Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Yeah, so it's basically like any other superboss fight in a Star Ocean. After enough time you make your characters invincible.

[Yakumo]

I really have trouble seeing SaGa Frontier 2 as a masterpiece.  Sure, it did a few things better than the average SaGa game.  But being better than the average SaGa in polish isn't saying much of anything at all, and the game has quite a few flaws too.

[Excal]

I'd point out that the big thing about Vandle Hearts 1 that it does well is victory conditions and maps.  In that, it has more than just two or three different ones, and actually has fun with them.  The maps themselves are also different, with a couple of variations on parts of the map dissapearing on you, time limits, and even one map where there is a hill that moves with the boss.  The kind of stuff that didn't exist before, and I haven't really seen since, and which actually worked.  The secrets are tricky without a FAQ, but perfectly doable and not necessary unless you want to vote on Ash in good conscience. 

So, yeah.  I'd recommend VH1 if you can get it cheap.


As for what I'm playing.  I've gotten up to the Langley battle in OG2, and...  got sick of it for the time being.  I'm sure it'll pick up again soon enough, but I'm just not feeling the love right now (though I do like Leona in the secretWurger, and Viletta's enjoying the Ashsaber)

So, FE6 is a go.  Maps 14x and 15 were delightfully straightforward, which was nice.  Considering 14, 16, and 16x are proving less so.  16x is mostly just the Arrows of Heaven, which are any character not in the same column as the boss can randomly lose 10HP.  Yes, this is lethal.  So...  yeah.  The arrows, which had been utterly useless the entire map, finally hit Shin on the same turn he got hit by the boss.  So, will eventually redo, and have a better idea how to deal with him.  An example of a neat trick I haven't really seen since that I did like was the random reinforcement in out of the way place with a Physic stave to heal the boss.  Neat trick.  So yeah, annoying reset, but can be overcome.

14...  FoW+Desert+Sleep Staves+Wyvern Lords from nowhere gets some griping, but not that much, since Fir could take the hit, and the annoying bits are stupid as hell.  (Hey, I can go after the mage with actual Res, or that thief with 0!  Let's get me some mage!)  So, more random griping at stupid auto-acting reinforcements as Thany was Speedwing hunting when a half dozen brigands and their promoted Berserker bosses ambush her.  On the plus side, on my winning run, I did get to see a Bandit crit.  Nicely surprising, though sadly for him, not lethal.  Axereaver Miledy on the other hand, was.

16, what the hell Douglas.  No, really, what the hell.  Didn't cause a reset, but not by lack of effort on his part.  After having the obvious thing fail, I decided to let him take a shot at tasty defenseless lord by having Roy and Lilina swap weapons.  No dice, he goes after Hugh and eats dual Elfire for his idiocy.  Just oh so glad he didn't go after an armed Lilina as that would have been death.  So, I just let him spend the rest of the battle walled by Shin and Sue until I need to get past him for some chests, at which point Clarine joins in after giving someone her Fire book.  The real annoying part?  The long range magic books which...  yeah.  Are just kinda WTF inducing here, having +4 might over Elfire and only -5 Hit to make up for it.  Also, only 8Wgt?  Dude!  Lilina and her 20 Speed can double everything but Sword users with that thing.  Why do I mention it here?  Because every single Purge/Bolting mage on this map could OHKO Chad.  So...  yeah.  That was a nasty surprise.  Especially with that one guy tucked in a corner where you can't reach him with Rg1-2 weapons.  Fortunatly, 4 uses of Longbow remaining and that was it for him and his Purgebuddy.

[Grefter]

Pretty much see what Yakko said Niu.  SF2 does play with some really interesting concepts that I would love to see come up again, but it is still a train wreck.  It is a very stylish one though.  Things SF2 didn't need.  Limited resources and money, difficult to acuire non-store bought equipment all topped off with item durability and breaking.

I have played through a bit of it with unlimited durability in all slots and you know what?  It drastically improves the game.  Just because everything else in the series is equally horribly polished with slightly less interesting and worse put together concepts (SaGa tends to have some really good ideas that just clash horribly) does not increase the value of SF2 at all. 

The most beautifully perfumed shit is still not chocolate ice cream.

[Bardiche]

SNES DQ3, since it was just translated.

Not content with God telling me I was a lazy bastard, nor with telling me I am but a sensitive clown, I have decided I do not like DQ3's opening because I do not know what personality best befits my playstyle.

... then it says I'm a sore loser...

Now I'm an honest person. Fine, let's go with that. fffffffffffff

//edit:

HEROIC PERSON FUCK YES! Apparently entering random things, then going with the scenario (monster dragon thing) where you kill stuff without actually killing anything gives you the best result.

w00t!

[Grefter]

Errrr wasn't it professionally ported to a gameboy of some kind and generally just made better?

[Bardiche]

Errrr wasn't it professionally ported to a gameboy of some kind and generally just made better?

GBA. But is it in English? -admits he hasn't checked-

[Excal]

Pretty sure it hasn't, though there may be a menu patch.

*Also too lazy to check, for all that he at least has some idea of where to look*

[Bardiche]

Oh, just to GBC I can only seem to find. Roms, anyway.

I suppose I shan't care much for a GBC rendition because the graphics sucks.

[Taishyr]

Valiant is arguably not the best personality, just as a FYI. Great physical damage which is what he should be using, but he tends to go after Mage/Sage/Cleric/Fighter/Thief due to bad agility, and doesn't have that awesome of MP for his gamebest damage spell/healing spell. Granted, this all matters not too much, his equips kick ass no matter what.

As for best personality, lemme check...

If you choose to be female, Sexy's the best. ***Sexy:  110% STR/120% AGI/105% VIT/115% INT/120% LUCK - FEMALE ONLY.

Otherwise, Valiant or Solitary is what I'd suggest (not sure what the SNES names are). Valiant's the one you've got.
Valiant: 140% STR/70% AGI/100% VIT/80% INT/70% LUCK
Solitary: 100% STR/110% AGI/120% VIT/110% INT/70% LUCK

Luck doesn't matter enough for the main character (he gets shit for growths there anyway) and Int/Vit just help HP/MP growths. Agility is defense and turn order, but main character gets some of the best equipment anyway, so whatever. Str is arguably game-best stat for him in practice, and it allows him to really do some clobbering quite early, so I just tend to recommend that.

Solitary, get the one involving the dance club, talk to the plot-related guy twice, tell him No the second time.

Going for a Sexy female is a bit weirder. Get the one involving the Queen invading another country, go downstairs, watch the "scene", go talk to the guy in the right room, and don't contradict yourself or go back on what you say when talking to him. After that, leave. (I said Yes constantly, I think.) That should get you Sexy as your starting base. Males can't get this; they can only get Lewd, which is far worse. Females also get the best equipment, so.

And if you're curious, yes, I'm working on a stat topic. Got all spell damages, average spell accuracy estimates, but need to determine Dealer/Jester/Sage average stats. Feh.

[Twilkitri]

Shining Force - Finished.

I did not find the final third of the game anywhere near as enjoyable as the first two thirds unfortunately. This is mostly due to my seemingly having been misinformed with regards to promotions and that you should wait until level 20 before promoting a la FE. This is the most unworkable strategy ever.

By the time I got to fighting Mishaela I was doing a maximum of roughly 20 damage against her 15 regen assuming that no characters missed, which they refused to comply with at alarmingly great frequencies. I promoted lv. 15 Guntz since he was one of the few people that could do more than 1 damage and I had a Halberd lying around that was powerful enough to leave him stronger despite the promotion strength loss and managed to scrape through... then I attempted to continue as I had been going. Not my finest decision ._.

I ended up getting jack of this on the map against Chaos the robot and began allowing myself to use Egress. Promoted Max and Lyle and restored Domingo to the team as he had currently been kicked out for being overlevelled and spent a while getting Max, Guntz, and Lyle better up to speed. Things went somewhat more smoothly after that, but it seems like the game is far more balanced for promoting ASAP... especially since newly promoted characters are worse than they were unpromoted. Which mostly just leads up to that promotable classes probably should have a level cap. That or madmen on GameFAQs need to be smited.

MVP would have to be Domingo. Other people in the running are Max, Guntz, and Lyle, but since these were the ones that got promoted and cared for 'early' this may be somewhat biased. I ended up missing Kokichi and Musashi.


Sam and Max Season 2 - Played through Moai Better Blues and Night of the Raving Dead.

Can't really say that Moai went above and beyond anywhere. It was a bit flatter than I expected. Still decent. Night of the Raving Dead was a step back in the right direction, although the keypad puzzle needs to be shot.

[AAA]

P4-Onto the True Ending path!

That last boss chain was a pain in the ass. The first guy takes forever to kill, especially if you're trying to save SP like I was, and of course I was right and they don't heal you before they switch to the other boss. Who also takes forever and a half to kill, AND basically requires you to Mediarahan every turn, AND can make himself invincible whenever he wants to drag things out even further, so I blew a bunch of SP restoring items because like hell I was sitting through all that shit again in hopes of somehow making it through round 1 with more SP.

Chose Rise for the Christmas date, because I need the SP item. Probably stick it on Yuikiko, make her into a better heal battery. Wish she wasn't still weak to ice with an upgraded persona.

[Talaysen]

Real men play DQ3 NES.  Wusses.

Also SNES graphics are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO better than NES graphics!!111  Oh wait it's Dragon Quest so the graphics are probably NES graphics ANYWAYS.  Why are you even giving a shit about DQ graphics.

Luminous Arc 2 - Generic game is generic.  I've had loads of free time the last two days and only managed to advance one plot map because I've not really had the drive to care.

[Magic Fanatic]

Anyone care to help me out on something?

Local game shop has a few games in stock at the moment and I, having realised how limited my games knowledge is, have decided I want to buy one of the four in the window... The problem is deciding which.
They've got Vandal Hearts 1 & 2, Saga Frontier 2 & Breath of Fire 3.
The first 3 are all £30, whereas BoF is £20. (If it helps, £10.00 =~ $14 (US))

Any thoughts on which...? I'm leaning towards BoF3, for the main reasons that I've heard a lot more about BoF than the other two series, and it's cheaper. Good move?

My opinion is all on SaGa Frontier 2.  I can't say anything for Vandal Hearts 1 & 2, and BoF3 just kinda...  Bored me after the first time I got Garr into my party.

70 hours, though.  That's how much time I poured into SaGa Frontier 2.  And I loved every minute of it...  Except for the final boss.  The final boss has to be the hardest thing in the game, since even with my powered-up party, I was only 2TKOing his forms, and one of his forms liked to hit my party with...  I think it was The Word for World is Forest (or something like that) that would almost always petrify my whole party.  I somehow got around that, though.  The system was immersive as well, even though an FAQ for many things is needed, like trying to figure out how to get moves like Gale Strike (the only Staff Move that runs off SP; it's almost required for some of the staff users in the game).

Downside?  Grinding is a must, and a lot of characters are only there for one or two missions.  Weapons break (requiring the need for having many back-up weapons in the inventory).  It uses the Pocketstation seemingly for a lot of things.  You can't buy recovery items.  Upside?  Weapons don't break until the end of battle that they have no energy.  A move learned by one character instantly gets transferred over to other characters as well (so a character that is alone and has never been in your party before can still have available all the high-end skills/spells).  WP and SP recover at the end of every turn (unlike SaGa Frontier, which is somewhat more painful about it).  Duel battles make some scenarios a lot easier to deal with, as well as specific move learning.  Liberal use of Quells you obtain makes the game really easy.  Some events can be skipped altogether, if you don't like dealing with one side.  Steel weapons are unbreakable (even though they do lower your max SP and SP/turn recovery some, Quells can bring it up a lot, though).

I tended to like most of the characters, even though the SRPG-like portions of the game can go shoot themselves in some scenarios.

[Niu]

Egg is PATHETIC if you beat the Edelritters before hand and has Guard Beast ready (and I assume everyone has Guard Beast by then, consider it is a pretty early level spell). Ge rid of Stone and then Tree or Beast. You want Stone dead to avoid the massive petrifying Ancient Curse, while both Tree and Beast have high damage out put. But with them gone, Egg is a joke in front of Guard Beast. Oh, and if you do the Ghoul Tower side quest, you should be having enough resource to tweak for 25+ anima value on couple of characters too, which can easily nerf Egg's damage.

Also, don't use weapon until they break, use until they have 1 or 2 durability left and recycle them. You can't imagine how recycling eventually produce an overabundant amount of cash. And use those cash to repair some of the more rare weapons.

You also forget to mention about the best thing in SF2, you can consume LP for full recovery. The very reason why SF2 is at least 10 times more resourceful on healing then rest of the series.

Pretty much see what Yakko said Niu.  SF2 does play with some really interesting concepts that I would love to see come up again, but it is still a train wreck.  It is a very stylish one though.  Things SF2 didn't need.  Limited resources and money, difficult to acquire non-store bought equipment all topped off with item durability and breaking.

Lies, the recycle system is so broken that you'll be having too much cash to spend by the 4th dungeon (my cash hits 5 digits by then, and you really want to recycle too, as it unlock high tier buyable weapons later on), unless you lose count of durability, you can repair your equipments indefinitely thanks to the overabundant amount of cash. And you get too much unbreakable quells later on, I don't know why you'll complain on this. Sure, you can complain that Wysteria is breakable, but Wild Rose and Beast Dancer are both buyable and superior. Same thing on Obsidian Axe, no need to worry when you can buy Hawk Wind. Fine, Valeria Heart Uroborus are indeed problematic... but they are like the only case, and you don't have much fights left for them to break by the time you have them.
Also, with Amber Marlet and Bloodstar can be gotten fairly early, and Green Glass is buyable too, complaing about breaking accessory would also be pretty stupid.

[TranceHime]

7th Dragon: I have purified all the opening-game areas except Kazan, which is the next place I'm going to hit.

Current squad: Mitsunari (みつなり) / Lunear [M] (ル二ーア) / Naisha [F] (ナイシャ) / Riya [P] (りや)

[Magic Fanatic]

Egg is PATHETIC if you beat the Edelritters before hand and has Guard Beast ready (and I assume everyone has Guard Beast by then, consider it is a pretty early level spell). Ge rid of Stone and then Tree or Beast. You want Stone dead to avoid the massive petrifying Ancient Curse, while both Tree and Beast have high damage out put. But with them gone, Egg is a joke in front of Guard Beast. Oh, and if you do the Ghoul Tower side quest, you should be having enough resource to tweak for 25+ anima value on couple of characters too, which can easily nerf Egg's damage.

Both the forced group Edelritters were easy enough, but it only let me fight two of the duel ones...  Which was a pain.  Reviva spam with massive amounts of LP spending was required.  I had Guard Dead on everyone though, at least.  Damage output never really scared me (in the face of my insane levels of HP from grinding while item hunting, LP spending for HP recovery, and absurdly high SP regeneration).

Have I ever mentioned that I actually managed to get five Granite Staves?  Anyway, yeah, but if you can equip enough Quells, you can also increase your SP regeneration to an absurd amount (so one could cast Reviva every turn if they wanted).  Also, I broke just about all my weapons to get chips...  On the other end, I couldn't get to the recycling center at the time, and most of the zombies in Wil's first scenario drop cash anyway, so it was another infinite loop for me.

Then again, if you don't pick up any of the Quells in Wil's first scenario, you can go back to the bar and talk to the bartender for free healing without ending the scenario.  I think the only character that didn't get rather overpowered in the first mission that I had was Narcisse.

FAQing the dated order of the events is fun as well.  Wanna know what IS even harder than Egg, though?  The last scenario on Gustave's side.  Remember when I said the SRPG parts could go kill themselves?  This one event took me at least 12 tries to complete.

[Bardiche]

Real men play DQ3 NES.  Wusses.

Also SNES graphics are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO better than NES graphics!!111  Oh wait it's Dragon Quest so the graphics are probably NES graphics ANYWAYS.  Why are you even giving a shit about DQ graphics.

That's like asking someone why he's breathing.

It's a feeling I cannot put into words!

[Taishyr]

DQ3 NES still has the Door command and thus can go sit on Cloud's sword and spin.

[Cotigo]

Real men play DQ3 NES.  Wusses.

Also SNES graphics are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO better than NES graphics!!111  Oh wait it's Dragon Quest so the graphics are probably NES graphics ANYWAYS.  Why are you even giving a shit about DQ graphics.

That's like asking someone why he's breathing.

It's a feeling I cannot put into words!

"If I try to stop breathing, my lungs begin to ache and eventually, involuntarily they expand, the change in pressure forcing air through my mouth or nostrils and into them."

You suck at putting things into words, apparently.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Real men play DQ3 NES.  Wusses.

Also SNES graphics are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO better than NES graphics!!111  Oh wait it's Dragon Quest so the graphics are probably NES graphics ANYWAYS.  Why are you even giving a shit about DQ graphics.

That's like asking someone why he's breathing.

It's a feeling I cannot put into words!

"If I try to stop breathing, my lungs begin to ache and eventually, involuntarily they expand, the change in pressure forcing air through my mouth or nostrils and into them."

You suck at putting things into words, apparently.

Well, obviously, the same thing happens when you try not to care about DQ3 graphics - your lungs expand and you start caring again. It's a vicious cycle and I blame Toriyama. Of course, I'm of the opinion that most of the world's ills stem from Toriyama art.

-Djinn

[Grefter]

Like I said Niu, there is a lot of neat things in SF2.  It is still a bad game.  I may have very high standards and deride a lot of things that deserve it, but this isn't me laying in the boot.  It is flat honest truth.  It is a great game to have made, it was an experiment with high ideals.  It didn't work, it is a horrible broken game that is chock full of faq bait crap (you know, the stuff that is BAD TO FUCKING HAVE IN A GAME).  It is fine to like it, it is fine to hold it in a special place in your heart.  It is good to acknowledge and discuss.  What it is not is a good game. 

We are talking about someone with a fairly conventional generally considered average but not fantastic game on the list.  I do no understand how you can in bold honesty say to them that if they want a good game that they can hedge their bets on to not hating to pick SaGa Frontier 2 over that.  Sure if they want it for collecting or to see something different, SF2 is a great buy.  If you want a decent game that you are probably going to have fun with?  No.  It is a bad pick.

[NotMiki]

Have I ever mentioned that I actually managed to get five Granite Staves?

I'm sorry for you, but you have only yourself to blame.

Now, anyone who knows me knows I love SaGa Frontier to death, but it is a game that you enjoy having played, as opposed to enjoying playing it.  You enjoy it like you enjoyed putting that watch back together after you accidentally dumped all the gears out; it's cool to see how it works, really interesting stuff in there, certainly you feel a sense of accomplishment as you make progress, but it takes all your concentration, and the stress that goes with it, to make progress.

[Idun]

I started up a file in Infinite Undiscovery. Tri-Ace and SE game. More than likely, if you didn't like Radiata Stories (for some ungodly reason, it's not a bad game at all), then you more than likely won't like Infinite Undiscovery. I'd really pin this game as the archetypal JRPG for those who get splooge in their pants from specifying "omagad jrpgs suxx0rz," but I think . . . . perhaps it's much more of a parody of JRPGs. I found the humor in RS to be funny, but IU clearly makes fun of itself. The voice acting almost rebounds the underlying exasperated intonations and tones. Thankfully it's not fully voice acted, but I feel that the voices perfectly fit the stereotypical-laden characters.

The music is all right, but I've only been playing for four hours so I wasn't exposed to much.

The concept of the story . .  the chains ensaring the moon makes me sort of regurgitate. And you're pretty much a part of a brigade to "break the chains" and gain freedoooo~ooom from the terrorizing villanous villans. That said, I heard it gets more interesting throughout the game (they're saying it's an average of 20-30 hrs, so for me that means 30-40 ). The character designs aren't particularly bad, but if you typically like designs with a ton of detail, don't expect to be wow'd. Imagine, larger more earth-toney palette Radiata Stories figures and there you go. The environments are fucking awesome to explore at the moment because of all the situations the game puts you in. For example, the short event where you have to run through a forest from a Golem wanting Capell back in jail, while having to be stealthy and keep in the dark or surprise attack troops on the route, and also being chased by some very hefty wolves that WILL SURROUND YOU AND YOU CANNOT MOVE AND YOU WILL DIE. D: And you get attacked when you open a treasure box. I'm somewhat frustrated since I'm used to being "given time."

Which brings me to something it's taking a while getting used to. The interface. The only way you can heal, use items is to go in the menu. THE MENU. Which pops up on the main fucking page but you are STILL GETTING ATTACKED AND RAPED AND SHOT AND BITTEN. And the menu is fucking SELECT. What the hell. The configuration of 360 controllers I never had a thing for, so when I feel pressed for time during a battle, I get really frustrated. You attack with just A and ... Ok. The red and the blue button? And the top buttons are used for other shit. And the right TRIGGER and SHOULDER Button do two significantly different things. If you're using a team mate's attack that you can keep on the screen and move (every other member besides Capell is AI) you can't just hit the regular ole cancel button because it makes them attack! I HATE THE 360s CONFIG, GOD I HATE IT. I HATE IT. D:!! You have to press the right trigger or shoulder again. Maybe this is something that I need to learn how to juggle. 4 Hours in though isn't really much. Seriously. So. Once I put down the time and get acquainted, I'll probably have a different opinion.

Oh..

The AI in this game is incredibly, instantaneously and fappably awesome. Perhaps I'm exaggerating. But when I was surrounded by 4 wolves being constantly attacked, never being able to move, and to die, while my other team mate was attacking --- she did something that made so much sense for once. The bitch ran away, revived me, and healed me! And the tactics you can set your AI to in the game works pretty much instantly, even if you switched it constantly during one on screen battle (all battles are on screen. It's sort of like Rogue Galaxy, though they don't pop out of thin air and I haven't determined if the enemies freely move around the environment rather than being designated to a certain range. I think they move around freely though, which is scary ).

The humor is awesome. It's not a serious game though. I think the trailer makes it sound heavier than it is, and it really equates to the cheesy movie intro liners. Haha. So far I'm liking the game.

I'll get into equipment and skills, etc more when I'm actually at home.

[Rozalia]

MH2F - Just beat most of the elder dragons and most of the chiefs missions. The game also told me why a Kirin is classed as an elder dragon.
Its because it doesn't fall into any other class, and because of that it gets classed as an elder dragon. Retarded is all I can say about that.