What games are you playing 2021: Please don't bully cute, girly-girl alchemist

[Dhyerwolf]

FF 9 replay- Up to disk 3 when you get the ship. FF 9 is one of my favorite games, which I had always attributed to the graphics, but the structure of the story on the first two disks is incredibly effective. "On the run" is a great way to keep the characters moving naturally in a way that doesn't feel RPG forced (other than the initial setup) and there's plenty of story fodder to inform character actions and development in a way that feels very natural as well. Character foibles and frustrating character aspects are well-capitialized on in driving the plot and eventually making the characters seem more well-rounded. The feel the early story at least is almost on par with the graphics for me and FF 9 has my favorite all time graphics. I also tend to love Mist based worlds and FF 9 capitalizes on that well.

And speaking of graphics, the level of work that went into their design really shines through. I've noted before, but I don't tend to like games with rotating cameras and attempts at getting more and more realistic because it's too much space for a the game designers to curate, so there's a great cost to having interesting random details because it's too much work to consider what those details might look like from all sides.

As far as a fairy-tale location setting and plot wise, FF 9 really hits of out of the park. And it needs to, because the battle system is horrible. Other than the novel method of learning (which I still want more from; the implementation feels like it could be better), everything was a basically a failure

---Battle Speed: Did they just not play the game first and see how this failed? Or did they just really hate Trance Kuja?
--Skillsets: Minus Dagger and  Eiko, near everyone's just boils down to damage for the most part. Sure, there's other stuff, but it's often slapped with questionable hit rates or questionable durations (and many things are just pointless). It feels very rare to find a legitimate use for dipping into skillsets.
--Abilities: No real balance and a lot of cookie cutter fluff. Part of the lackluster skill learning implementation is that I just don't really care whether yet another character learns Anti-Blind or Add Status or whatever.
--Enemies: Are horrible! Although I guess it's better this way given that durable enemies would lead to battles that are way too long. Enemies are all horribly frail, and most of them have sad damage. Some bosses could be good, but their HP is so bad that they'll only get a couple of turns. Boss HP really needed to be doubled at baseline with a few exceptions (hey, throw in a 50% damage bonus increase as well).

At least Tantarian is kind of a fun fight (actually makes Thievery useful despite doing 25% of Zidane's physical. Also got use out of Focus that way when you finally have a chance to hit, Vivi's damage is very nice (especially if you've been hit into Trance, as I was this time).
---Trance: Again, did they not play the game first?

Taking a break now since I've gotten to where the game really slows down. That said, I did randomly find  a printed chocograph location FAQ in my parents house, so I'm glad to have that physically handy for when I get back to it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

BD2 - I beat this a couple weeks ago, but I keep thinking about the game quite a bit, so decided to toss in some random thoughts into the topic.

So, the game definitely feels rushed past the end of C4, with a bunch of weird omissions (Snowfire talked at length about the most glaring of them, and also about some of the worldbuilding holes, so I won't really delve into it, but it is pretty noticeable) and the feeling the game ends up kinda unpolished in a few fronts, but, in a sense, I actually feel the game isn't exactly WORSE off for it? The biggest problem with BD1 was that it dragged it out way, way too long in order to force its script twists in and the whole game structure suffered for it. In BD2, while there is the feeling that things sorta fall apart in the seams, the game actually respects the player's time a lot more and doesn't really want you to take the plot very seriously, which does a lot in building goodwill towards its end product. The writing ends up going for the short and sweet approach to close things up rather than doing a huge buildup and falling apart under its own weight - less ambition is something I've been appreciating more and more in most things I play and, frankly, BD2 ends up better for not being very ambitious in its writing, especially since the writers seem to know their own strengths (mainly making the cast overall pretty dang likable and reasonably memorable within the script scope). It's kinda like "what if Grandia 3 but the characters are actually likable and reasonably written instead of a raging dumpster fire" in that sense. Which yeah, that works for me.

Gameplay-wise, I feel the game gets way, way absurd in the power levels you reach late, but the way to power is very fun and layered, while the battle design makes you feel rewarded for reaching those levels (randoms are kinda rocket-taggy from the word go, but bosses are really fun and punishing if you don't know what you're doing and setup in BD2 is so, so important. This really hits my biases front and center). The game also offers insane replayability with scene skip, amazing NG+ options for player/challenge-friendliness and just overall variety to build a party, so I expect I'll replay this game a lot. Heck, I had to stop myself from doing so a couple times already.

Iunno, BD2 ended up being bigger than the sum of its parts to me, with a core gameplay system that can keep me coming back for ages and a baseline cast that I expected to hate, but ended up enjoying throughout just by being earnestly written. Probably an 8/10, which I frankly did not expect - though part of this may be just by virtue of the game addressing precisely my main complaints about the first game and scratching the horrendous weaboo shit Bravely Second dabbled in.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

Beat this a third time, this time on Hard Mode. Hard Mode's not too different, one extra enemy per fight typically. This was certainly much easier than my first playthrough on Normal since I'm so much better at the game now, I only lost once (rather randomly to the enemy marked on the aqueduct, I came in with the wrong setup on one PC and everything fell apart from there).

My main team was Kyrie (Marked/Warmage), Yates (various magic classes but mostly acted as the primary healer), Edelgard (Reaver/Templar), builds I've done before or close enough in Kyrie's case. The other three were more interesting (for me):
-Yuna, who focused on Vessel, a class I'd never used before. It's pretty neat? Hallowed Body gives it pretty high offensive stats and it gets a variety of utility attack spells (one with huge range, Earth Slash-style, a 5-range high-power ITE spell, and a high-power spell that hits a 3x3 square are highlights). Pretty MP-intensive so I usually fed her the Mana Stone, and had Manafont of course since it's hard to beat that as a low-effort MP supply. Her other skillset varied (Mender, Alchemystic, Princess most often)
-Bzaro. I'd never used him seriously before, definitely an odd bird who can slot into a variety of roles. Can't use armour but generally has the defensive stats of someone who does, so in true Fell Seal fashion I usually loaded him up with mobility. Anyway I mostly used him to leverage Polestar (14 MP buff spell from the unicorn monster family, Haste + Mind Up to him and all adjacent targets) which certainly does mean things to my mostly magical damage engines. Speaking of which...
-Angela, death mage and obvious MVP. I've been refining this sorcerer build with each successive playthrough and now it just feels hilariously OP. Endgame setup was Druid with Sorcerer secondary, Economy + Blood Magic + Mystic Shield. Blood Magic + Mystic Shield have stupid synergy, as Blood Magic lets you cast spells from HP (2% HP = 1 MP, yes Economy lowers those MP costs and thus HP costs) making your MP useless, but it still generates at 10 MP per turn, and Mystic Shield blocks damage at no cost to your offensive engine. Yikes? Druid is a sneaky good carrier, innate Mind Expert and its skillset while unassuming just adds so much versatility; the ability to doublecast things like healing, dispel, low-level attack spells (including bleed), and Panacea is amazing for e.g. the final boss once you're done destroying the battlefield with ~200 full MT damage every turn (doublecast allowing for 1.5x that at a massive HP cost). Equip appropriate statusblockers to deal with enemy counters, upgrading to the ribbon equivalent at the end of course.

This could be improved further by having support characters with Initiative + Quicken (turn shift) to get the engine started even faster, but that's certainly massive overkill for anything approaching the normal difficulty of the game.

For now I think the next playthrough will be a challenge one. SCC time? Possible! Everyone getting Item should make those reasonably possible (except Mender who gets trolled by Evade Attack of all things). But that's for another day.


Bravely Default 2 - Just finished Chapter 1. Bosses are fun, if long - I definitely need to refine my offensive builds, I feel. (Defence I can handle just fine). Thank god for poison because it has made my poor offence not matter as much. Otherwise this sure is a Bravely game, only being CTB makes everything better.

VVVVVV - I randomly replayed this for the first time since 2013, nothing really new to say about it, it's cool.

Phoenix Wright: Justice for All - After Zero Escape I was craving an Ace Attorney replay but apparently we lost our copy of AA1 and I wanted to play this one on the bus so sure, we'll skip straight to JFA, I'm cool with that. Halfway through Case 2. I really like this case; the first trial day just feels oppressive, but in a way that (since I've played it before and know the truths) feels very fair instead of relying on contrivances (e.g. things that the player mysteriously hasn't investigated yet or the judge being taken for a fool). It's a well-done frame job and it's difficult to crack!

[DragonKnight Zero]

  It seems I'm not as bad at Tales of Symphonia as I advertise myself to be.  Ended up grinding out the one title that requires Raine dying in one fight.  Some manipulation with traps and I had a Raine with 1 HP and Sheena, Presea, and Lloyd healthy.  And I still needed to tell the AI to do nothing partway through because they were winning my chosen fight too quick.  Used Purgatory Seal both to save on Life Bottles and also because it leaves the target at low HP to quickly get knocked out again.  Got a unique win quote out of it too; not one that's likely to be encountered naturally since it requires a KO'ed Raine and a standing Sheena.

  I still flubbed a plot fight that requires staying alive for a set time.  Barely pulled through because Guts saved Lloyd from a would-be-fatal attack at 1 HP and everyone else was already down.

Will write about conquering the bonus dungeon another time.

FFT: Not going to do battle summaries for every fight but one had me giggling to do.

Poeskas Lake - I brought Mustadio.  He made statues.

It's also the last time he really gets to shine.

scattered Gradius Gaiden ship thoughts:

Vic Viper - It's mainly there to be the legacy ship with the same loadout from the very first Gradius.  It also fills the niche of possibly being the best for those who like to hang back and attack from afar.  Laser's damage output tends to be consistent regardless of distance.  Missile's ground crawling also is convenient when trying to focus on dodging; the other missile weapons generally take more precise aim.

Lord British - Something I haven't seen documented is how the Disruptor laser pierces everything except terrain.  Boss trying to block shots with inpenetrable arms?  Bzzt, Disruptor cuts right through.  It takes full invulnerability to block.  Disruptor's DPS is not that overwhelming and  pointblacking with the Ripple laser does more damage when you can get away with it.  Not much else to add at the moment; the lack of rear firing capability is already well documented.

Jade Knight - This seemed so cool reading the description of the arsenal.  Then I found out the Round Laser nerfs the forward fire rate and that it takes getting close to stuff for it to hit.  This can be hazardous once the suicide bullets start showing up.  Boss fights tend to last longer with this ship as the Pulse Laser isn't overly strong; it's main benefit is not to be stuck with the Round laser in a fight that relies on forward firepower.  Spread Bombs are the most damaging part of the ship's attacks and hitting with them is key to shorter boss fights.  Awkward but also interesting to make use of.  Plus the Spread Bombs have this fun factor even if they're not the tools of mass destruction of Gradius 3 arcade.

Falchion Beta - Gravity Bullet is so nice for quick boss battles.  Takes a bit more alertness than other ships' lasers since they can impact on each other but so worth it.  To balance out this power, this ship has the shortest range on its missiles.  Auto-aiming sounds busted but in practice... well it sometimes like to aim at indestructible terrain and it also nerfs the forward firing rate like nearly every other Double type weapon.  Also requires getting close to targets, moreso if there is debris around to distract the auto-aimed shot.  When the targets are shooting back, it's quite easy to slam into a bullet by mistake.

[Niu]

SaGa Frontier Remaster - this truly is a dream come true.
Blitz through the Asellus route. Trinity event is here,  Furdo and science lab event is here. Nusakan can join too!

There is also new game plus that let you carry over everything! So mo more redoing the something over and over again! This is just great!

[VySaika]

Diving straight into the Saga Frontier remaster. Imagine accidentally saving after the point of no return and getting bodied by the final boss. Couldn't be me...wait no, it was me.

Still got 2 Sanctuary Stones, so time to GRIND IN THE FINAL DUNGEON!!!!!!

Maybe Annie and Roufas will spark some high end sword techs while we're at it. Triple Thrust is perfectly legit, but it'd be cool to see some others. Liza has the DSC already(and Sky Twister and Tri Dragon or whatever that is) of course. And Emilia is full on Gunmage with Light/Rune/Mind as options, and trick shot. Rouge rounds out the team, using Realm/Shadow/Arcane and I bought Reverse Gravity for him from Kylin because after seeing Liza slam monsters into the ground for so long he wanted to do it too.

[Reiska]

DQ9 - finished, still love it, and still love the aftergame's attempt to apply something resembling the Diablo gameplay loop to a turn-based JRPG. 

The only thing that stops DQ9 from being unequivocally my favorite create-your-own-party JRPG on raw gameplay is how irritatingly "bad MMO grind" a lot of the class/skill unlock quests are.  A remake that got rid of that crap would be pretty much perfect, or, alternatively, a new remake of DQ3 that backports the modern DQ skill point system into it would be equally good to me. 

[Tide]

Yasnooza - Complete. Main game was about 50-60 Hours although I had a ton of idle time, which inflated my Steam play clock to 120. The combat system feels like a modern version of SMRPG with its timed hits and timed defense along with some general improvements that overall make it less broke (stat buffs expire to start). At the same time though, there isn't a lot of depth in the system despite having a job class system (more on this later) and the overall difficulty is also similar with SMRPG in that it is generally pretty easy outside of maybe one or two fights. Some general strengths and weaknesses of the game:

Strengths:
- The game has a lot of charm. Exploration of the city space is one of the best highlights of the game. Unfortunately, there are only 3 city areas though, but each of them is very large, filled with lots of details and little locations to visit.
- The PCs are all relatively balanced, so you're free to use whoever you want mostly. Although an ideal comp will almost always have one of the girls in the team
- There are a lot of things to do in the game. IMO, if you like open world games, this is probably about as close as you can get to a JRPG while being open world. There are tons of side quests, tons of mini-games or things to do and explore around while having a general story-line for you to follow when you're ready.
- The story doesn't throw around a ton of convoluted terms and while being easy to follow, has it's own series of twists and turns. Kasuga in particular is a great Protag and reminds me a lot of SH2 Yuri. Adachi is also pretty good! I have less things to say about Han and Zhao cause they join fairly late, but even they have good substories. So the cast is pretty strong as a whole.
- Enemy designs are pretty fun which include everything from a Giant Roomba to stock Yakuza dudes.
 

Weaknesses:
- As a result of the open-world-ish structure, the pacing is all over the place. There are some Chapters where the number of objectives take like a couple of hours between some events to be done and a dungeon to explore. Then, there are some chapters where it is just one boss battle and the game progresses. As a result of the weird pacing, the game clearly expects you to explore the city scape at some point and participate in the myriad of activities so you can meet the new demands of a boss or dungeon.
- Despite its class system, there isn't a lot of reason to explore in different classes outside of the post game. Your stats scale with your job level, so you want to be in your primary job for about 75% of the time. The other 25% is to explore jobs to pick up carry over skills or for quick stats. Problem is that the carryover skills sometimes take 20 levels of that job before you learn it, which is about 1/2 the game or more. So you have to make your choices and stick with them. This is a very sharp contrast to other job systems such as FF5, FFT and even XF, where switching a job for a fight or two is way more reasonable and way more of a problem solving solution as opposed to hard grinding.
- Money is a huge determinant on the things you can do and is the underlying resource more than anything else. This creates this weird dynamic where understanding the business management mini-game is vastly more important than any other mini-game. You need money for equipment, participating in mini-games, continuing certain subequests, heck at one point, the game even needs you to *make* 3 million Yen.
- There are a lot of little polish issues that makes the game feel sloppy. For example, why can I only switch jobs at the employment office (this is another reason why the job system isn't great)? Why do I have to walk around the streets to get to the forge - can't they just be literally on the same level / beside each other? Why does the quick travel cost money (even if not a lot)? Why can't the inventory cap just be in battle instead of requiring a storage box? Why are there are so few save points inside actual dungeons?

Overall, the game has its fair share of issues but the experience and charm of the game is generally strong enough to carry the game through its completion. 7/10

[superaielman]

Saga Frontier Remaster- Is excellent as everyone else has said. The NG+ options are delightful and I'm really looking forward to Fuse's quest.

[VySaika]

All I'm carrying over with NG+ is credits and WP/JP gains. All teh rest is like...stuff I WANT to do over again. Sparking new techs, getting the equips as you go(even with Unlimited Credits I ususally don't just buy endgame gear from teh word go), etc. That is all the stuff that pleases my primate brain's desire for New Shiny.

But being able to carry over those resources is quite nice. Not having to do the full Gold Exchange Tango between Nelson and Koorong every time will be good. (I didn't do it at all for Emilia, and got around to it for T260 because Mecs Need Money).

Speaking of, I did my final dungeon grinding and beat Emilia's quest. T260 was up next(shoulda done Blue first so the money trick would be faster), and I'm actually using Leonard this time. Just finished Tartaros. T260/Leonard/ZEKE all have Maxwell Program, and I put Dragon Program on Leonard since he has the most WP. Gen/Mei Ling and sometimes Riki round out the team. Riki just kinda bumbled into Ogre Lord and well that form works JUST FINE. ZEKE picked up several good programs early, so he got benched for Tartaros. Riki will prolly be on teh bench for endgame. THOUGH tbh if I could slap the backpack on Riki I'd prolly do THAT and have Mei Ling benched. No mage, but with 3 mecs, Gen and a high end monster who cares? Alas, backpack is not a valid monster item, and Gen will usually have better things to do with his turns than toss items.

Oh, and for amusement, Leonard is currently packing the Lordstar. So he opens boss/miniboss fights with Braveheart and then starts Multi-Slashing for 3600 damage(before combos). "Scientist who cloned his brain into a robot body wields a legendary blade found in a dragon's lair to carve apart off-brand Constructicons." SAGA Y'ALL!

[Niu]

SF1 Remaster- half way through. Blue, Coon, and Red are the only ones left.
Saving Red, my Favorite for the last.
Now carefully building my chars and carry stuff over to get myself prepared for the ninja super boss.
Though, is it just me or is the item drop rate much higher in Remaster? Farming Silver Gauntlet and Glenburn Shield has been so easy.

And yeah, Leonard is great. Being the type 6 means he can learn all the good program. Also has good base states and high wp. Especially the wp, arguably better than T260G thanks to that.

[Scar]

Saga Frontier R - Blue still has a janky ending.

[Niu]

SaGa Frontier Remaster-

Beaten the super boss version if Boss X.
Not hard. He can be spoiled with the right defense gears. But it had too much hp making the fight a slug. The status induced by Judgement X is also very irritating.
But it just doesn't have enough damage, except the damage spike that came at low hp. But that came way too late to matter.
But guns are definitely superior in super boss fight. Sword and fist may ran out of WP due to how long the fight is.

And then beat the cheat Ninja after that.
It is a fight of luck, SaGa style. Too much over kill damage that you pray he uses attacks that can be spoiled and not those couldn't.
Star Light Shower, Retribution,  and Wind Blast back to back is just sick sick sick. And he always open the fight with TWO Snow Moon Flower, which is UGH UGH UGH.
He also has this weird Def spike in the middle if the turn where he gets stupidly tank and takes little damage.
That is his scariest trait. This guy had only like 70k or so hp at lowest enemy rank. So blitzing him away with two separate combo with Tower before he blitz you is like the only way to win. But during his weird Def spike, a 30000 damage combo becomes 8000. This is truly a test of luck.

[Random Consonant]

Trails of Cold Steel 4 - Well that was probably the strangest vengence ever planned.

Better than I was expecting but I think my expectations after CS3 ended up so low that almost anything would've been.  Seriously Rean how are you so bad at this.

[Scar]

Forgive my shameless plug. =P

Going to be giving away a few RPGs on Friday's twitch stream. https://www.twitch.tv/rpgamer (6:30pest)

Every Friday I play 21 different RPGs that are on a wheel, chat spins the wheel, and I play the game it picks. Fun concept.

The steam games are: FFIV, FFV, Shadowrun: Returns, Ys3. I'll ask a question, and first person in chat to answer correctly gets the steam version.

Come check out the stream and maybe join in on the mayhem by spinning the wheel too!

~

Other then that I am playing NieR Replicant and the game will not stop showing Kaine's butt cheeks. This game has some of the best music in a RPG. Still not really sold on Bronier, but everything else is wonderful.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bravely Default 2 - Chapter 4. Does this game have the most ridiculously epic random battle music of all time? Probably. Regardless, I am here for it. And also the sexy job system, now with superior CTB.

Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Swords only! I'll detail more about this later. Just beat Chapter 5.


Fell Seal: Arbiter's Mark

Decided to try an SCC. Rules are simple: only use one class where possible, no abilities from outside the class. AI-controlled characters are exempt of course. Plot PCs should all be placed into the class ASAP.

Unlike FFT, items are not tied to a class, so are legal.

Anyway I've decided to try Wizard. Cast the spells that make enemies fall down, take advantage of AoEs, try not to be hit too much, cry if I face anything with full elemental blocking or Evade Magic I guess. We'll see! I hire three generics (Hubert, Rune, Lulu) and also use Kyrie, Virgil, and Lana as my main six to start (Yates draws onto the main team later), though I rotate if I incur injuries. Playing on Normal (Veteran).

Rundown of battles so far:

Timber Road - I'm a little unimpressed with my offence at base, hopefully it'll improve as the Mind growth kicks in. Generally killing enemies in 4 spells. Abuse AoEs when possible, keep an eye on my health and enemy threat ranges and use my limited Potions when necessary to keep alive. The general strategy for this and most fights.

Alpine Woods - The enemies here mostly have elemental weaknesses, and the cliff near the starting point can prevent them from approaching. The unicorn has decent Res to slow my damage, the vangals die fast though.

Gyaum Tor - Slow methodical win. It takes a while but the mountain in the centre prevents all the enemies from rushing me at once, and I largely kite them, so no problems.

Highlands - Save Bzaro/Somier. All fire weak, enemies who cluster, and mostly go after my self-healing NPC guests. Easy peasy.

Scarred Summit - Probably the toughest fight so far, but a few of the enemies hanging back near the door helps a lot, so I can methodically gang up on the ones who do come forward and blast them to bits. Several of them are quite magically tanky, but not "survive six attacks" magically tanky.

Highlands Temple - Alphonse. Actually this is surprisingly easy, I exploit his lightning weakness and counter-magic puts in a fair bit of damage.

Yate's Cabin (1 injury) - Zombies. First injury here as I misjudge the zombies' offence at one point.

Resting Giants (2 injuries) - I let one of the dragons get off a nasty Zohl Beam on a lot of my team then get picked off by the harpies.

Yate's Cabin 2 - Save Anadine (2 resets, 0 injuries on winning run) - Having no healing or defensive options makes keeping Anadine alive a fair bit tougher than usual, and it's not the easiest thing to do normally. Timing my 3 potions on her and occasionally turning my back to the roof to distract the enemies up there (Katja and an archer) helps.

Azure Fields (2 injuries) - The vangals (tiger dudes) have good melee offence and I underestimate them, but otherwise not too bad. I realise pektites (mages with weak mdef) get bodied hard by Magic Counter especially if I set up AoEs for them, if I can afford to.

Banyan Span (1 injury) - That gunner who can cheapshot you at the start is pretty rude. Keep my distance from them thereafter, kill the enemies who come to me, eventually kill Mercier.

Ekhidna Falls - I now have access to healing Flowing Robe + Fur Cap. The one fight where I try out the healing setup. It kinda sucks, because I need to remove Magic Counter (which is sadly non-elemental), my power and durability both drop due to inferior hat, and the healing is honestly pretty awful (~15 base). Not to mention only people without Smart Casting can do the healing, which also means they don't master the class and get a stat hit. Yeah I was hoping for better numbers here, don't think this will ever be worth it. Anyway the fight itself is routine, enemies come to me so I wait first turn then smash. Only thing to be weary off is the first enemy with Magic Counter... just one so rocks help but this will definitely be annoying in the future.

Jungle Temple (3 injuries) - This fight's pretty tough, a Knight gets buffed with Def+ by the Druid and suddenly can OHKO my lower-HP wizards with Defensive Hit. The gunner at the bottom has Infused Edge so can do a lot of damage too, but doesn't move so I can stay out of their range until I'm ready to kill the last two enemies in the fight (the gunner + Antoine, the alchemystic mini-boss with Mystic Shield)

Thespeiros - Breather fight, Primus teleports some dudes into water and I clean up.

Caravan Trail (1 injury) - Mostly fairly easy, the bzzerks (siege ram guys) have bad MDef, the Pektites die fast to magic in general (and trigger magic counter). The zotzit (ball of bonus JP) uses Final Sting and does borderline OHKO, should have focused on it more I guess.

Oldebzar (4 injuries) - My entire right side force gets overwhelmed by the wizard, alchemystic (with Evade Magic! First appearance of that, uh oh), and warmage. My left side force overwhelms the two enemies there, revives Kyrie, and takes out the others at their leisure (alchemystic aside). Mercier buffs himself fifty million times but gets 2HKOed when I finally close in on him anyway (and Rebirth doesn't work in assassination missions, I learn).

Iirzk'tara Gorge (1 injury) - Mostly relatively simple, enemy types my team matches up well against.

Zzakander Spires (2 resets, 2 injuries on winning run) - Pretty rough... just so many enemies with Sleep Powder and that has potential to be awful. Along with me being squishy. Just takes a few tries to bait enemies at the right pace, on the winning run Katja stupidly uses Sabotage to throw herself into my midst, which kills the person she swaps positions with but also her shortly thereafter, and that's the fight.

Occul Cavern 1 - The tangrels (armored enemies) are very tanky and some respect for their ability to burrow underground and set up back hits with their push move needs to be kept in mind. Otherwise though this fight is easy since the enemies take some time to reach my starting point.

Occul Riverbed - Boss fight vs the earthwyrms. I'm anticipating some difficulty here but it's actually quite easy, hit each earthwyrm with Res Down then pile ice damage into them, stay out of lines with them so they can't Quicksand root -> smash me in the face. I stay on top of healing, kill the tangrels when they appear... not much issue really?

Occul Cavern 2 (1 reset, then 2 injuries) - You lose if Kyrie dies, and of course misjudging durability is a good way to die as wizards. Otherwise... there's an assassin with sleep, always annoying. I go up to escape via the western route, killing most enemies.

Baaz Island (4 injuries) - Ouch. The enemy sorcerer has Eruptor and does huge damage with normal attack spells after doing almost anything else, that causes some problems. Two enemies also have Mystic Shield to slow me down. Plenty of range from the enemies which makes this a bloodbath. I'm also starting to fall a bit behind the minimum enemy level here, even with my highest-levelled folks (about -2).

Desert Temple (5 injuries) - Somehow even more pain here! Dark II from the malcubi 2HKOs anyone who doesn't resist dark (Counter Magic hurts at least), sleep is obnoxious as always too. Maybe I should break down and buy blockers.

Phougamouth Bogs (1 injury) - I hire a fresh Level 17 wizard (Jelanda) for this one with how badly my team was beaten up in the previous. Relative breather fight, really only the final push against the birds with Magic Counter (rocks help) presents major challenges, and I'd have 0-injuried this if I hadn't missed a 98% fatal hit against one of them.

Strangled Cove (3 resets, then 2 injuries) - Save Katja. Equip Flippers on everyone to prevent cheesy water deaths. If the enemies decide to dogpile Katja as much as they can there's not much I can do since I can't really prevent it. If more of them go for me then I might just die because this fight is tough! I game over both ways before I'm able to string together a winning run. The assassin in the back has Evade Magic, but fortunately Katja picks her off once everyone else is dead.

Drakesmouth Seaway - Breather fight, everyone's weak to elements and I can take them out without too much issue.

At this point I learn that you can skip the Gelligh 2 fight if you haven't beaten the optional fight with Dolman and Mercier yet! Funny. I guess Septimus doesn't bother trying to assassinate you if you haven't been messing with his plans. So I go on and do the fight after and get wrecked. Feeling a bit underlevelled now for sure, so I figure hey, let's do that optional fight.

Resting Stones (1 reset, then 3 injuries) - Dolman not spawning with Evade Magic helps! Pretty tough but Bzaro chips in with healing.

Gelligh 2 - *dies repeatedly before killing more than 3 enemies* ......... I think I may have made a mistake.

(Yes, I still have the save file from before doing Resting Stones, just in case.)

[superaielman]

Saga- Done all seven quests and all of Fuse's new content. I didn't bother killing the superboss at the end of Fuse's path; just doesn't seem like an especially fun fight.

This was an absolutely fantastic remake. There isn't a ton of new story content in the original seven character's paths, but Fuse's path has a lot of new content and it is really fun. The polish touches were nice as well. I appreciated that they didn't try to rebalance the gameplay, but instead chose to mostly leave things as is, glorious broken and all.

Definitely worth the time and money.

[Niu]

Saga Frontier Remaster - Couldn't beat Purple Shadow stage 3 trump card mode. I guess there are still mad man in the team to supply us with nonsensical super boss even after Koizumi took his leave.

God, making him use the trump card alone is hard enough, the overtly luck reliant slug fest after that is even more insane.

[Scar]

Guys. Tales of Destiny: Director's Cut finally has a working English Translation.

It's fun!

[DragonKnight Zero]

  Dusted off an endgame Atelier Ayesha file to finish things with it and log Linca's ending.  Did some battle grinding for weapons for people that still hadn't won them yet.  Got everyone's strongest weapon other than Ayesha's which if one if had to miss one until going through Clear Game, her's would be the least hassle to win since she's always in the party. So it's probably for the best that I'm missing Ayesha's instead of, say, Nio.  Turns out over a month of alchemy takes a long time to complete.  Took even longer since I sold off most of my inventory before the last synthesis to raise cash for the clear data file and I was aiming for a strong base to start a Clear Game from.    15 minutes in the sell screen clearing stuff out.  Very long time around the cauldron since I was fishing for effects on what I was making to fill in gaps in the Encyclopedia.

  Poor Ayesha, going with Linca turns out almost as poorly for her as traveling with Harry in his ending.

  Wanted to clear that off my list because I had acquired Final Fantasy X recently and wasn't likely to plug in anything else for a while.  I already know the major spoilers and Atelier games have already exposed me to CTB combat.  CTB is fun but I've lost most of my faith in Squenix.  So I had trepidation and was prepared for something underwhelming and dully disappointing.
  So far I've mostly liked it once I got into the rythym of the battle system.  Early randoms have a lot more punch than FF6-8 and I was worried about HP in the early going before Yuna joins.  Sphere grid is engaging even if it gets time-consuming and I can see how it can get grindy.  Ability Spheres I always seem to run short on and maybe it's better to hang around a farm some extras if I have a chance.  Up to Luca so randoms have mostly been use the correct character to OHKO things.  Not really using Aeons much other than for the heck of it and to build up their Overdrives so that they're on hand for when I want to unload.  Haven't had a Game Over yet, see how long I can keep that streak without a walkthrough to look up enemy attacks ahead of time.

  I guess I can relate somewhat to early-game Tidus.  In the sense of being clueless about where he's been dropped to and oh hey, cute girl.  Cast has been alright, though not amazing.  Although this may be because I've had a long time to develop an unfavorable bias against the game before I played it so grain of salt and all that.  The sex appeal on display somehow bounces off me completely and I find myself not caring about shirtless men and buff athletes and Lulu's bustiness.

  Ah yes, the gripes.  Long unskippable cutscenes before boss fights just, urk.  Ninja Gaiden allows skipping cutscenes and that was long before FFX was released.  Mashing confirm does very little to speed things up either, only seeming to cut voiceovers short.  To the game's credit, even their longer story stretches don't feel as Xenogears' longer stretches of doing nothing but advancing text boxes.  There's blitzball.  'Eff blitzball.  I already disliked it before the only required match was over for reasons that weren't connected to me losing.  It's slow, it's heavy RNG based, the tutorial takes about a half hour to go through, and the required match has the player's team heavily out-statted.  I got creamed 6-1 and I was just glad I managed one goal.
  And because I feel like grumbling about it, the voice acting.  Yuna's is so flat.  It's actually not as bad as I expected it would be.  Was only cringing at it about half the time.  Sometimes flat works

  Oh yeah, I took full advantage of renaming Tidus and the Aeons.  Tidus got named Yuri: partly after Shadow Hearts Yuri (I wanted to play Shadow Hearts 2 more than FFX but it's so rare), part after that ice-skating anime, and part because Yuri can be used as a female name which fits for someone who's a cross between Meg Ryan and a jock.  The parallel to Yuri on Ice was unintentional but oddly fitting since Tidus is a sports star in his world and the anime used ice skating as a setting (though that's not the main thing it's remembered for).  Valefor gets redubbed Empreya, after the godbird from DQ8, which I've never played but know of thanks to the DL.  Ifrit become Efrite because I'm putting on a show of being hip and intellectual and that's the non-Square bastardized original spelling.  The lighting Aeon, when I get to it, shall be Geddoe: another character from a game I only know of because of the DL

[Cmdr_King]

Tales of Xillia-

This is weirdly uneven for a Tales game.  You can tell they were working under adverse conditions in how the final game came out, the way the themes ended up in particular feel a bit half-baked.  Weirdly both-sides and kinda dips into "we'll get off Mako Power by discovering OIL" if you think about it too hard.

So... fans of this game will always tell you "play Jude, Milla is more of a replay option" but I decided to play Milla back in 2013 and like hell I'm gonna replay the first hour and a half of the game so here we are.  Honestly though... okay.
Jude is the hero of this game in terms of narrative arc and the plot paralleling his character growth, and that's all fine.  Like, Jude's a nice boy, I like him.  But yeah, it doesn't land for me at all and I don't think getting the more thoroughly explained version of events to better set up his ideological conflict with Gaius would really change my opinion on that?  Like, I dunno, just not feeling anything more than "good for you kid" for a boy's coming of age and discovering his ideological center, yeah?
So Jude's alright but I'm just not in a place where he's gonna be a giant favorite of mine.  Milla is great to be sure of course.  The very restrained way she has to weight her problems and internal conflicts while still being willing to make the call is presented very well.  After that...
Elize is presented realistically which is neat but Teepo is... a lot.  Sometimes a lot in an appropriate way like Elize and sometimes just... not the right choice.
Leia... sure exists.
Rowan is potentially a neat character and maybe if I'd tracked down his sidequests I'd have more to say but yeah, he's the sort of character that can easily sustain a sideplot if you give him one but they never really go there either.
Alvin... god.  So a lot of Tales games do these traitor characters and that's fine but he jsut... doesn't add anything to the team dynamic because he's THAT detached from everyone for most of the game.  Like, when Kratos pulls this shit he's also Lloyd's dad (literally and figuratively) and that dynamic shows through and makes you want him to get over his conflicted loyalties.  Alvin... you might feel sorry for him eventually.  That's about it.

The villains never entirely come together, but aside from Agria they do have some good scattered scenes and that's cool.  On the whole one wise decision Xillia makes is by tightly focusing the narrative goals.  While the theme gets away from the plot as it goes, the majority of the game always comes back to the same goal and simply making that goal closer or further away as needed for dramatic tension.  And hey, taking out a military superweapon is a perfectly good overriding goal for a jrpg quest.  So in that sense it provides a lot of room for Milla to exist and make the sorts of choices that define her while providing a series of moral quandries for Jude to temper himself with.  So yeah they do give themselves some crutches to try and make everything work but a lot of it never lands and it's weird.  Normally Tales games come together then fall apart by being too long, Xillia is a nice reasonable length but never really fires on all cylinders.

Well, okay.  THe tag team boss fights tend to be pretty good.  That's cool.  But like, narratively... yeah, doesn't really get there.

[Fudozukushi]

That's because Agria has GREAT SCENES everytime she's on camera.  100% of the time.  Should be 1000%.

[Cmdr_King]

Jenny LeClue Detectivu- Finished.

So the timeline doesn't add up but this has a similar vibe in presentation and feel to Night in the Woods, which is unexpected.  It's a lot more conventional adventure game in overall content than that of course, but it has that same sense of bending game logic in order to reinforce the character's journey (although here it's Jenny growing as a character within the narrative by pushing back against her author.  Well, aside from one or two sequences.)

It stops at a strange place in some ways although honestly ending there I think would have worked a lot better with the addition of just a small post-credits stinger of some kind.  Honestly it could have been just about anything, but as-is the abruptness feels cheap rather than deliberate.  At all points before then though?  Yeah, I just like spending time with Jenny and seeing her struggle (and occasionally overcome) against herself like she does.  Just a generally neat experience.

[DragonKnight Zero]

FFX progress:

    It's been steady.  Haven't run into any walls on the required storyline.  Seymour 3 did come close when I got annihilated by Cross Cleave on the first attempt but a change in strategy allowed me to win on the next one.  I've had an Initiative weapon for Rikku since the desert which allowed me to safely (if slowly) explore.  Lulu picked up an MP Stroll armor which became my main choice for randoms since I don't need to worry about watching her MP with it.

     The further I go, the angrier I become with the encounter rate.  Especially annoying is the Via Purifico.  I don't have Tidus there so I'm forced to deal with the randoms when I'm just trying to find my way around and my Bahamut wasn't strong enough to oneshot formations with Impulse.  Auron's "I hate this place" echoes my thoughts about it.  Gagazet was a test of patience; I think I got attacked 25 times before reaching the next save point.

     Funny enough, even with that many battles, I made it without a scratch.  Most formations I could take out without the enemies getting a turn.  The few times they got to do something, it was either absorbed by Ifrit (Grenades) or shut down by status.  One time it was neither but it was a physical and Lulu dodged it.  The mechs were a joke with three people with Steal.

    I have no regrets sending Kimahri to learn Steal, Use, Reflect and Dispel.  Then I sent him towards Esuna.  Having a second Esuna caster is nice for my spendthrift ways.  It does have a cost in his stat growth though. My understanding of the Sphere Grid has increased and how valuable it is to plan routes in advance.

    Didn't worry about rotating everyone in for every battle for the most part.  If I can end a fight in 2-3 moves, I'm not stretching it out for 7.  At least, not until the AP gains per fight got high enough and fighting things that live long enough.  I've not failed more than once against any storyline fight yet so I guess that's worked out OK.  Thunder Plains was harder as Wakka wasn't one-shotting one of the flying enemies but I haven't felt walled for lack of stats.  And with the high encounter rate, I feel little incentive to drag out individual randoms.

  So yeah, the battle system is very satisfying to succeed with.  The sheer frequency, not so much.  Not as fun in the late game where bosses and even beefy randoms seem to immune nearly all of the status/debuff options that Tidus, Wakka, and Auron have.  Despite my gripes, I'm enjoying the game enough that I can see myself finishing it and doing a replay.  Just one replay though due to how irritating the optional stuff can get and I'd rather only do once ever.  Like Wakka's Sigil or butterfly catching or the Chocobo racing.  Then there's the grind to 100% the monster arena but that involves the fun battle system so I'm more willing to engage with that.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bravely Default 2 - Done. Final levels were 44-45, which flatlined a fair bit towards the end. Lategame felt pretty light on randoms? I admittedly didn't fight many in the (surprisingly short) final dungeon. Game clock was a bit under 60 hours.

Fun game! I felt the writing was mostly flat, some occasional moments with Elvis/Gloria and some decent stuff in Chapter 3 aside. The final boss isn't a complete embarrassment the way BD1 and BS's are but still doesn't have much going on, and as always I can do without Bravely's weird meta-nonsense.

But that's not why you're here; you're here for the Bravely job system. CTB helps the game so much, really opening up a space in boss design which was badly needed. Not to say the first two Bravely games didn't manage somewhat, but that well definitely felt mostly dry so I'm glad BD2 did something different, and certainly hard turning boss fights into a mess of turns and keeping you constantly on your feet was great. Randoms in the game aren't too interesting because you can easily one-round all of them after a certain point and the only question is how few PCs you can get away with devoting to random-munching while still gaining the JP in classes you want (or just not switching out of your boss-fighting setups) is the only question. But those boss fights, lots of good ones, and the job system is a joy to play around with. I feel like I barely scratched the surface of some of the cheesy things, but it didn't matter, everything I found was pretty fun.

There's a lategame job expansion but it's so late that there are barely randoms left to gain JP on, so I decided not to bother. Or rather, I lost one of the challenge fights, figured I'd go advance the plot instead, then by the time I thought I might try another I realized I only had one short dungeon left, so it was time to beat the game. The final boss was nasty this way! Now for Jo'ou to  tell me how I missed eight cheesy ways to make them a joke. Actually I stumbled on one myself: releasing Mind Crush randoms at her and eventually after that she ran out of MP. Beastmaster the best to the very end.


PC builds, so read at your risk:

Seth: Bard, Salve-Maker, Thief in some permutation, for the most part. Some Phantom in there but I ended up not making much use out of it. Godspeed Strike is cool in boss fights, buffs are cool in general, and Salve-Maker is a great little support skillset. I actually initially had someone else with it, but I figured it would synergize well with GSS because both skillsets really just care about your speed.

Gloria: Beastmaster, with all the joy that brings. When it's not throwing cheesy releases at enemies, Beastmaster lends itself well to physical bruising (especially late where it can ACTUALLY HIT THINGS unlike so many other physical jobs), so she had at various points Ranger, Dragoon, and various other rando jobs to pick up passives (Hellblade which I gave up on, Phantom). Also was my early white mage but lol, that didn't last. Anyway Dragoon was my favourite secondary late, honestly just for Angon. You defaulted to mess with my braveblitz? Fuck you, you die now.

Elvis: Mage jobs. Black Mage, White Mage, Red Mage, Oracle, you name it. I wasn't very impressed with offensive magic in this game. I'm sure there are ways to make it work but I felt like I wasn't even coming close. Fortunately white magic remains excellent support. Sometimes you want to have healing that doesn't burn through X-Potions at a record rate, although honestly Salve-Maker is probably better overall. I actually made him a Bravebearer for the final boss just for the stat push since I realized I was using nothing but white magic on him so why not get better stats?

Adelle: Started as physical damage, ended up as tank. Vanguard, Berserker, Ranger, Swordmaster, Spiritmaster, Shieldmaster. So fun fact, Swordmaster + Indiscriminate Rage + Counter-Savvy is just ridiculous for randomsmash, six MT attacks on a turn 1 brave blitz (through in Multitask if you want, it's not really necessary). But Shieldmaster definitely deserves note for just how badly it can spoil or mitigate so many threats. Was huge carry in so many boss fights. Spiritmaster skillset was not one I used too often but uh it was very good in certain lategame fights.

I didn't really use Arcanist, Bastion, or Gambler (the last of which I got at the last possible moment, don't gate real content behind mini-games in 2021 plz).

I definitely felt like my power level fluctuated a bunch as the game went on. The last three bosses of Chapter 1 were all pretty tough, then my offensive engine started rolling. Chapter 2 bosses were still competent but now my offence was good, then in Chapter 3 bosses largely died pretty fast (though the duo one was still threatening). In Chapter 4 bosses get some big durability (HP, evasion) and some of them get some nasty offence so I felt challenged again. Chapter 5 bosses were largely pretty easy, then the big antagonist fights after that were both very rough for me. That said I never died more than once to any boss; there was nothing that tinkering with my setup and knowing a bit more about their counters couldn't solve. Cool feeling.

Music was great too, not that this is news.

Game is a bit exhausting and I definitely need a break from it, but I definitely think I'll revisit it at some point and try out more of that wonderful job system. With sceneskip.