Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Taishyr]

Nikki wasn't in the active party for chapters 6/7, mostly, primarily due to having way too much AP. She's now low on AP due to a boom of skills all at once.

Jess has a bit more unlocked than Vayne/Anna, yes. Not sure why she has so much less than Vayne, though.

(In general, Flay/Nikki have been sidelined due to too much AP, though now it's Vayne/Anna. I don't like the idea of shelving my HP-analysing person, though, so Anna and... someone else... are shelved now. Probably Flay still.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Wait, party members not in the active party get less AP? I'm a ditz; thought they were getting the same (aside from the kill bonus).

[Taishyr]

Pretty sure they get half.

[Sierra]

The final skills in everyone's growbooks are horrificially expensive. I had to do a tiny bit of grinding to wrap those up for some people but found that doing every job available generally gave me whatever I needed in terms of AP and cash (they also give you boss fights, which are the best thing about MK, so yeah).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Maybe I've had bad luck but every "boss fight" I've encountered in a job has been entirely pathetic, to the point where if they had doubled damage and durability they'd still be owned by the maingame bosses. Not much fun. ;_; (Well, it's somewhat fun to just unload as much damage as possible.) But yeah, good for when I need a bit more money or AP. I don't do many of them, though.


MK - And onto Chapter 11! The most recent boss was the worst since Chapter 5 (i.e. since bosses started getting serious) - borderline OHKO damage on one good move and a lot of filler otherwise just begs to be owned by D-supports - but, relevantly, is probably still a low Godlike.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TotA - XS2 froze, so I ordered an original copy for relatively cheap and went to play this while it doesn't arrive. Impressions so far are: Luke is an unusual and rather refreshing main so far. He's not likable, he's not a person with common sense, he's not endearing, but that's what makes him actually more interesting to follow than your typical shonen lead or Gary Stu (SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN SHELTERED FOR HIS WHOLE LIFE IN A GOLDEN CRADLE WHO ISN'T A SAINT MAN THIS IS SO IMPOSSIBIBLE), especially considering how utterly stock tropetastic Tales mains usually are. Tear is... well, she's serious and there. Jade leaves little impression other than being Lezard without the insanity so far and Anise is a fuming underaged whore. And I'm sorely disappointed that Mieu will get to live the whole damn game.

[Sierra]

Iji: Played through this on Normal. Fun little indie sidescroller. For Sage/Alex, since I know they were talking about it yesterday: there are multiple endings, I take it? I can see how a pacifist run should make things completely different. Probably following Mia's trail does something as well (I assume?), though I lost track of that after stage four.

Stage five's music lifts the Tom Sawyer riff almost note-for-note, incidentally. The music as a whole is pretty awesome, actually, especially the end credits song.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TotA -

* Jo'ou Ranbu meets Dist.

...
......
.........

That chair is SIMPLY FAAAAAAAAAAAAABULOUS~.

[Tide]

Persona 4: Expert mode continued...

Well FRUE Strip club boss has been killed. Hardest fight so far? Then again, all the bosses have been good fights. I would probably rank Castle > FRUE Strip club > Sauna as of now. Sauna boss being last only because I went in like half prepared and still some how won. Castle boss' difficulty stems from 3 things I find.

1) Time. You actually don't have that many days to go rescue her
2) 3 party members instead of 4. Non surprisingly? This hurts
3) Lack of the fox. No SP healing at a reasonable cost means the dungeon crawling needs to be done super carefully. Or you need to come back again.

Of course, once I realized the FRUE strip club boss had some patterns, the fight got easier. Until around the last 25% or so. Then it was just whoring out Titania's Ice nulling and keeping Yukiko on guard unless people were seriously injured. Kill Rush hitting 3 times for around 210 damage after Rakunda sped things up to prevent things from getting uglier.

I'm at Void Quest now. This dungeon wins in design. The enemies are still bastards. Especially the tanks. But especially voltron. Whoever told me to use ID spells: thank you, that's helped quite a bit. I forgot if this was Cid or OK.

Some midway opinions...

The game is basically Persona 3++ as CK mentioned. Being able to control all 4 characters is win. Being able to control what skills to keep is also win. Having your team members able to support each other also makes the game a little bit less frustrating. At least now if you encounter BS critical, somebody can save you. And it rewards enemy MT too, since the 'save' can only work if its ST. Set dungeon designs makes things so much better, although I WISH they just kept the damn map around. And in general? Even though it keeps the One More and the All out Attack, I find the approaches you need tend to be different. The biggest reason I guess is because SP/HP recovery is no longer free. But I'll take that small penalty for all the other changes mentioned PLUS the fact that it saves after every floor of progress. This makes the game MUCH more managable. Especially in hard mode. Now if you screw up, its more your fault and less the game being a dick. Stats...well levels are still the god stat, unfortunately. Also, due to the entire non recovery of HP/SP, SP is now the most important stat to me since it indicates how long you can dungeon romp (recovering from Fox McCloud is expensive!). After that...probably Magic, and then a tie between HP and Agility with Endurance being the least important. This could just be because of hard mode, so Endurance seems like it has little effect, but that's the off hand experience I'm getting.

S.Links, love the fact that you can communicate with all your team mates now. Some of them I particularly like (Magician, Priestess (duh), Hierophant, Strength in particular), others...not as much (Moon, Devil and Temperance come to mind). The design is also better, and the trade off larger. Since in P3, you could dungeon crawl and boost S.Links at the same time. This time though, if you dungeon crawl, you can't pursue any day S.Links, which is much harder and makes the decisions tighter. Having school lunches, exams boosting all S.Links, and side events like STUDY PARTIES seem to replicate the realism factor just a touch higher (even though we're in a game with summoning demons with glasses).

Overall, the game just wins. It's heading for a high 9 at the moment in terms of ranking and been a while since I picked up something new and finished. So yeah, those who were wary of P3, do give this one a try. Once again, the setting and first few hours of the game are really captivating (like P3s), so you can figure out if you want to keep going afterwards.

As for PCs...gameplay SPOILARS

Yosuke - Seems like the 'balanced' guy in battle. He has magic, some physical skills, some status, healing, etc. Status is surprisingly useful since some enemies are weak to it, which basically means 100%. Having one learnt that is MT early makes it stand out. Otherwise, his skill set seems like a mix. His stats aren't particularly outstanding due to the balanced build but his speed is excellent. Being fast with MT status and some spells along with a relatively good resource pool makes him very valuable.

Chie - Starts of relatively good since physical skills are now decent. But the stat build I find doesn't work for me. Low SP and her HP isn't that solid either. This doesn't matter too too much before the striptease since at that point in time, Chie is your strongest physical asset. Once you get past the strip tease, she runs into competition. As an Ice mage, she flat out loses to Teddie. As a physical fighter, she loses to Kanji's vastly superior strength growth and HP. She has more SP than him! But uh...yeah. Now, I heard she supposedly gets awesome in the late game, but yeah mid game wise, she's LVP. In fairness to Chie, at the very least you can boost her S.Link earlier or so, giving her a sizable advantage before Kanji and Teddie join.

Yukiko - SP pocket of doom. Honestly, what the heck. The resources are so deep its silly. The Suzaku fan just expands on it further so now she will like hardly ever run out of SP. Yukiko also learns lots of healing making her a great healing battery due to this. Speed could use some work, but other than that, the damage is excellent too. Against the striptease optional for example, she was dealing more damage than Teddie even though he was hitting weakness and she wasn't. The persona evolution not losing its weakness sucks...but still MVP aside from MC so far. Yosuke makes a pretty good claim at it due to the speed issue, but for the most part, there were times when I could live without Yosuke. I'm not sure if I could say the same for Yukiko.

Kanji - The HP pool rocks. Strength also rocks. SP pool? Not so much. He's really low there. Mag sucks, but Elec boost is learnt early to make up for it...kind of. He's basically really happy physical skills don't suck anymore. If you need a dominant physical guy, he's the one. Again, SP is somewhat of a concern for long trecks...but at least he won't be using that as much compared to his physical skills.

Teddie - Pretty awesome from what I've seen. SP again is good. HP is just a hair better than Yukiko, which is not good. The speed is excellent. Also, he starts with Mediarama. This wins. In fact, I think aside from the HP, Teddie might be upsurping the MVP throne pretty soon. Only other hold back comes from the dual weakness shared with Yosuke. This isn't really his fault (I COULD dump Yosuke for Kanji as an example), so I don't hold it as much against him as I do with the HP. What else do I hold against him? The Scripted S.Link growth, which prevents you from accelerating his battle performance otherwise.

So non spoiler recap for those wondering in terms of usefulness so far: Priestess > Magician = Star > Emperor > Chariot

[AAA]

L4D-Starting to get good at Versus Mode finally. Now I'm winning as much as I lose, and the ones I lose are close. This could just be due to better teammates/worse competition, of course, but I generally find myself contributing far more to the victory than before.

Got the Man vs Tank Achivement, just by manipulating the game on single player. Also got Dead Wreckening and Lamb 2 Slaughter, leaving just three Infected achivements to go. 38/50 Achivements total. I've killed over 16,000 zombies.

Been playing Campaigns on Advanced lately, getting used to how things work there. Once I'm comfortable I'll switch up to Expert and we'll see how that goes (badly, I bet).

Best Dialogue so far:

Bill: "I've never seen anything like it. They never stop. They're relentless. They're not human."

Zoey[mockingly]: "Game over, man! Game Over!"

[Sierra]

I'm at Void Quest now. This dungeon wins in design. The enemies are still bastards. Especially the tanks. But especially voltron. Whoever told me to use ID spells: thank you, that's helped quite a bit. I forgot if this was Cid or OK.

Pretty sure that was me. ID is often a good way to get around annoying enemies in P4, and the final PC excels at MT death. Also, the voltron types that have something like 65 HP but ridiculously high defense that reduces everything to single-digit damage? Use items on them if ID isn't an option for some reason. Attack items dealing a set amount of damage will ignore defense, meaning you can OHKO the bastards with the right item.

[Grefter]

Oh man, you weren't playing Advanced from the start for campaign?  Advanced is pretty fun and pretty doable.  Expert is crazy though.  You really need to have a group that have a lot of control over their fire, friendly fire on Expert is brutal.  Advanced it is noticable, but you can deal with it.  On Expert though lose Hunting Rifle shots or Shotgun blasts are going to ruin someones shit.  Couple that with the OH MY GOD WHY WON'T THE SPECIAL ZOMBIES STOP of Expert and it is way harsh.

There is nothing like getting out of a really tight situation with 2 people left almost dead, get one munched by a hunter and then to be tongued by a Smoker just at the safe house door.  Expert is crazy brutal.

[OblivionKnight]

I haven't posted here in ages.  Anyway, time for an analysis of Persona 4!  I finished this a bit ago, and have mostly been busy and working on stat topic stuff.

So yeah, much of what everyone else has said is true.  Persona 4 is, basically, an improved Persona 3.  So much so to the point that I'm having trouble finding areas where it hasn't improved on.  The music, the flow, basically everything is improved.  Definite highlight game of the year - it does everything amazingly well.

So...discussion points!  Let's start with spoiler-laden story first:

So, the only major issues that I have with P4 compared to P3 are in regards to some decisions made by Atlus.  Particularly, why the FUCK are the endings so annoying to differentiate between?  I mean, the game does a good job of making it a point to never settle for an easy answer, to think outside the box, etc.  But the game should not have required 5 specific choices in a row to avoid the bad ending - especially when some of those choices had 4 options.  Rather, it should have been a more simple, "yes" or "no" thing...well, keeping the "We're missing something" option is ok too, but in general, it didn't need all those specific choices.  That's just annoying.  Thankfully, this is really the only issue I have - P3 did it right with a "yes/no" thing.  P4 didn't need to do that, but to make it less intensive or more obvious (though, again, it does give hints).  This also extends to the true ending section, albeit less so.  Granted, knowing exactly what to do and where to go...isn't obvious, but at least there should be a few nagging thoughts as to what to do.  Granted, more on that a bit later.

Anyway, overall story...I find works amazingly well.  Murder mystery is cool, and I think they do a good job of pulling it off.  Adachi...I actually liked the Ax Crazy villain he was.  Motivations stupid?  Serial killers generally have stupid motives >_>  I actually enjoyed looking for the real killer, and it's not so damn obscure that you won't find him.  Assuming you move on towards the right ending, you get 3 chances to choose out of 20-some characters who the real killer might be.  These include your social links, as well as Adachi and a few other people (I think the Aiya owner is part of the group too).  You get a few good hints before the choice, and you can easily limit the decision down to 5 or so people.  Adachi does a great job to hide everything, and the few small slip-ups are well-hidden and not too obvious until the end.  I also loved the fact that he lived at the end - much better than him dying, as now he's paying for his crimes.

As for other aspects - the sidetrack killers (Mitsuo, Namatame) did their job well, and the ongoing investigation, despite feeling slow overall, was a good mimicry of a murder case.  I really overall loved the story and how it progressed, and think it worked much better than P3's.

That being said, I feel like the true ending...feels a little tacked on?  I'm actually having trouble quantifying it - It feels a bit like The Answer, albeit it makes sense and works fine with the story.  You know there's something odd since the beginning of the game, and there are still questions remaining even after the normal ending - Origins of the Midnight Channel, How did Soji get his persona, How did the others get their personas, etc.  The fact there are unanswered questions that need answered is the point of the game story (REACH OUT TO THE TRUTH!!!!), and should be the clue as to where you need to search for.  Nonetheless...it feels a like a bit of an anti-climax.  I mean, the build-up to the murderer was the big point of the game, and while Ameno-sagiri was a bit...last minute...it at least worked.  Izanami felt last minute-last minute, which...eh.  You know something's wrong since the first few scenes of the game, and having her be behind everything is ok...but I think the presentation could have been done a bit better.  Knowing exactly what to do for the ending is a bit annoying, though if you do get to the right place...then you are fine.  Granted, the scene that occurs AFTER you go towards the true ending path should have come BEFORE as a hint (maybe Yosuke could have said something to the effect of, "Hey, if you have time after seeing everyone, feel free to come to Junes for a send-off party!" - then you could still get the "Go Home?" thing, but at least there would be some type of direction to move to).  However, it is, as I said, not too impossible to get so...eh. 

Characterization throughout the game is excellent - the characters feel closer, more alive than in P3.  This is helped a lot by party members being S.Links - THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE IN P3!  Seriously, it's a great way to make them more alive, and to put some gameplay backing for completing them.  Nanako is <3, and Dojimo is also cool.  Most of the other S.Links are also fairly endearing too, and I love the fact that you actually get more closure with them in the normal/true endings.  I also love that there's far more S.link interaction than before - MOON connects with STRENGTH, there are multiple people for some of the links, party members all get involved, etc.  Makes things a lot more realistic.

Speaking of which, S.Link things!

FOOL/JUDGMENT - Party links, auto-max, story-based.  No major comments.
MAGICIAN - Loved the end to this.  Yosuke is endearing, and the link correlates with Soji's experiences pretty well.
PRIESTESS - Sailor Mars battles with her conflicted feelings.  Also learns how to cook.
EMPRESS - ...so, yeah, Margaret is...a slut.  Entertaining, though not much interaction, sadly...but the normal ending closure is cool.
EMPEROR - "I'm going to RENOVATE your ass!"  <3 Kanji.
HIEROPHANT - As I said, I like Dojima.  The family thing works so well.
LOVERS - <3 Rise.  It's fairly generic, but...damnit, she's so cute!
CHARIOT - <3 Chie.  This is...not anything too special, but...eh.  Probably the most generic of the part members?
STRENGTH - Love the double-teaming here.  Somewhat done before (on a Disney movie?), but the characters have more personality, so it works.
HERMIT - Fox!
FORTUNE - Another detective story...this one is...not that interesting, overall?  Oh well.
JUSTICE - NANAKO!!!!!!!!
HANGED MAN - Wow, this is an emo link ;_;  I need to cut myself!
DEATH - ...well, the link knows what arcana she is! 
TEMPERENCE - MILF.  Also, the link that got the most fucked up, but still got finished.
DEVIL - Disturbing to start.  Finished out like a Scrubs episode at the end. 
TOWER - Tutoring.  Has a funny party scene, but...pretty generic overall?
STAR - Auto-done storywise.
MOON - I loved this link.  It's the link you can fuck up the most, get a relationship the most with, and the choices really illustrate how much more open and expansive the dialogue choices are in P4.  For instance, telling Ai to go jump off the roof, which is not something that would be doable in P3.  You can be a much bigger asshole in P4 than P3.  Also very open and entertaining.
SUN - Ayane is pretty ugly.  Do the drama club - Yumi's prettier, and probably more interesting.

Also loved how there was more time to finish the S.Links in this game, which is how they should be.  Not being as constrained as in P3 is a good thing.  There's open time to explore, and more to do (fish, play with cat, part-time jobs, etc.).  Really, really like the integration of the world in P4 - it's excellent.

Now, music-wise...the game is much better.  While P3's music fit amazingly well, P4's is cool to listen to outside of the game!  The only weaker point is Battle for Everyone's Souls > The Genesis (even though Genesis isn't awful, and has a good part in the middle-end, BfES is far better), but the other songs, The Mist, The Almighty, New World Fool, I'll Face Myself...the battle music is excellent.  While the last month music for the school and overworld is worse than in P3, that and the final battle music are the only weaker points.  Reach Out to the Truth is addicting and awesome Engrish (..."all the homo men to love"...), and The Mist is excellent (too bad it plays for the weaker form of the final boss ;_;).  As for other music...I loved the dungeon themes.  The dungeons themselves being completely different each time AND having unique music is awesome.  I loved the Secret Lab and Heaven, and Magatsu was a remix of Monado Mondala from P2, which kicked ass.  Just excellent overall.

Voices...were all good.  P3 probably was a little better overall (Chie's voice was sometimes in and out, and Raidou's VA did not hide it very well >_>_, but the VA is still great.  Especially loved Kanji's and Yosuke's, and Teddie's personality in his voice was simply awesome.  So yeah, overall great.

Combat-wise...again, improved P3.  AGI actually affecting speed is great, and levels...play less of a role than in P3, I find, though still significant.  The new weakness system...better in-game, worse DL-wise.  Characters were generally much better in this game, and held up to the main pretty well.  Much better balanced physical attacks also helped, and new and cool accessories and armour and weapons...also very nice.  Great battles too - randoms a bit more challenging, status a bit more useful, bosses typically excellent (though trended downward after the Bathhouse, I found, until the end).  Excellent design on the bosses too - Bathhouse and Striptease in particular were 0_o.   

Stat topic done, just need to get back from Philadelphia to post the damn thing and change one or two things.  In-game rankings!

Yosuke - Does everything decently.  Not outstanding, but getting Dekaja and a MT status is nice.  Speed is also good, as is the upgraded persona.

Chie - Is awesome.  Falls off from around level 30 to 50 a bit, then gets Power Charge, then gets God Hand at 70.  Then she's a monster.  Decent enough stats overall too.

Yukiko - Still has a weakness, but is great.  Healing and solid damage.  Kind of frailish, but a great party member.

Kanji - KANJI SMASH.  No SP, but insane HP and still covers electric well enough.  Not as good in the end as Chie for physical beatings (she gets MT, mult-hit stuff with Power Charge), but gets Matarukaja to compensate.  Slowish, though.

Rise - Broken.

Teddie - Yukiko, with a few differences.  A little more durable, a little less damaging, overall worse weakness/resistance.  However, gets MT buffs.  Issue with him is he gets so many good skills it's hard to define what you want him to do.  In a team with the 3 guys, I'd suggest killing off his Matarukaja, and getting Maraku and focusing on healing and support.  Mixed with anyone else, probably wants ice damage with some healing.  He's good in that he can do about anything you want, but the 8 skill limit hurts.

Naoto - Smites randoms nicely, isn't lost against bosses (though her SP gets eaten fastish).  Great resistances and overall good stats, with a great secret weapon (why is Chie the only one who doesn't get one ;_;).  No support skills, but it doesn't matter. 

My team was the girls, and it worked great.  Any team is good, though using the 3 guys is probably one of the best (full buffs). 


So yeah, highly recommend this game to everyone.  Especially if P3 put you off a bit - it's much more polished and awesome, and a great game to get into.

[Niu]

A random note, the evil eyeball actually appeared once, before the final confrontation.

[Sierra]

OK: Yeah, I was also annoyed about how P4's endings were accessed. Only thing about the game that really pissed me off. Out of curiosity: If you tell Ai to jump off the roof, does she actually do it? I was to much of a nice guy to say that.

~

Iji: Made a pacifist run (still on Normal), though I still don't know how to avoid killing Asha. Is this actually possible? I was trying to make it through with zero kills, but couldn't because of him (well, and two others that mysteriously appeared on the final tally after the game...this happened sometimes even in levels where I didn't fire a shot. Rather baffling). Also picked up all the ribbons this time, but it didn't have any noticeable impact on the ending.

EDIT: Questions answered in chat, zero-kill run completed. Haha, Asha, you didn't get to die. About wraps it up for normal mode, I guess. May get around to Hard eventually (though it will be hard to shoot people again, I'm sure). Highly recommend that people give this a spin. Short but awesome little platformer with a lot of personality. Don't recall if anyone's linked to it in this topic, so: http://www.remar.se/daniel/iji.php

[OblivionKnight]

Cid: No, she doesn't, but it's one of the...3 or 4 ways to reverse or break the S.Link.  The opportunity to say it is still sexilicious, though.

[Shale]

EBA: I think Survivor wins the award for most-improved song on Hard Rock. I was expecting Let's Dance to give me the most trouble on that tier, since it killed me on Sweatin', but it actually didn't take long at all, while Survivor took all freaking evening. Anyway, now it's just Jumpin' Jack Flash left. It's really hard. Contain your shock.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TotA - Arietta 1. Uh. Ummmm...

At least you almost killed Anise, yay?

[Shale]

Damn you Normal-playing pansies. That's the second most difficult fight in the game on Hard.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

HEY. Arietta 1 was the hardest fight in TotA so far.

This... uh... says so much about the other fights.

EDIT: I'll even admit, the offense was pretty good (the support was uniformly borderline 2HKOing average durability), but they just really fell goddamned fast.

[Ryogo]

Finally got back to UNB yesterday, hooked everything up. Spent the day playing DDS afterwards, because I'm addicted. I just made it to Co-ordinate 136 and am working my way up the tower. The Jack Brother's I had to fight were a bitch... I killed Pyro Jack, and then Jack Frost kept using Mediarama constantly, and healed more then I could damage. Thankfully, he ran out of MP after about 20 or so rounds of this, while I had a little more MP with Heat to spare to keep Agi-ing his ass. Pissed about what happened to the leader of the Maribels, Mick and Bat the Bastard are gonna get more than just eaten after I'm through with them...

Also, found a copy of Dokapon Kingdom at EB today, so I picked it up. I had read a little about it on the web and it sounded good. I mean, Mario Party crossed with an RPG? It can't go wrong, right?...


And right I was Having a blast with this game so far and my friend James. I'm getting raped by the two computer opponents so far, but that's mostly because they knew what all the items and skills do already and good strategy's for the game. I was a little pissed though at the very beginning. I got killed my first turn after reaching Dokapon Castle and heading to the weapon store, had to wait two turns to revive, got killed AGAIN by the other computer player who then stole all my money afterwards. Waited another three turns this time to revive (It randomizes between 1 and 3, depending on how you died), and then headed off to save a town from a monster. Got locked into a battle which lasted more then a turn, and a computer player jumped into the battle and killed me halfway through, then next turn killed the monster to claim the glory for herself. God damn.

But I fought James and won (he just gave up), and got to rename his character "Poopface" for a week. Hilarity at its finest.

[superaielman]

OB-  Fuck OB mechanics.

[Dark Holy Elf]

MK - Epic final chapter time~. I'm at what may or may not be the final dungeon. Chapter 11 boss improved considerably on Chapter 10. MT OHKO? Well, it's not as bad as it sounds for a variety of reasons, but still.

[Meeplelard]

Dissidia: Unsure if I noted this, but I more or less have all of Terra's Ultimate Equips now, except her hand equip, though Ziedrich is statistically identical, just lacks the Special bonus thing (which I probably won't use anything, since I prefer Rainbow Robe to whatever the armor was.)

Was debating whether I should use Stardust Rod for +3 Defense, more HP and slightly more Brave damage vs. Maduin's Horn for more EX Mode cheese and higher starting Brave...then I am reminded just how sick and wrong Terra in EX Mode is and how you want that to happen as fast and as long as possible, so yeah, that won.

Is it just me, or is Maduin's Horn one of the few Ultimate Weapons that isn't vaguely pointless?  Struck me a lot of them seemed kind of mrf (World Champion looks like a piece of shit, can't see why Tidus wouldn't prefer the Premium Heart over that, for example.)  Like Fenrir looks like a slightly modified Ragnarok; probably a little better, but the difference is so minor (20% extra Chase Damage and +1 Power vs. 5% physical damage? Yeah, not really care worthy...)

Also, Firion's working his way up to level 100 (level 63~ or so)!  Ultima Weapon, Zorlin Shape, Excalibur and Stardust Rod are available at very least, and maybe some extra defensive stuff on the side, so yeah, he won't have Terra's issue of being underequipped for his level when he reaches there (though, Terra really does do a number on Ultimecia so continually beating her up til she dropped some high end stuff wasn't too tough...and yet, I got a Stardust Rod from beating up Kuja go figure <_<)

Destiny Odyssey 8 was just replayed, just got 9 and 10 left, and then Shade Impulse.  I'll be using 3 characters for the first three, so I can get more plot scenes.  Probably go Tidus, Zidane and Cloud in that order?  I think Jecht was Shade Impulse 1, Kuja was SI2 and Sephiroth was SI3, but honestly not 100% certain.

I just know Kefka is SI1 (no, Terra being the only character I used during these arcs has nothing to do with it!), as is Ex-death, Emperor is SI2, and Garland is SI3.  I can only assume Golbez was SI3 as well, since he's the one I DIDN'T face and probably just missed him or something, and I think he had a plot scene in SI3 so...<_<

Phantom Brave: Chapter 1 is beaten!  I want more manas so I can cheese out Fusing more ;_;

[Fudozukushi]

Damn you Normal-playing pansies. That's the second most difficult fight in the game on Hard.

You can't bitch until you chip her down 1HP worth of damage at a time!  Oh god the nightmares are coming back....