What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Niu]

All status alignment and stuff has to pass two checks before it can hit. Failing at either one results in a miss.
Both of type of check is to derive a specific value and play greater than or less than against something like a system internal dice (mod 100).

Also, there is no status resistance. It is either you are immune or you are not. The resistance you have in mind might be the status elemental defense value, which affects both damage and accuracy.

Common status, states down, Insanity:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value + user's will + (the skill or magic level/2) > (mod 100)

Fatal status (ID, petrify):
There are couple of exception to the rules, but don't ask me about it.

1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value + user's will > (mod 100)

Percentage damage:

1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value + user's will + effective value > (mod 100)
Here is the link to effective value for each skill and magic system at each level.
http://kaerulabo.web.fc2.com/rs3/material/coukati_table.html

Undead Control, Fatal Mirror:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)
2. Technique's own accuracy value > (mod 100)


Draining, LP damage, charm only has one check unlike above.

Draining:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/4]=< (mod 100)

LP Damage:
1. [(enemy status elemental defense value+enemy will)/2]=< (mod 100)

Charm:
1. Technique's own accuracy + (user's charm-enemy charm)x2 > (mod 100)
If the enemy charm is higher than user's charm, the value in the parenthesis will default to zero.


Since I would rather die than try to explain how that internal dice work, here is the link to the actual accuracy when you play the derived value against the (mod 100)

http://kaerulabo.web.fc2.com/rs3/material/random_number.html
The left most row are the assumed value derived from the equation.
The center two rows are the actual accuracy when play the derived value against the (mod 100) by >
The right most two rows are the actual accuracy when play the derived value against the (mod 100) by =<

[Sierra]

Lament of Innocence: 3D platforming in fixed-camera perspective. Man, it's been a while since I played a PS2 game.

[Nitori]

Dark "Dorksiders" siders: Oh no, the Wind Waker boomerang, and I have exactly one less keyboard key to use this thing comfortably then I need.

The nickname comes from War's design which is the most tryhard thing ever, he doesn't deserve Liam O'Brien.

[Random Consonant]

The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (kekekeke volkruss rush): I got a manloli, who is weirdly competent, and an R-Blade Custom, which is predictably not competent.

And it's probably only the fifth worst unit I have right now, depending on how I feel about the AM Gunner.  Oh well, at least the section of my team that matters is good.

[Niu]

The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (kekekeke volkruss rush): I got a manloli, who is weirdly competent, and an R-Blade Custom, which is predictably not competent.

Raising Ing wouldn't hurt. His skill and evade are boss level, eventually learns psychic and can go up to level 9. He also has a +5% shooting damage Ace Bonus and his later mechs are all shooting oriented. He also have a couple mandatory deploy map.
Oh, and ignore the R-Blade Custom, the money you spent on it does not carry over to Ing's later mechs.

[Meeplelard]

X-Com: Enemy Within: Played and finished Normal mode.

Final Stage wasn't too bad outside of the final room where I really had no idea what to do.  But slowly scaling the wall and finding out just how far I can go without activating enemies + well positioned Sniper with Double Tap got me through it. 

Good game, but yeah, a lot of little glaring polish issues that hold it from being great.  Just simple things like lacking a fail safe for accidentally overshooting your destination (game neither lets you take back a move, or has a "Do you want to move here?" option), and while I understand that's to avoid cheesing out "Can I hit enemies from here?", that's simply fixed by telling you viable targets AFTER the movement is confirmed (not so much doable with taking back moves via Cancel, but with an FFT style "Move here y/n?", it could easily work.)  Swapping through soldiers before missions is a bit of a chore, and you can't cycle through their equips evenly too if you want to de-equip an inactive soldier with something else.  A lot of these could easily be fixed with a patch too, I feel, but I get the feeling that isn't happening anytime soon.

Nonetheless, a good game.  It's refreshing to see a game that doesn't try to mask it's lack of plot, and just plays it for what it is.  There are aliens, you run the counter measure against them.    All plot scenes are "We have discovered this, we need to make this, it is important, make it ASAP", and the characters are simply 2 Scientists and a Military dude using working together, and no forced DRAMATIZATION!!! of like "Peaceful method!" "No, we must eradicate them!"  Doesn't even try to present a moral message to seriously either.
Instead, it focuses entirely on gameplay, which outside of the little polish nuances, I fail to see any real issues with.  Game was good, and I don't deny impulsively buying it because it was on sale.


Stealth played another game but...let's give that it's own post!

But first...

Medievil: Mighty Sir Daniel Fortesque has beaten the Shadow Demons and is onto a large swamp with lots of instant death traps and OH GOD THIS LEVEL IS PAIN

[Shale]

2nd OG: Also just got Ing. Starting with Continuous Action makes him one of the best people I've got, even though the R-Blade is not what you'd call special. It's good enough for killing grunts, though, which is what the CA skill and most of the early SR points are oriented toward, so he's useful enough. And he doesn't need a handpicked squadmate to let him move and attack in the same turn, so he's way better than Rio. The AM Gunner can go to hell.

I've had to restart one stage so far, when I fell one kill short of the 10 in two turns you need on stage 8's SR point. Otherwise it's been easy sailing. Got 130 combined kills for Masaki/Mio/Tutti/Precis, so I should be set for the extra attacks.

[Meeplelard]

Final Fantasy 4 The After Years: The other game I was stealth playing, finished this about a week ago!  Thoughts?

...lets go quest by quest because I hate you all!

PROLOGUE:
Ok, this sets up Ceodore to have some potential as the character, the whole "I want to be me, not what people think me of because of my heritage!"  Fair enough, Biggs and Wedge show some semblance of a character even!  Then we go to Cecil who...is still a misogynistic asshole telling his Wife who has HELPED HIM NUMEROUS TIMES IN THE PAST to not fight, but then lets her anyway.  Then we meet the villain, whose basically a scantily clad overpowered female!

Ok, right there, that shows a huge problem with the story.  Nostlagia Chick covered this in her MIB2 review, and it's relevant here:
Replacing a big, intimidating villain in the first game with "Sexy Evil" is never a good idea, and pretty much setting yourself up for failure. Golbez resembled Darth Vader; that is a good thing because Darth Vader has all the aesthetic elements needed to be a good villain (and if we take Dissidia into account, the dude is 8'7 or something).  Mysterious Girl is basically "evil Rydia"; it's a lazy design that tries to sell itself on taking a popular character, making her "sexy" and then WORF effect it's way through the first game's protagonist.  I'll do a further parallel of Golbez vs. Mysterious Girl later, and why Golbez is just flat out better.

The game introduces it's basic elements here at least, and the 2nd boss at least tries, and randoms fail but prologue, forgive-able!


CEODORE'S CHAPTER!
So...remember the set up I mentioned for Ceodore's character in the prologue?  Yeah, let's drop that entirely.  Remember how I said Biggs and Wedge had a personality?  Well, they die IMMEDIATELY.    And we are introduced to...Hooded Man.  So...we're barely in the first chapter, and already we have 2 mysterious ANONYMOUS figures.  Look, I get it, you're trying to mask the fact that he's Kain, but at least give him a genuine pseudonym...or have Ceodore make one up if said character is too emo to do it.  I mean, Shadow of FF6 had the whole tortured past, gave up his name, etc. thing but at least he adopted a name!

The plot here is trying to give us a "Ceodore is on the run" I guess, but really fails, because half of it is him getting back to Baron, wasting a lot of time in a stupid filler dungeon, etc.  Speaking of which, Devil's Road is DUMB.  Teleport Maze w/ gradual damage?  Who thought that was a good idea?  I know you want new dungeons, but teleport mazes are rarely fun dungeons, and adding a poison effect is ugh.  TO IT'S CREDIT, game is nice enough to hand you a generic White Mage and Black Mage to give you a genuine party, so the attempt at gameplay is there...pity randoms are a cake walk, as are the bosses.

...then you lose the Black Mage and White Mage right after Baron Sewers, and are forced to do Myst Cave with just 2 PCs who can just Attack (well, Ceodore can cast White Magic.)  So...way to dodge a bullet only to be hit by a knife right after, guys.

Oh, and the "Cecil is acting weird!" moment?  Poorly displayed.  Nothing about what Cecil does or says actually comes off as weird, especially if the Hooded Man is trying to pretend to be someone else and yeah, you get the idea.  Also doesn't help that Cecil doesn't have a character to make "act weird" ...ok, I take that back, Cecil having a personality would have been a dead give away!  Except he doesn't...

Challenge Dungeon is just kind of there, whatever, moving on.

Rydia
So they try to give us random backstory to fill in the 17 year gap, and fail because nothing interesting happens.  Myst is back! K, whatever, nice to know...oh look, Rydia was there for Ceodore's birth! ...why is this important?  Anyway, solo dungeon of meaningless and the Mysterious Girl showing off her VILLAIN SUENESS again, instantly owning the entire Feymarch because "SHE'S AWESOME DEAL WITH IT!" we get...Luca, and her two dolls.  4 person party, yay, general gameplayness!

Then we do the Sealed Cave...exactly as it was before...with scaled down enemies.  Um, ok, fair enough...then Calca and Brina are removed from the team, and we have a full dungeon with Rydia and Luca, followed by a boss whose basically "Cagnazzo with a different element and OHKOs you if you don't act fast enough."  Sorry, but...I can't find myself supporting Rydia's chapter at all; Sealed Cave was one of the more stretched out dungeons in FF4 and here is no different and the doors are as repetitive as always...

WHICH IS WHY THEY REDID ALL THAT WITH 5 MORE DEMON WALL BOSS FIGHTS IN THE CHALLENGE DUNGEON.   This dungeon was stupid long, stupidly handled, and worse?  They don't even give you Calca and Brina for it (rescuing them won't help because it technically happens BEFORE the event...oh yeah, moronic Rescue Trigger there, way to go back to NES standards of "tell you no hints" style there guys), so you're left with two slow characters, one a frail mage, no real healers (Rydia does have an Item cast at least), and limited resources.  This is, hands down, the worst dungeon in the entire game.

Plotwise, it's a fine case of how...lazy the game is.  See, rather than, say, put us in an original dungeon looking for one of the other 2 Dark Crystals, which FF4 never talked about, just sort hand waved as "Already stolen!", this game just says "fuck that, they're stolen again, so you never know of their whereabouts."  Seriously, it was a PERFECT OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE A NEW DUNGEON THAT FITS IN THE SETTING WITHOUT FEELING FORCED, instead you force a rehash of one of FF4's most stretched out dungeons with an overused gimmick.

OH, right, and then we meet the MAN IN BLACK! That's 3 characters with generic titles rather than nicknames or something to disguise themselves.  And here, it's so easy to give him a fake name.  It's silly when later in the game, after we know who this is, the game goes back to calling him "Man in Black"  rather than him just getting a fake name (especially since his birth given name would be a way to hide his identity from those around him.)

Yang
Nostalgia Chick once said that Little Mermaid's biggest flaw as a story was that Ariel was the main character, when really, Triton should have been, and the movie should have been about him learning to let go, seeing as Triton is the one who actually grows and learns something while Ariel just ends up getting everything she wanted in the end while learning nothing.  Fair enough...

Yang's story is the complete opposite.   Ursula's got a character that could be actually interesting, in the whole "Train me dad, I'm strong see!" and Yang refusing too.  The problem?  Focuses on Yang's side of the story, which is uninteresting.  Oh sure, by the end, we're suppose to believe that Yang learned that his daughter isn't weak, but that's not what the story actually presents.  What it presents is Ursula learning what it really means to be strong, and Yang having a "Now that you understand, I feel no reason to hold back."  So...yeah, this is totally Ursula growing, and Yang merely acknowledging it...meaning it should have been Ursula's story...but wait, Ursula wasn't in FF4, nor was she promoted as the main character the way Ceodore was, and no one would buy a story about a character they never heard of, so labelled it after Yang...then wanted to avoid false advertising so made it about Yang to follow through!  Yeah, I made that up, but god if it doesn't feel like that's what happened.

Plotwise...they redid the Fabul scene of FF4, even with Leviathan attacking the ship.  Oh, Edward makes a cameo, an extra random forest dungeon for backstory which should have been displayed throughout the story but instead is rushed in ONE DUNGEON, and what not.  Also, Kain being bullshit.  Manos the Hand of Fate was a silly laughable moment in FF4 to get a crystal lost, here it's

Gameplay wise, 5 FRONT ROW PHYSICAL PCs AWWW YEAH!  ok, Ursula has ST healing...but god damn does it fail to be interesting.

Challenge Dungeon is a gauntlet; inoffensive but boring.


Palom
This is the black sheep of every quest in FF4TAY.  Why?

For starters, Palom might as well be a new character. because add 17 years to a kid and he's going to act completely different.  Palom is excellently represented in that way.  He's got a fun personality, and seems to be the only one aware that he's stuck in a bad fanfic, and trying to make the most of it.    Leonora...has a personality at least, but it's pretty much entirely "Has no Self esteem whatsoever, also has a crush on Palom." To be fair, that's more character than most of FF4's original cast...sadly...

A straight forward tower dungeon that is built around "Mages can deal with this easily" followed by Mithril Cave where it's "don't equip Silver or Iron Rings, you're good" and...ok, gameplay's a bit lacking because only 2 characters even if they have skillsets and such.  The plot actually tries to be original relative to FF4, given Palom in Troia is not comparable to anything, Leonora is a new character, and it does the "reuse elements" idea RIGHT by finding new creative ways to use them, in this case "hey, let's use the Lodestone Cave against our enemies!"  Bringing Back Dark Elf was completely dumb though.  Also, continuity futz up; Lodestone Cave wasn't naturally magnetic, FF4 actually stated it was Dark Elf's spell that caused it, which Edward's Song dispelled.  Whatever, this is all well and good...until the Mysterious Girl pops up.

This is a fine case of how the writers just wanted to make her seem like she's a step up from Golbez.  Beats a bad guy Palom was having problems with (which is stupid because IT"S DARK ELF, but I digress), then threatens the team with just "inferior beings" as her entire personality.  Reusing of the Petrify plot in a way that works, only "no wait, too strong for that, by the way, Leonora was that nameless NPC, yes we're forcing that shit, because we did it with Biggs and Wedge already!" So that's fine to force Palom to finally acknowledge someone other than himself, he does, BONDS OF FRIENDSHIP!
Mysterious Girl still wins and mocks.  What's the point of having that big character arc if you're going to subvert it anyway by having the characters spectacularly fail, and in the blandest way possible (aka "lol I'm stronger fool.")   See, Palom should have won the fight with Leonora, then Mysterious Girl comes back, seemingly unharmed and wins.  This fits in nicely with the whole plot point later on, while not compromising Palom and Leonora's team work.  It's just a prime example of "lazy shonen overpowered villain."  Worst part is...game never gives a legitimate reason for her being so strong either, just says "she is, deal with it."

AND WITH THAT...

Edge
Edge's chapter is, simply put, a microcosm of FF4TAY as a whole.

It starts off with 4 individual character arcs, all of which are entirely pointless and do nothing for these bland characters, and the gameplay is worthless because you're using solo PC arcs, then you get Edge's stuff and the team reuinites and HOLY CRAP A FULL TEAM OF DIVERSE CHARACTERS!  One that even resembles a general RPG team, despite all 5 being Ninjas, and the gameplay is good (or would be if fights weren't so easy.)  Challenge Dungeon is kind of a pain because Chimera Brains exist; they act faster than anyone but Tsukinowa (who can't do anything significant to them), and have MT OHKO damage to all but Gekkou and maybe Edge...who they proceed to finish off.  The entire dungeon is "do you draw a Chimera Brain?"

"But wait, Meeple, wasn't Edge's strategy for getting away from the Girl great!"

No, it wasn't; game plays it very straight and doesn't really play to the fact that Edge is a "shoot first, ask questions later."  Oh sure, it says "hey, we got lucky, my plan worked!" but really, beforehand, it was a serious "if stay here, we die, if we jump off the tower, we have a very slight chance of living."  The fact that a DEM was there didn't make it entertaining, when it clearly should have been.  Really illustrates how incompetent the game's writing is, after Palom's quest (Mysterious Girl bullshit aside) showed a glimmer of hope.

Porom
So...let's start with a completely useless flashback dungeon involving doing the Kaipo Cave with Palom and Porom, telling us that...Palom is a total brat, and Porom keeps reprimanding him...stuff we knew from FF4.  Shift some years forward, hey, Rydia joins, and Luca and Cid...don't join because screw you?  So we could have easily had a full team for a dungeon but didn't, wonderful.  Either way, this part at least gives us some adult Palom/Porom interaction, which is summed up as "Porom, cut Palom some slack, you're not his mother."  He's quick to point this out and it's great, but Porom is just bland and "Oh, I'm sweet and innocent, isn't that nice?"

See, here's the thing; Palom felt like a new character as he should.  Porom just felt like the same character with a new sprite, and the difference is now Palom's right because yes, Palom needs to lighten up, but he CAN'T lighten up if Porom's breathing down his neck about every little thing he does that isn't 100% Elder approved.

Ok, that off my chest, this adult sequence basically exists for that alone. Shift later on, we just hear the Mysterious Girl is attacking, GET KAIN TO HELP!  You get Kain, he back stabs you later on, and the game pretends he's overpowered...yeah, this chapter is awful.  OH BUT PC ELDER!!! ...for a plot fight.

...seriously, that's a huge tease.  This chapter was just boring and dumb, and basically just "Mysidia's Mages are weaklings, no wonder they got beaten so badly by the red wings" in a nutshell.  Then again, Fabul's Monks are no better.  Worse yet?  If the Elder died, things would have been fine...wait, FF4 world, Disney Deathed instead.  And he didn't have an excuse to live either as he's Tellah's age, HE SHOULD HAVE DIED RIGHT THERE.


Edward
He's whining about things that he RESOLVED IN FF4, and worse yet, the interlude suggests he was over it as well.  Great start there.  Then we travel across the entire world with Edward, a useless character who basically exists for scan, and 3 guys who can only attack.  So we get a full team, but the team is full of boring characters outside of Edward, wonderful.

This chapter tries to make Edward seem like a really smart man, but his plan basically consisted of some lucky guesses on his end, with no basis for proof.  In between all that, Harley gets sick, he has to SOLO A SECTION OF THE GAME which is stupid; easy, but stupid.  There's little excuse for force a soloing section in an RPG as often as FF4TAY does, let alone 2 full dungeon's worth, LET ALONE A DUNGEON WE LITERALLY DID 5 SECONDS EARLIER, and all for...reusing a really dumb plot device in FF4? 

People hype Edward for his MASTER PLAN, but honestly, it's not half as interesting as people make it out to be.  HE FOUND THE CARNELIAN SIGNET BECAUSE...uhh...SHUT UP HE'S SMART DON'T GUESS IT!  That's basically the excuse they used.  He had no real basis for it; Cecil didn't even say "please be sure to wait to open this!"  I mean, what if Edward opened it on the spot?  The only reason the plan fits is because the whole scenario reeks of "Idiot plot."  Edward is only smart if we assume he's an idiot to begin with...

And the thing is...HE DOESN'T GET OVER HIS ANGST.  Sure, this sequence makes it seem like he does, but then later on he's still whining about his failures.  And I don't mean a "I failed Anna in the past, it pains me when I think about it, but I can't let it hold me back!" type thing; he actually goes "woe is me, I couldn't protect Anna, Cecil be strong for me " sometime after his arc.  So yeah, no, Edward is bad; funny how people forget all this in favor of hyping some MASTERFUL PLAN that...well...next story covers that!

I'll give Edward's quest one thing:  Actually acknowledging that under normal circumstances, Antlions are docile creatures and co-operative with Sand Rubies. 

Oh yeah, Challenge dungeon was fine until you reach a room where Chocobos just steal everything without a warning.  Fuck you game.

Kain
Random backstory that sort of contradicts the way Mt. Ordeals works in FF4, especially since it implied Kluya was gone but shut up, we need to let Kain fail at fighting his darkness!  Nevermind that FF4 stated that failing on Mt. Ordeals = you die, and that many did this.  Nope!  Dark Kain just lets him live and runs wild.  Great way to keep consistency guys!

Now, here's one thing I find hilarious about Kain's quest...it breaks the in-game continuity in itself and is obvious about it.

The events as we see it go as follows:

Kain gets Crystal from Mysidia, then heads to Baron.  Cecil has already met with Edward.  We learn Fabul and Damcyan still have Crystals left, so Kain hasn't gotten to Fabul yet, meaning Yang's quest hasn't happened yet.  Fair enough...

...except that in Edward's quest, he comes across Yang on the boat.  This happens before Edward goes to Baron (since that's his destination), but after Kain already attacked Fabul...but Kain hadn't attacked Fabul yet, because he reaches Baron first, which happened after Edward had already gotten there...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3xWNuZzw2c

Messing up details relative to FF4?  Fine, I can let that slide (for all that I make a big deal about it, I'm not holding it too seriously against the game), but messing up continuity within the framework of the game itself is just Writing Failure 101.  Unless they're trying to claim that Kain suddenly can travel through space and time to make him seem more awesome than he is.

BUT WE GO BACK TO CEODORE AND HOODED MAN!!! Oh boy, those two are...getting a little too close...and no real development ensues.  Actually, they force a temporary solo arc long enough for me to get killed by an Ambush of 2 Medusas spamming Gradual Petrify.  Yes, within the 5 minutes of solo time Hooded Man has, I still game overed in an SMT Style way.  The dungeon was so clearly balanced around 2 PCs, they sort of forgot to balance maybe one room around Hooded Man to avoid this.

Edward's MASTER PLAN GOES OFF!!!  People love to hype how brilliant it is...except for the slight detail that it FAILS MISERABLY.  See, here's the thing; he kills a bunch of zombie soldiers, but Kain laughs it off, kicks Edward around, and takes the crystal anyway.  Looking at the scene straight up, I saw a very obvious way Edward could have protected the Crystal outright...

MOVE THE CRYSTAL TO ANOTHER LOCATION.  If you want to keep Rosa around as a trump card against Kain or something, fine, but why does Cid need to be there?  Have him take the Crystal to Mythril or something; a place no one ever goes to.  It's called a back up plan.  And then there's the fact that what if Edward was wrong about the Carnelian Signet?  What if the present Cecil gave him was harmless?  His entire plan banked on an assumption.
This is exactly why I said what I said before: Edward is only a genius if you assume he and everyone else in the plot are a bunch of idiots.    Problem is, the villains aren't idiots, because Kain found a way around Edward's MASTER PLAN and wins anyway.

People say this plan rivals Edgar's plan in Figaro castle, but no, it doesn't.  Simple reason? Edgar's plan worked.  Edgar got Terra away from Kefka successfully, saved his castle, and humiliated Kefka all at once.  THAT is a successful plan.  Edward took out a bunch of worthless zombie soldiers, but still lost his Crystal AND Rosa got kidnapped AGAIN in all of this.  THIS IS WHAT WE CALL FAILING.  I really get the feeling people wanted to believe Edward suddenly became a badass, to find some good in this, but in truth, the facts all line up:
Edward's plan only works in an idiot plot, and even assuming that, it still failed at it's primary goal rather spectacularly, and he lost something else (Rosa) on top of that...and he torched his own castle too. 

Then we get the "Good Kain fights the Bad Kain and they fuse into a Super Kain!" moment.  Plotwise, I hate this because seriously, you're reusing the Paladin arc for Kain and the development is so forced and all that.  Gameplay wise, though, I approve simply because it means the Dragoon this game actually has a semblance of use instead of just being "Warm Body for that #5 slot."  I still hate Kain, but now at least I can pretend he's a new plotless PC when that starts to matter.

...ok, that's off my chest.  The gameplay of this arc is dull because "Auto Battle -> Win" applies since you're just using Ceodore/Hooded Man again.  Cid joins for about 5 minutes...then Rosa for 5 seconds, and...over?  Shit that is ba-...wait, those 2 stick around on the clear game...so you can leave Baron...that means in a poorly designed gameplay section, you do get a genuine team for the challenge dungeon, included Kain with an actual skillset?  NOT COMPLAINING!  Especially since it's one of the more benign challenge dungeons.


Ok, so the character arcs are done for the most part, and really, most of them are just bad.  Poor gameplay for the most part with gimped teams sans a few exceptions, bad plot and writing and rehash moments and uh, yeah, the game is just kind of dreadful.  Again, Edge's story is a microcosm for the game as a whole...which means the game actually starts getting better later, and well...here's where the game finally starts to shape up!

Golbez
PC Golbez is something I've been wanting in FF4 for a while, and have always toyed with him being the #5 character over Kain, being basically Black Magic version of Cecil with his own unique set of equips that compliment him.  Golbez in this is...pretty much exactly that...and then some.

Anyway, PC Golbez being an interesting PC and FuSoYa being the partner means I can completely overlook the 2 PC thing.  We have two strong characters who compliment each other well, and the area is surprisingly well balanced for them (they don't quite steam roll as much as you'd expect, but still a little on the easy side.)  Even creates a unique enemy sprite for Duke Marlboros, what the hell?  This arc actually deals with stuff that's vaguely interesting to the plot.

Golbez's arc feels like it remembers what FF4's theme was, that being redemption.  It follows through with this greatly, as Golbez's entire characterization is trying to do good to make up for his FF4 failures, while knowing people won't accept him immediately because of that.   Furthermore, Golbez's arc remembers another thing:
Golbez is ridiculously powerful, way more than anyone in FF4 sans maybe FuSoYa...who they also remember is super powerful.  This is illustrated in how they beat the Mysterious Girl twice, rather convincingly, despite her cheating with the help of Asura and Leviathan.  We finally have a character who punches holes in the Mysterious Girl's "Villain Sueness" and isn't just getting owned left and right.  THen we redo FF4's final dungeon even though we did it backwards (with no randoms) and frankly, waste of time.  Oh, right, they do still give some Villain Sueness by saying "Mysterious Girl beat Bahamut whose practically a god because shut up!"  Then they bring back Zeromus and then FuSoYa and the Lunarians MAY have died!

This is the one time FF4TAY handled a potential fake death properly.  Why?  Because it leaves the fate of FuSoYa and Lunarians a complete mystery.  End the game even states the outcome is unknown and Golbez needs to confirm it one way or another.  That's fair, let the player decide what happened! 

Golbez's chapter is by far the best of the character arcs.  NO rehash of plotlines (Zeromus aside), gimped party is offset by both PCs being actually interesting, the usage of FF4 as genuine backstory is actually taken advantage of, and even being able to play some FF4 moments from Golbez's perspective is a nice change of pace.  THIS is what FF4TAY should have been like; an original story and character arcs set in FF4's universe 17 years later that builds upon what FF4 set up, not just reusing all characters possible for the sake of it.  Palom's quest is really the only one to actually understand this.


GATHERING

Ok, time for FF4's take on the World of Ruins.  This is where gameplay finally kicks itself into full gear.  Starts us off with a legitimate team...or would be but Golbez is just completely overpowered here.  That's fine, he's suppose to be way stronger than everyone else (he single handedly took down Titan without breaking a sweat)  Travelling the world recruiting allies who happen to be unconscious each time (to keep the team the same) at your own pace is fine.  There are two things I am not fond of though:

-Recruiting Shiva and Ramuh is dumb.  The method is vague, and very easy to screw it up accidentally.  If you initiated an action and Rydia shouts out sometime after their name, you've lost them.
-The constant shifts to Cecil vs. the team.  Not only is it hard to believe this is going on parallel to what Golbez and Co. are going through, time wise, it's just so slow paced.  Sometimes it'd pan to basically saying the same thing but with a different character.  Like first Ceodore would be all "Cecil, it's me, your son! You remember me, right?" then next scene will be the same thing but with Rosa doing that (replace son with wife of course) and OH LOOK CECIL/KAIN DUEL THAT ACCOMPLISHES NOTHING.  Dumb stuff that slows the game down.

Fighting Cecil didn't do much for me.  Then the CECIL INNER SPIRITUAL STUFF THAT AMOUNTS TO NOTHING is just a fine case of FF4 style plot depth trying but not really getting anything across.


THEN THE FINAL DUNGEON(S)!  Ok, pure gameplay segments with some random plot interspersed with characters which are really kind of meaningless because the characters aren't well developed and fails the Bechadel test several times because girls can't shut up about how Palom is a pimp and all that.  Actually, Rydia/Luca failed it earlier, when the two of them would either start talking about Luca's dad or Cid or something.  Great way to write females guys!

Ok, let me make one thing clear:
While I appreciate a boss heavy dungeon, some originality would be nice.  Just going "FF4 FANSERVICE WE COULDN'T FIT IN BEFORE!" I'm not fond of.  I've fought Valvalis, Rubicante, etc. before, I know what they're capable of...just because you upped their stats doesn't make them better.  Oh, hate for the Leviathan/Asura thing again, because seriously, permanently missable skills like that can kiss my ass.

MILD COMPLAINTS though because the game finally gives you full access to the cast, has enemies actually fighting back (and getting progressively harder), and interesting equipment starts popping up.

I saw both "Golbez lives" and "Golbez dies" moments, and well, here's an interesting thing:
Many people hyped the Golbez dies moment because "it's canon thanks to a novella!" and "the scene is on par with Crisis Core's ending for brilliance!"
Umm...what?  Crisis Core's ending is one of the few times in a video game I almost started crying...and it got me even on subsequent viewings.  It's a powerful, extremely well handled moment and kind of the entire point of the game.  Golbez's death?
"Farewell brother, and thank you" "It is good that I can die protecting you, Cecil!" and that's it.  Completely lacking in any sort of drama or sympathy.

MEANWHILE, Golbez lives is a far more...full scene.  Rosa healing Golbez, aiding him in favor of Cecil actually makes sense for "Help Cecil recover" moment because "GOLBEZ IS THE BAD GUY WHY ARE YOU HELPING HIM!?", it actually resolves Ceodore's story that was literally dropped after the prologue (hence why Ceodore is a badly written character), and frankly, since Golbez's quest, the game seems to like making Golbez the actual main character, and if he lives, this continues through as the next few character scenes are about him.  I know, he's not the main, but game treats him like one.

...yeah, no, Golbez lives is a way better scene (if still cheesy and silly) than Golbez dies.  Hey, at least Cecil isn't totally useless...

...except yes he is.  He's either a Ceodore with higher HP and worse everything else that matters (yes, Cecil has Cover, but Ceodore has Blink, Blink > Cover for physical defense), or he's a Kain that gets Lunar gear later on and otherwise worse.  Doesn't help that Cecil has to rely on Swords when Ceodore and Kain can both use Lances for a sense of flexibility in weapons.


Anyway, not much to asy here other than Final Dungeon is actually good, way better than rest of the game, etc. and plot sucks.  The villain is...Rudra No Hihou's villain but with moronic motives and a completely random "Thank you...", and his "WHY WON'T YOU DIE!?" moment is dumb.  The Mysterious Girl twist is stupid as well because it's poorly explained and her heel face turn doesn't really make sense either, and is forced. 

...er...yeah, I'm rambling and such now, so here, MY FINAL TEAM!!!

Ceodore: His only real flaw is lowish HP for an armored unit.  Otherwise, he's decent secondary healer, passable speed, gets the essential White Magic spells for bosses (Blink and Haste notably; lack of slow hurts though), generally solid.  Equipment draw is good and varied allowing to cover most bases well.  I chose him also because, well, I explained why he > Cecil, and my other option was Kain...

Golbez: He strikes me as the best character in the game, though not necessarily MVP.  Amazing equipment draw, Jeigan for a long time, and when others finally catch up, he's still a strong PC.  Can run physical or magical builds, and a lot of good defensive gear  for any sort of varied set up.  He can even us Hammers, which makes him great for Omega.

Ursula: I was conflicted between her and Yang since my team was a bit lacking in HP, but ultimate,y I said "This game is a sequel, damn it, I'm going to at least make the cast LOOK LIKE ONE" and went with her for that reason.  Fast physical damage dealer who can throw items in a pinch, gets the job done.  There were times I would have preferred maybe someone else but then, she does have a Band with Ceodore for actual damage boost on bosses and some enemies so hey.

Palom: Best written character in the game, and I need a full fledged Black Mage for Stop and...Stop...a 2nd Flare user doesn't hurt of course!  Why him over Rydia?  Does "Best Written character in the game" not say anything to you!?  To be fair, I can't think of a legitimate excuse to use him over Rydia gameplay wise outside of Band purposes, as Rydia strikes me as overall the same character just also gets Summon, though on hindsight, the only summon that seemed meaningful (especially once they get Agas/Quake) was Leviathan, which was basically MT Flare that ignored Reflect.

Porom: If I'm using Palom, might as well use Porom...that and while I did slam her before, at least she can say things besides other character's names unlike Rosa.  Anyway, gets the job done as a WHite Mage, which is all I need of her.  Heals, casts Slow, support spells, etc. 


The one thing I didn't do in the final dungeon was kill Shinryu Nova Dragon.  Why?  Because opening move overkills my entire team.  Yeah, gonna have to come back and fight him for...a weapon inferior to what Ultima Weapon gave me...-_-


OTHER CHARACTERS I CONSIDER USING OR MIGHT USE ON A REPLAY OF THE FINAL DUNGEONS!!!

Edge: Fast character who seems to cover a little bit of everything just well enough.  Even has elemental swords and such good for specific pesky enemies.  The item casts for Blink and Haste wouldn't hurt either.

Kain: ...ok, I might just not use him because fuck Kain, but realistically, he's good.  He's Cecil losnig Lunar equips (kind of significant) in favor of Spears, and learning Haste and Blink.  I think that's a winning trade, and Jump does let him ignore Row...I think.  Honestly, the Lunar equips don't seem too relevant beyond Lunar Shield having a speed boost, and maybe Lunar Mail covering a few status Crystal Mail doesn't, since best way to handle scary physicals is Blink.

Rosa: Variation to Porom; Blessing I guess is ok but unreliable, but otherwise, yeah, you want a pure White Mage.  Your options are Rosa, Porom or Leonora. Porom vs. Rosa is at least fair, Leonora is...worthless.  Way less HP than both, doesn't get Holy at a reasonable level, BUT SHE GETS BLACK MAGIC!!! ...except she's likely to cap at Ara spells come end game.  I get it, they wanted a project Tellah/FuSoYa character, but she has to get legitimate spells at legitimate levels for that to work.

Yang: Pretty much covered in Ursula; slower but more HP variation, in short, can't use female specifics which hurts a bit, though he does get a plot band with Edge which seems nice.

Edward: Gimmicky PC who can actually be decent at stuff, looks like he works if you want something different to muck around with.

Gekkou: Genuine Tank who isn't one dimensional and can do stuff.  No, not really good, but way better than Cid and Luca, and can help give that extra HP push or something.


Anyway, pretty much agree with everyone that pre-Golbez arc stuff is pretty bad (Palom's arc possibly excepted), post-Golbez stuff when game turns the plot down significantly and the gameplay up a lot is way better.  Better than FF4 just because of that 2nd half, but not exactly good because of that first half.


Oh, and lastly, WHY THE MYSTERIOUS GIRL IS AN AWFUL VILLAIN:

She's Golbez if he were a woman in a nighty.  The whole "replace big intimidating villain with sexy one whose basically the same thing in terms of style, motives, etc." is a cheap way to dress up the same character as something else.  Men In Black was a fine example of this:

Villain of the first movie was an ugly red neck trying to find a macguffin to take over/destroy the world, because he's really an alien.  He was ruthless, intimidating, etc.  He worked.  In the 2nd movie, the villain was the exact same thing EXCEPT they changed it to look like a sexy lingerie model and adjusted her mannerisms as such, pretending it to be a different character. It's the cheap way to appeal to people to disguise the same character as something different.

Mysterious Girl is the same thing for Golbez really.  Golbez was this big armored guy who the game hypes a lot, then he appears and lives up to his hype.    The game does a good job in establishing him as a threatening bad guy, and he even has music that helps sell the scene, with the organs and it sounds all evil and gets the point across that "GOLBEZ IS IN CONTROL."  The one time he's not in control is when Rydia pulls a fast one, and the music even stops there in favor of Battle with the Four Fiends.  The game even had an explanation for his origins (and even retconned in a more in depth one!), and he even states his motives at one point (reaching the moon for ultimate power.)  Also, HE HAS A NAME. 

The Mysterious Girl doesn't have like any of that.  Pops up, and Villain Sues her way through everything.  The explanation we finally get for her, right before the final boss?  Paper thin.  The plot twist regarding how there's really a bunch of her?  Poorly handled.  The only time it's actually used is in Golbez's chapter where it is used to confirm that Golbez and FuSoYa are actually killing them, just there's more than one.  It really comes off as an after thought.  They wrote each story single handedly first going on with "she's the villain" then decided in Golbez's story "hey, what if there were a bunch of them, that would explain how she can be in so many places at once!"  Oh, and her theme is so...generic.  Yes, it sounds mysterious, but that's about it.  Doesn't sound villainous or threatening, and makes the scenes more surreal.  It lacks all the presence Golbez's theme has.  It's just "Ok, villain needs a theme, give her one."  When Golbez's theme plays, it's a huge contrast to the music surrounding it, and sells us on "Golbez is here, SHIT JUST GOT REAL!"  I don't get that with Mysterious Girl's theme.


The other thing that made Golbez work was a sense of progress against him.  Each time you fight him, your team does a little better.  First time you meet, he beats you easily.  Second time?  He still wins, but not without your team at least doing some damage to him.  Third time, your team wins (though he still cheats the crystal) but only because they got lucky, but still, a win is a win.  The last time, your team genuinely overcomes him with FuSoYa's help.

Mysterious Girl, it's the same thing over and over again until Golbez's story.  She appears, talks about inferior beings, curb stomps the team (usually with a summon), then walks away being evil.  This is as lazy a villain as you can get.  You basically write the same story for multiple chapters, dress it up to appear different and only so your villain can look awesome. 

Mysterious Girl is, hands down, the worst sequel/prequel villains to me...except maybe DoC, but that game is best ignored!  She's lazily written, overpowered just because "we said so, deal with it", and doesn't even have legitimate ties with any of the characters (Golbez being Cecil's brother was an asspull that accomplished nothing, but at least they tried to acknowledge the villain should have some connection to a character)...I remember hearing that in early spoilers that she's suppose to be some sort of "perfected clone of Rydia", and maybe that comes up if you have Rydia in your party, but that's an even bigger asspull, and the interlude didn't help solve that problem.

It's no surprise that as soon as Golbez enters the scene and starts showing that she can get her ass kicked the game gets better, because suddenly her role decreases a lot.  I honestly think she's the worst part of the game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mysterious Girl had some outstanding boss fights (Baron palace and the final showdown in particular) and two of the only new tracks in the game (I prefer the battle theme, but I'll take either over Golbez's theme which I can't get behind hype for at all). She is indeed worthless from a writing standpoint though.

I've never heard of anyone else screwing up the summon recruitments (I didn't know you could miss them if you had Rydia in your party) but I'll take your word for it, game is not well-coded enough to make me especially surprised. Beyond that I agree with most of your comments (though with about 2% of the caring level for the game's "plot". I think I stopped taking it seriously the moment I heard there were two Kains).

It's still better than the original.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I think you wrote more than they had on the game's design document, which was almost certainly full of [FILL IN WHEN YOU GET A BETTER IDEA]

[DjinnAndTonic]

I think you wrote more than they had on the game's design document, which was almost certainly full of [I LOVE KAIN <3 <3 <3]

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FF13 or How To Make A Script Using Editor's Digest Notes Verbatim - The writing is entertainingly bad so far. I love many of the ideas and concepts tried out, but it's just so obvious Toriyama just attended one Literature and Literary Devices 101 class and never read a single book in his entire life. Apparently I'm about to get gameplay too. Only took two hours!

[Shale]

Dust: Finished. 100% clear, got all achievements except for getting four stars on all the challenge courses and putting poison ivy in a guy's underwear. The final area is kind of bullshit - platforming's okay, but the enemies alternate between auto-dodging your attacks and parrying them, which combined with the fact that you've got a ton of useless "allies" cluttering up the screen and making the enemies practically invisible makes it futile to try and fight the damn things properly. So you just spam the homing chain lightning attack, which, y'know, works, but is boring. The final boss has the same auto-parry thing, but being able to see what he's doing makes it a far more engaging fight.

Oh, I mentioned this a bit, but the game does its references very well. It's not remotely subtle about it, but they're fun - there are heroes from other XBL games locked up around the levels, and freeing them often involves something from their home games, e.g. a puzzle that break the screen down into nine non-contiguous segments you have to navigate to find the guy from Fez. Plus the Navi type is played by one of the Team Four Star cast.

Okay, back to ROBOTZ.

[Meeplelard]

Mysterious Girl had some outstanding boss fights (Baron palace and the final showdown in particular) and two of the only new tracks in the game (I prefer the battle theme, but I'll take either over Golbez's theme which I can't get behind hype for at all). She is indeed worthless from a writing standpoint though.

I've never heard of anyone else screwing up the summon recruitments (I didn't know you could miss them if you had Rydia in your party) but I'll take your word for it, game is not well-coded enough to make me especially surprised. Beyond that I agree with most of your comments (though with about 2% of the caring level for the game's "plot". I think I stopped taking it seriously the moment I heard there were two Kains).

It's still better than the original.

It's not so much Golbez theme hype (because the song isn;t that good) so much as it's usage and setting the tone way better than Mysterious Girl's theme, and there's definitely a much stronger sense of caring put into.  Mysterious Girl's theme barely qualifies as music; it's just a repetitive instrument that sounds just shy of being a Christmas Carol.  I don't get a sense of "The Mysterious Girl is here, shit gets real" despite what's going on whenever the song plays.  The battle theme...found it notably inferior to FF4's other boss themes so yeah.

The bosses...really?  The Baron Fight is completely forgettable, and I didn't even stumble upon the Broken For the Time Rydia/Rosa Band.  I can't remember anything that stands out about that fight...or really the fight at all.  Just kind of cruised through it with conventional methods and moved on.

The Final Showdown would be fine except for her opening attack is the biggest middle finger thing that completely futzes the fight up.  I can see them giving her a strong opening, or some other move that completely stalls your opening set ups (like MT Status or MT Maelstrom to force everyone at low HP, etc.) but not something that is "Potentially OHKOs entire team if not on proper moon phase."  And I don't mean "Avoid Pro-Black Magic", as I went in there on a neutral phase, and it still wrecked all but Golbez and Ceodore (which recovering from all that given her MT damage spam fast enough wasn't quite feasible.)  It reminded me of Shinryu, but Shinryu is a super boss, so stunts like that are expected, this was a huge "screw you" moment.  The rest of the fight was neat, just that opening move really sours the entire fight, as it's the laziest way to slow down your set up, which is the obvious reason why they did that.  Also, forces Rydia on your team, which if you aren't using regularly, means you have a gimped PC for a legitimate fight.  Can't really say I support that design decision (game gets away with it due to 5 PC party, granted, but still irks me.)

The 2nd form of the Final Boss did get me a reset because of the Moon Phase shenanigans, though I went in there on Neutral and it was fair; granted, it uses Meteor after you're likely to have Shell set up...

...which is something I didn't rant about, Moon Phases.  This idea is poorly handled, and frankly, there is one very easy thing they could have done to keep it in effect but make it better:
Add in an All Neutral phase.  The game literally doesn't let you play it normally, but forces one skillset standard to be neutered, and one skillset standard to be buffed.  Doesn't really offer much for strategy as the basic premise is:
Randoms? Pro-Black Magic phase.
Bosses? Anti-Black Magic phase, since most are durability runs.

Summons, it's just Ramuh and Shiva.  The way it works is after they hit a certain HP threshold, Rydia will call out their name, then everyone needs to stop acting for a bit, and the fight will end.  If you hit them anytime after Rydia calls their name, they will go back to attacking you, and you have to win the fight in a conventional manner.  This is easy to screw up accidentally if you don't know the HP threshold, since as I said, Rydia calls Shiva/Ramuh out while someone has an attack ready, the attack will go off and screw the entire thing up. 
I wanna say it's so poorly coded that even a defensive action will provoke them, but I could be mis-remembering, so don't quote me on that.  Still, game gives little indication of what to do, and little warning of it, so easy to casually miss. 

Leviathan and Asura are unmissable if you have Rydia in your team though; after a certain HP threshold, the game will cause a plot end to the fight.  Bahamut is similar if you have his conditions met as well.  I think Ifrit, Titan and Odin are unmissable.

That reminds me further...
TWICE the game has a "Don't have x character? INSTANT GAME OVER!" with no warning about it.  Only reason I let this slide is because there's a save point right near-bye both of them with a Party Editter spot, so it's a mild inconvenience but still dumb idea.  Also this game has about as many plot fights as WA5 and they're all the same basic set up too.

[VySaika]

Playing TAY myself here, and while I agree with most meeple points, there's one thing I want to specifically touch on:

Oh, and the "Cecil is acting weird!" moment?  Poorly displayed.  Nothing about what Cecil does or says actually comes off as weird, especially if the Hooded Man is trying to pretend to be someone else and yeah, you get the idea.  Also doesn't help that Cecil doesn't have a character to make "act weird" ...ok, I take that back, Cecil having a personality would have been a dead give away!  Except he doesn't...

Cecil's line to Hooded Man is "If you're just some beggar, then leave", which...well, Cecil doesn't have much personality, but being generally kind is part of it. That's not something I'd think he'd say ever. Also,  Hooded Man isn't covering his face at all, and presumably Cecil would know what Kain's face looks like. They're old comrades from pre-game FF4 times, and implied to be good friends during that period. Now, since Kain was in full kit for FF4 and cut ties with Baron after, it's fair to assume that only Cecil, Rosa and Cid would actually know his face. So Ceodore not having any idea who he is makes sense.

Anyway, not a major thing, and I agree the scene should have been handled better then it was, but yeah I very much disagree with your reasoning here.

Everything else....aside from the fact that I thought Rydia's challenge dungeon was fine, if boring(Bio > Everything. Really.), and Edge's pissed me off beyond reason(Can't Escape! from like half the things there. In a timed dungeon. alujLKSjhdlajdlkasjd), I pretty much agree with.

Well, not quite. I think Porom and Luca were handled quite a bit better then you seem to think. The big theme of TAY to me is largely: New Characters? Fairly interesting(twins and Golbez count as new). Old characters? Ball = DROPPED. Ceodore's really the only exception to that, falling in more with the Ball = Dropped crowd.

[Random Consonant]

The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (And Now For Something Completely Different): Endboss of the Comedy Tour Route was kind of a dick, acts twice and has a MAP weapon, I literally used Daunt out of paranoia.  Wasn't too bad aside from that though.  Then the game cut to a UOM chopping onions that's a thing sure.  Then some other stuff happened and now I have a blueberry.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Well, not quite. I think Porom and Luca were handled quite a bit better then you seem to think. The big theme of TAY to me is largely: New Characters? Fairly interesting(twins and Golbez count as new). Old characters? Ball = DROPPED. Ceodore's really the only exception to that, falling in more with the Ball = Dropped crowd.

I thought Edge did okay.  He got the only good scenes in the entire game.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Watching SNow run through ff13 for the first time. My opinion of it has lowered in some ways, though Snows snarkiness has endeared it to me in other ways. In particular, I'm more of a fan of Vanille now. She's just such a happy stoner while everyone around heirs busy being emo and caring about the plot. Yeah, I know it's an act, shut up.  Also, Hope pilots a giant robot fora brief stint and is generally a happy otaku for those five minutes, which is the most endearing he's ever gonna get. Seriously, Hope, I hate you so much.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FF13 AKA How I Stopped Worrying And Learned to Love Stoner Grefter Lesbian Motorcycles Space Stallions PARADIGM SHIFT SPAM - VANILLE. IS. BIZARRO GREFTER. This game. This -game-.

[Twilkitri]

Paper Mario: Sticker Star - played through

For the most part, I found it very enjoyable.

I don't think that the world bosses were really designed very well, though. Actually I game-overed at least once against every world boss except the fifth. As far as I can tell, the game was intentionally set up to cause this (beyond the general idea of enemies trying to kill you).

Generally, the bosses all have a gimmick or weakness which you need a particular type of thing sticker to deal with/take advantage of. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the game, there is a sticker museum where you display stickers. So, if you're anything like me, the first copy of every thing sticker you get goes into the museum, and then if you want another copy you need to either go re-collect the thing, or you can purchase additional instances after you've found it the first time. But even if you aren't anything like me - you don't have anywhere near enough space in the album to carry around all the thing stickers you've picked up recently.

So you try the boss, and maybe you're lucky and one of the thing stickers you have on hand is relevant. And maybe you aren't, and you either have to try without them (feasible on some of the bosses, not so much on others - probably doable if you're a better player than I am), run away from the battle (normally possible) and then have to leave the level manually, or game-over and leave the level automatically.

The final kicks it up a notch by having multiple stages with different gimmicks, and bizarrely they disabled running from the battle here (you can run from all the other world bosses that I tried it on) and all the other bosses let you skip the boss introduction when you get back after running/game-overing, but they don't let you do it for the final, which is infuriating. I got to the last stage of the final on one attempt where I had gone through two stages without using their gimmick which I would go on to do in a later attempt, and couldn't finish it because I had run out of stickers which were usable against it. (The gimmick for the latter of the two stages actually didn't rely on a thing sticker for once! But my reflexes weren't good enough to kick it off after I'd realised it, before I had done enough damage to end the stage manually.)

Something else which infuriates me is some bosses being able to inflict crumpled status, which a) prevents you from doing anything (including blocking attacks) and b) causes you to take double damage. Why yes I would like to watch myself unavoidably lose before the status wears off.

Anyway, I ended up with 94/96 battle stickers and 60/64 thing stickers in the museum. I don't really have any inclination to go looking for the missing ones. Had two super flags unfurled (comet pieces and secret doors, a.k.a. the easy ones), also with no inclination to deal with the remaining ones (perfect-ing 230 more battles seems like something I certainly want to do).

I'll just note for anyone as dense as I am that some stores have a second billboard to the left/right of the displayed billboard. Sure, the L/R page buttons come up, but since you don't see more than one of them at a time I somehow never noticed until the shop in world 4.

[Meeplelard]

It's still 2012 so screw you, I'm posting here, I don't care if there's another topic! I refuse to acknowledge it until 12 AM Eastern!

Medievil: Beat the game, got all chalices (is it even beatable without that?), etc.

Game...has not aged well.  I can tell why it might have been a bit of a sleeper hit in 1998, but it's just riddled with a lot of old 3D game problems.  Platforming is poorly handled, game doesn't know how to stop having needless death pits (Why is there a pit when you're pushing the thing in a train?  It serves no purpose other than to punish you for...getting screwed by the game's loose controls?), combat is basic and sometimes unreliable (anytime you have ranged attacks, you really get a complete lack of control over your aim; you rely on Auto Aim which is unreliable because of how slow projectiles go), and jumping is unresponsive.  Worst of all is the game's camera, which is the most unstable thing in a game I've seen.  I've seen bad cameras (Sonic Adventure 1 for example) but that's more awkward angles and can be worked around.  This game, the camera will sometimes randomly just start spinning uncontrollably and makes the whole platforming issue a much worse thing, especally in areas where yo're navigating narrow pathes that lead to instant death pits.

Thankfully the way the game handles "Lives" makes those not as bad as they could be, and the game does have a large variety of things to use, but they don't help make up for the problems.


The game does have one thing going for it, and that's the writing.  It's got a good sense of humor, and generally keeps that tongue-in-cheek nature the entire game.  It recognizes it's a game not to be taken seriously, and doesn't take itself seriously, but at the same time, isn't blatantly beating you over the head with comedy so well played.  Game's plot is also kind of neat, in that the simple concept of "Alleged Hero isn't actually a hero, but a huge failure and a coward, and now needs to go beat the villain the legends CLAIM he beat to restore any sort of dignity he has.  By the way, said hero is a revived corpse with no mouth and one eye!"  Hall of Heroes was some nice flavor as well.