Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

[Luther Lansfeld]

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!

[Hunter Sopko]

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 >.>

[Twilkitri]

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.

[DjinnAndTonic]

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!

[Meeplelard]

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.

[Clear Tranquil]

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 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~

[Yoshiken]

I have to agree with Yoshi to an extent - the randoms in this game are little turds 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.

[Luther Lansfeld]

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.

[Meeplelard]

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.

[Excal]

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).

[Dark Holy Elf]

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?).

[Yoshiken]

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. >.<

[Meeplelard]

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.

[DjinnAndTonic]

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.

[Dark Holy Elf]

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.

[Yoshiken]

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.

[SageAcrin]

-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.

[Fudozukushi]

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.

[Grefter]

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.

[Shale]

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.

[Meeplelard]

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?)

[Shale]

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.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

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.

[DjinnAndTonic]

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.

[Grefter]

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.