Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Shale]

In other words, I hope you're FAQing the hell out of the game, or no story for you.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

TotA - Nebilim wasn't as fun as the arena fight. =( It's kinda weird that the main reason to do that ridiculous sidequest is "DIST SCREENTIME AW YEAH", but hey, Dist.

[Shale]

Portal: Hey, the cake wasn't a lie after all. Probably wouldn't have tasted too good, though.

[Niu]

I don't see why you should be worried about Phys Reflect when Pierce exists.

.....Please don't joke me. Read the description, pierce does not work against Physical Reflect.

Anyway, discovered the suicidal infinite turn abuse, now killing Lucifer is ten times easier.

[TranceHime]

I don't see why you should be worried about Phys Reflect when Pierce exists.

.....Please don't joke me. Read the description, pierce does not work against Physical Reflect.

Anyway, discovered the suicidal infinite turn abuse, now killing Lucifer is ten times easier.

I believe I must have misread the description or something then. :\

[Grefter]

TotA - Nebilim wasn't as fun as the arena fight. =( It's kinda weird that the main reason to do that ridiculous sidequest is "DIST SCREENTIME AW YEAH", but hey, Dist.

No it isn't.  Dist screen time means Jade screen time as well.  Everything about that is pure win.

[AndrewRogue]

In other words, I hope you're FAQing the hell out of the game, or no story for you.

Hey now. Some of the individual character plots play out decently enough. >_>

[Strago]

In other words, I hope you're FAQing the hell out of the game, or no story for you.

Hey now. Some of the individual character plots play out decently enough. >_>

Janus!

*kicks VP in the bonch*

[Fudozukushi]

TF2: It is freaking hilarious doing nothing but fighting with the KGB.

[Ryogo]

TF2: It is freaking hilarious doing nothing but fighting with the KGB.

I still don't have the KGB yet
I have the Sandvich and Natascha for the Heavy; The Blutsaugher and the Kritzkrieg for the Medic, and all three weapons for the Pyro. Damn you achievements, thwarting my boxing needs.
Still waiting for an update for my spy


WA3: Just made it to Little Rock through the Sand Canal. Slowly making progress, and have the urge to watch a western movie once again.

[superaielman]

VC- Up to mission 15. Nearly done with the main game. I'm still clueless about what my ranking for the game will be. It has pissed me off for reasons I've gone over, but I still am constantly wanting to play th e game and the missions as is are a lot of fun.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wild Arms original: Since I've never beaten this one, I started up a new game and I'm powering through it for voting rights.

I just upgraded my golem, so this is the farthest I've ever gotten in the game (yeah >.>;; ). There have been a few surprisingly good lines in this game. In particular, Jack and Jane seem to say things that are interesting every once in a while. I particularly empathized with Jane's lines about not liking Rudy for acting like a selfless noble hero-type. Crap story is crap, though.

Best part so far is the tools. I love the Magic Wand that 'smacks English' into animals, and the Improbably-Fast Rollerskates. I hear I will be getting a Ukelele of  Death soon. More games need puzzle tools like this.

I want Cecilia to use her damn magic Pocketwatch to fix the statues that seal Mother away... thus saving me from having to go through another dungeon...

I -do- like how each of the characters has their own unique way to gain skills. The Fast Draw hints are cool. Reminds me a bit of ShadowHearts

-Djinn

[Shale]

SRWZ: Finished stage 34 on the Gundam route. That was an annoying trick - you start out with just one PC on the map, and when said PC is reduced to 10% HP or less, the rest of your guys show up. Problem: the goal of the stage is to move Loran (the Turn A main character) next to the battleship Soliel before it reaches the edge of the map and escapes. Soliel appears when your characters do, and has a good head start on Loran. If it shows up during an enemy turn, it will get to move before Loran can even act, and he'll never be able to catch up no matter what you do. That was "fun" to figure out. (on the plus side, it's the first stage in this run that was hard for reasons other than "WTF Ex-Hard is retarded." Yay!)

Also, stage 36 is looming now. Three Garudas, Psyco Gundam, Gundam Destroy(!!!), Neo and Sting in six turns...I'm not sure how I'm going to pull that one out of my ass.

Well, I know one of the tricks - Setsuko is two levels from learning Soul and I've got a bunch of SP restorers in the item bin. I just hope the supers come back from the routesplit with some Valor casters, or I don't think the damage is there even if I do somehow survive blitzing that map.

Edit: Oh right, Portal. Midway through the backstage portion, quit for the night when every wall in a room opened to reveal sentry guns, and event that was quickly followed by the sudden appearance of small holes in my spleen. The little Easter egg about GLaDOS's origins was inspired, and level design in this segment is quite nifty. Very distinct from the first half (in more than just looks), but still building on it. You can tell that the design ethic comes from the people who did Half-Life, but it's much better suited to a puzzle game.

[Unoriginal]

AT 2: Luca path finished, will likely give Cloche's a shot at some point to see the differences.  Miles ahead of the first game, in spite of the fairly poor localization(Made worse by the inevitable P4 comparisons that arose from playing that directly beforehand).  Better characters all around(Third RT makes a point to bash them whenever she gets the chance, at that), better Cosmosphere/Plot ties, and the third RT's actually fairly balanced in spite of the over-all stronger spells(on Luca path at least, not sure what Luca would get to remain competitive on Cloche's).   

I'd mention that the crafting system took a big step back in this one, but the game's easily breakable without it, so you end up doing most of it for the scenes.  Would have helped if there were a more reliable way of triggering the book turn-in events.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Edit: Oh right, Portal. Midway through the backstage portion, quit for the night when every wall in a room opened to reveal sentry guns, and event that was quickly followed by the sudden appearance of small holes in my spleen. The little Easter egg about GLaDOS's origins was inspired, and level design in this segment is quite nifty. Very distinct from the first half (in more than just looks), but still building on it. You can tell that the design ethic comes from the people who did Half-Life, but it's much better suited to a puzzle game.

http://xkcd.com/375/
Related.


Mother 3: I have been playing this off and on when the mood strikes me. As awesome as it is, I can't seem to get into it. It's hilarious in some ways, but it just doesn't hold my attention.

Still, Indiana Dad is awesome. Oddly enough I started this the same time I started Final Fantasy Legend II. So I've been inundated with awesome dads who look like Indiana Jones lately. Should play WA3 again to make it a set (in that case, I could be referring to Werner Maxwell OR Clive!). To make things more amusing, I've realized that ALL of these games came out before Indiana Jones ever had a kid.

-Djinn

[Grefter]

Mana Khemia - Beat the main game.  Flay was an easy final boss.  Now I just have to finish the main plot that I don't care about.  Flay character quest was awesome at the end, really the main reason I have been playing today since TONY plot finished.  But yeah I should finish it tommorow if I don't get distracted by X-Box games.

On that, downloading Soul Calibur and trying out trials of a few things to see if I want to buy anything else.  I am kind of suprised at how slick the whole X-Box Live system is.  Arcade is about as woefully under used as Virtual Console is though, so everyone is failing there.

[Taishyr]

FFX-2: Yeah, I dunno what gave inspiration for this.

Don't really get the character antihype, do get the dislike of the whole dresssphere system but it works in execution just fine which is all I care about. Apparently Rikku's really bad in this or something personality-wise but Rikku was kinda just there in a good way in FFX so her getting an actual personality (ditzier Agatha Heterodyne) works fine for me. Paine's at least humorous thus far.

Gameplay wise... Songstress is WTF I SKIP RANDOMS LOL, Warrior is "I have a good physical, don't ask about my skillset", Thief is "oh hey I hit twice. Damage? Whazzat?" Gunner is "lol Thief I hit 8 times get your puny ass back here" and Black Mage is "I waste your time but I'm good for boss fights!". Granted, Thief has stealing applications that make it about as useful as Gunner, but...

[Yakumo]

AT2: Finished this last night as well.  Echoing most of what Uno said, except that the only thing that really keeps the third RT balanced with Cloche if you pick Luca(Going past level 5 in the Cosmosphere can only be done on one of the three RT's) is the fact that Cloche has a special battle command.  I see nothing that would balance Luca with her if you were to pick Cloche as your main, and especially if you picked the third.  Combo magic can only be done with Luca and Cloche, sure... but that takes like five or six turns to activate and really isn't that much stronger than what the third one already has.  And you can still get the sync bonuses even without the combo spells.

[Grefter]

Mana Khemia - Holy crap!  Boss caused me a reset.  Side quest boss anyway.  Apparently one that gets 3 moves, one of which is MT silence  and another which knocks back everyone a huge amount (and incidentally is about 20 times more effective than when the PCs cast it) is actually pretty rough.  Slowly was just grinding down my item supplies and didn't get much chance to attack, being chipped to death isn't much fun, just reset with knowledge of the fight and you can manage it pretty simply (when you aren't spending your entire time juggling people to stay alive from the get go you just use the chance to swap people in after the knock back and it is no problem).  Muppy D-Support probably would have made the fight a bit easier, but meh.  Incredibly frustrating that your best chances at offense are things that don't discriminate in their targetting.  I swear all Judgement had to do was hit the Advocate just fucking ONCE and it would have died, but nope, it and everything else I had flying around just kept chipping away at Goldenia until it died... once the Advocate was dead the other thing died in a turn and a half as well.  Fucking nothing would target that shit.  I think I got a good half the damage done to it from Flay counters and basic physicals and the thing has Def stacked through the roof.

Anyway, so I spent almost all my night doing those last few sidequests instead of finishing the game.  stupid fucking idea since the penultimate 2 sidequests gave absolutely nothing.  Like not even much gold (under 10k a piece after spreading the rumor that buffs rewards "greatly"?  Faaaiillllll.  Got more than that from fucking alchemy quests). 

Downside to the whole thing?  Resetting on that boss made me really completely and totally over the back tracking.  Dungeons just get longer as you get further into the game and they love to keep sticking bosses at the very ends of dungeons you have already run the whole way through for plot missions like twice before.  Getting a reset and having to retrack it again was really lame.  Couple that with Mana Runins depths is probably my least favourite dungeon there and yeah, unimpressed.  I do remember feeling kind of the same way at the end of AI3 though, just ... cut the shit and put stuff close by.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XS2 - Farming Orgulla for Skill Upgrade Es was a freaking pain for taking sooooo damned long. Oh well, one hour and a half later, I have 22 SUEs and 7 Awakening 2s. I never saw Orgulla's combo past Valhalla, she had this tendency to only go for MOMO or Jr., both getting 2HKOed by Vigrid as is, let alone the rest of the combo. >_> Eryu Mode was more impressive in-game, though: Orgulla is a fast fucker in it, and once she starts tossing in Quicks, the lappings hurt the soul. Tangentially, Medica hype can die. >_> That thing must be OPB. Granted, good thing, since... um... Orgulla would be so nuts if she could spam it intelligently. Sorta fun fight, although she's still Ulltastic for ranking. Wohoo five lines total and then DIE PIGS~.

[Scar]

SRW3: FINISHED!

Actually the game got a lot easier when I found out that I could resupply my units by entering White Base (or whatever it was called after its numerous upgrades.)

In the end Kou became a surprising MVP after his GP got a third upgrade! Following him were Masaki, Shuu (fucking Shuu >_> ), Puru 2 (in the 100 Unit) Puru (RAGE!), and Judou.

Notice how all those units had Map attacks? >_> Yeah, I played a baiting game with mobs and just wittled them down with those units and had the rest finish them off.

The Getta team started to wain at the end sadly. As did Kouji and Mazinger.

Banjou and his Daiturn 3 were  the only other anime robots that I constantly used in my line up.

Amuro, Kamille, Char. Cecily, Four, Seabuck, and Chris were usually in my party till the end.

When the GP became a unit of instant doom, Kou jumped like 20 levels in one map, it was wonderful.

=)

Now, I can play AG I guess?

[Twilkitri]

But did you do Ragnarok?



No, now you have to play EX.

[Shale]

Stop torturing the man.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

In fairness, EX is 3's diametrical opposite for difficulty. You can play that game blindfolded and still win without much effort.

[Shale]

Finished Portal. Awesome game with an awesome ending (and awesome ending song), but everybody probably knew that already.