Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

KH2: Yay, Roxas is gone! Sora has new clothes and a neat-sounding limit mechanic that I'll have to play around with later. It took roughly 15 minutes for me to remember why I enjoyed KH1 so much, which is, not coincidentally, the time it took to gop on the train and run into Pete.

Pete only gets -better-. Tell me when you're done with the monochrome world, I want to see your reaction to it.

[Shale]

There's a B&W world?

WIN.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Glad we're on the same page there. The best part of it, though, I'll leave unspoiled. You have to see the godlike for yourself.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Shale: To be fair, Lightning has the same damage as a neutral elemental spell, and even against a group elemental spells should be able to do neutral damage on average (plus they have 2 more range). Not to say Widespread Lightning is bad, though!

Yoshiken: Yeah, that point had me stuck for a fair bit.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I FAQed it.

[Shale]

KH2 addendum: Drive gauge mechanics are silly.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

They get sillier. Also, yes, Wizard Mode sucks. You'll raise it anyway for the shiny skills.

EDIT: Right, I'm playing games.

Endless Trainwreck - I see a Reiji and a Xiaomu. Also, Suzuka is like the most random thing ever.

[AndrewRogue]

Cross Edge: Progressing slowly, but doing a lot better now that I'm getting the rhythm down. Acquired Raze and Lily. Right now my party is erring towards Felicia, York, Raze, Morrigan since you can get about three combos out of that group at this point, it seems. Also, Felicia has way too much AP. >_>

[Yoshiken]

They get sillier. Also, yes, Wizard Mode sucks. You'll raise it anyway for the shiny skills.

It... does? For the level system, maybe, but the actual Wisdom Drive is freaking awesome, if only for glide-and-shoot styling.   (And the fact that you can beat the crap out of enemies while keeping them a mile away.)

[Xeroma]

Wisdom Form is rather iffy because Master and Final forms do what it does better. For Final this is fine, but Master isn't supposed to be superior magic-wise.

KH2FM fixed this by giving Wisdom Form 2 MP Hastega abilities, giving it the best MP regen in the game and actually allowing it to spam magic like it's supposed to.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

KH2 Wisdom has the issue of not being able to spam magic properly, yeah. Given how it was supposed to be its -point-... Also, there's the issue that Master form is massively better at the huge radius crowd control, which certainly hurts Wisdom. And let's not get started on how terrible Wisdom's shots are.

[Yoshiken]

Oh, sure, it sucks end-game, but then, so does Valor because Master & Final are better. Wisdom is better than Valor for a good part of the maingame though. (Or, at least, I found it was.)
The shots are weak, but weak hits and not taking damage is better than better hits with damage. Stall tactics for the win!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh, sure, it sucks end-game, but then, so does Valor because Master & Final are better. Wisdom is better than Valor for a good part of the maingame though. (Or, at least, I found it was.)
The shots are weak, but weak hits and not taking damage is better than better hits with damage. Stall tactics for the win!

In KH2? Eh, I dunno, stall tactics off a limit mechanic sorta suck, particularly when your offense is massively broken. I found Valor to be consistently more useful than Wisdom because, in the early game, you want to make the most use out of the short time you have with your breaks. And if you want to stall, just scatter around and avoid enemies while sniping them with spells on your normal form - you don't need a short-lasting form that slides awkwardly around for that. I sorta see your point, but I can't help but feel it's undermined by the very nature of the limit system.

[Xeroma]

Valor's physical damage > Master's, worth noting. Final form > everything, but it's endgame only so I'm not sure it counts for much.

[Idun]

I am done with Digital Devil Saga. I will never touch this game again.

Onto Shadow Hearts 3~

[Meeplelard]

Its also worth noting that Master Form isn't THAT LATE, especially compared to Wisdom.  You get Wisdom...half way through the first set of worlds?  Master is in the middle of the War at Hollow Bastion which happens at the end of those. 

It doesn't help Wisdom that Master is a better mage in some ways, cause it can equip 2 Keyblades, thus get far more Magic boosts.

Also, Wisdom has this major issue of its only damage comes from Thunder, and it can reasonably run out of MP.  Once its out of MP?  Beyond the novelty of shooting and sliding, it doesn't really do anything. 

Contrast that to Valor which while yes, gets worse than the other two...it has a major niche of being practical at all points during the transformation *AND* its more cost effiicient; its often enough to deal with bosses and what not, while only using 3 Drive Gauges (and lasts longer usually due to higher levels), so its good if you just want to rip something in half but don't want to build up that extra level; couldn't say the same thing about Wisdom though.

[Cmdr_King]

Honestly I'd vote Valor > Master on the levelling mechanic alone.  Valor also feels like a better boss fighter anyway (Master has an assload of AoE finishers that, while probably great for randoms, is just wasted time ina boss fight) and... well, for me that's when you use a Limit-type move >.>
(Except of course that you kinda need to smite randoms with Master/Wisdom/Final just to build them up of course.  Minor detail)

Though yes, Final, despite having some of the AoE focus of Master, is still so god-forsakenly broken that it's the best anyway.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I'm forced to ask why it matters since the game was, as I recall from playing through some of the good parts, stupidly easy.

[Xeroma]

It's called higher difficulty settings that actually do punish you for just hitting X all the time rather than trying to evade enemy attacks.

[Magetastic]

Waitwaitwait... in the normal modethere's no point in trying to evade enemy attacks?

.........DAMNIT. No wonder the game was taking me so long to get through.

[Xeroma]

Enemies just don't do enough damage on normal really, the game's a cakewalk. That's not to say it isn't fun still, but if you're looking for something challenging pick Proud or grab the FM version and play Critical mode instead.

[Meeplelard]

Grandia XTREME: Got to Floor 10 of Starry Ruins, went back to town, did some odds and ends, cleaned up inventory a bit, you know, the usual stuff?

Went back, went to next area...

"Illusory Meadow 1"

...this strongly suggests the dungeon is a lot longer than I anticipated, so uh, yeah, I'm pretending I finished one dungeon and it chains directly into another for now <.< (that, and having just saved, logical point to stop playing)

[Shale]

Enemies just don't do enough damage on normal really, the game's a cakewalk. That's not to say it isn't fun still, but if you're looking for something challenging pick Proud or grab the FM version and play Critical mode instead.

And as usual I'm playing on hard, so yeah, strategy actually matters in this case.

Also, just beat the Land of Dragons, which I did after Beast's Castle so it was pretty easy anyway. Shan Yu...well, I got to know the real him pretty easily. It helped that Red Meteor is horrible rape.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's called higher difficulty settings that actually do punish you for just hitting X all the time rather than trying to evade enemy attacks.

I'll take "things that there are no concrete reasons to do" Alex?

[Niu]

KH2FM fixed this by giving Wisdom Form 2 MP Hastega abilities, giving it the best MP regen in the game and actually allowing it to spam magic like it's supposed to.

I think what FM+ really did to make people use Wisdom are Mushroom 13, a couple of them are impossible without Wisdom. So you end up using Wisdom so you'll last logn enough when challenging the mushrooms.