near the end including the end involving my favourite character. Powerful scenes in general for the characters for Dhyer and Grefer to look forward too =-)
I'm not going to go into too much detail involving the ending and over all thoughts on the characters until other peeps have finished. I'll save thoughts on character battle performance and duelling potential until next time too I think.
Next up Uber Jansen! Probably do his side quest next and some others before calling the game quits for a while. Definitely see a replay though.
CT, you've gotten past where I have, but I'd imaging taking in a stronger party would help. Immortals really can get all the skills mortals have while having more HP. 4 Immortals+Sed is best party by far!
Thanks. Yeah I thought as much. Thanks for the info about the Double SP too. Good job I didn't use take up time learning it with Ming! Sed is awesme, I'll probably end up alternating him in with Jansen while doing the side quests and stuff =-)
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Darksiders Abridged: Episode ...
Watcher: Wait, why doesn't this Episode have a number?
War: Cause it looked ugly, so I decided to kill the number...violently.
Watcher: I think you have a problem.
War: Its not my fault I was born the PERSONIFICATION OF VIOLENCE, and that's basically all I know how to do!
Watcher: Whatever, so where were we...oh, right, 3rd Heart, we just got it.
War: Oh, right, we gotta take this thing to Samael, don't we?
Watcher: Yes, yes we do!
*at Samael, with nothing really interesting happening in between*
Samael: Ah, the 3rd heart, good!
War: So, you're going to tell me whose heart I need to rip out next, give me some random power up that lets me travel farther, and then we'll have more cryptic nonsense to further show there's more to this plot than meets the eye?
Samael: I'm impressed; you've shown the ability to think beyond merely killing what's in front of you.
War: Just get on with it. I've a busy schedule of demon murdering to get back to.
Samael: Your next victim will be a Giant Spider named Silitha!
War: ...we couldn't go through the game without at least one giant spider, could we?
Watcher: Just pray this one isn't made of lava.
War: Where do I find her?
Samael: Go through the Ashlands.
War: I just came from there, now you're saying go back? Why couldn't I just kill two birds with one car?
Samael: Because your horse, Ruin, hasn't regained his full strength...and still won't, but I'll give you this ability that lets him run across INVISIBLE BRIDGES so you can reach the next dungeon.
War: I see...
Samael: Anyway, you won't find her, she'll find you!
War: That makes things easier.
Samael: She takes care of her children, catching things for them...except the lucky ones, they get kept alive...FOR INFORMATION! She's a collector, you see.
War: Ignoring how that makes no sense, what can she tell me about YOU, Samael!?!?!
Samael: DON'T PRY INTO MY LIFE DAMN IT! I can read my Demon Porn All I want while you're off doing all the hard work!
War: ...
Samael: ...er....I mean...don't pry, or this will not be a happy ending! And I do want it to be a happy ending! I'm a fan of Disney movies, you know.
Watcher: Really? I never would have expected a tough guy like you to be into that kind of stuff.
Samael: Shut up, we all have our soft spots! I know that YOU, War, take ballet during the off season!
Watcher: ...now THAT I didn't know.
Samael: Oh, there's far more I could tell you about War that you don't know!
War: Ok, ENDING CONVERSATION NOW!
Watcher: But I want to hear-...
War: END. NOW. OFF TO KILL GIANT SPIDER!
*At the Ashlands*
War: *whistling random Western themes as he slices across arbitrary zombies*
Watcher: I get the feeling you're having fun.
War: Me and Ruin go way back!
Watcher: ...I'd rather not hear your story, thank you very much.
War: Oh look, its that weird portal thing! TIME TO SMASH-...
Watcher: *smacks War*
War: er...I mean...run across the invisible bridge?
*War does exactly that*
War: ...its quiet...to quiet...something isn't right here...
Watcher: What makes you say that?
War: Cause there's no enemies for me to slaughter
*War gets attacked by a huge fucking GOD KNOWS WHAT and transported to a different place entirely*
War: ...how did I get caught up in a web? Like seriously, I looked up and...oh hell with it, BUTTON MASH QUICK TIME ESCAPE POWERS ACTIVATE!
*War breaks free*
Watcher: Cobwebs everywhere, spiders dancing around, huge freaking mansion that screams "YOU'RE IN A DUNGEON"...yep, I think we're in the right place?
*spiders the size of large dogs attack War*
War: FUCKING SPIDERS! YOU GO SPLAT NOW!
*War steps on them...literally*
Watcher: Not the most elegant way of dealing with these pests, but I suppose I cannot argue with results.
War: Now, for the BIG SPIDER
Watcher: How about you just dodge the spider entirely using that Chronosphere thingy over there and we come back with a new item that is inevitably in this dungeon?
War: But I wanna kill it now!
Watcher: But maybe you can't!
War: YOU SPEAK MADNESS!
Watcher: ...ok, how's this. Lets get the item first, cause maybe it'll let you kill it in far more creative and FUN ways than what you have available. If I'm wrong, you can punch me in the face.
War: Oh, that sounds good, LETS DO IT!
*many stupid puzzles related to spiders and avoiding big huge ones cause they're dicks later*
War: Big ominous pedestal...I'm smacking this open!
Watcher: Wait, you might not want to...
*You gained A CHAIN WITH A LARGE HOOK ON THE END. War can now pretend he's spiderman!*
War: What was that you were about to say?
Watcher: Oh nothing. by the way, follow me OVER HERE!!!
*War runs to beat up random demons*
Watcher: War! Don't make me call you again, HORSEMAN!
*War continues to beat up demons*
Watcher: YOU WILL REGRET NOT LISTENING TO ME!
War: Shut up! I'm trying to find a way to get up to you! You're standing in an awkward spot and I can't reach there easily!
Watcher: ...oh.
*War finally reaches there*
Watcher: Oh look, little hooks to swing across, why don't you...
War: WHEE!!!!!!!! *is already doing that jumping from thing to thing*
Watcher: ...seriously, THIS is the personification of violence?
*War comes up to one of those big armored spiders*
War: Can I kill this one?
Watcher: Fine, see what I care.
War: Ok! *uses the Totally-Not-Hook-Shot to beat said Spider*
Watcher: Good job, now repeat that 3 more times cause you have to kill all 4 spiders to open that seal.
War: Ok.
*War does that with backtracking and such*
War: Say, what's that huge ominous mass of crystals that my fist can totally smack over...
*Large Crystal Spider appears out of nowhere*
War: Watcher?
Watcher: Yeah?
War: This is a mini boss, right?
Watcher: Probably.
War: And that usually means a retarded gimmick, right?
Watcher: Most definitely.
War: ...nuts...
*War fights the stupid mini boss involving pulling large webbed things from the ceiling, chucking them at the things open mouth*
War: Why. Am. I. Not. Doing. Damage. To. Its. Shell!?
Watcher: Cause its a hard shell?
War: But...that fist I got is suppose to smash them!
Watcher: Its...made of different material?
War: Screw it, maybe if I attack the back-...oh hey, its all soft and squishy here!
*War stabs the back a lot, Spider dies*
Watcher: Good job, now lets just finish this dungeon, and get out of here. These spiders are pissing me...
*War enters room, huge gauntlet of just about every generic demon class to date starts popping up non-stop*
Watcher: Is there any chance you WON'T slaughter all of them to speed this up?
War: You're suggesting I leave things alive when I can clearly kill them, I thought you knew me better than that. Besides, there's one of those "Kill all enemies!" seals in the way.
Watcher: Figures.
*War wins said Gauntlet*
War: I AM JUST THAT AWESOME! Now, where's the Spider Queen thing?
Silitha: RIGHT HERE!!!
*She lands right by War*
War: ...you're the boss? And you can SPEAK!? Holy crap! I haven't seen one of those since Tiamat!
Silitha: You want my heart, don't you Horseman? BUT DO YOU KNOW WHY WE CHOSEN ARE CHOSEN?
War: Does it look like I care?
Silitha: Within our breasts lies the power that Samael once had! Once he gains our hearts, he will be back to full!
War: Look, I don't care.
Silitha: YOU WOULD BE WISE TO JOIN US RATHER THAN FOLLOW HIS LEAD!
War: Care. Do. I. Not.
Silitha: And...are you listening to me?
War: no.
Silitha: ...YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS INSOLENCE!
Watcher: Just a tip, but you may want to find a way to get close to her cause she uses TELEPORTING WEB NONSENSE, and her weak spot is clearly her face.
War: IOWs, use this Hooked Chain Thing on her face when she's talking, slice her a lot?
Watcher: Sounds good to me!
Silitha; YOU ARE A FOOL TO TRUST SAMAEL!
*War slices her in the face*
Silitha: HEY! That's cheating!
War: And I suppose using unlimited Teleporting Webbing is totally fair?
Silitha: YES!
*Silitha body slams on War using said webbing*
Silitha: YOU WILL NEVER GET MY HEART!
*Silitha jumps to the ceiling creating a whole bunch of "use Hook Shot Clone on here!" spots*
Silitha: MWAHAHAHAH! NOW HOW WILL YOU GET ME!?
War: ...Crap, there's no "Press B to Kill Boss VIOLENTLY", guess I'll have to improvise!
*War uses Hook Shot, proceeds into a cutscene where he beats the shit out of Silitha*
Silitha: ARGH! I'm NOT DEAD YET!!!
*Silitha falls from ceiling, through 3 stories of the mansion, onto a convenient spike*
Watcher: Oh, come on; to avoid ripping off Zelda and God of War, you instead rip off Devil May Cry?
War: Why are you complaining about this game being a rip off? I thought you were the one who was fully aware of that?
Watcher: Cause its starting to piss me off too. Anyway, just take that god damn heart to Samael and...
War: Fuck no! I'm going hunting for items with this hook chain thing!
Watcher: Oh great...
*nothing special happens here, except for one instance in the Anvil's Ford*
War: I see a chest over there and...
Brittish Gentleman Zombie: Good day, Chap. How about a nice little challenge between you and me.
War: Um, what?
Brittish Gentleman Zombie: Have at thee!
War: Who the fuck are...OH! That Zombie cane hurts...and why the fuck is a zombie wearing a BRITTISH GENTLEMAN OUTFIT?
Brittish Gentleman Zombie: Aha, very witty! Alas, we must continue out duel.
War: Uh, ok?
*War beats the shit out of the zombie...well, no, the Zombie puts of a semi-competent fight*
Brittish Gentleman Zombie: Bloody Hell, I've lost! Cheerio, we shall meet again!
War: What the fuck was up with that?
Watcher: I honestly have no clue...
War: So...we done with the game yet or what?
Watcher: What do you mean?
War: I mean...we got the 4 hearts so once I take this to Samael, he's going to kick the shit out of the Destroyer, right?
Watcher: ...you are naive, Horseman!
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Smash Bros Brawl: Finally got around to hooking up my Wii, so there you go. Played enough matches to unlock ROB.
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LFT - Playing this again. It's pretty terrific, nothing new here. The intent of this replay is to finally try out the different special characters since I basically ignored them on all previous LFT playthroughs. Also to give Summon Magic a whirl. I was going to do something with Lancer, but that seems to have been sidetracked, oh well. For some reason the class doesn't really fit into my designs that I keep thinking up. Maybe eventually. Anyway, I've beaten the first two chapters. No multi-reset fights, but definitely scattered single resets (offhand: Dorter Slums, Windmill Shed, Dorter 2, might be forgetting a couple). PC notes...
Gene: Decided to name Ramza after the God Hand for a whim. Unsurprisingly he's focused on Punch Art, with a side of Guts mainly because Wish was helpful earlygame when revival is at a premium. Towards the end of C2 he collected all of that and has since been spending time as a Martial Arts Geomancer trying to collect Attack Up. Has Move+1 and PA Save, also. Decent all-around, but became quite good once Power Sleeve showed up - that being earlier than it used to be is a huge boost for Monk and its quadratic PA shenaigans.
Miakis: Knife fighter obviously. Thief really does do the mini-thief thing well, with the improvements to daggers; in particular, Platina Daggers when they show up are quite powerful. Charge remains, to my mind, THE way to get singletarget smash, as Charge+2 is a free +2 attack (even better than just +2 PA because it affects things like Speed/PA weapons which are harder to boost) and Charge+5 is usually dead easy to get off and almost doubles damage for much of the game. Could have other stuff but don't, was more focused on picking up Move+2 and Concentrate, and unlocking Ninja, which she finished by late C2 so can now slice people up. Being knife- instead of fist-oriented feels far more practial now in general with the nerf to Ninja PA, since it keeps all the benefits of the greater speed and throw damage (Throw definitely stings right now).
Elvis: Sort of a generic filler build, he emphasised both Item and Yin Yang Magic. Paralyse, Sleep, and Silence Song were the spells I mainly used, which isn't anything new to LFT but they still felt like some of the best options. Tied up enemies very well (even most bosses in C1-2 can be hit by those, everyone but Wiegraf and Queklain) and kept me alive with Throw Item and Phoenix Down when needed. Pretty good synergy there, status spells are best to throw out early and Item helps ensuring I don't die during cleanup. Weapon Guard for stick parrying was pretty cool too. I dropped him when I got Agrias not because I felt he was a bad member of the team, but because where he was going was kinda unexciting - I'd seen all this before. Also Mustadio was set to take over Item duties.
Nena: Game handed my a generic with stats adding up to 140, so who was I to complain? Built her as a Summon to try out the new Summon Magic skillset. I must say, I'm really digging it - the overall power hasn't really changed much from earlier LFT, but now there are definitely decisions to be made involving going for fast summons (basic three aren't the fastest any more), powerful summons, AoE summons, etc. I like that the most expensive one is the fastest, makes sense. I went for Moogle first because it's cheap and decent healing, then Shiva because Ice Rods are available earlier than Thunder (and in time for the snow battle at Zeakden), then Leviathan because it's an inexpensive JP cost for a huge AoE, then Half of MP to be able to afford more than one per battle (although Summoner MP is awesome enough that I'd have two by now anyway). Pretty fun skillset to go through, and still turns the battle faster than anything else I have.
Mustadio: I hate FFT's auto-selection of abilities sometimes. As a guest, Musty started with Leg Aim and Arm Aim... great! As a permanent PC, he started with neither, instead investing in Seal Evil and some worthless Engineer RSM that wasn't Equip Gun. :( Oh well. Only had a few battles with him so far, but his role is pretty clear - starting with both L4 in Chemist and Engineer makes him emphasise those classes even more than before, so he's basically going to have the job of long range sniper/disabler and healer that he so naturally tends to. Equip Gun will let him step outside those classes more easily than before, but it remains to be seen how much I'll have him do in that regard.
Agrias: Holy Knight still sucks, unfortunately. Fortunately, though, Agrias now starts with the new and improved Geomancer class open, and this makes a very easy choice to send her to ASAP. Toss in those easily available Power Sleeves and hello, near-100 damage from Agrias in C2? Totally unheard of back in the good ol' days. Her quick development makes her quite a solid PC compared to what she had to offer before, as she'll have Attack Up by early C3 at this rate, and from there, I intend to start building the Holy Sword skillset itself (HK's problems don't seem as bad with Attack Up).
Yep.
NSMBWii - Enjoyable enough singleplayer. Great multiplayer, now my friends and I just need more Wiimotes, but the chaos and fun mix of competition and cooperation that true multiplayer Mario brings is something the series has needed for literally a quarter of a century. My main problem with the game is Wiimote shaking, which remains way too slow to be appropriate for a fast-paced platformer. Why the hell does Nintendo think this is a good idea? It's small enough fault that maybe I shouldn't dwell on it, but bringing back one of the only flaws in Galaxy just makes NSBMW feel like a step down from its DS predecessor, considering only singleplayer. Let me use my Classic Controller, bitches.
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Did you run into a dragon in a random yet? The Defender is most definitely worth a poach for Agrias, it makes getting through HK skills much less painful.
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No, I'm back to my standard efficient style of playthroughs where randoms barely exist and poaching doesn't exist at all.
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LO- Random ramblings -
Going back a bit to Grefter's post about the funeral. I agree that was out of order - not so much the mini games themselves but the no chance to save thing. Oh and one mini game - the torch lighting one was totally bizarre and frustrating. I couldn't work it out at all the first time and I had to quit and replay the entire section over again later. The text time thought the torch lighting was easy and I couldn't figure out why I had such trouble before. Oh and yeah the clown was weird and creepy though I did attribuite to weird clothing customs. Also the game is quite morbid for a while - a death, a funeral, a haunted forest, a haunted mansion, a dark cave, a haunted town ... It was cool and all but I'm glad the game got slightly less dark after all of that.
What was Jansen up to on the White Boa? My thoughts were either that he had come up with some sort of bizarre plan to rescue Ming and take her off the ship after hearing how the general was treating her or he was working off secret orders from Gongora. Ming says she was "testing" him >.> Apparently he passed the test?
Cooke and Mack. During the train events when Kaim and Sarah found them they were protected by a magical barrier. Also later they heal Kaim and Sarah. Did they put up the barrier themselves and are they just using their own White/Spirit Mage powers or is there something else going on that I missed?
Tolten - Why did the guard have something to save him with in the train? How did he get it? Did Gongora want Tolten to be saved or something? o_o Also they never really went anywhere with the Tolten's eyes thing >.>
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And as the resident Chinese of DL, I'll just say this......
Fuck romanization, just fuck it.
It does NOT get the point across at all. Especially on how the vowels work... it made it harder then it really is.
I'm Chinese too, you know >_>
Touhou Souzinengi - Genius of Sappheiros
I've completed this a few days ago, but never got around to talking about it, not even in chat, so I suppose I'll get around to doing it here. Debating whether to include spoilers or not. But basically... If you hate bullshit or haven't already planned on it, DON'T FINISH THIS GAME. For the love of all that is holy, DON'T FINISH THIS GAME unless you're a masochist. Past stage 13 onwards, the difficulty never stops spiking. There is no reprieve at all, you're constantly assaulted with high durability randoms, gimmicky bosses, bosses with even higher durability, and the final boss is a form-chaining cheater that might be better than Kefka by sole virtue of durability ALONE! Seriously, shit's not cool. On the flipside, I really liked the gameplay system and that's pretty much the only thing that's kept me going on long enough to finish it. However, I don't particularly like some of the obscura behind Satori's skill learning, that's a pretty big minus for me because I'm a stickler for trying to learn super broken skills (Unfortunately Darkon Laser isn't until L99, and Satori was like L80 when I finished).
This would be longer but that's only because I didn't include SPOILARZ
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No you're not. I'M Chinese. You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!
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And as the resident Chinese of DL, I'll just say this......
Fuck romanization, just fuck it.
It does NOT get the point across at all. Especially on how the vowels work... it made it harder then it really is.
I'm Chinese too, you know >_>
Touhou Souzinengi - Genius of Sappheiros
I've completed this a few days ago, but never got around to talking about it, not even in chat, so I suppose I'll get around to doing it here. Debating whether to include spoilers or not. But basically... If you hate bullshit or haven't already planned on it, DON'T FINISH THIS GAME. For the love of all that is holy, DON'T FINISH THIS GAME unless you're a masochist. Past stage 13 onwards, the difficulty never stops spiking. There is no reprieve at all, you're constantly assaulted with high durability randoms, gimmicky bosses, bosses with even higher durability, and the final boss is a form-chaining cheater that might be better than Kefka by sole virtue of durability ALONE! Seriously, shit's not cool. On the flipside, I really liked the gameplay system and that's pretty much the only thing that's kept me going on long enough to finish it. However, I don't particularly like some of the obscura behind Satori's skill learning, that's a pretty big minus for me because I'm a stickler for trying to learn super broken skills (Unfortunately Darkon Laser isn't until L99, and Satori was like L80 when I finished).
This would be longer but that's only because I didn't include SPOILARZ
I got to Stage 6 before clicking to this. >_>
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No you're not. I'M Chinese. You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!
Look, OK, just cause you can't read New Jersey Road Signs doesn't mean you're Chinese.
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Yeah, it makes you human.
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No you're not. I'M Chinese. You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!
Look, OK, just cause you can't read New Jersey Road Signs doesn't mean you're Chinese.
Look whose talking, Mr. "I can't direct you from the airport to my house on the phone"!
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More Secret of Evermore!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO_HyeQOW7o
So, I've been playing a monotype run of Pokemon Emerald on the can. I chose Flying because I thought it'd be easy for my first monotype run, but then I made it to WATTSON. The only Pokes I have at this point are Ninjask, Wingull, Gyarados, Swellow, Beautifly, and Golbat. This is proving to be a bigger challenge than expected, since there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to his Manectric. Stun Spore is an option, but he OHKOs Beautifly. The Voltrob he starts with is problematic too, as it has Soundproof, which blocks Supersonic. I can only beat the Magnemite with my Gyarados's Rock Smash, generally.
I never thought this might actually turn out challenging. Go figure! (I'll beat him eventually, I'm sure. Just gotta make enough sacrifices to the hax gods)
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LO - Sooo yeah I got like one dungeon done? I need to not play Recettear instead, it is roughly as bad as Space Trader: Merchant Marine was. The torch lighting mini game is obnoxious. Press the button to move the torch in this direction, direct the torch with the stick! Sounds easy, you try to line up the torch and press the button and fucking nothing happens. OH WAIT. You are supposed to press and hold the button down and then move the stick to line it up. Mack moving the torch without any buttons pressed throws the player and makes the controls seem shitty and annoying and nothing working. I honestly had to google it to find out what the fuck, then got an answer like nearly 20 posts into a thread of people going OMG UR RETARDED to someone eles. Glad it wasn't just me.
Jansen continues to have far and above the best lines and is honestly probably the only thing really propping the game up. So much dialogue is improved and naturalised by him, he interrupts people, has snide funny come backs and generally is a sarcastic coward. He is great.
The more Mack and Cooke talk the more I want to punch them in the head. I looked it up and have realised partly what it is. The lady playing Cooke also plays Cubert from Futurama with almost the exact same voice at times and that is the exact response Cubert is intended to invoke. Also doesn't help that their lines are insufferable. OH SHIT WE ARE UNDER MILITARY ARREST AND ESCAPING. Along the children come to help us. Giggling incessantly argh. Edit - Checking her other roles she even has a decent range. Not sure what the deal is here.
So yeah even in a single dungeon the game wobbles backwards and forwards for me. It is a good play, it is just very inconsistent in how it makes me feel.
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No you're not. I'M Chinese. You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!
Look, OK, just cause you can't read New Jersey Road Signs doesn't mean you're Chinese.
Look whose talking, Mr. "I can't direct you from the airport to my house on the phone"!
Except...I did tell you properly? I didn't get you lost when Super was in the car, I don't think I even spoke to you on the phone much then! Not to mention its hard to direct you to my house when, you know, you didn't tell me WHERE YOU WERE.
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Tolten - Why did the guard have something to save him with in the train? How did he get it? Did Gongora want Tolten to be saved or something? o_o Also they never really went anywhere with the Tolten's eyes thing >.>
I assumed that the mage guard on the train knew some teleportation magic or something to that effect.
His eyes were a sign that Gongora had 'bugged' him, and was watching everything he was so he could perfectly time his icy-doomstrike. Once that was over they were no longer useful.
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So, I've been playing a monotype run of Pokemon Emerald on the can. I chose Flying because I thought it'd be easy for my first monotype run, but then I made it to WATTSON. The only Pokes I have at this point are Ninjask, Wingull, Gyarados, Swellow, Beautifly, and Golbat. This is proving to be a bigger challenge than expected, since there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to his Manectric. Stun Spore is an option, but he OHKOs Beautifly. The Voltrob he starts with is problematic too, as it has Soundproof, which blocks Supersonic. I can only beat the Magnemite with my Gyarados's Rock Smash, generally.
I never thought this might actually turn out challenging. Go figure! (I'll beat him eventually, I'm sure. Just gotta make enough sacrifices to the hax gods)
This Monotype run thing sounds pretty interesting. I haven't heard of any other DLers doing a monotype run before, so I'm looking forward to hearing more of these entries.
Are there any Flying combinations that hit weakness on Electric types early on?
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Elfboy did a Normal-only run of...original Red/Blue I think?
As to Wattson...kneejerk is gooooooooooooooooooood luck. I don't believe there are any weakness hitting Fliers(Electric is very non-interactive in general. What's it weak to besides Ground, anyways? Anything?).
Just to be sure, you can't just walk past Wattson, right? You could conceivably get a Swablu(->Altaria->not Electric weak) if you could, but I'm pretty sure you need his badge to continue to the north. Not certain though.
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Nope, you need Rock Smash to get past Mauville.
Is Swablu even available yet? I haven't seen it! Guess I should have checked the FAQs, heh.
If it weren't for the FSCKING MANETRIC this would be easysauce.
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It's available to the north of Mauville. So, apparently not.
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Sweet merciful awesome.
Zaraktheus has created a pseudopatch to do some class-balancing in SaGa Frontier. (It's actually just a collection of RAM-modifying codes at the moment.)
The coolest new feature is the ability to unequip and re-equip Monster skills at will. http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/198537-saga-frontier/55577788?page=5
This means that Monsters have full control of their skillsets once they absorb something. It also gives them near-full control over their form after one battle. This basically turns them from a crap race to a very usable, if somewhat -more- generic, one.
Additionally, there are codes to create hybrid races, so there are options to create Mec/Human and Mystic/Human and Monster/Human skillets (Aka, Humans that self-develop Mec skills or Mecs that learn Weaponskills; Mystics that learn weaponskills, Monsters that learn weaponskills... they can also learn magic if an initial spell is hacked onto them, giving a lot of room for customized character skillsets outside of the established ones).
Some other codes include little things like allowing Mystics to remove some locked equips and the Mystic weapons, permanent Alkaiser, playable Alkarl. Right now, it's just customizable stuff and no skill-rebalancing has been done, but the plan is to eventually create a rebalanced (and non-glitchy) SaGa Frontier game.
Overall, I'm really excited to see how this project has been shaping up and it's nice that there's a beta playable codeset already.
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Unfortunately, I think you're boned. You can't get the TM for Protect or or Return or Dig yet, none of the Electric-neutral Flying types are available yet, and Shock Wave means you can't try to sand attack/double team your way to victory.
Seems like your only option will be to massively overlevel something. Either that or raise a fleet of Pelippers and pray Protect works enough consecutive turns to run it out of PP.
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Unfortunately, I think you're boned. You can't get the TM for Protect or or Return or Dig yet, none of the Electric-neutral Flying types are available yet, and Shock Wave means you can't try to sand attack/double team your way to victory.
Seems like your only option will be to massively overlevel something. Either that or raise a fleet of Pelippers and pray Protect works enough consecutive turns to run it out of PP.
What I'm doing now is gaining a level between attempts, then hoping for Stun Spore/Supersonic hax. Haven't had any luck yet. Ninjask can usually take down the Electrike no problem, but the other 3 are a challenge. I'm not sure, but I do believe Beautifly should be able to survive a Shock Wave soon enough. If I can just get it paralyzed, I'll be on the way to victory.
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LFT - Chapter 3 beaten. Only battle that posed any particular problem was Izlude, which got to be the chapter's only reset and the only battle in the whole game I came close to a second. Now playing around with Rafa and Malak. Having just switched off a Summoner to use them, the downgrade still feels clear (even with the offensive improvements, the unreliability always exist except in very contrived situations). They should improve as I get them more skills then can move them to actual mage classes, of course. Starting them with some real jobs open is a help, although L1 chemist is unfortunate.
Gene - Likes to punch things. I dunno, there's not much to say here. He definitely peaked in power as a Geomancer, even Attack Up Monk feels less damaging, but does have the benefit of getting a real secondary (Guts in my case, yay Heal/Cheer Up/Accumulate, for all that I don't use any terribly often). But is quite fragile. Hmm. He's learned Defence Up and Equip Armour in case I need those, may toy around with what works best. Thinking on it, I probably should head back to Geo unless I'm expecting real oddball status attacks. Or pick up Scream. Scream's cool. Decisions!
Miakis - Did her ninja thing, gave her Abandon + Elf Mantle so she could take hits, worked well in general.
Nena - Summon-bombed the crap out of things, Leviathan was the workhorse but opting for Titan's speed was often helpful, and Golem is still great. Moogle exists. Got Odin right at the end but never really devastated randoms with it. Probably MVP.
Agrias - Spent most of C3 with Attack Up picking up Holy Knight stuff. Geomancer period was definitely a peak (have I mentioned Geo is a really strong carrier now?) but she's been okay since, durable at least, and being HK does free her up to have a secondary, in my case Raise (and Cure, but that sucks).
Mustadio - Probably a downgrade compared to Elvis the Orachemist, but he's got the job done. Very traditional Mustadio stuff, Snipe/Item of course, spent so much time there he got Auto-Potion which is always amazing. Now that that's done I think I'm going to go switch Snipe out for Talk Skill, proving that generics are still better than him. <.< That said, he'll have the perk of already having Equip Gun as he moves through Priest/Oracle! Or something.
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Arhrgjharghjgeto4w
Well, I took down Manetric for the first time. Here is my log of awesome fail:
He sends out Voltorb, I lead with Beautifly.
I Stun Spore, he Shock Waves me down to critical with a Critical hit.
I use Mega Drain futily and Beautifly dies.
I send in Wingull to avenge him. Get paralyze hax and two Water Guns take the Voltorb out.
He sends in Electrike, I swap in Ninjask.
Ninjask uses Cut to get rid of about 3/8 of his HP. He Howls.
I use Screech, and he Shock Waves me to 1/2 HP.
I Cut, dead Electrike.
Wattson sends out Manectric.
I use Screech, Manetric kills me with Shock Wave.
I send out Golbat. For some reason, Manetric always uses Howl a few times before attacking my Golbat.
I use Supersonic and it works. He uses Howl. Now he has ATK+1 and DEF-2.
I swap in Swellow. He uses Howl again! Oh baby, oh baby.
I use Quick Attack. He hits himself in confusion. Yes! It knocks him to critical and the Sitrus Berry restores 30 HP for Manetric. Static paralyzes Swellow, and at this point I'm thinking "awesome, I'll get a Guts boost!"
I use Quick Attack, get paralyze screwed. Damn it! Then, thank all that's holy, Manetric kills itself with confusion. I almost screamed, but I didn't want to bug my wife.
He sends out Magneton. I have a paralyzed Swellow with full HP, Gyarados, a weakened Wingull, and a full HP Golbat.
Wanting to save Swellow for last, I switch in Wingull to confuse him. Supersonic hits and he hits himself in confusion.
Water Gun, confusion hit. Water gun, confusion's over and he Shock Waves me to death. But he's at 1/2 HP.
I send in Gyarados (Intimidate, unfortunately. I hope this doesn't screw me over if I manage to confuse him again)
Rock Smash doesn't lower his defense and only knocks him critical. His Shock Wave leaves me with 9 HP.
I know Wattson will use a Super Potion, but Rock Smash again anyway. No defense down. Third one lowers his defense, but he revenge kills me with Shock Wave. Now I'm in a pickle, but I go with Golbat. Swellow can probably get the kill, but will need support.
He T-Waves me and I miss with Supersonic. He uses SONIC BOOM and I miss again.
Shock Wave knocks me critical, paralyze hax.
One more Shock Wave nails me.
... DAMN IT ALL.
All I have left is Swellow, who at best has Quick Attack. Wing Attack will be 4xresisted. He uses SUPERSONIC to add insult to injury, then a Super Potion when I actually get him in critical. The final turn, I hit myself in confusion and he Shock Waves me to death.
Flying. Lots of choices. Easy challenge. I'll keep telling myself that one.
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Emerald is probably the hardest game in the series, so I'm not shocked that a boss who hits weakness on your entire team (in evade-ignoring fashion for extra insult, as hinode observes) is giving you problems. Good luck!
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Finally got him! Really all I had to do was get Gyarados and Ninjask to Level 25 (Dragon Rage and Swords Dance).
Lead with Ninjask instead of Beautifly. Swords Dance up, watch Voltorb die but end up at critical HP due to another CH. Electrike Quick Attacks me like a pro, he kills Pelipper, but Gyarados revenge kills him with Dragon Rage.
When Manetric comes out, I immediately switch to Beautifly and Stun Spore him. Then Golbat manages to Supersonic after a couple of failures, but dies anyway. Fortunately I managed to get his HP down (I forget how) and swap in Gyarados for the kill. I switch Beautifly in and use the same strategy on Magneton.
So essentially, as long as Gyarados and Ninjask are Level 25 and Beautifly knows Stun Spore and can survive a Shock Wave maybe, you're golden. It's still kind of frustrating, though.
Oh yeah, and another Secret of Evemore video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlb4ezKx1NI
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The most exciting Pokemon writeup I've read!
Pokemon HeartGold: Beat Gym Leader #2! Not nearly as exciting or difficult as jsh's challenge. But I -did- come in with 2 traded starters, like a cheater. (What? I wanted all three starters!)
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Thanks Pyro =-)
Yeah that makes sense. I think the party says something about his eyes later on but they were probably just teasing him >.>
Jansen continues to have far and above the best lines and is honestly probably the only thing really propping the game up. So much dialogue is improved and naturalised by him, he interrupts people, has snide funny come backs and generally is a sarcastic coward. He is great.
Yeah he and Sed are probably what really props the game up and save it. Both of them can be really ridiculous at times too "Momma!" but otherwise yeah good stuffs~
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Contrary to popular belief, I do play games.
Metroid: Zero Mission- Knocked this out pretty quick. 3hrs 1Xmin, 49% completion. Not bad on the whole, although I did have one small annoyance where I trapped myself by bomb jumping an obstacles I shouldn't have. Whoops? Had a few deaths, but overall, the game was pretty easy. Stealth sequence was annoying as hell. Its pretty clear why Samus is the universe's only hope: nobody else has a weapon worth a damn in the federation. Screw that freakin' pistol.
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I played some MOTHER FUCKIN' GAMES!
NSMBWii- Just finished World 4. I am terrible at this game. I game over'd once and lost all my items. :(
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Valkyria Chronicles 2: September.
So the game decided to be all "RAR NOW IT GETS SERIOUS" plotwise. Because fighting a war against genocidal maniacs isn't serious in the first place. One of the chars I actually liked got fragged, which is a pity since I was hoping for a recruitment instead.
The game's combat system is still a blast, especially with the hard mission they throw you in at the end of August. V2's EVERYWHERE along with a very powerful armored boss. Tier 3 classes are amazingly powerful good at what they do though, so with a few of those I managed to beat it with an A rank as normal.
Probably the only true complaint I have is the promotion system in the game. It is so very frustrating because you have to grind for specific credits for each PC to promote. Tier 2 promotions weren't so bad because it required 2 types of credits out of 8 and a 'certificate' which is awarded at random to units who do stuff like capture bases or kill aces/commanders. Tier 3? Same basic thing except it requires 3 credits out of like 16 a level-2 version of a certificate. In short, instead of being something you come into naturally during gameplay promotions are something you have to grind for. While this might not be a bad thing in itself, it makes unpromoted units less and less usable as time goes on.
Also, I have to say I'm disappointed with Fencer Elites broadswords. It is actually a step *down* from the basic sword, since it gains like 10 Anti-Prsnl attack but loses like 200 Anti-armor, rendering it incapable of ever killing even APCs if you need it to. Marauders now, those things OHKO non-boss/aces and most anything armored.
So it is a fun game, but with some very frustrating flaws. I am happy to hear that VC3 will return to a more serious tone. It fits the setting.
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Disgaea DS -
Finished Etna mode. Ended up with Etna on level 150, Flonne on level 130, everyone else in the 80s.
Accidentally killed off one of mah guys while in item world. Not sure whether that has any effect on Etna mode ending.
The final was happy to stand there next to Etna while she was on a recovery square rather than moving down and attacking people he was far more effective against and I was happy to let him. Helpful since it took forever for Etna to kill him and it would have taken even longer if she wasn't able to get buffs/etc from the others.
Dragon Quest 4 -
I put this off for far too long >_>
Managed to get to the top of the tower without being Thwacked to death this time, mostly because I only ran into the enemies in question once on this trip.
Psaro's formchanging was a bit of a letdown - I expected them to be more different from each other than they were. The first couple were the real problem in this regard, the later ones were fine. Chapter 6!Aamon is worse having one of his forms be just a palette swap from the previous. What was the point of that.
Fairly enjoyable all up.
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RS:MS - started another playthrough, this time with Aisha. Goal is to recruit Freilei and Captain Silver as early as is possible (for morbid curiosity/stat topic purposes). Beginning to realize there is a thing as too much efficiency in enemy avoidance - completed all the quests that don't have bosses too tough for me (not including the elemental monster ones, because I need to kill Pyrix to recruit Freilei early) so I needed to get into random encounters to progress time to...ER3.
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ER3. ER *3*. Dude, if you have done multiple quests that just makes you a freaking Ninja.
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To be fair, each character starts with a certain amount of time on the clock, so to speak, so it differs from character to character how long it takes to get there, and Aisha starts with the least. Sif and Albert, for example, are nearly impossible to get past their starting quests before ER3. Also, on subsequent playthroughs you get a ton more money and jewels, so my party's well equipped to take out bosses before they can have their way with my puny HP.
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Oh yeah, games. Been playing Disgaea 3, right at the start of the aftergame now. Item world is like meditation. Character advancement seems better balanced: you're far more encouraged to reincarnate frequently (because class tier matters, and you unlock tiers one at a time), which tones down the leveling arms race that really characterizes Disgaea 1, at least, and 2 as well IIRC. A subtle change with far-reaching implications for strategy, which I like, though I'm probably hobbling myself mechanically by striving for variety. Ah well.
Oh, I was at PAX! Highlights, aside from all the drinking: Plane Weaver (clever, difficult platformer), Monaco (topdown heist strategy game, deep and detailed), Wakfu (Square-published new online co-op Tactics clone; due to its mmorpgness I dunno if I'll play it for reals, but it seemed really fun).
Played some Valkyria Chronicles 2, felt a lot like VC but on the PSP, so sure. Have friends who spent hours playing an early demo of The Witness, the next game by the Braid people.
Rock Band 3 is really cool. Brink looks slightly less cool than it did last year, but it's not really my thing anyhow. Really looking forward to Fallout New Vegas, though.
All the new motion capture games look unabashedly terrible, particularly the one where you're on a roller coaster colliding with shiny balls (!). The dance ones were a bit more defensible, I s'pose, but I was pretty sick of Lady Gaga by the end of the weekend.
Ordered Pokemon White yesterday. Glad I didn't decide to get a DSi. But disappointed that region-locking is making a comeback with Nintendo.
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Brawl: Unlocked all characters and stages. Still maining Kirby because Kirby is more awesome and badass than whichever characters you like.
In addition, I found this game on WiiWare that I'm not sure you've heard of. It's pretty good and I'm certain that I'm the very first person at the DL to play this. It's called Cave Story. ::) I cleared the egg level. Playing without a guide or cheats or anything.
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Cave Story? Never heard of it, especially if it involves robots named after punctuation marks.
DQ9: Got my first Alchemiracle, the Hypernova Sword. Commence smashing.
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In addition, I found this game on WiiWare that I'm not sure you've heard of. It's pretty good and I'm certain that I'm the very first person at the DL to play this. It's called Cave Story. ::) I cleared the egg level. Playing without a guide or cheats or anything.
Meh, sounds lame. I mean, a story in a cave? It's either a Metroid rip off or a linear game without secrets. I'll pass.
SECRETLY: omgomgomg cave story on the wii i am so downloading that tonight
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More SoE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=984MeEZiLKw
So this monotype thing got a lot easier after Wattson. Team of Skarmory/Swablu/Swellow/Gyarados/Pelipper/Crobat is tearing things open. Tropius and Doduo will become available soon. My body is ready.
I finished Other M, which was satisfying, though certainly not the best Metroid title to date.
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Brawl: Unlocked all characters and stages. Still maining Kirby because Kirby is more awesome and badass than whichever characters you like.
Meta Knight or GTFO.
Right, I play games too:
Pokeymanz HGSS -
I was having trouble trying to catch Kyogre primarily because of Aqua Ring and the things I needed to bring to fight it. Since I wanted one with a good nature and IVs, this was annoying. Things I had to bring included:
- A Surfer
- A Rock Climber
- A Synchronizer
Also one empty space at the end to quickly check on its stats instead of needing to fly back to the Pokemon Centre. This gave me a grand total of only two pokes to use on it, so yeah that was a pain. Same with Engima Stone Latios except there's no Heavy Balls for this one and I have to catch it at night for the x4 catch rate bonus on Dusk Balls. Soooooooooo, I just bugged hinode for some Master Balls >_>. Thanks hinode~ On that note, if someone has a SS Groudon, I will be happy to trade the Kyogre (and trade back afterwards) so I can trigger the Rayquaza event. Hopefully he doesn't heal.
Arc Rise Fantasia -
Around half way into the game. The characters are terrible, and the voice acting only adds to their horribleness. The worst character though is Adele. The plot also has more twists than a M Night Shamalyan novel. Battles are alright, and is pretty much what holds the game together, although WP gain rates really need to be higher instead of just getting a majority of them from bosses. Randoms starting to get competent is also good.
Wild ARMS 3 -
Abyss hunting notes and what not written. I'm more or less updating the wiki section for it as I am working again. http://www.rpgdl.com/wiki/index.php?title=Wild_ARMS_3/Stats . I've managed to create some absolutely broken set ups, which makes me :). For all that its obviously pointless at this point.
RICHARD and Laggy's Super Sekrit Project of DOOM -
Man, I wish I still had the chat logs for my reactions. Instead, I have my notepad tabs. The bestest highlight?
- SEARCH SCOPE DOES DAMAGE. YESZ
Otherwise, Airbuster is now competent. I wiped twice :(. LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGY
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Hey, I play games too still!
Megaman X6 (I didn't say good games): Hey looke after a week, or so of silence I actually care enough to play again.
Blizzard WolFang: Head to here because I need a part. Then relize unarmored X can't actually reach it. Dammit. But that's what Shadow Armor is (sorta) for! I go through, grab the lives-up and the part. Yay, jumper! Now I can actually have height when I jump!
Ground Scaravich: Alright, time to kill this bug. Stage goes decently the first time through. I get the Heart Tank room, goodie, and make it to the fourth(further? the hell firefox...)totem... and whoops, it's the alternate teleport room. And my inability to jump ever dooms me again. Whatever, I go through AGAIN and get to the fourth totem and... are you shitting me? Alternate room again? Grah... this time I play it safe enough and actually get by. Yay. Boss is a joke, but seriously? What else is new?
Blaz Heatnix(YEAHHHHHHHH!): Alright, Heaven or Hell, let's rock! Since I can actually jump dumbnut one is no match for me. Then during the actual stretch of level I get cocky and burn off two-thirds of my life dashing into fire. Bah, I'm too manly for health! Dumbnut two goes as well as I can be, but I'm down to about 1/10th of my life. But so what? Dumbnut three is right there and its... gonna kill me. Damn. Alright, full life, it goes down. Here it is, the annoying hell that number four is. First try lava gets me halfway up because jumper hits X's fat head into a platform. Good news? I find out Metal Anchor wrecks the fucker. Try two I eat another lava bath. Try three? I'm golden. Bastard dies and I laugh and all is right in the world. Dumbnut five is a joke, seriously, what the hell? Now finally up to Heatnix himself. Bastard is also pathetic but the battle drags on because of his desire to drink lava and ram X's ass leaves him unhitable for-goddamn-ever. Once he uses his godlike ability to reverse the way gravity works, I just Pop Overlimit and ream him.
Shield Sheldon: Here he is, the last boss of the eight. Stage is a joke, but my arrogance in thinking that getting two hits off on him during his shell throw phase gets me damage way more than it should. Once he busts out his constant invincible or unhitable crap I start sleeping from boredom and lose too much health. Once I can actually hit him again I end up dropping down to a sliver of a bar before gutting him. Yay.
Next up, Gate's lab. Come join me and my inevitable loses against the Nightmare Mother. Along with the dreaded Spike Wall at the start of the level that unarmored X can't actually scale without two parts and a boss ability.
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The plot also has more twists than a M Night Shamalyan novel.
So, it has two?
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Next up, Gate's lab. Come join me and my inevitable loses against the Nightmare Mother. Along with the dreaded Spike Wall at the start of the level that unarmored X can't actually scale without two parts and a boss ability.
Wait, are you saying that it IS in fact impossible for X to finish the game without the aid of optional items? I remember the wall in question, I just figured I was missing some really round about trick with items, as I resorted to High JUmp + Blade Armor or some such.
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Next up, Gate's lab. Come join me and my inevitable loses against the Nightmare Mother. Along with the dreaded Spike Wall at the start of the level that unarmored X can't actually scale without two parts and a boss ability.
Wait, are you saying that it IS in fact impossible for X to finish the game without the aid of optional items? I remember the wall in question, I just figured I was missing some really round about trick with items, as I resorted to High JUmp + Blade Armor or some such.
Unarmored X can't beat the first level of Gate's Lab without the Ice Block Boss Weapon and the Jumper and Hyper Dash parts. And the Falcon Armor probably can't do it either.
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Remember, kids, MMX6 wouldn't be horrible if it wasn't for it's stage design!
GODHAND:
Replaying this. I blame Elfboy. Cleared out Stage 1.
Playing this while rusty but being better in general at action games is a weird combo. I cleared with like 44 Die kills on Stage 1 but also had ten Continues(ignoring the restart-the-game at the start twice while I was learning the controls). Combination of lots of taunting/duck dodging/things that raise meter and then getting punched in the face while on Die.
Still didn't end up taking any bosses on that high. Would probably have beaten Gold/Silver on Die if it wasn't for the BS double elites that show up before them on Die and only on Die. That's wrong, guys.
Also I forgot how much I *hate* the initial moveset. Jesus guys Barrel Roll Kick is a horrible joke, Charge Punches don't have nearly enough hitbox for their role for my tastes(Though that is indeed more of a taste thing) and the straight kick is I'm told good for canceling. If so that's one of those things like Starfall canceling in DMC because it's hitbox(both hard to figure out when it begins and ends time-wise and for range and has the range of a Straight more or less.) is so bad that you're just asking for a mistake-based death.
It's okay though, it gives me a roundhouse. <3 roundhouse canceling.
Edit:
Oh and I beat the first fairy challenge while on Die, with no life left(as in the sliver that gets you killed even by the attacks that won't kill you if you have any more life than that left.). And with one Orb, though full Godhand. That was....not something I want to repeat. Ever.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2:
Beat like two plot missions and over a dozen optional ones.
Yeah, this is generally a better FFTA so far. I'll get into details later, a lot of my opinion so far is up in the air a bit, but it's generally enjoyable.
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Jesus guys Barrel Roll Kick is a horrible joke
No it isn't.
I got a reasonable amount of use out of that. Huge hitbox is huge, if you have the time to set it up it can clear out everyone near you while doing a modest amont of damage. Quite nice when you see yourself about to get swarmed. Yes, "if you have the time to set it up" is a significant if, but you have other moves for when you don't.
Kinda agreed on charge punches although they can punish certain boss moves decently.
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Charge moves have an interesting little gimmick that is overlooked, where in if you're in God Hand mode, and you start charging, the gauge decreases MUCH slower while you're charging (if at all), to the point where Spamming Charge Moves gets you more damage for your God Hand usage than simply using your combos over and over again.
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KotOR2: Dxun/Onderon/endgame stuff. I made Mandalore a melee fighter because his base strength was better than his dex, I had a mess of good strength boosters no one else wanted much, and nor was anyone else using melee weapons (well, Kreia was because I went basically the whole game without finding a single-bladed lightsaber, but that's it), so what the hell. It's kind of inspiring watching him mow through people with dual axes.
The latter portion of this game got curbstomped more brutally than even any Gust game I can think of. Sometime near the end I had to go into the options menu to make sure I hadn't put it on easy or something, but no, that's normal for you. At one point I wandered up to the Disciple and asked him to make healing supplies just to see what he would produce and he went, "Nah, you already have enough to supply an army." I checked inventory and holy shit, 80+ of the best first-aid kit, how did that happen without me noticing? Because no one needed them. I'd never used one. And that's even considering that I didn't even pick up the force lightning chain until pretty late (I had been ignoring dark side powers for the Exile due to being a lightsider, and only gave it to her when I saw how much carnage the allies were causing with it. I mostly used Visas and Kreia to experiment with dark side stuff). Force Storm is broken as fuck. Every Trayus Academy random boiled down to Stasis Field (almost never failed at stunning entire groups) -> Force Storm x2 -> couple saber slashes to mop up if anyone actually survived. Every now and then a marauder made the save and managed to hit me a couple times. This could be scary given jedi consular/master HP, but too little too late, guys.
In fairness, the final boss actually killed me a couple times. Exile's HP count was not stellar and getting stunned meant I'd get cut to pieces before being able to move again. So I decided making it a dramatic face-to-face battle could get tossed, buffed speed, and kited her around the arena sniping with lightning. Which she also had, but whatever, I had regen and she didn't.
Good game despite being piss easy (and not entirely finished). Allies are fun enough and Kreia is basically the best [insert non-hero videogame character role of choice] ever. That counts for a lot. Dramatic content is basically PS:T-, which means that it's only great. I missed the droid factory somehow, though, and this makes me sad. I probably didn't indulge in enough gratuitous sadism to befriend HK (I also only assembled him after the last group of knockoff HKs came looking for me, I think, and he specifically said in dialogue that he would need to encounter some of those to track down the source).
The ending? Well, having not played the game unpatched there's probably only a certain amount of disappointed I can be. Definitely sufficiently combat-heavy to be a slog near the end, especially since you're flying solo (it's more fun having Visas and HK along to help me eviscerate people), but the final encounters were satisfying so I don't have too many complaints. Aside from allies just vanishing. That's pretty glaring! Well, some of them showed up. Briefly. I think this was the patch's doing, though (I read the LP for the game a couple years ago and seem to remember the bots' sequence being mentioned as cut content. I also seem to remember that HK was supposed to show up, but I guess the lack of such here was a consequence of me not doing his sidequest. It was pretty weird having G0-T0 go, "No, we're not going to destroy the planet," and then watching the planet just get destroyed after all).
So long solo dungeon to finish the game was a bummer. If you're going to have all their fates flat-out narrated, though, that's the person to have do it.
Where does it end, unpatched? I kinda have to assume flying out of Malachor and even the credits aren't there in the original game because they had no sound or music in the patched version. But then again, it's not like that couldn't have been a bug.
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Jesus guys Barrel Roll Kick is a horrible joke
No it isn't.
I got a reasonable amount of use out of that. Huge hitbox is huge, if you have the time to set it up it can clear out everyone near you while doing a modest amont of damage. Quite nice when you see yourself about to get swarmed. Yes, "if you have the time to set it up" is a significant if, but you have other moves for when you don't.
Kinda agreed on charge punches although they can punish certain boss moves decently.
Oh, rephrase.
It's a poor move by Godhand standards. Sorry, that was a bit extreme.
Big issue is that setting it up requires actual space between you and the enemy, and the higher the difficulty gets, the more often they'll try to flank you. And while it's hitbox is indeed big, it's mostly sideways, yet not...quite big enough to hit a 90 degree flank. So it's practicality is very limited; We're talking, more limited than almost any move in the game. Added bonus points for, unlike charge attacks, having no control whatsoever over the move if, say, an enemy clips into a post and delays a quarter second, screwing your timing up.
Having said that, it's Godhand, so the move does the most damage of your initial moves, has a good launch effect, *does* have a good hitbox overall(just, not massive, which makes using it tricky. Generally I think it's a bit bigger than the roundhouses.) and if you whiff you're not instantly dead because the (huge-ass, non-cancelable I believe) recovery at least has good high invinco.
Edit: Mind you, though, this doesn't keep me from saying the *exact same words* I used before if I accidentally use it at the wrong time. I know it's not terrible, but that doesn't keep me from really disliking it compared to a lot of other moves.
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Well, it's a bad move to use accidentally because it pretty much gives an enemy a free hit if you use it at the wrong time! So I don't blame you for your reaction, but I never regretted keeping a move slot for it for... pretty much the whole game. And yes, Roundhouses are good too, I used both and each clearly seemed to excel in its own situation.
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Final Fantasy Legend III: Decided to give it a try since what I know about it sounds cool. I assumed it probably isn't as cool as it sounds and I was right. Still not that bad though as long as I have the Game Lists FAQ and frame skip button ready.
So far I've stuck with humans and mutants. I'll give robot a try as soon as I have enough money to buy a crapload of capsules which I actually could do now with not that much grinding. I'll also see how the cyborg is holding up then.
I've recently started mucking around in the future. So far I've refused to do more than light grinding and had some close calls against bosses as a result. I've just got Cure 2 and with luck that makes the game easier (assuming future bosses aren't made much stronger to compensate for the better healing.)
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Darksiders Abridged: THE FINAL CHAPTER!
Famine: And so, when last we left the War and the Watcher...
Pestilence: They were totally getting the last heart for Samael.
Death: Which of course means this story is almost over!
Famine: DAMN IT! I thought we agreed I'd do the opening narrative! Why are you two butting in?
Pestilence: Look, I'm the ebodiment of everything weak and sickly, do you think I actually bother to think things out thoroughly, you starving jack ass?
Famine: That doesn't explain why Death just sort of interrupted you after you interrupted me!
Death: What? If you expected anything less than total dickery and douchiness from someone who literally exists just to watch things die, there's something horribly wrong with you.
War: HOLD IT! What are you three doing here? You're not suppose to be in this game!
The 3 Other Horsemen: Uh...Council's Orders?
Watcher: Oh lets just finish up our own story and ignore your brothers.
War: Sounds good to me.
*Back in the actual plot*
Watcher: So you have the 4th heart, you know what to do with it.
War: Yes, we shall GO TREASURE HUN-...
Watcher: ...you did that already.
War: Oh...fine, I'll give this to Samael.
*at Samael's place*
Samael: Ah, yes, the final heart...GIVE IT TO ME NOW!
War: ...the Chosen didn't guard the tower, THEY GUARDED YOUR POWER, DIDN'T THEY!?
Samael: And if they did?
War: ...just checking! *hands Samael the heart*
Samael: Yo, thanks, I'm back at FULL POWER NOW! I could totally KICK YOUR ASS NOW TOO! ...except I'm on your side and I'm a GOOD businessman; I live up to my end of the bargain! I told you I'd get you into the tower, AND GET YOU IN I WILL!
Watcher: And how do you propose you'll do that?
*Samael opens an arbitrary portal*
Watcher: ...shutting up.
*War goes into the portal, gets into an arbitrary BLACK THRONE place thingy*
War: I smell a teaser final dungeon...
Watcher: What makes you say that?
War: That large angel over there chained to 3 ominous looking things.
Watcher: Well, KILL HIM! He's an Angel, they're pricks!
War: Way ahead of you!
Angel Guy: War, so you've come.
War: ...wait, you're Azrael, the ANgel of death...why are you here?
Azrael: Would you believe me if I told you I was playing with the souls of the dead?
War: ...
Azrael: Ok, more seriously, I fought that big Straga guy, got my butt kicked, he openned the Well of Souls, and now I'm stuck here being useless. Could you maybe...I dunno...set me free by doing this elaborate dungeon?
War: What's in it for me?
Azrael: You get to kick Straga's ass and get your revenge.
War: Kick something's ass? I'M TOTALLY IN!
*one completely uneventful section of the dungeon later*
Watcher: Hey look! A Gauntlet of enemies! Maybe something new will pop out!
War: Like this game has the ability to make something creat-...
*Reaper guys who disappear and are TOTAL FUCKING WHORES TO FIGHT appear*
War: ...I hate it when you're right.
*one really stupid fight later*
War: I hope more of those things don't appear.
Watcher: According to this FAQ, there's at least 7 more of those we'll have to fight in the game...apparently, 4 appear in one gauntlet of monsters.
War: ...this is going to be a long final sequence...
*a little later*
War: Oh look, this dungeon has a treasure, I wonder what Zelda item its going to rip off of.
Watcher: Only one way to find out!
*You gained a Gun that can open Blue and Orange Portals. HA! TRICKED YOU! YOU THOUGHT IT WAS A ZELDA RIP OFF BUT ITS NOT TOTALLY ORIGINAL MWAHAHAH!*
War: Well, at least I know the nature of this dungeon is going to be all about annoying Teleportation nonsense.
*GIANT GOLEM APPEARS*
Golem: RRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAARRRRRRR!
War: Oh god, not one of these!
Watcher: I didn't know you hated...
War: FUCKING SALESMEN!!!!
*Stabs the Golem in the Stomach then smashes it with its own flail, Beam of Light activated, huge teleportation puzzle that lasts this entire section of the dungeon starts*
Watcher: Say, War, I have a good idea...
War: Yes?
Watcher: Why don't we just skip all the puzzles and go straight to the interesting stuff like, I dunno, Boss Fights and Plot, considering we're just doing most of the same nonsense 2 more times?
War: Sounds like a plan!
*at Azrael after unlocking the other beams*
Azrael: Ah! Good! Now you go ebat up Straga! I mean the 7th Seal wasn't broken...
War: 7th Seal? TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW, BEFORE I KILL YOU!
Azrael: ...shit, I knew I shouldn't have said something, well, no avoiding this...CUE FLASHBACK!
*Flashback*
Abaddon: So I got an awesome idea. LETS ATTACK EARTH AND START A HUGE BATTLE WITH HELL!
Azrael: That's gotta be the dumbest idea I've ever heard...
Abaddon: Oh come on, what could go wrong? I'm only breaking 6 seals and the 4 Horsemen won't come out and well, you get the point!
Azrael: Fine, fine, if it'll shut you up.
Ulthane: I'm just here to give ye a huge sword. Don't ask why I'm in Heaven.
*flashback ends*
Azrael: Yeah...the war was entirely our fault, not the Destroyer's. Mostly Abaddon's, actually, cause if I said no, he'd probably just start throwing stuff at me until I said yes anyway, but either way...
Watcher: THERE! A CONFESSION! WAR! KILL HIM NOW!
War: No.
Watcher: WHAT? I HAVE YOUR LEASH LISTEN TO ME!
War: He just confessed to his sins, that is enough...but I'll kill him anyway...
Azrael: Ah, but how will you get out of this tower? If you kill Straga, THE TOWER COLLAPSES! Let me live, and you may have a way out.
War: ...well, there you go; keeping him alive has a purpose afterall.
Watcher: Bah, you win this round!
*one teleporation later*
Straga: AH! STRAGA SEES YOU! STRAGA WANT TO EAT YOU! STRAGA KILL YOU AGAIN!
War: Look, I totally would have won that fight if it weren't for bullshit plot shenanigans killing me!
Straga: STRAGA HAVE BIGGER MACE! STRAGA WIN!
War: Lets do this! Lets see, how did I almost beat him last time?
*Flashback of War throwing a car at Straga repeatedly*
War: Aha! That's right, YOU HATE CARS! Now how about...wait, shit, THERE ARE NO CARS THIS TIME!
Straga: JUST AS STRAGA PLANNED! NO CARS MEANS STRAGA CAN'T GET HURT!
*War uses teleportation shenanigans to kick Straga's ass*
Straga: STRAGA KNEW HE SHOULDN'T HAVE BOUGHT DISCOUNT STAFF WITH TELEPORTATION SYMBOL ON IT!
War: Awesome, I'm totally gonna do an elaborate death animation this gu-...
*Straga eats War*
War: FUCK! Gotta think fast...wait! TELEPORTATION SYMBOL ON HIS TONGUE THAT WASN'T THERE 5 MINUTES AGO! I GOT IT!
*War does some weird teleportation shenanigans that goes against Darksider's physics of teleportation, slices Straga's face from the inside, lots of gore and blood shed occurs as well as a victory*
Watcher: You do realize that a simple "Please" would have let you pass, right?
War: Wait what?
Watcher: Oh, Straga's actually a nice guy once you get to know him.
War: ...
Azrael: Look, stop pining about Straga, he was a bit touched in the head if stupidly strong by the Chosen's standards. What matters is if I CAN PROVE MYSELF USEFUL TO YOU!?
*Azrael teleports all three of them to Eden*
Azrael: SEE!?
War: ...why are we in Eden? I thought this place was suppose to have been destroyed.
Watcher: Same here, even if there were hints that it was still alive...
Azrael: Look, the city was destroyed ON THE OUTSIDE, but Abaddon PROTECTED OUR MOST SACRED POSSESSION.
War: You mean...*Dramatic Zoom up* THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE!?
Azrael: Yes, and only a chosen one can go up to it...which is totally going to be you War. No, don't ask questions it just is. Oh, but you'll have problems getting there, cause those of Darkness cannot reach it.
War: But I'm from the Council, I'm suppose to be somewhere from IN BETWEEN.
Azrael: You just got splattered with Demon blood all over you, I think that counts as Darkness.
War: Just what do I have to do?
Azrael: Put this mask on, the rest will be self explanatory!
*You Gained TOTALLY NOT THE LENS OF TRUTH*
War: So I put this mask on and...
*DARK LINK Shadow War appears*
Watcher: Cue a boss fight, I suppose.
*Uneventful boss fight later*
Azrael: Good, now go alone...
Watcher: Well, lets get go...
Azrael: I SAID GO ALONE! ONLY WAR MAY SEE THIS! YOU WILL SIT THERE AND PLAY APPLES TO APPLES WITH ME NOW!
Watcher: ...how do you play APples to Apples with only 2 people?
Azrael: We Angels found a way!
Watcher: Now I'm intrigued.
*War reaches the top*
War: ok, so something is suppose to happen...
*Cue flashback*
War: (Crap)
Abaddon: Uriel, LETS GO BEAT UP HELL!
Uriel: Yes, my hot sexy master!
*Straga kills Abaddon*
Abaddon: How did I fail?
Disembodied Female Voice: MWAHAHAH! WE KNEW WHAT YOU WERE UP TO! So...Rule in Hell, or Serve in Heaven, WHAT'S YOUR CHOICE?
Abaddon: That's MADNESS! ...who WOULDN'T choose RULE IN HELL?
Disembodied Female Voice: Cool, NOW YOU ARE THE DESTROYER!
*Abaddon turns into a Dragon*
*shift to the Council*
Council #1: Ok, they've broken their promise!
Council #2: But we can't send the 4! The Seal isn't Broken, they'll never go!
Council #3: WAIT! We can pretend its broken, and send THE ONE WHO THINKS REVENGE IS ENOUGH AND TOTALLY USE HIM!
Council #4: THAT'S BRILLIANT!
*Scenes involving War doing stuff, getting his ass kicked, etc. happen*
War: ...that was pretty cryptic...guess I better go back to Azrael...wait, what's this hilt doing in what appears to be my dead body?
*You gained SOMETHING COMPLETELY USELESS*
Azrael: Oh, so what did you see...
War: Abaddon...IS THE DESTROYER!
*cue the ominous music*
Azrael: ...ok, anything else?
War: Uriel's going to get her ass kicked by him and I saw this special sword.
Azrael: THE SWORD OF ARMAGGEDDON! BUT IT WAS DESTROYED! ...IOWs, go find the 7 pieces, and bring them to Ulthane. LETS GO!
Watcher: Wait, you're forcing ONE LAST FETCH QUEST?
Azrael: Oh, its only running around the world, no real dungeons!
War: God I hate you angels...
*After gathering the 7 pieces through a bunch of tedious transportation related puzzles*
Uriel: Oh no you don't! There's a Boss fight in between that mess that me and War have to go through!
War: Oh, right, sorry for trying to skip that.
*4th wall restructured*
Uriel: THERE YOU ARE TRAITOR!
War: ...how am I a traitor? I was never on your side to begin with nor have I ever PRETENDED to be on your side?
Uriel: ...never the less, LETS MAKE A DEATH OATH! The two of us will duel, TWO GO IN! ONE GOES OUT!
War: You do realize that just means you're going to die.
Uriel: SHUT UP AND FIGHT ME! GIVE ME BACK MY SEXY ABADDON DAMN IT!
War: ...right...
*one boss fight later with lines like "DON'T UNDERESTIMATE ME!" being spammed*
Uriel: No, I've lost! Ok, kill me.
War: ...I shall spare you.
Uriel: WHAT!?
War: I won, so I have the right to decide WHEN You die...I just don't think now is that time. Besides, Abaddon is the Destroyer. Maybe you should look into this.
Uriel: ...k, LATER!
Watcher: You really should kill her, YOU'RE DEFYING THE COUNCIL.
War: THE COUNCIL IS DEFYING ME!
Watcher: Wait what?
War: ...I don't know, it sounded good, lets go.
*At Ulthane*
Ulthane: NO! MY GREATEST WORK! It...it...*starts crying*
War: ...I brought the pieces and they're all here, you could just reforge it and make it EVEN BETTER.
Ulthane: Oh, right, good idea!
*Dramatic Reforging scene occurs, combined with showing Uriel and the Hell Guard fighting Abaddon and getting their ass kicked*
*War gains the Master Sword ARMAGGEDON SWORD*
Watcher: Good, now go to Azrael so you can KILL HIM!
War: Already on it!
*At Azrael*
War: So...Azrael...I'm gonna kill you now like I'm suppose to.
Azrael: You do realize I'm the only way you're going to reach Eden and thus fight the Destroyer, right?
War: ...oh...so I kind of have to leave you alive if I am to fulfill my duty?
Azrael: Pretty much.
War: Stupid technicalities.
*War gets sent to fight THE DESTROYER*
Destroyer: WAR!!! You're here...LET US START THE FINAL BATTLE!
War: OK THEN! FEAR MY SWORD OF...damn it, why does it have to be golden and flashy? Totally doesn't fit the embodiment of all that is violent.
*War jumps on Ruin, cue repetitive boss fight, that ends with a pseudo-quick time event and War smashing the huge freaking dragon through the floor*
War: HA! I Wi-...
Abaddon: Did you really think I'd have only ONE FORM?
War: ...so now you're a big dark angel with a sword?
Abaddon: Yes, yes I am.
War: ...sorry, but somehow, I think the Dragon form was more intimidating.
Abaddon: SHUT UP! Now, do you want to RULE IN HELL or SERVE IN HEAVEN.
War: ...*Stabs Abaddon in the face*
Abaddon: ARGH! MY FACE! MY ONE TRUE WEAKNESS!
War: Looks like I win! Now, I'll be taking the 7th Sea-...UGH!
Watcher: AHAHAH! Did you really think this wouldn't be a ONE WAY TRIP!?
War: You...the Council...why?
Watcher: WE USED YOU YES! Now, with the Seal, YOUR POWER WILL NEVER RETURN!
Uriel: WAR! I've come to hel*Watcher bitchslaps her away*
Watcher: HA! I can do stuff now, SEE!?
Uriel: SO CAN I! *Impales War with the Armaggeddon Blade*
War: WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR BITCH?
Uriel: Shut up, I'm mad because my lover was a traitorous asshole, and I'm kind of playing this by ear!
War: That doesn't make any sense!
Uriel: Oh look, THE 7TH SEAL! *Smashes it*
Watcher: What? NO! Why would you do-...
War: HA! I'M BACK AT FULL POWER BABY!
Watcher: Wait! War! Remember who holds your leash! Do you want to betray the Council! DO YOU!?
War: ...yes *crushes the Watchers head*
Uriel: So...uh...yeah...you knew I was going to do that, didn't you? That's why you spared me, right? I won't be used!
War: No. I spared you cause of this stupid honor code I totally didn't have the rest of the game, which stated I didn't want The White Cities Honor to be lost with its Champion!
Uriel: That doesn't make any sense.
War: This is why I prefer fighting, its much simpler than logic.
Uriel: Agreed. but...now the Council has branded you a traitor, the Heaven is going to hunt you for killing Abaddon, and Hell...well, they're just evil dicks anyway. You're basically alone in this war.
War: You're not on my side.
Uriel: Well, I'm not gonna fight you NOW, but I WILL BE HONORED TO FIGHT YOU AGAIN WHEN THE TIME COMES!
War: ...whatever.
Uriel: But seriously, are you gonna do this alone?
War: *looks at the 7th Seal* No, not...alone...
*looks the sky, 3 beams of light are crashing down*
Famine: ...wait, you mean we actually get a cameo in this game?
Pestilence: I...uh...does being a random colored meteor count as a cameo?
Death: Oh shut up, and just end the freaking story already.
Famine: ...who did we decide was going to end the story?
Pestilence: ...
Death: ...
Famine: ...
War: And you guys wonder why I got my own game...
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Where does it end, unpatched? I kinda have to assume flying out of Malachor and even the credits aren't there in the original game because they had no sound or music in the patched version. But then again, it's not like that couldn't have been a bug.
The fact that I can't even tell you despite going through the normal game a half-dozen times should tell you how forgettable it is. Sure, it is MY memory, but even I can remember some things after enough repetition.
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Well, Civ V is out. Smell you jerks in a couple weeks I think.
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The credits are in the normal game, it ends with the ship flying out of Malachor V. Given the ending to the game and whatnot I believe the credits with no audio is intentional and not an unfinished part.
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LO- I've have 22/36 Achievements. Not bad. Thinking of calling it quits for now though. I only have the arena battles, finding all Sed's pirates and the Temple of Enlightenment left to do but. ToE seems like a pain in ass and I'd like to leave something to do in a replay. Might feel more like doing it then. Seth, Ming, Jansen and Cooke are all over L60 now so probably time to go wreak revenge on the final boss and watch the ending again. Ming's side boss gives Slot +10 by the way!
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Final Fantasy Legends 3: Just got to pureland.
I finished a dungeon and noticed I had over 300k money. This is enough to give a robot the maximum amount of stats I can give it from capsules. I turned Sharon into a robot and then force feed her. The result is a character who has at least twice as much HP and damage as the rest. The other characters are going to gradually catch up as Sharon will barely have any further growth, but chance is the game will end before they ever get there.
I could with not that much grinding turn Arthur into a fully juiced up robot as well, but I have decided to only use one robot. My plan it to try turning him into a beastman one one of the best martial arts moves becomes available. If that doesn't work as well as I hope it will, I'll turn him into a cyborg instead once I get one of the mystic weapons.
Other than that, the game stopped being challenging even before I broke Sharon. The game doesn't seem to take into account whether or not I have an overpowered fifth character with me and what healing magic I have. Healing magic work like this; Cure heals 30% of max HP, Cure 2 60% and Cure 3 fully heals. Bosses have consistently had moves which overpowers Cure, but not Cure 2.
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Resonance of Fate: Chapter 13. Gameplay's lagging a bit, which is sad. They mixed it up a bit by reducing party size for a while, but honestly that wasn't really very fun.
However, the Chrismas mission was hilarious and awesome and everyone should experience the thrill of slow-motion Matrix-jumping present delivery to rapid children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-plTL3jj6U&playnext=6&p=9259435799A9A269
Story's actually kind of cool, so it's too bad that it's so sparse. It kind of reminds me of a Film Noir version of the Wild Arms cast playing around in the Ar Tonelico world (minus the crappy Reyvateil harem plots).
Seriously though: Game, I actually like your characters and story, please give me more than one scene every 3 hours.
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Herp, derp, more SoE. Salabog already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLGmW98SM1U
While the Flying Monotype Emerald run has been getting easier (and I'll soon have Bagon and Rayquaza to make it even easier) I am somewhat worried about the final stretch of the game. I still have major issues when I run in to Electric types (especially Magnemite/ton). Gligar is post-game only, but I imagine it would be good to have around. It's interesting how I willingly swapped Skarmory out of my team for a Tropius.
Some people seemed to like my Wattson warstory before; maybe I'll do one for the Elite 4 when I get there. Gym battles haven't been especially exciting, although I didn't know Tate & Liza had extra Pokemon in this game, and they managed to get me down to just Dodrio in the end.
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Recettear: My god, it's full of Tallychus.
-
What.
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Brawl: Cleared SSE, so I consider the game beaten. Meta Knight wishes he was half as awesome as Kirby.
DQ IX: Got to the city with the sakura tree. When do I get to change my job from Minstrel? Also have a female thief, female martial artist, and male mage.
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Brawl: Cleared SSE, so I consider the game beaten. Meta Knight wishes he was half as awesome as Kirby.
DQ IX: Got to the city with the sakura tree. When do I get to change my job from Minstrel? Also have a female thief, female martial artist, and male mage.
After you reach Alltrades Abbey and learn the situation there, head eastish (I totally missed this quest when I played the game) toward a tower. You'll figure it out from there.
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RS:MS up to ER12, thanks in no small part to Twinmoon Temple, a dungeon you actually need to get in a shitload of fights to get through. Twinmoon Temple, it seems to me, always gets you over the hump of the game, the early ERs without a lot to do, and sets you up for the shitload of quests that all unlock while you're in it or upon completion of the Ailing Emperor quest you're there for. Anyway, beat the silver dragon, and I know I'm good enough to get through the pirate invasion and maybe even good enough to beat Pyrix, so Soon I'll be able to recruit Freilei and Silver, yay! Stat topic completion here I come! (except for Neidhart, Raphael, Dragon Knight, and Farah.)
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Recettear: My god, it's full of Tallychus.
The game is stupid, easy and completely and totally full of shit (The only way I have seen that you can lose is for the game to make everything cheap all week, like I had! Should have save scummed that shit just to piss it off.)
Pretty much Tal imagine Atelier Iris with shop keeper chick as the main character. Now take away all the plot stuff that I found interesting there and replace it with lolis and faeries. Pile on 6 times as many anime tropes as any given Gust game. That is Recettear.
Suffice to say, I think that Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble is a far greater investment of your money and Recettear is making money hand over fist because fuck you internet.
Edit - DQ9 - Why did they have plot scenes? Finished the game. Plot scenes are frustratingly long in the ending. zzzzzz if I wanted to watch movies on the bus I would be using my PSP or my phone. I want to press A a lot and watch things die. Final boss fight was pretty solid, ate a Magic Burst once and almost earned my first game over (didn't hand out Yggdrasil leaves like I should have, Paladin with Zing Stick Dance died along with my priest), gibbed my Paladin and the overflow offed my priest. Fun game and well worth the time. Not worth the insanity that is Japan or the depressingly embarassing advertising campaign (Which is awkward and pervasive enough that when my brothers asked me what I was playing and I said I was almost finished it they asked if I had got The Gigaslash).
Problems with the game boat boat boat boat boat boat boat boat. Alchemy reciped are to sparse and reliant on trawling for shit again, but probably better paced out and less broken than in DQ8. Not sure if it is more or less annoying though. Getting your stuff straight away is good. Having to go to Stornway to do it is a drag even with Zoom sometimes, but most definitely is before then, good thing there is like a whole dungeon between getting the pot and Zoom.
Party was like this.
Jim - Minstrel until unlocked Armamentalist. Stuck there for the rest of the game. Maxed out Shields, the started on Swords up until Falcon slash and then started past the first skill in Fource (got Fire Fource early for free awesome pimp armour). Probably the character I screwed up the most. Shields are a massive disappointment in the main game, I can see them as being a great choice for a third skill to go after and brilliant for aftergame. During the main game though? 4 or 6% extra evasion as you work your way up does not hold a candle to the attack power choosing a weapon to level would have. Even still, 58 points in Swords and Armamentalist made him my primary attacker in the final boss and I was never unhappy with my choices.
Jim - Thief with 32 points in Acquisitiveness and unlock +20 health, some points in Knives to unlock Ranger (which I never used) then some points in Sword to unlock Gladiator. Then became a Gladiator with 55 points in Guts to get Str boost. Spent some time in warrior also to unlock Paladin. Then became a Paladin when I hit Gleeba and dumped 100 points into Virtue. Was stocking points as a Paladin to dump into Axe, would have ended up with 30something in that. All up my most indecisive character but easilly my most useful. Forebearance and a stupid amount of Resilience and HP, awesome totally the reason I beat the final boss without to much effort or forethought. Time as a Gladiator gave a good start into Forebearance and generally being wishy washy with him gave him the most skill points overall without being overly abusive.
Jim - Cleric. Got like level 15 Mage as well to get skill points to put into stuff, ended up sinking it all into Faith which was pretty much worth it just for the Magical Mending boosts and Care Prayer lets you do stupidly efficient healing. Rest spent in Spears. Not much to say, did the job, average at taking damage, average at doing it, incredibly important job done very well with healing. Boring, but a corner stone.
Jim - Mage. Got up to about level 15 Cleric for same reasons as above. 100 points in Wand. Rest in Spellcraft. Wands and I had a love/hate relationship. Early on they are useless, then you get free GT damage out of them and they are awesome. You can't attack to get MP back, but you do decent damage for free if you aren't keeping that mana pool up. Didn't really regret it until I hit Gleeba and you are stuck with Water Maul staff if you don't improve it with Alchemy. That thing blows hard. Even before then between Port Laffan and Bloomingdale you are stuck between having a good on use or being able to break defense and get mana back. It just makes you swap items around constantly and it is annoying as all fuck. I was supremely disappointed with Wands then. They gave me a slightly bigger mana pool but that was about it. They were doing a horrible job of keeping it topped up while my spells just kept getting more expensive. Crackle is awesome at that point, but you just cannot cast it enough. Once you hit Batsureg though? Oh wow they are awesome. Not because they get good item casts, but because they make your mana pool enormous. Then you get MP Recover which also doesn't make you regen a ton of MP, but over time, especially with slowly increasing MP drain amounts (seriously by end game you get 3 or 4 MP for attacks most of the time at best. The MP% absorption for putting points into it are massively underwhelming, the value comes entirely from the MP pool boost and the recovery). At that point? Bang/Boom spam commences. Oh and you also not long after that get one that item casts Bang. Free MT is awesome, but at that point I was able to support spamming Boom instead, actually had my Cleric swap from his spear to it to use Bang more than the Mage cast it. Wands are good overall and I don't regret putting the points into them. They are great for a Mage, it lets you use their skillset. Cadeceus is got much later than it was on Jessica so it isn't as amazingly good when you get it, but it is MP efficient healing still and generally speaking absolutely fantastic, really rounds out your Mage. Spell Craft was alright dump spot for points. Mages are great, fast and with Wands always capable of doing something useful or being able to replenish and be able to do something useful. Zing Stick Dance is a pretty neat ultimate with my party reward (everyone can use Wands). Possibly MVP overall? Handled randoms brilliantly, Oomph lets you go on the offense earlier with your physical powerhouses not wasing a turn with Double Up. Frizzle seems a little underwhelming, but it is pretty solid damage for MP ratio even against resistant enemies if you have MP to burn against a single target. Sap has its ups and downs. Acceleratle shines when it is good and if nothing else lets you setup 2x damage basic attacks if you are against a laughable boss. Only problem with the mage is that they are definitely much weaker defensively than my other characters and he really felt it at the end of the game (final boss could burst him down in one turn if Paladin was slept, if I had a reset I would have made Paladin immune to sleep with accessory though). I maybe should have looked into making him some armour with Alchemy.
So overall my only things I can really suggest the game other than to stop being a Dragon Quest game with all your generic grindy complaints. Make MP Recovery about 60 points into the tree, swap its place with one of those worthless MP absorption talents or shit, maybe give Wands another useful skill. Stop the boat from being so boat. Don't have randoms from the second last overworld area commonly encountered in the ocean that is available half way through the game. Alternately GIVE SOME FUCKING DIRECTIONS WHEN YOU GET THE BOAT YOU STUPID THICK CUNTS.
Game is alright, if you found DQ8 was a game that came out at just the right time because it had been ages since an honest to gods old school grindyish naive RPG came out then this will be a good pick up if you haven't immersed yourself in the DS releases of earlier DQ games. Otherwise? Whatever, you can miss this. It ain't no Planescape: Torment, but much like DQ8 it is what I wanted when it came out, impeccable timing once again. It is very good at what it does, but what it does is be charmingly naive.
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DQ IX: Got to the city with the sakura tree. When do I get to change my job from Minstrel? Also have a female thief, female martial artist, and male mage.
After you reach Alltrades Abbey and learn the situation there, head eastish (I totally missed this quest when I played the game) toward a tower. You'll figure it out from there.
Make sure you talk to everyone in the Abbey multiple times. It is really easy to miss the trigger for this part. If you have the Bow party skill you did it right.
@Grefter: I dunno, looks to me like Jim was your actual MVP.
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Final Fantasy Legend 3: Made it to underworld. I know I'm supposed to defeat some sort of entity that floods the world, but I've forgotten most of the story. An NPC would say something in line of "you have to go to floatland/pureland/underworld" but I can never recall even hearing about those places prior to that nor do I know what those places are. Apparently there was some rebels who went to pureland before me. Who are they rebelling against and did I ever meet them? I don't know, but I do know I made it to the underworld.
The bosses suddenly ramped up in difficulty. Twice they killed my whole party except for Robot Sharon who then proceeded to solo it. As a result, she's two or three levels above the rest. She's at level 31 now and any further levels are now useless for her.
Then it turned out I missed a group heal spell which would have made the boss fights easier. I missed the spell because the shop looked to me like an obstacle rather than a building and I only found it by accident. Other than the group heal spell, the shop also gave me the second best martial arts. I took the opportunity to turn Arthur into a beastman and was happy with the result. He is now better at everything than human Arthur was. I also got the first Mystic sword in a dungeon which makes Cyborg a very good class to turn into as well. The mutants has more to lose than humans from turning into other classes, but one of them should be enough so Gloria became more metallic. Curtis will remain a mutant in case I need someone to spam multi target spells.
Things became much better now. Arthur and Gloria has more HP, deals more damage and are much faster. Granted, once they hit level 31 they won't become any stronger from leveling any more, but unless the end is much further away than I expect, humans and mutants should not catch up in terms of stats.
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NSMBWii - Beat this. Kinda! Bowser was pretty tough for a Mario boss, fairly creative too. Much better than SMW2's final which it obviously references. Got all the star coins in the game except one in 3-4.
Except... wait. World 9? What is a World 9.
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MMX6
Gate's Lab 1: Ten lives and I never made it past the spike wall.
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MMX6
Gate's Lab 1: Ten lives and I never made it past the spike wall.
Give up while your Spleen is still intact.
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I dunno.
By this stage it seems obvious he needs to vent his spleen.
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What.
See Grefter (minus hate). It is pretty damn easy, but I don't share his other problems with it. It's candyfloss, but amusing enough for what it is. Mostly picked it up out of curiosity (goon translation, apparently. They did a good job, too. It's fluid, conversational English).
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FFXII: Beaten, did all the marks up until the last set, where I just decided I didn't feel like doing aftergame, went and beat the game with all Espers but Ultima and Zodiak.
Game was more fun then I remembered it being, though eventually the gameplay did get a little old. plot fights tended to be ridiculously easy since I had the tendency to get sidetracked on the optional stuffs in between all the dungeons. Gilgamesh was probably the funnest fight in the game of the ones that I did. Fought his second form with my main three at 45 and the others below 20, which at that level, getting there proved to probably be as hard as fighting him <.<. Fight took a while, since I didn't bother remembering which chests to not open, so no spear. Pretty much just used a berserked Basch at critical with a mid tier Katana, with Ashe doing the whole decoy reverse tank thing. Final boss can go diaf though for making me wait out invuln periods while blasting me with cutscene attacks.
Currently playing through Ratchet: Deadlocked on the second hardest difficulty because I seem to have deleted all saves that would allow me to do the hardest difficulty. currently at the planet before the Ace fight. Game started easy enough, used the Shock Cannon as the main weapon for most of the early levels, because the Twin Rapters suck, and the b6 whatever bomb thing sucks more. Maxed out the cannon rather early, promptly stopped using it because I still wanted to distributes exp for weapons, so started using the mine launcher, which kills groups of enemies dead and makes me curse when I realize I spammed it out of ammo in 5 seconds. The token sniper rifle is also awesome especially with the ease of ohkoing enemies without even having to bother to zoom, but also makes me curse about it's low ammo. Around here I hit a mid game difficulty spike because my two current best weapons have a crap ammo supply, and the shock Magma cannon is beginning to trail like the early game weapon it is and not completely massacre groups of enemies, so I end up using the entirety of the low level Twin Raptors 200 odd something ammo to kill the big bad enemies that can kill me in two hits, fun. Acquired the rocket launcher Devastator which is awesome, but also lacks ammo, and the flail thing, which I don't use because it has a brief lag and using a weapon that lags in melee range of mobs that two hit ko me is not smart. Will probably finish the game tomorrow and then contemplate why I didn't pick one of the better games in the series to play, but oh well.
Contemplating getting a DS soon since I actually have a job and income again, since I've been having this urge to play a pokemon game yet don't feel like playing a game in the Kanto or Johto regions, which are the only games I have since my sapphire cartridge seems to have gone mia :-/.
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Famine: ...wait, you mean we actually get a cameo in this game?
Pestilence: I...uh...does being a random colored meteor count as a cameo?
Death: Oh shut up, and just end the freaking story already.
Too bad Famine and Pestilence will never get a role as Pestilence got replaced by Strife while Famine got replaced by Fury (!?!). A shame as playing as Famine >>>>>>>>>>>>>>War.
SMTLC - Game had the effect of making me go replay some DMC games but beside that its been great. Going TDP just for the added challange but if I did take a route I'd choose Yosuga. Yeah yeah its evil blah blah blah and it wouldn't be a great world but I don't see much point of being alive in the other two, and besides from what I gathered Yosuga would really just create what SMT1 is at the halfway point which isn't exactly the worse thing ever and beats the other two.
Wild arms 5 - My game seems to have some issues as the 505 games thing takes a while to come up and the game lags at points (for about a second every battle). This is all under Pal because if I run it in NTSC then pieces of music start failing to play, load times become huge and freezes common. Looking at the disc it doesn't look all that scratched at all, maybe a few tiny ones in the centre but thats it. Its also clean because the game won't start if there is even a spec of dust on the disc which really hampers my enjoyment of the game even if the game isn't exactly that great thus far.
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FE3DS: Doing a Hard Mode run, up to C10. Dracoknight Sirius for MVP, clearly.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Started this something like a week ago. Did Nation of Fools, Legion still sucks.
Etrian Odyssey 3: Hoplite/Princess/Buccaneer/Zodiac/Monk party. Mapped part of a floor, found a lighthouse, haven't done much else.
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FE3DS: Doing a Hard Mode run, up to C10. Dracoknight Sirius for MVP, clearly.
Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin: Started this something like a week ago. Did Nation of Fools, Legion still sucks.
Got Ice Needles yet? That spell singlehandedly breaks the earlygame like nothing else and is quite viable even at endgame.
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Yep. Looked fairly silly from what I saw of it.
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Wild arms 5 - My game seems to have some issues
What, besides being WA5? :p
DQ9: Hello, my name is Doma, and I'm a DQ-holic. I've put 20 hours in over 3 days and I'm in the flower city.
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MMX6: 12 lives lost this time, 22 lost total. I got some to miraculously drop in the stage. Spike wall only ate two lives this time, but the bloody lava somehow managed to take two away as well. The remaining 8? All on the Nightmare Mother, the bitch.
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What, besides being WA5? :p
A bit of a cheap shot but its properly well deserved.
Halo Reach - I don't own a 360 but all my friends are big on FPS meaning I've actually played all the halo games. I kept hearing stuff like the ending was the greatest/most touching moment in gaming ever, if such an ending is used in another game they'll be copying Halo and so forth. Not exactly spoilers as if you care about the plot you'll know what happens at the end anyway.
Alone in the wasteland supersoldier Zack is faced with the awesome might of the shinra army who's numbers on the ground are virtually unlimited, their ships in the air componding the hopelessness of the fight.
Not wanting to go out without a fight Zack bashs his way through countless Shinra soldiers but to no avail as after a grueling fight, standing battered he is killed by the few remaining Shinra soldiers.
...oh wait my mistake that was the ending to Crisis core. Reachs ending is:
Alone in the wasteland supersoldier Noble 6 is faced with the awesome might of the Covenant army who's numbers on the ground are virtually unlimited, their ships in the air componding the hopelessness of the fight.
Not wanting to go out without a fight Noble 6 shoots his way through countless Covenant soldiers but to no avail as after a grueling fight, standing battered he is killed by the few remaining Covenant Elites.
Of course I'm not saying that the ending to these to games being the exact same thing is a bad thing, it isn't. Just find it annoying that some Halo fans believe its the greatest ending ever and that if any game in the future has a similar ending then its blatantly copying Halo.
Though I'll give them thats its pretty damn good. I played it in co-op and died first (Bastard Elite gutted me like a fish after I bitchslaped his partner) so it was fun seeing my friend swarmed from all sides. In the end he tried to run but there was no escape, those bastards spawn everywhere.
As for the best character in the game? The Sniper. No I don't mean the human guy, the Covenant one. That dude is one badass motherfucker for flying in capping a main character in the face and then suddenly retreating immediatly. His appearance is so sudden and random it made me laugh so much. Its like Bungie didn't know how to kill the character off in some epic way so they just got a Covenant guy to do a driveby on the group.
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Pretty sure that scene has been done many, many times before in movies as well.
DQ9: Loving the Sainted Somas for sale in DQVC this week. Stock up on those while you can - you'll need a ton of them.
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MMX6: 12 lives lost this time, 22 lost total. I got some to miraculously drop in the stage. Spike wall only ate two lives this time, but the bloody lava somehow managed to take two away as well. The remaining 8? All on the Nightmare Mother, the bitch.
So...how is your cholesterol holding up?
Pretty sure that scene has been done many, many times before in movies as well.
You'd be correct as well. There's a whole freaking TROPE on it, the "Bolivian Army" I believe. I think they noted that Crisis Core was a SLIGHT divergence in that they actually show the (tragic) outcome, instead of ending dramatically with "Heroes vs. Impossible Odds" where failure is kind of assumed. But generally, yeah, its not exactly new.
There is of course nothing wrong with reusing old material, provided you use it appropriately (or alternatively, try to put at least a slightly original spin on things), its just using Old Material and pretending its New...yeah, that's what's annoying. Sounds like Halo Reach fans are exactly that.
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Yeah, the wrinkle CC threw in is to actually show the hero kicking an unholy amount of ass, but not quite enough to survive. I can't think of anything else that uses that specific ending, but I'd be more surprised if it was totally original than if I just hadn't seen the earlier examples.
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It is called the Bolivian Army Ending yeah, classic television example of it is Blake's Seven if you are into late 70s/early 80s Brittish Sci Fi (Tom Baker era Doctor Who, a true golden age).
Deus Ex has it part way through the game. It is an entire game mode in some FPS games/mods.
Edit - Kind of indecisive if you can classify most Lufia series first encounters with Gades as that, they are certainly intended to be unbeatable normally anyway, but there is no escalation. Hmmmm it would certainly be very damning if you could throw it in their faces though.
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Bolivian Army Ending, yes. Trope namer: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Watch Butch and Sundance, you lamers.
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Yeah, the wrinkle CC threw in is to actually show the hero kicking an unholy amount of ass, but not quite enough to survive. I can't think of anything else that uses that specific ending, but I'd be more surprised if it was totally original than if I just hadn't seen the earlier examples.
And in fairness, its not the whole Bolivian Army ending that makes CC's ending great. Its the integration of Gameplay elements as a means to DRIVE the ending, in addition to the emotional impact it has DESPITE knowing full well the outcome, that it deserves hype. The whole "Zack doesn't win, but he puts up a ridiculously good fight!" thing was cool, but its only one aspect of the ending as a whole.
Dunno anything about Halo Reach's version, of course, to say that CC's ending is great just cause "Zack vs. Army, ZACK ALMOST WINS!" is kind of underselling it.
(I know you didn't say that, Shale, just feel like going off on a tangent <_<)
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Valkyria Chronicles 2: Complete
I enjoyed this game, I really did. But I can't say it is a *good* game for several reasons.
First the good. Valkyria Chronciles 2 is at times a blast to play. Thinking up new strategies to deal with enemy formations and the need to grab camps vs. killing specific enemies means you are constantly thinking of a strategy to implement and trying new things. The game's balance between classes is quite satisfying, with a use for every possible class. The implementation of the deployment system, where you could quickly put a unit in your reserves in any camp you own and instantly take a turn, made for a much faster and balanced experience than VC1. The game certainly puts the "Strategy" in SRPG. But all of this is kind of tainted by how easy the game can be. I perhaps shouldn't say much because I utilized two rather powerful combos (Sniper tank and Double Movement Fencer Elite) towards endgame, but the early and midgame are, with the exception of boss fights, too easy.
The game's class system is pretty fantastically balanced (with the exception that Ravagers seem kind of pointless due to not OHKOing many of the things you would want them to), but the PROMOTION system is not nearly as good. It requires you to get specific 'credit's for each unit in order to promote. There are four types of credits and there are four levels within each type. The end result is that if you want to promote a unit to tier 2, you can do so, although a little bit later than you might like unless you grind. If you want to promote most of your used units to tier 3... well, have fun hunting those things because it will take a while. It is a most frustrating implementation.
The game's plot is bad. There really isn't any skirting around this issue. It tries to combine the seriousness of war with a light-hearted high school feel. This *DOES NOT WORK*. It was a bad idea to start with and it wasn't implemented particularly well. VC1 had a good story until it fell apart near the end due to a lack of compelling villains. VC2 doesn't make it far enough to fall apart. It was a no-starter for me, and likely for anyone else. This isn't to say I despise all the characters or some such. While Avan and Cosette are sort of insufferable, Zeri at least manages a kind of neutral stoicism that I liked. 2/3rds of the main cast being bad isn't a good showing, but the supporting cast is generally likable enough, albeit too childish for the setting. For example the little scenes that are scattered around to show off the personality of the squad tend to be enjoyable little slice-of-life affairs, but typically they would feel more suited in a traditional adventure RPG, or else a school sim ala P3/4 or something. This is supposed to be a military academy and it feels like an ordinary high school. I will throw in and say that I liked Aliasse. She mostly had an excuse to act childish and was generally fun.
So it's a fun game and a great SRPG experience, but as a whole it isn't what I would consider well put together.
Class analysis:
Scouts: Used for when you want to get to a base on the other side of a larger map and take it in the minimum number of turns, and you can afford to do so with something that doesn't have much durability. As Snipers they wind up being less usable than I had hoped. Although they make good boss-killers that isn't exactly a commonly called upon use (maybe 4 times the entire game?). I may be underselling snipers a bit if as Sniper Elites with a buff they can OHKO V2's that still have the aura up.
Shocktroopers: The best class for base defense and a good choice to send into the field to take enemy camps. Position a gatling user in a good location and you can also take out hordes of enemies on THEIR turn, which is just icing. Their ability to pretty much kill anything in their range is a major plus, and they can take a hit unlike Scouts/Engineers.
Lancers: Kills tanks and other armored things. This function is valuable but they suffer a little for a reason I will mention below. In general a good idea to have them lying around though. Killing Supply Vehicles to take down the invincibility aura on enemy V2's is important, and being able to do so from across the map is a godsend.
Engineers: I didn't use Engineers much, I have to say. They WOULD be kind of like lesser Scouts for taking bases, but they have no grenades and hence no way of forcing a crouched enemy to stand. This is absolutely devastating for their use, since it means they can't kill crouched enemies at a base to take it. As healers they work all right although it is rare that you want to heal a single unit. Once promoted to tier 3 they can get Revival, which IS useful. And their other route features some very nice buffing options for when you want to make a unit (or units) uber before sending them out to kick ass. Generally less useful early and picks up some use late.
Armored Techs: Hoo boy. These are the guys you call upon when you need to get past an enemy gatling or horde. Armored units just tink shots that would kill other units, so they are ideal for waltzing through a heavily fortified area to an enemy base. While their offense as techs leaves something to be desired, once they promote to Fencers and Fencer Elites they suddenly can OHKO just about anything. Some of them getting Double Movement to compensate for their one weakness of low movement is just lovely. Unfortunately, while they are good at HOLDING bases due to awesome durability, their inability to use interception fire means that you generally don't want them on the field when it is the enemy's turn. This isn't too bad however, since it just means that you use them, deposit them, and then bring in someone else. Works pretty well.
Tank: Remember how in VC1 you could make a unit uber via Orders? You can't do that in VC2. What you CAN do is set up a 1 CP cost tank that has a turret with the accuracy of a sniper rifle, twice the power of a lancer, and 2-3 times the personnel killing power of an actual sniper rifle. This baby is your uber unit. The downside to the tank is that using it means other units that you could have used don't get Credits for promotion, and the tank itself cannot capture enemy bases. But really, you send this thing in, move it past enemy lines without fear of damage, and then just pick what you wnt to kill. The innate Double Attack skill just adds insult to injury. Used to be tanks got 1 action for 2 CP. This tank can get 2 actions for 1 CP. It's awesome and it shows. Oh and it is your best option for killing enemies with interception fire. There are a few missions where you are forced to use a transport vehicle instead of the tank, and the loss is keen indeed.
Standout moments include the boss fights, which tend to be cool, one mission late where you have to go through a valley of very powerful V2 enemies without taking down their auras, and anytime you make a new awesome weapon, which is often.
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MMX6: 12 lives lost this time, 22 lost total. I got some to miraculously drop in the stage. Spike wall only ate two lives this time, but the bloody lava somehow managed to take two away as well. The remaining 8? All on the Nightmare Mother, the bitch.
I didn't know you love MMX this much to still trying.
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Bioshock -
Decent.
Plasmids didn't seem to be worthwhile enough considering the emphasis put on them. Ended up just having Electro/Winter/Incinerate/Telekinesis most of the game and never ended up buying the 5th or 6th slot as nothing else seemed particularly useful, and I probably used them more often environmentally than in battle outside of the earlygame. Maybe they hold up better than the weapons do in harder difficulties, but I have no desire currently to look into that.
I am somewhat annoyed by the solutions to each area goal being within the area in question (Need medicine drastically? Information on which medicine you need and the medicine in question is right here in the two areas you currently have access to! A door has been sealed off and you need to disguise yourself to trick someone into opening it? Everything you need is right here! etc.). Despite the fact that this is how things tend to work in these kinds of games. I was originally thinking that it's different here because normally you have keys and locked doors which is perfectly sensible and not absurdly stunningly convenient, but then I realised that no, that's stupid and keys shouldn't be anywhere near the doors they lock, let alone on the outside (at least in the sense of finding them lying around which I am most familiar with) . Can only assume that I have been indoctrinated over the years here.
I think that Rapture would actually lend itself better to a Metroid Prime/Hexen-style world than the generally disconnected linear world it is, but that would potentially run contrary to one of the things they were doing with it. Shame.
Some of the backstory timeline doesn't seem to make sense to me. The audio diaries really needed to be dated. If Suchong died a year or so back, why are the Big Daddy boots still in the library and not in the facility? If he died very recently instead, where was the time for the Big Daddy system as it currently stands to be set up?
I also don't understand how using the key in the override allows the takeover. It doesn't seem like the override was in any position to be tampered with ahead of time, and unlikely to have been built that way. Assuming that the override was hacked remotely at that point, considering that there were things remotely hacked before, seems unlikely because there were surely any number of other things that the key was for which could have been targetted by this.
PW3 Wii -
Did the first case so far.
On the one hand, pause-saving doesn't kick you back to the title screen, which is an improvement in some respects. As I have yet to need to reload any pause-saves though I don't know whether they still allow unrestricted loading or if they get deleted on gameover or anything or what.
Game was not really adapted to the system as well as they might have done. When you do a point-out-the-problem-area bit, it zooms out so you have both screens vertically in the central column of the television with useless space to the left and right. Presumably so you can have the question onscreen as well as the image, but surely they could have thought of a better way of doing this considering that the image you're scanning for problems is now about 1/6th the size it is normally. Bigger than the size it is on the DS, but you're probably nowhere near as close to the TV as you are the DS. Presumably the GBA versions of the games had a way of going about these situations that they could have cribbed instead.
Game also doesn't seem to offer pointer control to emulate the touch control for god-knows-whatever reason, falling back completely on button controls (plus some optional gestures for 'dramatic' actions a la the voice controls). To be honest I personally probably prefer using button controls to using pointer controls, but that's potentially because I haven't used the Wii in forever, and it would be nice to have the option.
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ToV - beat. fun game, already said pretty much all that needs to be said, except that I don't think the main bad guy is as illogical as I believe other people have said. He just has a fundamental misunderstanding of ecology: that things have a natural state to return to. Our heroes evidently WERE paying attention to the teacher that one class in earth science, so they get things right.
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ToV - beat. fun game, already said pretty much all that needs to be said, except that I don't think the main bad guy is as illogical as I believe other people have said. He just has a fundamental misunderstanding of ecology: that things have a natural state to return to.
The way you put it makes him sound even stupider. <_<
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I guess, but it's a pretty common fallacy to think that an ecosystem has a natural state that, if the conditions were right, would maintain itself without changing, and that humans can't help but be destructive to that state. I mean, there are other RPGs that make that point fairly explicitly. So I don't think the bad guy is all that stupid for thinking like that.
(The other reason he opposes the good guys, lack of faith that humankind can cooperate toward a common goal? Well, humankind had a pretty bad track record, so I'll give him a pass on that one too.)
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LFT - Beat this. File was focused on special characters, I used generics until the end of C3 but otherwise used every main storyline plot PC except Meliadoul, since I used her in the WA4 file aftergame. Didn't do any sidequests. Final levels were about 31-38, with Agrias as the lone 38 and everyone else in the 31-34 area (Ramza was 33, I believe). I'm not really sure how she got that far ahead of everyone else, she was probably the best PC offensively but the gap didn't feel that wide.
Ended up with one reset on each of Dorter Slums, Wiegraf 1, Dorter 2, Izlude, North Wall, Zalera, Balk 2. Two resets on Kletian, once again the hardest fight in LFT to me!
After I got Orlandu I started using six PCs instead of 5, rotating them. I guess this means everyone suffered a bit for exp/JP or whatever, but not very much.
Lategame highlights...
-Adramelk only ever used Night Sword (999 draining) or Hold Tight (GT petrify/don't move), only using the latter if he could nail multiple people with it. This was bad enough that I made him use Night Sword instead. My party wasn't great at blitzing so it took a while for me to set up a Solution'd Malak lucky chain of attacks.
-Kletian... well, I did some setup mucking of course, but the main reason I won (and easily at that) the last attempt was that the two charging Time Mages and one Ninja were all nice enough to line up and get killed by Holy Explosion.
-Balk featured the misadventures of Malak trying to be the hero. Both battles with him came down to him needing to do something key to win the battle. In the first, he needed to land two hits on a hydra with only two panels to target. Of course he fails, and I lose. Second time, I give up on saving my other PCs and only Malak is left alive, and he needs to land a whole bunch of shots on Balk, first poisoning him with SPACE STORAGE, then managing to land a needed four shots aimed at five panels on the last turn. Malak is so silly. Orlandu died in this battle, but that's what I had six PCs for, I guess~
-Altima... found form 1 fairly easy this time, but 2 kicked my ass, had luck landing Faith with Grand Cross and carving people up with Return 2 or All-Ultima. Never mind that Rafa and Malak were both overkilled by one of these even before Faith. Rafa eventually crystallised, but no big. I sorta hung on in this battle, and was convinced I was about to lose when Altima launched a final All-Ultima at my team, killing absolutely -everyone-. Except Malak. But including herself. I'd have lost horribly if that hadn't killed her, but hey. Not sure Altima really needs to do 450 damage to herself with All-Ultima, but the fight is tough enough I'm not going to complain.
PC notes:
-Ramza: Not much to say here, I mainly explored Punch Art rather than Ramza's capabilities in particular. Scream does compliment this well, at least.
-Agrias: Already mentioned that innate Geomancer helps a LOT. Geomancer is pretty terrific class now (pretty much all my PCs spent some time there), but for Agrias it's particularly special, since she can get massive PA to swordskill things with, and picks up her best support skill too. Attack Up > Magic Attack Up in LFT, for reals. Anyway, Attack Up makes Holy Knight less painful, and then she picks up the rest of the set, back to kicking ass in Geomancer, before finally settling in as a Knight with Excalibur or whatever's available. Too bad about Holy Knight sucking, with the improvements to Knight it only looks worse. Still, she brings instant ITE slightly-GT damage to the table which is quite handy and fairly unique (Draw Out's there, but a bit different) so is probably the best special PC in a straight playthrough now.
-Mustadio: Snipe + Item, he makes a good healer of course. Eventually I got impatient with Snipe's weakness as a skillset and had him build up Mediator stuff instead, so he finished mostly as a Mediator with Throw Item. Worked well enough. He does have a speed edge on normal PCs, which is good for an item user, at least, so he's okay. Also, while you can certainly build a better PC than him before he joins, it's worth pointing out that most battles before he joins you can only use four PCs, so he's easy to slide in as a fifth. Granted, same's true of Agrias. But yeah, he's okay.
-Rafa: Truth is lame and always will be, although the improvements are nice. Tacking range 8 revival onto the set helps, although it's quite a mediocre skill due to the notable charge time (charge times are always far worse on revival than on anything else) and the HP recovery which doesn't make up for it (people revived with even Raise can take hits, Scorpio's Blessing less so). I don't really like the extra hits much, because it gets kinda annoying to watch 10 hits. I'd rather see a fixed number of hits (5-6?) a la Dark Whisper, but no idea if that's practical. Anyway, making Truth miss allies and Space Storage's reduced vertical (it's probably the best skill in the set, now) help out the skillset a bunch, at least, and it is ITE at least. Still a clear step back from Summon Magic in basically every way, but I no longer feel like shooting myself when I use it. It's quite middling at first but once Rafa learns the key stuff and can go Wizard/Geomancer (Heaven Knight sucks), things get better.
-Malak: EXPLODING FROG! Okay, Malak. He's really not very good now. He's much better than before, got the same upgrades as Rafa, but now he doesn't even have Brave (which is fine plotwise, but yeah). And he generally seemed to have about half of Rafa's damage output even though I lowered his Faith, which isn't always practical. Hell Knight is a little less terrible than Heaven Knight (4 move) but still bad. Exploding Frog... just didn't work out as well as I'd hoped, the charge time on something that doesn't lock on (was this intentional?) and the low vertical is sad times, though it was quite good on some maps, and does work as an emergency reraise buff if you block frog. Still the weakest overall plot character, but hey.
-Orlandu: Is Cid. He's a bit behind a well-built Agrias in the maingame (though obviously surpasses her in the aftergame, perfume arguments aside), but not much! Mostly because unlike most specials he actually gets a worthwhile base class as a carrier. And the Dark sword skills aren't bad options, for all that I barely used them. So yeah, pretty good times.
Thinking on it, improved Squire makes me extra bitter about Holy/Heaven/Hell Knight/etc. being bad. Now that there's a class with FFT Geomancer-like stats, and everything I could want from a class except shields on equipment, getting saddled with something far worse (admittedly, with a better primary skillset) is sad days. This is probably decently balanced (Agrias in particular doesn't objectively need more improvement), but it's allowed to bug me a bit.
Good times, would replay again, etc.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii - Ended up having to FAQ the second star coin in 3-4, felt pretty stupid when I learned where it was. Finished world 9, it was pretty good times, with special bonus points for the 6-10 dead ringer with the defrostable ice blocks. That made for some amazing bits. Saving the Toads in world 9 is brutally challenging, only managed two of them. Fun little game, it's Mario, not much to say. Singleplayer ended up very enjoyable even though it took some time to get rolling. Not sure I like it quite as much as the original New or some of the oldschool games, but definitely a solid entry in the series.
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Finished Emerald Flying Monotype. Wallace was a whore, and so was most of the Elite Four. I thought about writing a log but really it wasn't as fascinating as you might expect. To be honest, I caved in and used items in battle against Wallace (hadn't done that throughout the entire game). I didn't realize that he would have a ten-level jump over the previous four matches, and I'm not about to spend any more hours grinding for this, haters to the left.
I suppose that instead I'll share my thoughts on all the Flying types I managed to find in regards to the challenge. If I missed some, well, I'd be surprised.
"Justice" (The Night, Batman)
Zubat/Golbat/Crobat - I used him throughout the entire game. Rocks early on because he's immune to Poison, and stays good thanks to Confuse Ray/Bite hax and generally good speed blitzing stats, as well as decent HP. Honestly, he's pretty much essential to getting through the game in this challenge.
Final Set: Bite / Confuse Ray / Shadow Ball / Wing Attack
"DERP"
Doduo/Dodrio - As soon as I got Doduo I replaced Swellow. You trade off some defense, which does hurt a bit at late game but not enough to make up for the huge Attack upgrade, not to mention Tri Attack and Drill Peck. Helpful for killing stuff dead.
Final Set: Drill Peck / Tri-Attack / Steel Wing / Pursuit
"NeedsBliss"
Skarmory - This guy ended up being rotated in and out of my team throughout the game. Obviously, he's a fine physical wall and resists Accuracy-lowering attacks, which is great. He also learns Swift and I taught him Aerial Ace, so he ended up being my Accuracy specialist. Spikes made him essential against the E4. Nowhere near as useful as in competitive play, but generally a good addition to the team.
Final Set: Spikes / Aerial Ace / Swift / Steel Wing
"Asok"
Wingull/Pelipper - MVP, and I'm not kidding. He made a great HM Slave, rocked hardcore as my only special attacker early on, and provided the Toxistall action later on. Skarmory wouldn't have been bad for this either, but it already had a role. Pelipper also ended up being my Dragon slayer, and came in quite handy against Drake.
Final Set: Ice Beam / Shock Wave / Toxic / Protect
"HM Slave"
Tropius - While he was useful as an HM Slave, I actually ended up using him in my main team over Gyarados. My team was too weak to Electric, and his half-resistance helped a ton. Gets some handy moves like Body Slam, Magical Leaf and Stomp. Tropius was particularly good againt Drake's Kingdra, who I paralyzed with Body Slam so that Salamence could maul it.
Final Set: Fly / Magical Leaf / Body Slam / Protect
"Uberlawl"
Salamence - It's freakin' Salamence. Terrible monster design, but pretty damn useful. I just taught him random attacks and wrecked things basically. If you're wondering why he doesn't have Earthquake, that's because I had taught it to Gyarados like an idiot before eventually cutting him out. You get Salamence late, but he's a welcome addition to the team, and tears stuff up.
Final Set: Dragon Claw / Crunch / Fire Blast / Brick Break
People who I ended up cutting out of my team
"The Giz"
Gyarados - He's great because he can take a hit. Movepool totally sucks in RSE, sadly, and he can't rely on Waterfall like in D/P/P/HG/SS. I never got his level high enough for Dragon Dance. Essential for beating bulky types early on, especially Magnemite/ton. I eventually phased him out of my team because his offense was no longer cutting it and used Pelipper instead.
Natu/Xatu - I don't even remember what I named this. I used it briefly because it resisted Psychic for the seventh gym. It learns Psychic too late and comes too late to be of much help.
"FF4"
Beautifly - This thing sucks and GameFreak should feel bad. I used it for Absorb against the first gym, and I think it had some purpose against Wattson, but after that it was curtains. Terrible stats and movepool.
"Hawk"
Taillow/Swellow - I used it until Dodrio was available. Once it evolves it can take a hit or two. Its offense is above average until you get something better. Great for early game.
Masquerain - I think I was able to get this and didn't. Why the hell would you bother, really?
Ninjask - I suppose passing might have been helpful, in retrospect. I found myself needing extra Speed in several cases. Didn't feel like grinding him up, though.
"SageAcrin"
Swablu/Altaria - It's useful for Sing and the Ground resistance, but not much else early on. It evolved just before the 8th gym, and then I got Bagon. I suppose easier Dragon Dance access is a plus, and might provide a case for Altaria. YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY.
"Khan"
Rayquaza - I decided not to use Ubers. (Salamence wasn't Uber as of RSE) He probably wouldn't have added much to the team, tbh. Ice weakness was an issue that plagued me like crazy in the last couple of fights, and Rayquaza wouldn't have helped in that regard.
I would also like to express that Gligar only being available post-game is a slap in the face for this challenge. :/
Overall, I'd say this is a doable but very frustrating challenge. Wattson, Glacia and Wallace are a pain in the ass. I didn't even bother to go after Steven, that last battle got me so disillusioned. I'm sure it's quite possible to beat him. One of the toughest things about this challenge is that your TM movepool absolutely BLOWS, and birds don't get the greatest level-up moves either. Hardly any of the Flying types can learn useful attacks when you actually need them. Also, Flying is weak to three elements that seem to be a constant factor throughout the game. I remember one trainer that had two Manectrics almost totally wiping me out and I had levels in the 40s.
It's probably karma. As soon as I rolled Flying, I thought I had this in the bag. It proved to be rougher than expected. Fair enough! Now I know how Faulkner feels.
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Starcraft II: Up to Char. Sided with Horner and Nova at the respective junctures, because Raynor strikes me as a ladies man. Only defeat was on Supernova due to some serious misuse of my Banshees.
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You mean Haven's Fall instead of Safe Haven?
Have you used all your research upgrades yet?
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There should really be no debate between siding with the hot blond over the crazy guy from Jamaica.
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Posting from Wii, bear with me.
DQ9: Am storming empire's castle. Can't be final dungeon unless Sage is postgame, since I don't have that class yet.
Party is Hero (dabbled in Glad and Mage for a bit, now L42 Warrior with Swords), Rei (Mastered Thief abilities, now L12 Paladin with a club), Ayla (pure Martial with Claws, L41), and Butz (little of everything, mastered Wands, currently L21 Mage).
About the Inn and guests, does that give me anything I can't get anywhere else? I can't find anyone.
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Posting from Wii, bear with me.
DQ9: Am storming empire's castle. Can't be final dungeon unless Sage is postgame, since I don't have that class yet.
Party is Hero (dabbled in Glad and Mage for a bit, now L42 Warrior with Swords), Rei (Mastered Thief abilities, now L12 Paladin with a club), Ayla (pure Martial with Claws, L41), and Butz (little of everything, mastered Wands, currently L21 Mage).
About the Inn and guests, does that give me anything I can't get anywhere else? I can't find anyone.
You get the guests from Wifi events. Not sure if those are still going or not.
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Starcraft II: Up to Char. Sided with Horner and Nova at the respective junctures, because Raynor strikes me as a ladies man. Only defeat was on Supernova due to some serious misuse of my Banshees.
Yeah, about that first one... you might want to go back after you beat the game and play the mission you didn't choose, because shit dude.
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Plasmids didn't seem to be worthwhile enough considering the emphasis put on them. Ended up just having Electro/Winter/Incinerate/Telekinesis most of the game and never ended up buying the 5th or 6th slot as nothing else seemed particularly useful, and I probably used them more often environmentally than in battle outside of the earlygame. Maybe they hold up better than the weapons do in harder difficulties, but I have no desire currently to look into that.
Those plasmids (minus Winter Blast) are really the only ones you need even on harder difficulties. Everything else is novelty. Plasmids are never great for offense (hurling exploding canisters with TK can be nice, but you don't always have those handy). They facilitate asskicking rather than constitute such in themselves. I'm told Decoy is broken for what it does to enemy AI, but have never messed with it much. Personally only really needed electro for stunning and fire for breaking up enemy mobs.
I haven't played the highest difficulty setting, but I ran on Hard and the broken weapons on Normal were still pretty fucking broken there.
Try a dedicated wrench build if you ever replay it. This is actually amazingly unfair and you will pretty quickly stop bothering with firearms against anything but Big Daddies.
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O M G,
I think I'm about to turn on Dragon Quest VIII. ~
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I think I'm about to turn on Dragon Quest VIII. ~
ah, English. I read that and the first thing I think is that you're preparing to stab Yangus and co. in the back.
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What treachery is this, Idun?! Yangus never did anything to you. :o
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I think I'm about to turn on Dragon Quest VIII. ~
ah, English. I read that and the first thing I think is that you're preparing to stab Yangus and co. in the back.
Really? My first thought was "puff-puff".
...Please don't hurt me.
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Mine as well, but Captain K. being dirty is pretty much a given.
@Doma, the guests are inside the inn, to the northwest of Patty (where the waiter guy is) - just go up the elevator. If you've connected to DQVC there should be several there now. Their equipment is pretty decent by endgame standards but nothing remarkable in the long run.
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I didn't have enough time to stab them. I played it for 10 minutes :|
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So you made it all the way to the 'load game' screen and packed it in?
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Bah. I thought I got her name wrong, but was in a hurry so I didn't check. Hanson. Sided with Hanson and Nova because yeah. Do intend to go back and do the other missions later though.
Anyhow, yeah, I've spent all my tech.
Protoss: Vanadium Plating, Orbital Depots, Automated Refinery, Raven, Tech Reactor
Zerg: Shrike Turret, Perdition Turret, Predator, Regenerative Biosteel, Psi Disruptor
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I took the Science Vessel over the Raven because, fuck, it has repair lasers, and as a Lyran I would very much prefer to simply mass Thors (because they won't let me build the Odin).
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Overall, those are good research options (and mostly what I took). I took Science Vessel for the repair, and Hercules in place of the Predator, and...improved Vespene mining. Works well with the refinery automation. Vanadium plating works great in combination with Regenerative Biosteel.
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NotMiki, pretty much. I had the opportunity to break open a few crates though. I'm re-trying again today.
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I finished BBS recently and while I liked it, the gameplay wasn't quite up to KH2 standards and the story wasn't quite up to Days standards. Still, the secret ending was amazing and the game was still great so I can't complain.
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Finished Shining Force 2. Another good example of classic gaming. The ending was pretty hilarious where everyone pretty much ends up shipping one another and being racist. Good times. Final party was Bowie, Chester, Sarah, Jaha, Slade, Kazin, Peter, May, Gerhalt, Janet, Karna, Sheela. 7/10 overall. Roughly analogous to Shining Force Ressurrection.
Not sure how Zeon got knocked down to Heavy.
Planning on Atelier Iris 2 next.
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POKEMANS - Playing Platinum slowly. Is Pokemans. I am honestly a little disappointed in the dual screen implementation. HUEG ICONS with no details on what the attacks do? Weak Gamefreak, weeeeaaaaak. You could at least list typing, but I was hoping for power/accuracy/status as well. You have the room there.
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Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin - Good grief Hex looks nutty.
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DQ9: Abusing the respawning Blue Chests in the castle and getting levels in vocations, still no story progression since my last post. The Hero has mastered swords, is well on the way to mastering shields, and will then be going into the magical vocations to get skill points to then be sent to the physical branches to add stats. Rei (the former Thief) was given max Knife in one go, and will probably end up in Ranger. Ayla has never switched from Martial Artist, is close to mastering Claws, and when fully tensioned up was able to 1HKO the Horselike. And Butz has mastered Wands and the Mage vocation skill, so he can basically cast to his heart's content.
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MMX6: God I'm glad I lazed out on Boobhead's stage or I'd never get anything done.
Anyway, only one life lost to the spike wall thise time, only to die right before the checkpoint because I couldn't dash jump. I'm beginning to think my controller is busted. Anyway, three deaths to the lava because of the stupidity that decides when the lava should start to move. So I'm down to five lives to fight the Nightmare Mother. But, on the upside, I switched out the Overlimit part for the health part. I can do this! First try I die horribly, like always. Second try goes fantastically, and I kill the bitch! Whoohoo party time! But I only have four lives for Gate's Second Stage. *&%#*^%
First run through I fall into a blind pit, second try I get to totem hell and... do fairly well all things considering. Too bad I just end of slamming X's head into a spike ceiling until I run out of lives. Dammit. And I still have to deal with High Max and Gate. Bleh....
I'm blaming you liver.
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Finished Shining Force 2. Another good example of classic gaming. The ending was pretty hilarious where everyone pretty much ends up shipping one another and being racist. Good times. Final party was Bowie, Chester, Sarah, Jaha, Slade, Kazin, Peter, May, Gerhalt, Janet, Karna, Sheela. 7/10 overall. Roughly analogous to Shining Force Ressurrection.
Not sure how Zeon got knocked down to Heavy.
PC-level durability+negligible support credit+his speed being very much meaningless due to always losing initiative and ShF2 speed being fail-turn-based+he doesn't even one-round average with his double-acting =/= winning Godlike package.
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RS:MS beat Pyrix and recruited Freilei, but only at ER13. I could have done it earlier, but I burned through ER 9-12 in Twinmoon Temple and recruiting Captain Silver. Maybe some other time I'll try recruiting her at an earlier ER.
Captain Silver and Freilei are totally awesome if recruited early, by the way, because they have great stats for the time (and also, y'know, just because they're awesome).
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I'm blaming you liver.
...wait, you mean you still have one after all you've been through?
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Nah, he's blaming it for leaving him when he needed it the most.
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I have played DQ8 for four hours nonstop. This is amazing. The game isn't amazing - just my endurance for this really boring game. Also, character design is beginning to irk me now. Just introduce to Prince Charmles. . . . Gunna go do some lizard shit.
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How else am I supposed to play huh? HUH!?
EDIT: I should create some sort of betting pool for this....
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Drugs.
Or, better yet, sell your soul.
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We all know I sold my soul to the writing gods.
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Well, if you ever plan to beat MMX6, you'll need a refund on that one.
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I thought you WERE one of the writing gods...
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Congrats Doma, you now have more skill points than I had at the end of the game. You should be fine (get Paladin skill to 100, doooo iiiiiiiiiiiiiiit).
Dragon Age - Stuff, mage on easy for giggles play still on going. Orzamar really really drags on replay. Way too fucking long.
Pokemans - Got my Alakazam, Geodude is well on the way to becoming golem. Gyms are a long way apart this time it feels (One badge, level 20, a bit higher level than would have expected to fight Misty in FR/LG and is like end game or some shit in GSC).
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Paladin skill to 100 is basically "congratulations, this unit can now never be killed by anything in the maingame. Have fun." Hell, that made my MAGE tied with my Warrior for supreme tank.
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How else am I supposed to play huh? HUH!?
EDIT: I should create some sort of betting pool for this....
I got the perfect bet:
Will it be...
Knife to Wrist?
Gun to Mouth?
OR
Cyanide Pills?
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$20 on Knife to Wrist. Across the Street, not Down the Road. Fudo seems like he'd be more into the theatrics of it than efficiency.
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I'll put $10 on "plays MMX7 next and starts on Flame Hyenard" myself.
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I don't have X7 unfortunately.
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Overall, those are good research options (and mostly what I took). I took Science Vessel for the repair, and Hercules in place of the Predator, and...improved Vespene mining. Works well with the refinery automation. Vanadium plating works great in combination with Regenerative Biosteel.
Oh yeah, the Hercules, forgot about that. That thing is nice for hot-dropping tanks, but I generally prefer the medivac, for utility's sake (and you can upgrade the medivac to hot-drop just like the Herc does).
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Pokemans - Got a Golem and Zam now. Going to get a Machamp as well because I got lazy and figured I would just hack the fuck out of him. Gave it a Focus Blast TM that I learned on the Zam (I am about to hit Mt Coronet, so checking it, I am not getting it much earlier than I could have done that anyway), gave him a not shitty nature and that is about it. Exp Share this early is gooooood. Exp share in team battles is mean, you did no work! Have twice the exp of other mans!
The lack of info during battles continues to be disappoint. My Zam learnt Mind's Eye or some shit naturally from levelling, had space so it auto learns it. GG you have to go to the summary menu to find out what it does. I forgot to do that for like half an hour "ooooh yeah what does that do?" Fight over, forgotten. At least when you fill out all the slots you can read stuff when forgetting things. Still annoying interfacing fail.
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Pokemon White
Team:
Koromori (Heartbat) Arcana Lv33
Jaroda (Smugsnake 2) Ragna Lv36
Gantoru (Graveler Expy) Shichiren Lv39
Baniricchi (Icecream 1) Choco Lv35
Swanna (Swan) Mizuhashi Lv36
Victini (Event poke) Ryougi Lv35
currently at the Tower of Heaven, fightin' some mons
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Starcraft 2: Beat. End was a bit disappointing and last mission was a serious cakewalk. Even on Normal, WC3:FT at least forced me to cheat out of frustration.
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Final mission is a lot of fun. It is kind of easy with research, especially on normal. Did you do Shatter the Sky or Belly of the Beast first? I find fighting Nydus Worms far easier than fighting Brood Lords on that map. Banshees kill them fast enough that you can mass siege tanks and demolish everything (even on Hard, mass siege tanks demolished everything - I assume it works on Brutal as well). The only hard part is Kerrigan's first attack and the 80-90% wave that includes Kerrigan, Nydus Worms, and a shitload of units on an attack. Thank god for the artifact!
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Shatter the Sky. Yeah, I did a similar thing. Massed Siege Tanks at the chokes and put bio units at the front (which were later upgraded to thors). Spent most of the battle at 200/200 supply. There was never a real threat at any point. Even Mrs. Kerrigan ate massed siege tank attacks and did not enjoy it.
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FF7 Half-Day-In-No-Saves: Yes, more HDINS. Had a relatively slow but decently easy and powerful run - didn't struggle at all on Jenova-BIRTH, who has killed me 4 times on these challenges in the past. Then, power cut at the end of the Dyne fight. DAMMIT. >.<
So, naturally, I've started again. On the way towards Airbuster now, haven't even done a single time-check yet.
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Played my first (solo) game of Arkham Horror. Plucky psychologist Carolyn Fern sets out to destroy the interdimensional menace of Yog-sothoth.
Things start out well enough. Carolyn is armed with a magical knife and several tomes of forgotten lore leading her to clues about the impending danger. She roots out a gateway to Another Dimension (TM), easily dispatching its monstrous guard with her fine Marksmanship skills.
But she becomes disoriented in the other dimension, costing her valuable time. Upon her return to Arkham she manages to permanently seal the gate using her formidable background in Lore. Unfortunately several other gates have opened during her absence, and to top things off, she seems to have contracted a painful curse while traipsing around the other dimension!
While traveling through the streets, Carolyn encounters a Dark Young. She is unable to evade the thing, and decides it will be easier to just stab it with her knife. But the Curse wracks her with pain, making her every attack flail wildly. Carolyn casts an ancient Flesh Ward spell to absorb the blows of the monster, but try as she might she can't kill the thing. Her Enchanted Jewelry saves her life, shattering in the process. Carolyn is in bad shape now. She somehow fights through the pain to score two hits on the beast - and uses knowledge from two of the clues she has unearthed to land a final blow.
Carolyn has decided that curses really suck, so she runs toward the Church to have it exorcised. Well, not runs so much as slogs, because icy weather conditions have set in. Father Mulrooney offers to remove Carolyn's curse - if she'll give him the fragment from the gate that she closed. Carolyn finds this suspicious, but doesn't care at this point so long as the curse is gone.
The weather clears up and Carolyn begins clearing the streets of monsters. But they seem to spawn faster than she can kill them. She is eventually Deputized because of her ass-kickery, but her efforts are all in vain, as Yog-Sothoth bursts out of Hibb's Roadhouse. Since Carolyn no longer has a Gate Token to protect her, she is instantly devoured. Damn, that church must have been a front for Yog cultists!
Anyway, fun game. Psychologist is pretty good because of the free sanity recharge. But I lost too much time in the earlygame to keep up with things.
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VC2 - *Gnaws on Pyro.*
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Final Fantasy Legend 3: Beat it.
The game started out rather strong, but became less interesting later. Traveling trough time is fun, traveling trough pureland is not. Pureland had a mysterious feel, but that mysterious feel gets lost if you spend more time there than anywhere else. I think it would have served the game much better had it made the past, present and future maps bigger and downsized pureland and underworld instead. Heck, was there any point to underworld period?
The difficulty came in wave. Bosses went easy->hard->easy->hard->easy where the last couple of bossed rode the easy wave. The first hard->easy change came when I got Cure 2 and the second when I got Cure A and shortly thereafter Cure B as well.
The transformation system was fun, albeit broken. Monsters seem near useless, I could not see what they have over beasts, but I could definitely see what they lacked. Robots are extremely overpowered as soon as you can afford to buy 135 or so capsules, which happens earlier than midgame, and will then gradually sink to only being a little overpowered as the game progress. Cyborgs and Beasts loses any disadvantage they may to humans once you get a mystic weapon and Beasts will do so even earlies when their martial arts catches up with human weapons. I think the gameboy wasn't ready for that challenge. Heck, from what I've heard the SaGa Frontier didn't really manage to balance having characters with different growth methods correctly, so I can't expect an earlier game in the series to do anything but worse.
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DQIX: Yay Sage! Finally got the class, and now I can change classes from the comfort of anywhere. At the most likely final dungeon.
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Beat Ratchet: Deadlocked, always a fun series to play.
Started DQ8 the other day since I don't remember much of it from the only other time I played it. Had one reset on the first boss because I'm stupid and used that time to try and remember all the kinks to using tension instead of some random encounter. Game went generally smooth from then until I got to Khalimari. I may have been under leveled for this, but I had something like five resets here, I blame most of them on the turn order being pretty much random in the early game, since several of the resets were basically due to the boss flame breathing last one turn and then finishing off the hero before either characters could go the next and me just resetting even though I could probably have soloed the boss with Yangus from there because boss experience or something.
Got the Alchemy pot, decided that I would be a whore and use it to break the game as I go, did some chest exploring, had a random reset because MT SLEEP WOOOO, and then got the team decked out in armor and weapons of the equivalent from Pickham by the time I actually entered the Old Abbey, boss there died to two Yangus untensioned defense lowering axe move, one 50 tension boomerang from the Hero, and one half of a 50 tension Twin dragon Lance, to which I gawk at how well knowing alchemy recipes makes the game easier >.>.
Did the castle place, arrived at Pickham, decided to do the casino and make more overpower alchemy stuffs for that point in the game because I'm addicted to gambling anyways, ended up face palming at myself because I started this when I saved after Medea got horsenapped, and therefore do not actually have the Alchemy pot to mix half the stuff I've been gambling for. Continuing to gamble still though because I only got about half the things I wanted in the last session before I payed too much attention to a bingo game and got trolled by the game lining up three numbers with the freespace and proceed to not only miss the 400x coin return number but also just lose flat out in the end, at which point I figured it would be a good stopping point.
Liking the game alot more then the first time I played it, so far the only things that have really erked me ar eearly game random speed happenings, and magic names generally telling me nothing, which ends up being minor since they at least come with descriptions. Game also badly needs sceneskip and fast text but whatever.
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Final Fantasy Legend 3: Beat it.
The transformation system was fun, albeit broken.
I think the gameboy wasn't ready for that challenge. Heck, from what I've heard the SaGa Frontier didn't really manage to balance having characters with different growth methods correctly, so I can't expect an earlier game in the series to do anything but worse.
Actually, SaGa Frontier mostly just tweaks SaGa2's (Final Fantasy Legend 2's) Race system. And it is definitely -more- balanced than FFL3's, albeit not by much. They share a lot of the same problems, but SaGa2 and SaGaF do a much better job of making the different races each have a niche or a point in the game where they really shine... and more competent challenges help, too. Still unpolished, and can have wonky balance in some places, and marred by translation- and accessability- issues like not properly explaining how the different Races actually -work- in-game, but that's the hallmark of the SaGa series! ...>.>;;
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Broke down and ebay'd most of the PS2 games I still wanted, principally GODHAND!!! (and also Soul Nomad, DDR:X2, MMXCM, and Wizardry: tale of the forsaken land.)
Now all I need is time to play them, ha ha ha.
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Lost Odyssey - Just beat Disc 3. Fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game, fuck you game. The last 4... 5 hours? Maybe more? They all sucked. Splitting up your party sucks. Splitting your party up sucks even more in this game than usual. They make you run around with a party of fucking mages. In a game where mages run like half the HP of fighters and defense to match. Final dungeon of the disc you can face mobs in packs of 6 or so. They can just burst down and kill someone if they want, nothing you can do about it, no fancy application of spells will do it. Level scales Suikoden style so you can't really just grind to surpass it. So much hate for this dungeon. OH and the enemies can have packs that cast status. There was a pack of 5 that I fought that could burst someone down, 3 of the mobs could cast Sleep and one could cast MT Silence. You can block one status at a time at best for 3/4 of the party and nothing else in the dungeon uses status. So you are not going to be setup to handle this. The worst part? You get to the boss and he has autoreflect. You cannot dispel reflect. The boss can cast innitiative ST non-elemental spell (no resistance possible) that hits you for about 1000 damage. Capable of one shotting one character, like 90% damage on the others, goes before items which until this point as far as I know have always gone first. Has MT freeze and can hit a whole row with a status that I think is a slow effect (chill?). FUCK YOU GAME FUCK YOU GAME FUCK YOU GAME FUCK YOU GAME.
Thankfully FAQbait bullshit lets you know before hand to stock up on attack items and I guess his HP pool isn't insanely huge (it is ... big for what it is). Has relatively low damage, but it shuts you out from attacking and kills you slowly. It is all manageable but it is incredibly boring, the whole dungeon is a boring pointless slog and it is after along series of long boring pointless slog dungeons (3 of them are because the 2 kids in the party decided to steal a train and run off without telling any one else what they were doing... Serously fuck you game, most of Disc 3 is taken up with that crap).
The game is still pretty good I guess? It is starting to out stay its welcome, mostly because they have decided to shake things up a bit when the game needed no shaking.
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Games games games
LFT - Summoner SCC, woot. I should actually post detailed updates or something but I'm lazy. I've almost finished Chapter 3 (just the roof left). It is harder than in vanilla due to the weaker skillset and better enemies, but still not an overly deadly SCC even by vanilla standards. Nothing too surprising. Hardest fights so far are Fort Zeakden and the Execution Site. Also Dorter Slums but only because I insisted on not doing any extra fights before it and thus having nothing but Moogle, Oak Staff beatdowns, and crappy stats. Also Knight Algus with 5 move to be the perfect punching bag to sap Wizard MP.
Suikoden Tierkreis - Digging this. Gameplay is blah, but not notably worse than past non-3 Suikodens except that it's too easy. Encounter rate is too high, which I only complain about in games that have crappy combat. Overall similar enough to 4-5 in this department I guess. Plot is good stuff, much better constructed than most RPGs. Detailed comments probably need to wait, but for now I'll say that this game explores its fatalistic theocracy a lot better than a certain Tales game, and the political interplay has been pretty good times. Also talking main does plot games so many favours it's not funny. I highly doubt it'll reach the upper echelons of Suikoden plot, but it's different enough to attract attention, and I'm glad I got around to playing it. More Suikoden fans need to. For my part, I'm some 14 or so hours in, just got the tablet of stars and NotZerase.
Oh yeah, and the game lacks war battles and duels. I'm... undecided if I care.
Saga Frontier - The game doesn't exactly believe in polish, does it? Sorta the opposite of Tierkreis, polish of "what" and meh plot (good ideas at least, just no writing), but hey, it has gameplay! Not amazing gameplay, the flaws are obvious enough, but entertaining enough to hold my attention. Playing as Asellus, other PCs are my girlfriend, some French mage, a girl in a bunny suit, and a fist-using drunk. Aww yeah. I just beat some girl who thinks she's a lion and have done three of the tarot quests, PCs are hovering around Level um... HP in the 500's generally.
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Finally, Elf plays the game. Now to see his opinions on it and DL stuff!
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Got my new toy (http://www.amazon.com/Wii-Tatsunoko-Capcom-Arcade-FightStick-Nintendo/dp/B0032ISZL8/ref=sr_1_1?tag=slickdeals&s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1285595579&sr=1-1&prv=forums&cur=forums&ses=) today. Took some time to find button configurations that make sense/feel natural, and am relearning things. Ironically enough, the game it's designed for (TvsC) can't utilize the two far-right buttons, but other games like Samurai Shodown Anthology can.
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God power keeps my pimp hand strong.
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If you don't already have L4D or L4D2, they are like six bucks a piece on Steam until Thursday at 4 PM, in celebration of the new campaign (that is free!). Or you can get the bundle for 11 dollars, which is both games.
If you have it on console, know that this free campaign costs more on Live than the game itself does on Steam, because apparently you are not ALLOWED to have free content on Live.
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Etrian Odyssey 3: So, this game isn't out over here, but one of my friends got me an import copy for my birthday. OH DEAR GOD I KEEP DYING. Yeah, this is typical Atlus. That said, having not played EO2, this is a huuuuge jump up for me. Limits, the Port and actually having some early character interaction makes this much, MUCH better than EO1, and I like the vaguely different classes, for all that I'm not using most of the original ones.
Team is:
Prince Cosmos
Monk Katylin
Arbalist Leodil
Zodiac Isolde
Farmer Wololo
First two are front row, other three in the back. The Farmer is surprisingly good at surviving, which is good for my Exp. Taken so many Exp boosters, it's kinda ridiculous. Fun game is fun, although I don't like griiiiiiind.
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Dead Rising: Beat 72 Hour Mode. Fun little game if hard to play in long instances, and easy to futz up little things. Would have probably preferred i the game was 96 hour mode instead of 72 hours, with the same amount of plot content, only to let you actually have time to do some of optional things. So many points where you finish one case and its like "2 hours til the next" such that you pretty much have to bee-line to the next case and don't really have time to save someone or deal with a Psycho-path.
The plot...honestly, its not that bad! No, its not good, but it keeps things simple and easy. There's a zombie invasion in the mall, survive for 72 hours while trying to uncover truth. Sure, the whole "Zombie Cattle" thing is silly, but whatever; outside of that, its pretty sensible. Guy is a terrorist who got hands on it, tries to use Zombie Apocalypse for revenge, what have you. The game was able to keep a straight face cause the plot is pretty simplistic and typical Zombie Apocalypse stuff.
None of this batshit insane nonsense Resident Evil comes up with "A corporation tried to make super bio-weapons through usage of the Ebola virus, they got zombies instead. They try to use this still even though it keeps killing half their staff!"
Ultimate Ghouls and Ghosts: Found this rare game for a cheap price and I couldn't pass up the opportunity. After reading about how the game is more lenient in regards to taking hits, how many lives you have, power ups you get, spawn points, etc, I was questionable how this game could live up to previous entries...
...no, its very much likes its older brothers. The game kicks your ass, pisses on you, kicks you in the balls a few times, then drops a tank cruiser on you, all while feeding your young to hungry crocodiles. I'm not even completely through the second stage and I've already had like 14 continues.
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Borderlands: Beat the main campaign with Mordechai. A 300-damage, lightning-fast, scoped, 3X fire revolver was my arsenal's MVP in the Crimson Lance sections, along with a 400-point quick-health-regen shield. On to the Zombie Island of Dr.
ZNed!
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DQ9: Beat the Trainwreck(er), so I have to assume I'm about to fight the final boss.
L4D2: Beat The Sacrifice.
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DQ9 - After giving bad luck in Pokemon the finger I threw this back in just for something to play that was mindless. Started the aftergame. Should have done this earlier so I could have laughed at how stupid and pointless the after game makes the main plot. Oh hey five minutes after you have given up your immortality, lol have a fygg eat it lol ur a angle agein!!!
But suddenly! Plot threads dry up and you have to wander around aimlessly.
hooray.
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Godhand helps me work out my stress.
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Godhand helps me work out my stress.
BUt is it overpowering, you must confess?
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I think we both already know the answer to that.
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The correct answer was something along the lines of "Its God Power keeps my pimp hand strong" >:(
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Hatbot, who does his Godhand not work on?
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Pokemon White
Finished the main storyline! The final fights were extremely scary though the final boss was a lot easier for me than the entirety of the E4, I don't know what that says really.
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Etrian Odyssey 3: I'm down to B3F, having entered the Labyrinth 23 times, apparently, and walked 3754 steps. This game's already much better but SO MUCH MORE CHALLENGING than the first one. Thankfully, it's challenging in a good way - yes, I keep dying, but I'm dying because I'm going further than I can afford to and end up dying on the way back. Thankfully, I also made Wololo learn To Market as soon as possible, so I can teleport back to Armoroad, as long as he survives!
...That's easier said than done. Each floor having a challenging enemy in the randoms makes it damn difficult to get through, let alone the FOEs existing. >.<
Katylin and Cosmos are falling behind on levels because my front row gets attacked more. Wololo thankfully survives more, so he's my highest level. Isolde has learnt Binary Thunder, so now has MT and ST damage, and is now starting to learn different elements. Leodil sits there and smashes things with arrows. Probably MVP in-battle at the moment. ;o
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Ultimate Ghouls and Ghosts: So Stage 5 wasn't nearly as scary as I was expecting...of course, the game then went "You didn't find all the rings, go redo stages until you do." A GnG game that makes you replay it before you can properly beat it, act shocked <_<
Generally speaking, I'm noting the bosses in this game are relatively tame. They're not push overs, but they're not really that hard either. THEN AGAIN, I seem to recall that bosses in the series were rarely that hard, it was more...everything else that'd kill you <_<
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FFTA2- Must collect shinies. Plot? What plot?
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My friend went off to the army and left me with his PS3.
So weeeeeeee my first next gen console FINALLY!
Games he left me: RE5, Red Dead Redemption, Infamous, Little Big Planet, and one more I think...
Obviously I want to play these for a bit, but what are some of the better RPGs out for the system?
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I've heard hype for Valkyria Chronicles.
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Valkyria Chronicles is excellent - right up there with FFT and FE10 for strategy games, as far as I'm concerned (though probably more comparable to FE7, on consideration).
FF13 has its fans and non-fans, but there isn't much out there that makes better use of the system's power, graphically that is. Not such a big deal if you don't have an HD TV.
I like Disgaea 3 - http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/haters-gonna-hate
White Knight Chronicles is garbage.
Puzzle Quest?
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Just finished the prologue of Suikoden 3, this time decided to go with MC Chris, and since she already has a Brass Castle, I decided to name her home base Zinc Castle. Currently recruiting, though I finished the prologue wih 74/108, so this will be limited. That said, tooling around in Viney del Zexey for the three recruits there before hunting down Vicki. Sadly, cannot justify leaving behind the one in the Northern Cavern.
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My friend went off to the army and left me with his PS3.
So weeeeeeee my first next gen console FINALLY!
Games he left me: RE5, Red Dead Redemption, Infamous, Little Big Planet, and one more I think...
Obviously I want to play these for a bit, but what are some of the better RPGs out for the system?
Mass Effect 2 is out for the PS3 now, or will be soon, I think.
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I've heard hype for Valkyria Chronicles.
This. I'm hard-pressed to name another PS3 exclusive really worth caring about (alright, Dis3 and MGS4 exist, but I found both perfectly average games) and VC is generally excellent.
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Are we talking exclusives, then? I was under the impression it was just anything.
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I'm fairly sure Scar has a 360?
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Well, he says "my first next-gen console." despite the fact it should be "current-gen" by now, four years later, I think that means he does not.
Also going to recommend Nier. Kinda hit or miss but the story is fantastic and the D ending is kooky.
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Oh. Right. Me can reed.
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Ahhh, had missed that part. Does make some difference. Nier is worth playing, yeah.
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No 360 personally. My gf has every next (I mean current) gen console, but then I'd have to go over to her house to play them.
Which isn't a bad thing I suppose.
But I need me time dag nabbit!
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Ahhh, had missed that part. Does make some difference. Nier is worth playing, yeah.
Some dude translated a bunch of supplemental material about the side characters and weapons and such. I don't think a single one ends anything close to well.
Still, Nier has... The Best of Both Worlds.
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Not an RPG but should be out in Platinum/The Best/El Cheapo edition by now, inFamous is pretty awesome and looks to be the one of the two that has lasted longer in gamer's collective memory between it and Prototype. Errrr Force Unleashed was alrightish? RPGs on PS3 are honestly kind of meh. Eternal Sonata sucked horribly. It didn't get Blue Dragon. Enchanted Arms is alright? It has none of the "decent release RPG for a change" thing going for it that the X-Box version did. It has a tranny playing saxaphone I guess. If you are just after "eh this is alright" and need an RPG it is a good contender. Star Ocean 4 blows goats for quarters. There really isn't that many RPGs on the system I bother with. It has a good stable of action games though.
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There aren't a whole lot of noteworthy RPGs on modern consoles, and a lot of the quality ones are better played on a PC anyway.
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Demon Souls? That's the main reason I want a PS3, other than VC. >.>
Anyways, @topic:
Etrian Odyssey 3: For something that kills me so damn much, this game is addictive. The port exploration is so much fun, mostly because I'm a sucker for puzzles and that's more exploration-based puzzle than griiiiiiind.
...Except I just died on a sea quest. Hrm. Go, go, difficulty curve? Ah, well, time to carry on griiiiiinding. >.<
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Sea quests... in general you'll do okay if you're a few levels above the NPCs asking you to help out.
EO3: Almost... done... with... second... strata...
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Oh, hrm. Managed to win one of the second set of quests, despite only being around Lv 10 at the time. Then really failed it up against the next one. >.>
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Heh.
Some of the help is... uh... severely incompetent compared to what needs to be done. Some aren't. Really depends on which group it is. (The Princess+bodyguards squadron is usually pretty competent, esp. for a three-person group. Then there's the "Three Youth", who pretty much suck.)
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Some of the help is... uh... severely incompetent compared to what needs to be done. Some aren't. Really depends on which group it is. (The Princess+bodyguards squadron is usually pretty competent, esp. for a three-person group. Then there's the "Three Youth", who pretty much suck.)
*strikes Three Youths, replaces with Farmer and Gladiator duo. <_<*
Granted Three Youths works to the nature of the Batavia Sea Quest, but still, the Farmer and Gladiator duo is sorta terrible.
Etrian Odyssey 3: So, this game isn't out over here, but one of my friends got me an import copy for my birthday. OH DEAR GOD I KEEP DYING. Yeah, this is typical Atlus. That said, having not played EO2, this is a huuuuge jump up for me. Limits, the Port and actually having some early character interaction makes this much, MUCH better than EO1, and I like the vaguely different classes, for all that I'm not using most of the original ones.
Team is:
Prince Cosmos
Monk Katylin
Arbalist Leodil
Zodiac Isolde
Farmer Wololo
That's a pretty frail team right there, in fairness. You may or may not want to switch out someone for a Hoplite, since they tend to make good targets for the AI, have decent damage, and can cover people. Though if you don't want to go through the trouble of raising one up from scratch you can probably manage without.
Also oh right yeah I play things.
Etrian Odyssey 3: Oddly enough I haven't run into a wipe yet. Well, I'm only on Floor 7, so that's bound to change eventually.
4 Heroes Of Light: So this is a game about hats. I see.
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Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep
All three stories finished, final scenario beaten.
What can I say about KH BBS? It's fun. Whether making new command/abilities, taking out hordes of enemies while balancing several of your powers/abilities/modes, or beating an insanely hard boss, the game just doesn't ever stop being fun. I will say that some of the bosses are unfairly hard on Proud mode (which I was told I had to play lest it be impossible for me to get the final scenario). But I suppose I am partly to blame for not optimizing skillsets prior to boss fights (Some group-target stuff is worthless against them, say).
The plot is silly, but hey Disney characters so it can be at least nostalgic. The main three characters aren't exactly stellar, in part because of some very poor VA on the part of Terra and Aqua (This does not prevent me from liking Aqua due to style. CARTWHEELS).
But yeah, fantastic gameplay and Disney = a KH game for sure.
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Resonance of Fate: Hey, I finished this! Also, I recommend it as a breezy current-gen RPG.
Plot is scarce, but character interaction is really fun and light-hearted, despite the very dark setting.
More importantly, the battle system comes together quite nicely. My only complaint is that it stagnates as it goes on. It really needed to evolve a little bit more or offer more powerful options or something.
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Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition (Not sure if this is different then any other edition.)
Started on Ameture, because I haven't played a RE game since Code Veronica.
Uhm, this game is fun I guess. My gf won't even watch me play this game which is mildly amusing. She says it will give her nightmares, but whatever.
I must have missed quite a bit in the RE storyline, because I am lost as far as some of the things that are going on in the story.
I am currently in chapter 3-2, and I just got away from the oil factory.
Question: Should I save my money on better weapons to upgrade or should I say...upgrade this Magnum which I and sexing with right now?
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You can find pretty much every weapon in the game for free if you look hard enough. Also generally speaking upgrading the default weapons wind up working out best.
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PW3 Trials & Tribulations Wii -
Finished. Pretty good in general.
Loading pause-saves didn't end up deleting them simultaneously, thankfully.
Overstated the amount to which point-out-on-this-picture screens are shrunk to last time - it's closer to one quarter than one sixth, as would make sense. This does not exactly let it off the hook however, especially since I found out later on that you could hold 1 while you have the court record up over something to render it invisible instead of closing the record and reopening it afterwards. The heck didn't they use that sort of functionality.
Breath of Fire 1 GBA -
Picked this up to see whether an ebayer was selling generic games or not as it was cheap compared to something else I had my eye on and I really should have a legit copy of BoF1 anyway. Doesn't seem to exhibit any of the regular symptoms of generic-itis, but the other item I was considering was sold off while BoF was shipping, unfortunately.
Anyway, I hadn't replayed BoF1 in a while, so it was the perfect time to start.
Currently up to fetching some water to deal with Romero's zombies.
Persona 3 -
Currently 26/04. Recently unlocked the 5th floor terminal so I will be heading up there the next chance I get probably. Seems fairly enjoyable so far. Seems like people get tired pretty easily - hopefully this is just due to being early on?
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How long you go before getting tired is a function of level, so yeah. It's just because you're early.
Level (or, rather, level GAPS) are also a modifier to damage dealt and status hit rates, so basically if at any point in that game you struggle you're supposed to go out and level.
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Saga Frontier - Beat Asellus' quest! Got the full mystic ending for great Ciato fandom, it is pretty awesome.
Game was quite fun overall. It has a bit of a learning/adapting curve which is mostly the fault of its rather cumbersome, clunky interface. The game just plain doesn't tell you a lot of important things, from navigating the world to how most of its systems work. It's a shame because, although they're not perfect, it's obvious a lot of love went into said systems. The game ended up being quite addicting by the end and the fanbase is easy to fathom, although I have nooo idea what I rate the game myself. Game's plot barely exists, but what is there is far from the genre norm, so that's something I respect at least. It's not a game you can really play for plot, but for a gameplay game with little plot, it works okay.
Final party had around 800 HP by the end or so, which I'm told is a bit high, but eh, I did all the dungeons more or less, even ones that there's no compelling plot reason to do, so that's probably why. I didn't fight nearly everything in 'em though. For all that the game doesn't really encourage you to? I dunno. Don't think it matters too much. Game time was around 14 hours.
My dudes!
Asellus - Well, I was too lazy to get good absorbs for her, so she couldn't really rape bosses as badly as would have been fun. Since bosses in the game are kinda rare and the only competent late one was Orlouge, this didn't really matter too much. Anyway, loved swords. Deflect and Kasumi are sexy, and Asellus got RosarioImpale and Haze-to-Wheel easily, with various other ST attacks and Gale Slash (really early!) holding her until then. Asura is pretty broked for... pretty much the whole game, but certainly stupidly so early.
White Rose - Great early as a healer/support character/decent mage. Her stats and damage both certainly fell off as time went by, particularly the latter, even though she had Megawindblast. 'sokay, works as a jeigan of sorts.
Mesarthim - Only had for one dungeon, but I have to point out that Life Rain is awesome.
Gen - Used him to punch things. He got DSC like halfway through the game, but I refused to use it since it is silly. (Well, besides once to see shiny.) Anyway, fists generally seemed a little inferior to swords, due to lack of MT and deflect-style shenanigans (Okay, there is KO Throw and Swayback, but whatever), as well as less damage overall. Of course, they have the benefit of not needing a weapon, which isn't negligible or anything. Solid enough.
Emilia - Gunner. For the first half of the game... well, bad initially. Then she got Stun Shot and Quickdraw, and suddenly she could MT stun enemies about 2/3 of the time. Not bad! But not much else, so pretty mediocre, especially for those rare bosses. Then eventually I decided "uh maybe I should actually give her a gun that didn't suck". This was after she'd learned the entire damn gun skillset, for the record. And suddenly she vaulted into game-best damage with Two-Gun Lethal Gun Trick Shot, decent MT backup, initiative, etc., and was one of the best PCs for sure. Eventually lost best damage to Asellus again but no big.
Rouge - Casts the spells that makes people fall down. Just seemed so good at picking up and using any magic I wanted, 8 skill slots unlike the mystics was really nice. Got Light early to go with his Realm stuff, Arcane when I did that quest which was probably done about halfway through or so. Arcane wasn't really too impressive (biggest use I got out of it was free Snake Oils, in effect) but smashing things with Megawindblast worked very effectively and Implosion was a terrific cost-effective damage/instant death move, and Starlight Heal is always handy. Speed and durability were a bit shaky (main downside of magic near as I can tell, for humans at least), but skillset + MT is cool.
Sharp Pain Zozma - Holy crap Sharp Pain is stupid good. Nothing else about Zozma is especially notable, but hey, Sharp Pain made him an easy fit to slide into another party. Waited until getting him to do the Rune quests so he could do something in boss fights, Victory and Vitality Runes are cool enough, Soul Rune seems like it'd be cool on someone with damage but haha. Starlight Heal is helpful as always. Managed to get him three Suzakus as absorbs which are apparently really good, who knew! Generally I found mystic abilities not even close to worth the troubling of messing around with, just getting the stuff for non-fail stats was trying enough. And he had a cannon if he really needed to do something approaching damage, but why bother? Sharp Pain everything, be a good buffer/healer for bosses. It worked.
Uh huh. Don't ask me which quest I'm playing next. Maybe Emilia.
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LFT Summoner SCC - At Murond. I'll throw a more detailed summary into the LFT topic at some point, since Laggy actually reads that. Odin is awesome. Adramelk is satan.
Suikoden Tierkreis - Level 42, 51 stars of destiny, 25 hours in. Still a highly enjoyable story. Little to say without spoilers.
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Did you enjoy the furrytastic scenes?
Lost Odyssey - Side questing time on Disc 4. Doing stuff. Things are happening. Going to do the download dungeon because I payed for it more than I really wanted to. Good game but just a touch to long, the plot and gameplay aren't fully realised enough to sustain a 40 hour RPG (nevermind that I have like 50 hours up on it? I think I left it on by accident one day), but a 30ish hour one would have worked just fine.
Have read a few guides on bits and pieces and have seen fights that people reccomend parties that don't use all the Immortals. This is silly.
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DQ9: Beat main game, got the Whistle.
Hero (Warrior): Mastered swords, shields, Paladin, dabbled in a few others. Focused on tankitude and dealing damage through swords. Was consistantly the best damage shield, MVP.
Female Gladiator: Mastered knives, Paladin, Thief. Basically centered around speed and stealing, which was helpful in everything but fights. LVP of the final sections.
Female Martial Artist (L59): Mastered claws, halfway done MA. Never changed vocations. Ever. A definite Glass Cannon, best damage dealer from about Alltrades until the Hero got Erdrick's Sword.
Male Sage: Mastered wands, Sage, Mage, about half-done several others. Healer for the final battles.
Super Mario Galaxy: Unlocked third hub, 21 stars.
No More Heroes: Two words - Flat "What." Got to the first save point.
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Etrian Odyssey 3: Whee second stratum cleared and subclasses get
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EO3: B12. Ninja/Monk is completely hilariously awesome silliness. Not... broken, per se? But totally amusing. CLONE *clone dies, enemy eats a fire counter, team gets 60 HP healing, Ninja heals TP* CLONE *ad nauseum* Accurate damaging MT can take the wind out of its sails easily enough, but ST opponents -hate- the Ninja. Flat out hate.
Chose to protect, which I think means I get Yggdroids. Will probably do retirements after I get them (well, get people to L40 since everyone's close) and recalibrate my team some. Main team's Hoplite/Warrior/Princess// NinjaMonk/Buccaneer, haven't solidly decided on subclasses for Hoplite/Princess/Buccaneer, gonna do YggdroidWarrior.
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LO- Also doing most of the side 4 on disk 4! Cleared out basically everything minus...Temple of Enlightenment and one other dungeon I believe.
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started Soul Nomad. I underestimated how literally this game is Ogre Battle meets Disgaea (closer to Makai Kingdom, actually, what with the bodiless overlord/menu, but anyway...). Gig is entertaining, and whatsername the cowgirl is a great foil to him. Fun stuff.
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whoaholyshit were those your end game levels or ones after doing post game? Cause maaan I did the final at like 45 at highest and still haven't wiped yet >_> Ooooooooverkill.
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That's a pretty frail team right there, in fairness. You may or may not want to switch out someone for a Hoplite, since they tend to make good targets for the AI, have decent damage, and can cover people. Though if you don't want to go through the trouble of raising one up from scratch you can probably manage without.
Yeah, figured that much myself. Decided to create some different classes anyways for fun, so got a Buccaneer, Hoplite and Gladiator; I decided to keep Ashnan the Hoplite, replacing Prince Cosmos. Currently levelling him up and still failing at quests. >.>
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FFTA2- Done.
The game is a massive step up from the little I played of FFTA1, but still pretty flawed.
The good: Large, varied cast system. Plot and writing are perfectly acceptable with the context of the game. Gameplay's addictive. It's a ton of fun to play and sucks up time like crazy. I'm being briefer here, since the flaws are what I want to focus on and it's merits are pretty obvious.
The bad: The actual balance of the system's wonky. Your gear is highly dependent on how devoted you are to stealing/missions, which is one thing. But if you get one of the looting skills early or late, you can really miss out. You don't get as much variety within the system until late as you expect due to this. Law mechanics are still highly stupid, and the game takes away revival from you if you break laws. The game needed a sceneskip/textskip option as well.
The WTF: RANGER. ZERG. RUSH. There is no reason to do anything else for the main game offense wise. Mirror Item and item lore are easy to get, and rangers are a free recruit. Once you do that, hello GDragon level damage that only recruits spending a cheap storebought potion. The stat topic probably undersells just how average shatteringly good Rangers were for the entire game, as damage spikes up some at endgame. Blood price summons/green mages make great support as well. Beyond that, the actual gap in value between value with the races is pretty bad. Rangers (Seeq) dominate the game offensively, and Viera have about a half dozen excellent classes and are really awesome status slingers. The rest is some shade of filler, though humans do have some nice lategame setups.
Ended up with 110~ missions done, but also rushed endgame a fair deal. The system was addictive as hell and you could advance the plot whenever. Final gametime was 54 hours.
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Mesarthim - Only had for one dungeon, but I have to point out that Life Rain is awesome.
You can go back and get her permanently if you want to, at least in Asellus's quest. I do this in pretty much every quest that lets me because yay Life Rain.
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RE:5 Beaten
Uhm, it was ok, needed more scare moments, but the whole partner thing I guess takes away from that.
So....this is the end of the series?
Oh well on to Red Dead Redemption!
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So....this is the end of the series?
Given how much money it made? This is Capcom we're talking about here.
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Don't they have *2* RE Spin offs planned for the 3DS?
And I think they did state that RE6 is a confirmed title, just that they haven't done any real work on it, and that's why there's literally no info about it. Could be wrong, but...
Well, considering that RE is apparently their best selling Franchise of all time, to think RE5 is going to be the end is silly. MAYBE it'll be the end of the main storyline (I haven't played the game, I just know Wesker gets a volcanic lava bath), and they'll take an RE4-style route for plot in the next game, but who knows. I'm sure there will be another Main-stream title down the line, or at least a Code Veronica type game (ie "This could have been in the main stream based on plot, game play, and characters used, but we're pretending its a spin off cause its on a different console!")
But yeah, its naive to think this would be the end of RE, much as the plot may imply it. I'm personally waiting for a "Resident Evil Outlaw" with Clemens Redfield gunning down zombies on a horse in 1873 US.
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Betting 10 bucks that Wild West RE will have Wesker.
EDIT: By that, I don't mean a predecessor. I mean "complete global... PENETRATION MASTURBATION CASTRATION saturation" Wesker.
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One of the REs on 3DS is just a mishmash of RE4 and RE5 Mercenaries mode. Which is pretty cool for handheld, but.
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Betting 10 bucks that Wild West RE will have Wesker.
EDIT: By that, I don't mean a predecessor. I mean "complete global... PENETRATION MASTURBATION CASTRATION saturation" Wesker.
I figured that went without saying. I also figured that "Being hurled into a volcano and blown up after turning into a monstrosity caused him to FULLY HEAL and travel back over 100 years in time!" would be a given as a plot point too.
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Mesarthim - Only had for one dungeon, but I have to point out that Life Rain is awesome.
You can go back and get her permanently if you want to, at least in Asellus's quest. I do this in pretty much every quest that lets me because yay Life Rain.
If I don't miss my guess, you can permanently recruit Mesarthim in any quest where you can get a non-Silence Mystic to join you.
...Right?
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PokeWhite, some thoughts.
Got this a few days ago, just beat the third gym. It's the first pokemon game I've played in Japanese, so that's a bit of adjustment (cross-language puns are weird). But I like it so far, a number of the gameplay/interface advances are welcome (way more in-battle information). Lack of an autorun function is aargh, though.
Smug snake has probably the worst first form of any starter. Particularly with Tackle beefed. Vine Whip is barely batter even with STAB, and there's very little that Grass is effective against for the first couple of towns.
Not that I regret choosing him. Smug snake is clearly superior to constipated otter or pork roast.
I like the innovation of the first gym always playing against your weaknesses (it changes depending on which starter you choose).
The lack of pokemon from older generations in the main game feels like a good choice. Makes it less unwieldy. As always, I kinda wonder if we needed another Pidgey clone, Rattata clone etc., but this generation is no worse than previous ones, and not having the older editions around at least hides the similarities somewhat. And pokemon inventory feels like it diverges pretty quickly. Plenty of type combination innovation and whatnot.
Haven't really warmed up to many of the new pokes aesthetically, though I think I might decide to like the grumpy centipede.
Still deciding how I feel about the unlimited TM use. I think it's probably a good choice, I'm far more likely to make use of kinda marginal moves that I get TMs for, rather than hoarding them for some highly unlikely future in which they'll be actually useful. And it makes finding them a bigger deal. Obviously I have no idea how it'll affect after- and end-game yet, I could see that getting a bit weird, but it will presumably remove the reason to waste hours and hours on casino bullshit and/or cheat to land the e.g. 3 Earthquake tms you need to round out your final team.
Yeah, so far so good. Wish I'd gotten that Jirachi a few months back. I like foxes. (or does Canada even get the wi-fi event stuff? I've never tried)
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Mesarthim - Only had for one dungeon, but I have to point out that Life Rain is awesome.
You can go back and get her permanently if you want to, at least in Asellus's quest. I do this in pretty much every quest that lets me because yay Life Rain.
If I don't miss my guess, you can permanently recruit Mesarthim in any quest where you can get a non-Silence Mystic to join you.
...Right?
Believe so. Which is...I want to say most of them. I'm pretty sure Riki's quest is excluded because Riki's quest is ass. Can't remember about T260G/Blue (I think not in Blue's case since he can't recruit Timelord and there aren't many other widely-available mystics?), she's definitely permanent in the others.
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I think you can get Dr. Nusakan in Blue's?
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Everyone except T260G can get Mesarthim, via one of Nusakan or Timelord at worst.
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I think if I ever made a game, the leads would rail the fuck out of each other like a third of the way through the game just to get it out of their systems.
In other news, a group of Bros and I got together and played Left 4 Dead 2, or as I like to call it... Left 5 Dead. As it turns out they are all much better than me, as my goal is mostly to re-enact scenes from Machete.
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World of Warcraft: Patch 4.0.1. I dunno shit anymore.
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As above, I am weak. Only paying for a month just to see things and then the plan is to be out again.
Frost DK priority list feels completely alien and everything feels slow as fuck (part of this is bad play) and I like have nothing to do during AoE. The most versatile DK AoE spec has one thing to do during AoE now. It is weird. Might swap to unholy and give it a play. Blood tree now as the tanking one, I specced blood for the first time. Fiddled with that a bit. Not at all happy with it. Blood rotation was boring which was the reason I haven't played. It feels slow as well. I found DK tanking already slow and incredibly reliant on amazing timing with RP and runes to come up. With everything being slower this just exacerbates the case. Especially since you can't reach the reduced DnD CD talent at 80... Edit - Talent doesn't exist anymore, will have to investigate DK changes more.
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Well, paladin tanks are still pretty good except for the lack of a shield wall, which I will get at 85. And since that is the only spec I care about, I'm happy.
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Sonic 4: You can really tell they used Sonic 2 as their bible - to the point where I couldn't tell you what the casino zone's music sounds like because all I could hear was the Casino Night Zone theme. It works more often than not. Timing the homing attack can be finicky, and it's waaaaaaaaaaaaaay too easy to get extra lives (I'm in zone 2, act 2, and have 18), but it's very much got the spirit of the Genesis games. Woo!
One Chaos Emerald so far. Stupid Sonic 1-style special stages.
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Everyone except T260G can get Mesarthim, via one of Nusakan or Timelord at worst.
Yeah, but if you can beat TimeLord, you really don't need Mesarthim... >.>;;
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You don't have to beat Timelord to get him... in fact the only quest you fight him in you can't get him!
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WA:ACF - Alright, I... Put this game on hold for a good long while, but after realizing that a friend of mine had almost caught up to me in plot, I decided to go kind of turbo in how far I got.
Point of start: Town of Milama just before going through the Sand Canal.
Remembered that I was originally grinding Trolls for Fast Draw XP. Eventually got bored of that and went through the Sand Canal proper.
Sand Canal: Eh... Not an enjoyable place. Did not enjoy the fact that I had to find that damn monkey every time I wanted to progress. Tile path puzzles were a pain for a while - oddly, the first was the hardest one of all. Was glad to be out of there, and went back in to get the bonus items. Yay.
Ship Graveyard: Blah.
Gento Soen: I like the design of this place. Boss was annoying, what with an HP -> 1 attack, but I never really felt threatened. Yay, Light-elemental summon. Other than that... Oh god, I have to go back for a secret boss.
Ship Graveyard: Got Acute Angle. It doesn't see a lot of use due to being too expensive when I first get it - getting it trained up with Trolls takes a while later in plot. Bart plot again.
Ghost Ship: This... Has got to be the first real bit of plot change in ACF that I really liked - it was actually made relevant to Filgaia's history. The computers onboard really give it the feeling of a warship used long ago, but it also makes the game feel a lot shorter, due to Rudy getting his third tool in here. Boss was a pain in the ass, but I liked that - the game finds different ways to remain challenging. It was also the first real time I had to use items. Game gave me a 15-minute timer to escape, but I didn't need more than 5. Free healing inside the ship was also cool - I really wish I could have taken that First Aid Kit with me.
Filgaia: And SO MUCH opens up to me now. Sword Swipe get. Too bad it's useless - it can't even kill Rat Monkeys. Still have yet to use Holy Man Sorrow. However, not ready to stop here.
Rosetta Town: I hate the townspeople here so damn much. Not quite as much as the people in Surf Village, but it's still close.
Secret Garden: Yay I love this place~. Plot out of the way at the grove to the south and more Rosetta Town blah, and I can grow stuff~. I take this moment to unload a whole lot of Heal Berries, and work on a few other plants.
Rosetta Town 2: Jane and McDullen get. Now I'm stopping plot for a while, so I may farm MP Repairs. I also ground up Jack's Fast Draws, so now Burst Breaker and Acute Angle only cost 3 MP. I really hate how this game hamstrings MP regeneration so hard, so I'm kind of looking forward to when I can get Mariel as a Temp.
Overall? I like Jane because I like stealing stuff. Cecilia sees a lot of use, mostly due to Analyze hype. Third slot rotates as I see fit.
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WoW: After screwing around with it some, I really have to say, some of the changes are really weird. Most notable to me is Ret Pally (since I'm in the middle of levelling one. I'll be switching to Prot and Holy once I hit the cap, but until then...). My rotation has some really long moments of downtime, interspersed with sudden "OH SHI- HIT EXORCISM AND THIRD HOLY POWER POPPED!" The Crusader Strike cooldown just feels so looooooong now.
Also have no idea how to AoE grind anymore. Divine Storm feels like shit now. Maybe I need to just focus on using Holy Power for Word of Glory?
On a positive note though, my mana is even more limitless then it used to be. And thanks to Word of Glory, so is my health.. Whee.
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My GBA Breath Of Fire 1 decided to delete my saves. Eternal sadness.
Unsure whether the problem is with the cart or with my DS (which is somewhat hostile to GBA games for some reason, but never to this point) or if it is just a generic copy despite not matching any of the common tells. Won't be starting again on this particular cart - have no desire to reenact my previous experience with a generic MMBN2.
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Poor Ret pallies, they will just have to get by on unlimited resources, tons of damage and free/cheap healing instead of AoEing shit down :(
Played the Warlock a bit, I have no idea how to Demo properly when I setup keys on the run to a boss. Spell textures not showing up on the ground is bad for a game that is all about zoning LOL YOU DIDN'T GET OUT FO THE INVISIABLE AOE.
Changes are interesting, but the game is still the same. Probably will stop. Not going to even log into the rogue so I don't fall into that trap.
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Ugh. My friend wants me to hop back into WoW for this new expansion, but I have lost the MMO fever and I fear if I try for even a little bit...I may be lost forever. (Not true, but still.)
Red Dead Redemption - it's fun. It's GTA. That should keep me busy for a long time. I wonder if any of these expansions are worth the purchase....
I'm currently in Thives town cheating my way through poker games. Not that I need to, but it's fun all the same.
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Arc Rise Fantasia - Oh my god. We're finally done. DONE. If you've been in chat, you know vaguely just the amount of rage I had to go through while playing this game. Objectively, the game's probably around 4, but I'll probably end up docking it to a 3. There's some moments in the game and the core battle system isn't trashy. That alone should be better than XS3, which is at 2. Still, this was an extremely disappointing game all around. Full rant to come by later. If you've watched the stream, you probably know what my biggest complaint about the battle system is (battles just take way too long), but I'll get into that for the full rant. Hell yes, we're finally done.
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Scar: For the RDR add-ons, the only one that is primarily single-player is the upcoming zombie one (where you get to dress like Ash, apparently). All the others are for the free-roam/multiplayer stuff. If you like free-roam, feel free to check them out.
As for what I'm playing, I started up Pokemon: Colosseum and have gotten to Mt. Battle. The game is decent so far, though I can't help but get the feeling that in the end I'll wind up disappointed. I want a real console Pokemon RPG
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I want Pokemon Snap 2.
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Poor Ret pallies, they will just have to get by on unlimited resources, tons of damage and free/cheap healing instead of AoEing shit down :(
Played the Warlock a bit, I have no idea how to Demo properly when I setup keys on the run to a boss. Spell textures not showing up on the ground is bad for a game that is all about zoning LOL YOU DIDN'T GET OUT FO THE INVISIABLE AOE.
Changes are interesting, but the game is still the same. Probably will stop. Not going to even log into the rogue so I don't fall into that trap.
Officially digging prot. I just paid out 12k dps on Lootship.
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Oh man. My housemate bought Viva Pinata, and it's actually amazing. I'm currently trying to spam Tafflies in order to spam Lickatoads in order to breed more Syrupent. Fucking Sour Crowla are evil and I hate them - everything else is a minor inconvenience at worst and a new resident in my garden in the case of Shellybeans and Sherbats. Oh, I'm getting more Sherbats too. I keep selling Sparrowmints and having Fudgehogs eat my Whirlms now, since I'm done with them. I can probably sell the Squazzils too, thinking about it.
Anyways, needless to say, despite seeming kinda ridiculous, this game is actually hilariously fun. I'm glad my housemate wants to buy Viva Pinata 2, since that means I won't have to buy it myself~
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Arc Rise Fantasia - The rant
Oh boy, where do I start? It's not that I had it in for this game. I really did give it a chance and admittedly, it didn't start of bad. It just doesn't last and the game just isn't very redeeming. This is main reason why it took nearly 3 months before I finished it.
In a nutshell, the game is boring. And I mean boring. Nearly everything about it eventually gets to the same point. I mean the music is generic and forgettable, the characters are generic and boring (some of which also fail while they're at it), the story is generic and boring and the game tries to get away with it using cheap twists. Even the battle system gets boring because of how slow paced it gets. It doesn't help that the VA is of course epic, adding epic lines like NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO in complete monotone and the setting is also dull.
Speaking of characters and plot, this is one of the most generic stories with a group of characters that I absolutely just hate. And I'm not just referring to the villains. Again, bad VA doesn't help here and just adds more hate. Adele is just terrible beyond belief. Same with Dynos. Alf is boring, and there's a bit here and there where he's okay. Then he goes through some actions that just make me want to slap him upside the head. I'm not sure what the writers were doing, perhaps they wanted to make you feel sympathy for him, but no, the reveal doesn't justify what he tries to do and that just makes him terrible. Seriously, the best comparison I can give is that it reminded me of ZAHHAK'S MILITARY GENIUS. Yeeeeeeah. Most of PCs are just there or irritating. Cecille and Leslie are boring, Ryfia makes me want to stab something in my eye. The only even somewhat decent character is Rastan. The twist between him and Serge is kinda neat, but that's 1 of like 8 that the game throws at you. This coupled along with the fact that the plot of this game is really really slow and just makes you go about doing pointless crap half the time does not help it.
As for the Battle System, it's decent, and is the somwhat saving grace of the team. But even then it doesn't last. The game makes you take many defensive moves. Not that this is a problem at the start. The issue is just that it makes you go too defensive. There are some bosses that have OHKO attacks with status attached, have attacks that ignore your defend command along other things. As a result, you need to be nearly at full health every single turn of a battle and most of them take nearly 30 minutes to 1 hour long to finish. This of course, isn't getting to the bosses with limit attacks that can easily MT OHKO you or nearly OHKO you and add a plethora of status. And after fighting for an hour, the last thing you want to see happen is a sudden MT OHKO attack that kills you. This is one of those games where I never wanted to fight a boss going in blind. You nearly need exact set ups in every battle, which of course adds to the slowness of the game because you can't level up your weapons. Which gets to other points that add to the slowness of the game. Magic is often your best source of offense but because magic is difficult to restore, you're often trying to save it. On the off chance you do decide to use it, you have to hunt for items later that restore your magic, taking even more time. Oh and because your weapons need WP to level up but you don't want to use them in battles, you have to take time out to level these too. Finally? The bosses are durable. Worse news, some of them have auto defend or elemental resistances, making them take even longer to die.
This entire game is just a mess. It's too slow, too boring and while making you take a defensive side for battle isn't bad, it goes about doing it the wrong way, and boss fights are just more of long endurance fest. That's what this whole game is. Win a battle? See how many more you can last before you go batshit insane! Seeing as how I am already insane, this would explain why I am the only one to finish it. Overall, the game is a 2.5/10. Has some good moments and its not the worst thing ever (not Quest 64!), but Jesus.
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It is the weekend of picking up old games.
Ninja Gaiden Black: Beat it! Emperor was a pain in the ass, final boss was a pansy though. He didn't block much, his throw was a pain but none of his other damage was that great, and his durability wasn't too high either.
Then I started hard mode. Oh god the pain. Black Spider Ninjas should not appear before I gain my first weapon level. Murai is even more of a pain than before thanks to mooks. I miss Izuna Drop, and giving me an early Lunar does not begin to make up for it.
Super Robot Wars Z: Picked up the Setsuko EX-Hard playthrough! Speaking of pain. I finally gave up on stage 36's SR point, which made it way easier - it's like a completely different level when you're not bumrushing anything and can wait for the bosses to attack one by one. I breezed through the Gravion girl's first appearance, blitzed Operation Angel Down (sadly...such an awesome level!), and then hit another wall in stage 39. SR Point: Kill 75 Corralians in five turns. My best score so far: 43. This isn't going to go well, is it. Doesn't help that Rand's hogging all the good MAP attacks. What I wouldn't give for Seven Swell, or the Nessa Cannon, or for the Hyaku Shiki's bazooka to be a MAP instead of an ALL...any MAP attacked to a Hot Blood caster, basically.
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Tide, the game is written by the ToS writer. You should be thankful it is just just boring and bad instead of outright bull shift..
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Godhand. The ending credits make beating this game SO worth it.
There are some games so bad they're good. This isn't one of those. This is a game where bad meets good, they get totally smashed, can't remember what happens, and 9 months later Godhand pops out. I don't know how else to put it.
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Tide, the game is written by the ToS writer. You should be thankful it is just just boring and bad instead of outright bull shift..
hahaha what
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RDR - I'm in Mexico. People are dying left and right. How am I still a free man again? Game continues to be awesome.
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PokeWhite
Aaken is the fucking bomb. Moguryu is another developing favourite.
I like that the game provides ample healing spots between towns. Timesavers are good.
Another small but sensible change: badges are no longer connected to HMs. It always seemed redundant to both strictly control when you got an HM and when you could use it.
(dunno if there's any restriction on trading pokemans with HM moves.)
Generally slicker menu navigation really hammers home how badly the box system needs updating.
Difficulty seems to be dropping off around 5th gym. Hopefully it picks back up again. Game's easier than HG and SS, though, definitely.
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Saga Frontier - Blue's quest complete! Very short, only took me about 8 hours or so. Granted, I didn't do a deluge of optional stuff... just Sei's Tomb, the Shingrow Ship, and the Bio Lab. Nature of the quest is somewhat to blame, but yeah. I was pretty underlevelled for the end but still certainly good enough to handle BR 9 randoms (which to be fair, I only fought after beating Rouge and becoming uber).
PC notes...
Blue - Overdrive/StasisRune is just as cheap as advertised, no real shock there. 99 magic stat Megawindblasts and TimeEclipses were quite nice for the rest of things, though. Had him fire a gun in some battles to get his speed up, but not enough. Needs to be ranked in the DL clearly, wooo 100x overkill damage.
Liza - Punched things, got DSC, etc. I dunno, see Gen from last playthrough. Didn't get PoweredSuits this time so the fighters never quite took off in the same way, but eh.
Roufas - Never got Deflect with him (it's hard to get, to be fair), which is lame. Played him as a swordsman/mage, which worked well enough, although Mind Magic was generally disappointing (Awakening doubling move costs, Mindheal being self-only). The palsy move and JP-based damage were both decent, though, and of course he got Starlight Heal which is always good. Generally favoured the sword side though. Actually got Lifesprinkler, though it never really saw genuine use.
Mei-ling - Gunner and light mage. Not sure how I feel about splitting the duties, the upped costs are kind of a downer, but she was versatile certainly, and it certainly wasn't a failed experiment or anything.
T260G - I have a lot to learn in mec fu probably. Had bad luck getting decent abilities, so generally lagged in damage all game although ShootingMastery Hyperblaster is not bad for free offence. Other than that, tanky, though hard to heal, incredibly fast, and held the backpack so he made a very solid utility healer throughout the game.
Both Timelord and Hell's Lord were quite impressive when not cheaped out (I didn't fight Kylin). One could certainly argue I was underlevelled for both, but yeah. Mattered a lot for Hell's Lord whose physical spam did about double what the stat topic notes, generally had loads of trouble staying on top of him. Unfortunately he got UBER BLUE'd on the retry.
Blue quest plot after Asellus quest plot is a bit of a cultureshock. Oh well, at least I got the fun of Blue being a more sociopathic Marza.
I think next is either robots or superheros, not sure which. Also not sure if I'll dive in soon or do something else, do need to finish other things.
LFT Summoner SCC - Decided to give the Kolliery a try. Beat the kos by killing them all with fatal Odins at once on the second round (Angel Rings ensured I got that far), but the 97/03 Blade Grasp Squire on top of a non-fail second battle means I can't reasonably win that unless I pull some crazy Blood Suck shenanigans involving Strago, and I lack the patience to try that. Going to have to level up to the next speed point to beat Hashy, I'm pretty sure.
Suikoden Tierkreis - 88 stars of destiny, woohoo. Near the end.
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Further in Tierkreis than I am now, I am a terrible person. I am honestly suprised you haven't hated on it nearly as hard as I did, clearly you are not as cool as you used to be.
I beg you, next quest you do that isn't one of the Robots or Superheroes make a 5 gunner team. Trust me on this, it is more fun than it sounds.(Emelia? Lute's works if uh you were going to do it and lots of side questing).
POKEMANS - Did I say I got a Scizor? I beat up Fighting gym. Did some stuff. Didn't catch a Houndour like I had been thinking about doing LAWL RANDOMS WITH UPROARno. I have no idea where I am going at this point. I went south and reached a new town I think. I dunno. I face roll it while I am on the bus or when I am falling asleep and should be reading a book.
Lost Odyssey - Mashed out some snooze stuff getting ready for side quests. Snooze. Not good side quests. Jansen got some pimping action in at least, not bad. Macking on a princess paid off. Then there was kids and the scene was killed. gg writers
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Man, when was I ever cool? I like Fire Emblem too much for that.
(I actually don't recall sure what you hated on in Tierkreis aside from its recruitment (making me a bad person because I'm sure you said more when you visited). Recruitment is probably a fair complaint but eh, I'm not the type of completionist for which it would actually bother me. The game is far from perfect in other ways, probably headed for a 6/10 or so (not as good as 2/3/5), but still a worthwhile experience.)
Also, why five gunners? Self-comboing hype? Style concerns? Both?
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Scrap--Lethal guns--shoot things a lot. It's surprisingly fun.
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A few minutes of junk shop abuse should see you adequately geared for that, yes.
And 7-8 hours is pretty much the norm for the game, I thought. That's what I had for Red/Emilia, got the impression that was about the average (and I tended to only do Sei's Tomb/some magic quest/Biolabs for optional stuff). Asellus is longer because they actually finished her story (I also ran her quest first and had the same time as you) and Lute is vastly shorter because he's a waste of space (it pretty much takes only as long as you need to assemble a party and train them up, because there's pretty much nothing mandatory but one dungeon and a boss).
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Even if I wanted to abuse the junk shop (I don't, it's lame), I'm not really seeing the selling point of this party. <_<
I'd imagine Lute's quest wouldn't be notably shorter than Blue's? It lacks the part where you fight TL/Kylin but otherwise, it's the same basic idea: "no introduction, do one of rune/arcane quest for one of the gifts and to not be underlevelled as hell, do Sei's Tomb and BioLab because they have neat rewards/are fun, do final dungeon". I did the Shingrow ship as well and have no real compelling reason for why I did besides that there was some stuff for T2 there, but yeah.
Lute is still a waste of space though. At least Blue's quest has one or two interesting story ideas, Blue himself being a schmuck, and ubercheese silliness which was worth seeing just to finally the broken that had been hyped at me for 12 years.
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I'm guessing Grefter hypes it for style points. Anyway, Lute's quest was maybe four hours for me? Probably 75% of that was just wandering around getting my party built up. The quest really just barely exists.
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Style, high speed party that almost always combos for good damage, it is pretty hard to argue with the effectiveness of it. Also scrap yard abuse is lame, but it is just one more trick in your toolbox and well in this case it gets you Lethal Guns for free. It isn't really worth doing unless you need a bit of a capital base to start Gold abuse if you aren't going guns.
Things wrong with Tierkreis section!
I don't think I went on about it to long when I was up there because I figured you guys would play it anyway, I just wanted to try to convey that it would be a poor choice in game for the Ciatos to take on a boat out to sea.
FAQbait recruiting.
Dungeon design being horrible for a portable with blind dead ends that you can have to stop playing while you are in a maze of, makes it very easy to get lost. This combined with the recruiting makes for a very rough game to play while just chilling on the bus for example, it is fine to have to think on a portable, but it needs to be engaging in a fairly direct way that you can put down and pick up at a given time and be fine. Pokemans and Fire Emblem both do this quite well in their respective ways.
Trading is bad, it is a mostly static system of shuffling between cities and generating money out of the ether, zzzzzzzzzzz. Couple this with the price of equipment exploding in price later makes for yet more boringness (entirely able to be ignored of course) with the best way to do it to be refer to spreadsheets or notes you have taken on trade things (you don't need to plan routes or anything stupid like that, but remembering where item X sells and buys best and what else there you can sell at a profit and so on). So one less component that is good as a portable game.
Finally, for all the jokes about how fast the main talks, good gods does he move fucking slow. Tierkreis is a sllloooooowwwwwwwwww game without a high encounter rate. You spend a lot of time in those dungeons with blind dead ends purely because of how painfully slow it is. It picks up when you get the faster run item (which is entirely optional found in a side passage of a dungeon, it isn't even from a recruit), but it brings it up to tolerable speed, this is no Suiko 4 speed up on foot function, this is a Suiko 4 boat speed up button, ie the speed it should have been from the get go. Considering this is in a series that fixed this bullshit back in its first sequel by having the main have a run button that made him move at a respectable clip this is pretty frustrating.
All of this makes for a downright horrible portable experience. It would probably fair a bit better on console. Suiko Tierkreis is a PS1 RPG on DS.
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Man, I dunno, aside from the volcano (which indeed is guilty of pretty much everything you say about it, although at least randoms finally step up from the total fail they are in the first half by then) most of the dungeons aren't really big enough for being lost to be an issue. Fort Arc would have been but it's both optional and lacks randoms entirely.
Most of the rest of your complaints are pretty fair, the game indeed feels like a polish step back on several fronts (EDIT: well uh compared to S3 anyway). Most of them also don't bother me as much or in some cases at all (trading complaints just don't apply to my playstyle, for instance) but yeah. On the other hand this is the same series that just brought me Level 1 initial weapons in a cashcrunch game making half the cast unplayable and stupid ship navigation and oh dear god significant loading times for every single braindead easy random battle so quite frankly maybe my standards have been lowered. At least I can have my blacksmith instagib enemies for like 4 second randoms (load times included) when I'm backtracking an area to hunt for recruits so there's no stupid Waterfall Basin level embarrassment.
Man I like this series, stop making me rag on it.
EDIT: Also, for a game with FAQ-bait recruitment, I have 95 recruits without a FAQ which is way more than I got in the previous two games (granted, in S4's case it was because I didn't give a fuck about S4 by the end. Also involved sailing). I'm sure some of the ones I have left are really bad and maybe I just got lucky on one or two to boot, but yeah.
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If it wasn't for its damn good world-building and surprisingly well-handled cast, SuikoTier would be in the 2-3/10 range to me. The only gameplay functions that I enjoyed were the support PCs and the mission system... >.>;;
By the way, the optional missions involving weird character stuff are actually pretty fun. I know you're not a completionist, but I think you'll enjoy them if you've been skipping them up until now.
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Lute is still a waste of space though.
What's most insulting is that there was going to be an 8th quest intended for Fuse, apparently, which tied up all the quests together, to show just how all the ones that are tangentially related mix together (like Emelia's Quest has Lute's Final Boss in it, and I think there's a hint that he's related to BlackX, which is the evil organization Red's fighting against...you get the point), you get the point.
It could have been remotely neat too...but then, there's a lot of stuff unfinished in SaGa Frontier *looks at all the stuff cut from Asellus' story*
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If the SaGa2 and 3 remakes do well enough, maybe we'll get a proper SaGaF release. I'd call it a remake, but just -finishing- it would make it awesome.
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If it wasn't for its damn good world-building and surprisingly well-handled cast, SuikoTier would be in the 2-3/10 range to me. The only gameplay functions that I enjoyed were the support PCs and the mission system... >.>;;
By the way, the optional missions involving weird character stuff are actually pretty fun. I know you're not a completionist, but I think you'll enjoy them if you've been skipping them up until now.
So you're saying that a Suikoden game bereft of things related to writing and plot would be bad? Perish the thought.
I've been doing the missions, yeah - they're easy enough and shed some neat light on some characters and events, not to mention you get loads of recruits from them. There's a few I haven't been able to complete and those I don't stress over because, again, not a completionist.
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The ones you don't have you will have missed permanently straight up going to say that without even asking who you have. They are gone and you can't get them. You can like a series and rag on it (see me with it, Tales, POKEMANS, Star Ocean, POKEMANS), not only can you do it, you should be doing it, because what is bad here is bad.
Good example of a bad dungeon early on is the mines, if you know where you are going they are really short and quick and easy. If you are exploring the whole place there is dead ends all over the place and it sucks. Worse is repeat visits to the Porpoise people dungeon. There is a part of the dungeon you can only get to on repeat visits, when you go up one of the geysers it takes you to a room that looks exactly like the path you went up the geyser the first time, but all of the branches off it are completely different. Each alternating time you go up it alternates between them. Fine when you know it happens, horrible dungeon design though and can easilly leave the player having no fucking clue where they are, which if they have to put it down you are doing it wrong. It is much more about how bad the dungeons are for a hand held system that start and stop gameplay comes up. Pokemons linear paths works perfectly here. It doesn't make for engaging dungeon crawling, but that is far from the game's high points in this case. You can do without that side path that has a treasure chest with an out of date weapon in it.
If you want an example of the bad recruits, look up Nakil or Hafin recruitment.
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Viva Pinata: Reached Lv 21, got full garden size. Dastardos and the four Sours I've unlocked can't show up now, so I've only got Ruffians to worry about. Money isn't an issue, since Tafflies randomly appear and they can be burnt for easy money. The only problem? I'm completely out of space. I've got, like, 5 Master Romancers awards, and the Sherbat one should give me a load more room when I eventually get it, so I'm doing pretty well - not surprising, it's Viva Pinata.
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By the way, the best way to get money later in Tierkreis is to wait for prices of items to spike in a location and go sell stuff at like 10x normal price. Faster than cycling around the world a bunch of times.
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Hafin and Nakil? I got both with no difficulties, so... *looks them up*
All I'm really seeing is "have Asad in your party when going through location en route to Asad's hometown any time in large window X" which strikes me as incredibly tame. It kinda sucks that they're permanently missable if you don't do this, but it makes way too much plot sense for them to be.
The dungeon design complaints are just a question of personality/playing style I think because STi's dungeons don't bother me at all. Yeah, they have dead ends, like... 90% of RPG dungeons. I don't really see the difference between them and, say, FF3, except that FF3's dungeons are longer. I can see where you're coming from, if you put down a game mid-dungeon that is a way to become lost and you're more likely to do this with portables, but I just can't bring myself to be really bothered by it.
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I wouldn't even be worried about getting lost in most Tiekreis dungeons. Enemies aren't very threatening. But then, I don't really remember any dungeons being all that long minus the final one?
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Because being stuck in a boring dungeon with unthreatening enemies is such a thrilling prospect. Did I mention that the game is painfully slow? Bad bad bad bad bad.
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RDR - Game over?
Not! I am a free man again, and have conquered everyone who has gotten in my way. time to raise some cattle with the fam.
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I FAQ'd all 108 stars. You want crap recruitment... look at Namna (Green porpoise).
Fuck. You. Namna.
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Got him without trying. Oh you lovable FAQers.
EDIT: After looking him up in a FAQ, it looks like he's annoying to get at the earliest possible opportunity, but extremely easy to get shortly before the point of no return. Guess which one I did. <_<
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Ninja Gaiden Black: Airship! Boss-on-a-horse was....easier than Normal? Maybe just because I know how Ultimate Techniques work now. Weird. Anyway, I've got Dragon Sword Lv. 2 and the counterattacks scroll, so I can finally fight like I'm used to. Well, with more Blade of Nirrtri spam because enemies don't fuck around on Hard, but I can live with that.
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Fallout: New Vegas. Just left the starter town. Energy weapons are actually an option at the start now. Holy shit.
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BBS: I blame CK. Anyway, fun game. Or it could just be the slew of games I recently played weren't as fun. Hoping more the former. Currently making abilities because yes, this is fun. Also, the board game is a neat addition (hur) and I actually have fun playing it too >_> (more hur).
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Fallout: New Vegas - Second verse, same as the first. A little bit brighter, a little bit worse. I'm really going to miss being a super munchkin and getting everything maxed out. Currently L6 and just made it to Novac, I've scoped my Varmint Rifle and somehow became Very Good just through killing off Powder Gangers. I'm glad they made food and drink much more useful, even if it is time-delayed.
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Lufia DS: Got this today and I've played up to the Gordovan Drawbridge. I don't have much beyond basic impressions:
- It's a low budget title but not bad. I don't like the world/plot feel changes so far, lost tech blatherings never really do it for me.
- Adding Iris to the party is a damned good idea.
- I think I dislike action RPGs on the small DS screen. >_<
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Fallout: New Vegas - Second verse, same as the first. A little bit brighter, a little bit worse. I'm really going to miss being a super munchkin and getting everything maxed out. Currently L6 and just made it to Novac, I've scoped my Varmint Rifle and somehow became Very Good just through killing off Powder Gangers. I'm glad they made food and drink much more useful, even if it is time-delayed.
You get your first party member there. He's voiced by Cyclops.
I just got done trading him out for Cass.
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Lufia DS:
- Adding Iris to the party is a damned good idea.
After all, what's a Lufia game without one of your PCs turning out to be the Goddess of Death?
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You get your first party member there.
Second, actually - I've focused on Science and Repair, so I got ED-E first. Combined, the two tear through everything, though that's more "Rolento" than ED-E. I've probably only managed to kill a half-dozen enemies myself since Boone joined up. Now L8, in the middle of the rocket quest.
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Ninja Gaiden: Monastery. This is going to be fuuuuuuuuuuuuun.*
Fun content may be significantly exaggerated
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Godhand, hard mode: beat Gold and Silver! Now stuck on...the next level. Seriously, a tiny room with, sequentially, 3 dudes, 2 dudes and a fat dude, 6 bomb-bearing midgets, and 3 bad dudes, with a demon somewhere in there? Brutal.
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You get your first party member there.
Second, actually - I've focused on Science and Repair, so I got ED-E first. Combined, the two tear through everything, though that's more "Rolento" than ED-E. I've probably only managed to kill a half-dozen enemies myself since Boone joined up. Now L8, in the middle of the rocket quest.
The rocket quest has pretty good writing... AND A SPACE SUIT.
Anyway, ended up in Freesidr as part of my endeavor to recruit Cass (this is super important). Now doing errands for The King of Kings, armed with That Gun.
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Godhand: beat Elvis and stage 1! Only 102 continues!
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Lufia DS:
- Adding Iris to the party is a damned good idea.
After all, what's a Lufia game without one of your PCs turning out to be the Goddess of Death?
She actually end up becoming more bland then she already was.
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She is bland, yes. But it works given who and what she is. It's pretty clear that she is spending the earlygame learning about humanity and life. And she does get an amusing scene in every once in a while.
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RDR - Beaten? I don't see any more quest givers, so I assume its over.
Oh well on to Infamous.
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KH BBS: Aqua's story completed. Final fight was made easy by having a guest. Second final fight was something similar to KH2, so that was easily adaptable. In fact the hardest boss on this route was the one in Neverland >_> (although that became easy eventually). Started off hard, got pretty tame towards mid game and on.
Starting Terra/Ven's route at the same time. Wheel Master has killed me three times now :(. I may just play the board game for Cure. Also its fine. Meanwhile, Ven goes dwarf hunting.
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Tide: D-Link Aqua for cure if you want. D-Linking also fully restores health.
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She is bland, yes. But it works given who and what she is. It's pretty clear that she is spending the earlygame learning about humanity and life. And she does get an amusing scene in every once in a while.
But.. it is so very generic, her behavior. She lost that presence she had in the original, and how she eventually reaches the humanity is great! I'll not fight Maximum conclusion is just "...." inducing. Her character is much more appealing in the original where she is level headed and plays both sides while betraying neither.
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Etrian Odyssey 3: Finally got round to trying against Marner again, absolutely annihilated him this time (didn't see Earthquake, so... yeah, no deaths. >_>) Beat the second set of sea quests as well, mostly thanks to having Katylin heal herself every time she heals Ashnan, who reduces the damage the two of them are taking. Still much prefer the sea quests to... pretty much anything else in this game, but I'm also not far enough to have unlocked all the features, so I'll withhold judgement until then.
Viva Pinata: And everything gets smashed. Got annoyed with lack of space, sold almost everything. Then got Crowla Master Romancer, sold almost all of them, then managed to fill up all the space AGAIN. Then my one Sweetooth I had got smashed by Pester. Oh joy. Will probably sell everything yet again and start over sometime soon. >_>
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Dead Rising 2 - In overtime mode. This game is pretty darn good and my interest in games is going back up after it was drained by WKC.
Yugioh: Vanilla started to bore me so I've made a new deck for me to kick ass and chew bubble gum with.
Deck: 51
Monsters: 34
King of the Skull Servants x3
Skull Servant x3
The Lady in Wight x3
Spirit Reaper x1
Zombie Master x1
Pyramid Turtle x2
Goblin Zombie x2
Mezuki x1
Armageddon Knight x2
Plaguespreader Zombie x1
Lyla, Lightsworn Sorceress x1
Ryko, Lightsworn Hunter x3
Chaos Sorcerer x2
The Dark Creator x1
Card Trooper x1
Super-Nimble Mega Hamster x1
Magical Merchant x2
Morphing Jar x1
Sangan x1
Debris Dragon x1
Junk Synchron x1
Spells: 13
One for One x1
Card Destruction x1
Dark Hole x1
Hand Destruction x2
Book of Life x3
Monster Reborn x1
Opti-Camouflage Armor x1
Giant Trunade x1
Level Limit - Area B x1
Allure of Darkness x1
Traps: 4
Call Of The Haunted x1
Royal Decree x2
Gravity Bind x1
Extra Deck: 15
Chimeratech Fortress Dragon x1
Mist Wurm x1
Stardust Dragon x1
Red Dragon Archfiend x1
Junk Destroyer x1
Black Rose Dragon x2
Ancient Fairy Dragon x1
Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier x1
Goyo Guardian x1
Archfiend Zombie-Skull x1
Revived King Ha Des x1
Magical Android x1
Junk Warrior x1
Armory Arm x1
I like how this deck after stalling for a while can unleash a huge beatdown to completely reverse the game. For example against a hopeless dragon deck.
His field: Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon 2800 atk x2, Dark Creator 2300 atk, Dark Horus 3000 atk x2, 2 face dow spell/traps.
My field: Face up Gravity bind.
My move: Summon Debris Dragon and use its effect to summon Lady in Wight from the graveyard, Synchro summon Blade rose dragon to use its effect to destroy all cards on the field. Use Book of life to summon King of the Skull Servants, use Mezuki's effect to summon a second King of the Skull Servants who are both at 4000 atk. Attacked for 8000 damage and won the game.
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FF4Heroes: Oh lawld what. Magic is an item to keep in your inventory to get access to spells, the story is completely NES-level so far. Ha ha ha. Not being able to target at ALL is a little annoying, but limitless magic? Sign me up.
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Lufia DS: Fuck the thieves. Have you ever heard a voice that makes you want to lovingly suck off a sawed off shotgun? I have now! Bitching aside I just got the Mystic Board and messed around with Tia some. I'm not impressed with her in battle, Maxim feels more fluid. I hate how she fires and is stuck for a few seconds, I'd rather be mobile.
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I can see Dune is channeling his secret homosexual tendancies~
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Man, I can't even make a metaphor for the urge to commit suicide without a wise crack, can I?
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Get jump cancelling for Tia, it helps a lot.
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OK's only talking about homosexual tendencies because of his own desires, Dune.
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Quick unrelated question: You can fuse Mystic Board stones later on or some such? I recall hearing about it.
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You can, at Jaffy's place. Gotta beat Gades 2 first I think. Fused stones give bigger stat ups.
Another tip, the stone board is really flexible. If you have a stone that takes two squares you can have it on the boards of two different PCs, giving them both stat boosts for example. Mess around with that and see what you like.
Also, even if you lack the Jump Cancel abilities you can still cancel the recovery time of various attacks with a dodge roll. Maybe that'll help Tia out for you right now?
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Holy crap that game is out already? Man I'm behind on RPGs...
~
Infamous: Fun: I might play this more then once, but for now I'm being a nice guy and helping everyone. Story is whatever, I've been exploring sewers and getting myself all oily and slicked up for a good cause or something. I like the free roaming Spiderman-like gameplay.
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Lufia DS: Gades is dead, dead, deadski. Party level is around 40, just saw Jeros get kidnapped. Impressions? Lufia DS is breezy. It's like warm spring breeze in gaming form, always moving without a second's pause. The redemption comes in that it's a fun game with engaging combat and decently written characters.
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MGS3: I really want a gif of Ocelot juggling his three revolvers now.
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ToGF- Play the demo, not bad. Richard now has a full skill set and works pretty well as a mix of all trade character by having a little of Sheria and a little from Pascal.
Only Asbel can access Axel Mode in demo, so I can't say much on how well that system is.
Also, the saying that "if a Tales game have mages with no Indignation, it'll get a port with extra goodies sooner or late" seems to get pretty real now. *Watches thunderbolts flying an Sheria now finally have some good damage
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Godhand - only 52 continues on stage 2. Significantly easier than stage 1.
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...man, I'm catching up with the GSL2 from yesterday and today...
...give me back Tasteless and Artosis, or at least put IdrA in place of this other guy Commenting in his place.
...man, my brain hurts...
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Almost finished with Hotel Dusk. It's a fantastic adventure game, though not quite on the level of Phoenix Wright. I love the art style, atmosphere, pretty much everything about it. So far Cing hasn't disappointed me. Looking forward to Last Window when I get the chance to play it. Even though the plot has been fairly predictable, I find myself very interested in what's going on. That's just what killer presentation can do for a game.
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Ninja Gaiden: Nearly done the Underground! Just have to...beat...Alma.
Well, shit.
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Suikoden Tierkreis - Beat this. Got 95 stars of destiny, would have gotten more but got stuck on a random leader quest in a way I really shouldn't have. Looking through the stars of destiny FAQ, there were 2 I missed forever, and most of the rest were in dungeons I hadn't bothered retreading so fair enough. Final time 42 hours, final level was 60. (SHOCK)
Decent overall game. It's a Suikoden, so you roughly know what you're going to get - a game with strong writing but weak gameplay. The short of it is that while the plot easily surpasses Suikoden 4, it still falls short of the stronger entries in the series, and doesn't really do anything else in other departments to make up for it. The gameplay has problems, some of which Grefter notes already a few posts back, though on the whole I probably have a slightly more positive impression of the game's gameplay than the previous two games in the series, largely due to being willing to try some different things.
Gameplay
Get 108 stars, fight random battles, etc. We've seen this before. I thought recruitment was more intuitive than in the past two games personally, although there are certainly a few lost-forevers and there's no detective, so obviously completionists will want a FAQ. Fortunately the game doesn't give you the finger if you fail to collect enough stars.
As for battles, 4-person parties in such a large cast are kinda lame. The game tries to get around the problem of "I can hardly use anyone" by having lots of sequences where you fight with multiple parties, although only rarely are the non-Tenkai parties faced with any sort of real test. On the other hand, not having to input commands for all 6 characters does slightly decrease the chance you'll just auto- things, as does making special attacks better in general than they used to be (regular physicals have a speed penalty now). Or, well, it would, but...
The game is way, way too easy. For much of the game it's just stupidly so. Not really new, but still as frustrating as ever. Around the three quarters mark the game starts ramping up a bit. From the volcano onwards, randoms show some signs of competence. Bosses are never great (though they also stop being sadsack pathetic right around then, too) until the final who is... quite solid. He/she has a really good attack that I got lucky with because I thought it was OPB but people complaining on GameFAQs make it very clear that it's not, and actual durability in a Suikoden game. Granted, capping off an easy game with a final area/boss who doesn't suck has become a tradition in the recent games, so this is really nothing new. I was just pleased that the game finally made use of its battle system towards the end because early it's just sad.
Too many plot fights, too. I have no real problem with plot fights but would it kill them to make more of them like S3's multitude of them or S5's Dolph/Childerich fight? That'd give us folks who think Suikoden is way too easy something to test ourselves against, even if we get plot-killed afterwards. C'mon Konami, this isn't hard. As it was, all those plot fights just feel like a waste of time. At least some of them have some cool boss music which... often you'll hear for longer in the plot fights than the real thing. <__<
Special ability-wise... well, they finally did something but recycle the same runes they pretty much have used since S2, and I for one welcome the change. The Suikoden series was seriously stagnating gameplaywise, in my eyes - S1 introduced things, S2 put in a whole new spin with multiple rune slots and way more rune options, S3 put in a whole new spin with skills and partner-commands. By contrast, S4-5 offered virtually no innovations (uh formation skills?). Tierkreis opts for a pretty large departure and it works well enough. Certainly, every character receiving different marks of the stars makes character choice more interesting than in many previous games. My main complaint is that the system does take a little while to get rolling - it's dull when everyone has only 1-2 marks and doesn't really hit its stride until everyone has 5-6 and you start making real choices.
Oh, and characters having varied equipment options that make for real differences (dual-wielding vs. 2-handed vs. 1-handed and shield, strike/pierce/slash, short/medium/long range) is another neat way to differentiate characters a little and make the player make choices, probably an overdue idea in the series. BUT BUT BUT YOU CAN'T SHARPEN WEAPONS ANY MORE NOT A SUIKODEN. :( :( :(
The game lacks duels and war battles. In and of itself this doesn't bother me. What does bother me? It seems very clear the game was -meant- to have them at some point in development and they ran out of time or budget to implement them. There's one or two points in the plot where I found myself thinking "okay, that really, really needed a war battle to make me feel I worked for that victory, instead of just having me fight a few soldiers in regular fights" and the game has quite a few duels (the one in Atrasia comes to mind in particular) which would have been more epic with something besides the regular battle system. So yeah, a disappointment, if hardly a fatal one.
Overall, though, the gameplay is a generic system with a few neat mix-ups compared to previous Suikodens (but not really innovative overall) which are welcomed, but wasted on a game which is too easy for far too long.
Plot stuff
Non-spoiler version: It's a Suikoden game, so we expect a good story and we get it. It's not as good as S2/3/5, though, which is a little disappointing because it felt like it had the potential to be midway through the game. Still, the writing is way above par for RPGs and a game I don't regret playing just for this aspect of it. The main character talks and has a real personality and this is wonderful since a whole bunch of scenes work well because of him bouncing off the people he meets.
Beyond that, there will be SPOILERS here obviously. I'll hide the worst but only the worst. Blah blah if you hate any sort of spoilers content yourself with the previous paragraph and skip to the next section.
..
There's a few things in the plot I thought were particularly excellent. The plot with the magedom was wonderfully done in general. I dug Danash, he's a lovable old scoundrel playing his own people against each other both for entertainment and because he honestly thinks it brings out the best in them. Having to work with him and his people is interesting and brought a layer of complexity to the plot. Sometimes your allies aren't always nice! It was kinda disappointing when it ended with just a "we're going off on our own now", but what really bugged me is the magedom just... stopped being important thereafter. Damnit, they're still the strongest military force opposing the Order, they should have been more involved. I'd have loved to see more interaction with them even when you're not working for them any more, but oh well.
On the other hand, I thought it was pretty great that the writers were actually willing to pretty much do the fantasy equivalent of nuke the country from orbit, killing millions of its people. Great moral event horizon for the main villain, it felt gutsy and the characters reacted appropriately. From the understandable "what the fuck" of the hero and company, the absolutely crushing effect on the surviving Magedom characters themselves, and the fact that Valfred's closest allies (hell, Diadora felt like a friend) react to this by betraying him. I mean, yeah, who wouldn't? But too often in RPGs stupid loyalty enters the equation.
Otherwise I thought the theocratic Order made for a good antagonist, as a nation and as personified in Valfred himself. It's not a completely unreasonable view as much as the hero loathes it, and the lengths Valfred goes to are pretty much the logical extension of any relgious fundamentalism, something that actually exists in our world. Kinda scary. I made a snide comment about Tales of the Abyss before but will elaborate on it here - Tierkreis actually nailed how a religiously fanatical villain would operate in a world where religion is tied to fantastical powers in one way or another, something I find far more convincing than the usual RPG corrupt churchmen. He actually had his backstory presented in the game so you understand how he became that way, always a bonus.
I liked the hero. He's a total dweeb but an immensely charismatic dweeb. The weird disconnect there worked for me, I can't really give good justifications for why. I like my dweeb mains I guess. Also liked his reaction to the Ladzaa Fortress incident because seeing thousands of people die in front of your eyes when you were just trying to save them is fucking AWFUL and I'm glad they didn't gloss over that.
Oh yeah, a minor detail, but I loved how the writers totally faked you out with Liu and his blatant lying early in the game. I was convinced he'd be the traitor like Jowy or Snowe, so of course this meant Dirk totally flew under the radar for me (even though he made a lot o sense as a betrayal). And they do give an excellent reason for Liu's lying later on. Good stuff. Liu himself is pretty fun, smart kid, and I liked the hero-strategist relationship being an immensely friendly one instead of a manipulative one. Marica and Jale (particularly Jale) weren't as good mostly because they felt kinda dropped, although Marica has a fun enough personality while she's prominent and bounces off the hero well.
Where the plot missteps a bit is that it loses some momentum as time goes on. As mentioned, leaving the magedom kinda sucks since you lose a great dynamic there and it sets the stage for a hell of a lot of "go to random people who dislike you, solve a problem for them, woohoo they like you now, RECRUIT GET!" Yes, complaining about this in a Suikoden game is like complaining about singing in a Disney movie (awesome saying, Djinn) but it still feels tired compared to the more subtle and clever political plots the game is capable of having. It's sorta like the middle of Suikoden 5, but it weighs more heavilly on the game since it comes a bit later, and the final plot isn't as good because Valfred lacks much of a supporting set of characters (to continue the S5 parallel: if Valfred is Marscal, then he lacks a Gizel and Lymsleia). The One King is also pretty boring, although not as boring as I expected (him being a Tenkai star who chose to make the sacrifice the game tempts you with is a nice twist). Dirk is a bit of a miss as a villain. I like his motivation and I think it's very real, but he still said some really stupid shit in the times he showed up. I wanted to like the character and think if he'd been written a little better he'd be a wonderful window into why someone might turn to the One True Way but as is they fell a bit short because his logic often fails to make sense.
Minor character hype, since what Suikoden is complete without this?
Zahra - Crazy fucking doctor who goes shirtless and talks about experimenting on his own patients. Good times.
Asad - I dunno, I liked him. Nice loyal character who showed there are limits to loyalty, and the crush on Crodechild was cute. Crode herself wasn't bad either, though pretty much a vanilla execution of the swordgirl archetype.
Neira - I'm pretty sure her being possessed by the sea god is a bunch of bullshit and that cracks me up with how overdramatic she is and some of the situations she "calls on" the Sea God for. The game definitely tossed enough hints that this is the case.
Some others probably but those are the big ones besides folks I've already touched on in the main rant.
Aesthetics
Let's start with the bad: the 3D models of characters are not very good at all. They're like FF3DS' but worse. Some of them look really goofy up close, such as the hero in particular. Kinda unfortunate. Background/dungeon design is better, though rarely amazing. Sorta standard DS stuff.
The game's art itself is quite solid, good character designs all-around. Special shout-out to the consistency of the Magedom designs and the few North Star Empire characters we see (idly, North Star Empire sequel? Possible if the sub-series ever gets one).
Music was very solid - some highlights include the formation music (when setting up parties for story missions), the archivist battle theme, the Grayridge theme, and a few more. Suikoden never completely blows me away for music and this game is no different, but it's definitely a fairly strong entry to the series music-wise, which I wasn't really expecting.
Voice acting could definitely be better. For the most part I approve of faster talking over slower talking because it sounds more real to me, but some Tierkreis talking is definitely too fast. The hero suffers from this a fair bit earlier on though weirdly it got a fair bit better past the earlygame. Also, a bunch of names are pronounced differently than they're written (Shairah, Macoute, Rizwan, Hotupa for some blatant ones), suggesting they were translated at different times. Not really a big deal, far from the worst or most unrealistic thing ever to have names that are pronounced differently from how they're written, but still notable.
DL notes
The game lends itself nicely enough to the DL if it ever gets playership (if if if). Quite a few PCs with plenty of plot who are also forced for reasonable durations, everyone has clearly unique skillsets, etc. Haven't looked closely at the individual duellers yet beyond one or two (Hero is a very solid Heavy, for instance), but offhand I'd certainly support Hero, Liu, Marica, Jale, Asad, Crodechild, and Diadora, and would certainly consider supporting Diulf, Sophia, Fredegund, Manaril, Vaslof, Resno, Neira, Hotupa, Cougar, and probably a few more. Valfred for bosses, unsure if anyone else is worthwhile as an idea (the final maybe, about 4 others are workable if anyone actually cares about mediocre Suikoden human bosses who aren't Zahhak/Alenia level comically bad).
Overall
It's a Suikoden game, but different. It's not in the same world, but this frees them to tell a different style of story. It lacks some Suiko traditions in gameplay, but innovation is missed and most of the traditions weren't much to write home about. Gameplay itself is kinda dull in large part because it's too damn easy (not that it'd be great even without this flaw). Polish could be a bit better, though not terrible. It has its flaws, but none stop it from being just a plain enjoyable game due to strong writing. It's just not a top-tier "writing is all I have" game like Suikoden 5 or Xenogears, so it doesn't merit that kinda of praise. Thinking it's a 6/10 to me.
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The above opinion is pretty much spot on from a man incapable of rage (other than at bad driving).
So yeah if someone was waiting on a good opinion piece of Suiko Tirecraze (Other than the one Djinn already did) here you go.
Rocket Slime - This game is a Zelda Clone. I was not expecting that. It is cool. Have 2 more slimes on Forewood Forest and have no obvious spots on the map that I haven't been, a little frustrating because I can even see a teleport well thing I haven't opened up. Hope the game doesn't consistently get this rough on its backtracking.
Fallout New Vegas - The game badly needed the classic character creation screen so I didn't start and stop over and over again to fiddle with stats and traits. Of course a few hours later I find out I could have just remade my character if I walked out of town far enough classic Oblivions style (which is still bad design with the way the character creation works just as a heads up for anyone. It shouldn't take 15 minutes to get through that shit in replays). Game is good so far. Much much much better than Fallout 3, it is far from an abomination full of stupid. Playing with Small Guns, Repair and Speech as my focusses, dumping a few points into Lock Pick, probably will do Science as well after that. Menus still suck, they weren't going to be able to do much there though, kind of stuck with it (Proooobably not as painfully console port restricted as KotOR 1 is, but still very frustrating to use because you need to use them more often). Item degradation sucks hard still, even playing with Repair it is frustrtating. Seriously these guns couldn't get THROUGH a 1000 round testing without being made completely inoperable. Weapon repair kits being able to be made with Science are neat but requires hauling around a lot of crap for them, makes an actually fairly interesting build with high Str (for that Gatling Laser if nothing else but mostly for the pack muling)/Energy Weapons/Science come up though I guess, so hey that works.
Ammo crafting is a good idea, but you just don't get the parts to make bullets enough. Primers and oddly enough casing are a bitch to get (You need to get a perk to pick up your own spent brass?!???), shops sell you more ammo than ammo parts zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz under utilised feature, but meh a nice perk on top of something I kind of consider mandatory in a game with Fallout 3s shitty shitty FUCKING SHIT FUCK YOU GAME FUCK FUCK FUCK item degradation system. Next play through (because it is good enough so far that I will probably do another one sometime) will be played with no item durability because fuck that shit.
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Lufia DS: Gades is dead, dead, deadski. Party level is around 40, just saw Jeros get kidnapped. Impressions? Lufia DS is breezy. It's like warm spring breeze in gaming form, always moving without a second's pause. The redemption comes in that it's a fun game with engaging combat and decently written characters.
Level 40
LEVEL 40!?
Dude, grind less.
Playing this myself and enjoying it. The game's combat gets too easy after Gades dies (Easier if you're gratuitously overlevelled I'm sure!). I felt that Amon's effect on the populace and Daos' was too similar (fear). Amon is just supposed to confuse people into attacking each other, not be all "RAR FEAR ME". Daos actually looks cool in this, for once in his miserable life.
Going to the Three Towers now. Not much to complain about as it is a fusion of a decent (if too easy) ARPG with a good helping of nostalgia for Lufia 2 fans. If you liked the original you should give this a shot at some point.
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Godhand stage 3: only 30 continues! nice!
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Lufia DS: Gades is dead, dead, deadski. Party level is around 40, just saw Jeros get kidnapped. Impressions? Lufia DS is breezy. It's like warm spring breeze in gaming form, always moving without a second's pause. The redemption comes in that it's a fun game with engaging combat and decently written characters.
Level 40
LEVEL 40!?
Dude, grind less.
It is easy to overlevel in this game, just kill yourself a lot.
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Fallout New Vegas - The game badly needed the classic character creation screen so I didn't start and stop over and over again to fiddle with stats and traits. Of course a few hours later I find out I could have just remade my character if I walked out of town far enough classic Oblivions style (which is still bad design with the way the character creation works just as a heads up for anyone. It shouldn't take 15 minutes to get through that shit in replays). Game is good so far. Much much much better than Fallout 3, it is far from an abomination full of stupid. Playing with Small Guns, Repair and Speech as my focusses, dumping a few points into Lock Pick, probably will do Science as well after that. Menus still suck, they weren't going to be able to do much there though, kind of stuck with it (Proooobably not as painfully console port restricted as KotOR 1 is, but still very frustrating to use because you need to use them more often). Item degradation sucks hard still, even playing with Repair it is frustrtating. Seriously these guns couldn't get THROUGH a 1000 round testing without being made completely inoperable. Weapon repair kits being able to be made with Science are neat but requires hauling around a lot of crap for them, makes an actually fairly interesting build with high Str (for that Gatling Laser if nothing else but mostly for the pack muling)/Energy Weapons/Science come up though I guess, so hey that works.
Ammo crafting is a good idea, but you just don't get the parts to make bullets enough. Primers and oddly enough casing are a bitch to get (You need to get a perk to pick up your own spent brass?!???), shops sell you more ammo than ammo parts zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz under utilised feature, but meh a nice perk on top of something I kind of consider mandatory in a game with Fallout 3s shitty shitty FUCKING SHIT FUCK YOU GAME FUCK FUCK FUCK item degradation system. Next play through (because it is good enough so far that I will probably do another one sometime) will be played with no item durability because fuck that shit.
Really, manual ammo reloading is much more useful for turning standard ammo into special types, since if you have a good repair skill you can do it at a 1:1 ratio.
Anyway, as far as FO:NV, I spent most of the day trying to decide who to side with. Have to praise the game on this: each side actually makes some good points, yes, even those assholes in Caesar's Legion. Ultimately, though, I realized the solution was "WILD CARD BITCHES! YEEEEEEEEEEEHAAAAAAAAW!"
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Lufia DS: Gades is dead, dead, deadski. Party level is around 40, just saw Jeros get kidnapped. Impressions? Lufia DS is breezy. It's like warm spring breeze in gaming form, always moving without a second's pause. The redemption comes in that it's a fun game with engaging combat and decently written characters.
Level 40
LEVEL 40!?
Dude, grind less.
It is easy to overlevel in this game, just kill yourself a lot.
It's easy to do it the normal way, there's a couple of good spots near save points. The end of the Tanbel Mines and midway through the Gruberik Bridge are both great for this. I could abuse the level boost system, but what's the fun in that?
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>Vanish for two months.
>Return after having purchased an XBox 360
>Now playing Tales of Vesperia (leaving desert), BlazBlue Continuum Shift (maining Hakumen and TAGER)
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VENGEANCE IS MINE. I just shot Mr. House right in the face. Now I'm going to go kill Caesar with a straight razor.
EDIT: Oh my god, I just got done with Vault 11. This place was fucking amazing. Gref, you need to get your ass down there. It's southwest of the intersection between the 93 and the 95.
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Fallout NV: Darn it, I fell way behind Rob. I still haven't gotten around to meeting Benny in the Tops, because I've been discovering locations and doing sidequests. Got the NCR armor for Boone, so he looks even more like Rolento, then shipped him off to the 38 so I could get Arcade; pimped out ED-E with the Followers, then shipped him off to the 38; and now I'm playing errand boy for the King.
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Yeah I have to say even playing through as a pretty nice guy there was a few moments so far where I have felt kind of bad for just straight up shooting Caesar's Legion dudes. I shouldn't be stunned that Obsidian can write villains that can be evil without being such total douches that I immediately kill them on sight by default.
Best moment so far, just doing general searching and pulling a horde of Glowing Ones. I can barely hurt this dudes and they are relentless. Longest most intense running through a deserted wasteland I have had in ages. This is the kind of shit that makes this own the hell out of Fallout 3. The Wasteland never feels like it is strictly railroading you like huge portions of Washington did in FO3. There are threats that are beyond your grasp that you can run into, but you should have a way around them even if it means hiking a fair way. Fallout 3 on the other hand had rail road ways throught he city instead of doing the interesting thing of just saying "Get to here" and then having a multiple path maze which would have been amazing to have people play through and discuss like they could have with a burnt out shell of a city. Instead this is open up to you, you can go wherever you want and suffer the consequences for reaching beyond your grasp.
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Special ability-wise... well, they finally did something but recycle the same runes they pretty much have used since S2, and I for one welcome the change. The Suikoden series was seriously stagnating gameplaywise, in my eyes - S1 introduced things, S2 put in a whole new spin with multiple rune slots and way more rune options, S3 put in a whole new spin with skills and partner-commands. By contrast, S4-5 offered virtually no innovations (uh formation skills?). Tierkreis opts for a pretty large departure and it works well enough. Certainly, every character receiving different marks of the stars makes character choice more interesting than in many previous games. My main complaint is that the system does take a little while to get rolling - it's dull when everyone has only 1-2 marks and doesn't really hit its stride until everyone has 5-6 and you start making real choices.
Oh, and characters having varied equipment options that make for real differences (dual-wielding vs. 2-handed vs. 1-handed and shield, strike/pierce/slash, short/medium/long range) is another neat way to differentiate characters a little and make the player make choices, probably an overdue idea in the series. BUT BUT BUT YOU CAN'T SHARPEN WEAPONS ANY MORE NOT A SUIKODEN. :( :( :(
...
The game lends itself nicely enough to the DL if it ever gets playership (if if if). Quite a few PCs with plenty of plot who are also forced for reasonable durations, everyone has clearly unique skillsets, etc. Haven't looked closely at the individual duellers yet beyond one or two (Hero is a very solid Heavy, for instance), but offhand I'd certainly support Hero, Liu, Marica, Jale, Asad, Crodechild, and Diadora, and would certainly consider supporting Diulf, Sophia, Fredegund, Manaril, Vaslof, Resno, Neira, Hotupa, Cougar, and probably a few more. Valfred for bosses, unsure if anyone else is worthwhile as an idea (the final maybe, about 4 others are workable if anyone actually cares about mediocre Suikoden human bosses who aren't Zahhak/Alenia level comically bad).
Wanted to comment on things I found striking! The first was that I liked that they went a special ability route, but I didn't like the way it manifested. At the end, there felt like there was just way too much redundancy, but's too many battle characters+too many skills+so many of the skills ending up identical in the end. Which actually goes back to theoretical duelling. When I made my large ranking list for the game ages ago, I realized that the game ended up spreading out skills in such a manner that basically every person I gave a ranking even in Middle (and it was about 30 of them)! A few Heavies or H/M and one Light IIRC (Mubal)...but, yeah, felt like I was ranking the few types over and over!
Also, wasn't the final only durable compared to other bosses? Remember it having like 15K which isn't horrible, but not really great.
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25k actually (not counting the previous forms). No this isn't durable in the grand scheme of RPG bosses, but this is Suikoden we're talking about.
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Lufia DS: In the middle of this whole Gratze clusterfuck. The tank dungeon and tank boss were both retarded gimmicks. One thing I want to mention while it's on my mind: Why did Maxim make a random, blatant pass at Iris at the Ice Mist Mountains? It's wholly out of character, unless it's something like Iris is manipulating Maxim's emotions for a Mirror of Truth repeat.
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Oh, 25K is decent at least, I just really had it in my mind as 14K for some reason. Well, 25K is decent unless you probably do trading to get lots of money at least!
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I actually have some cursory boss stats (didn't really care enough for in-depth testing for a few reasons!) which I should organise and post sometime. Maybe tomorrow.
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Cared enough about the bosses to get cursory ones! I mostly just snickered at them and moved on.
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Fair reaction.
THEY ARE BETTER THAN ALENIA AND ZAHHAK THOUGH.
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FO:NV-
Finished. NO KINGS, NO MASTERS. I'd have turned Vegas over to the NCR if Tandi was still alive, but she isn't and I don't trust anyone else from there. So independence it is!
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Yeah knowing that is an option I might go for it as well, because seriously, fuck those guys. Looks like the Hub hasn't got any better over the last what is it hundred years?
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>Vanish for two months.
>Return after having purchased an XBox 360
>Now playing Tales of Vesperia (leaving desert), BlazBlue Continuum Shift (maining Hakumen and TAGER)
You had disappeared?
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Yay more ToV players.
Lufia 2 DS: Beaten.
A fun game, if one I wouldn't recommend to everyone. I'll post more on it later.
Maxim for Godlike, though.
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Yeah knowing that is an option I might go for it as well, because seriously, fuck those guys. Looks like the Hub hasn't got any better over the last what is it hundred years?
About 110, I think. But, yeah, did you do Cass' quest?
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Nah I might have missed it. I am pretty bad at finding quests in Oblivion engine games. Even this one which I am thoroughly does induce a great apathy for rifling around trying to find named NPCs.
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She's literally the only person not in an NCR uniform in the bar at Mojave Outpost. And come on, she's Cassidy's daughter and needs your help, man.
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Yay more ToV players.
Lufia 2 DS: Beaten.
A fun game, if one I wouldn't recommend to everyone. I'll post more on it later.
Maxim for Godlike, though.
Second cycle has an alternate ending and a true last boss. And no, the true last boss is not Arekdias.
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L2DS: Beaten. Short game, pretty fun too if you go in for its sort of gameplay. Way too easy to snap in half once you get a bunch of mystic stones though.
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And no, the true last boss is not Arekdias.
God dammit, why NOT!? >:(
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The amount of caring I see for LUFIA PLOT astounds and saddens me.
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Went shopping and bought !Lufia2 and Dawn of Heroes. Starting with DoH first.
The graphics and story are dorky as hell, but wow is this ever a DL game. Surprisingly deep SRPG with good balance among characters and some actual CHALLENGE. The fair fight rules and the way squad buffs work make you actually use your brain for once. Also I love that Reynald can improve his healing by beating on people.
Stuck on the last boss of the second zone now, because his guards are evil incarnate. I come so close to killing one of the damned things (which would make things so much easier), but just can't quite get those last few hp off.
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The amount of caring I see for LUFIA PLOT astounds and saddens me.
Well, I always kind of liked the idea of the Sinistrals, Lufia's own little version of the Four Horsemen, and Arek's random existence and even more random non-importance bothers me.
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You just don't understand MYSTARY.
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Considering it is a remake of the game that he has his one and only scene, having no closure after all these years is some pretty amazing fail/trolling.
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Clearly they're building up to a Fortress of Doom remake in which Lufia achieves full Erim mode while remaining a PC and smites him with player controlled beam spam.
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Considering it is a remake of the game that he has his one and only scene, having no closure after all these years is some pretty amazing fail/trolling.
Well, you don't even get to see his face this time, only hear his voice.
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A voice over is still a scene anyway. Worthless plot element that they should just have dropped.
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WoW: Paladin hit 80 after some vaguely obsessive grinding this week. Huzzah.
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Lufia DS: I got Artea. Really gunz? They really tried make an old SNES rpg hip and cool.
Question for Robs and Grefters: If I could run Fallout 3 on high settings, could I run New Vegas on at least medium? I can't really upgrade my HD 4850 at the moment since I need a new power supply.
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The system requirements are basically identical. So yeah.
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4850 will be more than good enough for it yeah.
FO:NV - I still haven't made it to the vault yet. Whenever I get to play and come to the DL to check directions Rob gave is smack back in the middle of the nightly DL down time. Instead fixed up Ed-E finally, finished Come Fly With Me and fixed up a power plant.
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Yammering in this thread was sufficiently complimentary of New Vegas for me to pick it up (and as much as I hate weapon durability in games on even a conceptual level, I have some faith in Obsidian writing), so yeah messed around a little yesterday. Not much, just wandered about the starting town. The setup is intriguing enough and atmosphere seems pretty much what it should be. Of course, given Cid failure at FPS games and Cid failure at building a competent Fallout main, it was a very short period of time before I was killed by insects while looking for flowers.
I usually fiddle around with a couple different builds before running with one in these games anyway. (Though as Gref noted this is kind of a hassle in New Vegas; it's a neat way to do chargen, conceptually, and it was cool the first time, but after that...draaag). Kind of split between charismatic science whiz and rampant kleptomaniac. Which skills are actually useful in this game? Don't...really have much interest in building a combat monster, but I will surely have to kill something at some point so I figure at least one skill tag should be reserved for energy weapons since that's traditionally the best way to kick ass.
Also...So there's a reclusive puppetmaster running a seedy gambling town, who no one ever sees and is attended solely by robots? I can't help but feel I've seen this in an Obsidian game before...It's difficult not to draw the obvious conclusion.
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Energy Weapons should be viable from the start, there is a few Laser Pistols around the place to get you started. If Mantis are raping you then abuse VATS more often. Point blank, shoot them in the head, will do the job. If you got killed by Blowflies then I got nothing, I don't think they uh even hit me >_> They can't see for shit, can't aim and don't do much damage. Was one shotting them with Varmint Rifle as a small guns user. If you explore around the town (I think it is to the east) you can find a small cave which will have a Laser Pistol in it if you feel you need that edge.
Skills that are good, Repair/Science both seem pretty respectable, I am getting both, but you could probably get by with one. You want a combat skill, this is a very combat heavy Fallout. Theoretically still doable as a pacifist run from what I understand, but yeah they make you work for it. Speech and Barter are alright, but having no trouble ignoring barter with Charisma dump stat. Sneak is probably good, but sneaking is useful with just my base level skills in it, so dunno how well it pays off long term. Can't speak much for the others.
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I wandered a bit too far afield (there was a big damn cross out in the waste a ways and I had to see what it was) and met a radscorpion. Bad end.
I forgot to mention that it annoys me how the "Press V for VATS" suggestion window never goes away. Is that a bug or an intentional annoyance?
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So, now that I have a PS3 and could very well buy or rent some of these nifty Fallout games I have heard so much about... 9no I never played any of the older ones.) Should I play 3 or try out vegas instead? Does it matter?
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Science seems to be a really, really good conversation skill, and it has nice synergy with energy weapons. Repair is less valuable than it was because your weapon condition is no longer capped by it, but if you are using guns I recommend taking repair over science for it's synergy with guns.
Believe it or not, explosives is actually a viable main combat skill, since dynamite is so easy to find and flamers/rocket launchers are both on that skill now.
And if you're having trouble with combat, you can always pick up Boone at Novac, who is fucking gamebreaking, or Cass at the Mojave Outpost, who is slightly less so but still damn good.
And Scar, FONV is better in pretty much all way.
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The following is my opinions for a first-go-round. Please note that Rob and Grefter know a lot more than me about pretty much everything Fallouty.
As a counterpoint to Rob, I found Repair to be pretty much the first skill to get up to near max thanks to Jury Rigging. There are a lot fewer terminals as compared to Fallout 3, but Science is one of the big conversation skills. Personally, I'd start by tagging one combat skill (Guns/Energy/Melee), and two of Speech/Science/Lockpick/Medicine. I've always found Stealth to be pretty much useless, Barter is decent but not essential, Explosives just don't seem to show up often enough after the rush of dynamite at the start, Unarmed isn't that viable a weapon choice, and Survival can be picked up later on.
For SPECIAL, Charisma is a dump stat only if you're planning on going solo - your companions' attack and defence gets a decent boost for each point of Charisma you have. Intelligence got nerfed from Fallout 3, but I'd still recommend at least a 6 in it. Make sure your Endurance is decent if you want to take advantage of the implants - you can only get END-1 of them (hint: regen one is awful).
So, now that I have a PS3 and could very well buy or rent some of these nifty Fallout games I have heard so much about... 9no I never played any of the older ones.) Should I play 3 or try out vegas instead? Does it matter?
New Vegas is the more Fallouty of the two, but I'd suggest that you play 3 first because A) it's easier, and B) it's better patched right now for consoles. Get the GOTY version if you can - it should have all the DLC with it. Speaking of which...
Fallout NV: Stopped for a while after the game froze on me twice in a 15 minute period. Out of deference for the Stampede, did not kill off Cass. I've used all the companions for a bit, and am currently with Raul while I scout talent for the Tops. Still haven't met up with Benny.
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Ninja Gaiden: Alma got way easier once I remembered Flying Swallow exists. Nearly finished the FPS section now, mainly using the Vigoorian Flail for a change of pace.
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Unarmed actually gets amazing late in the game with the Ballistic Fist. It is without a doubt harder than any other early on, though. A lot like it was in FO2 really.
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Oz DS: Working on the second set of dungeons. Dorothy isn't broken enough, so I'm grinding. Not much progress, really. Just felt like mentioning it since I feel like the only one in this thread playing games that don't have guns.
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Oz DS: Working on the second set of dungeons. Dorothy isn't broken enough, so I'm grinding. Not much progress, really. Just felt like mentioning it since I feel like the only one in this thread playing games that don't have guns.
Are you skillset grindans? That's 100% pointless (and impossible, unless you don't remember the dragons) if so, particularly because what truly breaks the game is getting your shiny shit rather than just getting stats. That's just boring.
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Lufia DS: Amon fucking sucks.
More comments later once I finish it, which should be by the end of the week. I have this huge post kicking around in my head, we'll see if I have the focus to get it all out.
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I should mention this:
To get the dragon egg reward from the unbeatable Erim fight requires surviving that fight without taking damage. They easy way to do it is just keep on jumping off the bridge and has the falling damage immunity skilled equipped.
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Lost Odyssey- Finally beat this. Had spent several weeks not really playing anything and then doing sidequesting (partially for stat topic reasons). Anyways, little actually tempts me to post in this topic and Lost Odyssey at one point was making me do it multiple times a day, so I definitely feel strongly enough about the game for a fairly extensive writeup. Of course, writing isn't my strongsuit, so that will can of be slapdash and such. Oh well.
First off, think that game comes in at 7 for me. I overall really liked a lot of facets of the game, but the first chunk of this writeup at least is going to be attacking some notably battle issues (Although it was up and down on a lot of issues, not just battle!)
Gameplay:
GC System: Somewhat reminiscent of the Wizard of Oz RPG in that it takes a simple conceit regarding formation and runs with it on both the PC and enemy side. In Lost Odyssey, that's GC's points, which are based on the front row's HP, and helps reduce damage for the back row. This can work especially well with enemies because it effectively means that you can see some formations that have nasty enemies in the back, and you basically can't do much to them until disabling the front row. For at least the first half the game, this can mean that randoms can get really mean. There were several places were you had nasty status/painful MT magic/just a large glut of competent enemies that could easily wipe you out (And in my case, they often did!). Worst was the Cave of Darkness, which I probably had to make 4 attempts at. Competent randoms at least lasted until Sed's joining!
Immortals vs Mortals
On the PC side, the other main facets was Immortals vs Mortals. Mortals naturally learned skills, while Immortals could learn skills by linking with Mortals or by wearing equipment for a while (FF 9 style). Immortals started with a set number of blank skill slots to be filled, and these were increased by items you found, or later on, by skills. The balance here was...not good overall; Immortals easily had the ability to pick up all the major skills a PC had. This was comprised by badly balanced things, like Black-White, combining two mortal skillsets in one! Sure, you could put a Black-White accessory on a Mortal, but they are still limited by needing that one accessory; mage Immortals can easily stock up on 4 types of magic easily while taking in a host of super potent support skills and having the same base stats.
At endgame you were looking at Sarah and Ming have all the advantages of the other mages, plus 40% more HP and MP, random damage nulling or absorption, a host of extra status immunities, complete elemental immunity...yeah, the balance was just not good. Oh yeah, Immortals also revive after several turns dead too! Part of this was that the cost of learning the skills was just way too low. Halving one element was 20 SP, halving all elements was 40 SP, and NULLING them all was 50? You can learn Black-White 8 with like 40 SP (4 random battles) before Jansen and Cooke can even get the skills. Yeah, just not well balanced at all in this respect.
More bad balance!
Speaking of more misbalancing, the game had a bad, bad, bad balance of items versus magic. Magic tends to be slow, while items were often the first thing to go off in battle. While the white mage might heal 200 and do it slowly, items could heal for 500 HP much more quickly. Magic damage items were also notably quick, although at least weaker than mages casting. Still badly designed, but unlike healing where items at points multiple times stronger, ridiculously quicker, and usable by everyone, using damage spells in battle actually felt like it had some use.
Another balance issue: Physical vs Magic
You get rings that can boost Physical damage; Magic gets nothing. Physicals are much quicker and the good phsyicals are on characters that have double the HP of the good mages. Magic...might do 25%-50%...sometimes. Sometimes enemy Mdef is too high, sometimes physicals are hitting elemental weaknesses, type weaknesses, and getting general damage boosts! Just overall, physicals and physical fighters felt way too potent. The part with two physical fighters was easier than the part with 4 mages.
Last balance issue: Casting Speed
Already tied into some previous mentions, but casting speed had issues. Given the GC system, MT stuff is awesome...minus that you aren't seeing it go off on turn 1 until Cooke hits L48 I believe. The problem is that this applies to shitty, shitty MT too (which in fairness, could see some use it went off quicker. As is, using an MT move for 200 on turn 2 or one for 500 on turn 2 makes little question which to use). Sure, you could use the buff to speed up casting which I believe can move some spells to round 1, but then using two people for it makes it feel somewhat pointless too. That said, while all MT regardless of quality basically goes off turn 2 most of the game, the second Cooke gets "Reduce Casting Speed 2" almost all MT, regardless of quality, hits turn 1. This just bugs, because it would have actually made a decent quirk or facet! This even includes the few, very rare and very late MT healing spells (Which in themselves are so absurdly balanced against normal spells, which I guess kind of fits in general annoying balance marring what could have been a more interesting battle system)
And the PCs in battle!
Kaim: Absurd HP, strength and relatively quick physical.
Seth: Slightly less HP and strength than Kaim, faster physical. Still absurd stats.
Jensen: Black mage. Best base HP of the pure mage types, but still not good. Magic generally does more than physicals (maybe by about 50% on average), but is slower, costs more, and isn't as boostable! The balance isn't great, but given the GC setup, mages still get a lot of use. Jensen is mostly the same until the end, although getting him to L52 nets him double casting! Of course, which Ming and Sarah can probably
Cooke: White mage. 70% or so of Jensen's HP. A lot of her skillset is not good. ST defensive buffs and healing magic are both pretty bad. She does have MT healing, but it's fairly weak and for most of the game needs two turns! Turn 2 100% MT Blind is kind of cute. Most important thing is that she gets "casting speed up" skills, which don't come on any accessory. As noted, this makes stupidly good spells go off turn 1 (Although it's very late).
---->Also of note, her ultimate White magic skill is lolzy. Directly based on her raw HP. Off the person who can easily have 1/4 of Kaim's HP at endgame. Of course, mages that can grab a lot more HP can get and (using Cooke's own speed boosting, of course), can use the spell damn well. Still, funny how badly it suits Cooke herself.
Macke: Fighter Mage. HP is middle of the road, has a passable (if wholly unimpressive physical), kind of okay magic (Until Gamble, a surprisngly potent random damage magic skill), extremely shitty healing (again, fits in with the game's general power balance since healing magic is shit), some eh status, and then kick-ass attack buffs. Attack buffs eventually become MT, and are awesome.
Ming: Immortal Mage 1. Able to pick up the skillsets of all three mages before her. Starts with slightly less HP than
Jansen, but can equip HP + Skills (Although those take a while to exist). As I ranted above, Immortal Mages end up making Mortal ones look like fools.
Sarah: Immortal Mage 2. Battlewise essentially identical in all ways to Ming.
Tolten: Fighter who joins mid/late disk 3. Doesn't have the raw HP of Kaim or Seth, but still very durable with a lot of random skills to boost that durability. 100% on first activation Guts, weapon guard, things of that nature. Decent enough, although Kaim and Seth having better raw stats and then being able to boost their stats easily...again, balance! It was not good.
Sed: MINUS HERE. Random slapdash of skills that ends up being very, very stupid. Laying them out:
--->Double Item: Completely changes the game. Right, items are by far the best healing, and now you can double them with no speed cost. Oh yeah, Sed also has item booster, so the effect is now 50% more? As if magic as healing wasn't already trivialized enough. And he starts with this! Needless to say, first skill the Immortals picked up from him
--->Double SP: A skill designed to quicken the rates at which Immortals gained superiority over Mortals! And you only needed one for it to work for the whole party! Which is good, because the Double skills (SP, EXP, Items?) cost 100 SP where I think the next highest was 50? So actually having needed to learn this on every Immortal would have actually balanced the skill quite well! But that wasn't the case.
--->Auto Barrier and Shell: Yep, automatically cut basically all damage 40%, and immortals can learn these easily. At least I don't think he started with these, but still. Needless to say, for choosing a 5th PC, Sed badly mocked other Mortals and actually felt like he could almost hang with Immortals. UOM power.
Bosses
Wait, did I say there weren't going to be any more balance issues? I was wrong! Bosses could be a wild trip here. The second legit boss of the game...a very durable backrow enemy that can eat his front row to charge up a powerful MT+paralysis attack (MT is about 200 IIRC. Your healing is...not 200 at first point, and somewhat limited). Killing it once is actually decently difficult....and then another one of them spawns. This boss was extremely cruel, and I had an absurd number of resets. I almost quit the game at this point, and if people did, it wouldn't surprise me. The first boss of the game is also pretty evil with MT+Poison, but in comparison to the boss that comes soon after, it was a big deal.
After putting the game down a while thanks to headache bosses, and finally coming back to it, I was glad to see that most bosses after that were decently challenging, but not 7 reset level. There were a lot of quirks, some very good damage, and bosses generally kept me on my toes. The final late game bosses got horrible though. The final boss first form (plot battle) had a bunch of moves that made me think the actual battle might be decent...but then they went and neutured him (MT HP->1 became like effective MT 10% damage. Faaaaaaaaail hard).
Overall, I did like the battles. Both randoms and bosses were solid difficulty, and the game had a lot of really nice quirks. However, it just had so, so many balance issues, although luckily none of them of the fatal sort. Just pesky and bothersome design wise!
World/Dungeon Design
Awesome. I've come to recognize that one thing that I look for in games (and is one of the big things I can look for, which is probably rare overall) is a fully realized, fully developed unique world. I can read books with this being one of the drivers, and I can certainly play games. In that respsect, Lost Odyssey truly delivered in many ways (Although not fully, which I'll deal with). Starting with the base world design, it feels like the creators spent a lot of full fleshing out each area. Cities are quite large, filled with what felt like countless little sidequests, unique little nooks and crannies and a hell of a lot of personality (Even down the refugee camp). My favorite was the half-possessed town of Saman, which was a lot of fun.
This held for dungeons. They were large, full of a lot of unique designs, and awesomely, many pratfalls. These weren't over the top like the bludgeon to you death endless puzzles of Lufia 2 or a WA game, but rather a lot of what felt like quirky area appropriate real-life dangers with an in game incorporation. This included Wind, Dark Holes in Caves, Poisoned Gas, Ice Flows and Sludge. Basically every dungeon was good about throwing in some unique mechanism, which added a lot to the feel of exploration (Cave of Darkness was especially awesome at this!). Mechnical dungeons were also great at this even if there was some stock things (Definitely groaned when I got to the MGS inspired sneak dungeon). Bonus points to Experimental Staff for integrating stealing in to the puzzle. Bonus points then removed for making the stealing rate so shitty, but still awesome idea. So, yeah, this is something that overall really, really worked for the game for me.
Plot/Theme/Characters
RPGs aiming for a cohesive theme are generally pretty rare, but Lost Odyssey was able to pull off a nice, subtle yet very cohesive them (albeit a very easy one to tackle) with life and death. It's the very core of the game's driving plot mechanism (immortality), included in a lot of the world extras (Kaim's dream) and even gets some categorical in battle showing. The dreams are one of the nice things of the game, if not always well spaced. I do wish they had they intergrated more the dreams into the locations you cross (This was my design flaw for the world. Kaim has been everywhere, and it felt like some of the places that were in his dreams should have been blatantly noted in the game).
So, the theme was established early and well done, and the overall plot wasn't too bad...but it was marred by the characters. We did battle-summaries, now lets see them in plot!
Ruby Earrings (Kaim)- Relatively stoic immortal main character. Sensible as his memories have been sealed. Unthaws a bit as the game moves on, but never much. Decent designwise, although ruby earrings? Really?
No Actual Physical Design Flaw (Seth)- Less stoic immortal character! She generally works, although she gets 1 too many PC groupies and can be a bit abresive at times.
Man Leggings (Jansen)- All fucking over the place. His introduction is him saying goodbye to 3 whores. His story arc is a chaste romance. The game wobbles back and forth with this. He at one point blushes when they practically fall in each other, which is absurd for a character whose introduction is leaving 3 whores. I believe that in essentially every scene, he's making unfunny, badly placed comments (Two were hilarious, but...that's it). Someone should tell him the art of snarking best works with selective silence. He's also the rare character because he's the only one who has a complete mystery of a backstory. Where he's from, why he started working for the villian, how he got his skills? It's all a complete mystery, and kind of lacking thinking about it.
Cooke- I actually liked her design, so no pointing that out. She's fun enough, although sometimes she can be a bit annoying as Seth's groupie. That said, her brother....
Wore a Dress in the Ending (Macke)- Sucks. Cooke is somewhat mature and can fit in with an adult party. Macke is constantly running off looking for his mother's spirit and endangerous himself and therefore your party. I generally hate this type of character, and Macke didn't really have anything else. Even worse, unlike his sister, the game had to bend over backwards to think of reason for his inclusion in your party!
Double Thong and Stripper Boobs (Ming)- Senses magic energy and passes out drunk. Super eventually asked me about her design, bringing up Tifa. Ming put Tifa to shame since at least Tifa is covered up. Ming has obviously fact breasts and is perfectly willing to have that half out all the time!
---->Gaping Plot Hole: Ming has no reason to know Cooke and Mack. She's lost her memory, basically locks herself away playing harp all day. Cooke and Mack are two kids who are basically in the Numaran slums. Clearly an instance where someone was writing dialogue without reading the whole script!
Hammer Pants (Sarah): Not an actual character, just another appendage of Kaim. Characterization starts and stops with Kaim's wife who loves her family.
---->Gaping Plot Hole: For an Immortal, Sarah got...remarkably little accomplished. In fact, unlike every immortal, there's almost no implication of what she did for 1000 years. 35 years ago at least, she had a baby. She wasn't Kaim's first wife though (One of the dreams mentions that), so...what the hell did she do for lets say 900 years?
Tolten- Eh, he's not a good character and they don't pretend otherwise. I liked some the early manipulation stuff, but that was Gongora
UOM (With bad clothing, yes; Sed)- 65 Year Old who says "Momma" in half his lines. Seth groupie 2, but unlike the teenage girl, he's a 65 year old man. Doesn't work, and he just generally looks like a fool always!
Gongora- Kickass design! I'd call him a babyeater supported by bad writing. When he wasn't acting a fool he didn't come off too badly, but LO loves to make everyone act the fool
Ming's Underling- Well, at one point the PCs trick him by throwing a smoke bomb in his face and then stripping him to his panties and an apron? Bigger fool than all PCs, which wasn't easy.
Needless to say, LO has an issue with making character say moronic, bombastic things in the most typical over the top JRPG style. It has some neat plot stuff (I actually really like the funeral and the game's ability to really switch up the pace), but the characters needed muzzles sometimes.
Hmm, this feels like a sufficient rant to me! I did actually as noted enjoy the game at lot, but it did have it's issues.
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Mmmm you haven't really said how much better the writing is in the optional dream bits, where it is infinitely superior to the main game.
They also are jarringly entirely nothing like the rest of the world sadly, it seems they were written first and then the game just kind of drifted off in its own direction. There is one with mentions of machine guns and bombings that could only work from airplane (believe it is written as if in south east Asia during WW2 honestly) and ... yeah fully automatic fire arms and flight are things generally beyond the grasp of the technology in this world in the present, let alone some indertermined period in the past probably some 50+ years ago.
Kaim and Sarah had been together for at least half a century or so, the king of country that was fighting Uhra at the start of the game met them as a young man and he is well past middle age in the scenes with him during the main game. So I really don't know what the deal is with their relationship in general. It suffers from the same kind of elastic timeframe the Torment has where some things had to happen very recently, but the plot doesn't quite work if they happened nearly as recently as they have. Torment gets away with it by having such dense well written engaging awesome plot. LO falls on its face by uh being generic safe JRPG trope trap.
Really have to second that for all its flaws it really is a fun game, though a little suprised at the number of resets you had. The randoms were brutal occasionally, but I think I have had maybe 1 or 2 resets over all and that was normally from sloppy play from me. That boss with the MT paralysis I fought twice because I missed something (died on the randoms plot fight AFTER them actually, because THOSE are brutal massed enemies and I wasn't paying attention), first time I just scraped in a win, but yeah it is mostly about getting a rhythm with killing the spawns and attacking the boss. Keep it down to 1 or 2 up at most at a time and spam the fuck out of Prism with Jansen and it is very manageable. You can even tough out the attack if you let it slip through once or twice. You should have to deal with it at most 3 or 4 times. Knowing that healing items broken up front helps immensely though.
Lots of FAQbait in the game though, so eh might add up I guess.
Rocket Slime - This game is good and fun, I kind of feel bad because I keep meaning to start up FFTA2 but this just stays in the DS. Up to Callmigh Bluff after getting the ability to break crystals. Don't think I have missed any Slimes now. Lots of alchemy has opened up and it seems that to keep up with tank upgrades I need to grind shit up. Torn between my need to powergame and the fact that I am just playing this on the bus and at night when I go to bed.
I swear this game was made just so that they could make a bunch of puns using Final Fantasy IP after the Squeenix merger.
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Yeah, that game was not good about technology in the past, although that bombing could have been a cannon from a ship theoretically. The game did have planes though (no idea for how long of course!)
Probably not much more than 50 years though! It definitely seemed like Lirum was their first child together. Which still begs the question of what Sarah was doing exactly for 9 centuries, but she's dull enough that I could just assume crying in a corner by herself.
Oh, I had that boss's attack slip through once or twice; the problem was that he eventually just kept wearing me down. The resets I had on randoms...were basically all the same dungeon. One when it first cast Prisma and you for the first time see a random with like 75% average MT damage! Second time...same random, bad luck in trying to kill things in front of it or getting delayed. Third time...group of 6 randoms, just sloppy play. I'm not even sure I had resets to randoms outside that dungeon, but it was a brutal dungeon for me.
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It was a brutal dungeon for me, but yeah, no resets.
Oh yeah also, you did get plenty of use out of the Cover series of spells yeah? They are awesome and own the shit out of healing. You can protect mages for more than their max HP with like the basic rank one and there is two ranks higher. You throw it on Seth and Kaim and it can protect them for about their HP as well until it starts to shoot up late game, when you get Covera. Stops GC Loss, more effective than healing and way more cost effective.
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Cover series are insanely good, yes.
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I didn't actually realize the Cover series was badass until...well, after the game had lost it's challenge (Pyro first told me). It was after I had done the last relatively hard sidequest boss. Of course, I used Cover during the final...but as I noted, I didn't expect the final to be unleashing 10% MT and do something a little less failtastic.
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Dawn of Heroes: Finished the fourth zone. Game continues to be interesting, especially since they go out of their way to make each battle different. Characters are level 20 now. Been cycling through several different ones - they each become useful at times.
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ToV - Shit gets real. Well, it started getting real a bit ago, and then got realer just today.
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I didn't actually realize the Cover series was badass until...well, after the game had lost it's challenge (Pyro first told me). It was after I had done the last relatively hard sidequest boss. Of course, I used Cover during the final...but as I noted, I didn't expect the final to be unleashing 10% MT and do something a little less failtastic.
Honestly, I kind of like the gameplay and plot relationship you could play with having the final be amazingly fail compared to the rest of your army of Immortals who worked with mortals and helped bring them to their full potential and stuff. Of course I assume the game doesn't play with that because this is Square. Plot and gameplay segregation is pretty standard practice.
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Gref, I need you to tell me if you've been to Vault 11 yet. I have thought about it a lot and it is the best part of the entire game.
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Will be going there either tomorrow night or Friday Night, time permitting it will be tomorrow.
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Lufia DS: Oh yes, I'd love a final boss with ridiculous amounts of lag and a gimmick for the fight, thanks! I don't mind the time gimmick, but when the basic lag is slowing the system and you throw in the rest of it, it's not hard. No, it's frustrating.
More comments and a bigger post later, mulling things over still.
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Lufia DS: Finished, total time is somewhere around 25-30 hours, I'd have to check the game clock to be sure. There be spoilers ahead, in case figuring out if a giant post dissecting a game has spoilers is too hard for you.
Where to begin? I'm going to touch on a lot of crap so I'll break this up into segments.
Gameplay:
This is where Lufia DS shines. Combat fits into the world well and is quite a lot of fun. It's fluid, moves well and maintains a breezy pace. None of the battles are overly long, be them random encounters or boss battles. The normal enemies serve well enough, though there's a lack of variety and things feel the same-ish after awhile. This isn't a big deal do to the breakneck pace Lufia DS moves at. The only real threat in most battles is poison, damage and other statuses aren't remotely difficult to deal with. Boss battles aren't much harder, though often gimmicky or otherwise mixed up from normal gameplay. This is a doubled edged sword; many bosses stand out but there's a constant, pervading air of gimmick-ness to the bosses. This isn't a huge deal nor does it seriously detract from the experience, but it is noticeable. You never really have a real boss fight that plays like a normal battle, with the possible exception of Idura's last form. I say possibly because he died in about 1.5 seconds.
Gameplay is further boosted by six playable characters. Each has a unique style that feels different from one another. This is good and encourages you to experiment! This is doubly good since I found Maxim to be the best character to play as, so motivation to move off of him helps. The game isn't hard enough to where using the best character is required; in fact, Lufia DS is so easy that you can play whomever you prefer without much problem. Yes, this is a bit of a backhanded compliment since Lufia DS is piss easy. That aside for the moment, I liked most of the characters with the exception of Guy and Tia. Tia's routine is too fixed in movement in a game that I feel rewards aggression, while Guy's just fucking slow. The others are all good or have ways to work with the system well, much love for their specials.
As mentioned, Lufia DS is easy. E-A-S-Y. The randoms are never threatening unless you monumentally screw up. Even if you do, the fact that one PC dying simply brings in the next ensures that difficulty is transitory at best. Full heals at level up and full healing save points reinforce this, as does the continuing system. You died? No problem! You can select to restart five levels higher than you were! No, I'm not bullshitting. Combined with the short length of Lufia DS and it's the easiest game since...damn, I can't think of one. Something really easy. I never saw a game over except once, and that was on purpose to see how the continue system worked. I don't think I ever came close. I think a few times a single PC died? Usually Guy when using his special on those shell-bug thingies results in him taking 900 damage. It's telling when your few deaths are the result of a strange character quirk.
The final element of gameplay is the puzzles. Like Lufia 2 the game is chock full of them, each dungeon having several. It gets to the point where this is the subject of in character references; Lufia DS is self aware so this shouldn't surprise you. More on that point later. Back to what I was saying, the puzzles are generally solid. None of them are stumpers and they generally feel easier than Lufia 2's. I think there's a bunch of reasons for this. The shorter length means less cracks at making hard puzzles, the general shortness of dungeons and smaller tool supply simplifies thing and I quite frankly think they didn't make them hard. Fits with the rest of the game design, y'know? They may as well call it Lufia: Easy Type.
In fact, being easy is one of the defining marks of Lufia DS. One can pontificate on if this is a reference to Lufia 2 or not - I won't - but it is what it is. The entire gameplay experience is like a warm spring breeze. It warms you up a bit and then it's gone, just like that. This really syncs up well with the rest of the game, for better or for worse.
Characters:
(http://img207.imageshack.us/img207/9009/201004142340000.jpg) (http://img207.imageshack.us/i/201004142340000.jpg/)
Posting this here for reference. Wish I had a better scan or image of it. That's a subtle hint if someone does and wants to post it.
Maxim: He's still the hero and his fundamental role in the story hasn't changed that much. He's a little more hot-blooded and more impulsive than his Lufia 2 counterpart. If anything, he feels like a generic good guy anime lead. At least he's old enough to drink, which puts him a few up on typical RPG mains. This is one of his traits compared to the norm, he's an adult. Not a teenager, not an overgrown ball of emo, but a real, functioning adult. 21 is young, but I can at least accept that, you know? If anything, old Maxim was much more serious. The image up there is a nice reference to that. The old style Maxim is serious to the point of being grave, focused on whatever his problems are. The newer one is less hung up and is often seen smiling in game. I think I slightly prefer old Maxim, but this is less to do with his portrayal here than the general feel and changes to the plot.
Selan: There's not much in the way of changes to Selan's core character. She's slightly more impulsive but very little tweaking was done. The changes are to how she's portrayed compared to Maxim. There's a big movement to make her a full equal to Maxim whenever possible. Instead of staying in Parcelyte when Gades shit goes down, she rushes off and faces him first. She's shown to be competent compared to the other characters, even when it might not make sense. The scene in the three towers with the Energy Augmenter and Tia comes to mind. You would think the mechanical girl would know what it is and Selan wouldn't, not the other way around. For lack of a better way to say it, Selan feels more modern in her presentation.
The crowning touch to this is when she goes along with Maxim to help stop Doom Island, instead of dying when the Sinistrals rupture. I dislike this particular change, I felt the Lufia 2 version of this last part was more effective. In the Lufia 2 version, there's a slow growing sense of understanding of what's going to happen, what has to happen and what Maxim ultimately wants to have happen. Without Selan, there's no role for him but to be the sacrificial savior. It's equal parts saving the world and suicide writ large. It makes a beautiful end to Lufia 2, as well as being a really good downer ending. In Lufia DS it isn't quite the same. Selan's still there and fine, there's none of that tension about what's going to happen.
I don't really hold this as a knock against Selan per se, but more against the game itself.
Guy: Guy fills the role Dekar used to have, big hulking brute full of confidence. He's not as dumb as he looks, but he beats the shit out of things with a giant hammer. He's more developed than in Lufia 2 but I'm neutral to the changes. I like him relatively less but I feel the party dynamic around him is better as a general rule. It makes it hard to say much about him, since I feel he's so tangled up in other things and changes that I don't have much of an opinion.
Tia: Woof. Tia's base character isn't changed too much. Her appearance has and some of her tendencies, but the basic character unfolds like she did before. I have more sympathy for her this time around - Maxim simply doesn't get it at all and then he falls in love with Selan in 5 seconds flat. She resolves the same way, until she shows back up with Dekar in the summer cutscene. Near as I can figure, he dropped by and swept her off her feet, as well as out of emo-land. I'm okay with this! Any possible romance with Dekar and Tia about non-existent, but it gets her back into the party and accepting Maxim's choice. It feels like that and not a relationship, though it's probably due to Lufia DS being so short. Edit: I forgot about Dekar saving her from Idura. Okay, that's one point there but the basic sentiment stands.
From there she's mostly around for minor character stuff, she doesn't change much past then. Tia holding Jeros made me smile, though. That was nice. That more than anything else said that Tia had moved on and provided closure to her old storyline.
Dekar: Having a bad voice actor is what Dekar's second best at, after being the world's strongest man. I couldn't use him in battle since he made me want to kill kittens in pure aural rage. His character was fun sometimes, too over the top in the others. His return scene was completely fucking gimped though. No riding in on a whale and defeating hordes of monsters? C'mon now! The fact that Dekar got a few smiles out of me is impressive, most of the time I can't stand his character type. Anyway, not much more to say about him. What you see is what you get.
Artea: Same character with a gun instead of a bow, as well as a slightly different shade of willowy elf stereotypes. I really don't care much about Artea in Lufia DS, he wasn't around long enough to matter. He didn't have as much time with Guy, due to the party being bigger and less of them being the third and fourth wheel to Maxim/Selan. Oh well.
Lexis: GREAT SCOTT! I'm surprisingly okay with making Lexis into a Doc Brown clone. It works! Making him into an NPC is fine with me in retrospect, since six PCs is already bordering on too many for the game. If there was seventh I'd say it should be Iris. He's okay for what he is, most of my comments related to him are more related to the world changes in Lufia DS. Since he's so tied up in the energy cores mumbo-jumbo I don't really want to go into it here.
Gades: See, I like Gades in Lufia DS. He gets more time to shine, you get to fight him a bunch of times and he works for being what he is. He gets the most work of any villain in the game - I don't include Iris/Erim as a villain - and it shows. Being the God of Destruction is the perfect excuse for someone who goes around and causes cataclysms. It's nice, it's tidy, it works on face value. He's not any great shakes, don't get me wrong, but he works. I can accept this. My only bitch is how his body is a temple, literally. Okay, I thought it was a nice callback and reference a line in Lufia 2. Iris or someone says how the bodies of the Sinistrals are just temples of their energy. It's a nice metaphor, but you didn't have to take it literally! I prefer my gods to be spiritual entities, not giant temple mecha. This is retarded. Re-fucking-tarded. Full on slobbering all over your juice box retarded, folks. We have passed the stupid horizon and are now in idiot-ville.
Fuck how they pronounce Gades. It's Gaydes, not Gahdes. Just tossing that one out there.
Amon: Also known as bitch-boy. Okay, I liked how he sowed actual chaos in trying to drum up a war. This is good! Nothing else is. His voice is bad, his appearance is pathetic - I miss is awesome old armor - and he goes down faster than Snow on an FFT/SRW crossover. I'd be stunned if people managed to miss either of his dragon eggs. They may as well be freebies. He also doesn't get much face time, but considering how he was doing this is a good thing.
Daos: Daos hit the gym, I see. He's not different in character than his Lufia 2 form. Oh sure, he's a little nastier and deals with Erim himself, but not much has changed until you fight him. His boss fight is a fucking abortion of a last boss, ripe with lag as well as a special time gimmick to further complicate the fight and the lag. The last battle of the game is not where you include a new gameplay element. I don't care how cool or broken it is, this is fucking bad design. Let alone because he has the last dragon egg and if you want it and fail you have to do Doom Island over again. It's like a fucking nova of bad choices and bullshit mixed together. It's so bad that I'm taking points off of the entire game for it. Never have I felt so ripped off by a last boss. Even fake Myria in BoF1 was better!
This isn't really about Daos as a character, but the clusterfuck of his battle form overshadows all else. Fuck Daos.
Iris/Erim: I like the idea of adding Iris to your party. It develops her better as well as provides some backstory to Lufia DS. I approve of this much. She develops as you go, but the problem is in Lufia DS's pacing. The concept they have needs a lot of work and time to make it believable. She needs lots of development and Lufia DS is too short to provide it. You don't have the emotional attachments to her that you should, or has she had enough time in the spotlight. The high party head count only makes this worse. It's a shame because the basic idea is really damned good. I suspect the NG+ will help prop this up, or at least I hope.
I think Erim's ultimate realization is that she's in love with Maxim or at least in love with being human. In Lufia 1 Iris gets both her possible loves granted, being reborn as Lufia. In the alternate ending, Arek could be construed as granting this for her sacrifice, but it's vague. I'll go into this more later when I talk about the alternate ending.
Finally, considering the rest of the game avoided stripper-styled outfits, I'm mildly surprised Erim got one.
Part 2 of this after work.
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New Vegas: So ultimately I went with a build geared towards perception/intelligence/agility, energy weapons/repair/science. I took the Wild Wasteland feature just for the hell of it. Don't think I've seen it kick in yet. I mean, there was one random moment on the road outside Goodsprings where a little confused Pipboy icon appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, but I didn't see much going on to warrant it. There was...a tumbleweed in front of me. And a corpse with a snazzy 1920's gambler's hat. Maybe I was looking the wrong direction. Sure happens often enough when people are shooting me, despite the compass.
Mostly just wandering around after doing Goodsprings stuff. Walked into Hidden Valley but ewww centaurs, later. Walked up past Sloan because hey deathclaws, the ones in Fallout 2 were decent, maybe these ones will--fssk oh god my face, my unremarkable face! So also later. Ran to Mojave Outpost, picked up a bunch of sidequests instead.
Boom headshot is generally a winning battle plan. Dynamite reserved for things with no head.
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Pokewhite
Finished, into the aftergame. It's a bit of a jarring transition, wha-hey, everything's level 65!
Last couple of gyms were ridiculously easy, wasn't super impressed with the elite four either (4 pokemon each make for pretty easy fights, even if those 4 are pretty competent). But the final fights were decent.
Some thoughts on individual mans:
Tsutarja/Jalorda (smug snake starter, pure grass): Ended up dropping it. If it got decent status it'd be decent (high speed, decent defenses), but it doesn't and it doesn't have much in the way of attack moves available either. There're a couple of decent options for grass pokes anyhow (Monmen), whereas there's a comparative lack of fire and water options early on. Guess that's a common issue with grass starters, but I don't usually feel like I'd be actively better off with say, an oddish than a bulbasaur. D
Monkeys - there are three of these, fire/grass/water, and you get the one that's weak to your starter; they're rare but catchable too. It feels like good game design, though I didn't really end up using mine for long. Kinda dull, stats are nothing to write home about, stone evolutions always kinda bug me. C
Otamaro line (pure water tadpole -> water/earth frog): One of maybe two realistic choices for a non-starter non-monkey water-type. Pretty solid, though you're stuck with mud shot as an earth move until the aftergame (actually, I still don't have the earthquake TM, but I'm sure I'll turn it up soon. That or I just stupidly missed it somewhere). But decent, balanced stats in each of its three forms at each point of the game, plus the final stage subs out one of the stupid rain abilities for something pretty decent (poison hand, or something, contact moves sometimes inflict poison), access to #newimproved Drain Punch in the low 40s, too, which is a surprisingly useful option. Strangely doesn't get access to Waterfall, though, which is fucking annoying, albeit an aftergame concern. B
Moguryu -> Doryuzu (pure ground -> ground/steel mole): I was really excited about moguryu at first, but I ended up dropping it. Ground/steel leaves you with lots of defensive holes, there's a lot of ground and a lot of fighting in this game, and your def stats are awful to boot, so you don't really have the durability you might've wanted. That said, early Earthquake plus great attack and decent speed really ain't anything to complain about. Mostly I think I dropped it because the second stage is extraordinarily ugly (which is sad, 'cause I like the pre-evolution a lot aesthetically). B-
The candlestick from Beauty and the Beast (ghost-fire, three-stage evolution, final form via dusk stone, Hitomoshi to Shandera): Glass canon. Maybe plate glass, actually its defenses are fine, and ghosts always have a bit of tankiness; again, there's a lot of fighting in this game. First form is pretty garbage, but you get through it quickly enough and there's a dusk stone available at pretty much exactly the right time to go straight into the third form. All the decent fire moves, and Shadow Ball, are TMable and available early, so you totally do, and you really, really like the... christ, 145 Special Attack, which bulbapedia tells me is game best for a non-legendary. Yeah, totally excellent, anyhow. Ka-boom. Cool as shit too, so there's that. A-, mostly for the slow start.
Aaken -> Arkeos (rock/flying, two stage): Available very early as a fossil. Fantastic stats, but an ability that drops its attack when it's below half HP. Awesome sweeper, gets Acrobat early (55 power flying move, double if you're not holding an item), immediate TM access to Rock Slide (which ain't great but gets the job done) great attack and speed stats. Reasonable spread of high power off-type attacks available too. The hindering ability doesn't really come up much, and Arkeos is still fast and powerful enough that it can often get the job done anyways. Needs a better rock move, so call it an A.
Monmen -> Erufuun (grass cotton puff): Run-of-the-mill Grass status/drain thing. Has an ability that gives priority, a la quick attack, to non-damaging moves, which is pretty sweet. Lacks sleep powder, though I'm more of a paralysis fan anyhow. Not much to write home about otherwise, fast and decently durable, totally solid. B
Goddamn-punk-kids-get-off-my-lawn pokemans (fighting/dark reptile baggypants thing, Zuruggu -> Zurukin): Great type-combination, defenses are good enough that you don't hate the fighting weakness as much as in others, rocks out against a wide range of other things. Choice of two interesting abilities, either shed skin (chance to heal status at the end of every round) or overconfident (attack goes up a stage whenever you kill). Could use a bit more offense, but definitely solid. I ended up dropping it because A) Kojofu is cool, and B) overconfident gets annoying, the stupid animation goes off even at the end of a battle, but I'd say it's worth the time, particularly with Shed Skin. Oh, also C) the evolution's a bit dumb looking. B
Kung-fu ferret (pure fighting, kojofu -> kojondo): basically a high-offense badass. Available around the 7th gym, so late game, but gets pretty much immediate access to a bunch of cool moves, decent stats in its pre-evolution, awesome stats in its final form. Regeneration is a great ability, and it meshes well with U-Turn, which Kojofu learns at a reasonable level. Pure fighting's a bit limited, of course, but it gets the job done. Good timing on when it first arrives, too; it basically solos the ice gym from capture, at which point it's totally caught up on level. A
Monozu -> Sazhandora (dark/dragon pseudolegendary): easily available on Victory Road, so I thought I'd give it a try. Really a handicap before the aftergame, totally terrible before its final form at level 64 (when it switches Hustle, attack up accuracy down, for Levitate). Given that there's maybe 10-12 rare candies in the game, I guess you could evolve it reasonably right before the final fight without too too much grinding, but yeah. Again, lots of fighting pokemans in this game, so you really feel that weakness. It switches from atk to sp.atk primary with its final evolution, which is inconventient, and its move selection is actually relatively mediocre (without breeding shenanigans you're stuck with Dragon Pulse and... Crunch, maybe? Still rocks out, of course, once you get it going, but... probably not worth the trouble, I'd say. C
Final party was Erufuun/Arkeos/Jiheddo (second stage of Monozu)/Kojondo/Shandera/Gamagrog (final form of Otamaro). MVP for the game was definitely Aaken/Arkeos, probably for the final fights too though Kojondo gave it a run for its money.
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New Vegas: So ultimately I went with a build geared towards perception/intelligence/agility, energy weapons/repair/science. I took the Wild Wasteland feature just for the hell of it. Don't think I've seen it kick in yet. I mean, there was one random moment on the road outside Goodsprings where a little confused Pipboy icon appeared in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, but I didn't see much going on to warrant it. There was...a tumbleweed in front of me. And a corpse with a snazzy 1920's gambler's hat. Maybe I was looking the wrong direction. Sure happens often enough when people are shooting me, despite the compass.
Mostly just wandering around after doing Goodsprings stuff. Walked into Hidden Valley but ewww centaurs, later. Walked up past Sloan because hey deathclaws, the ones in Fallout 2 were decent, maybe these ones will--fssk oh god my face, my unremarkable face! So also later. Ran to Mojave Outpost, picked up a bunch of sidequests instead.
Boom headshot is generally a winning battle plan. Dynamite reserved for things with no head.
What, you didn't notice the corpse with the hat was inside a fridge?
But yeah, the WW jokes are a little more low-key than the blatancy of FO2's. Like the NCR emergency radio responding to your call with "Bravo Bravo Charlie, The Doctor is on his way."
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Godhand stage 4: 72 continues, but I beat Dr. Ion without using roulette wheel, so that's cool, anyway.
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BBS: Almost done Terra's story. Hunting down Reports and then going to the last stage to finish. Ven's story is up next.
Banjo Kazooie: Finally found the cartridge I bought like 3 years ago. Also, the cartridge finally decided to work! Hurray. I always loved this game more than the sequel. Pretty much 95% done. Only final battle, 3 notes and 2 empty honeycomb pieces left anyway. I may or may not try to dig and find out where they are. Worth noting that I lost more health in the last level (Click Clock Woods) than all the other levels combined due to fall damage. I'm pretty sure I took enough to kill me 5 times over. Thankfully that stage has a lot of health.
Castle Crashers: Played this at a friend's with 3 other people. Fun stuff. Not as fun alone but so it goes. At the last stage (or what I presume to be). Have to kill 4 bosses before moving on and I died to the third one because his minions take out too much of my health :/
Scott Pilgrim: Played this too! Not as fun as Castle Crashers, but not bad by any means. Anyway I suck. Do you restart at level 1 when you run out of lives? Or how does this work?
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Fallout: New Vegas - Did Vault 11. Rob is right. Also I can say that what happens is likely what actually would for at least a long while Milgrim experiments and Zimbardo stuff being the classic thing to quote here again.[/quote]
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Scott Pilgrim: Played this too! Not as fun as Castle Crashers, but not bad by any means. Anyway I suck. Do you restart at level 1 when you run out of lives? Or how does this work?
Nope, you're just kicked back to the world map and the beginning of the stage you were on. You always keep the levels and stats until you choose to revert the character back to Level 1 in one of the menus.
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What, you didn't notice the corpse with the hat was inside a fridge?
I noticed. A corpse in a fridge isn't all that strange by the standards of a post-nuclear wasteland, is all. It was a pretty rad hat, though. I wear it for style points when I don't need to worry about armor.
So how many of the bajillion-and-one items strewn about New Vegas's world are actually worth caring about? Some of the random crap you can pick up I assume goes into some manner of item creation at some point, but it's hard to be sure what might be useful in advance. I sell most of what I find that doesn't have an obvious use for offense/defense/healing (barring occasional unique items, which get stored--motorcycle parts, for example, lead me to believe one can be constructed later).
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What, you didn't notice the corpse with the hat was inside a fridge?
I noticed. A corpse in a fridge isn't all that strange by the standards of a post-nuclear wasteland, is all. It was a pretty rad hat, though. I wear it for style points when I don't need to worry about armor.
So how many of the bajillion-and-one items strewn about New Vegas's world are actually worth caring about? Some of the random crap you can pick up I assume goes into some manner of item creation at some point, but it's hard to be sure what might be useful in advance. I sell most of what I find that doesn't have an obvious use for offense/defense/healing (barring occasional unique items, which get stored--motorcycle parts, for example, lead me to believe one can be constructed later).
A lot of stuff is junk. Some of it is used in item creation- I'd check the crafting benches to see what you need. Off the top of my head I know that a wrench, some scrap metal and scrap electronics, and duct tape make a weapon repair kit, and a Xander root, a Broc flower and an empty hypo make a stim (thank you, Myron).
Also, Gref: was not the congratulatory message amazing?
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Yes, yes it was. Can see why it ultimately ends the way it does. The loud noises as the walls open up is perfect as well.
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El Cid: Regarding the motorcycle parts, no you can't build a motorcycle. The tank and handbrake were parts of a creatable weapon called the Shishkabob, the best melee weapon in Fallout 3. While the weapon is still available in game in stores at Hoover Dam, nobody's found the schematics yet so you can't make your own. Regarding the fridge hat - "Crystal Skull".
Rob: As great as Vault 11 is (and believe me, it is great), my personal favorite section so far is Sunset Sarsparilla HQ.
Fallout NV: Nearing the end of the quests I can do before finding Benny. I'm now a knight, a deputy, a courier, an egg collector (and fertilizer IYKWIM), a chronic gambler, and a graverobber.
Punch-Out Wii: Cleared everyone in normal mode and unlocked Title Defense. Glass Joe... :o
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You should go find Benny. You get to meet one of my favorite NPCs and the bad guy.
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Banjo Kazooie: Finished. Game's still fun (it's a 7-8/10 for me), some of the stages are generic, but others are pretty neat. I love the last two levels (Rusty Bucket Bay, Click Clock Woods) if only because the atmosphere/level design is great. Probably not going back to find the three notes for now anyway. Grunty's Furnance Fun is always neat (Yo dawg, i herd u liek gamez, so i put a game in ur game so u can play while you play); learned a few tricks from reading some of the speed running discussion and finished that pretty quick. Final battle was surprisingly harder than I remembered. I know I had trouble aiming the damn eggs in the last phase of the battle, but neither time was what cause a reset! Both resets were caused from diving off the damn stage. I hate that air attack.
Scott Pilgrim - Also finished on Normal difficutly. Hard and Very Hard remain. Final level was way too long (specifically the portion with the techno space) and definitely a nail biter. I won the last level with 12 HP left on my last life. The bosses for the most part weren't too bad (since its usually 1 on 1). The randoms on the other hand...some of them packed a shit load of damage. Especially the beavers. Good god those beavers are insane >_>. Some of the grunts are pretty strong (the one wearing a snowhat, is quite notable for racking up damage quick) but they were not as annoying as the beavers. Thankfully the beavers appear only in one place. Most of the game was won with Jump attack --> Power attack --> Chase with jump attack and possibly juggle with some jabs if not surrounded.
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Ninja Gaiden: Caves. So. Many. Fucking. OGRES. I think this is the biggest upgrade the game's gotten from Normal. Forget early Black Spider Ninja, bosses with mook support or having to gather scarabs just to get he Izuna Drop. These guys are assholes, they take forever to kill, have ridiculous reach, and they're everywhere in the magma cave. Anyplace a mini-dragon was, there's an ogre now. PAIN.
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Ahhh, right, Doma. I didn't make that connection because really the movie's something I try not to think about in general. The WW easter egg in Nipton, now? That got a good laugh. A wholly inappropriate laugh given the circumstances, but still.
Was up way too goddamn late playing this last night. It's always, "Well, I'll just see what's over this next hill and then stop," and then only the first half happens. Recruited 1x robot, 1x Boone, have some ghouls to kill now.
The Incinerator is unfair.
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Fallout NV - Spent most of the night working through getting This Machine because I have a soft spot for the M1 Garand and I wanted one. So this game has 2 of my favourite fire arms from other games, .223 pistol from Fallout and Fallout 2 and M1 Garand from countless WW1 and 2 shooters, this time labeld That Gun and This Machine respectively, this pleases me.
Spent some time starting to work my way through Vault 34 and got a good ways in and realised how deep this place could be, my last save was a quick save near the start and I had no Rad Away, so just played it safe and loaded and went away. Jurry Rigging makes the durability system far less annoying, but still stupid bullshit that didn't need to be there (WEAPONS DEGRADE SO FUCKING FAST. I know SMGs are high maintenance weapons, these things you can fire off like half a clip and there is appreciable durability loss though. They are not -that- poor quality). This is especially egregious considering a large portion of the fire arms in the area are ostensibly from the Gun Runners who machine and distribute their products locally on a fairly large scale, this area should frankly be swimming in quality fire arms instead of everything snapping in half because you fired 4 rounds.
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Have you tried loading up FOOK2 NV?
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Maybe if I could be arsed with a second play soon enough
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Added SMT: Strange Journey to my list of games in-progress. Got done with the first real mission. Neat little game so far, but I've heard the maps get pretty BS so I'll probably be on GameFAQs a bit once I really get into it.
Is Law in this game Lawful Stupid, or are the alignments less crazy in general?
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All sides are _____ Stupid. It just depends on which stupid you think is best, honestly.
EDIT: Though your main becomes _____ Dickish on any path but Neutral, thinking on it.
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New Vegas: Finally got around to meeting Benny after 50 hours, so obviously the next logical step was to rush through the next two hours and beat the game - NCR ending. I have a save right before Benny so I'll get to go through the other endings.
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All sides are _____ Stupid. It just depends on which stupid you think is best, honestly.
EDIT: Though your main becomes _____ Dickish on any path but Neutral, thinking on it.
Damn you SMT.
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You expect anything else from SMT?
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You expect anything else from SMT?
Timesink?
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That relates to quality?
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Well, arguably the main is also Neutral Dickish on the Neutral path, but uh it takes a rather hard twist to interpret it that way.
EDIT: And frankly the Neutral ending is probably the least logical, oddly. (Not in terms of how you get it, but just what happens.)
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Saga Frontier - Beat T260G's quest. GenocideHeart was pretty tough! Otherwise whatevs. Used 3 mecs + a monster + a swordsman (Emelia), worked decently. Mecs are pretty cool but they have some pretty big flaws (the main one being Repair Kits sucking); in general, 3 is certainly more than I'd like to use on a normal playthrough. Monsters... are what they are. Cotton had a pretty good stretch midgame but in order to be competitive endgame, you have to get some pretty darn rare absorbs. Bleh to that.
Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn - Weakest Weapons Only playthrough. Got this idea from some madness in chat a few months back. Anyway, da rulez:
-Characters can only use their weakest available weapon (lowest might). If there's a tie, they can choose. For most of the game this means Bronze weapons, basic tomes, etc., though in early part 1/2/3 this means the weakest weapons available. For characters who join in the middle of a map (e.g. Tormod) they can use the weakest weapon they have (e.g. Fire instead of Thunder) but this must be remedied after the map ends.
-Since knives are the weakest weapon class, all knives are legal. Yesz, knife-user hype.
-The weakest laguz weapon is the raven beak (Nealuchi/Vika) so they are the only two laguz who can use their weapons. Other laguz must only be used for utility (shove, rescue, drawing indirect attacks, etc.).
-No forged weapons, except knives. No Master Crowns as they give early access to mastery skills, some of which undermine the challenge a little (Bronze Lance Luna still OHKOs, etc.).
-Normal Mode because FE10 HM is lamesauce.
Anyway I am up to 1-8. Hardest map so far is 1-7. The first three maps are barely different than normal, 1-3 is a bit notable because of a lack of Thani and the Steel weapons you're picking up. 1-4 is where physical non-Sothe offence really goes down the tubes, fortunately 1-4 is a bit of a joke, and I've somehow managed since then.
Leo is LVP, does like no damage. Ed isn't much better. Meg at least can kinda take a hit. All suck. Nolan is getting kinda RNG screwed, so Aran is probably the best non-prepromo physical unit. Or maybe Jill. Still using all three though, as well as all the prepromos and Laura. Volug is not LVP somehow just because of his tank/shove/rescue/move everywhere build which is still better than Leo and possibly Ed. Fiona shouldn't even have to be mentioned. Mages are improved since Thunder/Light isn't nearly as bad as a bronze weapon relatively (-2 instead of -6 from an optimum power non-forge), and Ilyana is actually kinda decent. Micaiah's even better despite the lack of Thani; she sorta plays her usual role as she still 2HKOs armours and nobody else comes close, except Tormod and of course Tauroneo. Sothe is overall MVP so far which is the least shocking thing ever.
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Are you going to be relying on uberguests at all for the dawn brigade chapters, or are they banned too?
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New Vegas: Finally got around to meeting Benny after 50 hours, so obviously the next logical step was to rush through the next two hours and beat the game - NCR ending. I have a save right before Benny so I'll get to go through the other endings.
if you want to run through endings a little quicker, you actually don't have to choose a side until each faction's second to last mission if you play it right.
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Are you going to be relying on uberguests at all for the dawn brigade chapters, or are they banned too?
Nailah can do what Volug does + Glare things.
BK is fine but he has to use a bronze weapons.
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New Vegas: Liberated Nelson by just walking in and shooting everyone in Legion armor. Of course, since I didn't go along with ranger's plan, he's now stuck with that event flag incomplete even though every NCR jarhead all over Nevada immediately knows what happened. And the radio says the NCR did it, of course. Bah! They just sat there and watched, same as with Primm (in fact, they made it harder for me in Primm by mining the bridge into town; not real sure why every NPC in the world is saying Primm sided with the NCR, since I only talked to the NCR to get Meyers pardoned and then turned the town over to him. Propaganda!)
Boone is completely unfair and gamebreaking. Between him and ED-E, half the enemies get fragged before my MC can even sight them. So naturally the first thing I did was abuse this to clear the road north of Goodsprings of those damned cazadors (the MC couldn't handle them alone) and go exploring around Vegas instead of following directions to Boulder City or wherever.
Oh, do allies have to worry about radiation? I would assume so, but they also get right back up after being KO'd in a fight, so I suppose they could ignore lethal radiation too. Relevant since I left places like Camp Searchlight and Vault 34 behind; now have good radiation protection for the MC (by way of spacesuit) but not sure it would be safe for companions to venture there (well, I'd assume ED-E doesn't care. I might leave Boone behind anyway--ED-E is merely helpful, but Boone does like 75% of the work in a fight).
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Final Fight 3: Spontaneously decided to DL this when I realized it was on the VLC, given that I never played it but played the first two, and it was relatively cheap. Its...a significant step up from the first two games just in terms of what it lets you do! Its funny how the game can be summed up as "Mike Haggar and Guy return to beat up thugs, alongside 2 generic nobodies that no one is ever going to use"
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HEY, Lucia is pretty good gameplay-wise! Dean um yeah.
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Added SMT: Strange Journey to my list of games in-progress. Got done with the first real mission. Neat little game so far, but I've heard the maps get pretty BS so I'll probably be on GameFAQs a bit once I really get into it.
Is Law in this game Lawful Stupid, or are the alignments less crazy in general?
Well, it really doesn't hurt to see YHWH finally win for once and conduct genocide on all opposition. This is like the first time he ever get his goodies.
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Must be his brother or something
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New Vegas: Liberated Nelson by just walking in and shooting everyone in Legion armor. Of course, since I didn't go along with ranger's plan, he's now stuck with that event flag incomplete even though every NCR jarhead all over Nevada immediately knows what happened. And the radio says the NCR did it, of course. Bah! They just sat there and watched, same as with Primm (in fact, they made it harder for me in Primm by mining the bridge into town; not real sure why every NPC in the world is saying Primm sided with the NCR, since I only talked to the NCR to get Meyers pardoned and then turned the town over to him. Propaganda!)
Boone is completely unfair and gamebreaking. Between him and ED-E, half the enemies get fragged before my MC can even sight them. So naturally the first thing I did was abuse this to clear the road north of Goodsprings of those damned cazadors (the MC couldn't handle them alone) and go exploring around Vegas instead of following directions to Boulder City or wherever.
Oh, do allies have to worry about radiation? I would assume so, but they also get right back up after being KO'd in a fight, so I suppose they could ignore lethal radiation too. Relevant since I left places like Camp Searchlight and Vault 34 behind; now have good radiation protection for the MC (by way of spacesuit) but not sure it would be safe for companions to venture there (well, I'd assume ED-E doesn't care. I might leave Boone behind anyway--ED-E is merely helpful, but Boone does like 75% of the work in a fight).
NPCs don't take radiation. It's a holdover from FO3's setup.
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NPCs seem to generally be immortal bodyguards that know no fear. If I get around to a third (?) play through I will do it high charisma with sod all combat skills and just let me personal army destroy things.
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video games
Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena-Exactly what it promises. A quick, well-polished quasi stealth game with a fluff plot. The melee combat is fun and feels very physical, gunplay is generic as hell, AI is none too bright, and it's over well before it outstays its welcome. Just the sort of light, fluffy action piece I was looking for. I may possibly be giving it a break for some of its flaws due to the fact that after FF13 this game was like a cool breeze on a hot summer day.
Fable 2-I went into this game with rock-bottom expectations, but actually I quite liked it. The combat was solid, you got a dog to play fetch with, the plot could be quite funny at times, the real estate/money making stuff was addicting, most of the sidequesty stuff was fun to do, etc. The beginning is a little slow but things pick up pretty fast and you're left to your own devices soon enough. Getting Married/Having a kid was done pretty well and made certain..scenes have impact. Unfortunately the game glitched out on me so my wife wound up divorcing me and dying even though she was rated "Very Happy" in all categories. Of course Peter Molyneaux gives you the cutscene equivalent of a punch to the face anyway. Actually made me interested in Fable 3, which I did not expect.
Nier-A solid hack and slash type game. Combat was averagish, mostly just beating up loads and loads of monsters. The crafting system is broken, I got a spear from some quest and fully upgraded it insta-killed basically every mook without armor and killed the remaining bosses in no more than 3 minutes, tops. The music is amazing stuff. It also has a likable, interesting cast which was a pleasant surprise. My only complaints are the obnoxious amounts of grinding required to fulfill some sidequests, but it's not like you have to do those or anything.
Red Dead Redemption-Actually just finished this tonight. Impressive game. Pretty much the only game that made the wild west setting really come alive (no Wild ARMs does not count). The art direction was fantastic, the setting is spot-on, it's all great. Gameplay is pretty good too. Gunplay is probably a little too easy with Deadeye, but they do throw a lot of people at you and you're fairly frail so it's not like you don't need it. The main mission quest is good fun and never really seems to get dull, side-missions are fine for the most part. The challenges and stuff are a lot of grinding bullshit but it's not like you have to do them unless you want 100%. There's so much shit to do and see that the game never gets old. I did eventually get tired of the same old random missions though, but since just riding past them to wherever you're going doesn't penalize you it doesn't matter too much. Story/characters are good enough, nothing mindblowing but still enough to keep me interested. I dunno if it's the best game Rockstar has ever done, but it's damn close.
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Civ2- Blame the Ciddy. In like 2500 BC, just exploring and figuring things out.
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NPCs seem to generally be immortal bodyguards that know no fear. If I get around to a third (?) play through I will do it high charisma with sod all combat skills and just let me personal army destroy things.
That's exactly why I don't use Boone, btw.
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Dawn of Heroes: Finished sixth zone. I have no idea what to do against the final boss. May go grind some more money and see if characters I haven't unlocked yet have some tricks to deal with him.
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Was out of the country for a bit to do some army related things so I've not been posting any progress but i'm back now.
Fallout NV Hardcore mode - Energy weapons and Melee are my main combat stats. Energy weapons are still shit at the start because the Laser/plasma pistol you get early on is rubbish, however after buying a few mods and raiding the Van Grafts of all their weapons I now have a good stock of cutting edge laser weapons.
Its true they're better in NV then FO3 but it involves going all the way to NV as soon as possible to raid some weapons.
In Hardcore mode guests are actually killable so I've not been bopping about with them too much. The flying robot is rubbish, the dog slightly better, Boone is godlike with that sniper, BOS women is okay, Raul has a pretty sweet ability but is crap in combat, Cass I killed off because I didn't give a shit and the Van Grafts pay well.
Also is it just me or do you get a lot more booty in this one? I've been drilled up the ass by a sexbot twice now after assuming the position and I've got some lesbo sex out of a women in a deal with her. I've also tried to have an S&M session with the ghoul cowgirl but sadly my game seems to be glitched or something and she never goes upstairs. Speaking of glitchs this game freezes a lot and the lag at times is horrendus but overall its a much better game. Hardcore mode is a great feature and I'm actually role playing instead of being a super Munchkin like in FO3.
All sides are _____ Stupid. It just depends on which stupid you think is best, honestly.
I wouldn't say the side themselves are stupid. The big man himself for example is not a dick in this like people say. I think he is much like in DS in that he is happy whatever outcome happens as long as Lucy/chaos hero/dickhead of the week don't win but if his minions win and brainwash massive amounts of people to worship him then so be it. The stupid lays in the heroes of the factions who are always so extream that you just can't agree with them.
Law Hero is always about mass brainwashing which is getting old at this point but they took it to new levels here with the sheer dickheadness of it. Chaos hero is actually somewhat good at first as he shows emotions besides wanting to kill everything and he hated the brainwashing used by the law hero which is understandable. Then he himself brainwashs loads of people... EPIC FAIL!
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If you want SMT law and chaos options that aren't stupid, there's always Devil Summoner 2, just sayin'.
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I actually don't think SMT: Devil Survivor has terrible Good/Bad end routes. Of course, Gin route is still superior.
Yoohoo route is somehow worse an ending than any of the other routes, heh. It does get you Lucifer, though.
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Speaking of Boone, I cracked open the GECK to look at his stats. He's got 10 in ST, PE and AG. Comparatively, his IN and CH are 3 and 1, respectively.
I regret that he's not like, I dunnow, Sloth or something.
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Lufia 2, Gift Mode:
Started this up after finishing Lufia DS. I've been in the cave three times and gotten the following loot:
Water Jewel
Thundo Jewel
Thunder Jewel
Bolt Shield.
Siiiigh.
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Borrowed Tierkries recently. Since I suspect my time to play it is about to get curtailed a bit (partly through my own doing, partly due to Book 13 getting released on tuesday) this seems a good time to get my thoughts out.
First, oddly enough, I'm a bit in between on the writing right now. This game is working well as a mystery, but I'm not quite sold on other factions. The Magedom seems ok so long as the centre holds, but right now it really doesn't. The King is coming across as loopy as Nero, having a laugh over nothing while his kingdom burns in large part because of his idiocy,, and the idiocy of those dancing to his tune. As for the Order, it's hard to believe that so many people can be devout followers of a creed that wants to let you know when you'll get squished, and then gets angry when you take that step to the side to avoid the actual squishing. Especially since almost no one on their side seems to actually believe it when the chips are down. Finally, things have been going almost too smoothly, and it really feels like this game needs a twist. I suppose it's a good sign that I have no clue where this twist can come from, but it's only good if one eventually shows.
On the other hand, the central mystery is interesting, and I'm really liking the way they've been using the setting to frame the theme. And, the real shining star here is the character writing. I could go with the bit parts (that Doctor is magnificent, and some of the others are also worth the price of admission) but I really want to go with the main cast. Specifically, the Main (hereafter referred to as Chuck), Liu, and Dirk. Liu is shaping up to be one of my favourite tacticians, especially since he's, well, the only one in the series who feels like he's a subordinate of the main as opposed to the guy that's really calling the shots. Dirk I like because his reasons make more sense than most in his role, and also do a lot to explain the interesting ways in which he botches things. Finally, Chuck. Chuck would normally get major props just for talking, but it's actually fun to see him and his band not only holding true to their beliefs, but also avoiding most of the traditional heroic pitfalls, which is generally accepting what anyone, including villains, has to say to them at face value. (The rare heroic use of the 'Actually, our not bending to your every whim is NOT a valid excuse to be a bunch of raging douches' argument is a special favourite)
Anyways, rest of the game is inoffensive so far, and I'm seeing where the Mark of the Stars non-choice issue is coming in, for all that I actually have to pick and choose for some people now. Currently about to go and storm Falcon Chick's castle after finishing the current round of star hunting.
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Lufia 2, Gift Mode:
Started this up after finishing Lufia DS. I've been in the cave three times and gotten the following loot:
Water Jewel
Thundo Jewel
Thunder Jewel
Bolt Shield.
Siiiigh.
BREAKING NEWS, A FIFTH BLUE CHEST!
Catfish Jewel.
Emoko time.
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I think my next run of Fallout will be a cannibal run. I intend to eat the following people to gain their power.
-President Kimball
-Both NCR Colonels
-The King
-Mr House
-Benny
-Big Sal
-Mortimer
-Caesar
-Lucius
-Vulpis whatsisface
-Elder McNamera
And then of course, Legate Lanius and General Oliver at the end of the game.
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All sides are _____ Stupid. It just depends on which stupid you think is best, honestly.
I wouldn't say the side themselves are stupid. The big man himself for example is not a dick in this like people say. I think he is much like in DS in that he is happy whatever outcome happens as long as Lucy/chaos hero/dickhead of the week don't win but if his minions win and brainwash massive amounts of people to worship him then so be it. The stupid lays in the heroes of the factions who are always so extream that you just can't agree with them.
Law Hero is always about mass brainwashing which is getting old at this point but they took it to new levels here with the sheer dickheadness of it. Chaos hero is actually somewhat good at first as he shows emotions besides wanting to kill everything and he hated the brainwashing used by the law hero which is understandable. Then he himself brainwashs loads of people... EPIC FAIL!
BTW, I'd like to point out there is multiple parties of LAW/CHAOS in SJ.
There is the alien side and earth side. Representing dark/light element.
YHWH/Lucy are the light law/light chaos, and the three wise men and MA are the dark law/dark chaos.
The alien side are the one who believe that human still hope and earth side does not.
Lucy remain a bystander this time as MA is taking the matter into her own hand, MA is the head of chaos faction on Earth, so if she took action on her own, there is no place for an outside like Lucy to interfere. Thus, he only drop hints and lead the events to develop in a way that human can become demons and hope MA would reconsider her option instead just wipe out humanity.
On the other hand, the wise dislike both human and MA, but that also means they have absolutely no option to change the situation. The wise men themselves are earthly spirits that is below MA, thus becoming traitors and sides with Mestama and Selene are their only option. Or should I say, they are the true supporter of the mass braining washing (due to their own dislike of human) when Mestama has a more neutral stance on how things develop.
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Dawn of Heroes: Finished. Turns out you just have to hit the final enough times to get to phase 2, and the subsequent phases are self-explanatory.
Anyway, wonderful game that's going to get horribly underplayed due to lack of advertising. Seriously, nearly everyone in the DL would love this game. It's like Final Fantasy Tactics, except it's actually good.
Farming the epic beasts now, and going to try some wi-fi multiplayer out tonight to see how that works.
Character analysis!
Jiro the Khan: great at the beginning of the game, really lags later. There are too many people that do physical damage better, and the Thane is a much better taunter.
Reynald the Templar: Usable at all stages of the game, but not exceptional at any time. Healing is strong but limited. He gets his magic damage just in time for it to be useful.
Elfyra the Infernalis: Blows stuff up, and is good at it. MP issues of course, which encourages you to use the Scorch -> Fireballs two-turn combo. Used her for pretty much the entire game.
Nayeli the Soul Caller: MVP. Not only is she your only source of affliction damage for almost the entire game, but infinite range and Soul Turmoil make her way too useful. Also gets style points for Mind Controlling Thorgul's clone.
Osmund the Crusader: One word: Backfire. Terribly useful at the point you get him, although I stopped using him after a while. Stubborn is also a great passive.
Kaliska the Sabertooth: Smashes things with axes. Great damage, and wonderful passive abilities.
Daisuke the Kensei: Almost never used him. The game refused to give me swords after a while, which meant that a two-sword character was going to be terribly underequipped. Seems like a decent damager, and you certainly don't want to attack him with physicals.
Gudleif the Gothi: Recovery is good healing, and Conversion is just plain broken. Only thing keeping him from being Godlike is that he can't use Conversion on himself.
Hasina the Theurgist: Decent but unremarkable. Used her for a while after I got her. If anything she's too predictable, needing to heal to have decent damage and vice-versa.
Nazar the Penumbros: Awesome. This is the Affliction damager you've been waiting for. Unfortunately doesn't show up until after Chapter 6.
Nobuo the Kamui: Broken, but he's postgame.
Lash the Demonicus: Looks like fun, haven't tried him yet. Also postgame.
And the optionals...
Helga the Valkyrie: Access to all three forms of damage, has early AOE, and outstanding passive abilities. Great character.
Yuji the Doshu: Good damager, but his movement/range leave a lot to be desired. Also useful for a second earlygame disabler.
Tabia the Zealot: Never used her, but looks pretty annoying.
Merikh the Necroxis: Bought him early so I'd have a second source of Magic damage. Useful, but has MP issues. Spirit Link is fun against the Bomb-throwing boss. And of course gets Raise Dead late in the game.
Njall the Thane: Awesomesauce. Autotaunt every turn, Rock Stand, and Ice Curse to disable bosses. His damage is terrible, even with Combat Lust, but you have four other characters who can concentrate on damage with him around.
Valberg the Warlock: Just bought him, but looks pretty awesome if you can keep him alive long enough.
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TLDR version: play this game you dorks.
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Robt: ...Do you actually gain bonuses from eating people or are you speaking figuratively?
Did Freeside/Jacobstown/McCarran/Vault 3. Motor-runner got sneak attack critted before he could move. So did his dogs. Anticlimax boss fight!
Conned my way into the strip through the powers of SCIENCE, so I still have a favor to call in with the King if I want. Did I mention that having a gang of Elvises around never stops making me smile? Because it doesn't. I will probably ask if I can join up.
Currently running around with Cass, and ED-E for pack muleage and just in case something else triggers a file in his memory. Picked up Arcade for a while, too. He is pretty cool. It's like having Egon Spangler with you except he has a sense of humor and unfortunate connections to a fascist paramilitary organization (or not).
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Cannibal only heals you, but from checking a wiki about it there was this.
In Fallout: New Vegas, there appears to be a second, unused Challenge Perk tied to Cannibalism, called "Meat of Champions". If it had been used, the player would have gained Mr. House's Luck, Caesar's Intelligence, The King's Charisma, and President Kimball's Strength whenever he or she committed an act of Cannibalism.
* The Challenge to earn this perk was never added; one could assume that the player had to kill and subsequently consume each of the above persons.
So hopefully we see a restoration mod of some kind.
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I think my next run of Fallout will be a cannibal run. I intend to eat the following people to gain their power.
-President Kimball
-Both NCR Colonels
-The King
-Mr House
-Benny
-Big Sal
-Mortimer
-Caesar
-Lucius
-Vulpis whatsisface
-Elder McNamera
And then of course, Legate Lanius and General Oliver at the end of the game.
What no Tabitha or Jason Bright?
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FONV: Vaults 22 & 34. Former was pretty easy to deal with, latter had mobs of armored glowing ones. Ew. And I never did see a way to shut down the reactor like the game told me to. Did I miss something there? I looked all over the damn place twice, but the spot marked as "reactor" on the map was just the overseer's office and eventually I just decided to flee before I ran out of Radaway. Figured coming back wouldn't be hard later since at least I killed all the enemies. I sure as hell raided the armory while I was there, at least. Jesus that was a ridiculous haul. Between that and everything I stole after massacring the Van Grafs, I don't imagine I'll be worrying about weapons/armor/money for, I dunno, the rest of the game? I can surely bankrupt every trader I've met if I want to. Sadly, I think I broke Jean's badass plasma caster during the fight, but picking up the Tesla gun will surely make up for it. Damn that thing's shiny. Will be saving it for a special occasion because the ammo type is uncommon and the repair costs for casual use would surely be icky.
Dropped Cass for a bit once her quest was done. Recruited Veronica, who is highly endearing. Lots of smiles through the Q&A phase.
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FE10 - Beaten the first two parts on the bronze/knife/raven playthrough! 1-8 was notably longer than usual and I had trouble keeping too many civilians alive, eventually made it out with just 2. 1-E is 1-E, brutal and the source of most of my resets so far (like 3?), BK is terrific here of course although the move and 1 range prevents him from being -too- terrific. Part 2... first three maps were normal enough. Geoffrey's Charge was pain to cut through the tough enemies (Bowgun guys, Horseslayer paladin, their friends, and then the Speedwing Halberdier and the boss) and that damn Physic user in the back was my worst enemy. 2-E... I was able to get both Nullify and the Energy Drop which were my real goals since no way was I routing the level, I never even fully controlled the terrace below where the main ally army starts. Calill/Haar feasted on the stairs, Brom held the point on the right, the pegs and Nealuchi flew around helping where they were needed.
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Ace Attorney Phoenix Wright: COMPLETED! ...except for 1-5, but I was told that its basically the aftergame and to ignore it for a number of reasons, cause 1-4 is the real ending so I did.
Phoenix Wright: Justice For All: COMPLETED! Unlike the above, I didn't skip anything <_< >_>
Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations: COMPLETED!
Yeah, I beat all 3 games, and I didn't mention that I was playing it to anyone but a particular 2 people who knew I was playing it. And you know what that means?
LARGE AS HELL MEEPLE RANT AHOY! MWAHAHAHAHAHAH!
If you haven't played the games, then you should...
HOLD IT!!!!!
On reading from here on in!
So where to start...I guess we'll just work the worst part of the game out first, cause well, yeah!
The Gameplay. Phoenix Wright gameplay, in general, sucks. It just does. Investigations ranged from boring filler between trials to just downright painful. Trials weren't too bad, cause you actually had to apply SOME level of skill. Psyche Locks introduced in the 2nd game were an attempt to de-suckify investigations, but even then, Psyche Locks were pretty damn obvious (unlike Trials where you still needed to think abstractly at times); the main issue with Psyche Locks was "Do you have enough evidence to break them, y/n?" and there's no real penalty to failing them. So in the end, its just a means to hold back from "Spam all evidence to one person until they give some kind of trigger."
Trials weren't as bad, but still nothing great. ONe of my issues is the answers were pretty obtuse. I will note that I didn't really FAQ the games much at all; I only used a FAQ in the 3rd game, and only for:
A. One investigation, cause I didn't do something obvious that I THOUGHT I did and apparently didn't think to try it against just in case
B. 3-2, where again, I thought I did something that I didn't
C. 3-5 with Dhalia's last testimony, where I was kind of in a hurry to finish it cause of something going on, and I didn't have time to think of it (though, looking at the answer, I don't think I would have put two and two together.)
Also, 2-4 required me to ask for some hints, but it turns out I fell into a trap of "The Judge always says the same thing" and didn't wait for Edgeworth's response, cause I DEFINITELY did that combo at least once before.
But anyway, one of the problems with Trials is that you can KNOW exactly what the contradiction is, you can know what's wrong with the testimony...but your evidence either doesn't directly link to it, or which line you contradict is random. Recent one in 3-5 for example, she said "Snow stopped falling!" and that was the obvious contradiction, so I did everything that'd prove that there remotely...none of it worked; so I guessed a bit on an earlier line and it worked. I'm...not sure how that made sense here, cause it was more obviously contradicting the line I was trying to prove than the one you were suppose to, and in the end, IT WAS THE SAME CONTRADICTION YOU PROVED!
I was ready to yell OBJECTION!!! at the game at that point...
HOWEVER, these games are a rare breed, cause what they fail at gameplay, they keep you playing cause of the writing, and the cases are so freaking weird, you want to see how everything went down, and they were good at being not-obvious until at least about half way in (sometimes cause the character in question wasn't introduced early enough, others cause while you can figure out WHO did it, how they pulled it off and why doesn't really fit in until later on, so you have yourself going "Ok, he's probably the guy but...I can't see how he would have done it.")
I think the games' best trait is the way it turns Trials into EPIC SHONEN WARFARE. I...didn't think something like that was realistically possible, without the two lawyers jumping out of their benches, and beating the crap out of each other...but these games proved me wrong. I would always look forward to Trials cause that's when things actually got interesting. It wasn't just "Talking, plot point made, go to next area, etc." Part of the thing about Trials is that the game actually required SOME thought in the mix, there was a genuine risk/reward factor, and you didn't get overwhelmed with options. Investigations, you have to examine every nook and cranny, present evidence to everyone you can, run across areas multiple times...yeah, Trials take out all those failures, just have logic games. They're still flawed, but at least they feel like ACTUAL GAMEPLAY.
So anyway, thoughts on each Case and what not!
1-1: ...its a tutorial case. It doesn't count for anything one way or another. It does its job, I guess and is ludicrously short.
1-2: Kind of meh. It basically just paints Edgeworth as this bad ass, and Phoenix as the underdog, and the case doesn't really do much, outside of introduce a bunch of characters. I know it has plot relevance later and what not, and Mia's death is important, but the case still kind of sucks overall. I did the entire thing in an airport mind you! yeah, I was playing the game back at DLC.
1-3: Now THIS was significantly better. Edgeworth is now treated more like a Shonen Rival instead of this ULTIMATE UNBEATABLE BAD ASS (Phoenix just beat him after all), and has actual amusement factors here, and the whole "WAIT! THIS TRIAL ISN'T OVER!" "but Edgeworth, you're about to win." "I DON'T CARE! I WANT TO HEAR THE TRUTH!" was a nice touch. But no, what improved this trial was the supporting cast. They actually put effort into making the characters...characters here. Plus its the first trial to pull any sort of sense of plot twist. Trial 1-2 was predictable the entire way; you KNEW Maya didn't do it, you knew the guy who did it the instant you met him, etc. 1-3, there were actual twists and you didn't expect them.
1-4: A decent conclusion for the first game. The actual case was...ah...really train wrecky in the end, having the scene be absolutely NOTHING like anyone could have potentially guessed, then going into a 2nd (related) case right at the end. Plus the usage of a Prosecutor whose genuinely threatening and seems actually unbeatable (contrast to 1-2 Edgeworth where its more just generic underdogness), Edgeworth being forced to rely on the guy who embarrassed him twice, Larry Butz getting more time...yeah.
Oh, and of course, there's PARROT CROSS EXAMINING! Yeah, can't really argue with THAT at all.
2-1: Another tutorial case, but it actually has difficulty merit of a remote sense (if still kind of a joke) compared to 1-1. The Amnesia touch was a cute way to get Phoenix back to being an idiot, per se, so the game had an excuse to tell you how to play in case someone was stupid enough to skip the first game (I seriously cannot see people getting much out of these games if they skip actual entries, though; 1-5 sounds like an exception cause it was made AFTER the 3rd game). Not much to say on the case itself though. Well, the game opened in an absolutely ridiculous manner, with Phoenix's over the top nightmare about DEMONIC JUDGE which of course is awesome but <_<
2-2: Case felt like it mostly existed to give us more background on the Kurain family, and introduce us to Pearl and Franziska Von Karma. I'm honestly not a big fan of the case. The "EVIL AUNT" thing wasn't exactly pulled off strongly, and Ini Mimi was actually kind of annoying. Lotta Heart coming back...well, she didn't leave a big impression in 1-4, so I was ambivalent here. To this case's credit, it had one of my favorite endings:
*Fran goes psycho and whips Phoenix til he's down*
Judge: ...well, it seems the defense is unconscious, so in the meantime, I'll declare the verdict.
Found that funnier than I probably should have, but hey!
2-3: Felt like repeat of 1-3. The case itself has no long term meaning in anything in the series, just there for another case for Phoenix to face Fran, and again, its about a Celebrity-like scenario. HOWEVER, this case does have the nice touch that being a circus, ALL THE UNIQUE CHARACTERS ARE TOTAL FREAKS. Between Moe's "Pressing Him can backfire miserably cause he is a spontaneous jokester which the judge hates", Ventriloquism, and for once a killer that they gave a genuinely good reason why he wouldn't crack under any amount of pressure; Acro never actually got shocked or anything, even when he's totally found out, like all the other killers, and the excuse of "its his job to do things that put him close to death, pressure is nothing!" This case would have just sucked and been a repeat of 1-3, if it weren't for the cast of madmen...
2-4: I...pretty much agree with what Ciato said after I found out the truth of the case (which is right before the 2nd trial); 2-4 is the exact kind of trial the series needed. Until then, you've ALWAYS been defending innocent people, it was getting a little unbelievable. The fact that Phoenix has to defend someone Guilty, and they found a way around the Psyche-lock Lying *AND* gave a reason for why Phoenix wouldn't just throw the trial...yeah. Its nice that they showed Phoenix wasn't ready to give into Blackmail,but at the same time, he didn't want Maya to die, so having to stall as much as possible on the chance that Maya is safe worked. Then of course, the angle of Phoenix stalled to the point where now suddenly, if he gives up, he WILL win, which is exactly what he DOESN'T want...yeah.
But also, bringing back Edgeworth was awesome; nice way to follow the formula of the first game (different prosecutor in the final round), but they didn't resort to a lame "FRAN DID IT!" scenario, just found a way to keep her out. I think a neat part of this case? That Phoenix and Edgeworth despite facing each other, were really trying to work together best as they could to keep the Guilty verdict, but not get it too fast. It also did a good job of establishing Edgeworth's new motives of "He's in it for the truth, not for the victory!"
I also love how the 2nd half of the last trial starts off, with both Phoenix and Edgeworth in their "oh fuck I'm screwed" stances; it REALLY summed up just the kind of headcase the trial was for both sides.
3-1: Ok, with 1-1 being rookie case, 2-1 being Amnesia, I wondered how 3-1 was gonna do the TUTORIAL thing. Amnesia again would have pissed me off! So what do they do?
ACE ATTORNEY MIA FEY! Being able to play as SOMEONE ELSE for once was fun, not just from the stylistic stand point, but cause the way the characters act, think to themselves, screw up with the judge, etc. are different from Phoenix, who by now, we've seen all his shenanigans. Flashbacking to Mia's first case, bringing in Grossberg as her partner, going up against Payne in his ULTRA ARROGANT ATTITUDE, BUT NOW WITH HAIR...yeah, all nice touches for a first case.
3-2: Ok, first off, Adrian Andrews was annoying here; I like them bringing back old characters, but come on, she was just pointless this entire case, and had me stuck with a psyche-lock for a while that was partially my fault. The worst part is? That Psyche Lock I KNEW what was up with it, but of course, I didn't have EVIDENCE, and I couldn't just say WHY I knew so, I HAD TO SHOW IT! Ugh!
That out of the way, the first half being about a Theft case for once, instead of a murder, was a fresh thing. You don't ALWAYS have to defend murder cases, other crimes exist too, if smaller ones. But it turned into a Murder Case eventually, which disappointed me. To its credit, everything worked out well enough and I was a bit afraid they were going to say "Desiree did it! SHE NEVER LOVED RON!" but thankfully, the case kept making it increasingly clear they were NOT gonna take that angle...and they didn't!
The way everything was resolved was great. The whole "Good job finding me guilty, Payne!" "Oh, I'm just that good!" *Phoenix rushes in* "HOLD IT!!!!!!!! DON'T DECLARE THE VERDICT! HE'S BEING CHARGED WITH MURDER IN THE ROOM NEXT DOOR!" "Oh, ok"
3-3: This case felt like total filler. It wasn't too bad, but...I dunno, it really felt like "Case is here for sake of being another case!" I don't really have much to say on it; its a pretty generic case through and through. I guess the running gag with "Furio Tigre is really freaking scary" was funny, but...eh. I guess to this case's credit, unlike other cases after the first game, it gets you RIGHT INTO THE CASE, rather than having preliminary bullshit. Just "SO PHOENIX! WHAT'S UP WITH YOU DOING REALLY BAD IN COURT 1 MONTH AGO!?" "Wait what? I didn't have a case 1 month ago! IT WAS AN IMPOSTER!" Just sped up the fluidity. The early stuff in all cases feels like its totally there for humor, just often its Maya Fey humor, by 3-3, its REALLY gotten old.
3-4: MORE MIA FEY ATTORNEY STUFF! A case that exists 100% so the next case would make sense, one thing this case has going for it is TOTAL LACK OF INVESTIGATIONS. Just shoves you in the trial from the outset, and lets you go. It was fun seeing both Mia *AND* Edgeworth in their first trial, so it was two rookies who would become exceptional at their job going at it, and ended in a way that didn't compromise either of their records (Mia was said to be the only Defense Attorney would could rival Edgeworth's dad in 1-2, IIRC, and Edgeworth is basically THE modern Ace Prosecutor)
3-5: Ok, the beginning of this case, as is the standard for cases since the 2nd game, is "Here's stuff for humor, have fun!" except the stuff just isn't that funny, cause its always the same style of humor. It looks like its going to be a generic but EPIC!!! case that's going to tie into the earlier ones, but...well ok, from here, I'll just do it this way:
The Bad: The case is long. Too long really. I can understand why, but I felt there were SOME testimonies they could have cut out, some of the dialog felt stretched (part of this is Godot doesn't know how to shut up though), and even when you finally win it, there's a whole big "I was wrong!!!" speech.
The Good: ...about everything else? The case took so many curves, was screwed up in that good way, and did a decent enough job of tying just about EVERYTHING in the series together, barring self contained cases like 2-3. It also had Larry AT HIS FINEST here. But the best part was the investigations were actually simple, pretty quick, and for once did NOT feel like a chore. Things were straight forward, you got your evidence promptly, characters had obvious triggers...yeah, its weird cause this is one of the most complicated trials (if not the single most complicated one) in the series, but for investigations, it was actually one of the easiest.
The Best: Wait, did I say the easy investigations were the best part? I take that back. The first trial of this case is by far the best part of this case. ESPECIALLY the 2nd half.
Hell, it was probably my favorite part of the ENTIRE SERIES. Playing as Edgeworth, bringing back Fran, Larry Butz amping up the failure....I told Ciato this, but that part could basically be summed up as "Elfboy vs. Ciato vs. Me" in trial. I shouldn't have to explain why its awesome; it was just brilliant The thing that really got me was when playing as Edgeworth in the investigation, my thought process was "Oh, is Fran gonna be the Prosecutor then? Wait, no, Godot still exists, they'll just use him. Well, ok, maybe it'll serve some purpose cause Edgeworth would be the exact kind of person to lay a verbal smack down on Godot, since he isn't as nice as Phoenix."
Then Gumshoe's "We can't contact Godot!" line kicks in followed by Edgeworth's "Oh, don't worry, I hand picked a prosecutor of my choosing for this trial."
...then I went to work shutting the game off on that line. Naturally, that was a long shift; I JUST WANTED TO SEE WHO IT WAS (even if I had a good idea); I mean, I had a good idea who it was, but still, SUSPENSE!
But now, ONTO THE CAST!!!!!
I'm not gonna get everyone cause my memory sucks, and I can't remember all names! Mostly covering recurring character. But anyway...
Phoenix Wright: I had no clue what kind of character he'd be like other than "Straight man in a world of insanity" which for the most part I was right. He's a bit dense, but otherwise, him always being on the receiving end of embarrassment is kind of a funny thing, since he rarely does ANYTHING that'd make him deserve it, he just happens to be aligned with the wrong crowd. Likable enough protagonist.
Mia Fey: Has a lot of screen time for someone who dies in the 2nd case of the series! Otherwise, I guess her role as "Voice of Wisdom Phoenix turns to when he's in a jam" worked. I do like how in 3-5, he didn't really need her at all as an aid, outside of owning Dhalia, which was an abnormal circumstance, and from a literary standpoint, you needed Mia to show up there in SOME manner, for the vengeance thing to really work. Playing as her added a nice little dimension to the 3rd game, since as I said, characters not Phoenix have different inner monologues and what not than him, so it helps avoid things being "more of the same."
Larry Butz: He's basically me, except 10x more pathetic. Yeah, I just insulted myself, but what of it? I said this to Elfboy once, but Larry is just really well done. The reason? He's a character archetype that's so easy to screw up; the "Pathetic at everything, he's got no redeeming qualities whatsoever" either gets played up not well enough to the point where its not funny or gets old *OR* it gets played up TOO much to the point where your response is "oh come on, now you're trying too hard." Larry...like Homer Simpson, he takes it right up to that line, but never passes over it, finding that balance that makes him actually funny. 3-5's First Trial was cool enough as is, but Larry just made things EVEN BETTER, partially cause of how a character like him meshes with Edgeworth and Fran.
Winston Payne: There had to be at least one totally incompetent Prosecutor and its him! That...I don't have much more to say other than they did a good job making him seem like a failure.
The Judge: Is Awesome. I cannot explain why, he just is. Lets leave it at that.
Maya Fey: In 1-3, it became obvious what kind of character Maya was, and I was worried that she'd be around the entire game...and she was. A character like this is fine...IN SHORT BURSTS. Having someone like that as a long term character? It really just gets old. Look, we get the point; she's energetic but immature, but that's really her entire character. She's meant to add comic relief, and add that sense of "Oh no, not again" that Phoenix keeps getting into, but for a character who plays as prominent a role as her, you really need to do MORE with her. See one thing that made Larry's idiocy work was that it was over the top (but not TOO much) and they covered so many angles of his incompetence; Maya, its mostly just the same old "She gets over excited!" combined with "she's a bit of an airhead". Investigations probably would have been better if there was more to Maya's quirkiness than those Trope-tastic anime traits.
Gumshoe: Another idiot in the cast! Only this time, he's more of your "lovable oaf." Yeah, Gumshoe is obviously not very bright, but at the same time, you can't help but like the guy. I guess its a woobie factor here; he's got all these problems, but instead of blaming him for all of them, you just kind of feel sorry for him, and he's often at the brunt of the Prosecutor. I do like how they did NOT overuse the "Wait, Gumshoe was actually...useful?" thing, and when they did, Gumshoe being useful varied, like 1-3's "DRAMATIC BREAK IN SAVING PHOENIX FROM THE MOB!"
Edgeworth: First game, there wasn't much to him other than he was portrayed as Phoenix's Rival, yet you know there's obviously more to him than "Damn good prosecutor." In the 2nd game, him returning mostly had the "Oh yay! Edgeworth's back!" reaction, and then using him as the Prosecutor in 2-4 was fun cause its nice to see him in action again, especially since they took a new angle with him, and the whole 2nd half being "Edgeworth and Phoenix need to work together for everything to end up properly." Then in the 3rd game...yeah, he's just really fun there. Favorite moment of his?
Larry: *first statement of the entire trial by him here*
HOLD IT!!!!!
Edgeworth: ...
Judge: ...Edgeworth, is something wrong?
Edgeworth: That single statement is filled with so many contradictions, I almost passed out.
Larry: Oh! Hey! Let me see if I can find them myself! *Larry proceeds to list everything wrong with his statement*
That line had me cracking up for a good 5 minutes, and I actually pressed it against just to see it. The timing of it couldn't be better; it would have lost its impact if it was any later. The fact that its just after Edgeworth saying "I need to find a contradiction in his statement" *AND* its Larry's VERY FIRST LINE IN THE TESTIMONY...well, you get the point. Seeing Edgeworth's inner thoughts added that dimension to his character, and it was a great contrast to Phoenix. They also did a good job of making Edgeworth seem like a friend of Phoenix's, but a rival at the same time. Yeah, by the end of the 3rd game, I totally see why he's hyped, and why he got his own game!
Wendy Oldbag: Crazed old woman fangirl who goes on huge as hell rants, and is a security guard. I...just where do they come up with these ideas? Oh well, she was generally good for a cranky old woman-stereotype that added humor.
Will Powers: I...uhh...have no comment on him? He's suppose to be that "Big Strong Scary Looking Guy With a Heart of Gold" but that's about it <_<
Lotta Heart: Another character who failed to leave much of an impression; odd cause she's in 3 different cases. Yeah, she's basically a hick girl who keeps getting mixed up with Phoenix, but eh, kind of glad they didn't bring her back in the 3rd game, cause she just doesn't do a lot.
Manfred Von Karma: They wanted to make a prosecutor who was completely intimidating and seemed damned invincible...and Manfred certainly felt that way. His design, his "40 years with no losses", the voice used for his OBJECTION!!! ...and to top it off, Phoenix only beat him thanks to DUMB LUCK. I find it hilarious that Phoenix was only able to beat Manfred thanks to Larry being a moron, which I guess proves the old axiom of "It takes an idiot to defeat a genius"...what do you mean I made that up? The one thing about him is that he was easily Phoenix's hardest opponent by far, and after someone like him, its kind of hard to get more intimidating. Also, he seemed ACTUALLY EVIL. The other prosecutors all seemed more like opponents, Manfred felt like an ACTUAL VILLAIN (and to some degree, he was.)
Maggey Byrde: Someone needed to Out Damsel in Distress Maya, so they made her. That's...Maggey in a nutshell. I'm not gonna get into details, cause really, that's all she is, IN BOTH TRIALS SHE'S IN.
Morgan Fey: Evil Aunt. That's about it; I honestly just felt she was a walking trope, and part of what didn't appeal to me about 2-2. She even has the whole "oh look, she seems like a nice, innocent woman, who evidently raised Maya and Mia when they were younger, BUT SHE'S REALLY A VENGEFUL BITCH!" thing.
Pearl Fey: She's like a more extreme version of Maya. Difference? She's actually justified cause she's young and sheltered, and her funny quirks tended to work more. Its easier to forgive these things when there's good excuses behind it like Pearl has, where as Maya its like "Oh come on! No one is THAT stupid! (...except Larry...)." One thing that does bug me is that Mia possessing her is CREEPY AS HELL. I shouldn't have to explain why. I will admit that I first saw Pearl and went "oh boy, another little girl stereotype added to a series, SCRAPPY HERE WE COME!" but...Pearl never reached that level of annoyance, so props to her.
Franzsicka Von Karma: I'll be honest; she wasn't really anything special in the second game, though the usage of the whip was funny, ESPECIALLY when she'd whip the judge. I will give her props for them finding an interesting angle to take for "new opponent" for Phoenix; as I said, its kind of hard to go up from Manfred, so they took an angle of "What if we tossed in personal motivation?" Fran was the first person who had a PERSONAL reason to want to see Phoenix lose, so the drive wasn't entirely just perfection obsession, and made her seem more driven at times as a result. Her dramatic rescue in 2-4 was a nice touch to end her on a positive note, and have a "HEY LOOK! SHE'S CAN BE A GOOD GUY TOO!" But still, I wasn't a big fan of her...
...yet, I was excited to see her return for 3-5, and well, that trial alone raised my opinion of her. She took the foolish lines up a notch, the whips were even funnier this time around, and dealing with Larry Butz just made her personality work really well. And lets face it, she's the only partner in an investigation who doesn't have some sort of mental deficiency in terms of intellect (hers is just a social ineptitude). I dunno what it is, but 3-5 made her work somewhat better. ALso...
[20:30] <King_Meepdorah> "A fool's fool fools fools who foolishly accept foolishness of a fool's fool"
[20:30] <King_Meepdorah> I'm shocked that it makes sense
[20:31] <Elecman> .. as am I.
Speaks for itself, really.
The Cast Collective of 2-3: A bunch of crazed psychopaths who are all fucked up in the head...which is perfect cause they're all circus freaks!
Matt Engarde: HE'S SUCH A SUNNY, BRIGHT YOUTH AND...wait, he's got an EVIL SCAR AND WINE GLASS OUT OF NOWHERE!? HOLY SHIT! I love how the game makes him look like just an idiot actor at first, then shifts to showing that was him just pretending to be stupid to see if Phoenix was serious about defending him...to him actually being TRULY EVIL AND VILLAINOUS! A guilty defendant for once, yay!
Adrian Andrews: She felt kind of pathetic in 2-4, which I'm aware was kind of the point, cause you're suppose to pity her. But bringing her back as basically nothing more than a cameo in 3-2? Well, ok, I acknowledge they showed she's now more confident and sure of herself, but they made her out to be a clumsy ditz which...yeah, I dunno, felt kind of meaningless. Its like how they reused Lotta Heart in 2-4 (in 2-2, she was at least a witness.) Not much else to say.
Shelly De Killer: A Professional Assassin who takes the term "Professional" to a whole new level. Its funny how calm and collected he can be explaining his plan in details in the courtroom, and act like he's doing nothing wrong. ANd of course, the fact that the Radio resembles him down the the monocle = epic win.
Dhalia Hawthorne: Oh look, she's so sweet, and innocent, and cute and...completely evil in every sense of the word. Fun watching how near the end of 3-5, they're basically "You've failed at EVERYTHING!"
Luke Atmey: AWESOME ACE DETECTIVE WHOSE REALLY A THIEF BLACKMAILER! Has a monocle, and one hell of a screwed up plan; get found guilty for one crime to prove he had an alibi for another. It almost worked too!
Ron Delite: ...honestly, I'm not sure. I mean, he's quirky, and all that but its almost like I can't quite say much about him.
Desiree Delite: Mostly just gonna point out that I like how they avoided pulling an "EVIL WIFE WHO WAS JUST USING HER HUSBAND" scenario here, cause I was afraid that was gonna be the case the instant they mentioned she "liked to live dangerously!"
Godot: Of the primary prosecutors (Payne doesn't count), Godot is the worst. He didn't really feel good at his job, mostly just kept saying "PROVE IT!" and then rambled about coffee. Because he always had a coffee analogy that didn't make sense, his lines took about twice as long, and Phoenix having the "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?" reaction...yeah. Ok, the first "COFFEE PROJECTILE!" was a funny moment, but it got old. The "Grudge against Phoenix to the point where its dangerous" just...didn't really work, and he ran too much off that "MYSTERY!" thing. I'm aware they're trying to think of SOMETHING new for an opponent, but...they didn't do a good job with him. He just didn't seem like a strong opponent. Also, one thing he did that the other Prosecutors DIDN'T do? He started going "JUST FESS UP AND SAY YOU DID IT!" rather explicitly; no one ever went that far. Oh, they may have insinuated it, but they never went so far as to pressure the person to fess up.
I acknowledge they tried to add depth and character to Godot in the final stretches of the game, and to get you to pity him but...eh, I dunno, he just didn't work. Especially since it had to compete with the first trial of that case, which was brilliant in every sense of the word.
...gonna skip 3-3 almost entirely and 3-4 doesn't really add anyone new, mostly cause this is getting too long. Which leads to 3-5...also not really adding much more, for all that it makes many people MORE AWESOME. So yeah, consider this the end!
So yeah, fun series for quirkiness and writing and just getting into PLOT or something, but gameplay is kind of dull. Still, I finally played it.
I'll probably play 1-5 eventually...dunno if I'll deal with Apollo justice, and I get the feeling SOMEONE won't let me NOT play Edgeworth <_<
So in the end, all I can to the rest of the DL is...
TAKE THAT!!!
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G3: Kornell 1.5 beaten.
"Hey, mister, it gets awfully cold at night, so... here you go!"
*Kornell 1x Pink Blanket get*
I take it the game doesn't manage to keep up this pace? A shame, that.
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Yeah no, G3 has a decent start. Feels fun and light-hearted like a Grandia game should. I enjoyed the beginning enough that even Alfina and Alonso didn't bother me.
Until later when some characters leave and everything just goes to shit and it just feels like they ran out of time to make the script not suck. Seriously, it's almost Eternal-Sonata-bad towards the end.
Gameplay's pretty good throughout though. I'm still hoping for a Grandia IV if that tells you anything.
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Then Xorn shows up and makes everything better.
FE10 - Beat the first four GM chapters. 3-2 (wyverns + swamp) was certainly the scariest, I'm amazed I controlled the wyvern spawns in the south. Random PC notes so far:
Ike, Titania, Haar, Gatrie - Solid as always, even if one-rounding is a dream.
Soren - Got hella RNG blessed (capped speed after 6 levels which is absolutely nuts). This is incredibly welcome, since his Thunder hits so much harder than anyone's Bronze weapons. He actually one-rounds things on occasion! Durability is bad but could be worse.
Ilyana - Again, Sages benefit from this. She's way behind Soren in Magic and Speed (although doing well on Speed for her), but still stays on the team easily enough.
Rhys - Mist can't break defence ever, so I like Rhys' damage option over Mist's 1 move. I think.
Heather - Knifes things so she has some of the better offence, including the only 1-2 range besides the sages (and beats them in speed/durability/damaging enemy mages).
Shinon and Rolf - Shinon's 2/2 for Strength growth which is helping him stay on the team, as is the constant doubling and the durability I don't need to worry about. Rolf... well, the strength growth is paying off there, and he's also done well on speed.
Boyd - Holy shit I'm using Boyd. Anyway, breaks defence solidly enough which is more than many other units can say (Oscar, Nephenee, Mia, and Brom are all units I passed over because of this). Not too great otherwise but uh hey bond support with Rolf or something.
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Cannibal only heals you, but from checking a wiki about it there was this.
In Fallout: New Vegas, there appears to be a second, unused Challenge Perk tied to Cannibalism, called "Meat of Champions". If it had been used, the player would have gained Mr. House's Luck, Caesar's Intelligence, The King's Charisma, and President Kimball's Strength whenever he or she committed an act of Cannibalism.
* The Challenge to earn this perk was never added; one could assume that the player had to kill and subsequently consume each of the above persons.
So hopefully we see a restoration mod of some kind.
It's going to be my first mod, actually. It should be pretty easy to make.
When you take cannibal as a perk, it starts a quest. Each part you finish gives a reward, ie eating all the NCR dudes gives you Strength of the Bear.
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G3: Kornell 1.5 beaten.
"Hey, mister, it gets awfully cold at night, so... here you go!"
*Kornell 1x Pink Blanket get*
I take it the game doesn't manage to keep up this pace? A shame, that.
The rest of the game's plot is just stupid. If you don't take it seriously and take it in as shear trainwreckery like I did you should be fine.
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Mass Effect:
On my second playthrough, this time as an asshole (although, apparently, I don't have the heart to be a total asshole), female adept. Just did the ice planet. HOLY HELL this game hates people who picked "Adept" for their class.
Will either start ME2 after this playthrough, or do a third run as a completely random character who answers all questions randomly and picks random squaddies.
The Sims 3:
I am EA's bitch, so I bought the new expansion. I kind of like it so far, but I haven't gotten into the meat of it at all---just the fun with dinking around an urban environment.
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G3: Kornell 1.5 beaten.
"Hey, mister, it gets awfully cold at night, so... here you go!"
*Kornell 1x Pink Blanket get*
I take it the game doesn't manage to keep up this pace? A shame, that.
The rest of the game's plot is brilliant. If you take it seriously and analyze it on a critical level like I did you should be fine.
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Axel & Pixel -
Was alright. A bit short. Graphical style was nice at times. Too much use of what I am hesitant to call quicktime events considering the style of game - not like there's any punishment for failing them aside from having to start the action over, but as a mouse-driven game my cursor hand is not on the keyboard to react to them, and you're normally not given any warning that they're going to happen. Plus the directions you need to hit are arbitrary and unrelated to what is happening.
Got the whole painting. Missed three bones, which I suspect were all ones in the ballooning segment. Wasn't a big fan of that segment. Nor the boating segment, for all it did give me slight nostalgia for the Lemmings 2 Fan (not that I really have any reason to be nostalgic for Lemmings 2 considering I never did get any of the tribes to the centre, let alone all of them). Driving segment was pretty dandy however.
Persona 3 -
14th of June, just activated the floor 47 terminal. Game continues to be very entertaining.
Time-to-tiredness has indeed noticably extended already, which makes me somewhat apprehensive as to how many floors between terminals are going to be thrown at me in the future.
They have started removing the cards and putting them back in the order which they were removed during shuffling and it is annoying. I have fear that there are going to be further gimmicks added to shuffling as time goes on.
At one point Mitsuru said that Death had shown up on a floor, although I didn't see it personally. My copy not having come with a manual, is this something that I somehow managed to miss them explaining and should know about?
SD Gundam G Generation Cross Drive -
Up to session 21 on Fio route. Looks like the Zeta storyline is more-or-less over and we're heading into Double Zeta. Well, at least it isn't heading into G.
Has some mechanics which I find interesting, such as being able to evade long-range attacks by fleeing the cell at the cost of having your squad split up. The formation system is somewhat interesting but I normally end up just picking one of the default formations. ID Commands are a pretty cool take on Spirit Command-style commands which SRW should import.
Gundam X itself is the only unit from Gundam X to show up so far with Witz and Roybea showing up in Rick Diases of all things and the Freeden is just a UC Garuda called Freeden. What. Also haven't seen any Gundam Wing people despite having picked up a large amount of Wing units. Not that this is really a bad thing.
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Death showing up on a floor = unless you wanna do aftergame, you get to the next floor. FAST.
Death is effectively an uberboss that homes in on you if you stay on a floor too long, about endgame difficulty but can show up whenever if you take your time.
So yeah. It shows up a lot faster on gold monster floors IIRC, so.
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Pretty much done Ninja Gaiden Hard. Awakened Alma and Ghost Doku were bastards, especially Alma (gee, that sounds familiar), but the Core was a piece of cake and Satan was really really really easy. Like, in the running for easiest boss in the game. Jump, slash, dodge, kill cat demons with Izuna Drop, repeat. Just the Emperor and the final left!
Edit: Okay yeah that was even easier than I thought it would be. Emperor is a pansy (Although his beamspam in the first form is still stupid), final is easily overpowered with items and Art of the Inferno spam.
To play Very Hard, or not to play Very Hard....
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Death showing up on a floor = unless you wanna do aftergame, you get to the next floor. FAST.
Most of the time you can escape from it before it kills your party, so if it catches you it's not the end of the world.
Also? Looks really cool.
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Mass Effect:
On my second playthrough, this time as an asshole (although, apparently, I don't have the heart to be a total asshole), female adept. Just did the ice planet. HOLY HELL this game hates people who picked "Adept" for their class.
Will either start ME2 after this playthrough, or do a third run as a completely random character who answers all questions randomly and picks random squaddies.
The Sims 3:
I am EA's bitch, so I bought the new expansion. I kind of like it so far, but I haven't gotten into the meat of it at all---just the fun with dinking around an urban environment.
Eh? Biotics are so good in ME they had to change the entire ability system in ME2. Course it is pretty rough at the start.
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Adept is pretty horrible to start with. You really feel it early on with Barrier CD longer than it will stay up and unless you pump a ton of points into it while not spending on points loweirng the CD on your long CD attack abilities that don't feel like they do nearly enough damage to be the only thing you can do once every 20 seconds then you die really quickly. Adept gets good end game, but no where near good enough to justify the lack of survivability of any of the other classes.
It is better on replays if you have unlocked Assault Rifles or something, at least you can do something other than shoot your pistol (which you won't have put points into) for most of the time. Couple that with the fact that you get access to Liara like right after Adept gets over that bullshit hurdle and yeah, Adept is honestly a pretty shitty pick for a main all things being equal.
Fallout New Vegas - Token Grefter did things other people that have played the game have already done now (Vault 34, good gods I am barely playing this game it seems, doing shit even Cid has done before me now), game is awesome. Playing with 1 Endurance means I only get 1 implant (found out about that limitation well after I started), at first I was a little bummed, but then I realised that means there is nothing to spend my money on other than ordinance and a steady supply of all the drugs I could ever want. So yeah I have a metric fuck ton of 50 cal ammo and a few hundred shots of Incindiary rounds to use with my Antimaterial rifle. Power Armour and Weapon Handling covers my low Strength inability to use it. Vegas is going to burn bitches.
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Eh? Biotics are so good in ME they had to change the entire ability system in ME2. Course it is pretty rough at the start.
Well, it doesn't help that I went after the Matriarch for my first mission. Her and her fucking Asari commandos all are seemingly immune to Biotic Throw, which really makes the fight a bitch, especially because you start off in such close range and your armor is absolutely terrible.
Basically, I say "Gimme an infiltrator any day", because I can nullify biotic AND tech AND weapon abilities, and I'm so adept with a sniper rifle that I can one-shot almost anything, all while wearing reasonable armor.
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In fairness Grefter, I just had a three-day weekend and basically played the game nonstop throughout it.
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Fallout:NV - Did recruitable character side quests, think I only have Arcade Gannon's quest to do (need to get further into the quest to unlock) other than Boone's, so picked Boon back up. Got the recruit everyone acheivement woooo. Was fun. I liked Veronica more than I was expecting to, but that ending is incredibly unsatifying either way. Well played.
So two of the three most interesting recruitables are gay and both of them it is handled just kind of out of hand. Arcade Gannon makes a joke about it up front, Veronica just mentions it if you press her about her past. Nicely done. Cass looks like they jump through hoops so that she shoots you down no matter what you say. Boone would count as interesting if he wasn't so amazingly straight forward. Dude is awesome cool and great choice to take with you, but not really a conversationalist, so these three beat him out.
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Cass would ruin all other sex for you because it would be unbeatable. Then one day you'd just be walking down the road and some old dude in leather armor with a steel plate in his head and a fake eye would blow your head off with an M72 Gauss rifle from a mile away.
That is why you can never bang her.
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I am kind of suprised that you of all people is not okay with that happening.
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If the mom and sister of a Bro are both always off-limits, certainly the daughter of a Bro is.
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Wait wait, since when is the sister of a Bro off-limits?
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Annnnnnnd Rob just killed you twice over.
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Wait wait, since when is the sister of a Bro off-limits?
Article 19 specifies,
The mom or sister of a Bro is always off limits. A step-mom is fair game, assuming she wears at least one piece of leopard-skin clothing* but NOT if she also smokes menthol cigarettes.
*provided she looks good in it.
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Article 19 of what? >.>;;
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The Bro Code, presumably.
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It's the only law I recognize.
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Just bought New Vegas on Steam. I'm so behind the curve!
Speaking of which, I also played Katamari Damacy for the first time this week. What is wrong with me?
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I also played Katamari Damacy for the first time this week. What is wrong with me?
That you're not still playing?
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Speaking of which, I also played Katamari Damacy for the first time this week. What is wrong with me?
If you're playing that? Too many drugs.
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*ROYAL RAINBOOOOOOW~!* ;D
This katamari... it is just not marijuana-ish enough. ::)
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Wait wait, since when is the sister of a Bro off-limits?
Are you saying your sister's on-limits?
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For you or for Djinn?
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Wait wait, since when is the sister of a Bro off-limits?
Are you saying your sister's on-limits?
Djinn's sister and mother were never off-limits, as the Bro Code, much like the Ares Conventions, only protects those who abide by it. It's like the mutually-assured destruction principle.
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!Lufia2: Started! Since Lufia 2 is #5 on my list of best RPGs ever, I expected a remake/"reimagining" to be profoundly disappointing. Surprisingly it's pretty decent. Nice artwork and good voice acting (although I've always said "Gaydes" and "Deh-kar", not "Gah-des" and "Decker"). Still maintains the character interactions of the original.
As for the battle system, I'm not too fond of it. Kind of feels like generic hack-and-slash. There aren't really enough options for variety. Tia has been my favorite character to control oddly enough. Pity it looks like she's going to be a temp again. I was hoping they'd fix that in the remake.
Also not a fan of the dungeons; they're confusing visually. Although I did enjoy Logismos Temple.
Just beat Gades for like the 12th time. "The other thing I'm best at is doing things I don't understand with my energy waves!" "Great Scott!"
And now Idura stole my baby, which means that this time... it's personal.
EDIT: I seem to be finding this game harder than other people have mentioned. *looks at Dune's levels* Geez, no wonder. He was level 40 for Gades, my highest character was level 20 for that fight. Makes quite a difference in the challenge of the game if you don't grind.
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Tia sticks around, unlike before. Dekar rejoins near the end as well.
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I also played Katamari Damacy for the first time this week. What is wrong with me?
That you're not still playing?
In my defense, I woke up this morning and the first thing I did was re-complete the Moon level in under 20 minutes while making an 800m katamari. So... yeah.
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Strago you whore, come back to us more often! Stop slutting around with random people...if you can even call ACTORS people!
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Started barreling through Alter Code F. Gatling Raid is fun times.
Places made jokes thanks to Gatling Raid:
Volcannon Trap.
Court Seim.
Barrier Shelter.
Plot just opened up the Photosphere for me, and I'm still as obsessive as ever about gardening. I've gotten to the point where I Analyze one of each monster in an area, and then cancel all further encounters.
This might have resulted in me being a bit underleveled. Just starting to go after the Photosphere. Jack and Cecilia are level 28, Rudy is 29. Putting FP Advance on Rudy usually means bosses get one-rounded. Tempted to go back and farm Trolls for the Fast Draw XP.
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EDIT: I seem to be finding this game harder than other people have mentioned. *looks at Dune's levels* Geez, no wonder. He was level 40 for Gades, my highest character was level 20 for that fight. Makes quite a difference in the challenge of the game if you don't grind.
The game's difficulty is inversely related to your Mystic Stone Board usage. If you don't use it at all you will find the game challenging. If you do use it and use it wisely then smash happens in a big way.My suggestion is to stack all the Str+ stuff to one character and all the Int+ stuff to Selan. That way you have one physical damage dealer/physical tank and Selan has awesome magic damage through her C. Atk while being a magic tank.
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I have been doing that actually. Selan's ice pretty much OHKOs randoms even at my levels.
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Final Fight 3: Beat the game using Guy w/ a Lucia AI partner on Easy Mode. Why?
I was curious to see what at least one of the "Generic 90s Characters Nobody Cares About" looked like in battle, but didn't care enough to play as them! Also, was curious about how the AI worked...
All I can say is, when I replay this game as Haggar (how can I NOT?), I am totally doing it solo, unless I have a HUMAN partner.
Why didn't I use Haggar initially? Cause Guy's easier to use, and wanted to get through the game once with more familiarity, where as Haggar...well, getting my ass kicked a bit in STAGE 1 IN FINAL FIGHT 1 (the demo) with him really showed I'm off my game. Also, he's not Dean <_<
Anyway, good classic beat em up that I missed when it was on the SNES, nice to finally play it. Not much else to say.
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New Vegas: Brotherhood of Steel stuff. Most of which I'd already done, outside of Nellis and Vault 11. Vault 11...Was doing that really supposed to make the House Always Wins quest autofail? I don't see any obvious reason it should, but surviving the battle (the horrible, horrible robot battle) does seem to flag that quest as failed. At first I thought there was just some time limit attached to meeting House and I'd slacked off too long, so I reloaded just before the Vault 11 finale, went to talk to him, came back and did the fight again. Again, though, quest failed after the fight, so it's definitely a causal connection. I'm just not sure why. Unless I fail at recognizing timbre and that was House's voice on the congratulation recording. All of this does make me remember a file from one of the earlier games talking about the vaults being set up with differing handicaps on purpose, though. Had forgotten that bit. Actually wanted to go back and reread to see exactly where I found that to make sure it's not just part of my imagination, but Fallout 2 mysteriously doesn't work anymore.
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I couldn't resist. I bough the new Lufia Ds game.
I must say they seemed to have trimmed up the story quite a bit!
They added a whole bunch of dungeons and plots together in the early part of the game. Plus they seem to like to re-visit a lot of the older dungeons.
I just got Dekar, and I always pronounced it "Dee-kar", oh well. I also mis-pronounced Gades' name too.
I don't see why no one likes Dekar. He is just like Maxim and that is a good thing, because Maxim is the only fighter I enjoy using in fights.
Selan gets locked up in combos too easily, but I will confess I haven't used her much except for that one dungeon she is required. Tia is ok. Guy is horrible. I can't stand his slow ass.
Two Maxims are better then one I always say.
~
Oh yeah, I am also plaing Deathspank because it is on my PS3 and hey, free games are fun! It's generic and funny, but I do enjoy spanking me some death every now and then. If only i would remember to block or care to block for the matter I wouldn't die so much!
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New Vegas: Brotherhood of Steel stuff. Most of which I'd already done, outside of Nellis and Vault 11. Vault 11...Was doing that really supposed to make the House Always Wins quest autofail? I don't see any obvious reason it should, but surviving the battle (the horrible, horrible robot battle) does seem to flag that quest as failed. At first I thought there was just some time limit attached to meeting House and I'd slacked off too long, so I reloaded just before the Vault 11 finale, went to talk to him, came back and did the fight again. Again, though, quest failed after the fight, so it's definitely a causal connection. I'm just not sure why. Unless I fail at recognizing timbre and that was House's voice on the congratulation recording. All of this does make me remember a file from one of the earlier games talking about the vaults being set up with differing handicaps on purpose, though. Had forgotten that bit. Actually wanted to go back and reread to see exactly where I found that to make sure it's not just part of my imagination, but Fallout 2 mysteriously doesn't work anymore.
The turrets are mistakenly flagged as part of the Vault 38 faction. You can either stealth-kill them or console-kill them. Supposedly it will be fixed next patch, but I think there's also a mod out there, "collected bugfix mod" or somesuch, that solves it.
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Wait wait, since when is the sister of a Bro off-limits?
Are you saying your sister's on-limits?
My sister's a lesbian, so you're welcome to try.
Djinn's sister and mother were never off-limits, as the Bro Code, much like the Ares Conventions, only protects those who abide by it. It's like the mutually-assured destruction principle.
It amuses me that this is the first time I've ever been accused of, essentially, "not being enough of a Bro."
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I would chalk that up to the much lower standards for Brodom over there. You may be a Bro by their standards, but that's a lot like being the best player on a High School team and then going straight to the pros.
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New Vegas - Have started up a character, but haven't had much time to play thus far. Am bumming around Goodsprings getting to know people and deciding how to handle this Ringo situation.
Tagged Science, Repair, and Speech to start. Chosen traits were Good Natured and Four-Eyes. Upon hitting Level 2, I chose Confirmed Bachelor.
I'm having fun with this character already.
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Nice to know some things never change with you man.
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*watches GSL Ro4 results*
...
.....
.......
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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I miss you too, Gref. C'mon, let's hug it out.
DA: Origins; Awakening - Also played this recently. Did anyone else, around these parts? A pretty entertaining way to spend ~15 hours, but not the most entertaining. Played through on Nightmare with my imported Dwarf Rogue, and destroyed basically everything without breaking a sweat. One exception was the final boss, which caught me a bit off guard by killing the rest of my party in twenty seconds. Then my Dwarf soloed it. Woohoo for rogues.
It would be a significantly better game if more care had been taken with your party members. They were pretty uniformly boring. Story was also not much to speak of, but: Bioware. I'm used to getting some good characters from those guys, at least. I liked the Architect, though?
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ToV - Poopin' around the Heracles. The Schwann fight was pretty cool, a little challenging but in the fun way. Heracles is also the first FUCK YOU TALES dungeon in the game and it's taken this long, so I'm pretty impressed - and it's still not nearly as bad as a lot of prior games' dungeons.
Rita is starting to get her really good skills like Magic Combo, now to figure out which Altered Artes to tag her with and see if controlling her kills shit faster.
And apparently, dropping Estelle and just having Karol and Raven using healing Strike Artes keeps you alive better later on, even if not having a healer feels like sacrilege to me in most RPGs. I like my traditional parties too much, I suppose.
Now, I'm at forty hours, and expecting a sixty hour game minimum... and since I don't know what the hell they're going to fill a whole ten to twenty hours more game with, I imagine this is the point where the pacing grinds to a complete halt.
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*commissions Strago/Gref doujin*
Borderlands: Since 1.41 came out, I figured I'd get around to doing the Claptrap DLC. Cleared it in roughly 5 hours, though I don't have all the item drops and I used Gamebreaker McBoobsiren to play it. Probably the second-best DLC they had, behind General Knoxx.
Costume Quest: Played through and beat it in one day on the 30th. Was it worth ~$15? Eh, barely, I'm cheap. It's a good game, but replay value is nearly zero. If this is the quality we can expect from the other DF productions, I'll happily keep buying them.
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I miss you too, Gref. C'mon, let's hug it out.
DA: Origins; Awakening - Also played this recently. Did anyone else, around these parts? A pretty entertaining way to spend ~15 hours, but not the most entertaining. Played through on Nightmare with my imported Dwarf Rogue, and destroyed basically everything without breaking a sweat. One exception was the final boss, which caught me a bit off guard by killing the rest of my party in twenty seconds. Then my Dwarf soloed it. Woohoo for rogues.
It would be a significantly better game if more care had been taken with your party members. They were pretty uniformly boring. Story was also not much to speak of, but: Bioware. I'm used to getting some good characters from those guys, at least. I liked the Architect, though?
Yeah, characters were kind of a step down. But it did add some interesting new elements to DA, and it was fun, if extremely poorly balanced. Duelist/Assassin/Legionnaire Scout pretty much just took a bat to the whole campaign, and that was BEFORE I traded in Duncan's Sword for Vigilance (Starfall + Duncan's Sword = MURDER TRAIN).
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ToV - Now, I'm at forty hours, and expecting a sixty hour game minimum... and since I don't know what the hell they're going to fill a whole ten to twenty hours more game with, I imagine this is the point where the pacing grinds to a complete halt.
Actually, the rest of the plot isn't that bad. There will not be any head-slappingly stupid moments a la TotA or ToS, at least, and the rest of the game really does follow what has gone on so far decently well.
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The rest of the plot until the third act works well. The last part doesn't grind to a halt, but it is pretty bad and totally unnecessary. It is like someone heard the term three act plot and decided it meant they needed three exclusive plot archs which already happen to have a 3 three act plot. They ran out of good ideas after 2 story archs.
Monkey played DA:O, I was waiting to finish my second play through to get to it, second replay has been a flurry of start/stopping around other games all year. I think he and Rob were the only ones that had done it. The other DLC is worth a look though Strago, mostly Leiliana's song being really nice. Morrigan one does stuff I think most people were expecting in DA2, so yeah likely worth a look.
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I miss you too, Gref. C'mon, let's hug it out.
DA: Origins; Awakening - Also played this recently. Did anyone else, around these parts? A pretty entertaining way to spend ~15 hours, but not the most entertaining. Played through on Nightmare with my imported Dwarf Rogue, and destroyed basically everything without breaking a sweat. One exception was the final boss, which caught me a bit off guard by killing the rest of my party in twenty seconds. Then my Dwarf soloed it. Woohoo for rogues.
It would be a significantly better game if more care had been taken with your party members. They were pretty uniformly boring. Story was also not much to speak of, but: Bioware. I'm used to getting some good characters from those guys, at least. I liked the Architect, though?
I think the fact that you couldn't choose one person from your old team to keep is what really soured the experience for me. Come on, give me back my precious, amazing Shale. (Or Wynne.)
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There is that as well, especially considering more than one character has an ending that is all "Yo dawg lets go chill and be pimps together".
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Fallout: New Vegas - Finished. NCR ending. Kind of meh which was what I was expecting it to end up really. The NCR are just kind of dull. But hey awesome game and I had tons of fun.
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Radiant Historia- Stock is 19? Serious? He should at least be his late 20s. And Shimomura, your music is too good for this game.
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Okami: Man like Richard said this looks pretty awes-
*PS2 dies*
Richard is this your fault
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When is it never RICHARD's fault?
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Fallout: New Vegas - Finished. NCR ending. Kind of meh which was what I was expecting it to end up really. The NCR are just kind of dull. But hey awesome game and I had tons of fun.
I've always felt it's hard to judge the NCR impartially because as a player, I am personally responsible for both their existence and their prosperity. I'd have sided with the NCR if Tandi was still alive, but of course she's not.
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Oh it works fairly perfectly thematically with so much cowboy stuff in this game, siding with the government that is coming in and settling the area, standardising the whole thing and generally making it safe is never really a positive thing in Westerns (something Rockstar hammered home perfectly in Red Dead Redemption actually). There is other fun thematic things this plays with (post apocalyptic version being west going eastward bound and so on). It is unsatisfying and I completely expect it to be intended as such.
I honestly really wanted to just grab the fuck them and be the man ending, but couldn't justify it without Mr House' longevity and I ahd kind of backed the NCR the whole game, so yeah stuck with the original plan.
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Well, frankly, with what we know of the Fallout world, if the NCR takes out Caesar's Legion and holds New Vegas, there's nobody organized to stop them until they reach the Fascisty BoS from FOT.
From what I can gather, incidentally, FOT is canon, but only Chapter 1.
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Oh yeah, I still play games, don't I?
Pokemon Heart Gold: So, there was a tournament for this at the convention I went to. I found out about it the day before and, as such, started training a team of Heatran, Scizor and SLOWBRO. Aww yeah. And then the tournament started an hour early. ...ah well, at least I still have my amazing Slowbro. (Seriously, though, why is Slowbro not used more often? Curse, Slack Off, Amnesia and Zen Headbutt or something? >.>)
Mana Khemia: Finally started a NG+ on this. Cleared Chapter 2, haven't found anything new yet. How do I get the NG+-only stuff on here? ;(
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Slowbro lost his niche when other bulky waters started joining the fray. (fscking MILOTIC, Suicune, etc) He's awesome, though.
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Mana Khemia: Finally started a NG+ on this. Cleared Chapter 2, haven't found anything new yet. How do I get the NG+-only stuff on here? ;(
The Bonus dungeon opens up whenever you clear the chapter with the bowels of the old schoolhouse. The Chimera area or whatever.
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Slowbro's problem is that it gets slaughtered by T-tar and Scizor - not a desirable quality for a bulky Water-type in OU. Pursuit and U-turn weaknesses are not good when you're trying to tank.
Also, for what it's worth Slowking is better for Curse since it has higher special defense while Slowbro is better for Calm Mind since it has better physical defense. You want the defensive stat that you aren't boosting to be as high as possible to withstand hits better while setting up.
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Hmm. Which brings me to my next question. Since Slowking has higher SpD and lower Def and nothing else different, and also gets Nasty Plot, why is it NU where Slowbro is UU? >.>
And does Curse work alongside Trick Room? Because that was my initial plan. =P
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Because Slowbro looks cooler. Duh. And yes, Curse+Trick Room works great.
Dawn of Heroes: Finished unlocking all the characters, been playing multiplayer. Play this game you slackers.
Lufia DS: I have a magical singing elf. LALALALALALA
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Yeah, I'm all over New Vegas like white on rice.
Well, frankly, with what we know of the Fallout world, if the NCR takes out Caesar's Legion and holds New Vegas, there's nobody organized to stop them until they reach the Fascisty BoS from FOT.
From what I can gather, incidentally, FOT is canon, but only Chapter 1.
You never know, the Pitt (I don't know what the canonical outcome of that DLC is, but either way, they still have a working mill) and the Capital Wasteland (considering the Brotherhood of Steel is the most powerful presence there, what with the Citadel, Liberty Prime, and their unique open membership), might be top dawgs by now.
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Yeah, I'm all over New Vegas like white on rice.
Well, frankly, with what we know of the Fallout world, if the NCR takes out Caesar's Legion and holds New Vegas, there's nobody organized to stop them until they reach the Fascisty BoS from FOT.
From what I can gather, incidentally, FOT is canon, but only Chapter 1.
You never know, the Pitt (I don't know what the canonical outcome of that DLC is, but either way, they still have a working mill) and the Capital Wasteland (considering the Brotherhood of Steel is the most powerful presence there, what with the Citadel, Liberty Prime, and their unique open membership), might be top dawgs by now.
Liberty Prime is trashed as of Broken Steel, and moreover, the NCR threw down with the main Brotherhood and won. The Capital Wasteland bunch can't hold a candle to the Maxson bunker crew in terms of gear or skill.
I mean, it's a big deal in The Pitt that someone can make ammo, which I guess doesnt really happen on the East Coast. Meanwhile NCR has actual factories again, pumping out parts that the Gun Runners assemble on-site into weapons.
Nope, if anyone can take the NCR it's the Chicago Brotherhood. Open membership, but none of this volunteer crap- they come in and take over your town and you fight for them, end of story. They have the bodies, the tech, and don't waste their strength on altruistic missions like the Lyons crew.
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Liberty Prime is trashed as of Broken Steel
,
Right; but it's been a few years since then. It is an assumption on my part, of course, but as of Broken Steel, the main scribe did start a project to repair and possibly improve it, the Lone Wanderer can even help in a quest (it never comes to fruition within the game, but who knows what could happen in four or so years between FO3 and NV).
and moreover, the NCR threw down with the main Brotherhood and won. The Capital Wasteland bunch can't hold a candle to the Maxson bunker crew in terms of gear or skill.
See, that's sort of the thing. The Brotherhood out West and the new Eastern Brotherhood are fundamentally different; the Western Brotherhood did have the advantage of being on their original home turf with the best of their stuff, but their reclusive and 'underground' modus operanti eventually worked against them in an all out war. Just doesn't end up working well.
Meanwhile, the East Coast BOS is stomping all with their balls out in the open, with a giant Citadel, Vertibirds, Enclave technology (which I remind you is by and large more advanced than BOTH Coasts BOS), open membership (meaning, they have the entire population of whoever to recruit from, just like the NCR), and most likely the support of the entire region; after the events of Broken Steel and the Lone Wanderer's affiliation with them, I doubt centres of power like Rivet City and the like wouldn't help out in any foreign invasion, including against the NCR.
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Except for one thing: the Eastern BoS has no manufacturing strength to speak of. All their gear is salvaged; as per Ashur they don't actually build anything new.
NCR would have, if they win, the ability to turn all of their strength East. They're closing the tech gap on the stagnant Brotherhood fast. They build their own powered armor, vertibirds and energy weapons back in California, and now they're bolstered by the Archimedes system at Helios. Not only that, but they grossly outnumber the Capital Wasteland crew.
The longer the NCR has, the more time it had to build it's new gear. When you rely on a tech edge, it is not a good position to have a massive enemy approaching you're not even aware is coming.
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Except for one thing: the Eastern BoS has no manufacturing strength to speak of. All their gear is salvaged; as per Ashur they don't actually build anything new.
That is true. If I were to try to debate this statement I'd have to consider some assumptions on how the Capital Wasteland is going to progress in the future. Which I shall since Fallout is fun. Here goes;
1. There is the Pitt; which is an incredibly valuable resource for obvious reasons. Like I said before, I'm unsure what the canonical outcome of The Pitt DLC is, but either way, it wouldn't be impossible for the Lone Wanderer to go as an envoy to Pittsburgh and convince whatever ruling power is there that 'Hey bros, there's a massive force coming in from the West, can we uh...borrow your Steel Mill? Real quick?'
If anything Ashur seems like a reasonable dude and he might be down with an alliance, even if it's temporary. Hell, he could even call up the military power of Ronto, and the geniuses of the Commonwealth, make it a party.
Alternatively the Capital Wasteland BOS could take a gamble and just try to take it the fuck over.
2. How did the NCR rediscover manufacturing? If they did it, the BOS should be able to do it as well, especially without fundamental challenges such as clean water and constant Super Mutants all up in their ass. Combined with their continual search for knowledge (the Arlington Library, for example), and its sooner rather than later.
NCR would have, if they win, the ability to turn all of their strength East. They're closing the tech gap on the stagnant Brotherhood fast. They build their own powered armor, vertibirds and energy weapons back in California, and now they're bolstered by the Archimedes system at Helios. Not only that, but they grossly outnumber the Capital Wasteland crew.
I guess this depends on what/who is lying out there in the Midwest/Great Plains/East Coast. There's a lot of ground that Fallout hasn't covered yet, and there may be a third party that's a wild card that also has the strength to give NCR a fair fight. But even if not, the NCR has to be able to expand themselves indefinitely across the entire mainland from coast to coast. One of the major things the Courier can call out on the Caeser's Legion (and thus cause them to abandon their entire efforts on the West, in just a few sentences) is this (entire conversation paraphrased as hell);
Courier: 'So uh, once you march on the West, how are you gonna babysit the East?
Legate Lanuis: 'LISTEN HERE BUDDY WE'RE THE LEGION AND WE'RE SO GREAT JUST YOU WATCH'
Courier: 'But, uh...you have finite manpower and the NCR is really, really big. So, uh...'
Legate: "'UHHH WELL YOU SUCK WE'RE LEAVING'
a massive enemy approaching you're not even aware is coming.
The East Coast BOS still has contact with the West Coast (somehow). This much is confirmed in their background story on how Lyons got dicked by his Lost Hills superiors when they changed their attitudes towards the Capital Wasteland.
I'll say this; the edge right now is with the NCR. Massively. But depending on how the East Coast plays its cards (and how the winds blow), they'll be a powerful force in its own right, very, very quickly. The days of the Capital Wasteland being a blasted hole in the ground with everyone beating rocks together, getting nothing done is over.
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From what I've seen the NCR can't even defeat the fiends because they spread themselves too thin. I've not yet confronted benny but unless the NCR has been holding back this whole time for some reason I simply don't see how they can take the east coast when they have a hard enough time holding their current lands now.
Fallout NV - BOS women glitched after I finished her missions. She will no longer follow me and will just stand there so I'm now bopping about with Arcade.
While running around I encountered 3 deathclaws which messed me up so much I had to flee into the river to escape. Of course I never retreat, I make tactical withdrawals and so I chased after those deathclaws which went back to their nest where there were 15-20 deathclaws (1 alpha male, 3 mothers).
Only one way to do this. Strip naked, grab Oh Baby! get drugged up and rock house. With my str, end, per maxed, 50% damage increase and a 50% defence increase it was on. I was swarmed by them all but it mattered not as my hammer sent deathclaw after deathclaw flying, that is if the hammer blow didn't outright decimate them.
Best game moment thus far.
Yugioh - Went to the sneak peek and won! Won a 20 pound mat as a prize but besides Delg I pulled some rubbish cards. I got 1 Wightmare and managed to get one for free off someone else but I'm still short 1.
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From what I've seen the NCR can't even defeat the fiends because they spread themselves too thin. I've not yet confronted benny but unless the NCR has been holding back this whole time for some reason I simply don't see how they can take the east coast when they have a hard enough time holding their current lands now.
True; but the NCR has no problem holding on to their home turf; hell, a few people in NV say they're currently in the Mojave because the NCR is too, get this; safe and boring. NCR got its own lands on lock. Their main issue is like you said; they spread their efforts too thin in annexing other lands. They don't own NV, they're in the process of annexing it, which can go either way depending on the Courier, of course.
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The East Coast BOS still has contact with the West Coast (somehow). This much is confirmed in their background story on how Lyons got dicked by his Lost Hills superiors when they changed their attitudes towards the Capital Wasteland.
Thanks for reminding me why Fallout 3 is dumb as shit.
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Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon: Just Beat Phoenix, so onto Chap 3!
Yeah, finally got back to playing this, what of it?
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Radiant Historia- Outside one plot hole, this game actually has a consistent story, believable villain, a sensical and likable main....
Are you sure the Radiata Story team really write this thing?
And Shimomura, you are just getting too good. Going freelancing really is a wise decision on your part.
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Hey, Jack is likable in the Fairy Path where he gradually grows a brain and becomes an actual decent human being. And RS' main villain was actually pretty well done too.
...we don't talk about the human path Jack...or characters like Zane...
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Chocobo Mysterious Dungeon: Just Beat Phoenix, so onto Chap 3!
Yay for rougelikes. Also, equipment can be so abusive, but fun. Trust me, though: you want either equipment with a Rust-proof innate or the Gold Seal on both things. Next few story dungeons can slap you around with the Rust status effect which is far and away not fun.
Have a favorite job yet?
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Except for one thing: the Eastern BoS has no manufacturing strength to speak of. All their gear is salvaged; as per Ashur they don't actually build anything new.
That is true. If I were to try to debate this statement I'd have to consider some assumptions on how the Capital Wasteland is going to progress in the future. Which I shall since Fallout is fun. Here goes;
1. There is the Pitt; which is an incredibly valuable resource for obvious reasons. Like I said before, I'm unsure what the canonical outcome of The Pitt DLC is, but either way, it wouldn't be impossible for the Lone Wanderer to go as an envoy to Pittsburgh and convince whatever ruling power is there that 'Hey bros, there's a massive force coming in from the West, can we uh...borrow your Steel Mill? Real quick?'
If anything Ashur seems like a reasonable dude and he might be down with an alliance, even if it's temporary. Hell, he could even call up the military power of Ronto, and the geniuses of the Commonwealth, make it a party.
Alternatively the Capital Wasteland BOS could take a gamble and just try to take it the fuck over.
I'm still not clear on whether they actually made steel there or if they scavenged the steel and just made iron and shit there. I mean, if they could make steel, why do you need to search for ingots?
2. How did the NCR rediscover manufacturing? If they did it, the BOS should be able to do it as well, especially without fundamental challenges such as clean water and constant Super Mutants all up in their ass. Combined with their continual search for knowledge (the Arlington Library, for example), and its sooner rather than later.
Near as I can tell, they've never not been able to. The Gun Runners have been making all their own merchandise since Fallout 1. Not sure about the Necropolis outcome, but if it's the good ending, a bunch of pre-War Ghouls got in to Engineering as well. I'm sure the BoS theoretically knows how to rebuild a factory, the problem is that the East Coast got drilled so much harder that one intact factory is this amazing miracle, so they're not having to "rebuild" anything, they're just having to build from the ground up.
I guess this depends on what/who is lying out there in the Midwest/Great Plains/East Coast. There's a lot of ground that Fallout hasn't covered yet, and there may be a third party that's a wild card that also has the strength to give NCR a fair fight. But even if not, the NCR has to be able to expand themselves indefinitely across the entire mainland from coast to coast.
Well, we know that the Southwest is all Caesar's land, and their strength is broken. The Great Khans might relocate to Wyoming, but if we're going with the NCR ending, they're NCR allies. Then depending on how much of Fallout Tactics is canon, the Midwest Brotherhood controls either the Chicago area or everything from Chicago to the Rockies. Much of the midwest is, according to Cassidy, just one big dustbowl with mile-wide tornados all over the place anyway and so probably uncontrolled by organized government.
The East Coast BOS still has contact with the West Coast (somehow). This much is confirmed in their background story on how Lyons got dicked by his Lost Hills superiors when they changed their attitudes towards the Capital Wasteland.
I'll say this; the edge right now is with the NCR. Massively. But depending on how the East Coast plays its cards (and how the winds blow), they'll be a powerful force in its own right, very, very quickly. The days of the Capital Wasteland being a blasted hole in the ground with everyone beating rocks together, getting nothing done is over.
Oh, I'm sure the Capital Wasteland BoS knows the NCR exists. I'm just not sure that they'd get advance warning if the NCR was on the move towards them, as the Lost Hills bunker really doesn't give a shit about them and the Hidden Valley bunker is, in the NCR ending, a possible ally to the Republic.
And... eh, they have a stable society finally, but they need to rebuild their infrastructure from the ground up. Not a good position to be in.
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Much of the midwest is, according to Cassidy, just one big dustbowl with mile-wide tornados all over the place anyway and so probably uncontrolled by organized government.
How is that different from the real world?
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The tornados are radioactive and shoot lightning at people.
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Lufia DS: Finished. Final party was level 46. Amon was a joke, Erim was Erim, and Daos died in two Dual Blade combos. Guess he would be hard to fight the legit way, but Artea seemed like he could beat him if you were careful.
Overall, game is about what I said before. Gameplay is poor, but the story and characters were good. Especially enjoyed the way they handled Iris.
It's about a 6/10 game, but I'll bump it up to 7 since they didn't completely shit on the original like they could have.
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Lufia DS: Finished. Final party was level 46. Amon was a joke, Erim was Erim, and Daos died in two Dual Blade combos. Guess he would be hard to fight the legit way, but Artea seemed like he could beat him if you were careful.
Actually the best way to fight him without stopping time is Maxim's Cross Dash. Artea is also decent at attacking and avoiding, but even ONE hit by pretty much anything ensures his death, and it ends up being a loooong fight without Time Break.
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Lufia DS: Finished. Final party was level 46. Amon was a joke, Erim was Erim, and Daos died in two Dual Blade combos. Guess he would be hard to fight the legit way, but Artea seemed like he could beat him if you were careful.
Overall, game is about what I said before. Gameplay is poor, but the story and characters were good. Especially enjoyed the way they handled Iris.
It's about a 6/10 game, but I'll bump it up to 7 since they didn't completely shit on the original like they could have.
Any plans for the second cycle? Or Egg Dragon?
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Yeah, I'm checking out the second playthrough. Unfortunately I can't just skip the story scenes since Iris says different things now.
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She just has some 'thoughts' shown in a few places that don't amount to much. You can pretty much skip everything until the three towers and nothing actually changes.
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I'm overdue to actually post things about games.
FE10 third place medal playthrough (also with Pikachus and kitchen utensils) -
So, I'm up to part 4, just beat 4-P. Part 3 was easier because the Greil Mercenaries still have too many good PCs, even with the weapon restrictions and bereft of Ranulf/Janaff/Ulki. Haar is still silly awesome. Unsurprisingly, Titania, Ike, and Gatrie remained excellent. Otherwise, the challenge's emphasis on Str made for some weird situations like Rolf and Boyd being better than Shinon, Nephenee, and Mia - in fact the latter two were dropped entirely. Archers suffer less than melee people, but nobody suffers less than the mages. Even Ilyana was decent! Soren and Calill are just obvious. I used Rhys over Mist, which was probably a mistake since Mist's speed and move are probably still more important than Rhys' damage... though I dunno. In some chapters this definitely wasn't the case. And obviously Heather was really good, which is kinda the fun part of the playthrough. Third promoted character? I've never even seen her promote before! Knives actually having RANGE OPTIONS is just wonderful, and her peak damage is pretty much party-best even before considering the high speed (the other high-speed options aren't really viable) and Adept.
The Dawn Brigade and Crimean chapters were reasonably tough, although none was a show-stopper. Nolan got RNG raped beyond all belief, though Aran got super RNG blessed to make up for this. Jill was kinda not doing well RNG-wise but canto ensured she was still worth using, and after a little luck with Paragon she became the third best PC of the path. Zihark was okay, though the lack of power was becoming increasinly evident by the end. And Sothe... is Sothe. See all the Heather comments, except Sothe's stats are much better relative to his team. And then there's those Beast Killers. Yup. Godlike, reached Level 18 by the end of Part 3. As for the CRKs, Calill and Kieran got the Paragons, nobody else was really worth using, although Marcia/Danved did see use as 4-P filler for rescue/shove/doing like 4 damage in a pinch! 3-5 was probably the hardest map for the GMs proper, or maybe 3-11.
Part 4 may be pretty tough, since I have fewer competent PCs than normal. Particularly dreading Ike's maps, since I think I balanced the teams pretty well and arguably I shouldn't have. Micaiah's team includes Sothe, Sigrun, Tanith, Sanaki, Haar, Ilyana, Heather, and Rhys. Ike's includes Soren, Titania, Boyd, Mist, Aran, Gatrie, Shinon, and Oscar. Elincia's includes Tauroneo, Rolf, Calill, Jill, Zihark, Nealuchi, and Kieran. All are/will be promoted before engaging in part 4 battles, except Mist and those with fixed promotions. Elincia gets the highly notable reinforcements of Volke (zomg broken on this playthrough) and Bastian for her second map, of course. And everyone has a laguz royal who is uh an awesome shover! Also a heron.
Bronze weapons actually disappear from stores for a while! Though they come back at least. WTF, I thought nothing disappeared from stores in FE10! I never had reason to care! I don't think I'll run out (I knew this was coming so I stocked up), but if I do I can always forge some iron weapons with -3 might or something. :(
Saga Frontier - Beat Red's quest. Party was Red (swords, some Alkaiser moves), Doll (Shadow Servant, Tower, katanas), Fuse (fists, Awakening, Starlight Heal), BJ&K, and TimeLord (Light magic gift). Team Super fanbait clearly. Worked quite well, more sword-users is always good (aw yeah double Deflect).
Red's a pretty decent sword and fist user (not the best at either, though close at fists, not that I built him that way) with the Alkaiser option, which is generally impractical but can be useful in emergencies, and is quite a boon in the final dungeon, giving him a stat boost and, for the VERY FINAL BATTLE, a damage boost on top of that. Didn't realise Re-Al was such a VP1 Lenneth-style powerup, but he'll take it!
Not much to say about Doll and Fuse specifically, although Awakening is more worthwhile with fists than other options. I'm still not absolutely enamoured with it but it's pretty cool. Still dislike Mindheal. Doll was mostly a foray into shadow magic, and I also got her arcane. I discovered that I like Tower much more on a fighter mage. Boss fights were ShadowServant -> Tower -> use sword moves, instead of saving it for the end and trying to guess boss HP like I'd have to do with anyone else, which would be lame. Gun moves might work even better for stat synergy, but I like swords. Doll sparked Tres Flores on her first sword attack of the very last battle, which made me happy.
TimeLord, well, hmm. TimeLeap is uber. Of course, it's not really unique to TL. Still, using him over someone else does let you get Mesarthim if you wish, and also lets you break game with OD/StasisRune Blue-style if you wish (though that's probably more effort than it's worth). Since I didn't, I couldn't really even justify setting Overdrive (grr mystic spell slots), which is quite funny. But yeah, TimeLeap. He gets the speed for it easily enough, and it's awesome. How much I spammed it depended on how nice I was to bosses, although some did sometimes outpace it certainly. TimeEclipse is also a solid move, of course. I was able to get him light magic but that was a bit of a favour for him, and without that his random battle performance is less impressive.
BJ&K is mostly about free healing, which is good on a mec (no slot wasted on backpack = hells yeah), and LaserCannon + Magnify, which is one shot of like 8000 damage. Boom. Also any number of shots of 1500-3000 damage before this, which is great midgame. I gather Rabbit also has this option, but I liked Medic and didn't want to use both - the cumbersomeness of healing mecs makes me leery of this.
This was the first playthrough I actually noticed how cheap some of the midgame defensive gear is. Screw saving for Powered Suits, just getting decent armour + HyperWear + decent gloves/boots/hat works very well, and WarlordArmour is a cheap upgrade to achieve endgame-like defences. I probably didn't look after my midgame defences enough in previous playthroughs. Main advantage of suits seems to be that you can then slap accessories there that block garbage like sonic and water attacks, but yeah.
BossX failed utterly, by far the worst final boss I've faced. Sure, I robbed him of a bunch of turns with TimeLeap, but by no means all (combination of speedhax and my showing mercy), and what he did get he used for utterly pathetic actions. Looking at the stat topic I really didn't miss much, woohoo ST OHKO in a Saga game as your very best? Bit of a waste of the uber boss-killing party I had, I didn't even use FinalCrusade!
Characters I still need to use for an extended period of time (I don't intend to use all of them), mostly for my own reference:
Annie, Hamilton, Fei-on, Lute, PzkwV, Rabbit, every mystic except White Rose/Zozma/TL, Kylin, every other monster except Cotton (whatever, like non-Kylin monsters are really different from each other).
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BossX failed utterly, by far the worst final boss I've faced. Sure, I robbed him of a bunch of turns with TimeLeap, but by no means all (combination of speedhax and my showing mercy), and what he did get he used for utterly pathetic actions. Looking at the stat topic I really didn't miss much, woohoo ST OHKO in a Saga game as your very best? Bit of a waste of the uber boss-killing party I had, I didn't even use FinalCrusade!
Back when I was playing SaGa, I can't tell you how many times I loaded up my Red File JUSt to kick the shit out of BossX. Dunno why, but its delightfully fun beating the crap out of a sad SaGa Boss, especially one of his design. Maybe I just liked the image of DSC on someone THAT BIG.
That said:
FF8: In the middle of the Prison! Man, this game is dull, why am I replaying it?
Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Impact: Found this for $5; being a rare game that is that cheap, couldn't really justify passing it up, and V. Joe was a decent enough game as is, and the nature of it translates to a Brawl-style game brilliantly. That, and it has DMC characters in it <_< >_>
Finished all story missions! Story is...maybe one of the best features of the game oddly. Its well written cause its V. Joe's cast, meaning there's no sense of the game taking itself seriously AT ALL, and a lot of funny moments (Though, fuck Captain Blue Jr. What game did he originate from anyway?) Its nice to have a game where the "Crisis" is "Whose going to be the star of my next big movie...which is primarily about ME!?" and he just has people duke it out IN ACTUAL SCENES OF THE MOVIE until he gets an answer. Then one of the hands on stage gets upset her role isn't big, takes a giant robot, and thus we get a final boss with a moral lesson of "EVERYONE IS SPECIAL AND IMPORTANT!" but handled in a way that's obviously meant to make you "OH COME HOW CLICHE CAN YOU GET!?"
But yeah, its nice that the game is a completely unconventional plot that makes no sense nonetheless!
Gameplay wise, its...Viewtiful Joe spliced with Brawl. unlike Brawl though, the game is creative about its requirements. Its not "beat the crap out of the opponent" usually, but "Do something better than him!" Be it collecting objects, be the last one holding onto the flag, etc. I will say that Captain Blue Jr. again, needs to die. Dunno what it is, but he kept seeming on getting all the items, COMBINED with his annoying "Arrogant 7 year old voice" and the stupid Yoyo style...yeah.
Characters I played as thus far:
V. Joe: He's basically Captain Falcon in this game. I guess since they gave the Time Manipulation and V-up gimmicks as generic power ups in this game, they just took moves like Red Hot Kick and Flanderized a skill set off it.
Dante: HIS GENERIC ATTACK IS RAPID FIRING HIS GUNS IN WHATEVER DIRECTION HE WANTS. That's just wrong on so many levels. I like the attention to detail kept on him since V. Joe 1 like having the Red Circle appear during his Double Jumps to acknowledge Air Hike and all that.
Alastor: Only got to use him against the final boss (just happened to be the level I chose him) and the...ending credits...he seems like he could be fun, I should try him again.
Sexy Silvia: Her charge special attack is a BEAM OF DOOM!!! She also has Dante's projectile nonsense. That is all.
Totally need to try the V. Joe 1 Bosses out at some point.
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So, since Black Ops came out yesterday, and my brother is a CoD-fish, I'm going to be away from the 360 for the foreseeable future. Sad panda.
Punch-Out Wii: Cleared the Minor Circuit Title Defense matches.
DQ9: Have been doing some more DLC missions.
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New Vegas: Beaten. No Gods, No Masters. Mixed reactions to that but I think it's really to the game's credit that there's no easy, perfect answer in the end, and it seemed to fit how I'd been playing the whole game--I helped the NCR pretty consistently, but for the people on the ground rather than nationalism, and the NCR's interest in Vegas was too obviously acquisitive. And there seemed something rather sad about the inevitability of the area becoming just another faceless backwater once the NCR tide washes over it and moves on. Other stuff in spoiler text:
Kind of regretted killing House by the time I went through with it because he seemed to have a plan for everything (except getting shot in the face) and I have to wonder what is grand vision was. Letting him live after being deposed would've been even more cruel given the circumstances, though.
Would've preferred to avoid nuking the Brotherhood, too. Only did it because Yes Man insisted they'd be a major problem later, and setting up an independent country isn't something you do half-assed. Really wanted to come to some kind of arrangement with them since I can understand their fundamental motivation in a post-nuke environment, but that seemed to not be an option on this path so they had to go. Sorry, Veronica (not that killing them made her leave me anyway, but I felt bad about it in the epilogue).
Helping Cass get revenge causes widespread problems for NCR, eh? Guess I shouldn't seen that coming, really. They were pretty slimy people so I didn't think too much of eliminating them at the time.
The rest I guess isn't that spoilerish. Dunno why the game gave me the option of saying I'd talked the Khans into leaving the Mojave, because I'd done no such thing. I actually never found whatever was needed to talk Regis/Papa Khan into turning on Caeser and the quest remained unfinished, so I dunno what flagged that situation in the endgame.
Dealt with Caesar by massacring everyone in the Fort almost immediately. He didn't have too much of interest to say initially (kind of curious that he wanted to destroy the mystery weapon instead of make use of it, but eh), so given all the "Women are physically and mentally inferior to men, good for bearing children and otherwise beneath notice" talk (this is a 100% effective way to make me hate someone), and seeing the women slaves there struggling bentbacked under heavy loads...Fuck it, genocide mode, leave/come back with weapons and every soldier in this camp burns (this was easy to accomplish until I got to Caesar's tent. Oh god ten dudes in a cramped area, equipped with ballistic fists, against a frail ranged fighter). I am going to talk to him more in another run (I am kind of curious about his reasons for founding the Legion, given his origins), but it was pretty satisfying to just eradicate the misogynistic slaving fuckers. Lanius I could've talked into leaving, but fuck that, I'm not leaving the Legion with anyone capable of command.
Mm. More complete thoughts on the game in general when I've run the other factions' endings (I kept a save with damn near everything done before the encounter with Benny, should only be a few hours' for each), and there's some other stuff I neglected to do that I want to get to (Vault 19, character quests for Boone/Arcade/Raul--the epilogue made me feel particularly guilty for neglecting Raul). For now I figure it's enough to say it's the best game I've played in the past couple years.
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Hoo, games. I should be doing something else right now so that's a good time to start writing about games right.
LFT - Started Chapter 4. Priest/Oracle Ramza FTW. Made short work of Velius, that's for damn sure. (Holy>Weigraf, Silence Song>Velius). Party is Ramza, Agrias (who cycles through Samurai, Holy Knight, and Monk), Vector (TM/BM), Quinn (Summoner/WM), and Patricia (Ninja/Lancer/Geomancer with Steal secondary). Just about at the point where everyone's mastered their two primary classes and I can start branching out into other skillsets. Unfortunately this kind of puts me at a paralysis as I cannot think of what skillsets I'd like to add to my repertoire.
Realm of the Mad God: This is the game that makes me think I COULD love a really well designed Roguelike. Levelling is fast paced and Equipment is sometimes easy to come by, and there's actually benefits to not being level 20. For a free game, not bad.
Minecraft: Played Classic. This game is methamphetamine in building sim form. I built a pretty sick house and a large cavern before accidentally hitting the back button on my mouse and losing ~10 hours of work. I intend to purchase the Alpha before playing again so I can at least save what ate up so much of my time.
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Dawn of Heroes: I actually started this a while back. Got up to the third barony.
I'm not really quite sure how I feel about the game as a whole, so here's a rant. There will be some *SPOILERS*, though not too many. A lot of the ideas are sound enough, but it comes with some baffling design decisions and not-too-great map/battle design.
You have a bunch of people who have things that they're good at, whether it's baiting enemies, locking them down, killing them, or supporting allies, who fall in the respective categories of Guardian/Controller/Damager/Supporter. The game itself isn't as offensively biased as other SRPGs so the non-Damager characters have time to shine. The individual balance seems kinda wonky (the Sabretooth, for instance, honestly seems more of a Damager-type than a Guardian-type, what with the offense and the not really Guardian-like HP/defense/armor options, but whatever). This is cool.
Combat is phase-based, with a maximum deployment of 5, but you can only target individual enemies up to twice in one turn for the most part. There are exceptions, namely bosses/minibosses and the last enemy on the map, but for the most part, the game doesn't really let you gang up on things. Granted this also applies to enemies, they can't gang up one of your guys too much. *shrug* Okay, I don't really feel much either way about this.
As an aside, I really wish there were some way to speed up or skip the battle animations. They're longer than they honestly need to be and I don't particularly care to see Omniscient's side effect animate for the ten-billionth time. It's annoying enough in games that are nice to look at and Dawn of Heroes is by no means nice to look at. This is really minor, however. At least there's sceneskip.
The characters have a global party level, so no one is really undereleved. This is a really cool thing to do in a SRPG and should be done more. Seriously, it encourages using different people and level grinding in SRPGs is one of the worst things ever (also the game apparently caps level at 25, which may or may not mean anything there). Of course, gear factors a fair deal into a character's worth and the gear you get after battles is random, so this can leave some people in a hole, which is less of a cool thing. Normal gear can be bought, but it's pretty expensive relative to the money you get from fighting battles, and selling gear gets you little more than jack squat, and the gear you can buy is unenchanted and thus likely inferior to what you can find after fighting normal battles. There are optional battles which give no EXP or gear but lots of gold, but those are better used for hiring heroes (which are not cheap) than buying gear, and these battles tend to highlight some of what I believe to be problems in the game.
Map design is really uninspired. Granted not all of them have to be spectacular obstacle courses but the maps are more or less devoid of things that are interesting from a gameplay perspective and make up for this deficiency with their sheer size. Wait, did I say make up for? I meant exacerbate. Granted interesting map design isn't a strong point in SRPGs, and taste is subjective, but I'm willing to say that, relatively speaking, some of these maps are about as large as FE4's. Seriously, some of them do not need to be nearly as large as they are. Others are mostly fine, size-wise. Also some of these maps have ~*hidden secondary conditions*~. Granted some brief looking on GFAQs shows that the hidden requirements are basically use event item on the stage in question but still, not cool. Some of the non-hidden secondary requirements aren't much better, as they require blitzing in a game where that's not really manageable, but those are cheeseable with something I'll mention later.
Enemies for the most part haven't really succeeded at being all that threatening. Of course there are exceptions here, but even those exceptions seem to be at least somewhat plagued by questionable AI decisions or thwartable by using Control abilities or taunting or having their damage reflected with Backfire. They mostly succeed at being annoying due to having better defenses/evasion abilities than you do (and I suspect ever will have) but for the most part, it's just that. Annoying. The one real exception I've found to this so far is Sadao, who is an *utter dick* in practice due to most of your offense being physical (which he has a 50% chance to evade no matter what) on top of a OPB Auto-Life effect, complete with double-acting (in fairness most bosses do that) and being immune to Control abilities but from a theorhetical standpoint I don't have much of a problem with his general design. He has support that makes the fight nasty but my problem with the fight stems from another issue which I will address in the next paragraph.
Guests take up a deployment slot when the inevitable escort mission comes along but they're controlable, so the game is automatically better than CotP that's a point in the game's favor. The escort missions themselves haven't been too troubling, for all that I've only seen two of them thus far. Less justifiable is what happens when a hero gets lost/kidnapped/whatever as a result of the plot. This *also* costs you a deployment slot, which is pretty nonsensical considering that by the first time this comes up, you can easily replace the missing hero. It's an especially rude surprise when it happens in a battle's opening cutscene, after you've chosen your team for a battle (in fairness, this doesn't happen with the Sadao fight, so you at least know about that fact, for what little that's worth). Heroes going missing as a result of the plot, I can deal with. This should not be a flimsy justification for a lost deployment slot until you get him/her back, though. Going to another barony gets the hero back! But then you have to redo some battles, which is pretty annoying.
Backtracking a bit to chosing people for a team, there's no ability to view or modify your battle formation prior to starting a battle ever. I find this to be utterly unjustifiable in a modern SRPG. Seriously, even FFT's lying-half-the-time excuse for PBF is preferable to this and I am not a fan of FFT PBF. The game also seems to lack in-battle saving, though since retreating is always an option this isn't *quite* as glaring a flaw as it could be. Still not a great design decision, though, considering there are multi-stage battles. Neither is being restricted to one save slot, for that matter.
Finally, the aforementioned cheese; Banish Scrolls. These are a purchaseable one-use item that instakills an enemy within range. They're not what could be called cheap but they're also not hideously expensive, costing what I believe is around what you could purchase a single piece of gear for. It's certainly not a gameplay skip as each character can only hold a single consumeable but nevertheless they look pretty nutty from what I saw when I used of them to fufill some "win within 2 turns" secondary requirements. Range isn't in fairness but it's serviceable enough for what it does. Not quite sure what they were thinking there, really.
Well, we'll see where the game ends up. For the most part it's alright despite the flaws though, just some of those flaws really annoy me.
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Mass Effect 2:
Started up a game despite not finishing a bitch playthrough of the first one. Recruited Garrus and Mordin. Some thoughts so far:
General Gameplay: A few things annoy me that ME1 didn't----I can't bind "del" to anything, which really pisses me off as an arrow key user. Thankfully, for some strange reason, a lot of the actions are all grouped into one button, which means I don't miss it nearly as much as I could. As far as infinite health vs infinite ammo goes, ARRRRRRRRRRRGH. I wish I had the Ammo SO BAD. Infinite health is nice, but I'd have way more fun if I could just snipe everything like I'm used to. I miss it so.
Oddness: I seem to be listed as "In a relationship" with Ashley... at least, I have a portrait of her in my room----this.... kind of bothers me because I never actually completed the romance with Ashley in ME1. Now when I invariably romance someone else (or not) it'll be seen as "cheating" even though I totally didn't start a relationship. BLARGH.
Miranda: Kind of a bitch at first---less of a bitch now. Don't have much of a grasp on how she plays. So far I like Ashley better.
Jacob: Actually a very likable dude. I'd take him over Kaidan any day of the week.
Garrus: For some reason, Garrus became Batman. I don't really buy it----Garrus just.... wasn't that good in ME1. But I guess he gained a level or something.
Mordin: I love this guy already. Talks like a psychopath. Seems to have a heart of gold despite gleefully executing bad-guys. Called someone a "Cloaca". What's not to love?!
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Miranda: Kind of a bitch at first---less of a bitch now. Don't have much of a grasp on how she plays. So far I like Ashley better.
Jacob: Actually a very likable dude. I'd take him over Kaidan any day of the week.
Garrus: For some reason, Garrus became Batman. I don't really buy it----Garrus just.... wasn't that good in ME1. But I guess he gained a level or something.
Miranda is pretty much the clear choice for best character in the game. She gets Warp (effective against armor, barriers, health, organic targets), Overload (effective against shields, mechanical enemies), Slam (fucks up undefended targets of both types), and most importantly, her 4-point class skill does something that no other character can claim: one version increases all squad damage by 15%, one version increases all squad health by 15%. Makes her... pretty much mandatory for Hardcore. Makes her pretty much mandatory, since nobody else can do that.
Garrus is... almost as good. He would be better if not for Miranda's class skill. Concussion Shot isn't as good as Warp, but he gets Armor-Piercing Ammo to help with that following his loyalty quest. Armor-Piercing ammo rules.
One thing that's kind of a bummer about ME2 is how much better some characters are than others now. I mean, yeah, Wrex was awesome in ME1, but there's really no comparing Miranda, Garrus, Grunt or Legion to Jacob, Jack, Kasumi (on higher difficulties... Kasumi destroys on Veteran and below) or Thane. It's better in pretty much every other way, but still, a bummer.
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Uh dude what? Garrus was always that good plotwise. Pretty much the only reason he wasn't a Spectre was because he turned down the training. The only thing standing between Garrus and shooting some dudes was his obsession with the law and you know, fear of becoming like a certain other Turian douche Spectre.
Rob is spot on with the characters really. It is better to pick one or two not so good characters and use them early, then use good characters after you have done the character quests and unlocked all their skills.
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Indeed. The second scene with Garrus is him resolving a hostage situation by taking the guy's head off over the shoulder of the hostage. Garrus will end you.
Dealt with Caesar by massacring everyone in the Fort almost immediately. He didn't have too much of interest to say initially (kind of curious that he wanted to destroy the mystery weapon instead of make use of it, but eh), so given all the "Women are physically and mentally inferior to men, good for bearing children and otherwise beneath notice" talk (this is a 100% effective way to make me hate someone), and seeing the women slaves there struggling bentbacked under heavy loads...Fuck it, genocide mode, leave/come back with weapons and every soldier in this camp burns (this was easy to accomplish until I got to Caesar's tent. Oh god ten dudes in a cramped area, equipped with ballistic fists, against a frail ranged fighter). I am going to talk to him more in another run (I am kind of curious about his reasons for founding the Legion, given his origins), but it was pretty satisfying to just eradicate the misogynistic slaving fuckers. Lanius I could've talked into leaving, but fuck that, I'm not leaving the Legion with anyone capable of command.
Caesar built his empire the way he did because he concluded modelling an empire after the Romans was appropriate for the level of infrastructure that was left intact in his neck of the woods, and it kept them from leaning on salvaged pre-War gear like the NCR does. If you poke around his camp, you find out that he HAS actually managed to provide security to his territories. Like, if you talk to the merchants, they complain about how they have to carry guns if they cross the Colorado, and how in Legion territory any merchant who trades with the Legion is under the protection of Caesar and nobody fucks with them. Bandits and raiders and such? Almost completely unheard of in Arizona. And that's what he ends up bringing to the Mojave, is security (as opposed to the NCR, who don't do any of that unless you personally do it for them). Of course if you leave Lanius in charge, things go to shit. The dude's name is Latin for "butcher" after all.
Also, the Legion ending leaves you, the player, with the possibility of making changes in the future (well, as long as Caesar isn't dead). The NCR ending? Not so much. And in the independent ending, you're a regional warlord.\
EDIT: Also, siding with Caesar's Legion gets you the coolest ending for Boone. It's seriously awesome.
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I picked up as much about Legion-controlled territory from talking to NPCs, yeah. If it weren't for the "subjugate all women for breeding stock" bullshit, I might be able to contemplate that the security the Legion provides is worth its various other brutalities, but with that in the equation I can only respond with unquenchable rage (fucking slavers can just go die, I don't care what their reasons are because there's simply no way to justify that). Oh well, I'll talk to Caesar himself at some point. Will probably do House route next though.
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Dawn of Heroes: <snip>
You touch pretty well on some of the game's good and bad points. Banish scrolls are cheap but completely unnecessary. I beat the whole game without using one. It's basically a crutch for people who suck at strategy games. Same with money grinding. It's there if you want to but not needed.
I didn't have any trouble with the Sadao fight, but I know some others have had problems. I think after dying once while trying to kill the ninjas I just said "fuck it" and had everyone attack Sadao and ignore ninjas. It worked quite well.
The disappearing party slots was rather annoying, but I took the game's blatant warning about it seriously and just kept going through the area to finish. You can take your time and sightsee after the barony is complete.
The "Win in 2 turns" things are for the most part completely optional. They're meant to be done by overleveled parties (or by using Banish scrolls). On the occasions where they are required to advance, they are much easier to complete (as in the 3rd Barony).
But yeah, wait until you start playing multiplayer. It's great. We've got some games organizing on the Gamefaqs board now. It's best if you wait until level 25 to start since you'll have the final abilities on all characters, but you can try it earlier just to see how it works. You should hit level 25 during the sixth barony if you just play straight through, but of course you can grind to go up faster.
......
Lufia DS: Got the first Dragon Egg. Smashy smashy.
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Yeah, the blitz approach against Sadao is what I decided on. Just botched up positioning in a few places. Of course, discovering that Auto-Life abilities triggered by Backfire giving the guy an extra turn... also did not help.
Edit: And as it turns out, eschewing Backfire entirely in favor of Reynard (who just gained Smite) proved key there. Go figure. Oh well, 'swat I get for trying to be cute with that fight.
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Romancing SaGa: Minstrel's Song:
Aisha haz a shiny ring~
*Skips out over Jewel Beast's corpse, leaves his Lair.*
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I picked up as much about Legion-controlled territory from talking to NPCs, yeah. If it weren't for the "subjugate all women for breeding stock" bullshit, I might be able to contemplate that the security the Legion provides is worth its various other brutalities, but with that in the equation I can only respond with unquenchable rage (fucking slavers can just go die, I don't care what their reasons are because there's simply no way to justify that). Oh well, I'll talk to Caesar himself at some point. Will probably do House route next though.
Seems to me that if you can keep Caesar alive and Lanius out of power you have a good chance of changing things, which I can't say about any other ending. But that's not expressed, just implied.
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Ninja Gaiden Black: Very Hard lives up to its name. Level 2 is pain - loooooots of samurai and warlocks between save points, and a fairly brutal new phase for the boss where he gets off the horse and turns into a generic samurai with a high block rate and doubled damage - and damage is pretty high already in this mode. Level 3's not bad; level 4, though....Grenade. Launchers. EVERYWHERE. The worst is in an area where you're usually being shot at by soldiers with sidearms who are perched on a couple of rooftops - the damage is annoying, but you have time to rapid-fire the bow at them until they die. Here, one of them is shooting third-of-your-health grenades at you constantly and the bow's auto-aim is less accurate, so you have to take the time to line up shots in first person, rolling away (and losing your aim) if he even looks at you funny. That took forever to clear out.
Stage 5 isn't too different from the usual, except instead of Black Spider Ninja it has Red Spider, who can set you on fire and cut you in half at the same time. Woo friggin' hoo. Made it up to the dragons at the end of the level once, and got massacred.
Edit: Ninpo spam wins the day! Hydracubus ate some health potions but wasn't bad on the whole. Now, stage 6. Passage of Pointlessness, here I come!
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FE10 - Up to endgame. The Ike chapters were very tricky, they're generally the two hardest and my team was too balanced for my own good. Everything else was kinda competent. Shoved Paragon on the Ravens to help them catch up. Endgame team looks like it'll be...
Reyson - Heron with canto is needed for some boss strategies, and he's got a start on a Volke power support which I'll need.
Volke - freaking duh. This challenge is literally unbeatable without him.
Heather - freaking duh mark 2, though not quite as strictly necessary.
Rhys - I can do worse than a filler healer, and he's Heather's support.
Elincia - Units with canto are good, healers are good. Mist isn't promoted yet so yeah.
Calill - Elincia's support, is a Sage, has 32 speed.
Soren - Ike's support, is a Sage, has good magic and a power affinity even if he never doubles.
Boyd - RNG blessing of the gods, which will give him pretty much my highest offence besides the obvious and serviceable durability.
Titania - Boyd's support, has capped Str/Spd so she won't totally embarrass herself, and having more units with Canto is good.
Nealuchi - Flies with high attack (by my standards), good durability, canto, power support (not sure who'll get it yet)... no excuse not to take him!
The last spot is up for grabs, though my main considerations for it are Vika (Nealuchi but a bit worse in luck/HP/atk) and Bastian (fourth competent staff user, high magic for Thunder, though bad speed). Other characters who I've thought of but probably won't make the cut are Ilyana (second fastest sage, but lowest magic and no power support), Haar (good power/def/canto/flight, but low speed and res), and Rolf (capped str, good speed, 2-3 range).
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Starcraft: Broodwars single player:
AHAHAHA YES I FINALLY BEAT BW ZERG 8.
*twitch* YAAAAAAAAAAAY. *twitch*
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Been playing more ME2.... almost nonstop when I have nothing else to do.
Random junk: Warmed up to the combat system. I love that giant goddamn laser I stole from the Collectors. SO MUCH. And the Sniping slow-down effect that Infiltrators get is wonderful. I also like the new hacking systems so much better than ME1s 360-degree Frogger.
Miranda: Is less of a bitch now. Starting to dig her. Don't see how she's super useful in combat as Rob said, since she seems to die like, a billion times more often than anyone else. It probably has to do with issuing orders, since she does have a flexible utility set. Que ser A.
Jacob: Enjoyed his creepy-ass loyalty mission. Him and Shep are bros.
Mordin: Still fun. Handier in a fire fight than he looks. Nothing particularly great to say.
Garrus: Is Garrus. Seems a bit better than in ME1, which is good. Annoyed that he doesn't even repair his armor. Hope his alt-costume fixes that.
Grunt: Such an idiot. Loves to charge right into enemies and die. Perfect Krogan my ass. Wrex would rip this pup in half.
Zaeed: Well, he's DLC, so I guess I couldn't expect much. Still. Wish he had at least a recruitment mission.
Jack: Psychotic bitch. Still, she's one of my favorite squaddies to have in a fire fight, so there's that. Annoyed that she doesn't wear armor.
Samara: Hate her so much. Annoying personality. Haven't used her in a mission yet, but ye gods, do I just want to punch this broad in the face.
Thane: Love his voice. Annoyed by his schtick. I like him in battle, because he actually aims for the head with his sniper rifle. So I can run with Thane and take a large number of enemies out at a distance. It's very refreshing.
Tali: Hooray! Tali is back! Granted, I just got her, so I haven't seen what they've done to her for ME2, but I'm just happy to have one of my team from ME1 to play with.
All in all: Still digging the hell out of this game. The humor in this one is great in parts---I actually teared up because I laughed so hard at the all-Elcor rendition of Hamlet. "Dirty Hanar" was great, too.
ALSO: totally annoyed that it seems to think I'm in a relationship with Ashley----or had sex with her before Ilios, because.... I didn't. She spewed poetry at me and I made her leave. So screw her. Dunno if I'll pursue a relationship with Jack/Miranda/Tali, but if I don't, I hope they don't go insane like Ashley did, come ME3.
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I am baffled that you are having more success with Jack than Miranda. I consider Jack to be the absolute worst character in the game.
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Ninja Gaiden: Haaaaaaaaaaaaate cat-demons. Killed me three times in the underground Hydracubus rematch, and you have to deal with two rooms full of claw-demons and zombies, plus a couple of jumping puzzles, to get from the save point to the boss room. And now for my reward: A hundred-demon challenge, followed by Alma!
Kill me.
Super Street Fighter 4: Aaaaaargh Xbox controllers on a 2D fighter. I may put the $20 I saved on the game into a fightpad.
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The difference is largley in issuing commands. The big thing Miranda really brings to the table (Other than being able to handle armour and shields, which is great in higher difficulties) is that she buffs Shepard and your other team member with her passive as well which no one else does. So you can park her in the back somewhere while she supports from cover where she won't die as easilly. Jack on the other hand has no real defense mechanisms and straight up doesn't bring as much to the table. Way to many Biotic powers rely on the enemy having no armour or shields, in which case they are practically dead already.
Miranda's strengths are good but not noticed much on normal difficulty because the game is pretty easy and forgiving. Turn the difficulty up a notch and you run into Armour and Shields everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Then your basic biotic control skills usefullness plummets and Jack turns out worse and worse. She is very good at handling things when they are out of shields and armour. If you want to handle things without armour though that is what Thane brings to the table with his crazy huge boosts to Health damage. You will just straight up ruin people's day if you run Thane or his ammo skill (neither being my personal choice. Even without that things down to health are just plain not that threatening anymore).
On the normal game you really can just use whoever takes your fancy and as long as you have something to handle Armour you will be fine.
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Also, Jack can't possibly have more health than Miranda, and she uses a fucking SHOTGUN. Course, shotguns in general are not that great in ME2 without DLC, except for Grunt's Claymore.
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ToV: Have the whole party back together, yaaay.
Went and took on the Gigantos BRUTAL, and kinda died horribly the first time.
Then I decided to control Rita instead of Yuri and haha wow.
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It could just be that, since I randomly pick my squaddies for missions, I've had Jack on some of the easier ones.
If I was running people who seemed to work the best with me, it'd probably be something like Thane/Mordin.
As for handling Armor, I'm running a dedicated Sniper, and as anyone who has played a shooter with me will tell you, I'm very good at that. Things with "armor" that aren't bosses lose that entire health bar with one shot. >Shrug<
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On harder difficulties everything has armour. Everything. Or shields. You -have- to be able to handle both. You are not one shotting things on harder difficulty.
Now lets all act shocked when I say this shifts the power dynamics fairly dramatically.
This shifts the power dynamics fairly dramatically.
*GASP*
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Armor, or shields, or barriers. Tough enemies like the YMIR bots get shield over armor over health. Or if you are a total bitch like the Asari from LotSB on Hardcore, barrier over shield over armor over health.
But yes, on Hardcore, even using the Widow AMR, anything that's even remotely non-trivial won't go down with a shot to the head.
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This shifts the power dynamics fairly dramatically.
*GASP*
Lufia DS: I haz a Gades Sword. Which is much worse than the Rune Rapier I already have. :(
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I didn't say one shot killed the enemy. I said one shot ate through the entire "Armor" health bar. There are plenty of enemies on NORMAL that have three health bars. Unsurprisingly, they take about three shots.
Anyhow, what DOES Hardcore/Insanity change? Do enemies have more health? Are there more enemies? Is the AI generally smarter at killing you? Does it take longer to get your shields back up? All of the above?
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Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare: I need to ask Trips for game advice more often.
Just switched over to the US's PoV. I am hilariously bad at the game, but it's a ton of fun and the setting/visuals are amazing.
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Smarter, better defenses (so more health kind of), they hit harder. It isn't more numbers, but those large numbers of enemy fights are now much harder when you have to handle things that rush you down far more effectively and take a lot more to put down.
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FE10 - Final dungeon. Team, aside from the people who must be used, is:
Volke- Crit machine! I have never used him before so I decided to finally try him out. He's solid.
Ulki- Does not get hit. His damage is okay, I'm waiting for him to get to SS strike.
Volug: +45 avoid support is awesomesauce. 36 STR and 36 Speed is silly-faced. <3 Volug, of course.
Aran: He was ridiculously RNG blessed... speed capped at all three tiers pretty early, str and def caps as well. Total tank.
Zihark: Volug's buddy~ He's solid, just low defense and doesn't have Volug's HP.
Oscar: Avoid support with Ike. He's solid and canto-ey otherwise.
Mia: RNG blessed.
Jill: Absurdly RNG blessed.
Naliah: Is Naliah.
Elincia: Healer.
I tried to use Leo and Fiona but they were both RNG screwed; Fiona slightly and Leo hardcore (-3 STR, -4 Speed).
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Smarter, better defenses (so more health kind of), they hit harder. It isn't more numbers, but those large numbers of enemy fights are now much harder when you have to handle things that rush you down far more effectively and take a lot more to put down.
Reduced CDs on enemy abilities, more enemies with special abilities, and standard enemies pile husks getting armor (making them amazingly dangerous, I might add).
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Oh, ew. The dedicated Melee enemies----I find Varren nastier than husks because I have a hard time seeing them in some places, mainly the different times they show up on Omega----deal a ridiculous amount of damage if they get through, and they also make you have to leave cover to avoid them. That alone would make the game a lot harder.
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Radiant Historia- Beat this yesterday. I am still not believing Headlock actually wrote this thing.
The gameplay ends up to be pretty linear despite what they call the branching plot, as you cannot advance further in one story line unless you met some requirements in another. So things still has to be done in order. Though, how the two worlds affect one another remains interesting, albeit plot holish.
The battle system is traditional turn based system with the typical SMT difficulty with grids. Later grunt fights are like mini boss fights, and how you must use buff or is stupidly SMT like. Manipulating enemies' position on the grids ends up to be very important, it becomes the source of MT damage and ways to reduce enemy damage by pushing them to back row. High damage ST damage and MT is almost none existent in this game, the game really makes you do grid combos if you want any of those. It is not a bad system and a good thing the game makes use it. But it does gets frustrating with the increasing difficulty (enemies hitting too hard thus you have no opening to arrange a combo), but level grinding is easy , so that remedied some of problems.
The plot and characters is too goo to be Headlock. It has been a long time to see a war fought because of power and greed instead of some brain dead RPG logic, and a sympathetic villain with a motive the payers can relate too. The side quests is also handled very well by letting them pay off in the endings (or should I say the world depends on it, the continent is doomed if the ecologist quest is not completed).
Now, my spoilerish rants on the characters:
Stock- He is so NOT 19 years old. Too mature and too intelligent to be one. A professional intelligence worker/assassin who does what he needs to do and does it well. A bit of anti-social but not an ass. Is a captain who knows how use his man an protects them. He is also free from the "people do not notice it despite it is totally transparent" rule. It is pretty refreshing to see he has things all figured out in his head despite the people around him all goes MYSTERY on him, and only have that "I thought so" expression when the last boss makes the big revelation. God, he is free of all the qualities I hate in conventional JRPG main, you serious Headlock wrote this guy!?
His relationship with Roche and Sonia is also well done. He fits in as the oil to let the couple interact well and knock sense in to Roche when he needs to without being awkward. How he reciprocates to Rainey's romantic by firmly states he don't think the same way she does is also out of my expectation when I thought Rainey is the who'll get force fed to us by being Stock's romantic interest. (though, he did told her he'll rethink of her offer when everything is over and completed his duties). It is amazing how he continues to stay a loner until the end and not even once degrades into an ass.
Rainey- Stock's side kick 1. It obvious from the start she is a character got thrown in because Stock needs someone around him when the party gets swap around. Herself didn't have much content, but her interaction with stock has prevent from her become total air and adds to Stock's quality being a captain. The part where she conflicts between her loyalty toward Heis and Stock is a nice touch, if resolved too quickly. But then, I'd like that sort of plot line resolved fast instead of drawn out.
Marco- Stock's side kick 2. Is around for the same reason as Rainey, just didn't have as much of a content. The only time he ever did something is during that spy event, where he really made me go O.o by turning into a vengeful idiot.
Roche- Stock's buddy and a stubborn soldier. Had his spotlight wen he entered the depression after his squadron got wiped out and gave us one hotblooded moment this game need, or this game might get too depressed. His relationship with Sonia also served as good fodder for Stock, in that Stock has to give them the push they need. Also, he looks too old to be 21.
Sonia- See above, works well with Stock and Roche in a set. Too bad she has to fell out of the plot when the plot moves away from Alicetel. Though, I still suspect that she is meant to be a PC originally but got deleted due to hardware restriction. They could have taken out Marco and let Sonia be the healer of the team.
Eruca- A not quite Mary Sue princess who is trying to overthrow her stupid step mother. Not really a Mary Sue as she often acts on her impulses, and the bad ends can show us what happen if she gets too far. It is kinda funny to see her heavy responsibility as a princess is what kept her in control. They could have dug her relationship between Stock a bit deeper though. It quite obvious that she has been fighting in herself to get Stock involved or not and resisting her urges to tell him the truth, and thus limited there interaction. They could really have let Stock just told her that he already remembered what was going on and dug deeper from there. Also, they need to let her insult Protea more often, she is good at doing it.
Protea- The evil step mother who is so stupid and horrible to the point of being funny. I really pity Serban and Dias that they don't have any other pawns to chose but her.
Serban & Dias- the two is really one character. Both fueled by their vengeance against the Gran Org's royalties due to the Victor's tyranny and ultimately want to take over the country for their own thinking they are the better ruler. Too bad they have no pawns in the royal family but Protea, and she totally fucked the country up. Yet, they have to let Protea to stay on the throne if they want the war to go on and they need this war to win their authority. I was expecting them to change sides when their plans are not working, but it turns out they are just too blinded by their own ambition and goes down the path of self destruction.
Ath- Probably got tossed in because the game needs a loli, and like most lolis, she is stupidly annoy. Enough with your MYSTERY or your ways of trying to prevent it got revealed. A completely spoiled brat who just goes MEMEMEMEMEME in front of Stock.
Gafka- Is a Blute, thus boring, next.
Tio & Lipty- They kinda annoy me by being the bystander who'll not do a thing but mumbles about it is against the rule this and against the rule that if they are ever asked to do a thing despite telling Stock to save the world. Though, my impression son them got salvaged by the ecologist side quest, where it actually shows that they want to save the world is not just all talk. Then in the final chapter, when they almost got deleted from the system by acting against the rule and giving Stock too much information, made me forgive them for being rules that and rules this.
Heis- Big bad of the game, pulling strings behind the war in order to brought forth total destruction of the continent... just so he can save his nephew. He was chosen as Victor's sacrifice, but thanks to Victor being a tyrant, Heis gave up on his duty and fled. Having his own brother as an ungrateful tyrant made him felt are dying meaningless death for a corrupted royal family. Plus the fact the offering isn't really curing the deficiency of mana, meaning the offering is a lost cause and the sacrifices had died in vein. Ultimately he reached the conclusion that this continent that was built on the death of the sacrifices can fuck off, especially after he found out his favorite nephew is chosen as the next sacrifice. So he kidnapped his nephew, swapped his memory so he won't remember a thing about the offering, and let him starts a new life as his own subordinate in Alicetel, and hopefully Stock will too find out this continent suck and joins him in destroying it. Too bad that despite Stock agrees that the offering is fucked up, he still finds this world is worth saving thanks to the experience in his new life that Heis gave to him. The scene where Heis finally breaks down when Stock chose to die and thanks him for everything he did is just so very touching.
I give this game a 8.5/10, a solid game all around, if they can make the grunts easier and remove the annoy walking sound effect.
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Chocobo: Just did Shirma's Nightmare and then did a side quest dungeon I didn't finish before.
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Oh, ew. The dedicated Melee enemies----I find Varren nastier than husks because I have a hard time seeing them in some places, mainly the different times they show up on Omega----deal a ridiculous amount of damage if they get through, and they also make you have to leave cover to avoid them. That alone would make the game a lot harder.
Wait till you hit up the Derelict Reaper. Hordes of husks fro all directions, and this time concussion shot/shockwave/flashbang aren't all one-hit kills.
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The battle system is traditional turn based system with the typical SMT difficulty with grids.
Not an ARPG?! And I'm sold on this game. Hopefully gets ported over (sans walking noise...)
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Dawn of Heroes: Found the town in the 5th Barony. Game's been picking up in terms of interesting battles, which is always good. Of course the annoying ones have gotten more so, but they're getting less common, I think. Gear bonuses ramp up faster than I had expected, and it's showing with the lack of hammers I've been getting, although if I have to get screwed on getting one type of weapon, hammers would probably be the one I care least about.
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Oh, ew. The dedicated Melee enemies----I find Varren nastier than husks because I have a hard time seeing them in some places, mainly the different times they show up on Omega----deal a ridiculous amount of damage if they get through, and they also make you have to leave cover to avoid them. That alone would make the game a lot harder.
Wait till you hit up the Derelict Reaper. Hordes of husks fro all directions, and this time concussion shot/shockwave/flashbang aren't all one-hit kills.
I'm not too worried. Nearly all of my deaths spring from hitting the generic Crouch/Run button when I'm next to cover, and instead of covering, my character decides to run pointlessly into the obstacle while being shot.
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You will be.
You... WILL be.
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Eh Derelict Reaper isn't so bad because of the Husks.
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Guh? The last part is fucking crazy. Getting gang-raped by Husks?
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On normal mode when you can just blast their legs out, yeah it isn't really much of an issue. You can almost just punch your way through them there. On normal the Scions are far more threatening.
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Was talking about hardcore mode, actually. On normal they're a joke, so doing it as a class with shockwave is basically bowling. Possibly the least dangerous things on normal, but on HC, incredibly horrifying.
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Indeed. Very much so.
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I dunno how tempted I am to try Hardcore. I'm almost certainly going to play each game at least three times, but as I said before, I have issues with the basic controls of combat which give me more fits than the missions themselves do, at least in ME2 (which so far seems easier than ME1---although that could just me be getting used to the system----also, the AI is infinitely better.)
My kneejerk idea for dealing with swarms of Melee enemies is to either play as a Sentinel or take Mordin and flash-freeze things with Cryo Blast, but that'd be only a temporary solution....
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World of Warcraft: Filler until Cata is released. Mixing in scoring achievements, soloing old raid content, raising fishing/cooking, farming vanity pets.
Finally tanked/healed my first raid (VoA). Off-tanked the full of VoA10 and healed Ice Watcher in VoA25. Fun stuff. Like it more than DPSing.
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Oh haven't posted here in a while!
G3: Beaten! Final level of 50. Thoughts... (SPOILARS)
Yuki: Ingame he's a smart spastic 16 year old. Okay sure. In battle he's very solid: Whirlwind, Flash, and Dragon Slash are all brutal little skills and he gets solid stats (though he's a bad mage).
Miranda: Best fucking character in the game, and while this says little, she's actually -good- as a character. In battle she's a fast balanced character which would have been a nice niche for the entire game.
Alfina: There's an equation I have for Alfina.
Alfina's Failure Quotient = (General Opinion of Alfina)/(Proximity to Emelious)*(Time spent since an Emelious scene)*(Time spent since an Alfina Thinking About Emelious Scene)
I actually -like- Alfina in her snippets with townspeople, but when Emelious enters opinion departs. In battle, she's damn useful. +SP for non-Alfina people, 100% paralysis, and a nasty LT skill for cheap? Sign me up! Being a mage in G3 is good, too.
Alonso: Could have been a good character! Sadly the gambling shit being the primary facet of personality you see makes him lulzworthy unless you talk to people a ton and see him actually being intelligent/motivational/upbeat. In battle... he feels shoehorned in, like they wanted to give you a four-person team early. He just doesn't seem like he was supposed to be a combat dude.
Ulf: One-note. "I'm hungry, let's get some kebabs!" This being said, gets some of the more amusing lines. In-battle, slightly (slightly) inferior Yuki with better crowd options- until Dragon Slash comes in. Then he mainly has better canceling and slightly better physical damage. Prooooobably my LVP, but it's close.
BoobsDahna: Actually is kinda interesting, though we didn't need another crying girl. (That's an annoying trait of this game.) Still, interesting, didn't mind her. In battle, FREE SPELL CASTING. That's all she fucking -needs-.
Hect: ULTIMATE TEMP YESIU. Crimson Shock is fucking crack, and Armageddeon is just nasty. Wish that she had been around all game. Would have taken a cast of Yuki/Dahna/Hect/Miranda so fast, if I could give Miranda some of Alfina's skills.
Scenery: awesome. I loved the visuals of this game.
THE PLOT: Emelious is gay for his best friend Raven but Raven's straight so Emelious decides that all love must perish and stabs himself, re-enacting his childhood emo instincts and transforming into Emolicius. Raven's a bit annoyed by this. Meanwhile Yuki runs into Alfina and gets a crush immediately, leading to Miranda finally realizing, shock, her son has -hormones- and deciding to ditch the lovebirds for a sailor with gambling issues. They sail away and kill eight of the twelve Guardians instantly, making Emolicious' job even easier. Yuki flies a plane straight into Emo's penis insecurity and crashes, leading the DL to overhype him as a bad pilot. Lovebirds wander to Alfina's home which is summarily destroyed by Emolicious in a case of annoyance, and I guess he kills a bird or something? Anyways magically the plane isn't crashed -enough- so Yuki takes Alfina back to Hub City, gets a new plane, and runs into Famine, one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse so I guess Yuki's Destruction and Alfina's Selective Case Of The Stupids. Anyway Hunger was apparently kicked out of the Dragons Bite Shit club so he still has a dragon, duh. They meet another Guardian here who tells Alfina something totally pointless and then they fly off to a desert which, miraculously, never has sandstorms ever. Boobs greets them, and I guess she's the Horseman of Puerile Male Fetish Fuel. Anyways they go meet another Guardian and then jump into a black hole which drops them in the Glasslands. Emolicious meanwhile kills any Guardian the team's met, cementing the team as bringers of doom. After a glass trip and meeting EMOTIONLESS DEAD GODGIRL they go back home and suddenly, ruin exploration! A bunch of random shit happens boom dead city in the air MELC CRYSTALS OWOWOW they go to the city and let Alfina go try to get into Emo's pants, then decide that was stupid and try to get her back but suddenly MAGICAL PLANE CRASHES FOREVER. Schmidt dies, thank goodness, and they get back in the air but Alfina's turned Emo Stupid Good so he SACRIFICES HIMSELF FOR NO GOOD REASON. Or something. But then the team kills sadness forever and Yuki finally sticks it in Alfina so it's all good.
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THE PLOT: Emelious is gay for his best friend Raven but Raven's straight so Emelious decides that all love must perish and stabs himself, re-enacting his childhood emo instincts and transforming into Emolicius. Raven's a bit annoyed by this. Meanwhile Yuki runs into Alfina and gets a crush immediately, leading to Miranda finally realizing, shock, her son has -hormones- and deciding to ditch the lovebirds for a sailor with gambling issues. They sail away and kill eight of the twelve Guardians instantly, making Emolicious' job even easier. Yuki flies a plane straight into Emo's penis insecurity and crashes, leading the DL to overhype him as a bad pilot. Lovebirds wander to Alfina's home which is summarily destroyed by Emolicious in a case of annoyance, and I guess he kills a bird or something? Anyways magically the plane isn't crashed -enough- so Yuki takes Alfina back to Hub City, gets a new plane, and runs into Famine, one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse so I guess Yuki's Destruction and Alfina's Selective Case Of The Stupids. Anyway Hunger was apparently kicked out of the Dragons Bite Shit club so he still has a dragon, duh. They meet another Guardian here who tells Alfina something totally pointless and then they fly off to a desert which, miraculously, never has sandstorms ever. Boobs greets them, and I guess she's the Horseman of Puerile Male Fetish Fuel. Anyways they go meet another Guardian and then jump into a black hole which drops them in the Glasslands. Emolicious meanwhile kills any Guardian the team's met, cementing the team as bringers of doom. After a glass trip and meeting EMOTIONLESS DEAD GODGIRL they go back home and suddenly, ruin exploration! A bunch of random shit happens boom dead city in the air MELC CRYSTALS OWOWOW they go to the city and let Alfina go try to get into Emo's pants, then decide that was stupid and try to get her back but suddenly MAGICAL PLANE CRASHES FOREVER. Schmidt dies, thank goodness, and they get back in the air but Alfina's turned Emo Stupid Good so he SACRIFICES HIMSELF FOR NO GOOD REASON. Or something. But then the team kills sadness forever and Yuki finally sticks it in Alfina so it's all good.
I'm sorry, you must have the wrong game, this is much better than G3's plot.
I suggest you remove most of your attempts at humor and make it move much slower.
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I didn't pay attention during the slow parts and my mind auto-satirizes. >_>
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THE PLOT: Emelious is gay for his best friend Raven but Raven's straight so Emelious decides that all love must perish and stabs himself, re-enacting his childhood emo instincts and transforming into Emolicius. Raven's a bit annoyed by this. Meanwhile Yuki runs into Alfina and gets a crush immediately, leading to Miranda finally realizing, shock, her son has -hormones- and deciding to ditch the lovebirds for a sailor with gambling issues. They sail away and kill eight of the twelve Guardians instantly, making Emolicious' job even easier. Yuki flies a plane straight into Emo's penis insecurity and crashes, leading the DL to overhype him as a bad pilot. Lovebirds wander to Alfina's home which is summarily destroyed by Emolicious in a case of annoyance, and I guess he kills a bird or something? Anyways magically the plane isn't crashed -enough- so Yuki takes Alfina back to Hub City, gets a new plane, and runs into Famine, one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse so I guess Yuki's Destruction and Alfina's Selective Case Of The Stupids. Anyway Hunger was apparently kicked out of the Dragons Bite Shit club so he still has a dragon, duh. They meet another Guardian here who tells Alfina something totally pointless and then they fly off to a desert which, miraculously, never has sandstorms ever. Boobs greets them, and I guess she's the Horseman of Puerile Male Fetish Fuel. Anyways they go meet another Guardian and then jump into a black hole which drops them in the Glasslands. Emolicious meanwhile kills any Guardian the team's met, cementing the team as bringers of doom. After a glass trip and meeting EMOTIONLESS DEAD GODGIRL they go back home and suddenly, ruin exploration! A bunch of random shit happens boom dead city in the air MELC CRYSTALS OWOWOW they go to the city and let Alfina go try to get into Emo's pants, then decide that was stupid and try to get her back but suddenly MAGICAL PLANE CRASHES FOREVER. Schmidt dies, thank goodness, and they get back in the air but Alfina's turned Emo Stupid Good so he SACRIFICES HIMSELF FOR NO GOOD REASON. Or something. But then the team kills sadness forever and Yuki finally sticks it in Alfina so it's all good.
I'm sorry, you must have the right game, this is much G3's plot summarised perfectly.
That was awesome, Tai.
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Phantasy Staro Zero: Hey, I started playing a game since I ran out of things to do on the train.
This is actually pretty cool. I personally am not a big fan of the 'make your own main character' thing, but the game does a decent job of keeping the blank slate main involved in what's going on and offers dialogue choices pretty regularly. Enough that I actually care what's happening in the Story mode to a degree. The fact that there seems to be three distinct scenarios depending on what race you choose helps, too.
The rest of the cast is fairly entertaining, though the female lead is a bit bland (shock).
The ARPG facets of the game are good for keeping the player engaged, but the challenge scales up far too steeply at times, forcing long periods of grinding, so I've basically stopped playing since grinding in this is no fun. There are no systems in place for manipulating EXP gain or maximizing efficiency of random-killing in the solo-player experience, and while I think there may be some in the multi-player mode, I'm really not interested in online gaming.
Kinda sucks since I noticed the story mode was short and was all set for another quick RPG experience with some Phantasy Star nostalgia, but now I've lost the drive to do any level-grinding.
@Tai: You should write a full-length G3 Review for the wiki. Please. ^__^
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God of War: Chains of Olympus- wants to be DMC so, so bad.
Supposing this is representative of GoW in general, I can really see where Meeple was coming from. While one of the big flaws, bad enemy variety, could be an issue of portable status, the whole game feels... limited. You're routinely starved for Magic, so the spells are hard to pull off as go-to offense (admittedly, Charon's Wrath is pretty broke so I could see it as a legit design choice, if that spell wasn't 85% of the way into the game anyway...). The alt weapon is just not good enough to hang with the blades of chaos. You can pull off some nice combos with those, but due to the most common mooks blocking and big enemies being uniformly immune to staggering, you rarely get a chance to really play with that. Dodging is mapped to a three-button combo (R+L->direction) and while you can chain dodge this still adds some artificial hardness to the thing. The whole finishing stages of boss battles... argh. Sorry, nice cinematic battles are fine as a change of pace thing, but this is an action game. Give me some action battles too! Mind, there's really only four bosses anyway, and one of them IS a fairly straight duel (and not coincidentally the first part of the game that was really pretty fun outside mindless slaughter), but since having played another actiony game with more gimmick-bosses than was good for it recently it stands out.
Plot's thin, there's one or two good story moments and uh... yeah. I find myself wondering, and again maaaybe the gameplay here is hobbled a little by PSP limitations, if the basic appeal of the game is just being an unrepentant sociopath. It would definitely explain the popularity of American gaming recently (as American games so love their "unrepentant sociopath" morality option) and also is sorta disappointing. That said, there's at least some real evidence of paying attention to greek mythos, so points for that at least.
Really short too, but at least I paid like $15 for it so whatevs. *shrug* 5/10 I suppose? Feels about right.
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Djinn: I'll consider, though that -will- be my plot summary. I lack the energy to actually try and piece through the plot.
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Isn't BioWare Canadian? They gave us most of the unrepentant sociopath morality choices, thanks to KotOR.
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Reading CK's review of GoW:CoO, yeah, that sounds like its typical GoWness.
From what I understand, the game is something to buy only if "You feel the original God of War needed a few extra hours strapped on." This of course is appealing to a lot of people since God of War = Yay!!! by definition, but it also suggests that the game is strongly indicative of the series as a whole.
GoW2 tried to add some elements to make things a little more interesting...but the game as a core still had a lot of the same problems, which the PSP game seems to hold onto as well. I can assure you, its not just the PSP that limits enemy variety. God of War enemies can be summed up, in general:
-Small Garbage you can "Press O to instant kill" that exist to be button mashed through
-Slightly larger or more durable versions that you can't instant kill, mostly there to make you care about Hard Attacks cause they block
-Big Enemies like Minotaurs that you just hit a lot of times until you get the nice big "QUICK TIME EVENT TO KILL!" indicator
-Flying enemies that are just there to be annoying and by large, are totally useless otherwise
And when they need a new enemy, instead of introducing something genuinely new like DMCs do, they just give you an upgraded version of something you've been fighting. In GoW for example, you fight Minotaurs...ok, time for something new, a FLAMING Minotaur! who fights exactly the same way, just takes a few more hits, does more damage, and maybe has like one more attack.
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Dawn of Heroes: Super Demon Brothers is perhaps the first time I have cursed the damage cap in any game ever. Goooo figure. At least it's been beaten.
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THE PLOT: Emelious is gay for his best friend Raven but Raven's straight so Emelious decides that all love must perish and stabs himself, re-enacting his childhood emo instincts and transforming into Emolicius. Raven's a bit annoyed by this. Meanwhile Yuki runs into Alfina and gets a crush immediately, leading to Miranda finally realizing, shock, her son has -hormones- and deciding to ditch the lovebirds for a sailor with gambling issues. They sail away and kill eight of the twelve Guardians instantly, making Emolicious' job even easier. Yuki flies a plane straight into Emo's penis insecurity and crashes, leading the DL to overhype him as a bad pilot. Lovebirds wander to Alfina's home which is summarily destroyed by Emolicious in a case of annoyance, and I guess he kills a bird or something? Anyways magically the plane isn't crashed -enough- so Yuki takes Alfina back to Hub City, gets a new plane, and runs into Famine, one of the four Horseman of the Apocalypse so I guess Yuki's Destruction and Alfina's Selective Case Of The Stupids. Anyway Hunger was apparently kicked out of the Dragons Bite Shit club so he still has a dragon, duh. They meet another Guardian here who tells Alfina something totally pointless and then they fly off to a desert which, miraculously, never has sandstorms ever. Boobs greets them, and I guess she's the Horseman of Puerile Male Fetish Fuel. Anyways they go meet another Guardian and then jump into a black hole which drops them in the Glasslands. Emolicious meanwhile kills any Guardian the team's met, cementing the team as bringers of doom. After a glass trip and meeting EMOTIONLESS DEAD GODGIRL they go back home and suddenly, ruin exploration! A bunch of random shit happens boom dead city in the air MELC CRYSTALS OWOWOW they go to the city and let Alfina go try to get into Emo's pants, then decide that was stupid and try to get her back but suddenly MAGICAL PLANE CRASHES FOREVER. Schmidt dies, thank goodness, and they get back in the air but Alfina's turned Emo Stupid Good so he SACRIFICES HIMSELF FOR NO GOOD REASON. Or something. But then the team kills sadness forever and Yuki finally sticks it in Alfina so it's all good.
I'm sorry, you must have the right game, this is much G3's plot summarised perfectly.
That was awesome, Tai.
The greatest thing about this summary is that it is pretty close to what happens, just that it's satirical and therefore already better than G3 plot as G3 plot tries to be SRS BSN.
Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2:
Fun popcorn fodder type of game. Not something that has a large amount of depth (which certainly matches the complaints I here about it compared to MUA1), but its fanservice, based on a comic story (Civil War) and the gameplay is fun. Game's designed such that the characters have different "classes" so to speak, so its easy to shoehorn in a favourite even if they're not the most effective. Game's challenge peaks up around the last level or so, but if you have Thor, the game pretty much bends backwards for you. God, when people said Thor was broken as hell, they weren't kidding. Mmm...what else? The gameplay's actually pretty well thoughtout - you're not grinding for coins as much, plus the ability coins are now automatically collected (which from me playing MUA1 was a distinct weakness), character switching no longer fully heals you (well sort of) and the levels are shared so that no one really falls too badly behind. The main team you do use still get some perks, but the differences are not terribly large so it doesn't bar you away from the rest of the cast. Of the heroes I did use...
Spider-Man: Spidey's more of a hybrid character. He has some long range options and but he's not afraid to go head-to-head. In fact his best attack ability is a melee option and he has a few passives that help keep him on both sides. What I really liked about Spidey was his flight (web swing) since its so much faster than walking and other flyers. He can certainly hold his own and I used him for quite a while all things considered. Just not part of the final dungeon.
Wolverine: Used him early. Healing Factor's pretty awesome in the early going, when it heals roughly 10% of your MHP. It gradually sucks as you progress, but Wolverine is a melee monster. He's built that way and has great attack speed, although his big thing was that he didn't really have the durability for it. Sadly. He got dropped pretty early as a result.
Hulk/Thing: Massive HP tanks. He had some pretty awesome resistances too. Dropped him for Thing. Both are pretty interchangable all-things considered. Hulk has a better debuff, but Thing has more damage
Gambit: Another hybrid like Spidey. A little worse off since he doesn't have any good melee passive for survivability (Spidey at least has some HP + some evade). Gambit however is one of the few characters that benefits off a little mechanics glitch called Guard cancelling. And he benefits a lot. It turns him from a hybrid to more a of mid range spammer. Explosive Hand is ridiculously silly when you can fire off like 3 of them in 2 seconds. 52 Card Pick Up's pretty neat, although is has some nasty start up on it. Also, he can carry items like portable grenades.
Ice Man: Used him mainly as a last man on the team for a team bonus (Natural forces), Ice Man's big thing is good random control. He's got some boss slaying options, but his stats are geared towards long range. Pretty solid, but someone I would switch out if it weren't for the team bonus.
Storm: The weather goddess retains her name for 2 big reasons: Lightning Strike and Hail Storm. Hail Storm is like its MvC2 version. Not in the ridiculous chip damage, but it has great AoE, can freeze targets, and Storm can spam it to basically cover the entire map with ice for a few seconds, effectively wiping almost everything out. It does consume all her energy though, so its not a long term viable tactic. Lightning Strike is pretty good for its cost and can be used several times.
Jean Grey: So, who remembers how in X-Men 3, Jean Grey pretty much roasted things with her psionic powers? MUA2 decided to incorporate this idea and um...yeah. Jean destroys mobs worse than Storm as she uses less energy, and hers will always knock down lighter enemies over. Plus it has a very low stamina cost, making it stupidly spammable. Jean has good Fusion combines with other characters, but isn't a boss slayer herself otherwise and her HP isn't impressive. That's why you bring...
Thor: This guy. To give you a comparison: Fusions, which are usually your best source of damage, deal around 350x2 to a boss or so. Very respectable, but you need to build metre for it and that takes a while. Thor? Mighty Swing deals 350-400 damage, and it takes around 2 seconds to complete. Oh, and he also benefits from Guard cancelling with Mighty Swing, making him an insanely powerful OHKOing mobile tank. Yeah, he's a tank too, with massive HP and 10-15% resistances to all types of damage. Oh and if that wasn't enough, he can fly and Lightning Rod clears randoms like a hot knife through butter. Thor makes MAU2 hilariously easy, and its easy to see why he's the last of the unlockables you get from hidden items.
Overall, game's around a 7/10 or so. Miiiiiiight be an 7.5 or 8 if I feel really generous, but its certainly fun enough.
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Green Goblin's stupid good as well. You just hop on his glider and hammer on his machine gun button. It uses energy, but he gets energy back from it. More than it uses. My brother and I decided to ban him because it was just too easy to get on the damn thing and watch whole armies of dudes die as they walked in to his bullet wall.
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Call of Duty 4:Modern battle- Is there any way to zoom in the camera on the gunship mission? I can't see anything the game's asking me to target.
FM4- Restarted this up for the hell of it. Elsa will run machine guns, Bosch will run sniper rilfes, Zedd Shotguns, Latona fists, Hermes will be machine gun/healing, and Beck... hell if I know. Maybe Bazookas. Pretty standard builds for the most part.
Donno about Darill's team yet
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Etrian Odyssey 3: Finally carried on with this a little. I swear I got up to Ketos before, but apparently not. >.> That, or the battery died or something, since I didn't have the map data, and the Sea Bead wasn't even in place. Either way, up to Ketos now, haven't tried fighting him yet.
Have been busy planning Pokemon teams instead. >.> Been looking at two OU teams, being Trick Room Slowking/Cresselia/Dusknoir alongside Scizor/Heatran/Machamp, as well as a normal team with Swampert/Jirachi/Shaymin and Scizor/Heatran/Tyranitar. No idea if either one'll work, although I really like the Iron Head/Thunder Wave w/King's Rock J. Rachi. Flinch haxing is always fun. That said, need to know the best counters to that - Smogon has counters to Thunder Wave/Calm Mind and Iron Head sets, but not the one that uses both. >.> (Dragonite gets Thunder Wave'd before U-Turning to DDTar, while things like Hippowdon just get the standard Iron Head or a U-Turn to Shaymin.) Anyone (looking primarily at hinode/Cap'n K, naturally) able to find any major flaws in either team? (Ignoring the usual Trick Room flaws - maybe flaws in using Scizor/Heatran/'No Guard Champ, though?)
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Call of Duty 4:Modern battle- Is there any way to zoom in the camera on the gunship mission? I can't see anything the game's asking me to target.
Have you tried switching between guns? I'm pretty sure that the smaller caliber ones also zoom in on the screen.
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That said, need to know the best counters to that - Smogon has counters to Thunder Wave/Calm Mind and Iron Head sets, but not the one that uses both. >.> (Dragonite gets Thunder Wave'd before U-Turning to DDTar, while things like Hippowdon just get the standard Iron Head or a U-Turn to Shaymin.)
I like Hariyama to counter your Shaymin. Thunder Wave just makes it stronger, has priority moves to ignore flinch hax, and Fire Punch to wreck a predicted Shaymin switch. I just play VGC rules though so my experience in Smogon-style play is limited.
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Dawn of Heroes: Aaaaaaand Ragnakore is dead and there was much rejoicing. First phase is the most godawful slog in a game that does not do ye standard slogfesting particularly well. Second phase was much better, being an escort mission in a game that *does* do them well, though Chaos Wind is annoying, it's not particularly large on the annoyance factor. Third phase was alright enough. Thankfully you don't have to do Ragnakore's previous phases over again which is good, since having to repeat the first phase would quite possibly be the worst thing ever.
The game's roughly in the 7-8 range, I think? Honestly, aside from having a bit too many slog-type battles for my liking, most of the gripes I have about the game pertain to polish issues, and even then most of those don't bother me too much.
Classes!:
Khan - Pretty good early on. Baits enemies, deals decent damage, can take hits. Gets outclassed at all of these things later on, but hey!
Templar - The healing is kinda limited and the damage fails at life until he gets Smite, which is alright on damage and of the much-needed magical variety. Divine Touch makes the healing better, which is pretty much the only reason he has to use his standard attack ever.
Infernalis - Gets Combustion early, which gives her otherwise pathetic standard attack the setup for a one-two punch that will pretty much serve you the rest of the game. The MP is kinda limited, but most battles didn't last long enough for her to run dry. Mystic Aura is a weird pseudo-tanking passive for magical damage. HP isn't complete failure, either.
Soul Caller - MVP? Quite possibly. Soul Turmoil is more badass than a one-turn stun effect running off of a four-turn cooldown has any right to be and is pretty much your only real source of affliction damage for pretty much forever. Getting infinite range early is also quite badass. Pretty frail, though that isn't a huge issue.
Doshu - Does alright damage, has a one-turn stun effect (albiet much more limited in range than Soul Turmoil), can partially ignore physical defense late. Got sorta hosed on knucks for a while though.
Valkyrie - Can deal all three types of damage! Too bad I got sorta hosed on good hammers for a while. Can boost physical damage though!
Crusader - Backfire is pretty awesome, and he's alright at taking hits. Probably should've used him more but eh.
Zealot - Didn't really use, looked fairly meh. Shield Throw is a nice option but it's late.
Necroxis - Didn't use too much. Limited MP and unpredictable healing, and the damage is not too special. Gets revival late, which... didn't actually see much use, oddly enough. Oh well.
Sabretooth - Damager-level damage output off of Guardian-level HP. Good lord what were they thinking. The frailest of the lot thanks to having no defense ever but being the frailest Guardian class means you're still better off than most. Can buff the damage even higher, though at the expense of taking more from magical and affliction attacks.
Thane - Awesome taunter, Intervention and Ice Curse are sometimes handy (though Ice Curse is late), Jump's alright, Combat Lust synergizes quite nicely with the auto-taunting, pretty awesome on durability... just the base damage, it is not there.
Wizard - A bit too reliant on critical hits and Pacify is late. The base damage is alright enough, just not very impressive all around.
Kensei - Is pretty damn awesome. Hits hard, has good magical damage that has the added benefit of being AoE, durability doesn't suck, is generally anti-physical.
Colossus - Tank tank tank. 50% physical defense when fully equipped, has a passive that reduces magical and affliction damage by 25% (and reflects that back at the caster), I think he's cast-best on HP. Also has no damage ever and has the worst taunt.
Razorclaw - Not really great at damage for a supposed Damager. Didn't use too much, but looked alright.
Feral Warden - Didn't use. Doesn't look too bad, but frail.
Lurker - More of a Damager than a Controller, honestly. Didn't use the traps much, but physical defense penetration and already good damage output plus the possibility of a third hit on the standard attack is great.
Gothi - Didn't use. Conversion looks great but it's late, and I got hosed on knucks, so.
Metamorphus - Another knuck using class. Has non-ignorable physical defense and the physical version of Mystic Aura. Dark Toxin doesn't look like much of a deterrent, though. Damage is good, though.
Majin - The knuck using classes are ganging up on me now. The consistant damage output is good! She's frail as fuck, though.
Theurgist - Knuck using class, didn't use. Looked pretty good, though.
Reaver - Too luck-reliant for my tastes, though at least she can set up for Assassination fairly well.
Warlock - Pretty durable for a Controller and gets a damage buff at the end of each turn that stacks up to four times and does not wear off ever. He *needs* the damage buff, though.
Pneumbros - Affliction Damager fuck yes. Too bad you have to defeat the sixth baron to get him so he's late as fuck. Also frail, but goddamn is that a cool skillset.
Kamui - Aftergame character. Can revive at the cost of HP and regenerates HP. Also can deal Affliction damage.
Demonicus - Also aftergame, looks fairly decent.
But yeah, all told, it was a pretty fun ride.
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Fallout: NV - Found and dealt with good ol' Benny. Love that jacket. And now the game seems to have sort of exploded outwards; I have a million possible quests, and can sort of see what the endgame's going to be. Except I have no idea which way I want to go about finishing things. So between that and the general lameness of the gameplay (for all that it's certainly better than FO3), I've sort of lost a good deal of my momentum. Which has led to me re-playing a little bit of...
Arcanum - Woohoo! Playing this for the first time in a couple of years. That playthrough (my first), I was a surly Dwarf Technician. This time I'm a very charismatic, dexterous Gnome eschewing both magic and tech and specializing in Persuasion and the thiefly skills. Thus far I've completed most of the quests available in Tarant on your first visit, and am about to go visit Gilbert Bates. Tagging along with me are Virgil, Magnus, Gar and Vollinger. I love this game.
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That said, need to know the best counters to that - Smogon has counters to Thunder Wave/Calm Mind and Iron Head sets, but not the one that uses both. >.> (Dragonite gets Thunder Wave'd before U-Turning to DDTar, while things like Hippowdon just get the standard Iron Head or a U-Turn to Shaymin.)
I like Hariyama to counter your Shaymin. Thunder Wave just makes it stronger, has priority moves to ignore flinch hax, and Fire Punch to wreck a predicted Shaymin switch. I just play VGC rules though so my experience in Smogon-style play is limited.
Odds are, I'd stick with J. Rachi there and start Zen Headbutting instead, hoping to catch you on a Fire Punch for flinch or just kill before you do. (Full set is Wave, Headbutt, Iron Head and Wish, for reference.) But that does raise a good point - half my team there is weak to Fire. Wonder if there's a good replacement for Shaymin...
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Mass Effect 2: Beaten.
That was a blast. Now I'm all sad that I'll have to wait for the next game.
There were no casualties in the suicide mission, because that's how Paragon Shepard rolls. Pursued a romance with Miranda----no real reason, just seemed like the thing to do.
Some of the stuff at the end was fantastic, especially Joker/EDI interaction. It was true awesomeness. Not counting Shepard, I'd say Joker "Won the Game", as opposed to ME1, which was clearly won by Urdnot Wrex.
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Are you planning to bother with DLC at all?
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Just Zaeed, because he's free. Sucks to be Kasumi or Liara.
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Shame. Lair of the Shadow Broker is great. Tough as hell, too.
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Tactic Ogre PSP- 140000 copies already!? Are people really THIS nostalgic?
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Tactic Ogre PSP- 140000 copies already!? Are people really THIS nostalgic?
Japan
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Man, I wish an rpg like TO could selll 150k in the states.
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FE10 - Completed. Kill leader: Oscar. This is reminiscent of, I dunno, FE9. >_>
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Shit, 170K already!? Matsuno must be dying of laughing so hard.
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(http://img109.imageshack.us/img109/5414/notrea.gif)
FE10 bronze weapon (and knife/raven) playthrough - Complete!
Both Endgame-3 and Endgame-5 were quite rough. I just lack any way to control Dragons quickly, so I had to play carefully, and Dheginsea was... kind of a hilarious fight, because I was so offensively inept. Definitely needed the most planning of the playthrough. I pretty much had to use both Volke (6x2 damage with Ena and a +1 power support with Reyson) and Heather (4x2 damage with Ena and a max power support with Rhys), both with Nihil, with Volke getting in 3 attacks per round (2 on the turns Dheg uses MT, which is every 3 turns) and Heather getting in one, to break past his 30 HP regen. Used the following formation:
_Dht
KVE_
trY_
Re__
D - Dheg
V - Volke
R - Reyson
K - Kurth
E - Ena
Y - Rhys
Basically, each round was as follows:
Enemy phase:
-Dheg attacks Volke, who counters. Or uses MT, in which case no counter. He has no other legal targets to attack since he won't touch the dragons.
Player phase:
1. Rhys uses Physic on Volke.
2. Volke attacks with Baselard.
3. Ena trades Baselard from Volke.
4. Heather moves up to position "h", trades Baselard, and attacks.
5. Titania moves up position "t" beside Heather, trades Baselard, then cantos to position "t" beside Kurth.
6. Elincia heals Volke, then moves to position "e"
7. Reyson moves to position "r"; chants for Volke, Titania, and the healers; cantos back to his initial position.
8. Kurth trades Baselard from Titania
9. Volke trades Baselard from Kurth, attacks.
10. Elincia heals Volke, then retreats.
11. Rhys uses Physic on Heather.
12. Titania rescues Heather, and takes her off to the right to safety.
13. Someone takes/drops Heather.
Repeat! Of course, during this, there are reinformcents coming, which the remaining PCs are tasked with dealing with. Sometimes things get hairier and I have to use Fortify to get a few more healing actions in, but yeah.
Would have been easier if I'd just got the Ravens to cap strength by this battle, but oh well! Hilariously both capped it from BExp right afterwards.
Less specific to say about E-5. I didn't deploy Ena since she hadn't gained any levels and thus could be one-rounded by the boss, and I didn't feel like seeing that happen, so my offence was quite slow. Nealuchi had Parity, while two mages (Sanaki and Calill) had Nihil and these three were mainly tasked with killing corner auras, along with Micaiah. Soren's hit was atrocious due to Thunder + no hit support (Calill had Elincia) so I couldn't really use him much, so he mainly healed. Rhys had Fortify and used it plenty, between this, E-3, and E-4, I had to Hammerne the damn thing. The ravens also fought auras. Other PCs (Ike, Soren, Boyd, Titania, Elincia when she wasn't healing) weren't really capable of dealing with the boss herself, so hunted spirits.
PC rundown, by kill count (in parentheses):
1. Sothe (128) - Already good, the challenge just makes him by far the MVP of the Dawn Brigade chapters, and as such, the MVP of the playthrough. The weakest of the three knife-users in endgame due to the latest promotion time and having the lowest attack, but such is life.
2. Heather (101) - Hey, the challenge makes her a capable combat unit! Granted, at first, her stats are such that she isn't the GM's MVP, although being the only physical unit with 1-2 range is always useful. As time goes on, though, she picks up more and more, due to her weapons only getting better, supports, and a good promotion.
3. Ilyana (99) - Is around forever. Is a mage, aka the least screwed over type of unit by this playthrough (except knife-users and ravens, of course). Was the worst Sage by endgame except Tormod, so didn't make the cut there. Even Bastian would have gotten in above her.
4. Micaiah (88) - Is around forever, magic power is godly. Only reason she doesn't have more kills is because of needing to spend some time on staff duty.
5. Soren (85) - Mage, is around a lot. No real explanation needed at this point. The worst of the Sages in the final dungeon that I did bring due to meh speed and accuracy, but he was evasive due to the Ike support at least.
6. Rolf (78) - Archers aren't screwed over quite as badly as most physical units because they don't lose greatweapons. Rolf has awesome Str. This made him a solid part 3 unit and an endgame consideration, though not one I took. Pity about Deadeye sucking.
7t. Calill (73) - Mage, is around... okay, not forever, but long enough. Magic could be better, but who cares, SHE ACTUALLY DOUBLES STUFF IN PART 4 YESZ.
7t. Titania (73) - Obvious enough, Titania is always good and high Str is part of that package, so she's still good here. Made the final dungeon because as far as filler units go, ones with canto are the best (see the Dheg strategy), and she was Boyd's support. Getting swords on promotion sucks though, and a Skl/2 non-fatal mastery is pretty lame even if it heals.
7t. Boyd (73) - Crazy speed gains. I wasn't really expecting to get much out of Boyd despite his on-paper Str, but when you get that much speed, sure. One of the best units through part 4, though still kinda underpowered in endgame though the best standard weapon-user possibly. Colossus is awesome and that really matters on this playthrough!
10. Nealuchi (66)
11t. Vika (63) - Hey look it's the ravens. They're not around that long, and they have to play catchup through much of part 4, but the endgame payoff is so damn worth it on this challenge. I doubted how useful they'd be, but yeaah. High attack once they get SS strike (which both of them got around Endgame-1 or -2), great in Parts 1-2, canto, ludicrous durability, it's all good. Nealuchi's the better of the two due to having an extra map for catchup and higher Luck, but the gap wasn't large. Oh, and Tear freaking rocks, 46% activation and it always kills? Heck yes.
11t. Aran (63) - Along with Boyd, my other unit with a crazy RNG blessing. Speed cap wasn't high enough to take into endgame, but otherwise his Str/Spd/Def were all awesome, and we can't ask for much more than that. Skl% mastery helps, even if it isn't a fatal one.
13. Haar (60) - Probably the MVP of the Ike sections of Part 3. Some things don't change. Even with Bronze, Haar had 3-4HKOs on everything, 2HKO when he doubles... which is often. His power is so high that Stun was often fatal, and it's Skl%, and he promotes fairly early, and he flies... yeah. Never a serious consideration for endgame, though good stuff.
14. Ike (55) - Aether is a version of Sol that heals less and kills more often. Good stats, so definitely a solid unit. Crappy in endgame when the standards got way higher (see Boyd comments, Ike wasn't as good. Weirdly). Used a Speedwing on him so he'd double the BK so I could beat him with Ragnell (that fight and the final blow to the final boss were the two times I had to break the challenge).
15. Jill (44) - Being the only non-suck unit in the Dawn Brigade with Canto is worth so many strategic points on this playthrough. Used throughout part 4 where flight is great, despite shaky Str.
16. Zihark (42) - Only Swordmaster worth using! Astra is a terrible mastery skill and his Str was bad, so he survived through part 4 only due to being Jill's support really. In the DB maps, solid due to being a prepromo, all of those are highly valuable.
17. Gatrie (39) - Look guys it's the non-flying Haar. With a better mastery! Though he promotes later, of course, which hurts in a few ways. Still good.
18. Kieran (35) - Other than Calill, the other CRK favourite, due to his good strength and actually sticking around. Easy enough to get up to speed for part 4 duties, so yeah. Promotion does little for him, but oh well.
19. Volke (34) - Guess that works out to an average of 6 kills a map or so? Kinda surprised this isn't higher, but three of those maps don't have many kills, so sure. Anyway, game-best offence, he's essential, etc.
20. Shinon (33) - Str could be better, but he gets to tier 3 easily enough, and his base stats are quite high, so little reason not to use him, even if his part 4 performance was highly forgettable due to combination of bleh power + a bad mastery skill.
21t. Oscar (31) - Str is a problem, so he spent time benched in some part 3 maps where I had a small party (so did Shinon, albeit less often). Still, see Kieran comments, easy enough to have capable by part 4, and while his strength is lower, he's fast enough to double most things, so yeah.
21t. Sanaki (31) - Mage, has high power. These are good! Durability needed work, but I did give her a Seraph Robe so it was okay. Having Light helped her accuracy and mostly served to keep her ahead of Soren in the final dungeon.
22. Tauroneo (30) - DB prepromo, they're good, Luna is good stuff as part 4 filler but the stats weren't great otherwise.
23. Tanith (23) - Level 16 + flies = easy part 4 filler in the Silver Army. Stats were actually solid enough, which was a pleasant surprise. Sigrun's really weren't, though I used her in the same filler role (she got 14 kills, IIRC).
24. Geoffrey (22) - Good enough in the CRK maps, I dumped BExp on him so he'd promote in 4-5 but only barely useful there. Still, filled a slot.
Rhys also deserves note as someone I used all through the game. I think I was wrong to use him over Mist (despite the latter's offence being literally zero), as his low doubledigit kill count showed, although occasionally his chipping was useful, so maybe not. Still, could have used another healer with Canto + her def support. There was also Elincia, a no-brainer while she was around, although bereft of her super-sword her offence was certainly quite bad (not Mist-level non-existant, though). Flying healer still rocks regardless, though.
Longest maps were Revelations (Oliver's map) at 20 turns, Geoffrey's Charge at 19, Marauders (part 3 CRK) at 18, and Rebirth-3 (dragons) at 17. Not really sure what to make of that list, except that apparently the CRK can't really afford to lose offence. Oliver's map being that long is unshocking given how many reinforcements show up if you take your time, which on this playthrough was inevitable. I ended up at a higher level than most of my playthroughs because of how long it took me to kill things in general, most PCs were around Level 15-18, with Heather and Volke at 20.
I have a post to make on Saga Frontier too but it is late, so I'll do so later.
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Shit, 170K already!? Matsuno must be dying of laughing so hard.
...How much did this game even sell the first time it came out?
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Viewtiful Joe Red Hot Rumble: I've done all the special areas of previous stages, and have...I have no clue, some stage involving heroes? Also did the 3 Villain Stage!
More Character thoughts:
Captain Blue: Captain K in a Brawl-like Game, with the ability to Hover! That's both a good and a bad thing, cause the Hover means unlimited horizontal movement, but he lacks a second jump, so he's got the worst vertical. Also can use Pikachu-style Thunder.
Captain Blue Jr.: Why is it the most annoying character is often good? Fuck you and your long range Yoyos, you stupid character who apparently isn't even IN a V. Joe game before this one!
Emperor Jet Black: Hits hard and fast, slices things, and uh...ok, that's about all he does!
Hulk Davidson: Hits things hard...really hard...and is slow as hell with bad jumps. Exactly like you'd expect basically.
Charles the 3rd: HE HAS UNLIMITD FLIGHT AND PSYCHO CRUSHERS! ...that's really all there is to him; fly, hit things with Psycho Crusher, forget he has anything else cause Psycho Crusher is just better.
Gran Brucer: Shark! He's probably the weirdest character to use and I just wanted to end the scenario with him ASAP cause of this.
Sprocket: Oh look, she summons Viewtiful Joe Grunts! Kind of amusing really, even does so in Viewtiful Fights or whatever they're called.
Rachel: Lasers or something; I dunno. She's a golden robot and that's all that matters!
Movie Fan Joe: He's V. Joe with Soccer Balls instead of Captain Falconness...so much worse by default :(
Young Captain Blue Jr: See Captain Blue Jr. *shakes fist*
Heroine Sylvia: Totally different, she doesn't shoot things, just kind of...you know what? She just kind of sucks really.
Alastor's Other Form: I played him using the Vergil-Alt cause WHY THE FUCK NOT!? Anyway, he's a weird version of Alastor, and not much else to say.
Manager Jet: Hits things with Footballs and his foot...he's absolutely nothing like his Henshin self really, and not really fun to play as.
Young Captain Blue: Take Captain Blue, make him faster and more sleek and...well, you get the point. Basically, Captain Blue except not an UOM, which means he's just flat out worse, even if he's technically better gameplay wise, the lack of UOMness overrides!
I'm totally aware most of you have no fucking clue who these characters are. I can tell you "Fuck Mundus" though cause that fight took too damn long. Yes, THAT Mundus. I also don't like Nelo Angelo and...I have no clue what a Marionette was based off of.
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Young Captain Blue: Take Captain Blue, make him faster and more sleek and...well, you get the point. Basically, Captain Blue except not an UOM, which means he's just flat out worse, even if he's technically better gameplay wise, the lack of UOMness overrides!
I have taught you well, my disciple.
Lufia DS: Stuff.
Dawn of Heroes: Finishing stat topic.
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*skims the Dawn of Heroes stat topic* Heh, this actually looks interesting. I wish I had picked it up while I was in the states now.
I am noticing that DL-wise, most of these characters have a lot of '50% chance to do something that will make or break a match' abilities. Which means that depending on how you view this particular percentage as 'turn 1' or 'turn 2' will send a lot of these PCs up or down a division.
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Saga Frontier - Beat Emelia's quest. Party was...
Emelia - Fist user. Due to being able to change costumes, she can very easily learn any fist move she wants. DSC at the two hour mark of the game without even needing good luck? Why yes, I'll take that. Also got her rune magic just for SoulRune, since apparently SoulRune + DSC = like 19k damage. Silliness. Works much better than Awakening since uh DSC not costing 36 WP is good.
Asellus - Is Asellus, which means she's an excellent swordsman who gets even better against bosses.
White Rose - Light Magic and Time Magic. Fairly generic mystic (low durability, but good stats otherwise generally), but hey, it's the only quest you can use her until endgame, and she was one of my highest-levelled characters coming out of the first Trinity base.
Zozma - Light/Time/Sharp Pain. Sharp Pain and TimeLeap cheese out absolutely everything. I didn't always do this, but yeah. Also joins overlevelled as hell on Emelia's quest, a nice change of pace from Asellus'. Zozma is so silly good. I'm definitely of the opinion he's the best mystic PC in-game, now. Though I still need to check out Mesarthim I suppose.
Liza - I didn't really feel like a second fist user, so she got guns this time. (Fun fact, in addition to her game-best fist list, Liza is tied for the best at learning new gun moves aside from Blue/Rouge. And has a solid sword list. Good balance there.) For a change of pace I had her punch things in some battles so she'd get strength, though not nearly as often as she raised her gun-related stats. Anyway since she's Liza she also learned pretty much every notable fist move, including DSC, just from my doing this. Also got her CrossShot doing quite a lot of damage, which was the point of the build. <.<
So I had probably my cheapest party ever to throw at the final boss: three Deflect-users, a TimeLeaper, two DSCers (one with capped stats due to SoulRune). And it didn't really matter, because due to Saga Frontier-related weirdness, the boss does 1/4 her normal damage to the three mystics in my party. Oh well!
Quest time was about 11 hours, about the same as Red (slightly shorter than my T2 time, notably shorter than my Asellus time, and notably longer than my Blue time).
RIKI is next. I will revel in the Scrappiness of Tanzer, the Magma Slimes, and Virgil, and clearly need to use Mei-Ling the entire game for the frue experience.
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Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2: Done both routes. Time to do stat topic work (groundwork has been laid down). On to its first game I guess. That or something else I should continue to work on.
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*skims the Dawn of Heroes stat topic* Heh, this actually looks interesting. I wish I had picked it up while I was in the states now.
I am noticing that DL-wise, most of these characters have a lot of '50% chance to do something that will make or break a match' abilities. Which means that depending on how you view this particular percentage as 'turn 1' or 'turn 2' will send a lot of these PCs up or down a division.
In most cases it's a 50% chance to do double damage, so it's probably easiest to just assume a x1.5 modifier on their normal damage to keep things simple. The major exception is Yuji's Headbutt, which is indeed pretty much a win/lose situation. Averaged over time he'd rather use his normal attack than Headbutt though.
Averages are up now by the way.
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In most cases it's a 50% chance to do double damage, so it's probably easiest to just assume a x1.5 modifier on their normal damage to keep things simple.
This is seriously a horrible way of doing things. If 1.5x damage OHKOs, then you're saying they OHKO EVERY TIME, which is blatantly false. They OHKO half the time and don't the other half.
For a better example, let's say the 1.5x OHKOs, but 1x 2HKOs. The opponent has 33% evade (or some other way of stopping/reducing the damage to not OHKO) and can OHKO back 100% of the time (assume s/he goes second). Then by assuming 1.5x damage all the time, the chance of winning is 67%. However in reality, the chance of winning is a mere 33%.
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While I'm here might as well talk about some games!
Atelier Rorona - Finished this. Decently fun game overall. The gameplay's pretty much improved from Annie in all ways, but the characters and character interaction are worse. Overall, I think they're about equal, though it's hard to compare.
Also, the title movie song is amazing.
Etrian Odyssey - Down to B8F now. Running Hoplite, Buccaneer, Princess / Arbalist, Ninja.
Hoplite - TANK. Pretty much does nothing but soak up damage but that's all that's needed. I just wish spears would keep up with some of the other weapons.
Buccaneer - Went for Pincushion. The damage on it is really good, but it takes a lot of skill points to get to and uses up a lot of TP. I think it'll turn out better in the long run, at least.
Princess - Buff buff buff. Mostly just went for passive healing and Attack Order / Guard Order. Picked up the elemental Arms spells and Regal Radiance but that's mostly for getting conditionals.
Arbalist - Nukes stuff. Picked up Armor Piercer and Double Action. While Armor Piercer's mult isn't as good as the multi-hit stuff other classes get, Crossbows have great power and the Arbalist has good STR so the damage still keeps up in practice. Double Action only helps.
Ninja - Probably my LVP right now. Went for the multi-hit skill (Takenoha or something?). It's decent, but daggers are pretty low in power and the Ninja doesn't have that great a STR score so it's kind of underwhelming in practice. The durability is bad too, but the evade probably keeps them above Arbalist at least.
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In most cases it's a 50% chance to do double damage, so it's probably easiest to just assume a x1.5 modifier on their normal damage to keep things simple.
This is seriously a horrible way of doing things. If 1.5x damage OHKOs, then you're saying they OHKO EVERY TIME, which is blatantly false. They OHKO half the time and don't the other half.
For a better example, let's say the 1.5x OHKOs, but 1x 2HKOs. The opponent has 33% evade (or some other way of stopping/reducing the damage to not OHKO) and can OHKO back 100% of the time (assume s/he goes second). Then by assuming 1.5x damage all the time, the chance of winning is 67%. However in reality, the chance of winning is a mere 33%.
I meant as far as average damage over the long term. For an actual fight, you'd have to Hatbot it. And I provided the numbers so that you can do so.
Same with defense. The person with 35% evade takes the same average damage as the person with 35% damage reduction over a large number of samples. But the evader could be lucky or unlucky in a single fight, skewing the results.
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Etrian Odyssey 3: I've been slowly chipping away at this. Reached B9F, tried going back to complete the rest request on B1F. Man, that FOE section is evil. :(
Oh yeah, subclasses exist. Monk/Ninja is fun - create a clone, gain back HP for using a skill, then gain TP back when the clone dies? Lulz. Also have Hoplite/Prince, Arbalist/Buccaneer, Farmer/Wildling... Still can't decide what to do with the Zodiac, though, so haven't done anything yet. ;s
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DeathSpank - Beat! This game is full of corny greatness, and it's a fetch quest grinding machine. But I strapped on my man thong and trudged forward. This game was already purached because my friend had downloaded it bfore he shipped off to the army, but I doubt I will buy the second game. I beat the game at level 19, so I guess I didn't unlock all the trophies...
Vandal Hearts: Flames of Judgement - Bought this because, eh why not! Decent enough, art work is kinda neat, but it takes awhile to get used to. I am not sure who is this best party member, but I'd guess one of the bow users. I am in chapter three right now and trying to check every map for those bonus dungeons.
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FM4- Just beat the first La Aliazina battle, a bit under halfway through the story missions.
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Lufia DS: Did a full 100-floor run of Ancient Cave, but didn't get much of value. Was I supposed to get something from the Master? He didn't even damage me and I didn't get anything from him. Then beat the Doom Island bosses again.
I did *not* expect the extra boss fight. I remembered Niu saying there was one, but I thought it was with Arek for some reason. Alternate ending was great, even made me cry.
Got 7 Dragon Eggs, missing #3 from Soma Temple boss. Never could figure out a speedy strategy at the time. Now I have one (Selan+Charge 3).
Is there anything special on a 3rd playthrough? I see there's two stars on the savefile instead of one.
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No, you did pretty much everything but the Egg Dragon.
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Question: What does FE9 hard mode change, besides increased enemy stats and Ashnard moving?
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-Somewhat less bonus experience.
-Probably around 15-20% more enemies (varies by map), and you get 5 less exp per kill to balance this.
-Fog added to two maps (one of which was too bland/easy for words beforehand anyway, the other of which is short). Fog is pretty lame but FE9's version is fairly inoffensive because it's just those two maps.
-Some weapons show up a little later in shops than they used to. Nothing disappears entirely, as far as I recall, though.
-Laguz royals are virtually irrelevant as they only join for the final Ashnard fight.
-Boss Naesala uses his Laguz Band so you can't just wait for him to untransform.
Think that's it? There's some map-specific things as well of course (like if thieves show up to raid treasure, they'll probably do so a turn or two earlier on HM) but that should cover everything significant.
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FE10: Edward has more defense than Nolan. Bwahahaha. His blocking of axes with his face is SUPER-EFFECTIVE.
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FFTA2: I started playing this during my bad experience with being late to school due to cosmic interference and the sudden lack of working electronic devices anywhere in my vicinity. And it was just such a charming, simple setup that it really brightened my day with an hour or so of uncomplicated escapism. I really like the new artstyle and I hope they continue to use it for the Ivalice games. Yes, I'm aware it's the same artist as FFTA and FF12RW, but the artstyle got a lot more detailed and little less deformed since those two games and it actually looks impressive now.
Can't really comment much on the gameplay yet as it's still a bit too early/easy to tell what kind of challenge it might pose and whether it'll be fun when it's less mindless.
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Eternal Poison -
*Marie.*
*loloverkill.*
Good times.
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FFTA2... challenge...
Bwahaha! You might be waiting a while for a challenge from FFTA2 - it's pretty easy right up to the end of the storyline, and a fair bit afterwards, but once it decides enough's enough it outright cheats to try and break you. Stupid Tor and final tournament... Anyway, the adjustments to the law system were definitely welcome, but it didn't make the game any harder.
M:tG: Duel of the Planeswalkers - In hopes that the 3rd DLC comes out soon for the 360, I've set up a dummy account and am unlocking stuff so I can do some Co-Op duels (not online, though).
Tempura of the Dead: On Level 15, grinding so I can buy the next set of upgrades.
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Djinn: What Doma said. You've passed what's, in my mind, one of the most challenging maingame fights already. (The first fight.)
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Fable 3 was pretty disappointing even by the low standards I had set for it. All the character depth of FF13, and all the challenging gameplay of Twilight Princess.
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Tactic Ogre- The new requirement to recruit Deneb is the most fucked up thing I have ever seen. This is even worse than VP1's A Ending. Her unique class is also not much, especaly when you compare how ridiculous the requirements are. It is like, what is the point? Ozma is far easier to get and far stronger to.
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Persona 3 - Finished
Highly enjoyable in general.
Ended with max Fool/Hierophant/Chariot/Justice/Death/Temperance/Devil/Sun/Judgement. Priestess/Lovers/Strength on minus 4, didn't even bother starting Empress after the tomfoolery of those not to mention it becoming accessible so late, didn't find Tower or World, most others were 7-9. Not sure that World even exists since I didn't even see any Personas of it, but it would be strange if it didn't... but then again, in the manual for FES it doesn't list World as an available type for Personas anyway (although it does list 'Aeon' for who-knows-whatever reason and I didn't see any of those either. May be a FES addition I suppose).
Complaints: Strega, for the time that they're actively opposed to you, never actually do anything. Assuming that they believe the same as you at this point, the opposite of which doesn't make sense as otherwise they wouldn't take you on on the rare occassions that they actually do, it seems very strange. Later on during this period they 'lose' the ability to find you easily (despite being just able to follow you from Tartarus/etc) but that doesn't explain the earlier parts of that period.
So there I am building up links and the game smacks me over the head with now that Justice is rank 5 it would be a Bad Idea to get any other females of certain inclinations up to that rank. Whatever, that was probably in the manual (although it isn't in the FES manual...). Then it starts reversing all the others on me. That is entirely uncalled for, game, to tell me that I can't do something and then punish me for not doing it.
I should probably play The Answer since FES has shown up but I am somewhat wary considering it is apparently locked two difficulty levels higher than I played P3 on.
SDGGG Cross Drive - Finished Fio route
Aftergame is pointlessly annoying. Credits roll and it dumps you back at Backstage with only the training missions changed into a Free Battle mode. Do two Free Battles and suddenly the game decides it isn't finished after all and brings up a couple of Ex missions about F91. Then you do two more Free Battles and it decides that it might be a good idea to finish the G Gundam storyline which it never got around to doing in the maingame. Two more Free Battles and it decides it might be a good idea to finish the Gundam X storyline which it never got around to in the maingame. Three more Free Battles and it brings up some Crossbone missions with an enemy actually worthy of being a final boss. And that unlocks the Special Free Battle where you get to fight a large amount of named characters and you find out that Infinity has ludicrously absurdly high defences.
I was never that much a fan of Long Range attacks because of the possibility the enemy would just split up their squads and waste them, but they can be somewhat overpowered when using special enough units. Plus you can have each unit with a long range attack in the squad target a different enemy squad and wreak fairly mass havoc on the enemies. Dearka and presumably some other units have IDs which block units from being able to flee a Long Range attack but I wasn't really using any of them I don't believe.
Not planning on playing Nikeah route yet as I am playing
SRW L - Up to Episode 12
Not much to say yet really. I get the suspicion that Combattler V has been shoehorned in with no CV enemies yet again GARUDA HAS NOT BEEN IN SRW SINCE ALPHA 1 BANPRESTO and people have been saying that there are no Mazinkaiser enemies either which I find a little hard to believe but wouldn't be overly surprised at. Also looks like they have -again- passed over all the international Godannar teams because they hate me
On the plus side it looks like Destiny is getting much better treatment than K gave it.
All over Godannar!Tetsuya is leading my kill numbers so everything is proceeding well enough.
Chronicles of Mystery: Secret Of The Lost Kingdom
So I find that they have released a new title in that thoroughly mediocre budget adventure game series I had played a couple of and it is obviously a must-buy but then I find that I have been totally punked out as they have changed it from an adventure game into a hidden object game and it isn't even a particularly good hidden object game not like I'm a connoisseur or anything but this game makes the earlier titles look like they aren't budget title the main character was turned into a viewpoint character so that they didn't have to animate her there is very little animation besides that there are almost no voices the ending movie is just pans across still images
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Pretty much gave up on Ninja Gaiden Very Hard at Alma. Alma's ridiculous, the Hundred Fiend Trial is ridiculous, and in the end I'm not interested in keeping up with the game at a difficulty level where the challenge crosses the line into "work", even if the work involves ninjas.
So I started...Ninja Gaiden II: Definitely worse than the first so far, but still not bad by a long shot. Good weapon variety and graphics, with some solid additions to the combat system in dismemberment (yes, seriously, it helps the gameplay) and Obliteration Techniques. Much more focused on fighting mobs than individual enemies, which changes the strategy some - you can go for big-range weapons like the Lunar or Kusari-gama, or play stick and move with the sword or claws, or whore out counterattacks since they do wonders for your positioning game now, but staying put and slugging it out one on one, even with smaller fiends, will get you murdered. Up to level 5, almost at the boss. Also, The Rod of Trials is stupid.
Super Robot Wars L: Stage 14. Solid game. Like the changes to the partner system a lot, don't love the corner cuts in the budget (copy-pasting Mazinger from SRWJ? Seriously?). Kills are very spread around - Goh, Ichitaka, Quatre (!!!!??!) and the guy in the blue Linebarrel are all near 50, and a bunch of others are clustered in the high 30s/low 40s.
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DQ9: More Legacy Boss grinding. Got all the drops from Nimzo and Malroth. Have lots of orbs and money for alchemy, but not looking forward to grinding Sainted Somas again.
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I should probably play The Answer since FES has shown up but I am somewhat wary considering it is apparently locked two difficulty levels higher than I played P3 on.
It's still doable. I probably played at the same difficulty you did for The Journey. The first dungeon or two can be annoying, after that you just kinda cruise through.
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Soul Silver- Took care of the Fighting Gym and Steel Gym. Combo of Hypno and Murkrow mowed through the first, Quilava soloed the latter, pretty much. Made my way through the Cliff Cave to the Safari Zone.
Using Quilava, Murkrow, Hypno, Elekid, Machop and Staryu. Keeping Geodude and Bellsprout leveled in the Pokewalker in the meantime. Good times though.
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FE9: Decided to play this again because, well, I was bored and have never done Hard Mode. That, and I need to replay FE10, so figured I should just play them in order. Just cleared Escape, which is always the first swing into some semblance of difficulty for me - died once on it because I didn't know where enemies started - thought there were more to the west and sent Titania to block that side while Gatrie and Ike covered the bottom. Needless to say, Ike got murdered because he kept doubling and killing the enemies. Second run, Titania and Gatrie tanked that while Boyd, Oscar and Ike took out everything on the west, occasionally running one back to get healed. Managed to kill the boss with Gatrie/Titania, which got Titania her first level.
Ike is yet to miss a Strength level, but has had a few that've been bad - Str/Mag, Str, Str/Def/Res. TANKY SOREN. He's Lv 3 and has gained both Def/Res on both levels. Boyd's gaining HP/Str every level, and Oscar's gaining Str/Spd/Lck, so I'm not complaining. Already wondering who I'll use on this run - want to set things up for FE10, but I'm considering Astrid for both games for the lulz.
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Tactic Ogre- Mother fucker!! No only recruit Deneb is fucked up, the way to watch individual ending is also fucked up. Gah, how many time I have to fight the final battle anyway!?
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Wild Arms: Alter Code F
Beaten! Final battle stats were 3266 Battles completed, and just over 1000 canceled. Managed to get all 25 EX File Keys, which was somewhat simple enough. Also got Mariel up to L100 for some reason. Looking back on it, I don't know why.
Raquel is probably going to be more overpowered than usual for the first half of the game.
World of Warcraft
I never thought I was going to be playing this, but a coalition of my friends busted out a lot of money for me to get this for me. It's decently fun, and it's currently free for me. I've already gotten Fishing up to L175, and Cooking up to L119 as of typing this, with a L14 Tauren Shadow Priest on a PVP Server.
...Why am I playing on a PVP Server?
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...Why am I playing on a PVP Server?
Here is your answer.
Also got Mariel up to L100 for some reason. Looking back on it, I don't know why.
Because you hate fun.
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Obviously you desire the end-game raid progression PVP servers are known for. Coming in when there's all sorts of fresh new quests in newbie zones that enemy players are doing is just a bonus.
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In between bouts of replaying SH:C (which is largely as awesome as remembered) I've been messing around with Arcanum. Ran a couple different builds through the intro before settling on a mage. Seemed the easiest thing for a first trip through the game. Wanted to go techie, but hauling around whatever random crap I need for that is just ugh. Maybe build Tesla rods some other time if I like it enough to play it again. (I also flirted with using an idiot melee fighter but couldn't take being unable to engage in dialogue for very long.) So instead I just nuke everything with Harm. Mostly building willpower and magic to make that easier (a decision only reinforced by the endless crawl that was Black Mountain). Largely ignoring skills except for persuasion because I like being able to talk through confrontations when possible just because it's nice to have options and it tends to be more interesting. Still just running around with Virgil and Sogg because I lack the charisma for more followers. And I kind of feel obligated to bring Virgil with me.
Apparently I have to hitch a ride with Blackbeard and go hang out on a prison island next. That should be fun.
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Sin and Punishment - Star Successor:
Bought this after Xer showed it off at the Mini-meet. THIS is what the next gen Star Foxs should be like. The perspective change is neat, but the game is mostly run on rails. And it is a hard motherfucker. Well, its not too bad if you willing use checkpoints and continue. But the game gets really hard if you're going score hunting, which often requires you to go through an entire stage without losing a life, which for the mid stages is already crazy as hell. Still, if you liked SF64/SF, get it. It beats all the previous Star Fox hands down.
X-men Legends 2:
Mm...starts off slow, but its pretty cool all things considered. Same type of style as the other super hero RPGs, but you have more customization options and a lot more abilities. Stat builds for the most part are pretty straightforward (you want to run Focus for a large portion of characters since powers > normal attacks), less so for powers. Should be interesting.
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FFTA2 - I have been playing this for a while now since Pokemon lost its charming sheen as it is wont to for me about 3/4 of the way through a given game. Have been actively avoiding the main plot, just had Luso trip balls because of some swamp aids or something. Killing stuff.
Rock Band - So in the past ton of months I have taken to playing Bass on Expert and pretty much only bass (chords are not a skill my fingers want to learn and Bass line is always more fun). I am kind of getting convinced that Go With the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age is one of the most authentic primal pieces of rock to come out in the last two decades of music. There is not a single part of that bass line where it is not tremendously fun to be playing.
I am looking at changing over to Rock Band 3 on the PS3 instead of the X-Box because it is region free and that would let me import Rock Band 2 (why the fuck did that not gan Australian release? As far as I can tell it never came out down here, never seen a copy, when it came out in the US I was all pumped for it because Rock Band had only recently come out down here... Then like nothing from Harmonix down here other than the spin offs until Rock Band 3). Will hold out until the Pro guitars come out though, think I might actually shell out for the Pro Bass for shits and giggles. Edit - So turns out they are just regular electrics only. Well uh rad. So you can totally learn some basicsof how playing bass works on a six string lead guitar instead of your regular 4 string bass. :| is all that deserves.
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Ninja Gaiden Black: In the middle of Chapter 5.
Game is essentially what I've been looking for in an action game, which is to say it resembles DMC-style more than God of War style, and has actual fast paced, challenging combat with a lot of options you end up using one way or another. Nice to see something NOT spawned by Hideki Kamiya actually pull that off!
Phoenix Wright: Finally played 1-5. Not much to say other than they were really trying to make as convoluted and complex a trial as possible, and it was TOO FREAKING LONG. IT feels like "Aftergame Phoenix Wright" really, which I'm aware that's what it is, but this is even after playing 3-5.
Thing is, 3-5 is similarly complicated and similarly long, but its a lot more interesting. It has every right to be that long and complicated cause its one last big finale to the series, ending it with a trial that basically brings every series plot point together, leaving out only self contained trials that were meaningless (1-3, 2-3, and 2-4, though you could argue 2-4 matters for 3-5 on grounds that it had a significant role in Edgeworth and Fran's development, which are necessary for 3-5 to work, but as a CASE, it was self contained, for the most part.) It did some fun things like the first Trial, which had pretty much the best Defense/Prosecution/Witness combo ever.
Finally, it tried to end things in a way that showed the TRUE killer as actually sympathetic, and almost justified, and not a "HE'S TRULY GUILTY GET HIM!" Now, it didn't really work cause of the character in question they tried it with, but it was something new as just about all True Killers in the series are dickwads who you just want guilty and gone (Well, ok, 2-3 is an exception here, as while just about all the real killers break down into some emotional mess, the real killer just kind of goes "Well, I know when I've been beat, good job.")
LASTLY, 3-5 was also something the entirety of the 3rd game was building up too, so all the backstory and what not was there. Furthermore, playing off previous cases, the backstory just needed to bring up previous incidents as reminders, and with you knowing all the details, they worked themselves in.
1-5...felt like they were trying too hard. They had to establish a whole lot of backstory, starting from ground up. The usage of Ema over Maya was a nice change of pace, I won't deny, and I suppose it was nice to see a trial where Phoenix couldn't rely on Mia to bail him out at all, but honestly, that didn't do enough. The trial was too long, too many new faces out of the gate, and their quirks weren't really that great (one guy is a cowboy, the other is obsessed with Boxed Lunches!) Lana isn't a very intriguing character either; just one of those "Tough but actually very weak internally, thus easy to use."
Also, the case is so obviously made LAST in the series if you just look at it. introduces a bunch of gameplay elements that never appear, the opening Case depicting uses genuine exposition, has a few animation moments (The Blue Badger, and the Video), and relies on a lot of easter eggs from trials introduced later in the series (Edgeworth's 3-4 suit is sitting in his office, as one example)...
If you still can't tell what I mean, just start up any given case in the game, and watch its intro, at least in the first two games (3rd game generally altered its style of opening), then load up 1-5's intro.
The way the plot went...honestly, I felt it should have taken place AFTER 3-5. I won't get into details, but chronologically it would have fit better, and I feel the way Edgeworth acted, outside of his break down of "OH NO I USED FAULT EVIDENCE!" would have been more in character for him AFTER 2-4, not before.
1-5 wasn't intolerably bad like some one has made it out to be, but it definitely felt forced and like they were trying too hard to add another case to PW1 for the sake of "Hey, we have a new game called Apollo Justice, LETS BUILD UP HYPE FOR IT!" All I can say is thankfully the other 2 games didn't do that.
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Soul Calibur 3: I forgot how good this game is - always saw it as the bad sequel to SC2, but I've recently gone back to it and it's amazing. Currently doing Chronicles of the Sword with my housemate - we're controlling two characters each and are on the stage where you have to fight Luna and her 4 subordinates. We've beaten all of the Lv 60 characters so far - Cervantes posed some challenge, but Ivy/Astaroth took 3 and 2 attempts respectively. One of the bosses on this stage is posing more of a problem than either of those did.
Actually got back on this because a friend of mine, who's out of practice, decided to challenge me for the first time. I went ahead as Kilik vs. his Mitsurugi, but by the end, he'd won 19-13. Now he's practicing on SC4, so I'm practicing this to beat him. Love a bit of good competition. <3
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FFTA2 - I have been playing this for a while now since Pokemon lost its charming sheen as it is wont to for me about 3/4 of the way through a given game. Have been actively avoiding the main plot, just had Luso trip balls because of some swamp aids or something. Killing stuff.
I find it's more fun to rush through most of the main plot to gather all of the PCs with unique jobs and -then- go mission crazy.
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Haven't really been playing anything lately. Some Metroid Fusion on bus trips but that's it! Weirdly not in a super-gaming mood. Although I did play MMXCM yesterday since I am playing that when a certain friend visits for the lulz, and one can never play MMXCM enough.
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Finished pokemon white a few weeks ago. Pretty happy with the aftergame, less of a slog than HG/SS. Improved elite four were pretty good, the champion was a bit of a disappointment though (too many quad weaknesses). Cynthia's by far the hardest fight in the game, IMO, it's a bit of a shame I found her so early in the aftergame.
Mostly done postgame for 4 Heroes of Light now. I enjoyed the game a lot, it felt very much like a slightly polished NES FF sequel (just learned it was called FF Gaiden in Japan, so Square is clearly aware of this).
It was fun, pretty challenging.
Not enough documentation, for example I have no fucking clue how speed works in the game, my best guess is that there's some combination of a whole-party initiative score, which cycles as turns progress, within which works some sort of (abilityspeed + jobspeed)*random number equation, but that's just a guess. There're even abilities that affect speed but no stat or rating in-game to judge it by... That's probably the worst offender, actually, but there are others. Part of the "old-school" experience, I guess?
Very mechanically/tactically solid, though, and like I said quite pleasingly tough at times. The AP system is a gem, very simple at its core (you have 5 points, regain one per round or a second if you defend, abilities cost between 1 and 5 points... and that's it) but with a huge range of options that really change how you play as the game progresses. The system works better with more characters, though, so the decision to lump you with 1-2 for much of the early game seems a bit questionable.
Great class balance for a game with, like, 30 jobs. Suffers a bit from Black Mage and White Mage just kicking too much ass, but I've been pleasantly surprised to find every single job I explore totally playable and worth the time. None of the class-changing penalties/job levels necessary for confidence bullshit that FF3 suffered for either, so you've got a lot of ability to explore the options they've given you. Another quibble, changing jobs should have depleted your AP, it'd be a minor penalty that'd prevent you from switching to White Mage for the single AP of free healing you can get between battles (which is a bug, because it's annoying to do but there's no reason not to).
Story is basically nonexistent, and the game is both quite short and pads itself making you go through each dungeon twice. And despite/because of the nonexistent story the game clips along at a good pace, and is often surprisingly funny.
Final boss is one of the best (challenge-wise) I've seen in a while.
After-game's a bit dull, in the 4x100-story randomly generated dungeons sense. But it is challenging, gives regular enough rewards to keep me vaguely interested, so I still seem to be doing it (~2.75 towers of 4 completed).
Probably the pleasant surprise of the year for me, game-wise. Good show.
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So during the recent downtime I've been setting up my gaming PC (huzzah) and getting back to some old friends. While some have been a bit of a disappointment (I can't change the controls for Doom/Heretic? Boo!), others make me happy, none moreso than...
Team Fortress 2: At long last, I can play the ungimped version with other people! I've stuck to the default Orange Box maps so far. Whenever I create a server, nobody joins me. Sad face. I'm not very good, don't have a mike, in fact I don't even have sound yet. But I managed to kill a few people and got a few achievements. Yay me! Is it normal to have to wait 3-5 minutes for a server to load?
VVVVVV: Played for about 25 minutes so far, have rescued 2 of the crew. Died about 200 times. Whee!
Costume Quest: Bought and beat the Grubbins on Ice DLC in the same day. Much like the original game, it's short and sweet. You finally get to be a pirate!
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...no, people of Minimeet, I'm not posting that quite yet, mostly cause of time restraints, but I HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN!!!!
Ninja Gaiden Black: Just beat Chapter 6.
Mook Combat is still really good! Archer Demon Zombies are a pain in the ass though.
Giant Tentacle Demon was not that bad of a boss, though a little too damn easy.
Giant Dinosaur Skeleton thingy, meanwhile, was about as bland as you can get. Just run around a lot, jump when he throws his tail, use Helm Splitter a lot til he dies. No real thought involved really.
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Team Fortress 2: At long last, I can play the ungimped version with other people! I've stuck to the default Orange Box maps so far. Whenever I create a server, nobody joins me. Sad face. I'm not very good, don't have a mike, in fact I don't even have sound yet. But I managed to kill a few people and got a few achievements. Yay me! Is it normal to have to wait 3-5 minutes for a server to load?
Welcome aboard! You should give us your steam name so we can add you and maybe play sometime. As for server loading, it does take an unusually long amount of time for this type of game, I don't know if 3-5 minutes is exactly normal. What's your CPU like? TF2 hogs CPU time like nothing.
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VVVVVV: Played for about 25 minutes so far, have rescued 2 of the crew. Died about 200 times. Whee!
Heh. I played this last month and my final deathcount was somewhere around 650. Then I went back to get all the trinkets and racked up 150 more on the vedi/vidi/vici trinket alone. Before giving up. Fun little game, though. Thorough exploration of a simple gameplay concept that doesn't overstay its welcome.
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Ninja Gaiden II: In chapter 8. I was prepared for ninjas with rocket launchers. I was not prepared for ninjas with GATLING rocket launchers. Oh god the pain.
Sonic Colors: Got! Picket it up in a two-for-one-and-a-half deal at Toys R Us with the new DKC. Got through the first zone and started on Sweet Mountain. Liking it a lot.
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Castle Crashers: In a land, far far away...well, actually, we can't prove that, but really why does that matter? IF you try to answer that, you WILL be smacked upside the head by a sack of flour....
4 Knights were busy cleaning a cafeteria...so it seems. Actually, no one could tell what they were doing. They also all looked identical, except that they all had different colors. These great 4 knights were...
Xeroma, the Blue Knight, whom is about as generic as one can be! He has the element of Ice.
Tide, the Orange Knight, whom is the only person who has any clue what he's doing! The element of Fire is his forte. He also hails from the mystical land of Canada.
Meeple, the Red Knight, who has an affinity for shoving an axe to someone's head! The element of Lightning is his specialty.
And Oblivion Knight, the Green Knight, who seems to like going under the alias of a diety, and proclaim himself God. POISON is the name of his game!
Suddenly, admist this cleaning session, MONSTERS ATTACKED! The great Knights donned their weapons and went forth to save the day...only to see the Macguffin get stolen right under their eyes, and 4 beautiful (?) lasses get stolen too. This is the beginning of the story, ok? Heroic failures are assumed, cause the heroes aren't heroes yet, and everyone else is stupidly incompetent...
The 4 knights went off and beat the crap out of everything in their way, until a giant tank-like Ram appeared!
"Do not stand in the red target!" shouted Tide of the Orange, just as Meeple the Red was doing that very thing and got slammed by a bomb. "...of course, I say that as Meeple gets nearly killed" he follows up, and then says "By the way, jumping is a great way to do damage and you can stay aireborne if you hit things!"
"well, gee, that would have been nice to know earlier!" said Xeroma the Blue.
After defeating the tank, and many more minions, a MUCH LARGER MAN appeared, with the Red Princess tied up. The 4 valiant knights fought and prevailed against their large useless foe, and then cut the Princess free. However, there was but one problem in this mess...
THEY ALL WANTED HER! So naturally, the four Knights squared off and ATTACKED EACH OTHER! Oblivion Knight was quick to poison his opposition, and victory seemed his...until Meeple can flying at him, and sliced his head off. MEeple being the victor of this bloodfest, had rights to the Red Princess!
"Bah, I want the Green One! She's the minority!" shouted the Green one as he placed his head back on his shoulders.
Then a level up screen occurred! Each had decided to choose different paths, and would follow this method of training the entire way. To the Blue one, a Balanced Build, raising all stats evenly. As the team leader (being the first player), it is fitting he would have a protagonist build! To the Orange Knight, a tank Build...but with many strength boosts too. He would be the one that would take our hits. To the Red Knight, nothing but strength. SMASH is the name of his game, and SMASH he would do. To the Green one, a Magic build, and he would refuse to use anything but that for the rest of the game!
During a shopping trip to restock on supplies...
"Oh, right, we all have Bows and Arrows, which can be swapped to be used instead of Potions!" said the Tide the Knowledge-able.
The 3 other Knights all stood glaring at the Orange one, angered as such an aspect of advice would have been handy earlier. Alas, given the Speed Based nature, no one would ever gain a decent usage of the Bow.
In the forest the team went. As they ventured forth, many of the creatures seemed to have fear of something, evident by the fluids released from their bodies. As they crossed a large animal behind a bush...
"Say, does a bear shit in the woods?" said the Green one, only for a large disgusting sound to be heard "...I guess that answers that." As the team marched forward, a large black fuzzy monster appeared, but it was dispatched. The quartet cleaned their weapons and entered the shed...
...only to learn the monster in question was not that one, but an EVEN BIGGER large furry monster! Alas, the team could not fight back, so jumping upon 4 deer, the one boarded by Tide the Knowledge-able fueled by feces rocket power, SET FORTH TO RUN FROM THE VILE BEAST!
"Battletoads Reference...Meeple no like. MEEPLE SMASH!" said the Red one, as he flattened himself on the wall, knocking himself out from the race. Shortly after, Xeroma the Heroic met a similar fate, only for Tide the Knowledge-able and Oblivion Knight the Flatuent prevailed. Somehow, their success has brought back unto existence Meeple the Explosive and Xeroma the Heroic, only long enough for the entire team to fall down a waterfall, into a raging river.
Upon the river, the 4 Knights tried to make due jumping on logs, debris, sharks, alligators and corpses, fighting off whatever crazed enemy swarm they could make. After a long and grueling battle against the forces of Mookness, a large ship appeared...
Their lord, the King, had followed them, to aid them! It appears there was some luck i the midst...or so they thought, as right after, a Felince burst out of the water...one with fins and scales.
"Meeple see kitty...but kitties no like water or have fins. Meeple confused..."
"Aha! The Boss Catfish has arrived!" so the intellectual one
"Yes, a 'Cat'fish..." responded the azure protagonist.
"AWESOME! I want one!" said the Green one, as he charged in, Poison Magic in hand, and fired!
...a 1 appeared.
"Meeple think that weak! MEEPLE SMASH LARGE KITTY!" as he did the same effect.
"Guys, we need to form a plan..." the Canadian one said.
"Hey, King, why don't you fire your cannon at that...monstrosities...teeth?" said the would-be Main Character.
"Huh? Me? You mean I'm suppose to do something...well, I guess if he coughs up a hairball..." his highness stated...just as an aquatic hairball was formed "...ok, FIRING THE CANNON!"
With the cannon ball fired, the Feline's mouth opened, the team attacked with full force! Upon several vollies later, and the...thing...ramming into the ship several times over, our 4 heroes were victorious!
As they wandered off, what new perils await them? What new evil demons will the 4 have to face? And will the idea of focusing entirely in POISON MAGIC turn out to be a good idea? Stay tuned for the next episode of CASTLE CRASHERS: DL STYLE!
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Meeple: *thumbs up* WRITE MOAR NAO. Haven't even gotten to the more awesome parts!
X-Men Legends 2: Inside some giant cathedral thing. Team is Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Gambit and of course, WELCOME TO DIE. They seemed like the best 4 characters off hand, although upon further reading, Juggernaut is pretty good. Magneto and Nightcrawler most likely have no equal though. Thoughts...
Nightcrawler - X Men Legends has this glitch, where if you don't invest a point into Teleport Attack, the stronger version, Teleport Frenzy, costs no Energy. To make things more dumb, Frenzy is a move that makes Nightcrawler invincible until he attacks. And each time he attacks he can also stun enemies. Oh and its GT. It's basically so dumb that Nightcrawler can probably beat the game by himself. You might be thinking, well since its a pretty obscure glitch, you can't take advantage it. Not true, since XML2 adds the feature of being able to redistribute your skills. So, if you just found out about this gimmick, GUESS WHAT YOU CAN DO. He wasn't bad before learning this move either. Quite possible Game MVP
Magneto - One of the best party members because he combines Might, Flight, Bridge building, and some good team skills together. He's actually one of the more *tanky* PCs, although this requires you to dump points into his passives. Magneto basically has a bunch of good skills, but never enough points to buy it all. DL-wise, this would make him outright nasty. He has a buff that blocks all damage 69% of the time when maxed, and he can reflect projectiles and reduce the damage from melee attacks.
Wolverine - A solid tank and good character for the first half anyway. He's got plenty of damage, and he's pretty resilient on the receiving end. In most of these ARPG games, Wolverine has the same weakness - lack of solid crowd control. Not in this one! So he's pretty damn good. DL wise, he's an ID whore. He has a skill which lets him ID enemies around 80% of the time when maxed.
Gambit - Very solid in-game as you can build him one of two ways. A melee character or a ranged supporter. So he can be easily shoehorned as a 4th if needed. His main weakness is that someone else will be better than him at his task. He's great otherwise though, but a bit energy intensive.
Sin & Punishment 2 - Got to Stage 6. If the game wasn't already over the top, Stage 5 will change that opinion. It is FANTASTIC.
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SO3- Everyone give Dhyer cookies, he has achieved the impossible. After severe testing on Lucy at Dhyer's place, he successfully raised my Lucy respect!!
Perfect Symmetry actually has a improved invinci frame in the English version!! It is actually hard to knock out now!! It took me like 20 tries of Vertical Air Raid to figure out how to knock Lucy out of it and the only move I can constantly knock Lucy out with is Crescent Locus. Lies!! Lies!! Lucy can reliably kill people with Perfect Symmetry now!!
Oddly, Insanity Prelude who is hard as fuck to interrupt in the Japanese version become fairly easy to do, but then, who needs that when Perfect Symmetry becomes reliable now. Only if it can become faster, Maria can still outrun it, and the hit and way strategy still work. Still didn't see him beats fat or evasive characters, but at least I think he is a high heavy now!!! And most of all, he can kill Ghaleon now!!
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GT5 - Did the epic final battle verses the Pagini Zonda and its 10 goons in my Acura DN-X Concept. My car has a power level of around 540 while Zonda boasts a heavy 780 but it didn't matter as I beat it in all the races through greater handling, some off roading and some cheating on the side as in the second map I smashed into the Zonda's side and while I ended up stright he wasn't so lucky shall we say.
The reward was the Veyron the FASTEST CAR IN THE UNIVERSE! Well okay maybe not but its still damn fast as hell and screw handling when you have all that speed to compensate. Now all thats left is to beat that bastard Go karter and his huge Karting skills. I have so far been uncapable to defeat him in the final event but I will win with time. No superboss will be beating me.
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Rival Schools: Surprisingly fun for a PSX fighting game with zero polish.
SoulSilver- Three badges gotten. Steelix takes 1 damage from something that OHKOed Snorlax. Steelix buffed defense is silly.
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Snorlax defense actually isn't very good. But your point stands.
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I'm guessing it was a Rock or
Poison-type attack, since Steelix takes 1/4 damage from those. EDIT: immune to Poison, I'm stupid.
Also yay to Shale for Rival Schools. That game is awesome. Pity my copy got stolen.
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And now in big news, I got an Xbox 360. Was going to need a new system for MvC3, so went ahead and bit the bullet. Got the 250GB version, so I'm extra poor now.
Have the following games: Halo ODST, Dead Rising, Blazblue (CT, not CS), Star Ocean 4, Orange Box, Super Street Fighter 4, and Mirror's Edge.
Gamertag is shibakevin if anyone wants to add me.
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Left 4 Dead 2 PC - Gives me Blue Screen of Death. :'(
VVVVVV - Beat. Got 14 shiny things, 463 deaths, most in The Final Challenge.
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My guess is Super got hit by a fully powered up ROLLOUT from Miltank.
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That would be correct, Tide.
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Have the following games: Halo ODST, Dead Rising, Blazblue (CT, not CS), Star Ocean 4, Orange Box, Super Street Fighter 4, and Mirror's Edge.
Start with SO4 to get the disappointment out of the way.
To give you an idea of how disappointing it is... I liked it, but even -I'm- warning you.
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FE9: Got me a Mia! Also lost me a Shinon and a Gatrie. I've been putting off this stage now, methinks, since this was always the first one that destroyed me every time I tried a new challenge. First play through? Yeah, took a few attempts. Keep everyone alive? Not happening. I'm wondering what Hard Mode has in store to rape me completely. In the meantime...
Suikoden V: Finally got back to this one! I've been randomly going to Oboro for some character backgrounds - Suiko characters seem so much better with just 3 little summaries of character, which says a lot about Suiko characterisation, doesn't it? >.> In other news, I got me a Galleon, Cathari, Hazuki and.. some others. (Naturally, using a guide.) Oh, got Killey too. Just reached the Dwarven Mines again (on my way to recruit a Dragon Cavalry), so I'm assuming I get to recruit Gunde soon.
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Start with SO4 to get the disappointment out of the way.
To give you an idea of how disappointing it is... I liked it, but even -I'm- warning you.
I'll probably still like it, I <3 tri-Ace that much. Would have bought Infinite Undiscovery also, but Gamestop was missing one of the discs for it.
New game time!
SSF4: Is sexy. Figured I'd beat the game with 1+ characters per day just to get a feel for everything. Done Honda, Juri, Ryu so far. Why isn't Cammy the final boss? Her A.I. is crazy good, much better than Seth's.
Blazblue: What is this I don't even... Yeah, this game is weird, both in story and gameplay. I'll probably shelve it until I wear out SSF4. It's too different and I don't want to learn two fighters at once.
Dead Rising: Well this is disappointing. Based on Frank's appearance in Tatsunoko vs Capcom, I assumed this was a "kill zombies in a variety of wacky manners" game. Turns out it's a srs bsns "solve zombie mystery before time runs out" game like Resident Evil. Not that those are bad, but not what I was expecting.
Halo ODST: Campaign sucks, but who plays Halo for campaign? It's all about the multiplayer, and my kid and I are having fun blowing each other up in amusing fashion.
Team Fortress 2: More multiplayer shootiness. Am I mistaken or is there no offline mode? Anyhoo, I'm not very good at these games so I mostly just die a lot. Only tried Scout so far.
Half Life 2: Is very Portal-y. Although I guess this game is older, so Portal is very Half Life-y.
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TF2 has an offline mode in the sense there's a 1 player practice thing which goes over some basics of the Soldier class(which I would suggest if you're new, it's fairly easy to pick up but extremely powerful), and also the attack/defend gameplay mode on Dustbowl. You could also I guess make your own server and fill it up with bots I guess, but unless you have a top of the line computer that's probably not an option.
If you want another suggestion, Medic is straightforward and always appreciated by other teammates. Heavy is arguably overpowered now and extremely simple.
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Trips, he's playing the 360 port. You know, the one that never got any updates :/ Meaning it lacks 1P training mode/tutorial mode.
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Oh. Well in that case learn Demoman and laugh as everything dies to you all the time, what with your undestroyable stickies that can't be airblasted and pipes that do full damage even if you're halfway across the map.
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Sin & Punishment 2: Did some practice scoring runs. Uploading to youtube as a sort of Let's Play. But I skip cutscenes, so maybe not. Still, give them a watch if you're curious about the game.
XML2 - Up to New York City with SENTINELS. Subbed in Storm for Gambit, who has an Extreme move that gives everyone invulnerability to protect an AI Guest. This would be pretty stupid if it ran off energy.
Donkey Kong Country Returns: Only playing this with Sis. We got up to mine cart area level and lost at least 50 lives. Fun times were had.
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Capn' K, if you're looking for RPGs on the 360, I highly recommend Tales of Vesperia and Blue Dragon. Both should be relatively cheap by now, and both are rather good.
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New game time!
For Dead Rising, you can ignore the story if you want and just go around killing zombies.
For TF2, if you select the developer's commentary options, you can go around three of the maps to learn the layout. For a beginner, I'd suggest either Demoman (Trips is right with the pipebombs) or Soldier (closest to standard FPS playing).
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Suikoden 5: Complete! For a game I put off for so long, I ended up really enjoying the second half of it. Final party was Freyjadour/Lyon/Miakis/Bernadette/Zerase/Cathari, although I did use Georg, Kyle, Jeane and Shoon for a fair bit. Got the 'true' ending (going back to the castle, all 108 stars). Having one-rounded Dolph and Sialeeds in the earlier fights, I tried underlevelling myself again - seems I managed to get back to average by the end, since I didn't completely destroy Sialeeds2/Alenia/Zahhak and the final bosses were actually pretty problematic (although not enough for me to lose, apparently.)
Have to say, the final few War Battles were disappointing. Those basically came down to "Spam Flowing/Recover, win", which wouldn't've been so bad if the enemies did a little more damage - that said, I think those were unbalanced on the whole, what with some enemy units being perfectly capable of OHKOing some allied units.
Anyways, going into this expecting the normal SuikoFAQbait, it was still kinda dull for the first half, but really picked up later in the game. Story kept going much longer than I was expecting, but didn't drag on for so long that I started to expect it, which is good.
Anyways, back to FE9 now, I guess...
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Atelier Iris- PLAYED. So I've been wanting to play it on and off since this summer, and haven't had much success at finishing games I've already started, soooo I just played AI1. Anyway, being a TV Tropes fanatic, I'd heard speculation that AI1 switched gears mid-development in a big way, and honestly playing the game I felt like I could see the welds where they cobbled the original design (which might be called Atelier Veola) into a more traditional, battle-centric RPG. That said, fun. Lacks in polish, but has the core Atelier stuff in abundance, and the battle system is entertaining enough (although given how few dungeons, and therefore new sets of enemies, there are it tends to streak. You get stronger very slowly, so you'll basically be playing along then suddenly things can hurt you.) The game did feel needlessly stingy with items at times, but otherwise I have few complaints.
Not going to go too deep into the cast, Klein is kinda Generic McHeroguy, Lita is one of those sources of "obvious spotwelds" I mentioned, and the rest of the cast is minor and doesn't pretend not to be. Beggur has the seeds of several different brands of ham, which is great and makes up for the main villain (such as the game has a villain or main plot) being such a tool. Actually it's kinda funny, the actual plot is basically 80% "we need to save Lita!... oh wow we have no idea what we're doing", with about 10% for intro and 10% for "quick, end the game before we fuck it up!". It kinda works though.
So yeah, basically the game is actually about Veola, who has a nice character arc and is remarkably believable for a Gust female. Or at least a Gust female in a non-Atelier-heroine role. Then again, see above. That she plays next to no role in the endgame is kinda disheartening, but I guess they didn't want to have multiple variable scenes.
And now, and for the first time in ages it's both possible and interesting, DL notes!
Klein- So I have no idea what the heck Eph was testing on, because my item damage was way lower than his. On the other hand, all my damage was lower in about the same proportion. So basically, what I'm saying here is that Klein's got the damage. It's kinda funny since in-game he's more likely a healbot, but that's more to do with non-alchemy items being kinda meh. Probably still some sort of heavy, despite the everything-you-could-want skillset; even with his well rounded Veola accessories, his speed's never going to be good and his defense is pretty bad.
Lita- Man, the game just does not want you to use her. *ahem* Anyways, entirely focused on speed. The complete lack of utility is too bad, although I'll admit I never check out her last skill. It might push her up a bit considering First Attack. Gut says lackluster Middle though.
Delsus- So, I'm not sure what the heck I gave him that did it, but all his attacks loved to add Sleep. Maybe Paw Gloves? I dunno. Anyway, assuming that was from some non-innate talent, he's a lot worse in the DL than in-game. Feint Attack is pretty great, but not so helpful in a one on one at DL speeds. Dark Shot could help some, but I'm not sure; AI1 status doesn't have very good duration, although the actual affect of the statuses is pretty good. Counter might help, but not a whole lot. Probably a solid Light, at a guess.
Norn- I totally didn't use Norn at all. She's fast! And... fast! Unlike Lita, the damage doesn't really add up very well, and while her defensive skill covers the durability against elements, the defense is not really salvageable, especially without HP boosting. Even without trying out Turn 2 Candy, I've played too many other Atelier games to respect that as some sort of death strike. Light, probably Flonne-level.
Arlin- Reminds me of Flay, as a dueller. Blocking, damage, a quick and effective buff, good stuff. Reflects in-game well, he really does the lion's share of the damage while Klein's healing everyone constantly because you have to wait a long, long time for Heal Bulbs. Middle, not a bad one.
Marietta- So you'd think she'd be good. Guts and Healing! Well, no. Guts just isn't reliable enough to get DL credit, and while she's got the defense to pull off Healing, her speed makes it pretty easy to lock her down. Damage isn't great, although she can get away with just using her base physical at least, saving all her SP for heals. Light.
Veola- spamming Globes and Milk Scopes lets her rival Klein for damage, and she has at least some healing, but it's not nearly as potent and she's even frailer. I still kneejerk Middle though.
Anyway, probably an 8/10. Very engaging despite the nitpicky flaws.
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DQIX - In the time since I last posted here I played, and beat this.
Generally a good game which felt, well, like it was just short of DQVIII on pretty much every mark. This isn't much of an insult since I have a high opinion of DQVIII, and the job system is different enough to avoid the direct comparison that would have killed it. Aftergame was dissapointing, seeming like it'd have something vaguely Lunar 2 like, since there were parts of the map I hadn't even reached yet. But when it became clear that there was nothing but aimless questing/treasure hunting, I returned the game and called it quits.
Final Party was like so. First class was for penultimate dungeon, second for final boss
Idris, Sword focused Armamentalist Lv 33/Warrior Lv 31, used Falcon Slash a lot
Titania Gladiator Lv 39, Helm Splitter all the way, also skilled with Lances.
Caleb Paladin Lv 33/Priest Lv 35, healing and support mostly.
Anna Priest Lv 36/Sage Lv 29, Omniheal, Omniheal, Omniheal.
Story was alright for what it was, just horribly short and showing the DQ series bad habit of having each area have its own separate plot that doesn't interact with anything else and which gives you a shiny when you deal with the local issues. Props to the game for giving some slight sequence breaking in the Fygg gathering section. But the main plot itself is very short, with a complete stall in the middle and no real explaination of how the villain a) became threatening, or b) how your solution to other issues left you able to still compete. I assume the world has a very flat power curve. The real issue here is that unlike DQVIII which had a fairly engaging core party, here you have a party of generics, and only one person trying to make up the slack. And while Stella was less amusing than Trode, this feels like a disservice to Stella because Trode was helped a lot by having Yangus, Angelo and Jessica to play off of, and even Charmles for the time he's around (no NPC manages to live up to Charmles standard).
To make up for this, the gameplay is aided by the class system, which works fairly well and helps spice up combat. Mixing and matching traits was nice as well. Some weapons unfortunately felt like they got shafted having very few classes with access to them. Granted, Gladiator was a nice class to be in regardless, but Axes still felt like a weaker choice in general to swords because half the freaking classes can use swords, while only two can use axes, and one of those didn't feel that strong. That said, with the class system and polished skill system, the gameplay is the strongest I've seen in a DQ yet.
Which is good since the synthesis felt like a very clear step down. Needing more materials was only part of it as the thing that got to me most was it being tied to one part of the world instead of being in the menu. This made it far less convenient to do as the Quester's Rest just wasn't someplace I went very often by midgame as there'd almost always be a closer inn and the prices are all trivial.
All in all, likely a 7/10 game.
Other things I'm playing, still puttering along in SRW@1.
Just reached map 45, and am about to have access to the YF-19, so happy days. I'm amused that there seems to be something going on with Isamu and Noriko, though my skills at deciphering the moon runes are nowhere near good enough to figure out what. Nu Gundam is currently also a credit to the team, and there hasn't been much of the way of changes to the team. Just picked up a Huckbein MkIII, which proved to be nice to have on its maiden run. Though having +40 Morale on everyone else will tend to do that. The Valkyries are also impressing me, since I'm kinda shocked that their @G form is actually nerfed. At least here it seems to matter more what form you're in with Gerwalk making your evade suck, which seems a fair trade.
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Capn' K, if you're looking for RPGs on the 360, I highly recommend Tales of Vesperia and Blue Dragon. Both should be relatively cheap by now, and both are rather good.
SO4 is barely a tri-Ace game at all. No choice in party members, your item creation is totally handcuffed (moreso than even VP2) and there's only one goddamn ending. The only part they got right was having a bunch of characters I dont care about... but they forgot to get the 2-3 I did.
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Wow, I agree with Excal's DQIX summary almost word for word.
I have been playing FFXIII for the last two months, and am staring at the end game now (barely done any side content up to this point). I was not expecting to like this game since I have hated every new Final Fantasy game released after 10, but it might just end up being one of my favorites--or maybe #5 in the series for me--despite the story being so absurdly silly and me feeling no reasonable justification to save Cocoon. It is a refreshingly challenging RPG. I have heard some people say it's easy, and I kind of wonder how they arrived at that conclusion, as I have been dying on a regular basis. Anyway, since I wasn't expecting to like it I'm pretty impressed. Some neat little throwbacks to old games were icing on the cake (like that one area named after the empire in FF2).
I finished Professor Layton and the Mysterious Village the other day. As with all puzzle games, the total lack of replay value kind of ruins it for me, but it was pleasant enough. Story was lacking depth, as the only real interesting character is Layton himself, and he seems to just be an observer, which I doubt will ever change. I'd play the sequel, though.
After finishing Layton I started up Golden Sun 3, and OH MY GOD STOP TALKING, PLEASE. I mean, this was a problem in GS1 and 2, but I never expected them to make it EVEN WORSE. One summary of GS1 and 2 was fine. I didn't need (counting) four of them. They should have just made the training area the only summary, as it was the coolest so far. Overall, this game so far feels like a gigantic rehash, and that's sort of disturbing because I really liked how GS2 became a big, open-ended huntathon whereas GS1 was linear and expected something radically different again. le sigh.
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Monsterworld IV: Sometimes called Wonderboy VI, although that title wouldn't make any sense since you control a girl in this one.
Anyway, compared to Wonderboy V, this game is less exploration and more action. Combat and platforming is more refined and once you beat a place, you can't return to it. Make sure you pick up all power up items unless you feel comfortable without them.
I beat the first dungeon. I will try not to upgrade my shield since I want to see if the drop in defense actually does something. In earlier playtrough I upgraded my shield and enemies always did 1 heart of damage with the exception of an auto lose plot battle. I'll see if any enemy will deal more damage or at least he plot boss does it.
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If I had to guess one of the reasons why FF13 is considered "Easy" by many, it'd be because there's the fact that there's no penalty to dying at all. When you die, all that happens is you're set like 5 steps away from the battle that killed you, exactly as you were right before the battle; if there was a plot scene involved, and the fight forced a character you had no chance to prepare or something (see Snow's return, for example), it often puts you in the menu to let you quickly re-equip, use CP, etc. before going into battle.
But yeah, FF13 is not completely easy, as the game does force you to use the system, and you will find yourself dying. Just because of the fact that there's no penalty to dying, I guess people don't have fond memories of actually retrying areas/fights over and over again, cause simple trial and error works.
That said...
FF8: Dicking around on Disc 2 cause my next area is Trabia Garden...you can see why I'm dicking around <_<. I did the Shumi VIllage quest, trying now to remove randomness rule from Trabia cause I hate that rule.
NGB: I just blew up two tanks using Bows and Arrows. The game is awesome even when the fights are stupid <_<
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If I had to guess one of the reasons why FF13 is considered "Easy" by many, it'd be because there's the fact that there's no penalty to dying at all.
Very likely, I've seen it happen quite a lot of times that a lack of penalty for death is interpret as the game being easy.
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This is the part where Grefter jumps in and claims that the game is easy because there is one strategy that always works, no exceptions. So not only is it easy, it is boring.
It's an... understandable view that a lot of people seem to have, even if I don't personally agree with it.
Games:
Dissidia: Been playing around with this after Meeple showed me some gameplay trailers of the new game. It's not quite as engaging as it was before... The only character I have any fun playing as anymore is Terra. Everyone else feels... sluggish or inaccurate. And collecting the EX mode items is a pain. It kind of annoys me that they are keeping this particular mechanic wholesale for the next game.
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It's also easy because most of the game is limited to holding up to run down a corridor.
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Honestly, given a choice between challenge that has few "consequences" but is respectful of my time, and challenge that carries consequences, e.g. makes me redo stuff I've already done, I'll go for the former every time (if my super unbiased wording hadn't given my preference away ^_^). I'd rather a game be a series of individually tricky puzzles/fights/whatever (FF13 and Puzzlequest spring to mind, 4 Heroes of Light too, come to think of it) than a long slow test of my ability to make few enough mistakes that I don't run out of potions before the end of the dungeon (DQwhatever). Extreme example, FF3's final dungeon. Fuck that.
Borrowed NEB's copy of Valkyrie Profile 2, maybe 5 hours in. I like the battle system, still deciding on the character-building aspects (which I'm told "some people"/Ciato have issues with).
But one thing that bothers me about it is that the game doesn't really respect my time. Not so much in the challenge stuff above (it's been pretty easy so far, but with some promisingly tricky fights, reliable save points before bosses), but with long unskippable attack animations, grindy sidequests, hard to navigate menus that require a lot of doubling back/working from memory. Generally I think this mostly boils down to a strange sort of user-unfriendliness which I find a bit offputting, and which often results in simple tasks taking way longer than they ought to. Granted, this is common to Tri-Ace games, but VP2 is so polished in other ways that it seems unusually pronounced. That or I'm getting less tolerant of it as I get older.
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Honestly, given a choice between challenge that has few "consequences" but is respectful of my time, and challenge that carries consequences, e.g. makes me redo stuff I've already done, I'll go for the former every time (if my super unbiased wording hadn't given my preference away ^_^). I'd rather a game be a series of individually tricky puzzles/fights/whatever (FF13 and Puzzlequest spring to mind, 4 Heroes of Light too, come to think of it) than a long slow test of my ability to make few enough mistakes that I don't run out of potions before the end of the dungeon (DQwhatever). Extreme example, FF3's final dungeon. Fuck that.
I agree. This is how I designed my game, Motrya, and based on my response to the first demo it seems like the best idea in general. This is actually one of the reasons I have always liked FF:MQ.
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There's room for a happy medium, but most RPGs you're gonna want to go with the option that doesn't call for as much repetition.
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The biggest time waster? Attack animations. Let me see them a couple times and then make them no more than a couple seconds long.
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So true. DDS, FFX, Suikoden 1/2, all much better for keeping things concise.
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Oh man. I'm planning Pokemon teams.
I downloaded Pokemon Online to start working on teams for VGC '11, and it's hilariously awesome. The metagame is new and original again, which makes things really interesting - everyone's testing new things and trying to see what works. Trick Room is looking brutal, but Erufuun is looking infinitely moreso, to the point that each team should be running Erufuun, running a counter to it, or both. Let me just go find my list again...
<@Yoshiken> Just gathered up a list of all the moves it can use at priority-speed.
<@Yoshiken> And these are just the ones that'll be useful at VGC '11, mind!
<@Yoshiken> Leech Seed, Substitute, Taunt, Encore, Toxic, Sunny Day, Charm, Cotton Spore, Tickle, Growth, Tailwind, Light Screen, Safeguard, Rest, Attract, Trick Room, Fake Tears, Switcheroo, Worry Seed, Stun Spore, Helping Hand.
Okay, so not all of those'll be useful - Worry Seed is one that's not likely to see use, but it has some theoretical worth! But yeah, Erufuun is nuts.
I'm currently trying out a few teams - got a team of just standard attackers which.. isn't doing amazingly. Ran it against a friend's badly thrown together team and still nearly got beaten, which is just :psyduck:. Ran a TR team against a few people, which was doing better if I didn't bother throwing up the TR. :/
Now about to test out some weather teams, and I'm expecting the Sandstorm one to be sickening, thanks to Doryuuzu. That said, I think all of my teams might just run Erufuun because THEY FREAKING CAN.
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DMC3SE: Mission 8, Vergil was kinda easy bro
Psychonauts: Rank 10, so I can burn animals but unfortunately not other people
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This is the part where Grefter jumps in and claims that the game is easy because there is one strategy that always works, no exceptions. So not only is it easy, it is boring.
It's an... understandable view that a lot of people seem to have, even if I don't personally agree with it.
Only saying something because Djinn did.
For record, this one strategy that always works is "Use the party setup the game gives you automatically the first time you have three characters" and "Remember that chapter when you had no Commando's? Remember how much that sucked? Use Commandos with your Ravagers!" while it helpfully provides everyone at least one of those two classes and a support class and half the cast has access to both Commando and Ravager. Pro tip: The game is easy because the way to win is to have a setup that uses Commandos and Ravagers in some permutation.
Things can kill you, yeah. It likes to throw super strong monsters near you that you are meant to come back and fight later in Chapter 10. Death costs you nothing at all, like less than Wild ARMs 2 death. On the off chance that you let yourself die by not changing to a healing paradigm, or using a summon to full heal everyone, or using one of so many "Not die for free" options the game gives you that is.
Seriously, you spend more time mashing attack and winning in FF13 than you do in FF7 which is the game which defined the stereotype of mash X to win in RPGs.
Pokemans Platinum - Picked this back up after needing a break from FFTA2. I have 5 badges and haven't played for a while, had no idea where to go. Went down a route I hadn't killed everyone on. That took me back to the centre town. Tried to go north. I need Strength. Now I remember why I normaly get bored with Pokemans after 2/3 of the game. Because that is where they take their hands off the wheel and go "LOOK DUDE NO HANDS LOL WORK IT OUT YOURSELF" after railroading you for so long. Fine on replays, but tedious first plays through.
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Sonic Colors: Finished Sweet Mountain and Starlight Carnival. Pretty impressive. I'm really liking the 2D segments - they feel like the natural evolution of the Sonic style, moreso than the Rush games or Sonic 4 (which was true to the series but not much of an evolution). 3D segments are entertaining, if not as impressive. I preferred Sonic Unleashed's execution-focused time-trial style to the high-speed-platformer approach Colors takes, but it's still fun.
The writing is all kinds of amusing, of course.
Ninja Gaiden II: Chapter 9. Got the Vigoorian Flail - which has a freaking ridiculous variation on the Flying Swallow now - and have more yellow essence than I can ever possibly need. Now I just have to deal with a really annoying boss fight in the dragons. Whee.
Could be worse, though. This level also introduces zombies based on Ash Williams.
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Honestly, given a choice between challenge that has few "consequences" but is respectful of my time, and challenge that carries consequences, e.g. makes me redo stuff I've already done, I'll go for the former every time (if my super unbiased wording hadn't given my preference away ^_^). I'd rather a game be a series of individually tricky puzzles/fights/whatever (FF13 and Puzzlequest spring to mind, 4 Heroes of Light too, come to think of it) than a long slow test of my ability to make few enough mistakes that I don't run out of potions before the end of the dungeon (DQwhatever). Extreme example, FF3's final dungeon. Fuck that.
Can't say I disagree with this at all. The FF3 Final Dungeon stunt was a clear case of superficial difficulty; no, its not THAT hard, but the fact that you have to redo it EVERYTIME YOU LOSE means you don't really get adequate chance to practice strategies against the CoD, so you have to bank on something, and hope it works. This isn't to say she'd be easy, but she gives an illusion of being harder than she is because of that stunt.
IT really is a good example of why A Lot Of Save Points is *NOT* a bad thing (or alternatively, "Save Anywhere" like, say, Pokemon has.) At the very least, there should be a save point before any real boss fight, or a huge chain of battles, or whatever. Being unable to genuinely practice new strategies until something works is part of what makes the "redo long section" nonsense so bad...obviously, the whole "Waste of time" thing is a big deal too.
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Shmups use a very precisely designed system for difficulty often because of this exact problem, generally producing short games where the earlygame allows you to do better, making it more likely to do well in the lategame.
And short is 30 minutes in general. I can't emphasize that enough. Also they tend to be consistantly difficult(albiet with a curve), which produces a general feeling of being hard in *all* ways, not just some. There are more elements than just this, but this is a good basic statement.
What I'm saying here is if you're going to use the large time loss method, you have to think about how and why. I disagree that it's always bad, but it's always going to be niche. But when games just toss out lol lose two hours randomly because you made mistakes or got cheapshotted? Bad design in any game. The shorter scenarios are, among things, simply easier to make a good game with, even if they fuck up and make erratic or annoying challenge it tends to be more paletable when you're muscling through it to get back to good parts.
Oh, and I take exception to attrition dungeon design being a bad thing because it makes you lose large amounts of time. It doesn't have to do that at all! People just need to give the PCs less resources if they're going to do that. You don't give someone dozens of healing spells and then try to attrition them. It's bad form.
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Team Fortress 2: I've unlocked a few new things (Gunboats, FAN, Huntsman), but mostly I've been playing around with the new medieval map they've got for the holiday. Basically, it's very small, melee only (except for the Sniper's bow), and proof that I still suck. As you may have heard, Finali is much better than me.
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SO4: WHAT DID THEY DO TO WELCH I HATE THIS GAME
SSF4: Abused the Zangief Spinning Clothesline trick to blast through Hardest difficulty. Didn't get to fight Gouken though because of the lack of Ultra finishes.
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I see CK is having a good start with SO4
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Monsterworld IV: Beat it. It's a much shorted game than Wonderboy III and V, but I find it more fun while it lasts.
Fighting is fun, at least while the game is balanced (I'll get more into balance later) as all of Asha's moves are useful, but not overpowered. I even found some effects that I don't think was intended to be an actual combat move useful. For example, if Asha comes into contact with an enemy and that enemy isn't attacking, she will bounce off of it unharmed. Sometimes I deliberately had Asha jump into an enemy to get her to bounce off into a better position.
You have a Papelongo with you, some sort of flying pet, that helps with the platforming elements. You can either throw it forward which will cause it to interact with the environment or you can use it to double jump. It's simple and works great.
The game is also really cute. The main character is a cute girl who's accompanied by a cute pet. When Asha finds an item in a treasure chest, she looks really happy and when she downstabbs, she looks really into it and so on.
There are two design decisions that hampers the game though.
I decided not to upgrade my shield in this playtrough since shields raises defense and I wanted to know if defense actually does anything. As it turned out, against the unbeatable plot boss I did take more damage than in previous playtroughs, but every other enemy in the game still only did one heart of damage. Environmental hazzards such as jumping into a bottomless pit, being crushed by a block and so on also only does one heart of damage. This is a problem since Asha will get more and more hearts as she progress. At the end she had about 25 hearts and an elixir that restores all hearts. Even if you play safe an uses the elixir with three hearts left, that's still 47 times enemies has to hit Asha to kill her. The first time you play the game this is actually plausible, as the game goes on enemy attack pattern and the platforming becomes really awkward. This is a pity since Asha has both great combat and platforming moves and deliberately frustrating them isn't a good idea. A setup where it's easier to avoid damage, but if Asha does get hit anyway she takes more damage, would have been better.
The game already has a damage=attack-defense system programmed in, it's just that said system isn't used in a meaningful way. Well, shields are nevertheless useful as they provide elemental defense (about 1/3 chance of not getting hurt by the elements in question) and the best shield covers everything except some environmental hazards.
The other problem is that the papelongo grows or otherwise changes between stages. This sounds like a fun quirk at first, but it ends up getting in the way of the game. The papelongo interacts with the environment in many ways and those interactions has unique animations. For example, he may blow out a fire. Now, designing new animations for a bigger papelongo was to much of a work to bother doing, so old areas are walled off together with the max health powerups you may have missed. For the last two stages the papelongo also goes trough a change that really makes the gameplay less fun. It's part of the story that the papelongo grows and develops, but for a game with such a barebone story, it doesn't pay to let story impair with the gameplay.
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I really liked Monster World 4, but the soundtrack gets sooo god damn irritating after a while. The gameplay reminds me of Kirby Super Star, only with more challenge. Fun way to waste a few hours at any rate.
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Replaying PS4 because man, it's been a while. Up to Zio's Fort. Also: ...Igglanova can be ID'd? Bwahahaha. Never knew that.
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X-men the Arcade Game: Magneto can bite me.
Ninja Gaiden Black: Electric Worms and Sewer Stages can bite me.
Final Fantasy 8: Horrible Orphanage Related Plot Twists can bite me.
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Golden Sun DD - This game is a let down. At first it was average and easy and I was fine with that I mean its the start of the game and all. And 18 hours later its still the same easy puzzles, easy battles, crappy characters, plot, the lot.
Whats sad is the combat would be great if it wasn't all so easy. Mid game bosses should not be 10HKOing my characters damn it. Yeah saying a GS game is easy is not the most shocking thing ever but this game is the easiest of the lot and a new born baby could beat this damn game.
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Golden Sun DD - This game is a let down. At first it was average and easy and I was fine with that I mean its the start of the game and all. And 18 hours later its still the same easy puzzles, easy battles, crappy characters, plot, the lot.
Whats sad is the combat would be great if it wasn't all so easy. Mid game bosses should not be 10HKOing my characters damn it. Yeah saying a GS game is easy is not the most shocking thing ever but this game is the easiest of the lot and a new born baby could beat this damn game.
You forgot that they never stop talking
Please, please stop talking
This is the first game I have played in a long time that I'm considering returning almost a week later
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So it's Golden Sun made 9 years later.
I'm shocked, I really am.
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I have started Golden Sun DD as well, why I have spent money on it I don't know. I just needed something different to play. I am loving it. It is bad in all the ways I expect GS to be, it is easy, stupid and it sucks hard.
On the other hand I get to make Matthew (Fagballs) make ANGRY FACE in response to every piece of dialogue and laugh at how inappropriately the game interprets that response to be. Like Garret's retarded son being a retard ANGRY FACE and Garret snaps back at you telling you not to get pissy at him.
On the other hand though, the world did not need to know that Garret grows up to have a pornstache in his mid forties.
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I have started Golden Sun DD as well, why I have spent money on it I don't know. I just needed something different to play. I am loving it. It is bad in all the ways I expect GS to be, it is easy, stupid and it sucks hard.
On the other hand I get to make Matthew (Fagballs) make ANGRY FACE in response to every piece of dialogue and laugh at how inappropriately the game interprets that response to be. Like Garret's retarded son being a retard ANGRY FACE and Garret snaps back at you telling you not to get pissy at him.
On the other hand though, the world did not need to know that Garret grows up to have a pornstache in his mid forties.
I also pick ANGRY face for every single reaction. Sometimes it makes no sense and it's beautiful. The villains in this game are absolutely horrible, by the way. Remember how the ones in the previous games were never threatening in the least? Hahahaha, they have nothing on these losers.
I am playing without the text box noises. I think if I had left them on I might have broken my DS in half already.
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Dead Rising: I'm really not liking this game. It's too... busy. Too many things happening at the same time in different parts of the mall to keep up with. And the gunfight with Carlito was absolutely retarded. Now there's escaped convicts driving over me in a jeep. Speaking of games that make you redo large sections if you die: this one. Also, why does it take three hits to kill zombies with a frying pan but only one with a lead pipe? Didn't the developers know the frying pan is the ultimate weapon? (see Tangled the movie)
Star Ocean 4: And I'm loving this game, despite the DL's hatred of it. Battle system is somewhat of an improvement over SO3's. Blindsides are useful but not an auto-win button - you have to be careful when you use them because of AOEs and such. The characters are pretty good also. Edgie makes logical decisions and seems to react believably to his situation. Reirei is a bit Mary Sue-ish, but she's much more tolerable than Sophia. Faize is not our friend. And Lym pulls off the "kid in the party" role perfectly. She's adorable. Beat the second achievement boss. Was having trouble damaging him until I started using Blindside->Seraphic Thunder with Reirei.
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Edgie makes logical decisions and seems to react believably to his situation.
I'm going to take sick pleasure in your reaction to this game. Oh yes.
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Cap's next post will be "Edgie is a stupid emo Marty Stu while Reirei tends to make logical decisions and react believably." The post after that will be "ARGH THIS GAME!"
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Having anything positive to say about that fucking little kid is just... Argh. Kid in party is not a file that should ever exist, thus degrees of doing it "well" are irrelevant.
Plus she's godawful.
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Edgie makes logical decisions and seems to react believably to his situation. Reirei is a bit Mary Sue-ish, but she's much more tolerable than Sophia.
Oh god ahahahahaha!! Aaaahahahaha!!!
*Niu takes out popcorn seats with Pyro, prepared for what is to come next
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Sin and Punishment 2: I cannot finish level 4 in one life. Good jesus I get killed by the giant sea squid.
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Psychonauts: I am the milkman. My milk is delicious.
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Dead Rising: I'm really not liking this game. It's too... busy. Too many things happening at the same time in different parts of the mall to keep up with. And the gunfight with Carlito was absolutely retarded. Now there's escaped convicts driving over me in a jeep. Speaking of games that make you redo large sections if you die: this one.
Dead Rising is actually trying to make it so that death doesn't cost you anything, the main thing you restart the game for is to know ahead of time what is going to happen (design choice, how do you survive a Zombie apocalypse? Know everything that is going to happen) It costs you in items, but you have learned lots and you keep experience (which goes a looooong way). As you know more you will progress further in the story and be far better able to rescue other survivors, ie get more of the story. It is essentially the thing BoF V was trying to do but failed horribly at with 0 transparency and actively punishing the player sometimes.
Not to say Dead Rising 1 does it particularly well, that is far far more damning of BoF V than it is praising DR1. DR2 handles it generally a bit better and plays with the fun stuff a lot more.
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You forgot that they never stop talking
Please, please stop talking
This is the first game I have played in a long time that I'm considering returning almost a week later
Yeah I forgot to mention that, its all dull pointless talk which just serves to makes the player more and more bored/angry. After the second game which I found so-so I thought they could build on it to make the third one an actual above average game. Silly of me to think so I know.
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Secret of Mana came out for my iPhone today. So I bought that.
Also Nier at GameStop is $15 new. Play it if you like games with characters that are well-written for once.
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Having anything positive to say about that fucking little kid is just... Argh. Kid in party is not a file that should ever exist, thus degrees of doing it "well" are irrelevant.
Plus she's godawful.
Technically, she's not even a kid. She's like 18 or something... just old enough to be legal, except that she looks like a kid because *MAGIC*.
*As defined here - Magic: Japan is a nation of creepy pedos.
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FF8: Disc 2 beaten. So the game is over, and the atrocious sequel starts now. *Le sigh*
NGB: Doku can bite me. No, seriously, it should have been a really fun rival fight, but it ended up just being "hit him it at the right time or place while his guard is down, or you will die horribly."
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7th saga- Tide is playing this, several people are watching and providing commentary. I for one am enjoying him wandering through the 7S world!
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Technically, she's not even a kid. She's like 18 or something... just old enough to be legal, except that she looks like a kid because *MAGIC*.
15 and she looks 8 because she was sent to hell as a young child and won't grow up (Physically) until she gets over it (or so I gathered from what happens in the ending). Anyway you all just hating on little Lymle, you just all wished you were half as awesome as her :P.
Edgie is a stupid emo Marty Stu while Reirei tends to make logical decisions and react believably
Edgie only goes Marty stu after he stops being emo so I don't know how he is both at the same time. Regardless he will never be as Mary sue as Reirei is and emo edge is a very funny man. I laughed at all his emo scenes.
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NGB: Doku can bite me. No, seriously, it should have been a really fun rival fight, but it ended up just being "hit him it at the right time or place while his guard is down, or you will die horribly."
That fight and the boss two chapters from now are the epitome of NGB's retarded boss design philosophy. Good luck figuring out when their weak points appear based on trial and error, since the game doesn't actually give you any hints!
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Technically, she's not even a kid. She's like 18 or something... just old enough to be legal, except that she looks like a kid because *MAGIC*.
15 and she looks 8 because she was sent to hell as a young child and won't grow up (Physically) until she gets over it (or so I gathered from what happens in the ending). Anyway you all just hating on little Lymle, you just all wished you were half as awesome as her :P.
You just said the most awful thing I have ever heard come out of a person and I once briefly saw Glenn Beck speak.
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You've heard Roger Goodell and Gary bettman speak, so I'm afraid I will have to call bullshit on that.
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7th saga- Tide is playing this, several people are watching and providing commentary. I for one am enjoying him wandering through the 7S world!
We are actually streaming this more or less daily at around 5-6 pm Eastern Standard. Skype is on too. So yeah, if you want to watch TIDE PLAY 7S AND COMPLAIN ABOUT ITS PROBLEMS or Hear OK's Karaoke or Super and OK snipping at each other or Meeple's commentary on the side, join us.
The problems we encountered so far:
- There's some guy you have to meet in a town, where the game gives you CIRCULAR INSTRUCTIONS. You wander into A, they tell you to go B then C, and then C tells you to go back to A. Seriously, what
- Cryptic as hell things you need to do (pushing by repeatedly walking into something without any indication? Awesome)
- Dungeons are horrible horrible experiences with no map, no indication of where to go and generally high combat frequency
- Random things such as % chance of getting allies
Redeeming features so far:
- Well the Wind rune is gotten earlier so you can warp around map areas quickly.
Also, highlight: I die from POIZN today. OK strikes AGAIN.
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You've heard Roger Goodell and Gary bettman speak, so I'm afraid I will have to call bullshit on that.
It was also worse than that. I'm trying to come up with a good comparison but all I can come up with is a weird metaphor about it's like claiming someone would enjoy watching Roger Goodell cornhole their mother while Glenn Beck tapes it.
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Edgie only goes Marty stu after he stops being emo so I don't know how he is both at the same time. Regardless he will never be as Mary sue as Reirei is and emo edge is a very funny man. I laughed at all his emo scenes.
It's true that Reimi gets even MORE Mary Sue-ish after Edge starts getting over the Emo-flu, but she actually has that one scene where she tells Edge to shape up, and takes over as captain, and generally acts like a competant person who has military training (which she has, so she -should- act like this). It was the moment in the game where I had suddenly gained hope that the PCs might actually get some development after all and the story wouldn't be a total waste of time, so it was quite memorable.
Unfortunately, it doesn't really pan out. Edge keeps being emo until waaaay later, and Reimi doesn't do much after that scene that indicates she's ever been told that space missions are tough. And then their Mary/Marty powers emerge and everything gets worse. This is the "ARGH THIS GAME" part of the description.
To be fair, there were some things I liked about SO4, mostly the stuff on the SO1 planet because it has almost nothing to do with the main plot. Paradoxically, if they hadn't included the SO1 planet stuff at all, the main plot might have been stronger since it wouldn't have had that giant distraction in the middle of it breaking up the pacing. Of course, they would have also needed to cut out the entirety of the Area 51 stuff. God, I hated that part.
Yeah, I just recommended cutting out like 60% of the game. And the remainder focuses on Faize/Lymle and gathering allies from other planets. Yes, Djinn's best-case scenario for SO4 would be a Suikoden-style "travel around gathering help from various nation-planets" while an inverted pedophilic version of Lufia 1's romantic subplot goes on.
*sigh*
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I actually liked the very very beginning, where it was basically a Japanese love letter to Trek. God damn it.
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Answer - finished
Overall an inferior experience to classic P3. Still decent.
I am divided on the change to the Persona system where you have traded in the ability to recall past personas in exchange for each persona learning their available skills at one level intervals (more-or-less). It was interesting to experience, but it's not something I would want to play classic P3 with. Especially since persona recall probably was what I spent the majority of my money on in classic P3 - money was consequently not an issue that often in Answer.
I think I forgot to complain about the skill inheritance system in classic P3 - my complaints there are mostly along the lines of that there are a number of requests for you to fuse a persona with a particular skill which forces you to keep cycling the fusion until the skill turns up, which is pointlessly annoying. In Answer the inability to save personas with particularly good skills to get them back later can lead to being disinclined to fuse particular personas. It doesn't help that the ones with particularly nice skills (Spell Master, etc) generally don't show up naturally, so you can't even easily refetch them from battling, you have to refuse them from a bunch of others.
What happened to the AI? Not sure whether it's FES in general, or just Answer, or just due to the locked higher difficulty level, but I remember being pleased about the competency of the AI in classic P3 while here I was all WHY THE HECK DO THEY REFUSE TO USE ANY HEALING MAGIC ONCE THEY GET TO A THIRD OF MAX SP UNLESS PEOPLE ARE ON DOUBLE-DIGIT HP EVEN WHEN SET TO HEAL/SUPPORT TACTIC
I get sick of Mitsuru knocking an enemy down and then knocking it back up with ice so I put her on Knock Down mode and she attacks it with a regular attack
Yukari once healed herself while she was on full hp somehow
In exchange for this they seemingly get a sixth sense of knowing when they're going to critical with a regular attack and will do so as opposed to the skills they have been using previously. This is not a worthwhile exchange.
Colloseum arc was highly annoying in that the enemies had a bunch of skills they should not have had, don't have any weaknesses which they should have had, are considerably more difficult than the previous boss despite there not being any new areas for training in-between (although this is also partially due to having a reduced team), and also the whole story around that point in addition to the gameplay. It is very contrived, and although the story makes out that that is exactly the case, that doesn't exactly excuse it. I like how there are 6 pillars despite the fact that 7 could theoretically be required.
All up, there were too many enemies in the game which had Dodge/Evade skills for their weaknesses.
SRWL - Up to episode 32
Things are going reasonably enough. I have been progressing fairly slowly due to being engrossed in Answer so maybe I will pick up the pace a bit now.
Jolly Rover - finished
Decent for a B-grade adventure which is overly inspired by Monkey Island at times.
Got all the crackers and pieces of eight. Annoyingly, there is at least one puzzle which is skippable with the pieces before you even have the capability to solve it normally, so I wasted some pieces on that thinking that that was what was necessary (this was also before finding out that pieces were a limited skip-puzzle option). Fortunately for the puzzle in question you can do it over normally once you get the capability and get the pieces back, but it still lists you as having used them in the stats.
Missed one piece of flag. Pretty sure I know where it was, but I expected that I didn't have what I needed to get it at the time and shortly afterwards passed a point of no return. Ah well. For reference, the game autosaves with no facility for extra manual saves.
Not enough was done with the voodoo system, especially once it was revealed that reversing voodoo had the reverse effect. One of the reversed options was only good for a bonus of some sort, at least two didn't appear to have any use.
Major showdown was a letdown as what was required was thoroughly telegraphed and you also had one of the villains gibbering in terror for no adequately explained reason, especially considering his blasé attitude towards you previously.
If they bring out any sequels I'll be happy to play them. No worse than I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting a whole lot.
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It's true that Reimi gets even MORE Mary Sue-ish after Edge starts getting over the Emo-flu, but she actually has that one scene where she tells Edge to shape up, and takes over as captain, and generally acts like a competant person who has military training (which she has, so she -should- act like this).
One scene is all that is and she quickly destroys her credit with the scenes on Roak. I wanted Edge to smack her after that crap she pulls.
Yeah, I just recommended cutting out like 60% of the game. And the remainder focuses on Faize/Lymle and gathering allies from other planets. Yes, Djinn's best-case scenario for SO4 would be a Suikoden-style "travel around gathering help from various nation-planets" while an inverted pedophilic version of Lufia 1's romantic subplot goes on.
Then randomly cutting away at the end to earth requiring your party of primative people to combat an evil galactic overlord because he just happens to be immune to all modern weapons and your party are the only people who use melee weapons. No the games fine as it is as I don't trust their writers to write something better then what we've got.
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Did the previous team get sacked or something? SO3's plot twist was "Hah hah hah this is only a game and you are concerned with the outcome, you dumbass" but at least outside of that it never got offensively bad.
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Monsterworld IV: I was rather stressed when I played it the last time and didn't get to enjoy it as much as I could have, so I decided to play it again.
I already found out something I didn't realize before, the very first enemy type you encounter can't hurt you at all. In this game, most enemies will not hurt you by touch, they have to attack you to cause damage. The first enemy you encounter is never considered to be attacking.
I beat the first dungeon and then got a papelongo. To raise a papelongo: put a papelongo egg into water. Once it hatched, feel free to use it as a steppingstone on lava, to clog up a high pressure geyser, to freeze it into a block of ice and whatever you want to. In return, the papelongo will help you get to places you otherwise wouldn't be able to reach. No wonder everyone in town wants one. Fortunately, there's a guy selling yellow papelongos like they were balloons. Asha of course didn't buy one and instead raided the castle treasury for an extra unique blue one.
Anyway, in most games, buying something for 500 gold early in the game will have a negligible effect later on when things cost over ten times as much. This game however managed to figure out a way to make early purchases impact the economy later on. You find gold bars that you can sell to a rich fat woman. However, if you wait until later, she will pay you more for them. She pays 1,000 after the first dungeon and will eventually go up to 10,000. Therefore, it's better to wait a bit and not sell every gold bar immediately. It doesn't pay to overdo that strategy though, you do have quite a margin. I think that saving the gold bar in the castle treasury until you get 10,000 gold for them and holding off selling gold bars in dungeons until you beat them (as opposed to exiting them and immediately selling) is enough to get all the legendary equipment. Do not however save the gold bar you can loot in the rich woman's house for later though as that chest will eventually disappear.
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Dead Rising is actually trying to make it so that death doesn't cost you anything, the main thing you restart the game for is to know ahead of time what is going to happen (design choice, how do you survive a Zombie apocalypse? Know everything that is going to happen) It costs you in items, but you have learned lots and you keep experience (which goes a looooong way). As you know more you will progress further in the story and be far better able to rescue other survivors, ie get more of the story. It is essentially the thing BoF V was trying to do but failed horribly at with 0 transparency and actively punishing the player sometimes.
Not to say Dead Rising 1 does it particularly well, that is far far more damning of BoF V than it is praising DR1. DR2 handles it generally a bit better and plays with the fun stuff a lot more.
The inherent problem in that style of game design is that if you don't enjoy the first playthrough, you won't want to play it again.
SO4: On Roak. Still enjoying this. Haters gonna hate.
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Haters gonna hate.
Damn right. (Actually what I feel for SO4 is mostly Apathy induced by the lategame feeling so dull)
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I generally agree with Djinn in regards to SO4's assessment, especially Reimi, though I disagree about removing Area 51 stuff cause that did serve an actual important point in the game's overall point that Technology + Underdeveloped Planets = Bad.
SO4 really isn't that bad a game, just...there's a lot of little things it did screw up which hamper the overall experience. Its alright, but a clear step down to SO3.
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It also lacks a lot of what I'd call Star Ocean touches. Item Creation is crippled, your party is fixed, and no multiple endings.
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Fixed party is the only one there that actually bothers me, given that previous SO item creation was unbalanced in the extreme. (Endings just get filed under 'whatever'.)
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Opposite really. Star Ocean recruitment is annoying as hell. Granted, multiple endings is just a nice perk rather than a must have and in 2/3 Star Oceans I neglected IC for most of the game. I can see missing just the sheer detail and rewards you could get out of it though.
(Granted, if you thought 'fixed party' meant 'you must always use the same characters, that makes more sense, but I don't BELIEVE it's true. You just always get all the PCs.)
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Oh, yeah, I don't care if you always get all the PCs. I actually felt SO2-3's PC splitpaths detracted from the game, and was just there to add some blatant fake replay value.
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Monsterworld IV: Beat the infernal warlock. The volcano is my favorite stage as it makes the best use of the Pepelongo (I hope I got the name right this time) and there's nothing in it that detracts from the enjoyment. The fact that Asha doesn't have so many hearts now also works to the stage's favor. The boss is a bit bland though, the first form is to easy while the second form is almost unavoidable.
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Regardless, they are things that characterize the series and have since the beginning. The only exception is Blue Sphere, which was a Game Boy game, and thus has the excuse of storage space.
And even that had better IC. My favorite, actually, come to think of it.
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Yeah, SO4 doesn't have Fixed Parties in the sense of "You must use this character here!" There's just no recruitment system. You still have full flexibility on who to use when. IN FACT, you can even swap characters mid-battle if you want, even dead ones.
I honestly didn't miss SO Recruitment at all.
That said...
Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo HD Remix: ...the original Akuma is as...wrong...as advertised. I beat him, but dear god there is *NOTHING* that can be considered fair about him.
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Monsterworld IV: Stream sanctuary and ice pyramid beaten.
The stream sanctuary is fun and my second favorite stage. Good platforming, good use of the pepelongo and I find it the most esthetically pleasing. There is a risk you end up running in circles if you make a mistake or get lost, but movement trough the stream sanctuary is quick due to it's namesake streams.
The ice pyramid however is the worst stage. It has the slippery floor, which is always fun in platformers, long hallways that you can easily end up having to run trough multiple times and makes poor use of the pepelongo. There are few uses for the double jump the pepelongo provides and it's main use in the pyramid is to find secret doors which is implemented in an irritating way.
The ice pyramid does have a good idea for the pepelongo though. You can send it into a cold stream and it will freeze to an ice-block which you can use as a platform. This could have been a setup for a good puzzle. Normally you can double jump with the pepelongo, but if it's frozen inside an ice block, it obviously cannot provide you that service. Even better, instead of having to exit and re-enter a room to reset the puzzle, you can just press A to command the pepelongo to thaw. There should be a way the designers could have used that to create some fun and simple puzzles, but that wasn't to be.
Speaking of the pepelongo, it grows between stages. After the volcano the growth doesn't do much except, as I mentioned in an earlier post, force the game to close of old areas. After the stream sanctuary however, the pepelongo grows so big Asha can no longer walk while holding it, making control a bit worse. This is nothing compared to what happens after the ice pyramid though.
Game: "You know that pepelongo which allows you to double jump, interact with the environment in various ways and overall makes the game more fun? Guess what, you're done using it! From now on the pepelongo ceases to be a gameplay element and is restricted to story only!"
The next stage is more fun than the ice pyramid, but I still wish I had my pepelongo.
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Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection: Picked this up, mainly because it has all the Streets of Rage games. Also has the Sonic-related stuff, Golden Axe, Altered Beast, Shining series, Phantasy Star series, and GAIN GROUND*. Working on unlocking the rest of the titles, but some of these old shooting games are merciless. At least in Touhou you can see your death coming.
*A really shitty one-player game that becomes awesome when with a second player, because you argue with your teammate about who gets to use what characters.
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Gain ground is awesome but unfair. I love when you continue the game in a latish area and you're then expected to beat them with a crappy spearman. Yeah a man with a stick is so effective against killer robots from the future.
You're so right about the whole argue thing, the friend I play the game with always wants that powerful machinegun gun that comes early and is crazy broken at that point. I of course want him too.
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Monsterworld IV: Beaten.
Aegis island is fun enough, although not as fun as the volcano and Stream Sanctuary. The small and big gimmick was the most fun part of that place and I wish it was implemented as a feature rather than as a short gimmick. On the plus side, I do think the warlock of heaven is the best boss of the game. It's hard to avoid it's attacks, but it is never unfair.
The final stage is just refighting enemies and mini bosses encountered trough he whole game. There is one unique enemy though, but it's design makes me think it was originally supposed to be on Aegis island. The final boss isn't interesting either.
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My defenses are impregnable.
My style is impetuous.
GOD HAND HARD MODE: Beaten.
Only 496 continues!
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My defenses are impregnable.
My style is impetuous.
You're not Alexander!
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Wild Arms 4 - We don't rape the game hard enough version:
So. Transfer data passed on, where I did almost everything in ACF.
Mariel being L100 had me starting WA4 with 50 Heal Berries, 33 Revive Fruits, 25 Potion Berries, 20 Nectars, 10 Mega Berries, 6 Vibhutis, 5 Holy Berries, 4 Full Revives, 3 Ambrosias, and 2 LVL Apples. Everyone got a free level-up. I started the game with about 7K Gella, 6 ROM cartridges, and the completely useless Convert badge. I also had about 3250 battles in ACF completed.
Let that number sink in for a bit.
Lombardia has ~3250 ATP, and I get it just after getting to Port Rosalia.
Up to Port Rosalia, game was simple enough. Did this, did that, just sped through. Got Raquel in my party. At the start of the game, she deals ~9.5K damage to enemies. Managed to grind up a whole slew of Combination Arts, including Mind Recovery and Hi-Material. Dealt over 10K damage to Tony 2 with Raquel in one shot. I don't predict having any problems until at least after the three-quarters mark of the game.
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Jim is now officially the hardest core motherfucker in the whole DL. Congratulations.
Edit: Oh right this is a games topic.
The 3rd Birthday[aka parasite eve 3]: Picked up and beat. To put it into TLDR terms, everything about the game is really good except the plot, which is outright terrible. In spite of that it's very much worth playing and one of the best hardcore action games on the PSP, packing a unique mix of RPG customization/skill-based shooter gameplay/tactical strategy that makes the game feel fresh and fun. It's also very pretty and has very good music, controls well, and has good polish[full scene skip, decent menus, etc].
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But Oh God, Even Djinn Thinks The Plot Is Terrible.
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Good to hear (The good that is) as I plan on getting it day 1 myself. The plot being bad isn't a shocker but I hope its bad as in RE bad because then that means its completely awesome, if not its just well, bad.
GS DD - If you thought the GS1 & 2 duos were bad then you'll be shocked to find the one in this game is somehow even worse ???. "Yeah I'm like totally the best swordsmen in all the world, fear my 15HKO and piss poor hp!". Man I could have taken this chump at lv5 where I had according to the game "no chance" to win. Just pathetic.
I did face star mage though who was pretty cool, he has like a 6HKO which is pretty damn good for this game (I think one of the programmers coded his stats wrong. That damage is far too high). He also has some extreamly cool support so he gave me a little trouble as I went in with my full on offence set up so I had only single target healing.
GT5 - Getting to the edurance part of the game....no just fuck you game and your 24 hour races. I'd have to leave my PS3 on all week to complete those crappy races.
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If you ever played Parasite Eve for plot, you need immediate psychological help.
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LFT:
Laggy is coercing me to finish the end game. So, I booted it up after a lot of work getting everything ready and streamed it. It was a blast, with Trance as commentator and Laggy being actually there for the first bit. Anyway, some highlights:
UBS4
- I bring in Mediator Mustadio. Mimic Daravon laughs at puny evasion. I manage to hit 2 guys with it at 55% chance each.
- The bigger highlight is using Invite and turning 2 units, 1 of them being Nitori , into Guest PCs
- After Mimic Daravon hit, Nitori proceeds to use CHARGE+20. I purposely let it go off after buffing Nitori with Yell.
Rofel
- I get unlucky the first time and miss 2 92-94% Raise chances. Laggy proceeds to own me with Jumping Priests
- Second run, I knock out those Priests with Hellcry + Agrias powersmashing. Rofel was a bit of beast himself, but goes down after some sustained punishment as long as he doesn't get a crystal
- At one point near the end, I drop a Speed Ruin on Rofel, then proceed to walk into my own Speed Ruin. It was a very pro moment.
Kletian
- Kletian gets unlucky, misses 2 flares, one of them which gets COUNTER MAGIC'd for around 110+ damage
- Enemies line in a row, Agrias smashes them all in a hit. Lucky that Flare missed, otherwise, I would've lost Agrias from this move and the battle might've turned sour pretty quick.
More maybe tomorrow. If you're in chat with nothing to do, join us on Skype or watch stream for hilarity.
Also, reminder to self:
Get the non Lion War version of the game for a 6 month update patch before Altima. I do not want to get Lava Ball'd for 999 damage
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I always though the problem with the plot in PE1 was more the presentation. That shit moves so slowly. God damn.
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Slowly? The game's like, six minutes long.
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...yeah, say what you will about PE, the game is *NOT* slow. I beat it in two days, despite constant coughings, breaks required to deal with said cold...and ignoring that I played Chapter 1 a few days before.
Sorry, but I can't agree with that statement at all.
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The plot scenes are very slow paced, though. Especially at the beginning of day two. I mean, in a normal RPG maybe they wouldn't seem so long but when the game's that short to begin with, it really feels like it drags.
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Maybe I should actually post about what I'm playing once and a while.
Metroid Fusion - After a bunch of attempts, managed to complete a run with a play time of 58 minutes, which beats my goal of an hour. Hooray!
Dragon Quest 9 - Started this. Man, would it kill DQ games to not start slowly? Too early to say much about it otherwise; it's DQ. And I never thought I would criticise Dragon Quest for innovating, but I don't think I dig the fixed encounters. On the other hand, showing what skills you're working towards before/as you parcel them out is a huge improvement over DQ8.
Devil May Cry - Hard Mode replay. Kinda stuck at Phantom. Been away from my PS2 too often to really sit down and get good at him, hence the slew of portable games. As well as...
Fire Emblem 6 - Finally playing hard mode. Beat the first five chapters. C4 (Eric's map) was the hardest. Rutger is amazing. Bosses in this game are ridiculous compared to other FE games, HM only makes them moreso. It says something when the 19-str/10-spd Killer Axe/Hand Axe boss is below par for the earlygame.
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Eternal Poison- Two quests finally down now! Started a bit of Ashley's, showing that Olifen's quest really did have the dullest characters. The Reyna reveal was confusing though because both his voices were female. How did they automatically know that that he was guy from that?
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GS DD - Finished. Seems one of the programmers must be able to balance enemy stats as the final boss has things called damage and hp. No joke he has a AOE 2HKO through triple actions and boatloads of hp with a sizeable regen to absorb some of your damage.
Plot was what you'd expect, the plot twist with the beast at the end everyone can see from across the other side of earth and the final bosses form is expected by anyone who has played the other two games because these damn games are all the damn same.
Also it ends in a CLIFF HANGER BECAUSE EVERYONE LOVES THOSE FUCKING THINGS DON'T THEY! Lets not forget because the game did all the things that are forgetten. Mia's daughter is forgetten for a huge period of time before the writers remember she existed and just say that her brother forgot to ask Kradon about her, yeah real fucking believeable that.
Then is what happens to the terrible(ly weak) duo at the end. So the world is saved and they: A: are Forgetton about in the final area B:escape C: are Killed D: reformed as good democracy loving citizens. Even if it is a cop out I'd prefer if there was some cut scene of them escaping but instead we're meant to expect the party just leaves them there.
The Arcanus shit is poo as you'd expect. "How you know who I am?" Maybe just maybe because you look exactly the same you retard. You just wear some crappy half mask to hide that fact which is stupid, wear a full face mask next time.
The only saving grace is the light and dark thing that happens at the end while generic gives the next game the chance to do quite a lot of different styles of puzzles which is a good thing.
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The plot scenes are very slow paced, though. Especially at the beginning of day two. I mean, in a normal RPG maybe they wouldn't seem so long but when the game's that short to begin with, it really feels like it drags.
This is what I meant. The game is physically slow. It's l.i.t.t.l.e. m.o.n.e.y slow. With unskippable cutscenes, a set text speed and the "model emotes, THEN dialogue box fills, repeat" thing that makes PS1 scenes take so much longer than they should.
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Eternal Poison- Two quests finally down now! Started a bit of Ashley's, showing that Olifen's quest really did have the dullest characters. The Reyna reveal was confusing though because both his voices were female. How did they automatically know that that he was guy from that?
Reyna reveal makes absolutely no sense because they don't really do much to acknowledge it past the reveal itself. It's like the writers badly wanted to make him male but the designer wouldn't have him anyway except a girl, so they compromised. Ashley tale writing is pretty messy as a whole to boot.
EDIT: Also, say it with me: Glynne is a vagina that spontaneously creates sand from within.
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SRWJ: Just started up the english patched version for playthrough #3. Apparantly in the future they decide to put Michel Platini in charge of Earth's military.
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Ninja Gaiden Black: Completed!
I might as well cover the game as a whole at this point.
First off, Plot! Its short and simple. There's a big evil demon Emperor who wants to use an evil sword to become SUPER STRONG, KILL HIM DEAD BEFORE HE DOES. Yeah, its cheap, but NGB doesn't try to pretend its more interesting than it is, by having short cutscenes that get to the point, and basically just there to say "This is why you're killing shit dead, yet still being the good guy." Game clearly recognized that's all action game plot NEEDS to be, so I respect it for that. No ethical moral bullshit, no deep internal character development, no...well, you get the point. ITs just "You're a Ninja, there are bad guys, KILL THEM."
Soundtrack...forgettable. I mean, it worked in game, but nothing really stood out, and a lot of it was just ambiance effects. At least for "battles", they fast paced rock music, thus you know, something to get you in the mood of "FIGHT NOW!"'
Gameplay...ok, this is what matters cause its what makes up the game really! Mook combat is great. Enemies are challenging in their own right, but not too hard, and you get a handle on how to deal with them. Swarms also felt genuinely harder than simply "Oh look, another enemy." 2 guys is somewhat scarier than 1, and 3 of just about anything that isn't a one-shot enemy (like Fish) is something you can NEVER take for granted. Its hard to isolate enemies from groups, so its basically just "Deal with it or die." The weapon variety is also rather nice. Dragon Sword, Vigoorian Flail, Lunar, and Dailibahro all had genuine consistent use. Kitetsu felt a bit redundant with the DRagon Sword though I guess it has some gimmick uses the Dragon Sword doesn't cover, Nunchakus were basically there to for "Early Vigoorian Flail. They suck, but at least you can understand how the weapons work!", and Unlabored Flawlessness felt...pure novelty; when its good, its too risky to use. The Axe just sucks, its Dalibaihro but worse in every way that matters, pity.
Having Ranged weapons was good too; its like this game actually acknowledged that cheap unlimited projectiles in a highly melee oriented action game is *NOT* that broken if you put limitations on it, like giving enemies some immunity, damage not being high, etc. There were projectiles that were good for most everything...but you had limited quantities, and the Bow was a bit awkward to use in fast paced action, mostly good for just sniping (...and the Skull Boss for getting free hits.) DMC was the one that hypothesized that Guns and Swords can work, Ninja Gaiden seemed to have caught on, and used the same thing, just with a Ninja-touch (thus, "Guns" became "Shurikens"), dunno why so many games are against genuine Projectile Weaponry like that (or in the case of Darksiders, the weapon is SO BAD you never use it.)
Furthermore, having a simple combo system regarding a Heavy and Weak attack worked pretty well. Unlike God of War where its just "Attack attack, BIG ATTACK NOW ALL ENEMIES GO FLYING HAHA SUCK IT!", you do...actual combos, alternating between the two, and there's purposes behind each. A lone Heavy Attack is pretty much useless unless you get the time to charge it...which most won't give you...but the game rewards you for pulling it off at least. Generally, you get a feel for how weapons work and what combos are good and...you get the point.
Ninpo was a nice little "Get out of Jail free!" factor too. Its what God of War magic should be. Early on, ok, you're conservative, but later on, enemies start actually dropping Red Escences, and you have 5 orbs, and you can actually use it consistently. Makes up for the game's lack of DT or any such equivalent, but hey, it got the job done, while not feeling TOO good cause you had to actually think "ok, do I want to use this now?" Also helped immensely on some bosses (BOTH Alma fights come to mind)
Ok, I lied; Inazuma is just ridiculous and stupid...but damn did it it make that Skull Boss near the end so much easier. Really, once you get that, the ONLY Ninpo you'll find yourself using otherwise is Inferno, cause its better on bosses, and half the bosses generally don't care about Ninpo anyway (though, ones it works on, it REALLY helps for getting openings.)
Brings me to my next point...bosses. For a game that does Mook Combat so well...bosses they really dropped the ball on. Demons are very much "Keep away, throwing Windmill Shuriken for free damage, wait for moment to Flying Swallow Slash them. If they are stunned, BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF THEM!" Human bosses are "attack and hope there's an opening, block a lot, pray they don't cheap you out with their stupid strong, hard to predict Throw move." The first boss in the game set the tone for pretty much EVERY Human style boss from then on. It doesn't help that bosses do a shit load of damage, and dodging has to be done with precise timing (this isn't a bad thing in general, as it makes you learn the system, but on bosses, they have such awkward hit boxes and timing, learning it becomes such a chore, and you can't even tell if they're gonna make a follow up or not half the time, so dodge and counter doesn't really work either.) The game basically REQUIRES you to use Healing Items unless you are some sort of crazed freak at the game who has memorized the game and timing of each bosses perfectly. Yes, DMC and Bayonetta give you items, but these bosses are perfectly beatable without them. You may have to go through hell and back with constant practicing to pull it off, sure (anyone whose fought Hard Mode Phantom w/out Items can attest to THAT), but as you do fight them, you get a sense of improvement. I don't feel that happens in the bosses here, as your success against them feels so inconsistent; you can get close to beating them one try, then do no damage the next. What's worse is cause you KNOW you need items, you're afraid to use them on certain areas, unless you know there's a shop nearbye. The game is nice enough to often have a Great SPirit Elixir right after each boss, at least, so that's something. Still, its annoying to require items like this.
This is one of the game's 2 fundamental flaws on gameplay (that is, boss fights in general).
The other? The platforming. Now, I appreciate all the little Ninja Wall Tricks you can do; its a nice touch, and hey, in battles, they actually come in handy (running up the wall works for evasion AND your Helm Splitter or whatever is stronger off the Wall than it is with a standard jump), giving you whole kinds of evasion maneuvers, and what not. But in platforming? So many ways to screw it up. Ok, first of all, the "wall bounce" was simple and nothing too creative there; just classic jumping back and forth between walls. But anytime you had to do Wall Running, be it vertically or horizontally? Things started getting murky. Game seemed very picky on which version you'd use, and a slight touch in the wrong direction when you jump means you do the wrong kind of run. The jumping is also awkward; it works well in combat cause its the kind of jump that feels like its intended for an evasion, but for platforming? It has no room for error.
Normally, its not TOO big a deal cause a lot of platforming is "Screw up? Start over try again, no big deal" style...until Magma Caves where screw up = you fall in lava = you take big damage. Dying might mean you start things over again.
It doesn't end there; the spinning poll jumps are annoying too. See, in most games, you jump in the direction you hold on the controller...that's fine. Here? You have to actually time it based on Ryu's positioning; press it wrong, he jumps backwards. Also, its so picky on whether you jump and catch the thing, or if the game decides to screw you over and you die. This caught me a few times in the last area, and it plays partially on the Jump mechanics.
The game really wasn't built for platforming and it shows. The platforming sections aren't hugely numerous...but they are there, and they aren't very fun. It just further establishes that action games like this are better off with minimal platforming, and more "Stick Sharp Object in Enemy Face" playing.
Overall? A decent game, if flawed. 7/10 Material or so.
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Eternal Poison- Two quests finally down now! Started a bit of Ashley's, showing that Olifen's quest really did have the dullest characters. The Reyna reveal was confusing though because both his voices were female. How did they automatically know that that he was guy from that?
Reyna reveal makes absolutely no sense because they don't really do much to acknowledge it past the reveal itself. It's like the writers badly wanted to make him male but the designer wouldn't have him anyway except a girl, so they compromised. Ashley tale writing is pretty messy as a whole to boot.
EDIT: Also, say it with me: Glynne is a vagina that spontaneously creates sand from within.
There are random acknowledgments scattered throughout Isapolis at least, but yes, Ashley and Glynne taking impersonating a corpse at complete face value is hilarious in it's own way. That said, I'm not at all sure how they knew (or...why Reyna continues with the costume, although I guess that could theoretically have a reason).
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I play games too, oddly.
World of Warcraft: Levelling a Worgen Warrior with Ash, because she <3's them puppies. Finally stopped being lazy and hit 85 with my Paladin. Fairly undergeared, so doing some normals and such to get my healing gear up to snuff before I start heroicing. A little surprised to find myself actually running out of mana occasionally. Need to be more careful with heals.
Mass Effect: Still annoyed I'm having frame rate issues with this game. I think it has to do with the fact that my laptop is overheating lately, a problem which I'm working on addressing.
Anyhow, rolled up a Sentinel by the name of Harkan (hi Sopko!). The hero of Elysium and a Sentinel by trade, he's had kind of a strenuous time lately. He's a good guy and has been working hard to not abuse his Spectre freedoms, but his temper has been getting strained and he's been forced to take unsavory actions a time or two which he regrets. He was beginning to develop a relationship with Ashley, but then, due to some drama during a raid on Saren's research facility, the relationship kind of detonated, ending with a serious bang.
He's currently pretty down about it, even if his comrades are supportive.
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I play games too, oddly.
World of Warcraft: Levelling a Worgen Warrior with Ash, because she <3's them puppies. Finally stopped being lazy and hit 85 with my Paladin. Fairly undergeared, so doing some normals and such to get my healing gear up to snuff before I start heroicing. A little surprised to find myself actually running out of mana occasionally. Need to be more careful with heals.
Mass Effect: Still annoyed I'm having frame rate issues with this game. I think it has to do with the fact that my laptop is overheating lately, a problem which I'm working on addressing.
Anyhow, rolled up a Sentinel by the name of Harkan (hi Sopko!). The hero of Elysium and a Sentinel by trade, he's had kind of a strenuous time lately. He's a good guy and has been working hard to not abuse his Spectre freedoms, but his temper has been getting strained and he's been forced to take unsavory actions a time or two which he regrets. He was beginning to develop a relationship with Ashley, but then, due to some drama during a raid on Saren's research facility, the relationship kind of detonated, ending with a serious bang.
He's currently pretty down about it, even if his comrades are supportive.
Kind of a bummer. Now do it again in ME2, so that when ME3 rolls around they'll call you "Deathdong."
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Considering he's kinda digging Tali, I have a feeling this may well be true (come 2, at least).
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"You're a Ninja, there are bad guys, KILL THEM."
"Finally! A boss fight!"
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Nier- Ah, Kaine, your rhetoric never ceases to amaze me. I'm disappointed you haven't yet threatened to "fuck someone's skull in" though.
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SRWJ - Male Main is really annoying at the start. Though I suppose he isn't that far off from average person suddenly attacked by random craziness, kidnapped, and forced to risk his life on a daily basis. Then again, having to work closely with three very grateful hot chicks should be more of a mitigating factor for a teenager than this guy is letting on.
Just finished Map #2, serious business members of the cast already expecting Nadesco crew to flake out and get them all killed, possibly because their ace pilot is trying to become a cook. Said ace pilot is also showing trace amounts of spine so we'll see where that ends up.
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Akito and spines rarely get along very well.
Just finished stage 11, using Calvina and the Coustwell. Naturally I outfitted all the Aestavlises in air frames right before the Walking Stick mission, because I'm a genius. Still didn't have much trouble with it until Master Asia showed up.
Plotwise, SEED sucks as much as I expected it to if not more and the way craziness gravitates to the Nadesico is amusing.
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On Stage 30. Going full-on Nadesico route with Granteed, piloted by Toya.
Akito turns out to be rather damn good, exceeding all expectations by being quite good at dodging. His Aestivalis has been given a minor upgrade to mobility as a result, to ensure he's "on top" of his dodge game.
In fact, Sosuke, Masato, Akito and Toya are my top pilots. Sosuke and Akito do the dodge, Toya and Masato do the smash. Zeorymer is ridiculous. I'm looking forward to a second playthrough utilising the Great Zeorymer and laugh at the incredible cheese it brings to bear.
Favourite series... definitely Nadesico, followed by the FMP team.
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GS DD - Beat Big D at lv 52. I tried to go toe to toe which meant he curb stomped me. Then I just summon rushed him and he got curb stomped. WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?
Matthew - Slightly above average till the end where he becomes a physical god able to dish out huge amounts of damage due to the Sol Blade and an absurd unleash rate (AKA all the fucking time). He is a mute but when pushed he comes out with the kind of words not fit for even adults to hear.
Tyrell - Matthew minus mostly really though admittly his AOE damage is like triple Matthews for most of the game so he has uses. He is also Garet in disguise.
Karis - Best healer at the start and can be made into a surprisingly effective melee fighter. I've never liked her kind, the whole girl who gets angry at some other guys stupidity so yeah.
Reif - One of the many problems with Golden Sun is the item space as its so low so them giving you this NPC guy to hold your items is pretty cool. Hell he even fills in for the forth spot until you get a real party member. He is also meant to be the smart guy yet he knows nothing.
Amiti - Damn good healer and his swordplay isn't too bad. Believes he was born magically from his mothers sheer power and considers large old trees to be gods.
Sveta - Is a beast both outside and inside battle which doesn't mean much in this pathetically easy game but in a nice hard game she'd be akin Ryu in the BOF series. Is sub human.
Eoleo - Tyrell basically except he is a MAN. Is twice the age of everyone else in the party.
Himi - Summons dragons and has no character development at all. A walking plot device.
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Nier- Ah, Kaine, your rhetoric never ceases to amaze me. I'm disappointed you haven't yet threatened to "fuck someone's skull in" though.
Kaine's grandma sure did teach her to talk like a god damn pirate.
Atelier Rorona: Completed, Astrid ending (which means I did everything)
While Atelier Rorona's art is delightful and the item creation is fun, the game badly messed up the RPG aspect. It is criminally easy to the point of absurdity due to the way items work. The one fight that is not is a plot fight that you are probably supposed to lose. That said, I enjoyed the character interactions, the item synthesis system, and how utterly over-the-top Rorona's love of Pie was.
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Plot fight? With the king? He is beatable though.
Anyway, you should really see the rich ending or the pie ending. That is what happens when the girl gets excessive.
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I know he is beatable, I annihilated him myself (Pep-Up Elixers let me leisurely 2HKO the fast solid 2HKOing solo boss).
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FFXII: Revenant Wings- beat after a lengthy hiatus. Fun enough game, unique system and ultimately works pretty well. Cast is sorta glazed over (although it does explain how it is that Vaan is considered a badass pirate in his own right, since unlike FFXII itself the events of this game are very public knowledge) but the plot proper isn't bad. Fumbled the endgame though. Through 80% or so of the game, playing normally and doing all the sidequests will keep you in good shape. Starting with the volcano Judge of Wings fight, though, all the story missions are about 5 levels too high to sanely handle, and at this point the side missions are HARDER than the story ones. Raw levelling can be pretty quick so it's not a critical misstep, but definitely odd given the rest of the game.
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Recettear: This game is full of tallychus. Just got the mage dude's card, so tried out a dungeon with him. Died, since it turns out he kinda sucks. Which is largely okay by me since he's a prick anyway~ Found some weird girl with a spear wandering around in a dungeon, kinda hoping I get either her or the thief girl soon. Thiiiink I'll make the third payment, not so sure if I'll manage the 4th though.
EO3: Floor 20 can blow me. Teleport bullshit AND sections that kill your automap? Oi. At least it's nice enough to give you plenty of shortcuts you can trigger once you muddle your way through the first time. Team is Yggdroid/Hoplite, Monk/Prince, Buccaneer/Gladiator, Zodiac/Hoplite, and Ninja/Monk. Ninja/Monk is clear MVP far and away no questions asked because Bunshin is stupid and Izuna makes randoms a whoooole lot easier.
Resonance of Rob: Just got this, played a bit. Fun so far at least! Hope it stays that way.
Golden Sun DS: Just got this as well. It's...Golden Sun. Now in DS form. Yeah, that's basically all there is to it. My Matthew is less constantly pissy and more manic-depressive, alternating between the super-hyper and emo responses just because it amuses me.
Bunch of random flash game shit on Kongregate: Blame the toro.
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Finished Mass Effect, so here is my review.
+5 Voiced Main
+2 Creation Options
-4 Repititive Sidequesting
+11 Voice Acting In General
-9 Occasional Unintuitive Response Result
-113 Inventory
-99 Huge Number of Useless Items
+555 Tali'Zorah nar Rayya
-236 No Tali Romance
+256 Urdnot Wrex
+115 Joker
+52 Awesome Finale Sequence
-37 Long Sequences of Boring
-60 Feeling of Lower Amounts of Character Interaction
+32 Choices with Consequences
-111 PC Port Issues
+2 Music
+17 Fun Combat System
-1 Lower Level of Punchy Dialogue
-42 The MAKO
+15 The MAKO After I Figured It Out
-20 Attacks That Penetrate Shields
Final Score: 330
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Recettear: This game is full of tallychus. Just got the mage dude's card, so tried out a dungeon with him. Died, since it turns out he kinda sucks. Which is largely okay by me since he's a prick anyway~ Found some weird girl with a spear wandering around in a dungeon, kinda hoping I get either her or the thief girl soon. Thiiiink I'll make the third payment, not so sure if I'll manage the 4th though.
Mentioned this in chat already, but Caillou is actually really good, you just have to be careful and not take hits. And/or buy him some new armor so he can take a few. His third spell pretty much OHKOs anything except bosses, and against bosses he can just spam it until they're dead because they usually don't get knocked back much.
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Bard: If you're using Akito, just make sure you keep on going Nadesico routes since that'll get you Gai Gaidoji back, which will open up the Double Gekigan Flare attack that will let him play keep up on the damage curve once you hit the endgame.
Alright, haven't had time to really move forward in SRWJ, but have got my grubby little paws on NHL11 (my most recent Hockey game before this being NHL98, so yay), with some other possible distractions in Fallout 3 and FF13. Will comment more after I've done more than just done a lot of hockey.
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-236 No Tali Romance
Saved for the sequel.
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Bard: If you're using Akito, just make sure you keep on going Nadesico routes since that'll get you Gai Gaidoji back, which will open up the Double Gekigan Flare attack that will let him play keep up on the damage curve once you hit the endgame.
I am full-on Nadesico route. Next playthrough is either full-on Archangel or Great Zeorymer for cheese.
X Aestivalis is rather disappointing compared to the Lunar Frame.
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Grim Grimoire: Because Suikoden 2 gets to wait until my laptop is functioning. On 2-2, let's just get starte-WHATTHEGODDAMNFUCKITSADRAGON
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Alright, haven't had time to really move forward in SRWJ, but have got my grubby little paws on NHL11 (my most recent Hockey game before this being NHL98, so yay), with some other possible distractions in Fallout 3 and FF13. Will comment more after I've done more than just done a lot of hockey.
Damnit. I just picked up NHL10.
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Nier- just past the five year jump. I love this game. Seriously, I haven't enjoyed a game with boring gameplay this much since like... PS:T?
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Shame to hear that we wound up with different versions.
Fallout 3, got to Megaton after finishing off the nefarious Overseer. Got the Black Widow perk since it gives conversation options, and have already used it to convince Blake to shove off. After that, got the quest to stop the leaking pipes and a headache from motion sickness, so it's obvious I'm going to be going slow at this.
FF13, man, this game really does start off in the middle of the action. So much so that Chapter 1 is finished, and I'm not entirely sure who any of these people are or why I should care about them yet. That said, I'm liking the vibe Lightning and Sahz have going on right now. Vanille, may be a lot more tolerable than her character type usually is. Her introduction... was like a gun-toting MC. Hopefully, the narritive will eventually get out of this random action sequence.
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Puzzle Quest: Just about finished. Very addictive game with a unique concept. I would have loved the game so much more if it didn't have random battles that kept popping up at the most annoying times, though.
Gameplay was fun and the writing definitely was amusing at points. Worth the money I paid for it.
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Vanille will have another gun toting moment in C9 Excal =-) It is awesome sauce. Funny you should say that too because according to one of the FFXIII Ultimanias Square Enix actually considered making her the MC because of her significance in the story.
I would wait until the end of C6/C8 before really forming an opinion of her though because it explains a lot about her behaviour before then. All might not be as it seems! ;)
Valkyrie Profile (Lenneth)- Started this. At the end of Phase One. Well I have my save before the last period. Have scouted ahead into the next phase a bit but I'm not really sure what I'm doing. Am I supposed to send Belanus, Jelanda or both to Freya? Jelanda has been quite useful for guard breaking so far =/
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You don't -need- to send anyone first chapter. Freya always tells you before the beginning of a new chapter what she wants in the Einherjar you send her, so jot that down and send a warrior that fulfills -all- the prereqs, preferrably at max level for the skills she wants.
That said, you can send either Belenus or Jelanda, since it improves the loot you'll get - no need to toss both into the mix. I usually send up Jelanda because you -often- (not always) get a mage in C2, usually Nanami. When you get Nanami, by the way, visit her house again in Hai-Lan so you get the "break randoms for the first half of the game" staff.
EDIT: Make sure their Hero Level is maxed before sending, though (max all traits with CP. Do -not- be afraid to use Experience Orb points for that, since only levelling up gives you any good CP - the game ain't stingy with them and you don't need the XP for your main party -at all-).
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If you want to know anything at all about VP I highly reccomend http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/931113-valkyrie-profile-lenneth/faqs/12648 as Captain K does amazing work.
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Mass Effect 2: Its pretty goddamn awesome.
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If you want to know anything at all about VP I highly reccomend http://www.gamefaqs.com/psp/931113-valkyrie-profile-lenneth/faqs/12648 as Captain K does amazing work.
I figured CT wouldn't want to -actually- FAQ, but if you're FAQing VP at all, you Captain K it.
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And if you want the A ending, you know, the one with all the plot? You FAQ it. I love VP, but I have no idea how anyone just manages to stumble into the A ending without a guide.
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I suspect Captain K was created exactly for the purpose of unobscuring A Ending. THAT SAID, I'd leave A Ending for a second playthrough.
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Personally, for sendings and what not?
I wouldn't send Jelanda until you at least get Yumei and/or Nanami. You ALWAYS want at least one mage in your team, and Jelanda's your only one for a little while (Nanami and Yumei can join as early as Chapter 2, and as late as Chapter 4, I wanna say?)
For sendings, you just need to fulfill as many reqs as Freya asks for that chapter. If you can get one character who fulfills all the requirements, then you only need to send one. You also do NOT need to fulfill all of Freya's requirements to get the majority of the benefits (probably just affects Materialize Points; getting the good gear just requires you fulfill a majority of them.) Sending 2 characters up isn't a bad idea, of course, if you have characters to spare and don't plan on using them.
In Chap 1, send just one of Llewellyn or Belenus. The only requirement is, IIRC, Hero Value, which you'll get if you max out their Personality traits, and that should get you the full benefits Freya gives you. And if it doesn't...Chap 1-2 sacred phase rewards are pretty meager anyway <_<
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Sending up two Einherjars is just a bad idea when you're in the chapters you need to fulfill the requirements for A Ending. However, you should just Captain K that.
Also, if you care about using Janus, wait until C3 to send up Llewellyn so you fulfill the Archer requirement. He sucks as a hero, though, so if you do that, you'll probably end up sending someone else along with him to make up for that. Janus is okay, but fighting over the good bows with Lenneth sucks.
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Shit, 170K already!? Matsuno must be dying of laughing so hard.
...How much did this game even sell the first time it came out?
500K, possibly more.
You seem to have forgotten about the (http://img247.imagevenue.com/loc548/th_32751_super_famicom_122_548lo.jpg)
PSX launch was indeed rather sad, and the SAT sold like well, Disgaea.
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Woohoo, I'm a verb again.
Wish I had as much free time to work on FAQs like I did back in the VP days. You should see how many ~75% completed FAQs I have on my computer that I've never submitted.
SO4: Got what I presume is the final PC, at the cost of another. Not sure if I like this change or not, but I'll give it a go. Other than that still enjoying the game. :P
Ultimate Genesis Collection: Damn, lot of good stuff on here that I've never played before. Go go Golden Axe Warrior for totally ripping off Zelda (but doing it right!). Kid Chameleon may be the baddest dude on the planet. And Shining Force is pretty cool, although permadeath combined with first boss doing OHKO damage isn't a good combination.
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SO4: Got what I presume is the final PC, at the cost of another. Not sure if I like this change or not, but I'll give it a go. Other than that still enjoying the game. :P
He gets Dragon Roar. It is likely the game's best attack. Faize, on the other hand, is unquestionably the worst character in the game.
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Ultimate Genesis Collection: Damn, lot of good stuff on here that I've never played before. Go go Golden Axe Warrior for totally ripping off Zelda (but doing it right!). Kid Chameleon may be the baddest dude on the planet. And Shining Force is pretty cool, although permadeath combined with first boss doing OHKO damage isn't a good combination.
Shining Force doesn't have permadeath. Once you get going, there'll be a priest in every town. If somebody died in the first battle, you can retreat from the second by having the MC run to the hut at the eastern edge of the map. Should be a priest in there, if memory serves (and a shittastic new recruit). Also make sure you talk to JOGURT.
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Kid Chameleon may be the baddest dude on the planet.
Woo! A new KC fan
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I don't feel like actually saying all this again because yeah.
[10:56] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Sooooooooooooo.
[10:56] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Golden Sun Dark Dawn just went to a really dark place.
[10:57] <hinode-SRWJ> ff.net?
[10:57] <Xeroma> as in can't see shit on the screen?
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> No as in it shocked me and I had to close my DS.
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Go to get the Ice gem thing from a ruin so that I can make big blocks of ice.
[10:57] <Xeroma> uh oh
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> You come across the Ice Queen.
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> NO Don't take me back I don't want to be a slave ever again.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> So boss fight ensues against this women against her will.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> ACTUAL LINE FROM TYRELL AFTERWARDS.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> "I guess she knows her place now."
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Wow.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Just fucking wow.
[10:58] <Namagomi> ...jegus wtf
[10:58] <Xeroma> that's bad even for GS writing
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Five across the eyes and go make me a sandwich.
[10:59] * Soppy-ClearGenderRoles is now known as Soppy-CLEARGENDERROLES
Covers it.
What the fuck Camelot.
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Wow, okay. All urge to play Golden Sun: Gone.
SRWJ: Second pathsplit, going for Great Zeo for Great Smash. Been pretty much repeating my super-heavy lineup from the first time around, except without deploying the main on every stage because Coustwell is not exactly impressive. I do plan to use Kira and the Brains eventually just to see their quotes.
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I don't feel like actually saying all this again because yeah.
[10:56] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Sooooooooooooo.
[10:56] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Golden Sun Dark Dawn just went to a really dark place.
[10:57] <hinode-SRWJ> ff.net?
[10:57] <Xeroma> as in can't see shit on the screen?
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> No as in it shocked me and I had to close my DS.
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Go to get the Ice gem thing from a ruin so that I can make big blocks of ice.
[10:57] <Xeroma> uh oh
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> You come across the Ice Queen.
[10:57] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> NO Don't take me back I don't want to be a slave ever again.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> So boss fight ensues against this women against her will.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> ACTUAL LINE FROM TYRELL AFTERWARDS.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> "I guess she knows her place now."
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Wow.
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Just fucking wow.
[10:58] <Namagomi> ...jegus wtf
[10:58] <Xeroma> that's bad even for GS writing
[10:58] <Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> Five across the eyes and go make me a sandwich.
[10:59] * Soppy-ClearGenderRoles is now known as Soppy-CLEARGENDERROLES
Covers it.
What the fuck Camelot.
Camelot finally embraced fully the reach of the fail within its mediocrity. They've been rehearsing that since the Shining in the Darkness days.
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SRWJ: First playthrough: Finished!
Granteed was everything ou would want in a main and more. Went with Tenia route. Ending was fun; I remember my first time with a tie, heh.
Biggest Surprise: Brain Powered became my "advance squad", completely replacing the Aestivalis squad. I love you, Ryoko, but you can't box up against retardedly good evasion + solid offence that keeps on giving. Yuu and Hime were beasts. I initially used them because I had to use SOMETHING, but it was a surprisingly nice turn of events.
FMP became the defence squad, tasked with keeping the Nadesico safe. I dunno, I guess the Aesties really did suck in the end.
Biggest Disappointment: Eternal. The show advertises it as holding out much better than the Archangel. The game does not reflect this.
Favourite Cast: Nadesico by a long-shot. Yurika is priceless.
Yurika: "Hey everyone! I'm the captain! V!" ("This'll capture their hearts for sure!")
Everyone else: "... oh god is this the captain you can't be for real"
Ruri: "... Idiot."
Re-playing. Touya with Bellzelute. Screw Coustwell, and screw it hard. I played it with Calvina a bit, and while I like her Command skill, I hate her personality. Fiercely. I'd rather take whiny, angsty teenage brat over callous, bitchy loon.
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hahahahahaha you thought the eternal were any good
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It was pink, it had a seasoned war veteran and it was lauded, in SEED at least, to be a high-class battleship carrier specifically made to house the Justice and Freedom. That means it was developed after the Archangel: one would think it could at least rival the Archangel, but its sole redeeming factor was that it was the only battleship that could repair other battleships.
I just realised the other battleships do the "Command" and "flock enemies to it" part better
Probably not gonna use it during my re-play, though, unless I have a spare slot.
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SRW gameplay worth and plot hype tend to run fairly separate besides a few specific cases (Eva outside F/FF, Gunbuster, some other stuff I'm probably forgetting). Eternal's sole point in J for all intents and purposes is an extra Bless caster, and J sorta drowns you on those -anyway-.
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Granted, it's SRWJ, so you have to ask yourself how much do you really care. That said I'm not sure if the Eternal has been worth anything in any SRW ever. Maybe K but that was mostly due to how hax SEED mode was there rather than the Eternal itself being particularly good.
Speaking of SRWJ, up to stage 34. Somehow, the unbalance is greater than I remembered.
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K Eternal has Lacus with stats worth a fucking damn, passable weaponry, actual durability, Bless (a rarity on K) and the added benefit of SEED hax. It's actually pretty good.
EDIT: And both Repair and Resupply off -that- durability doesn't hurt either.
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<Grefter-ShaleisBlueRajah> "I guess she knows her place now."
So you have a kitchen and she appears in it, never to leave for the rest of eternity? Maybe in the freezer?
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Wow, okay. All urge to play Golden Sun: Gone.
Was the beginning urge not at 0?
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ToGF- I just realized I override my save just before Emerald. Shit, shit shit shit.
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Does anyone else see Niu's acronym as Tales of GameFAQs?
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Oh, waiiiiit, they're not working on K, but W. Damnit, SRW, there are too many of you!
They only have a menu translation for K, but clearly SRW cannot be enjoyed without its stellar PLOT.
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Wow, okay. All urge to play Golden Sun: Gone.
Was the beginning urge not at 0?
0.25 or so. I had ROMS of the first two downloaded for any time I might feel like a completely generic RPG.
Also, the Eternal in Z has Hope, which is really awesome (targetable full HP restore/Bless/Cheer/Will+10 for an entire squad), and METEOR combo attacks with Kira and Athrun. So that's pretty neat.
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To be fair to GSDD, she dominated a monk and forced him to do her bidding of PURE EVIL!! Putting her in her place might just refer to stopping her taking over the poor guy's soul and body, and sealing her ancient evil back to where it belongs.
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So, had some friends round last night, and they're gonna be here until some time tomorrow. We've been playing Brawl the way it YOU'RE TOO SLOW should be played, and it is actually seriously HO HO HO HO fucking amazing. :D It's been hilarious, we've all been waaaay too loud, but nobody really HIIIIIIIIII~! cares. We've been choosing Random-All and I've been joking around more than most and trying to find PIKA PIKAAAA! the most fun ways to play the characters, whether it be homing attack spam with Sonic or Up+B/Across+B-only with King Dedede. I have to say that BOOP it's been awesome so far, and I can really see why Brawl is the party game - still prefer Melee on the competitive PAUNCH side but Brawl is better for just pure fun and mayhem. ^_^
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Pics or it didn't happen
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K Eternal has Lacus with stats worth a fucking damn, passable weaponry, actual durability, Bless (a rarity on K) and the added benefit of SEED hax. It's actually pretty good.
EDIT: And both Repair and Resupply off -that- durability doesn't hurt either.
Don't forget that K is a squad game so repair+resupply meant double regen for the Eternal itself, which is insanely helpful.
Just finished stage 25 on J English replay. The Puzzle Robo stages are a lot more enjoyable now that I don't have to consult a faq to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do, nor do I have to look up the less commonly used spirits like Assail and Direct Hit/Break to see if they're the key to solving a stage. The temptation to just scroll down a bit in the faq and see the solution was just too strong.
I've got all the new units that I didn't use on my last two runs but intend to on this file now, so I'll give my thoughts on them before their upgrades. I'll skip the recurring stuff because I don't think you need me to tell you that a heavily upgraded Nadesico/Mazinkaiser/Tekkaman Blade/etc. destroys worlds, or mediocre units like Layzner or Strike Gundam are actually good if they're carrying over a weapon FUB and tons of BP in offensive stats.
Coustwell: Really boring. It's not objectively bad the way that, say, Shining Gundam is bad, but it's got nothing really going for it and the attack animations are pretty repetitive so they get old fast. I'm just putting up with this so I can get Raftclans if I ever feel like going for playthrough #4.
Great Mazinger: The armor's not much worse than Mazinkaiser's, so it can tank hits well, but the weapons are just awful before Mazin Power kicks in, and really only acceptable then. Not much more than combo attack fodder for Mazinkaiser... except that Kaiser in a third run has so much offense it doesn't care at all about combo attacks, especially ones with range restrictions.
Dragon Gundam: Best initial dodger in the Shuffle Alliance, and the only one with better than 5 move. Really bland though, only two attacks right now and you rarely use Dragon Fire. I'm sick of seeing Fei-Long Flag already.
Gundam Rose: Long range MAP attack and Bless mean it's probably the best of the non-Domon Shuffles this early on. The Butler attack is also hilarious, one of the best attack animations in the game. 5 base move really bites, though.
Bolt Gundam: It had some durability issues at first due to Guard's high price and low HP for a tank, but then I stuck a barrier part on it and it's been doing fine. 5 move still sucks, though.
Gundam Maxter: Having neither Focus nor Guard is a real durability issue; Wall+evasion can only go so far. The extra BP from the early playthroughs (not that G Gundam characters get much, due to how pathsplits work in this game) probably helped him out more than the other 3 combined though, so he's been okay on surviving so far. At least he's got the second best set of weapons after Rose, both in power and interesting animations. 5 move still blows, though.
Also, in hindsight using full Shuffle Alliance + Mazinger team (minus the useless fembots) + Coustwell in a single playthrough wasn't the best idea I had, because the melee to range ratio is absurdly skewed right now. I'm actually having trouble figuring out what to do with +10 range skill chips, and I'm only halfway through the game.
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Only posting it here so that they are together because I feel bad that people are going to be skipping Dark Dawn because of one line.
When I stopped going oh my god they actually had that line and opened up my DS there was a bit more context to it. Karis says that she feels bad about forcing it on the spirit against her will and Tyrell does some embararssed sad face emoticon thing. Someone wonders whether the spirits came first or if the stones that they are kept in came first.
Then the monk dude from the first games that had been tricked into freeing her says "It doesn't matter she is back where she belongs now".
Camelot: What do you say to a woman with 2 black eyes? Nothing, she has already been told twice.
Keep it classy.
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Only posting it here so that they are together because I feel bad that people are going to be skipping Dark Dawn because of one line.
Again, the implication is that there was some reason worth playing in the first place?
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To revel in mediocrity. I think Golden Sun is a very important RPG series. It shows what happens when you make an RPG and know exactly how it all goes together without actually putting any thought or effort into it thereby making an utterly shit game that gets all the essentials right.
Edit - And in doing so managing it three times and each time getting critical acclaim and great reviews.
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I'd say doesn't fail all the essentials rather than "Gets all the essentials right." Too close to implying it ever something anything well.
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Honestly, if they would just edit down the dialogue I doubt I'd have any issue muscling through the mediocre game. The gameplay isn't much worse than in a lot of portable RPGs aside from them actually making the menus annoying to navigate this round. Graphics/music are fine, though not as impressive as they were on the GBA at the time.
I already traded it in, though; it's far worse than the first two and I feel like replaying GS2 would actually be a more satisfying experience, which is insane considering its tedium. Picked up Again, No More Heroes, 3D Dot Game Heroes and Chulip all in one sale.
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Moved to new thread.
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Try the 2011 WGAYP thread.
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Wow am I stupid, I didn't even notice there was a new thread. Thanks.