Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Djinn- Nicknaming SMT Law side as Mother Teresa is an insult to Mother Teresa.

That's really true... I should have probably chosen one of those corrupt Popes who sold Indulgences or something... but I can't remember any of their names... >.>;;

-Djinn

[Meeplelard]

To Credit with Warmech, he is a nasty below the belt random.  You're walking on this big bridge, fighting run of the mill enemies...then suddenly he comes out, and your team takes a NASTY hit.  Beating him might not be so hard, but getting past him without suffering some losses, a big deal in a game like FF1 where MP is very limited, and Resurrection is scarce...well, it can totally fuck you up for when you face Tiamat.  Its either face Tiamat with a neutered team, or leave this big ass dungeon, and come back fully healed.

The Origins version of WarMech was pretty much the same deal, though Origins may have let you save anywhere, so being slammed by him out of nowhere wasn't so bad; save, reset, try to get past without fighting him.

Dawn of Souls just made a complete mockery of it though; your team being relatively stronger (Soul of Chaos shrines BE DAMNED), *AND* you have such a deep pool of resources (not to mention Phoenix Downs were added in), Warmech is really just a rare enemy with massive EXP and Gil rewards (not that the latter is going to matter AT ALL), who can occasionally drop some really kick ass armor!

...did I ever mention FF1DoS is such an insult to FF1 in all difficulty related ways?  Even if Warmech himself was overrated, the fact that he got demoted from "Below the Belt Random that can do some crucial blows to your team" to "Durable Random you'll have no real troubles beating" really says everything (...well, no, I think "Kary's Physical just 2HKOed my Fighter WHAT THE FUCK?" getting turned into "Black Mage gets 3HKOed" is a better example >_>)

[Xeroma]

Marathon - Up to G3 Sunbathing. Vaccuum :<

Marathon: Durandal - Up to Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks[really late in the game]. Enjoying it, less mazey than M1 and more chaotic battles.

Tales of Vesperia - Gotta go through the Blade Drifts now. Enjoying the game quite a lot.

Super Robot Wars K - Beat. Don't feel like ranting, 7/10 game would be higher if partner units were handled better.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

...did I ever mention FF1DoS is such an insult to FF1 in all difficulty related ways?

So what you're saying is that it greatly improves on the game by removing the "randomly punch the character in the dick because they don't want to grind levels for no reason" aspect?

[Sierra]

To Credit with Warmech, he is a nasty below the belt random.  You're walking on this big bridge, fighting run of the mill enemies...

I always hated that bridge, actually, because sometimes groups of Sorcerers would show up there. You know, the mindflayer-looking mooks with the ID physicals (who were also part of what made the Ice Cave a horrifying experience on the NES, I believe). Oh, sure, you could one-shot them easily by the time you got to the floating castle, but it's not like you could rely on going first given the randomness of the turn order in FF1o.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Marathon - Up to G3 Sunbathing. Vaccuum :<

Marathon: Durandal - Up to Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks[really late in the game]. Enjoying it, less mazey than M1 and more chaotic battles.

You rule, Xer.

For what it's worth, G4 is the only vacuum level in the game. Though yeah, as you've noticed, M1 is more about atmosphere, M2 more about old-fashioned carnage.


OG2 - Chapter 23, just faced off against AXEL~ Damn, was I supposed to beat him for the mastery or something? I suck. Best I could do was about equal to his regen, though of course a lto of that was the previous battle taking a fair bit out of me. I badly need SP Regen for more peeps... fortunately like three more people gained it after last battle! Katina has moved into the Grungust 2 where she can actually put her offence to good use (Valour affecting an entire Chain Attack is <3). Badly need to grind to get my healers SP Regen; they both have about 70 SP. Now I remember why Russel was one of my kill leaders in OG1... Excellen, Lamia, and MYSTERE!Elzam all have their ace bonuses with Tasuku, Kusuha, and Katina next, although Katina doesn't have Regen while Kyosuke and Bullet do.

PS4 - Damn ye, PD.

Eviltype - Balloons were bitches, but Aqua Rake + Ice 2 made them dead bitches. Rasp/Osmose own, ZoneSeek for EVEN BETTER THAN IT ALREADY WAS? Maybe.

[Hunter Sopko]

S5- Up to Sable bandit hunting. Swtiched out Sialeeds for Zerase when I heard Sialeeds was actually a temp. Oh well. Star Rune is so much better magic damage anyway. Shigure continues to shine as my random slayer with Boost + Power off his redonkulous speed and tech. Woo 2x double attacks and triples! Lun will get switched out for Georg once I get him back, but she's fine on duty as utility physicals/fire mage. Popped a Boost Rune onto Lyon since I had nothing better to do with her. I also added an Eyeball Ring to both her and Shigure, so watching them heal for around a quarter to a third of their HP per hit is amusing. Kyle's successful as my frontline tank AND healbitch with a Flowing Rune. That Fire Dragon Armor I got from a miniboss really makes a mockery of most all damage. Freyja's just sorta there until the Dawn Rune improves.

[Random Consonant]

OG2 - Chapter 23, just faced off against AXEL~ Damn, was I supposed to beat him for the mastery or something? I suck. Best I could do was about equal to his regen, though of course a lto of that was the previous battle taking a fair bit out of me.

You only need to wear him down to about 50-60%, if memory serves.

Anyways...

SRW K - Beat it, started a second playthrough, currently on Ep10 on said playthrough.  Probably a 7 or 8.

[Grefter]

Ergh, no, you know you are awesome Cap K, but no.  Dark Aeons are so infinitely worse than Warmech it isn't even funny (Omega is kind of lame, but is in the final dungeon and yeah after a save point, he isn't say back in front of the entrance to the first village in the game).  Warmech is a low chance random in a single area in the entire game.  Dark Aeons are all over the fucking place and are essentially a kick in the balls for living in another country.

Edit - Did I emphasise that they unlock AS SOON AS YOU GET THE AIRSHIP?  Not even as the final dungeon unlocks.  When you get the fucking AIRSHIP.  You JUST got access to everywhere again without spending half a fucking hour running.  And then Dark Quetzacotl or whatever the fuck the first fucking Aeon is melts your fucking face off for 50k damage (WHEN YOU DON'T HAVE BREAK HP OR THE STATS TO TANK IT WITH PROTECT) when you go back to get your shiny free stat up orb from Quetzacotl's shrine of man porn.

Fuck you Square.  Fuck you in every pore at once.

[Captain K.]

I actually found Tiamat tougher than Warmech, but that's largely just personal experience - on paper the two are about evenly matched

Tiamat is a boss weak to BANE.  It gets no credit whatsoever in a difficult boss discussion.

[Excal]

A) You are using a character that can use BANE?

B) You are trying to use ID on a boss?  The only reason this is not completely counter-intuitive is because FF1 is the first RPG to actually have ID.  Otherwise, it's a weakness that is completely legit to have no clue to expect to be there, nor to be on your go to list of remaining abilities to toss around in the hopes it works.  ('Sides, as I recall Bane is a decently high level Black Magic, which means that in order to use it, you have to hope your limited shots manage to hit, and it's giving up concrete damage for that hope)

[Grefter]

From memory the hit rate isn't great.  Still, this is coming from someone who has Chromatic Orbed Firkraag to death, so I am not a stranger to save load abuse just for the novelty of IDing a boss.

Stuff I have played and forgot to mention due to arguing.

Star Wars: Force Unleashed - The touted plot for connecting PT and OT is laughable.  HEY GUYS CHECK THIS OUT, WE HAVE YET ANOTHER EU CHARACTER FORM THE REBELLION yeah I don't really give a fuck, that was already pretty well covered between Mon Mothma (who I am tempted to start calling Mon Mothra) and General ... Iblis?  Was it?  I should remember, Thrawn novel and all.  But still, boss fights are pretty dumb, but worth it to run around killing everything else you see almost with lightning (And using it to hold other dudes in place while you walk up to them and lightsabre the faces off).  Played on easy because I couldn't play it on PC since as they said at release, there was just to much game for PCs to handle.  I hear good things about the iPhone release.

Star Ocean: Second Evolution - I have forgot to mention a few minor gameplay tweaks I haven't seen anyone note. 

Star Guards are now Accessories.  This is to say, Star Guards are now useless and like... a bit over half the cast is relegated to using Bucklers forever.  Great fucking move there dipshits. 

Eternal swords got nerfed HARD.  It is still broken, but now it has no defensive stats whatsoever.  It is pretty straight 1600 AP sword with the star shooting (So it is broken as fuck).

Pallas Athena (Now Shield of Athena, which is fine) now halves all elements instead of having Darkness weak on it (think it used to?).

3 hit combos is pretty broken.  In spite of that, Dias is still better than everyone.  Bonus points for once you hit the point where KMs lose some of their steam over basic attack Dias has lost his downside on the first slash animation (So now you have the very fast attack without the lag on the follow up and it still has huge reach that goes through opponents, although I maintain that Chaos Sword generally > even Claude's basic until say half way through CoT).  I would need to do some checks and comparisons to see if his entire string is faster than others.  The real kicker though?  He now is effected by Meteor and Slayer Ring (Still need to confirm Angel Armband, not that it really matters) even on the first hit.  Dias fucking rules the entire game now.

Oh yeah, Crimson Diablos still works of course and has lost none of its goodness.  Dias with his awesome Hit rating makes for very solid choice for use in higher difficulty levels still.

[superaielman]

Pallas Althena halved all elements besides Void in SO2o.

[Grefter]

Well yeah it halves Void as well now.

[Meeplelard]

First off, to Excal: Bane Sword exists, everyone can use that.  You always have someone who can use Bane.  Furthermore, Red Wizard can use the spell, not that you SHOULD teach it to him (Life, Heal 2, and Fire 3 all take priority, obviously), but he can still use it if you really wanted.

Next off...
DESPITE Tiamat being Weak to Bane, the hit rate still sucks on her.  Bane's Hit rate is crappy to begin with, and Tiamat's Magic Defense does well to offset the weakness.  I've never seen Bane actually HIT her; I trust people are telling the truth that it works, but I've tried the Bane strategy multiple times, and its not what we call reliable.
Same goes for Kary and her Stun/Sleep weaknesses.  I've tried them, they failed every time!

So uh, yeah,I'm not sure what the argument is.  That you can hit her with a non-negligible rate of ID, but the hit rate is still too low to rely on, so its at best a last resort measure if you definitely are out of options offensively?

[Dark Holy Elf]

On the subject of FF1 and ID hitting bosses, WarMech doesn't resist Stop or Zap!. However, they run into the same problem that Bane/Break does against Tiamat (protip: Bane's hit rate fails, so if you want to have a chance of hitting that's bigger than like, 5%, use Break... which will still usually miss, but you're doing better!) - high MDef owns them, so I don't consider them worth the time. Of course all of this only applies if you're using a Black Wizard - RW can not learn Break, Stop, or Zap!.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

S5- Up to Sable bandit hunting. Swtiched out Sialeeds for Zerase when I heard Sialeeds was actually a temp. Oh well. Star Rune is so much better magic damage anyway. Shigure continues to shine as my random slayer with Boost + Power off his redonkulous speed and tech. Woo 2x double attacks and triples! Lun will get switched out for Georg once I get him back, but she's fine on duty as utility physicals/fire mage. Popped a Boost Rune onto Lyon since I had nothing better to do with her. I also added an Eyeball Ring to both her and Shigure, so watching them heal for around a quarter to a third of their HP per hit is amusing. Kyle's successful as my frontline tank AND healbitch with a Flowing Rune. That Fire Dragon Armor I got from a miniboss really makes a mockery of most all damage. Freyja's just sorta there until the Dawn Rune improves.

Don't wait until the Dawn Rune improves, you'll have only the final dungeon. Just twink him whichever way you find good (he does well with both physicals and magic, although his physicals don't have much of a doubling rate due to subpar speed). I made him a mage and tossed him Rage/Flowing Runes, Lightning/Water Runes are fine until you get the L2 Runes. For physical twinking, you know what to do and you know where to get the broken, so, if that's your thing, go nuts (it's probably a better idea than mage Freyja anyway, but he does get points for being tanky and having the Mag stat to make good use of the spells).

[Hunter Sopko]

I see. I'll probably go the magic route then, since I have enough physical twinkery.

[AAA]

I...I think I got Bane to hit within the first two or three rounds when I played FF1.

Half-Life-The first one. Yes, this is my first time playing the game, which was only 10 bucks on Steam. It's been...interesting so far. Certaintly I can see why it's considered a classic, there's a lot of quality to love here. It's rough and unpolished compared to a modern day FPS, but what the hell it's over 10 years old now. The fact that there are apparently only 3 skins for scientists gives me a nostalgic feeling.

I'm...on the surface, headed to the Lambda lab. Soldier AI has some odd quirks but is surprisingly competent and grenade-happy for such an old game.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

S5- Up to Sable bandit hunting. Swtiched out Sialeeds for Zerase when I heard Sialeeds was actually a temp. Oh well. Star Rune is so much better magic damage anyway. Shigure continues to shine as my random slayer with Boost + Power off his redonkulous speed and tech. Woo 2x double attacks and triples! Lun will get switched out for Georg once I get him back, but she's fine on duty as utility physicals/fire mage. Popped a Boost Rune onto Lyon since I had nothing better to do with her. I also added an Eyeball Ring to both her and Shigure, so watching them heal for around a quarter to a third of their HP per hit is amusing. Kyle's successful as my frontline tank AND healbitch with a Flowing Rune. That Fire Dragon Armor I got from a miniboss really makes a mockery of most all damage. Freyja's just sorta there until the Dawn Rune improves.

Just so you know, holding out for Georg is like holding out for Sasarai in Suikoden 3. Consider Richard or Hazuki instead, would be my advice.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

S5- Up to Sable bandit hunting. Swtiched out Sialeeds for Zerase when I heard Sialeeds was actually a temp. Oh well. Star Rune is so much better magic damage anyway. Shigure continues to shine as my random slayer with Boost + Power off his redonkulous speed and tech. Woo 2x double attacks and triples! Lun will get switched out for Georg once I get him back, but she's fine on duty as utility physicals/fire mage. Popped a Boost Rune onto Lyon since I had nothing better to do with her. I also added an Eyeball Ring to both her and Shigure, so watching them heal for around a quarter to a third of their HP per hit is amusing. Kyle's successful as my frontline tank AND healbitch with a Flowing Rune. That Fire Dragon Armor I got from a miniboss really makes a mockery of most all damage. Freyja's just sorta there until the Dawn Rune improves.

Just so you know, holding out for Georg is like holding out for Sasarai in Suikoden 3. Consider Richard or Hazuki instead, would be my advice.

I'd one-up those two and just say go for Cathari/Miakis. Those two have the highest physical twink potential in the game, and Miakis even starts with three rune slots for massive, massive murder to crush everything under her heel with her awesome doubling/tripling rate and good equips/speed. Cathari has one less free rune slot and no doubling, but absolutely overkill speed/critical rate+second-highest strength stat in the game, second only to Georg. Cathari is almost as magically frail as Georg, but like that matters when you're just blowing things up before they get a turn ever.

EDIT: That said, Richard is rather awesome when you first get him, he just doesn't have a lot of high-end potential due to only one free rune slot, and command runes in S5 have issues. Rune slots = your twinking potential in S5, and getting the broken runes is piss-easy. Much more practical than the skills that just don't add that much to your overall power and are just sorta there.

[metroid composite]

So...after a while of playing the PSP genesis collection, I have to come to the conclusion...

Gensis games made by Sega not named Ristar, Phatasy Star 4, Columns, or Comix Zone suck, at least based on 20-minute impressions.  (And even then, Ristar, Columns, and Comix Zone aren't spectacular, just "hey, I'm actually kinda enjoying myself").  Phantasy Star 4 was noticeably pretty good, but I wasn't feeling that excited about replaying parts I've already played, so I decided to move on to....



Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume

Best game...well, no, I'm being premature.  Best concept for a game ever.  Take a Turn Based Strategy.  Except, when you attack go into Valkyrie Profile combo mode.  Oh, and give actual rewards for overkilling enemies (giving a real incentive to spam all your PWSs like people feel like doing).  You know, I've brainstormed a fair few hybrid genre ideas, and I'm not sure any of them are this cool.

[Cotigo]

Have you not played VP:Silmeria yet, Met?  Because all that's in there which kind of makes CotP less impressive.

[metroid composite]

Have you not played VP:Silmeria yet, Met?  Because all that's in there which kind of makes CotP less impressive.

I've watched it.  Didn't look like a grid-based strategy game to me; seemed to have some of the ideas, though, just in a messier form.

[Talaysen]

Covenant of the Plume is quite different from what Silmeria was doing.