Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[mia~]

Star Ocean 4: It's like I'm playing an MMORPG. I wonder if this is on purpose as a meta joke about SO3.

wasn't SO3 enough of a meta joke about itself?

...Meta-meta-joke?

[Tonfa]

The Last Remnant:

So Shuyin ends up assisting Rush, lending him his four powerful generals and a bunch of grunts. Cue steamrolling anything on the path of the plot to find Irina.

Obviously Rush then goes all passive-aggressive at Shuyin and leaves on his own because "Irinaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!" is more important than common sense and not getting killed.

To recap: instead of travelling with a ridiculously powerful army, Rush thinks he's better off rescuing Irina with two random hobos he hired from a guild for the price of a cheap sword each.

FUCK YOU RUSH. I LOST A PC WITH QUAD WIELD BECAUSE YOU SUCK.

[WanderingMind]

P4 - 7/11 - Good news was that I finished the third dungeon in one sitting.  Bad news was that I couldn't go back in the TV for a while.  I spent a lot of time working on my social links, fishing, and using whatever money I had left.  I'm one level away from maxing out Yosuke's social link.

Who was it who had the Persona 4 avatar with the boy with blond hair and blue eyes?  I would have never thought that he was actually Teddie!

[Cmdr_King]

It was Niu.

[NotMiki]

Wizardry 7: met the Gorn King and received the *TEMPLE* map. yar. time to go get me a bonsai tree and kill some munks.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

VP2 - Four archers. The end.

[Shale]

KH: Everything done. Ultima Weapon got, Sephiroth mangled (one elixir used, to restore MP from constant Strike Raids, not because of Heartless Angel). Yay!

MMXCM next.

[Meeplelard]

ToV: In the Heracles!  Plot twist with a certain character was so...very typical of Tales.  In that when it happened, I went "man, why am I not surprised?" despite not actually thinking about it.  Tales Plot really is so formula, but ToV has the decency to hide it behind a generally good cast at least<_<

[TranceHime]

It was Niu.

I also avatared him at one point! >_>

[Hunter Sopko]

P4- Forced myself to stop for the night. 7/31, about to start Void Quest! Quest Quest Quest. Awesome, but still no titty bar.

[WanderingMind]

I'm calling it a night for P4.  I went back to the second dungeon to get whatever items I needed to complete some quests and then maxed out Yosuke's Social Link, the first one I've finished so far.

[Captain K.]

GH Metallica:  Kicks serious ass.  All the Metallica songs you want, plus plenty of good stuff from other bands.  Mainly a lot of bands that Metallica covered on Garage Inc.

Also in Guitar Hero news, my kid got 100% on Expert Guitar for Tool's Schism.  Hells yeah.

[superaielman]

ES- Chapter 5, I think. The pirate ship was easy as hell except for the boss.

[Pyro]

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7

Beaten. The final boss was silly. Stands there and takes hits while doing nothing forever. Tri Fire did the work on the sword and that was that. The duel afterwards was stylish, but still too easy.

Ending was... well, I kind of liked the understated tragedy that FF7 put into the flashback that was the same thing. I also think that Cloud's insanity wasn't properly shown... it is implied that his memory got screwed up while walking to Midgar or something? The ending is still great though, and couldn't have been anything else (literally).

Generally echoing the mass of positive comments about the game. Fun system, good characters, FF7 fanservice galore, and a game you should definitely pick up if you own a PSP. The negatives... well, loading fights could have been faster. It felt like a chore to fight sometimes due to the load times for battles. Load times in general could have been decreased as well.

Say it again: Buy this game if you have a PSP.

[Ultradude]

Shin Megami Tensei: Imagine

A SMT themed MMORPG, mostly based off of Digital Devil Saga. A friend got me into it, so I figure I'd give it a try, and it's pretty fun - a fair amount of character customization over the horizon, and a decent variety of demons to use in different ways. Combat is generally pretty good, solo or with a party, though the boss rooms are hell. Thankfully, weekends mean no xp penalties at death, and GMs often run newbies through dungeons to help them level up to the point where they can start doing interesting things, so the game is pretty well run up to now. Also, managed to level up a ridiculous 7 times in one dungeon run (as opposed to a usual 2 or 3) by tagging along with a bunch of people way higher level than me, and using an XP boosting item.

Then I went and did some more solo questing, and my random prize... was a permit to form my own clan in the game's first 'town', one of the rarest prizes possible from an event. Hells yeah.

Currently, working on a gunner with debuffs, and using durable melee demons to cover me, or pulling out varied-element casters for rooms with lots of magic vulnerable enemies.

[Niu]

I'm calling it a night for P4.  I went back to the second dungeon to get whatever items I needed to complete some quests and then maxed out Yosuke's Social Link, the first one I've finished so far.

Did you got the hug hug over at the lake?

[WanderingMind]

I'm calling it a night for P4.  I went back to the second dungeon to get whatever items I needed to complete some quests and then maxed out Yosuke's Social Link, the first one I've finished so far.

Did you got the hug hug over at the lake?

Yes I did....after Yosuke and I beat the crap out of each other.

Haven't done much with P4 today.  Only played for 20 minutes.

[TranceHime]

FF7 NES:

I present to you...



GUARD SCORPION

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

VP2 - Well, I'm doing Elfboy's replay now. Four archers, Stone Hurler Wrath. The speed disadvantage is impressively meaningless - walking slowly actually helps a lot with intelligent AP recovery, and gives you a lot more leeway with setting up enemy positions. Just abuse dash like a good little boyscout and you're set. Meanwhile, everything explodes. I'm going to replace Millida with Lydia, though, since Lydia gets Flame Shot and Millida doesn't. I didn't get a third archer who gets Flame Shot, sadly, so it's going to be Phyress/Arcana/Rufus/Lydia. Carnage will ensue as much as possible.

EDIT: I also got Toughness at the Dragon Palace -yet again-. The Green Fire Rune is reasonably obtainable from those randoms, sooooooooo.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Haven't had much time for games recently, though this should start changing now for portables since I've resolved to replace my reading bus time with gaming bus time to get out of this rut.

PS4 LLG - Profound Darkness is a whore. Currently slowly levelling in order to have a chance; slowly because I insist on doing it against the enemies who have the highest meseta:exp ratio in the game... which happens to be a relatively earlygame area.

FF6 Eviltype - About to head to Zozo. Game is fun. I am amused to note that, despite the fact that Locke got improved a lot due to Full Moons being better now, that Celes is still a better Genji Glove user than him because although she does give up some damage (not tooo much, Flails are improved too), it is totally worth it to have Cure/Imp/Ice instead of uh Steal. The best party for this arc is probably Celes/Shadow/Edgar/Gau, but I'm using Cyan instead of Shadow in hopes that I'll get Quadra Slam and this will make him worthwhile.

Super Robot Wars OG2 - Yes, finally started this! Thanks, Yakko! Sorry for waiting 8 months! Up to Chapter 6.

Anyway, the game so far seems very, very similar to OG1, which is both good and bad. Good because OG1 was fun and I am certainly enjoying the game. Bad because all the polish complaints I cited when playing OG1 (damage projections is of course the big one) haven't been fixed. Except I've noticed you can cancel out of the deploy screen now! Good good. Anyway, game is prettier, and still blows away other GBA games for music, so that's a plus.

Pilot notes... 15 FP Focus = hey Excellen gets a deserved nerf... but then again, she and Kyo start with Rampage Ghost now. Bullet is LVP. Lee is a douche and I like him, gameplaywise he is better on offence than previous battleships but has no healing. In fact I want that healing. Grr, rejoin, Ibis. Anyway, Lamia is a pretty solid tank-pilot for now, though one who burns through energy very fast... good accuracy for one, though, and solid range options. Solid. Latooni seems to retain her OG1 problems so far, Kai's unmemorable, Rai is very good. No mech changes yet, I am lazy like that.

Don't really want advice with this game; I enjoy feeling out characters and mechs on my own. Thanks. ^_^

[Shale]

I'd say to get Vaisaga and crush the game into dust beneath your heel, but you're playing on GBA so you can't. Pity.

(Also, enjoy the authentic SRW PLOT experience, by which I mean four completely separate plots running at the same time, held together with scotch tape and spit.)

[TranceHime]

FF7 NES

  Reno before fight
Reno during fight

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh yes, the plot is still completely epic in the way only SRW can manage, but I figured that went without saying. Excellen banter is fun, at least.

[Shale]

Oh, it's epic, but it's epic in a different way from OG1. That at least had the decency to go through Plot A from beginning to end, then segue into Plot B. OG2 gives you a stage from Plot A, then two from Plot B, one from Plot D, and then a split-path where you may or may not see anything from Plot C, depending on your choice.

Also, Ibis had healing? Why do I not remember that at all.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh yes, the plot is still completely epic in the way only SRW can manage, but I figured that went without saying. Excellen banter is fun, at least.

It's funner because they go on full-gear trainwreck from the get-go instead of pretending there's something serious.

Anyhow, Ibis loses the healing once her spirit set changes (this happens when she gets a new mech). Soooooooooo. The only recommendation I'd make is looking up on FUBs and seeing which ones appease you. I generally went the "FUB Lamia, solo puny earlygame with Angelg" route so I could get the Ashsaber more easily, but anything works, really.