Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Shale]

So...

1. Change of point of view character to Edgeworth (which PW3 showed was a waaaay better point of view character than Phoenix)
2. Same basic gameplay
3. Change of setting to both allow for more things to happen and to prevent repetition?

I'm way more excited to play this than I am to borrow my friend's copy of Apollo Justice.

Basically. It's got free-roaming movement within areas, like a point-and-click adventure game instead of a visual novel, which is great, and you can get into cross-examination style arguments at the drop of a hat. There's also more active deduction when you're investigating clues, and the one can segue into the other pretty easily. It's very good. Edgeworth isn't as snarky yet as he was in PW3, but there's time for that.

Edit: Also, if anybody else wants to sample it for themselves:

http://www.siliconera.com/flashgames/kenji/index.html

[Cmdr_King]

KotOR- Hum.  So I was able to immediately get through HK-47's previous three owners and get to the point at which everything is "in his core memory".  Is going any further purely a plot trigger (ie must wait for the big reveal) or is there some other means to move this further for now?  If not, is there any further use for Repair regarding him?
For reference, going in a Tatooine->Kashyyyk->Manaan->Korriban order, since that seems to be the preffered.  Just opened up the shadow lands in Kashyyyk.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It doesn't mean I enjoyed that decade.

Would waiting those three months be worse than that decade, though!?

WAoO - Welp, Protea is Ursula DeVille. Past the blatant Disney villain ripoff, though, she was probably one of the easiest fights so far.

This is because she's the slowest boss in the game so far (consistently outsped by Dorothy - Delphi and particularly Holly -always- outsped Dorothy, and rarely could even oust Strawman) - and the full skillsets make a notable difference - particularly, being able to splat her face off with lol 450 damage Melt Down+lol 500 damage Battle Wind while massively baiting her with Power Boost castings (bosses -really- don't want you Power Boosting Tin Man: they immediately dispel it. Makes sense, given a Power Boost'd Battle Wind is lololol 1000+ dmagae n00bz, but a turn a boss spends dispelling is a turn he/she doesn't dish out offense, and since they don't go all out at the same time, this is a lot more relevant than it seems. WAoO pulls off some interesting strategies in terms of typical TB mechanics due to the way it works). More or less on the same mold as the others, though: status+strong elemental damage+Magic Focus+MT status+dispel+weaker MT damage, but still enough to cause problems. Only she gets an actual physical in SLAP TO THE FACE (best attack ever[TM] # 4831), which is basically Battle Wind, only her strength stat isn't great, so it's just actually decent damage (a single focused assault 2HKOs average, which could be worse) - but it justifies using Fox Hunt on her, unlike all the other sisters. Regardless, the fight felt unusually controllable. Funnily, she's probably the only one to really have a strong claim to Godlike among the witches, while all the others feel more like Heavies, since she actually has something that OHKOs in spite of being slower than the others. Well, and her alternative to elemental damage isn't a godly 4HKO to Dorothy physical.

Now, back to the Yellow Brick Road to beat Oz in the face with a hair dryer.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Mana Khemia 2 - This game's story is delicious trainwreck. Not too many new thoughts to add, but I'm enjoying the Twisted Misadventures of Lilianne Valendorf a fair deal. Somehow the game hits just the right amount of unbalance to be fun without annoying the hell out of me, which is impressive.

Gameplay is fun though a little unbalanced in the challenge department. Looks like it's staarting to pick up again, at least, although I keep getting new toys to own enemies with. Lily remains MVP so far because her unique skills are awesome crowd control.


Endless Frontier - Four hours in or so. As I've mentioned in chat, I'm basically only playing this on the bus, because LFT and Mana Khemia 2 are more engaging. The game compares less than favourably to MK2; the two both seem to go for a trainwreck style of humour, but EF is too often facepalm-worthy and borders on offensive. I'd outright hate the game's plot if Haken weren't so damn likable despite the potential for him to have been a horrid harem anime lead. Gameplay is intriguing, I'm glad it has finally started introducing the occasional enemy who punishes you for botching a combo. Game seems to have a good curve in that regard. But too early to say much more, Super Robot Profile is a strange combination.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

EF has -way- too many innuendo jokes for its own good - it sorta crosses the sexism border thrice over. And yes, MK2 does trainwreck humor better, if nothing else because it's so much more surreal and feels - oddly - more natural at it. This coming from a game with amazingly awkward writing at times. Go figure.

Gameplay-wise, you'll start seeing combo punishment a -lot- more often very soon - and bosses uniformly do that as soon as they show up. The combo mechanics will get more interesting as you get more attack skills too - one of the appeals is being able to swap the attacks you'll use on the fly and adjusting the COM management as you see fit, in my eyes.

EDIT: Also, you're at... MK2 C5 now? You're just one chapter away from the greatest boss fight ever, and even the randoms start not completely sucking sorta, given they get turns - which they may not, in fairness!

[Shale]

I haven't played the MK games, but EF's trainwreck humor starts to fall flat (har har har) as soon as you realize that they're not going to do anything but boob jokes for the entire game.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Pretty much. It's okay when they pull off something like the SA reference, but the ratio between those and Kaguya is a cow jokes is about 1:349752983458932645321234. MK2 (since MK1 just doesn't really do the same thing as MK2 humor-wise) is more about turning the entire world into a Looney Tunes cartoon, add anime tropoclysm, remove any semblance of common sense even by the stunning standards of Japanese media and see how batshit insane your clinically deranged teenage students get. Oh, and the main teacher is Batman if Batman decided to be the Joker instead.

[Grefter]

From memory there is a high Repair check you can pass to do it CK, but not sure.  Big reveal will happen after 2 planets and that also triggers it.

[Meeplelard]

FEDS: Completed!  Time for a brief rant by my standards.

Plot: Marth gets kicked out of kingdom, several years later, he returns and kicks the crap out of every country that looks at him funny til either they agree to stop being douches, or he has conquored them; this involves saving the world.

...seriously, its NES PLot, and they didn't exactly try to make it any better.  I'm sure tehre's more dialog, but the dialog is basically...

Malledeus/Nyna: Good job Marth! By the way, our next target is here.
Marth:  Well then, soldiers, let us make haste!  Victory shall be ours! *insert Smash Taunts and Victory quotes here, which I'd quote directly but they're in japanese*

...I still don't know what the hell Gharnef is besids like smoe guy who was a disciple of smoe guy who I THINK is the high level Sage who joins final level and...fuck it, I'm done wtih plot.

Characters:  Marth has a bunch of lines, they're generic.  Caeda has a few recruitment scenes, and her only other dialog which is 90% in the first 1/3rd of the game is "Marth, I'm your love interest.  No, I'm not wanting in on your pants, just don't forget this uselses fact, ITS IMPORTANT END GAME!"  Minerva...actually had potential, but tehy sort of forgot she existed outside of the "Yuo are fighting your brother" "I know...and he's honorable, so I have to kill him cause its RESPECT DAMN IT!"  Nyna is basically FE6 Guinevere...except worse.  Malledeus is an FE Tactician...except older and even more useless...at least he talks unlike FE7's *glares*  Why the hell am I going over FEDS' writing? Seriously?

Music: It has Together We Ride!  ...taht's seriously the only freaking song worth noting.  I guess...the major boss theme was alright...except it plays literally twice...

Gameplay: Take GBA games, and remove factors like Rescuing, Mounted subtle advantages, add ni FE9/10's style of Con, and...yeah, its just not good.  Seriously, you play FE games for gameplay, and...

you know, I think FE4 had better gameplay.  Oh, make no mistake; taht game had issues EVERYWHERE, but it at least had thinsg like "Mounted serves a purpose other than being weak to weapons!", and Skills...and Sety...
FEDS is...FE6-lite.  FE6-LITE.
And FE6 was already FE7-lite.  Seriously, what the shit?  

At least forging was there, but too limited especially with your funds to really make use of.  Game...uhh...well, here's the thing.

You know what's nice about FE6-10?  You acn see literally everything the enemy has.  If tehy're getting a stat boost, yu see it!  FEDS doesn't do that.
"Hey, that Dragno doesn't look to-...wait, why is he doublnig off speed LOWER than my PC?"  Doesn't help you acn't tell what stat boosts you gain from your own equips.  I still don't know what Firestone and Divine Stone grant, just the boosts are awesome and made Tiki a cute little tank despite like 5 defense.

Reclassing was a neat idea, but the game's classes aer so unbalanced.  There's basically "Mercenary/Hero", "Pegasus Knight/Dragon Knight", and "Cavalier/Paladin."  Ok, Knight has niche uses, and smoe can get away with Fighter, but seriously, Speed is a god stat so Mercenary wins tehre (especially since it has good enough strength), Pegasus Knight...don't need to asy anything (Dragon Knight is a promotion of that in this game), and Mobility is a huge deal, its not even funny, so that makes Cavalier good too.  Oh, right, Horsemen exists as an alternative to Paladin!
Doesn't help that Cavalier has 2 weapons for an unpromoted unit, as usual.

Ok, taht's enough of that.  The game is subpar ni most everyway, and honestly, there's no excuse.  Ok, writing related things, fine; hard to turn NES plot nito smoething worthwhile.  Music I wasn't expecting much; outside of FE10, FE music has always been absically "2-3 good songs, the rest are meh at best", so yeah, that's about expected.  But gameplay...it should have at least lived up to FE6's standards.  FE6 still had kinks to work out, but it at least had all the features FE7/8 had overall (like RESCUE. How I missed you...and this is coming from smoeone whose been playnig an FE4 LP, where Rescue doesn't exist...)  FEDS has literally no excuse in this case.

Oh, right one more thing!
Graphics.  While I don't cfare about them much, I feel the need to bring them up.  While I appreciate them trynig to make a more enhanced version of GBA graphics...the animations just didn't do it.  Some of them lacked the general flashiness of GBA animations, others were hurt by better graphics snice it lacked the general 2D Charm, if that makes sense.  I wouldn't mind so much if they were clearly not trying to emulate the GBA style animations but...they were...and theybasically failed.

Overall, game is a 4/10.  Disappointing...a lot really.  You'd think this being the 2nd remake of FE1, they'd have done a lot more...but they basically applied FF1 Dawn of Souls level remake, which is not really forgivable (hell, DoS was a bigger jump,a nd as core games, FF1 > FE1)  I dunno, might go down to 3.  I think this game may actually be inferior to FE4, despite FE4's numerous issues.

I apologize for the typoes in this, but typing frmo a school computer, thus unfamiliar keyboard scenario + no spell check, so yeah.

[Shale]

Had a chance to try out DJ Hero earlier today. Good game. It took me a while to pick up some of the signals, especially getting the required rhythm down for scratching, but once I did it was a lot of fun. Pity it costs more than I can afford right now.

[Xeroma]

EF's humor has this issue of it being a localization of a game where 90% of the jokes were japanese culture referenced, so they had to try -something-. A lot of the innuendo jokes you see were actually not in the script originally :/

[Dark Holy Elf]

When you localise Japanese cultural references for an American audience, the logical thing to replace them with is American cultural references. (see also: Phoenix Wright) Oh well. I'm not letting the original scripters totally off the hook because the character design alone makes it clear that some of it was there all along, but yeah. The game does have a weak localisation generally (no VA, sometimes clumsy English, etc.) so I'm not totally shocked.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Also more glaring typos than I cared to count. Atlus sorta went on auto and it shows.

[Xeroma]

The localization is definitely weak, which I was trying to point out >_>;. Kind of a shame, the original script had some ridiculous shit.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It's more disappointing because we know Atlus can do better than that, but c'est la vie.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Due to all the Dragon Age hype in this topic, I got curious and looked up some art and such for it. Everything sounds pretty cool - the dialog seems pretty entertaining, the plot is basic, but malleable. Good stuff...

Why the fuck are the character designs so damn ugly?

[Sierra]

Being pretty isn't one of DA's priorities. Quite the opposite, really.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Due to all the Dragon Age hype in this topic, I got curious and looked up some art and such for it. Everything sounds pretty cool - the dialog seems pretty entertaining, the plot is basic, but malleable. Good stuff...

Why the fuck are the character designs so damn ugly?

It's an ugly world. Low fantasy, the kind of world where you should count yourself lucky if you're not raped that day.

[Grefter]

Also Bioware are not noted for their pretty character models at the best of times.  Check out Mass Effect in game art sometime, got that plastic look to it that we have been blessed with since Doom 3 engine.  DA at least looks really good outside of the glass eyes (this is actual praise for graphics and yeah that is what it gets).  Bioware's best stuff was pretty much painted backgrounds for IE games (Which personally think Black Isle did better with and Troika topped the lot of them with Temple of Elemental Evil which has some really nicely done backgrounds).  Bioware very very much are more about functional graphics (Hi spec graphics, but they are very much more functional than pretty), well I guess there is some work in spell effects, but meh.  Incredibly a gameplay and concept based company but they do what they do quite well.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I miss painted backgrounds. Look at the Phantom Forest or Mt. Koltz or Baren Falls. That shit looks awesome, even now.

[Grefter]

LFT - Just beat up Miluda for the first time.  I haven't really been paying attention to plot scenes but I realised on this one what is so fucked up about Algus.  The guy is just so American.  He hates on Miluda because she is a Loser.  Not because she is a commoner or because she is rebelling but because she is a Loser.  It is exactly the kind of language Mark Ames described being used in the lead up to workplace shootings in many cases in Going Postal.  Interesting piece from the land of Engrish Translation.

[Clear Tranquil]

Kanji Matarukaja hype makes CTs go ;_; He doesn't learn it until L60 dear god. Use Teddie <3

Persona 4- Omnipotent Orb get. I stuck it on Teddie of course~

Ultimate weapons for all. Check. Ultimate armour for all. Check. Broken accessory get. Check. Teddie has that, Yosuke has Barbaric Bracers (double evasion rate yesu), Souji still has a Patient Collar because I'm a chicken and Chie has a Reisen Bracer which served it's purpose well but now needs to be upgraded into something better.

I dunno if the Barbaric Bracers stack with Yosuke's other physical evade stuff but I think it helps with magic at least.

Decided on Souji/Chie/Yosuke for the frue finale. Chie and Yosuke for certs they are that good. Probably Teddie for the fourth but maybe Naoto >_> Or I might throw in Yukiko or Kanji so they finally learn their final skills (Yukiko still has to learn Fire Amp, Kanji Elec Amp (!!!)) I did indeed finally pick up Salvation for Yukiko. It wasn't as visually impressive as I was hoping.

Djinn'll probably have to settle for Castle Wall or the auto full revive accessory for Souji/Teddie/Yukiko instead of the Omnipotent Orb as the Reaper can't be fought on your first run I don't think.

[Tide]

After the CT hype, I'm inclined to give up Kanji for Yukiko just to cover the most amount of elements and getting some backup healing. I just... -really- like Kanji as a character so I'm kinda loathe to replace him. I'll probably grow to hate Yukiko for replacing him. Whore.

Replace Chie instead, then. Kanji is better for bosses (Matarukaja > Power Charge for overall party effect) and Yosuke+Souji is all you need for randoms.

Chie is miles better for randoms. MT+speed is very nice to have. Everyone does feel usuable (*Punt* to Naoto for me, but yeah), so it really is a matter of party synergy.

>_>? You mean Chie is better than Kanji for randoms right? Because I am pretty certain Yosuke is still faster than Chie for some time *AND* he has better options with that first turn.

[Grefter]

LFT - I punched Wiegraf and ate his Minions.  I currently somehow have my Male Mage unlocked down to Lancer in physical skills from eating souls.  Grefter is down to Oracle on the caster side of things from similar devouring, which is pretty impressive considering he has only had 3 maps to partake upon the feast.  Lower JP requirements to unlock jobs is sexy because of this.  I have bred a crappy Chemist from the first batch of recruits to have Auto Potion, she was then put to the sword so that someone more worthy could have this.  Several Invites have also been slain and devoured for their skills after we have taken their equipment.  The world will fear Jim the Elf and his roaming band of cannibals.

Edit - In the next Episode Algus is going to become the Zombies and Grefter is going to bait him into killing himself with potions by shooting him with a Night Killer.  This will be glorious.  I do it for the President.

[superaielman]

After the CT hype, I'm inclined to give up Kanji for Yukiko just to cover the most amount of elements and getting some backup healing. I just... -really- like Kanji as a character so I'm kinda loathe to replace him. I'll probably grow to hate Yukiko for replacing him. Whore.

Replace Chie instead, then. Kanji is better for bosses (Matarukaja > Power Charge for overall party effect) and Yosuke+Souji is all you need for randoms.

Chie is miles better for randoms. MT+speed is very nice to have. Everyone does feel usuable (*Punt* to Naoto for me, but yeah), so it really is a matter of party synergy.

>_>? You mean Chie is better than Kanji for randoms right? Because I am pretty certain Yosuke is still faster than Chie for some time *AND* he has better options with that first turn.

 Yeah. Though Chie is pretty damn good against randoms thanks to not needing MP.