Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Cotigo]

God of War 2:  Friend of mine got it for Capitalmas, so I borrowed it.  Beat it, blah cliffhanger ending, yay challenge modes.

It's what you'd expect if you've played any of the games in the series.  Linear puzzles and lots of blood and fighting.  Sociopathy!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TotA - Yay, didn't get Shale'd with Natalia!

[VySaika]

P4 beaten! I'd make some lengthy rant post whatever but really that's not my style. So eh. I'll just go with respectfully disagreeing with Cap about the game's worth compared to P3 and give it a hearty 10/10. The fact that I spent 99 hours total and actualy beat it without taking any breaks from it(a rarity for me) should say all I need about how much I enjoyed this game.

[Xeroma]

Street Fighter 4 - Is worth waiting for. I sucked at the arcade I played it at[the players were all VERY good, but fortunately they were also pretty chill guys], but it shows effort and polish. The input detection is really lenient and the game generally just flows very smoothly. Hyped for console release.

[Rozalia]

FF3DS - Hacked my way through Salamander, Hein, Kraken, Goldar and Garuda.
Current party is a dragoon, black mage, white mage and a dark knight.

Bosses -
Salamander - Good fight but I was proberly underleveled.
Hein - Game hypes him up something fierce. Underwhelming.
Kraken - Lost twice. Third time got utterly dismantled.
Goldar - Got told by people magic bounces off him. I thought he'd have auto reflect or something but it seems he just has high magic defence. Easy but I liked the fight for the simple fact you're facing some crazy man in a suit of gold.
Garuda - Lighting was OHKO to my dragoon and dark knight. One level up later made them able to survive it so Garuda fell.

As for the story. Just got the fang of fire.

[Tide]

Persona 4 Expert mode -

Back in University, so no more progress for at least another week . Sadness. Just past the secret base now. I will say right now that all the bosses are vastly improved compared to P3 shadow bosses >_>. And on that note? Enemies are STILL assholes. Whee dominating machine dealing 600+ damage. I see hard mode lives up to its name...sort of.

See, while the enemies are assholes, there are way too many tools now that makes the game pretty much not as hair inducing as you would think. This stems from of course the Hermit S.Link for one, and the second being PERSONA EVOLUTIONS. Good grief. Yosuke went from sorta-MVP to pretty much MVP for this segment. Fast, no weakness and hitting enemies with status (namely the wrestler and lion shadows who are just plain ASSES if you give them turns) along with decent damage and durability = pretty much game best PC for now. I'm not sure if Yukiko will catch back up; the boss fight here clearly shows that her Persona evolution is not as godly. But again, the two of them are pretty neck-in-neck for game usefulness.

Speaking of that boss fight, owns the crap out of the Void Quest boss. Whee OHKO physical damage from Brave Blade or 2 hit KO MT damage SPAMMED consistently. I'm kind of glad that the AI is an idiot/programmed not to do specific things sometimes.

S.Links maxed so far...Magician, Priestess, Hierophant, Justice, Chariot, Hermit, Hanged. With Strength right behind. I'm pretty screwed for Tower (S.Link guide says it should be L.6 now, and I STILL don't have Understanding at 5), but...going to salvage what I can with everything else. Fun stuff.

[Grefter]

You can say you can work around Alchemy being in 2 rooms, but it doesn't stop it being shit.  Ar Tonelico did it waaaay better, missing something from a recipe?  Hit continue button and it will open up the creation of THAT item for you.  Makes long term keeping track of what you are making very easy and it is actually really cool.

To go from that to splitting it up in 2 rooms is pretty horrible.

[Talaysen]

I'm pretty screwed for Tower (S.Link guide says it should be L.6 now, and I STILL don't have Understanding at 5), but...going to salvage what I can with everything else. Fun stuff.

I maxed Tower awhile ago and the guide showed like four more days of Tower.

[Grefter]

Mana Khemia - Man I was going to want to slap the game for Anna second character quest. Oh my god Vayne is like so good at sword fighting!!!!!  With no training!!!!! Then I remembered Anna is praising him for his awesome skill at beating the enemies with his cat and it made it funny.

[Ultradude]

P4 - Bathhouse. Better in many ways than P3 so far, and I'm really liking all the social link options I've had. Part-time jobs are a pretty interesting idea too. Need moar medical kits, Goho-M, and Vanish Balls!

Bathhouse randoms are kinda kicking my butt sometimes. Multitarget elemental damage? Argh! Enemies without weaknesses? ARGH! Those two in the same team together, both of them faster than my party? BLARGH!!! Should I be considerably higher than level 19 for the boss? Some Dekaja should make it easier, but MT that can randomly OHKO doesn't... really work in this system. Probably just need to go fuse a physical resistant Persona for this one, though Phoenix' speed makes it hard to give up.

[superaielman]

VC- Started, got up to chapter 3. The music/graphics are pretty awesome, really enjoying combat.

[Tide]

Should I be considerably higher than level 19 for the boss?

I was level 23 at the Bathhouse boss (although on Expert!), which I think is basically the lowest out of all the expert players. Final was at 24, Tal was at 27. Which is pretty funny considering how I'm now ahead of Tal by one level >_>. OK said he's finished it at lower levels on normal (not sure what the number was). 19 does seem a bit low to me. Although of course, your persona for the fight matters more.

Getting Dekaja is pretty important I found for the fight. Heat Raiser = not fun for you when the boss adds Power Charge to it. If you need a Resist Physical Persona, level up Slime to around 7. Then start shuffling the skill around. I've done that and most of my boss fighting personas now have Resist Physical on it - you have no idea how important this skill is in hard mode. As a final warning for that boss, once you drop it down to around 50%, consider either casting Sukukaja on Yosuke or have him consistently defend.

[Shale]

SRWZ: Beat stage 15 on Ex-Hard. With the SR Point. And killed Asakim. That took a while.

[Talaysen]

I was 26 for the Bathhouse boss.  And AGI doesn't affect turn oder for bosses, so don't worry about that.  Fuse something with resist physical.  Rakshasa is Level 23 and a good one to use.  And as Tide said, Slime learns Resist Physical, so you can put that on anything you want really.

Also, if Power Charge -> stuff is killing you, try defending.

[Ultradude]

I was 26 for the Bathhouse boss.  And AGI doesn't affect turn oder for bosses, so don't worry about that.  Fuse something with resist physical.  Rakshasa is Level 23 and a good one to use.  And as Tide said, Slime learns Resist Physical, so you can put that on anything you want really.

Also, if Power Charge -> stuff is killing you, try defending.

It's more that Swift Strike randomly hit everyone once or twice, and two hits kills the main character if Yosuke has been made unavailable for Dekaja and it has a power boost.

I'm leveling up a little now, and at the very least I have Eligor to resist physicals if I get impatient. 21-22 should be enough HP.

EDIT FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK WONDROUSMAGUSFUCKFUCKFUCKGODIEINAFUCKINGPIT

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TotA - WOOHOO HALF THE WORLD HAS SUNK wait wasn't this supposed to be highly lethal why can people live in the miasma like nothing is happening other than nodding "oh yeah this is bad". I know this gets into "RPG TIME-PASSING CLAUSE", but something feels amiss here. >_> Oh well, at least I got Tear's Pendant.

[NotMiki]

Persona 4: so far, so good.

DDR MAX: AAed Exotic Ethnic on heavy!  Yay!

[DjinnAndTonic]

Found a friend in Japan with an XboX360 and an English copy of Tales of Vesperia. Finally! Battle system hasn't ramped up to awesome levels that I keep hearing about yet, but it is solid for Tales gameplay. Levelling up seems to take longer in this game than I'm used to.

Repede is a dog who smokes a pipe, I want to see him ranked. Though I don't know what division...

Plotwise... yeah. It's melodramatic, but not the worst thing ever. Just kind of there so far. The word 'blastia' sounds like something you need to get surgically removed.

Character interaction is decent so far. Estelle is horrible and stupid, but somehow this makes her more amusing than I was expecting. I think the part I'm enjoying the most so far are the battle quotes and the occasional quip made in the skits. I like that the skits finally have voice-acting.

The most recent thing that happened in the plot was that I recruited Karol and he turned emo within roughly 25 seconds of joining my party. ...not a good sign.


Dissidia: Finally got Terra to level 100! I actually did this without abusing the level100-Exdeath trick, so it took a while, but I enjoyed every second of it. Terra's just that much fun to play around with. Now I'm working on Tidus, but I have every intention of abusing higher-levelled CPU opponents and EXP bonuses. He's just not as much fun to grind.

I should finish Story mode at some point, but grinding is more fun.

-Djinn

[Pyro]

Found a friend in Japan with an XboX360 and an English copy of Tales of Vesperia. Finally! Battle system hasn't ramped up to awesome levels that I keep hearing about yet, but it is solid for Tales gameplay. Levelling up seems to take longer in this game than I'm used to.

Repede is a dog who smokes a pipe, I want to see him ranked. Though I don't know what division...

Plotwise... yeah. It's melodramatic, but not the worst thing ever. Just kind of there so far. The word 'blastia' sounds like something you need to get surgically removed.

Character interaction is decent so far. Estelle is horrible and stupid, but somehow this makes her more amusing than I was expecting. I think the part I'm enjoying the most so far are the battle quotes and the occasional quip made in the skits. I like that the skits finally have voice-acting.

The most recent thing that happened in the plot was that I recruited Karol and he turned emo within roughly 25 seconds of joining my party. ...not a good sign.

The battle system gets addictive when you get Overlimits/Fatal Strikes. And when you get FS Bonus 2 it cranks it up to 11. Killing enemies with Giant-1-damage-Piko-Hammers-From-The-Sky.

Repede gets an invincibility move and TP Regen. This is exactly as broken as you'd think. Doglike is Godlike.

If you don't like "blastia" well... sorry, it is Tales and they like the silly techno-babble. Plus side, ToV skits are all kinds of awesome, and the earlier ones are only the tip of the iceberg. 

Karol is really that emo. And the game recognizes this. And mocks him for it. And more importantly, Yuri and Rita recognize it and make his life a living hell (and Estelle chips in with completely good intentions). It's great.

[Niu]

Found a friend in Japan with an XboX360 and an English copy of Tales of Vesperia. Finally! Battle system hasn't ramped up to awesome levels that I keep hearing about yet, but it is solid for Tales gameplay. Levelling up seems to take longer in this game than I'm used to.

.....!!!!!
Why are you playing English version when the Jp. ones are all over there?? You are now going to miss all the yaoi undertones!!!

Oh, and one should not speak of grinding in Dissidia unless they are done with the story mode first. Consider the true grinding mode unlocks after you do.

[superaielman]

VC- Mission 5. I'm trying to perfect the second skirmish map. I'm thinking that I can't get away with just skirting with scouts (Heavy machine gun fire around the base camp), so maybe bring my lancer up and try to snipe the tank or take it slower? I donno.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Repede gets an invincibility move and TP Regen. This is exactly as broken as you'd think. Doglike is Godlike.

That makes me all kinds of happy. But now I'm worried he might be overpowered and unrankable as a result. He's not Bluelike is he?

If you don't like "blastia" well... sorry, it is Tales and they like the silly techno-babble. Plus side, ToV skits are all kinds of awesome, and the earlier ones are only the tip of the iceberg. 

Yeah, but I overall liked the word 'Phonon'...

Karol is really that emo. And the game recognizes this. And mocks him for it. And more importantly, Yuri and Rita recognize it and make his life a living hell (and Estelle chips in with completely good intentions). It's great.

Looking forward to this, but it may be a while before I can visit my friend's XboX again.

.....!!!!!
Why are you playing English version when the Jp. ones are all over there?? You are now going to miss all the yaoi undertones!!!

No, I'll be fine. Considering that the person I'm playing with is quite possibly a bigger yaoi fan than even Niu, the English version has more than enough SubtextLOL for me to get more than my fair share of yaoi. If we played the JP version, the world might implode for sheer yaoi hype.

-Djinn

[Niu]

If we played the JP version, the world might implode for sheer yaoi hype.

This is exactly what I want to happen.

[Rozalia]

FF3DS - Trying to make a choice on what to run with as my final party. Currently I'm thinking of having a Ninja and devout.
The Magus looked good but I'm really not sure on it as there isn't enough charges on the big moves that matter. Ninja and devouts are out as I don't want more then one.

I was thinking of running :

Dragoon
Black mage to Summoner/sage
White mage to devout
Dark knight to Ninja.

Anyone got any advice on this.

[VySaika]

Rhapsody DS - Beaten! Very easy game, although the Ancient Weapon at the bottom of the neitherworld beat me a few time. That might have more to do with which party members are forced for that fight then anything else though. Albatross kiiiiina blows. And none of those three can sub in for Cornet for healing, sadly.

Beat the game with final party of Cornet/KnightSpawn/Flare/Sharte.

I also must have missed a puppet somewhere, since the ending graphic showed Cornet and all the puppets...plus one I didn't recognize. Looked kinda like a machine of some sort. Eh, I'll FAQ it if I decide to replay the game. I might, it's short enough.