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1

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2023: WGAYP, Engage!

« on: October 25, 2023, 03:45:22 AM »

Yeah, don't get me wrong - I'm having a lot of fun with Yakuza - about 60 hours in at this point - I enjoy almost all of the side content, I like the plot and characters, and it's a unique setting for an RPG - I think it's a fun game.

But yeah, lots of little things in the RPG combat that I hope they change up a bit. It doesn't need to be super balanced (that's basically impossible with so much side content) but just having more stuff feel cool or good to use. I had Adachi in Bodyguard for a long time and it's a really lame class, but changing him out of it felt like a big loss of lots of progress. (Did eventually, it was the right decision)

I actually like Dragon Quest games, but they're usually pretty tightly balanced, from my memory. Oh, while I'm nitpicking, they should take out the "Kasuga dies = game over thing" that's Persona, not Dragon Quest! (Yeah, he has a Life 3 ability that I recently learned that is useful for that, but it seems like a strange decision and I'm terrified some random boss is going to instant death me 10 minutes into a boss fight like I'm fighting the FF13 last boss lol)

 I did play Yakuza 0 before - I liked that game quite a bit, though yeah I agree, not like the gameplay is anything special there either haha, like you said pause the game and drink 5 Staminans, definitely better.

And c'mon, spare me a suspend save! I have work the next day! : P

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General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2023: WGAYP, Engage!

« on: October 23, 2023, 08:08:25 PM »

Figured I'd just post about random stuff I've been playing lately.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon
 - Everything except the gameplay is good, which boils down to "use your best attack over and over", which yeah, is the case for some old games too, but the fights usually don't take so long.
 - Job Levels should not increase stats, or should do so by a much smaller amount. It makes experimenting feel difficult.
 - Gameplay is very basic JRPG. It does have fun animations.
 - Side story stuff should increase your power a bit.
 - Why can't you save in dungeons? Or at least suspend save? A dungeon can be 30 mins, have 20 minute cutscene before the boss, and 20 minute cutscene after the boss, with no chance to save. You can't even say it's for pressure as it has a mystic quest type Retry system. Odd.
 - I'm having fun, it's a good game, but the gameplay has a lot wrong with it. But it was their first attempt, and I think most of these problems are fixable, so I am curious how a sequel would be.

Megaman X Command Mission
On the other end, we have this.
This game ONLY has gameplay.
It's solid. Encounter rate is probably too high. You can tell they were rushed at the end. Got the Ultimate Armor before the last dungeon and it broke the game over its knee, oops.
But it has good boss fights. Your characters only have 3-4 moves each but it feels more tactical, like my choices matter.

I had fun? It has lots of flaws but it depends on what you're looking for.

Fire Emblem Engage

Quick Plot notes - I think it's okay. It's not great, but it's not horrible. I think the cutscenes are weird because they kind of just stand around as stuff happens?

Like I think it was easier to forgive in the older games when it was just like their heads or some art so it was easier to abstract it, in this they are clearly just standing around when like, someone laughs and walks away and its kind of silly.

But it's fine. Main guy has great voice acting. I dunno how the girls is, but guy sounds great. Actually, voice acting is good in general.

Not a big fan of the Somniel inbetween junk. It IS better than Three Houses in that if you skip a lot of it it doesn't feel like you're completely doomed, but it's still not great. The ideal - of course, in my opinion, would be to "let you walk on the level you beat like you can in the game and talk to your guys there, and then just go to a menu base to do all the rest of the stuff."

You can keep those weird minigames like pushups but make them doable whenever and when you clear them you got the bonus, that's it. Like Pushups give you +1 Max HP to the main character and that's FOREVER and you can only do it once, that sort of thing, so it's less pressure and you can decide if it's worth doing whenever rather than "fear of missing something you'll need" I personally think that would be more fun.

The games also a little long? We played 120 hours. That's a LOT. And that's with minimal failures. Though I wasn't bored of it or anything so that says something.

But the gameplay in this game's great. I love how player phase focused it is. I love how the triangle matters more (though shockingly I STILL feel like it didn't have THAT big an impact despite how many changes they made to it), I love all the crazy abilities you get with the emblems, it's a lot of fun and gives you tons of variety, and the difficulty almost always felt good! Played on Hard Classic, I think we only had to time crystal two or three times? It felt perfect for what I like out of Fire Emblem. (Though I'm also a lunatic who likes high difficulty FE12)

Great Gameplay, OK Characters, a little one note sometimes, Game needs more cool dudes (there ain't enough). Worse story then three houses, by a lot, but a lot more fun gameplaywise, though both are good games and it completely depends on what you prefer. I had a lot of fun.

Pokemon Scarlet/Violet + Teal Mask

New Pokemon designs are still good.
The game is basically just a boss rush. Trainers have no reason to exist.
Endgame story is pretty good.
Performance is bad but doesn't bother me THAT much, though in minigames like Ogre Oustin', it's like... pretty bad.

Teal Mask is weird. I started out interested, I liked the setting, and then suddenly it just speedran to the end of the plot. And there wasn't much to it other then a two hour jump around and some easy battles (I even traded in some appropriate level Pokemon), but it's not like there's anything inbetween that (There's  some new old Pokemon, but it's not like I'm interested in catching, say, Sandshrew again)

Trainers are even more pointless. They're actually lower leveled then the wild Pokemon. It's so funny that you can see the bandages around the trainers in these games. My guess is, they were scared of people running into a trainer that stomps them that they couldn't run from, so first they let you forfeit (did you know you can forfeit to trainers in this game?), but that still didn't go over well, so they made you have to talk to them to battle them - (Though I always thought people liked when some random level 80 monkey crushes them in area 1 in Xenoblade so long as its signposted well enough) - but trainers dont give more EXP then wilds, so they put another bandage in - some guy giving you items if you beat all the trainers on a route, making them another checklist rather then an obstacle (not that they were ever super hard, but c'mon.)

I dunno. I like parts of this game, I think it does some things well. Tera is a good mechanic except there's no chance to really use it in game (not even a battle tower equivelant. Frustrating! Raids are the closest, but they're limited time events, not a challenge to work towards.)

Why is everything slow? Stat raising effects take way too long. They took Set mode out of the game, which just makes everything take longer as I mash no to if I want to switch. Frustrating???

Online... I usually play online, but it's really hard to play online in this game. Most people probably think it's easier, and yeah, if you just have one time in mind and never change it, it is easier.

But that's not how online battling usually works. Generally, you have to adjust your team. Changing Tera Types, in particular, is a HUGE hassle in this game. And even TMs are a pain in the butt, you'll have to go our of your way to knock out a bunch of Croagunks for a TM that's one time use and you had better not change your mind or you have to do it again! I don't get it at all. I'd much rather grind out 48 BP for an infinite use TM, because it's done at that point rather then giving me decision paralysis and making me go back to the grind whenever I want to make changes to my online team.

Like, a big part of battling online is making adjustments to your team based on what you have trouble with, and you won't know until you've battled. You have to grind raids or wild Pokemon - interact with content that I'm not interested in if I'm trying to play online - to make those adjustments, and it's hyper frustrating. I've played online since Battle Revolution, and I haven't touched it much this gen (which sucks because it's actually pretty good outside of this)

Sure, IVs and natures are easier (which is good) although getting in game money is a huge, boring pain. It's always two steps forward, two steps back.

I really don't understand. Do they want you to level up 10 different Rhydon's with different Tera Types and natures? I thought a big part of Pokemon was the attachment to your individual guy?

Oh, the towns mega suck now. Honestly, the three things I like the most about Pokemon are - Random NPC dialogue - Battle Tower Equivelant - Battling Online - And two of them are basically gone and the third has a more frustrating barrier, so... I'm kind of down on this game, even though I really don't want to be.

Anyway, I ranted a lot on various games. I've played more over the year, maybe I'll post later. Even the games I have the most complaints about I enjoyed, it's usually just easier to find things to complain about, I think.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: December 13, 2018, 04:41:51 AM »

Chrono Cross

Played through this with a friend, after finishing Xenogears. It was a little while ago now - I was wanting to play PS1 era RPGs I had missed. This didn't exactly come highly recommended from chat, but it was still a game I kind of wanted to play, so what the heck. This is another wall of text with me just typing whatever comes to mind, so fair warning.

Well... There's good, and there's bad. Plot stuff will be in small text.

THE GOOD
 - The graphics are solid for the time.
 - Some of the songs are excellent.
 - The battle "system" is very interesting.
 - The early game dialogue was surprisingly touching, and got my hopes quite high - just the NPCs in the starting village impressed me.

So, this is a good start. But now I'll refute most of those points.

Some of the songs are absolutely excellent. But you know what one isn't? The regular battle song. Heck, all of the boss songs that aren't just the field song continuously playing (which is what I kept hoping for, because those were the best songs) aren't great. And you hear these all the time! It's a shame, because Chrono Cross has some stellar tracks, but you spend most of the game listening to the songs that aren't the best.

The Battle system is really interesting. I was REALLY into it early on. I noticed you could pass turns, spending a bit of stamina on each character. I was thinking of ideas like, say, having one character go into negative stamina and passing turns between the other characters to make sure it doesn't go to waste.

And the customization is cool, too! Spells you can only use once? That's really interesting!

Unfortunately - And I suppose part of this comes with a JRPG being aimed at anyone completing it that doesn't really allow grinding - anything can work. And the reason anything can work is because AOE healing is plentiful, and you get way, WAY too many spell slots for your own good. When AOE healing is so common and strong, the only way the bosses can kill you is with OHKO damage, since healing is rare. And that's dissapointing?? "Stay at full health at all times" isn't really interesting?
Seriously. Why is AOE healing so strong and plentiful? Why does that make certain colours like Blue and White and Green stand head and shoulders above the others?

I dunno, I guess I overthought it, but I was really getting excited in the first few hours of the game. The field effects seemed interesting (they aren't, always make the field the opposite colour of your opponent), the spell limits seemed interesting - maybe you'll run out of healing? (you never will since you can equip 20), and the techs made the characters - which I haven't even mentioned yet - interesting, too. (They don't. Techs are useful early game, in particular AOE techs. But after the halfway point of the game, they became ridiculously weak in comparison despite having exciting animations. Maybe I missed something.)

And the characters, gameplay wise. There's like 40 characters, and I get the idea - have so many that it's exciting, the biggest roster ever, or whatnot. And that's cool. But if you're going to have so many characters in the game that aren't plot related... At least make them interesting gameplay wise? Like, every time we got a new character it was like "they seem bad", we had to force ourselves to change characters. For example, pretty early in the game you get Luccia, thought she might be an interesting character to use (she was absolutely useless), why give you a character that's just worse in every way, with no redeeming traits or "ooh, I want to try out this move" or no interesting statlines or no interesting dialogue. Why do they exist!? I guess you might like the character designs.

As for other things... The random battles. Okay, so Chrono Cross has on field random encounters - that's great! Random Battles in videogames tend to only be good if they are balanced really tightly. Chrono Cross also has no EXP after battles, though there seems to be a system in place where the first few battles after you fight a boss gives you minor stat boosts. That's also interesting, and not a bad system at all! No one really likes having to grind for a long time. Chrono Cross also has a third system that automatically heals you after battle depending on your remaining "MP" (I wonder if this is the sort of thing that people were abusing in playtesting so they made it automatic.) This is also a cool feature. That could really let you make interesting, difficult trash encounters (they don't)

So, none of these ideas are bad. But the combination of all of these ideas means that there's no reason to fight any random enemies, ever. All they do is waste time. You will dodge every enemy - and why not? They don't give EXP. They certainly can't kill you. They can drop some useless elements you can sell for 5 gold if you're really interested in that, or you can buy them at a shop for a pittance. If an enemy does happen to catch you, it does not matter. You will lose some real life time, killing this enemy that has no hope of doing serious damage to your party. And you will be healed at the end of it. So what this results in, is you kill every enemy that is in front of a treasure chest that you can't avoid (by the way almost every treasure chest is completely useless consumables, way to go), and dodge the rest because they will just waste your time (and boy will the game make you waste your time with the cavemen that you have to kill about 40 of to make the... Yellow? Dragon appear, which have a way, WAY too long animation and come in groups of, like, five.)

And those animations are impressive, and I realize this is a problem with a lot of games of this era, but if I have to watch this random shadow cat enemy fade into the ground and slowly do its attack animation that is sort of cool the first time and not cool at all the 20th time, then... I have no idea what I'll do, but I won't like it. (To be fair, the animations are nice. They're just too long.) I'll also excuse, though it annoyed me a bit, some of the guide selling parts of the game.

Anyway, party members that got serious usetime were Skelly, Razzly, Fargo, Marcy, and... The mermaid girl... Whose name I've forgotten. Looking at stats at endgame, though, I felt we should have been using Draggy. Really could have used his high accuracy, and his other stats seemed good.



Okay, so I've gotten this far and I haven't even mentioned the plot yet.

....Man, where do I start...? This is just going to be a ridiculous rant (I guess like the rest of this post).

OK, we'll start with the only characters that exist in this game, Kid and Lynx.

Kid is an okay character. I didn't use her because it felt like the game wanted me to use her, and she probably had a lot of dialogue (and she probably should have been forced, if that was the case, or at least showed up in cutscenes regardless of whether you had her in the party. Goodness knows the party needed a voice.). She is a likable enough character, though. No real strong opinions about her.

Except, for some reason, the silent protagonist loves her? Since when? My recollection is I told her off a couple times, begrudgingly accepted her help, and benched her? Huh?

But the most offensive part, is the credits. Where, at least as far as I could understand it, the game was trying to tell me something along the lines of, "Look, Kid is in the real world now, and she's looking for you, the player! Find Kid (Or your own Kid! Don't you love her?)". I mean, how else could I take that? Kid is walking around Japan looking at the camera in real life places - that's absolutely what they were going for and did not deserve because - why would I feel so strongly about Kid!? Because she's the only character in the game? Like I said, she's okay!

So, Lynx. Lynx starts off cool enough as a villain. And then you swap bodies with him in what is actually a really cool scene. Actually, as an aside, there are a few cool scenes in the game. That one, the burning house (If I didn't get lose looking for the Lucca Ice Gun and wander around for 20 minutes, I also "love" how they programmed in a "Dragon Power Doesn't Work Here" message if you try to use the water dragon blessing item to put out the fire like you did earlier in the game, basically telling me no do our pixel hunt please and ruining all tension the scene had.) And the part with Miguel is pretty cool too and the music works well there. Then the game goes on a 10 hour padding fetch quest, but that aside...

But yeah, you swap bodies with him! Wow, what interesting things will they do with you now that you're Lynx? (The answer is nothing. Every character goes OH DO NOT WORRY THIS IS NOT LYNX and there is basically no change at all. Woohoo.) You could have done really interesting stuff with that situation but they did not.

And Lynx himself, in your body... Also does nothing? By the way, I know Villains will always let you get away with it, but "I'll deal with you later" after he takes your body is the laziest thing I've ever seen. Why? He clearly still intends to kill you, at least going by that dialogue??? At least have someone save you, or him ham it up with an "Now watch as everyone in the world hates Serge" or whatever!

So anyway it turns out that Lynx was a robot that wanted to control the future but actually he was also your father but his schemes were foiled by Robo from Chrono Trigger and Harle from an alternate Dinosaur future.

(At least that's what I got out of it!)

Like.. I just don't understand. I complained about Xenogears plot moving too fast earlier, but at least it honestly had the core of a good plot. This has... A plot...? Where random things that aren't connected to each other happen? Oh, but it's all explained don't worry, everything has an explanation, just look at our text dump at the end of the game explaining every plot point (I did understand most of them, but that didn't make them good.)

Anyway, I'm sure I missed some stuff, but this is probably too long already. I don't regret playing it or anything, because I still enjoyed parts of the game despite these complaints, and heck, it made enough of an impression on me for me to want to write this much which is something I guess. Just dissapointed. Especially in the battle system, which I was super excited for.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: September 24, 2018, 03:55:30 AM »

Thanks for Xenogears discussion. I absolutely liked it in some ways, even if it has problems - I at least liked it enough to be disappointed in how rush Disc 2's plot was, even if it was a product of its time.

Anyway, I've also been playing Dragon Quest XI. In early Act Two, I guess you would say.

...I'm liking the game, but I'm actually really sad that Dragon Quest got rid of random battles. I felt like that was the thing it always did really well - had simple combat systems, but dungeons that really strained your resources, you make it to the boss - maybe you beat them, maybe you don't - but the generous respawn means you'll keep your EXP and most of your money and know how to tackle it next time.

This game doesn't have that. You skip every enemy, except maybe the one that touches you - because why wouldn't you? True, I am playing on Normal (with no EXP from weaker enemies) because I wasn't sure of the difficulty, and hearing what I know about it, I don't think I'd want harder monsters either - because I feel like it would likely make me just grind more -  Not in the dungeons or anything, mind you. Just outside, near a free heal, on autobattle. Maybe I'm wrong and the hard difficulty is perfect, but I dunno... The stuff I like about Dragon Quest combat isn't really there.

But they have all sorts of skills that have existed in older games that would be useful in those games - recover MP after battle, Max MP up, Holy Protection. Why would I bother with any of that when you can conserve MP just by running past everything?

I dunno, most people seem to like being able to battle when they choose, but I feel like Dragon Quest really misses something without it.

Game difficulty might get harder, but is currently quite easy. Main is Lv. 31 and my party members are six levels above me due to them joining higher, which makes me wonder how hard they think this game is? Again, I suppose I can't complain too much, not playing on the harder difficulty. Just my experience with Dragon Quest was that Normal was usually quite satisfying (DQ4, DQ5, DQ8)

Oh, and this isn't a problem unique to this game, but every dungeon is boring as sin. Especially with no random enemies to speak of. It's dodge enemies in a straight line. Or maybe dodge enemies in a curvy line. No puzzles to speak of, and with no randoms, nothing to give the dungeons character either - in older games you might be in a dungeon with annoying mummy randoms that poison you a lot, or enemies that cast Beat that you have to focus down first. In this game, I auto whenever I run into a random enemy. Reminds me of Tales of Berseria, another game I liked quite a bit with dungeons that were "Walk forward, press A", which is a little dissapointing. I don't need crazy Lufia 2 puzzles, but something to make the areas memorable and less automated.

That being said, I am enjoying just about everything else about the game. Graphics are nice. Areas are nice. It's fun to see old monsters again. Dialogue is generally quite good, and I like the characters. Story is fun enough. And I am enjoying it, playing it just about every day. Just feels like a bit of a shame, since I actually like Dragon Quest oldschool dungeon crawling.

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General Chat / Re: What Games are You Playing 2018?

« on: September 15, 2018, 11:19:17 PM »

Alright, rant post about Xenogears. I've been looking to play some old PS1 RPGs on my free time that I missed since I haven't played many, and started here.

There are going to be some spoilers here, so it's in smaller text. And a bit of this is just rambling whatever thoughts come to my mind, so I'm sure I missed some important things or harped on some things that don't really matter. That being said, I'm sure most people here have played this already. Me and a friend played thorugh most of this game over the past month and a half or so. (We are right outside the final dungeon, I believe)



I knew very little going into this game. Actually, I think all I knew was "Chu Chu died for your sins", which I think  I actually picked up here, like, ten years ago.

COMBAT SYSTEM
 - It's not great. I mean, what PS1 RPG has great combat, I guess. Basic hit 'n heal stuff. Most of the techs don't seem worth using. We decided not to use Billy/Citan as much as possible as they seemed kinda ridiculous, and we felt like spamming Billy AOE heal would trivialize every fight. Not sure if it would, but felt that way, so we ended up running Elly/Rico for quite a while, before swapping to Bart/Emerelda, eventually. Of those, Elly's magic always dissapointed. Always. Rico was... okay. But again, he just seemed kind of mediocre (and did not have anywhere near as much health as he should). Bart is okay. Wild Smile is good. Emerelda is a solid character and felt like Elly with a physical, which is a nice upgrade.


I will say that the character animations and attacks in battle are very pretty. I always liked learning new moves just to see what they would look like. I feel super bad for whoever made adult Emeralda's sprites because they are super cool and almost completely wasted since there is no way to see them without going out of your way. I guess that makes it kind of cool in its own way.

Mech battles, on the other hand, initially seemed more interesting - the fuel mechanic seemed like it could be interesting in deciding what attacks to use when. It wasn't. The only time it was relevant was in the lategame fight where Miang ambushed you after you beat Ramsus' gear, and since we had blown all our fuel on the Ramsus fight it was either A: Reset the game or B: Defend for 30 minutes to get the fuel back.

Actually, I liked that fight. It was kind of an interesting fight with the counter field gimmick. The game did need more interesting battles.

As a side comment, that 3D Platforming in the tower thats name I forget? That was... Something, that's for sure.

CHARACTERS
 - Fei is an odd guy. We were always trying to get a handle on his personality and couldn't really get it down - that might actually be the point? I did like that scene in Disc 1 where him and Elly are on the boat stranded. The atmosphere was nice. Id is kind of interesting, and I like how Fei actually was the one doing things at various points in the game.

 - I didn't really have strong opinions on Elly. I suppose she represents the other point of view for a while, and I kind of like how she had a few cronies. For getting a lot of screentime, I never had a particularly strong opinion on her. I'm not a big fan of the fated lovers thing. It probably hit for some people but, I dunno... fall in love on your own terms, not because a past you did. (Though I guess they did anyway, but...)

 - Citan is hilarious. I mean, what a jerk. Obviously meant to be super suspicious, and it just felt like he puppeted Fei along for the longest time "Oh you'll enter the tournament won't you Fei" "Yes Citan", for a while that was actually our running theory that Fei was like Citan's creation or some crap programmed to listen to him haha. His biggest jerk move was in the factory where he just  lets them eat the people meat, what a master.


 - Bart has a lot of screentime and feels like the most realized of the not main characters. Although I won't say he has a super strong personality he is generally likable. Though I remember us constantly making jokes about why you would need two characters with eyepatches (I know they worked it into the plot a bit, but still thought it was funny)

 - I like Rico for the 3 hours he is relevant. He then falls off a cliff, never to be seen again in the plot. A shame. Also, his face picture and sprite give off completely different impressions.

 - Billy is weird. My friend hated him. I was kind of indifferent? He didn't like how he showed up and basically made the plot about him for a while. I, again, had no strong opinion on him. He is okay.

 - Maria is basically the same thing? It was at this point that I realized the game was doing a sort of vignette thing for a while, when I was honestly more interested in trying to put together the games main plot. Anyway, she was really good in mech combat for quite a while, though I think thats just because her mech comes upgraded with some really strong equipment.

 - Chu chu is a joke character, so not much of an opinion. The whole scene seemed a bit oddly timed but I guess it was fine.

PLOT
 - Man, what an interesting plot. It starts off okay, but picks up before too long. There's a lot of terms going around, and a lot of cutbacks to the mysterious organization that can be a little confusing at times. I'm not sure if its a game that would benefit from a replay? It probably would.

SO anyway, the plot is promising but nothing super amazing. There are good points and there are bad points. The second half of the first disc, again, felt like it fell into more of a "Here is the plot section about the prison" "Here is the plot section about Billy" "here is the plot section about Maria" which isn't too bad but wasn't really advancing the main plot they felt they had set up earlier.

And then disc two happened, and man did they ever advance that main plot. There was enough plot in there to fill three games, it felt like.

And honestly, that was some of the most interesting plot! Like, I actually liked quite a few of the scenes that they just kind of slideshowed over or were like, here play this highlight with 9999 HP (so you might as well be playing a lets play), it was absolutely the time the plot was the most interesting. I don't even think any of it was bad, though my eyes totally glazed over at the end when Fei was revealed to be Grahf who was revealed to be his father who was revealed to be Citan who was just tricking everyone into thinking he was evil who were aliens. (Or something like that.)

But if I had played this game as a teenager, I think I would have fell in love with it. Stuff like Grahf's speeches about Power instead of chuckling at I would have thought were super cool. I would have looked up tons of supplemental material about the game and got incredibly in to it.

As it is, I still think it was an interesting, likable game. But I feel bad because it could have been so much more.

As an aside, I think a game done purely in the style of Xenogears Disc 2 - A visual novel with battles inbetween - could actually be interesting if the battles were more interesting. It's not a bad idea - it just felt like a shame in this game and kind of made me feel like getting equipment and such was a waste of time.


Other things I liked? I liked renaming the mechs. Coming up with silly names was a highlight.

6

Tournaments / Re: PokeDL! Nominations!

« on: November 14, 2016, 04:26:44 AM »

Not sure if this is going to happen, but here's a few nominations for fun if you need them.

Ubers

 - Mega Rayquaza@Choice Band
  - Dragon Ascent
  - Outrage
  - V-Create
  - Waterfall

  - Mega Rayquaza >_>

Rivals
 - Vanilluxe@Assault Vest (Weak Armor)
   - Ice Beam
   - Freeze Dry
   - Flash Cannon
   - Mirror Coat

 - Hawlucha@Sitrus Berry (Unburden)
   - Bulk Up
   - Acrobatics
   - Roost
   - High Jump Kick

 - Rhydon@Eviolite (Lightningrod)
   - Earthquake
   - Stone Edge
   - Toxic
   - Protect

Magikarp

Onix@Rocky Helmet (Sturdy)
    - Bind
    - Sandstorm
    - Sleep Talk
    - Snore

Amazing damage.

Banette@Banettite (Cursed Body)
   - Spite
   - Embargo
   - Flash
   - Rest

No damage.

Swoobat@Leftovers (Unaware)
   - Supersonic
   - Attract
   - Roost
   - Amnesia

Confusion damage?

7

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2016?

« on: August 25, 2016, 04:32:13 AM »

Been playing a few things. Most notably...

Bravely Second

Finished this a while back.

I'm not sure. Played on Hard.

GAMEPLAY NOTES

Yew
 - Bishop/Astrologist sub.

I liked the Bishop uniform on Yew. Anyway, multi-target buffs with that one passive was incredibly good. Generally just healed/buffed. Was good at that.

Magnolia
 - Guardian w/Hawkeye sub

Interesting. I really like Guardian as a class, though I feel you get it a bit too late (Your power level is too high at that point), but it saved me from some party wipe situations (The person possessing lives). Soul Cannon w/Bravely Second does absurd damage (50K?). Otherwise just tanky.

Edea
 - Fencer w/Patissier Sub

Bloody Wolf makes Fencer good. Until then it's solid, and debuffed often. However, the debuffs ended up being less useful late - and I stuck to Bloody Wolf and Stance Dancing. Worked well.

Tiz

Most of the game was Summoner w/ Miscellany sub. Eventually used Yokai just to try it out.

Both were fine. I pretty much just spammed summons with summoning surge all day in both classes, though Yokai had a few more gimmicky options to try out. Giving Summoner the Conjurer abilities made it even more powerful. (And I thought it was good last game!)

STORY NOTES (Brief, mostly spoilerfree)

It was there? Like, there were a couple of alright moments, there was actually one plotpoint very late game I thought was cool. But, the Ba'al are underused and the resolution isn't satisfying for such cool monsters. And the rest of the plot just kind of happens. It's fine, but I was a bit dissapointed.

Characters are likable enough, actually. Yew is fun. Magnolia is alright though she certainly isn't as "cool" as her first impression would leave you to believe. Some of the villains are likable as well.

OVERALL NOTES

I liked the game. It's probably about as good as Bravely Default. But - and this might just be my problem - I feel like the biggest problem with the games job system and gameplay, which is generally great and makes you look at your options - is that your powerlevel gets too high.

By endgame, your enemies are throwing out 90% AOE's, ST OHKO, AOE Dispel.
You on the other hand have easily replenishable AOE Life 2, Absurd buffs (That all lategame bosses have dispel to counter, because they are too strong), etc.

The game isn't easy - far from it - it just feels like with both sides power levels being so high a lot of fights end up being very similar.

That being said, the Guardian Asterisk boss fight was awesome. It rewareded experimenting - I poisoned my party, and when he possessed them he got absolutely destroyed. That sort of thing is what I really enjoy.

I said a lot of negative things, but I really did like the game quite a bit. And honestly all my battle system complaints only crop up on in the last 15-20% of the game. The rest is great. I would play more.

8

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: June 26, 2016, 07:31:28 AM »

Still playing this - ended up doing an 11 pull, and it turned out really well - Kefka's Cloak, Mog Scarf, and Cecil's Excalibur.

Does anyone here still use my Advance RW? It's obviously fallen out of favor, but I do have some other options - like Cecil's burst, or Hand of the Emperor. But if it's still being used, I'll leave it.

9

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2016?

« on: April 25, 2016, 05:15:20 AM »

Finished Trails of Cold Steel. Note that I have not played any other trails game, except for about 6 hours of Sky, a few years back. This is a kind of long post.

I shouldn't have any major spoilers below. But there might be some little things (Gameplay discussion, characters that join you, etc.)

Final time was 77 hours. Though I left the game on a bit here and there. Went with Hard Mode, which felt like the right choice - it was a bit difficult early on, and the last boss fight felt kind of RNG, but everything inbetween was fine difficulty wise.

CHARACTERS/STORY

This game is slow. Especially early on, when I had no particular attachment to any character or the world - and it certainly shows some strong, "dislikable" character traits early on (Jusis/Machias, Alisa). Still, these are at least character traits - and the characters are fairly well rounded and reasonable throughout the game. The game has a lot of text - it's hard to not get attached to them at least a little, though I couldn't pinpoint when exactly it happened.

There are a lot of playable characters - which works and makes sense in the context of the story - but it does make you wonder what certain characters deal is.

Story otherwise was fine, they did an interesting world setting up a world that seemed bigger than your party. I hope that it continues this way, though I'm not sure how the ending of this game will lead into the sequel.

Really enjoyed the incidental NPC dialogue. I didn't go out of my way to view all of it, but I did try to sidetrack to talk to some of them before going to the next story point. I'm actually pretty impressed the game managed to make me remember the designs and names of a lot of incidental NPC characters.

GAMEPLAY

 - In general, I liked it. I feel the batlte system is solid, and the quartz customization reminded me of Materia that gave you more options. I really did enjoy it, though I wish there was more possibilities for different builds, I do like how the characters also have hteir inbuilt skills that make them not all just interchangable. I did kind of feel like S-Crafts were a little strong, but I have no idea how to balance that. It was still enjoyable, and never felt horribly broken in one direction or the other (Though I'm sure you could)

However, the boss design is fairly dissapointing. The boss of the second last chapter had a fun gimmick - I think the game needed more of those. Most are just "Protect against this status" or "Hope RNG doesn't screw you with them using their best move three times in a row." That's something I really hope does improve. The gimmick fights near the end of the game were interesting, and I assume there will be more of the min the next game - I'd also like to see where they go with those.

As an aside - Dungeons are kind of dull, very Suikoden like. Music is great, however.

Character thoughts (Gameplay wise) below. Note that I used some more than others, so they get more lines.

REAN
 - Awesome on-field attack.
 - Early game, his best use was trying for burns, and moderate AOE.
 - Mid game, I gave him Gravity Well and he sucked enemies together for the rest of the team to blow up.
 - Late game, I used Chrono Burst and Motivate x 2 fairly often.

Solid enough main. Didn't feel incredibly strong, but could always find something for him to do.

ALISA

- OK On field attack. - Good range, but if they notice you, you're in trouble.

Didn't use her a TON, but some of her craft moves are strong. The Insight one in particular, and of course the CP gain one. Unfortunately, her physicals are kind of pitiful, but her magic attack stat is fine.

ELLIOT

- Seemed a bad on field attack, but I never tried it enough.

Earlygame crutch. Still solid lategame as an attacking mage who threw out his regen skill now and again. Generally made the party when he was usable.

GAIUS

- Good on field attack. Slower than Rean but can circle enemies.

I found him very strong for the first "60%" of the game, his first Craft skill is fantastic for shutting down randoms, though he was nothing special against bosses. He weakened a bit later, but could perform an acceptable evasion tank role.

LAURA

Good on field attack. Seems to stun guys who are running right at you sometimes.

Obviously impressive early on, having your only S-Craft. Always solid when in the party at hitting things, and has good AOE moves - felt strong, but didn't use her much.

EMMA

See Elliot for on field attack.

Didn't use her a lot, though she forced her way into the party for endgame. Solid enough attack mage, never used her crafts enough to get a strong opinion on them.

JUSIS

Average on field attack. Seemed to be a slower Rean, but it was servicable when Rean was in the back.

Good attack mage - Alisa level. Also had Noble Command, which is a fantastic AOE buff to the party. Those two things alone made me use him often. Did have a weak S-Craft, as his STR is not that great.

MACHIAS

Pretty bad on field attack.

Seemed solid, though his damage always felt low. For a time was good at inflicting cheap status effects with his AOE basic attack. His MP recovery move was helpful, and his Accelerate seemed somewhat busable if you knew how to properly use it, thouhg you get it so late in the game its not a huge deal.

FIE

Good on field attack at range, but her close one has a bit too much lag.

Decent enough, but her AOE's aren't quite as good as the next character's, so I tended to use him instead. A solid enough physical attacking character/evasion tank/random buster, but had to tweak her a bit for damage.

CROW

See Alisa for on field attack.

Really strong S-Craft. Really strong basic crafts for destroying randoms. That's basically all he does - but he felt MVP while he was available.

MILLIUM

Not sure about her on field attack. Didn't try it much. I believe it blocks your running around, though.

Decent enough... Good attack range, and her barrier let her tank a few things. Didn't seem to have a clear niche, though.


Enjoyed it overall - 8/10? Will play the sequel when it comes out - excited for story and gameplay changes.

Not sure what to play next. Thinking Bravely Second, though I haven't quite decided yet. I do still have Revelations.

10

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2016?

« on: March 31, 2016, 11:44:07 PM »

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright.

Won't go into as much detail this time. Finished, Hard/Classic.

Significantly easier than Conquest Hard, though I still had a handful of resets to silly things. Final Playtime (about 23 hours compared to conquest's 50+ hours). It was still fun, though, and was solid enough Fire Emblem gameplay, with less gimmicks if those annoy you.

The plot... Had its ups and downs. i really feel like they had a good "Outline" for a plot here, but the inbetween was weak. I'm not asking for a masterpiece - I really enjoyed Path of Radiances story, even though it was fairly simple.

Will start Revelations later, but I'm waiting for a friend to catch up.

Otherwise, I've started Trails of Cold Steel, randomly. At the second field study. Fairly fun so far, went with Hard mode. The combat is just in depth enough and nothing seems obviously abusable so that it is fun, and while the characters aren't super exciting I can appreciate them trying to set up their big world.

I did play a bit of the first trails in the sky a few years ago but I couldn't really get into it, but I'm latching onto this a bit better. Might gave Sky another chance at some point, as I didn't hate it or anything.

11

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2016?

« on: March 15, 2016, 03:18:34 AM »

Well, I was expecting Omega Quintet's story to be worse than it was. It wasn't *good* by any means. It impressed my as my expectations were 0, and it ended up being... 2? I'm not trying to hype it up as anything great, but it is, for example, far better a story than absolute trash like Agarest War.

Yes, I've played some bad games. I keep hoping for good, or at least kind of fun but easy, gameplay, and I'm usually dissapointed, as they are always unbalanced messes that seem like they have potential but squander all of it. I just want more Mana Khemia for my fun anime RPG with a good combat system...

In desperation, I played Ar No Surge a while back. And THAT games combat annoyed me. Because it seems cool and flashy at the start, and interactive. But every fight is exactly the same, with different numbers.

Anyway, I started Fire Emblem Birthright. I laughed when I realized the enemies pulled like old GBA Fire Emblem enemies - one at a time, instead of a big group. That's probably not every level.

12

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2016?

« on: March 14, 2016, 02:44:09 AM »

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest

Finished. Hard/Classic.

Toughest chapters were still 10 and 13. The later ones were certainly longer and more stressful, but didn't require as much trial and error. Some maps thoughts below.

Ch. 22 (Sakura)
A fun map. Hana is ridiculous on this map, being able to double anyone and Rend Heaven activating cost me a reset. Also, sending everyone up the left side and trying to sneak in that way triggered every reinforcement at once - and also cost me a reset. Doing it the slow way worked, and was good for experience.

Ch. 23 (Takumi chapter)

Ignored Hinata's death wall. I am not messing with that. Paired Xander and Leo up to take on as many units as they could on the top floor - hid in the top right corner so they could only be attacked by a few guys at once. When they got low on health, rescued them back down, but they had thinned out the enemies enough that I could trigger them to move forward, hit them with a counter, and hide back down the stairs. Slow going, but it worked.

Ch. 24 (Hinoka)

A good chapter. Actually finished on the first try, but could have easily gone wrong. Used the Dragon Vein once to slow the fliers down.

Ch. 25 (Ryoma)

Terrible. Took me about 50 turns, with main character constantly pulling potions out from the convoy. 25 of which were spent on the right side deathtrap hallway - which I eventually solved with - Xander attacks Weaponmaster guy at range 2, gets danced by Azura, runs away, Peri rescues Azura. Then do the same thing after the two weapon guys charge you and kill them to break down the right wall. Otherwise it was pretty much impossible, as the ninjas would debuff anyone to 1 health, unless I was missing something obvious. Almost screwed myself by activating the Dragon's Vein not realizing it was reducing damage, as Ryoma could not obliterate the main character. Luckily managed to get others there in time, as that would have been the worst reset imaginable.

Ch. 26

A tough level. Just ignored the stave spam, really... Niles paired with Nina took on all the mages on the right, equipped with Dual Yumi. Res archer is useful! Who knew! Entrap'd the Berserker boss so that I didn't have to mess with him with the rest of the group. Percy and Benny paired took on most of the bottom group, though some broke free to face the rest of the team, and I did need to physic him a few times. It was starting at htis level that I bought 50 of every tonic and used them on every character i deployed before each fight.

Ch. 27

A fun level. Paired everyone uip in preparations, and put two guys in the top rooms after some finangling. Then the four pairs on the bottom got sucked into the rooms and managed to win their way out. Percy lured the middle army down, then ran away from them while everyone else took the stairs and bumrushed the boss.

Ch. Final

Intimidating. Two deaths, though I managed to revive Peri with the Bifrost. Izana also died, who was a filler character anyway. Boss himself, once you gotto him, was not THAT bad, though he did survive one turn with 1 HP left.

On Units Used (Of course, personal experience here means a lot of things will be different), in order of kills. Everyone in default classes.

Leo (160 Kills)

Extremely good. He didn't seem it at first, but he turned out fantastic, with 25 speed, and high 20s in both defenses. When equipped with Horse Spirit, was one of my most reliable units for facing the mixed squads that the endgame levels like to throw at you.

Avatar (+Mag, -Skl) (157 Kills)

Used Dragonstones 99% of the game. Swords were worthless, 45 damage dragon breaths and 40 defense was not. Occasionally shot magic at range 2. Good, not great. Skl was a bad weakness, for the dragonstone build, I think, because I had accuray problams until I attached Gunter to her.

Niles (126 Kills) - Adventurer

When he was good, he was really good (Vs. Fliers, Mages) other times he did mehish chip damage. Was a bit fragile. Still, turned out alright.

Selena (123 Kills) - Hero

Kind of a filler, "Decent at everything" unit. Sometimes had trouble doing damage to anything with lots of DEF, and had no 2 range which occasionally was annoying. Was at her strongest early-midgame, I think.

Xander (121 Kills)

Obviously great, with his sword and high defense. That being said, his RES is bad, so he is no omni unit. Fed him two speedwings, as well.

Keaton (116 Kills)

Absurdly strong for some reason with near 40 Str and Def and almost 60 Health. Not much else, but he didn't need much else. Destroyed most bosses.

Camilla (113 Kills)

Really, really strong, until the last 3-4 levels, where she was still a usable unit but not unbeatable. Still, was incredibly helpful for most of the game and still useful at endgame.

Peri (112 Kills) - Great Knight

Similar to Xander, with more Res and Spd, less Def and Str, but very comparable statwise. However, the lack of Siegfried held her back compared to him. Still strong.

Benny (99 Kills) - General

He tanked so many things with his, like, 44 defense and inability to be doubled skill. Found a randomly strong lance to give him once that made it easier to be doubled - which didn't matter. His res isn't even bad, though it's not absurd. Having that much defense did make enemies like to ignore him, though.

Nina (82 Kills) - Bow Knight

The first of the kid units I slotted in. Better statwise than Niles, so she was more helpful in general situations - but worse in the specialized anti-mage uses. Both were good.

Percy (72 Kills) - Wyvern Lord

Absolutely absurd stats in everything... Except RES, which was, like, 8. But still! He was so good at everything else! And I needed another axe user. I wanted to try Charlotte, but I didn't think I could catch her up in time. So I used him, and he did not dissapoint.

Elise (12 Kills) - Strategist

Elise did. She healed things, and got one shot by everything. Oh, she had 34 Mag, but it didn't matter if any enemy with a javelin could cause me to reset. Which happened a couple times. Still, staves are useufl, and she could move far, and she did kill a few enemies. So she was useful. Just frustrating.

Forrest (10 Kills) - Butler

Well, my Jakob was turning out poor, and I wanted to use a butler. So I tried this guy out. The pros - he did not die in one hit. He actually had some resilience. Generally it took THREE hits. His mag was way less, though, which was annoying at times. Still, I think he was better than Elise for not immediately dying to every enemy when someone else needed a heal.

Azura

...I dance Grinded her like, 20 levels, in hopes she would not die in one hit to all enemies. She still died in one hit to all enemies. However, dancing is invaluable for gimmicks like my favorite - attack a range 2 boss who doesn't move then dance them and run away - strategy. So she was "good".

That's everyone except some filler characters. Effie was dropped, though she was good, because I wanted to use Benny. Arthur was dropped because he wasn't turning out well. Odin for similar reasons. Most other characters I didn't try. I did support grind for the kid chapters right after Xander joined, which helped a bit for EXP (Got everyone around 4-5 levels) though once you outlevel enemies by too much the EXP they give you becomes laughable, so it didn't matter that much.

Might go over story stuff at anothe time, but it was... OK. Not great. Gameplay was fantastic, though, and a lot of fun.

13

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2016?

« on: March 07, 2016, 05:51:19 AM »

Been a while since I posted here. Let's see, what have I played since...

Undertale: Finished. Neutral, and then Pacifist. May do the other route at some point, we'll see.

Enjoyed it quite a bit! The characters are fun. The gameplay is fun. The serious story is decent.

Some ending discussion below...

jThe Neutral Ending last boss was probably the weakest boss in the game. It seemed impressive at the start, but once you realize it's a plot fight, it kind of just dragged on. And the meta stuff didn't really do it for me, there. I know this is nitpicky, but when the boss "Loaded State" I looked to see if my life went back to when he saved state, but it doesn't. I know that's a silly thing to notice, but it still took me out of it a little - it would have been better if Flowey was using powers that you had access to - the force closing the game was cooler, for sure.

True Ending last boss was more fun, and had a catchier song. It wasn't the *best* boss fight either in the game (my personal favorite was Mettaton, and my favorite joke was when the colored tile puzzle came back - because I had actually been keeping notes in Notepad when Papyrus explained the puzzle earlier in the game, so I was ready for it!!! Though it ended up being a joke again anyway : P.

Actually, I enjoyed the puzzles, with the exception of the vents one in Hotland which was just time consuming, quite a bit. They were simple but made things less monotonous. Games could do with more stuff like that, though I don't want stuff like Tales of Symphonia's old cryptic puzzles with the one sign giving you some riddle in overly flowery language.

But yeah - fun game, fun gameplay. Very solid.

Omega Quintet:

I randomly played and beat this since I had bought it in a sale at... some point. Depending on your tolerance for this kind of stuff... It's playable. The serious story is actually not that bad. I could have done with more of it, actually. The music is decent, too. It... Kind of sounds like it should be in a different game, but the background area music and such is kinda nice.

The gameplay annoyed me. Because it "looks" like it has a lot of strategic depth and there are a lot of options.

But it doesn't.

You spam AOE's against regular enemies, and spam L1 specials against bosses. That's enough to beat anything. Items are also overpowered, though you usually don't need them.

It's kind of frustrating, because you can tell someone spent some time into making this big sphere grid like thing that you can go in any direction in - but 95% of the skills on it are useless. It's like someone's RPG Maker game, where they have all these cool ideas for moves but no point in the game where they are useful, and a bunch of redundant ones inbetween.

Also - I kind of did it to myself because I wanted the true ending, but the quests in this game are incredibly dull. I didn't do all of them - just the mandatory ones. And, of course, as is tradition, easily missable.

Still, I didn't hate it. It was fine as a filler game.

Fire Emblem Fates: Conquest

Just finished Chapter 21. Hard, Classic.

The plot is not the best in the world, but it's not really that bad. It's at least keeping me interested, which is more than, say, Roy's game can say. And the supports are usually fine.

Toughest missions so far were 10 (the defense map) and... 12? (The one with pots.) Other maps have taken 2-4 tries each, generally.

Hard seems like a good balance (WARNING - I did beat FE12 on Lunatic (though it was with a friend, and it probably took like 6 hours a map - so I'm not a Fire Emblem master, but I am persistent). It's tough but not unbeatable, though with the trial and errorness of the early parts of the maps it did lead to me turning off animations rather quickly. I feel like Endgame might get rough, but we'll see. Might go more into depth on the later missions as I do them.

Lot of fun so far. With two other paths to play, I'll probably be playing fire emblem for another month and a half.

That sums up most of the things I've been doing.




Looking forward to Bravely Second.

14

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: December 20, 2015, 07:57:05 AM »

Been clearing most events - though I didn't bother with Valigarmanda. Haven't tried Heretic Hojo yet either, though I may give him a shot later. We'll see how that goes.

Did a pull on the beginner banner. Got Kain's Lance and a generic 5* armor - not bad. I already had some of the relics on offer, somehow (Tyrfing, Dusk Lance, Healing Staff), so I picked Snow's coat, since I have no 13 Synergy - and I like him well enough. I did already have a 5* Gun (The Running Fire) so I didn't feel I needed Balthier's either.

15

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: November 28, 2015, 01:24:18 AM »

Started playing at the Eiko event a few months back, so pretty much everyone from that point on. I think I'm only missing a handful of characters, but there's quite a few crystals I don't have. The only story characters I'm missing are Cid and Devout, so I'm only a bit behind there (just got Fusoya)

Things have been generally going pretty good, though I did have a lot of trouble with the difficulty 99 Amarant in this event - more trouble then I've had with some of the + or higher difficulty missions lately. I've only started doing past 99 with the... Setzer event? I've been trying to clear all three +'s, though I don't always master them - and if it's really hard (Not looking forward to this one) I won't bother.

Eiko is usually who I use for my WM for Mass Shell. Sometimes I swap out for synergy, though. Rydia has usually been my BM - I have an 8 use Waterja from Orbfest (though no other Ja spells) but I'm wondering if I should even run one at this point? Worth experimenting with.

Basically - take Luneth pretty much everywhere for 10K Tempo Flurries. The rest of the team is swappable depending on realm.

16

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: November 28, 2015, 12:06:59 AM »

Got Leon's Golden Armor. Guess I'm going to lean more towards physical, with that and Luneth's Advance. Though I will need to get his crystal - not looking forward to that.

Not sure who should make up the rest of the team - Thinking Bartz with steal power, a white mage, and... Steiner? Locke, when I get him? I have both their relics. Maybe someone who can use breakdowns. Have to experiment, I guess.

17

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2015?

« on: November 24, 2015, 03:48:03 AM »

Finished Tales of Zestiria.

Opinion hasn't changed too much. It's alright? If you like Tales games, you'll probably enjoy this.

The big, empty maps starting annoying me more and more as the game went on. It's like Xenoblade, but at least Xenoblade had cool looking environments. This just has big areas that take forever to walk around, with werewolves that are faster than you.

Although I enjoyed the combat well enough, it never "clicked" with me like Graces did. Played on Moderate the whole game and only had a couple of wipes - but I felt like enemy damage was too high, and so was enemy health - some fights dragged on. I would regularly get a lot of KO's in a tough boss fight, but reviving with Armatization made me wipe only two or three times. So... I'm not really sure? It doesn't have Xillia's annoying super armor, but the CC system doesn't feel as fun as Graces - maybe I just enjoyed playing Malik that much, no character in this game really felt like "the one".

I did enjoy the incidental dialogue found in the bestiary with the characters comments. The character interactions as a whole were decent, as well.

Still feel like the equipment system is way too convoluted for its own good. I would not have minded playing with it if it gave you lots of similar-statted equipment with a variety of skill slots without excessive grinding. But it doesn't. So you get a new dagger, and are like, awesome, a new dagger - and find it gives... 200 focus and nothing else. What on earth? It's not a HUGE deal, but it's strange.

The story was decent? It reminded me of... FF8, of all games, in that I feel like that game had a lot of potential for a cool story that didn't appear. This game has some flashes and sparks of cool story beats, but then shifts gears and goes to something else. And the main villain is strange, too. I mean, it wasn't great, but I'd still mark it as above, say, Symphonia's story. The characters were likable enough.

A bit of rambling here, I don't regret playing it, but there are better Tales games.

18

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: November 24, 2015, 03:33:02 AM »

Cleared the FF5 bonus battles a little bit ago, and the FF8 ones just that time.

Had some trouble with Necrophobe and didn't quite master it - Lenna died at the end. I don't have a lot of AOE, so I went with my R2 Ruinga and an R1 Carbuncle to get me past the barriers, then Protectga to help against Necrophobe.

Ran Luneth/Rydia/Bartz/Lenna/Eiko.

Had absolutely no trouble with the FF8 events - though my FF8 synergy is awesome. Blitz Sword/Sleipnir's Tail/Running Fire/Morning Star.

Went with Luneth/Squall/Rydia/Irvine/Selphie. Irvine and Selphie are still stuck at 50, but pulled their weight. Squall put Seifer to sleep, Selphie and Auto-Haste RM Rydia went to town with Diaga/Biora. Edea showed up, threw up Reflect, Rydia just defended the rest of the fight while Luneth's advanced Tempo Flurries did about 11k, Squall's armor breaks doing about 4K, and Irvine's breakdowns doing about 4K. Selphie healed.

19

General Chat / Re: What Games are you playing 2015?

« on: November 10, 2015, 02:49:26 AM »

Tales of Zestiria:

Finished the four trials. Now at the, probably' "Big Fetchquest" but we'll see.

I'm really not sure how I feel about this game, about 30 hours in. I've played all of the previous Tales games from Vesperia on, and they each do something well and screw something else up.

Graces had the most fun combat - I played Malik the whole time and enjoyed it. The plot was boring.
Xillia had an interesting plot and felt the most similar to Vesperia - just an all around "good" game. Played Leia.
Xillia 2's plot is absolutely ridiculous and has plotholes, but it absolutely was entertaining and interesting. I feel like I like it more than it deserves, but it's probably my favorite of the recent tales games. But it has a mostly silent main for... some reason. Tried to play Leia, didn't do well really. Ended up playing Rowen and was much more effective.
Zestiria... The plot is better than Graces, at least, but I'm still not sure where it's going to go, 30 hours in? Which is strange. And the gameplay is... It's like graces - but not as good. I'm not really sure, but it just feels like your characters skillsets aren't wide enough. There are things I like - the whole charge up a spell for another spell thing let's you have a lot of moves on your buttons at once - which would be great if I had more moves. Usually play Mikleo, sometimes switch to Dezel or Lailah depending on elemental resists.

Oh, and also, the equipment system is just weird. It's convoluted for no good reason.

I always "Like" the Tales games, but they always feel like they could be better than they are. I'm still enjoying Zestiria, but it has weird flaws (Also, the maps are way too big - and empty.)

20

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: November 08, 2015, 04:26:05 AM »

Cleared the Setzer boss rush. Wasn't too bad - did Save/load for Iai Strike to proc on Black Dragon.

Going to wait until after EXP day to do the Sr. Behemoth fight.

Been working my way through the dungeons - at Lunar Subterrane 2 (Dark Bahamut) classic. Catching up.

I still have some leftover orbs, but not sure what to spend it on. Options that seem to make sense are:

R3 Power Breakdown
R3 Diaga
R3 Ruinga
...Maybe even making Armor or Mental Breakdown.
Any R4 summon (Seems like a big investment, considering I have none of them.)

Luneth Advance/Tempo Flurry is usually a good 12-14K a round, and his Auto Haste RM helps with that too. He's going to be hard to replace.

21

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: November 01, 2015, 04:16:00 AM »

Managed to get Cloud's MC2 - Actually the first boss rush/++ battle I attempted.

The Boss Rush was actually not bad at all, but the Jenova LIFE battle was a fair bit tougher. Still, good to know I can actually do some of those.

Got most everyone I had to 50, except cores and a couple random characters I hadn't leveled up yet like Josef and Dark Knight Cecil.

22

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: October 25, 2015, 03:52:55 AM »

Followed you guys. Personally, I usually just take Sentinel's or Stoneskin as a friend summon unless I know for sure the boss only uses physical/magic (Then I'll use Lunatic High or Boon). But no preferences here, AOE attacks are good too for dailies.

23

General Chat / Re: Record Keeping Final Fantasy Record Keeper

« on: October 25, 2015, 02:29:21 AM »

Started playing this a couple months ago, doing pretty decently - Up to the last dungeon update in classics. Pulled a few relics along the way (Steiner's, Quistis's - who I don't have -, Lenna's, Sephiroth's first from the Relic Draw, and Kimahri's also from the relic draw.) So I've got a decent set of abilities and such to choose from.

Just pulled Tyrfing in the Lucky Draw, so I've set Advance as my friend summon.

bL6P  is my friend ID. I'll follow you back if you add me.

24

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2014?

« on: April 01, 2014, 05:46:16 AM »

Bravely Default

Also last boss!

...Also got Disaster'd for 9K.

Guess I should slap Time Magic on Edea or something for Reraise.

Team is about the same as before. It's been pretty effective, able to beat the Chapter 8 Sidequest bosses (mostly) without resorting to anything too cheesy. It's amazing the difference a Scale Strip from a Pirate does on Summon magic's damage, though. It makes Tiz's Girtablulu go from 3500 to, like, 7500. (Enemy depending), Girtablulu Spam for 9999 was basically how I beat most of the Chapter 8 Sidequest fights, though it requires a fair bit of setup (Withering Ripple > Earth Weak, Sacrifice on Self for M.Atk buff, Zero Passive ability for constant +50% M.Atk for only one slot, Gaia Gear, Summoning Surge). Obviously not optimal but it's fun and works.

I'll post final story thoughts and such when I do actually beat the last boss.

25

General Chat / Re: What games are you playing 2014?

« on: March 14, 2014, 07:20:31 AM »

Bravely Default - Also playing this. Normal mode. Currently a bit into Chapter 5. Pretty happy with the difficulty. I've unlocked a lot of Norende stuff but haven't actually used any of it besides the special moves and some components, so I've just been using storebought/found equipment. Obviously no friend summons or anything either.

Current Setups

Agnes - Templar/White Mage
Tiz - Summoner/Time Mage
Ringabel - Salve Maker/Performer
Edea - Valkyrie/Pirate

Templar is a solid enough class. You can't really do much damage with it without sacrificing your defense, which is kind of the point of the class, though. (Disclaimer: Only job level 10 currently), using it with Healing Lore and a solid mind stat makes it a good bulky healer, though.

Summoner I think is underestimated. It's quite strong, and MT helps quite a bit in some fights. I wanted to abuse the Arcanist's Zero, since all of its spells MP costs end in multiples of 10, but the classes passive MP restore ruined that plan. Still not sure on a subjob. Have Time Mage for now. It's fine. Something else might work better.

Salve Maker is great. I haven't looked up a list of mixes but this game is actually nice and lets you know what the mixes will be before you confirm. Some simple ones have been very useful - Quarter Elixir is cheap and an excellent HP/MP heal, and Resurrect is a revive clone. Giving an enemy an elemental weakness helps Summoners damage, also. That's not mentioning Widen Item.  Speaking of helping summoners damage, Performer's skills are almost all useful. Kind of wish he could do some damage, though, so I might rethink things.

Valkyrie is solid enough as a main. It has a decent passive, can equip armor, and basically carries around the Pirate debuff/Double Damage skillset. I use High Jump once in a while, and Spirit Barrier has helped a fair bit when a boss is charging up something dangerous. Good physical damage.

I've dropped a few classes that I tried but I probably didn't give them a fair enough chance to really review them, at least not yet.

Find this team to be working pretty well but there is room for experimentation of course. Difficulty has been solid, no complaints. Story has been alright. Interested in seeing where it goes from now, anyway, and the journal is fun to thumb through once in a while.