Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Dark Holy Elf]

(mild XF spoilers)


Indeed. I like that character and his role in Endgame was stupid and totally should have been a trap he laid in case his plans went badly awry. At least his last ditch plan blows up in his face in karmically hilarious fashion. Assuming the identify of the person the big bad has a grudge against for the win.

Black Corrosion is funny, you deal with it either by staying as far away as possible or by bullrushing into melee range very quickly (his AI greatly prefers to use the draining move, but the NPCs are immune). Doing something in between gets you murdered. Cute fight anyway.

[Sierra]

I will concede that his last scene with Edna produced one of the funniest lines in the game ("I'm not about to give myself to a loser like you! I'm not that easy!") Still can't stand him, though.

[Meeplelard]

GX: Just beat Kroitz, CUE XENOSAGA-ESQUE CUSTCENE LENGTH OF...oh screw it, I just wanted to save cause it took me forever to get that far.

...at least there's ust one dungeon left, even if its ludicrously long ._.

[Shale]

KH2: Finished Halloweentown. Waaaaay better boss battle in this one than in the first go-round. Then I went back to Timeless River, as recommended, and got Valor and Wisdom up to their level caps, gained a couple of levels and found a crapload of synthesis items. Fun! Pride Lands are next.

[Clear Tranquil]

SO4- ... Meeple *wasn't* joking about the GEMS of LOVE! COURAGE! MIGHT! WISDOM! Laser Weapon, I'm not complaining~

Idun: I used Curvy Hilda, Mao, Ricardo and FRANK as my main SH3 party =-) I agree with you on Natan though ;)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

KH2: Finished Halloweentown. Waaaaay better boss battle in this one than in the first go-round. Then I went back to Timeless River, as recommended, and got Valor and Wisdom up to their level caps, gained a couple of levels and found a crapload of synthesis items. Fun! Pride Lands are next.

Don't forget to kill Niu for me.

Endless Trainwreck - This game has gotten fun. Beat the crap of TotallyNotWeissritter (well, more or less. The bastard still had OHKO-level offense that he liked to spam - particularly, he was rather fond of overkilling Xiaomu. Thank god items are broken). Also, this game likes dropping a lot of unique equipment on you. Also also holy crap KOS-MOS deals a lot of damage.

[OblivionKnight]

SO4- ... Meeple *wasn't* joking about the GEMS of LOVE! COURAGE! MIGHT! WISDOM! Laser Weapon, I'm not complaining~

Idun: I used Curvy Hilda, Mao, Ricardo and FRANK as my main SH3 party =-) I agree with you on Natan though ;)

Except for me using Slim Hilda, we used the exact same party.  I can see the OK is rubbing off on everyone!  Soon my plan to take over the DL will be complete.

[Magic Fanatic]

I suppose that I'm just cookie-cutter for using Johnny/Shania/Natan/Ricardo then.  Could've given Slim Mask all the Crest spells instead of Ricardo, though.

Disgaea 2 - ...Yep.  Still trying to get my Teacher specialists to clone.  Nearly ready to give up.

BvS - Missed out on winning TFK by ~250 points.  Sorrow...

Ouendan 2 - Decided to mess around with this on Insane again, just to see if I have my old skill.  I propose that Music Hour is the easiest song, since I think it's the easiest one to S-Rank.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SO4- ... Meeple *wasn't* joking about the GEMS of LOVE! COURAGE! MIGHT! WISDOM! Laser Weapon, I'm not complaining~

Idun: I used Curvy Hilda, Mao, Ricardo and FRANK as my main SH3 party =-) I agree with you on Natan though ;)

Except for me using Slim Hilda, we used the exact same party.  I can see the OK is rubbing off on everyone!  Soon my plan to take over the DL will be complete.

* Jo'ou Ranbu drops ShionXAdramelk yaoi on OK.

Although, honestly, it's basically impossible to go horribly, horribly wrong with party choices in SH3. Using Shania+Slim Hilda is probably optimal because magical damage and Harmonixering fucking rules, but beyond that? Just do whatever pleases you. My party was Slim Hilda/Shania/Johnny/Ricardo, the latter two being because I'm a snapshot whore and because I like Ricardo's guitar. Mao probably would've been better in Ricardo's spot, but whatever.

[Grefter]

OK rubbing off on Snow!

ShionXAdramelk yaoi.

Life imitates art.

Edit - SO4, nowhere near as far as CT, but yeah, played a bit more today.  I don't really like Lymle, but I can easilly see that I will be using her for the rest of the game (not controlling, just having her around).  Fire Bolt has come a long way in the series.  From crappy slow missile spell to Macross Missile spam.

[Meeplelard]

For what its worth, you get two more respectable mages later in the game.  By respectable, I mean "Not Faize" who becomes completely worthless once you get your second true mage. 

Ice Needles and Lightning Bolt are both not half bad spells either, and unlike Faize, those two PCs have considerably better magic stats to actually do damage with them that registers.  They also have Healing, like Lymle, so yeah.

The 3 SO4 Mages are generally interchangeable.  IIRC, its generally "Lymle's good at damage, fanservice is good at tying things up, Stupid Airhead with Farlene's Voice is best at support" but they're all workable.   


I think Faize's point was to be a Fighter/Mage, leaning more towards the Mage route...except they sort of forgot that basic physicals can't do shit in a Star Ocean game for damage, and his attack style is awkward. The other Eldarian is the opposite, being a Fighter/Mage who leans towards the Fighter Route...except he's actually GOOD at the Fighter thing (lowish mults, but strong weapon out of the gate, so it checks out), and he debatably has more useful spells than Faize anyway -_-

[Grefter]

Well Lymle is available like right now, so skill points built up, BEAT building up already and she already has Fairie Healing at this point, seems like it will be hard for someone else to beat out.  Though I really don't mind the mages this time either, I might swap Faize for another mage or something.

[Meeplelard]

Well, yeah, Lymle has a nice firm advantage in BEAT which gives her a leg up on the other two; SP isn't a big factor cause a lot of that comes from level, so it just depends on how much party amount you used.

Of course, using two isn't necessarily a bad idea; Mages in this game are good with fucking around with the enemies from safe distances, possibly hitting them with status along the way (hence why Ice Needless is pretty rocking.)

I'm not saying "don't use Lymle" just saying if you don't like her, other decent options exist to fill that role, so you can swap her out later for someone who fills a similar role.  This is contrast to other Star Ocean games where in SO2, you really had one option for a healer and nothing else, or in SO3, you have literally two mages, and one of them was more a fighter mage.

[Grefter]

Oh yeah certainly, I think I am more trying to get used to the whole mages being good in Star Ocean thing than anything else.  I need to kind of put it into words to convince myself >_>  SO3 I know they weren't well bad I guess, but yeah 2 mages in the whole game with one being 3/4 of the way through the game and the other one joining early being optional really didn't set them up well there.

[Shale]

WAXF: Beat 2-1, despite it being total bullshit (Mass of enemies at one side of the map? I can deal with that. Wave of reinforcements who outspeed me significantly, buff their frontliners to the point where they're practically physically immune and halve my magic hit rates permanently? FUCK YOU). 2-2 looked more or less straightforward, especially since I was already using Felius as a Sentinel, which is the gimmick class of the day, until I saw there were two switches that only activate when a Sentinel steps on them, and turned off the game to prevent permanent wall-related damage to the PSP.

[Sierra]

2-1 provoked a massive amount of swearing when I played it as well. Definitely consider it the hardest map in the game. Fortunately, I was sitting on the bed when I played it, as that was much more suited to taking physical abuse than was Pyro's PSP (which it would be uncivil to damage).

Get used to reinforcements. Act 2 likes them. A lot.

[Shale]

Well, once I get the next round of classes I should at least be able to answer in kind, plus now I know who to kill first.

[Ultradude]

2-1 provoked a massive amount of swearing when I played it as well. Definitely consider it the hardest map in the game. Fortunately, I was sitting on the bed when I played it, as that was much more suited to taking physical abuse than was Pyro's PSP (which it would be uncivil to damage).

Get used to reinforcements. Act 2 likes them. A lot.

Hm? SRPGs with lots of reinforcements? Why yes, I know those quite well, having just played chapter 21 of FE6. Where most of the enemies on a large and open map are reinforcements, most of which are dragon riders and dragon masters

This is a map where you have to be worried about your better dragon rider killers running out of weapons in a single map - Miledy burned through her Steel Lance, and a few hits each of a Javelin and Silver Lance. I was worried that Wade was gonna be forced to use up some shots of Armads. Clarine used Thunder 15 times despite doing my best to keep her at the back of the group, and everyone was the target of at least 2 or 3 enemies, including Yodel who I basically kept as safe as possible.

And after all that, Murdock is a horribly easy boss. So goes Fire Emblem.

Now to get Apocalypse! On a Gaiden where Mamkutes are Mimics.

[Talaysen]

I swapped Lymle in and out with another mage just for variety, and they both worked well.  I think I liked Lymle more though.  The other mage got a permanent spot in the party though.

[Shale]

More XF: Goddammit I want to like the game, if for nothing else than because the class system is really good, but it has the worst map design I have ever seen in a SRPG.

Edit: Nope, done wanting to like this. The system is good, but a good system attached to a shitty game is still a shitty game.

[Dhyerwolf]

FF3: DS. Finished. Not beaten, but finished. CoD wasn't too bad, but I just kept getting unlucky on the turn order in terms of revival. Anyways, the game sucked to start with, and the final dungeon was bad enough to merit dropping it another point. It was clearly a 15 year old game with small polish upgrades. Also, boo to the Jlevel system. Maybe it's okay in theory, but creating a system where you feel massively penalized for changing classes and makes some of the late game classes sluggish out of box, just is annoying. What's the point of throwing in all those classes if they make it highly impractical to use so many!

WA:XF. I don't think I ever gave a finishing post here. Beat this a while back, and at the time wanted to give me thoughts on classes (Although I specifically don't remember as much now). Anyways, used the 6 story PCs. Widespread/IFF are wrong, and should have at the least been the final class skills (especially IFF). They were completely broken and allowed my party to unleash lots of evil. Sacred Slayer kicked ass for that alone, nevermind it's evil skillset. Elementalist was good early (And the EQ was good the whole way through, especially for Clarissa), Emulator was eveeel when obtained (That range and post movement?!)

Main Party
Clarissa: Dandelion Shot is awesome. Throw in a good Magic Equip, and Clarissa becomes the damage queen. Her other OCs were good, but support skills were very meh.

Felius: Made him a physical oriented Gadgeteer hybrid. His skills were all solid, although I never really bothered to use Disarm. Support skills were just okay, but at least had some use.

Labyrinthia: Awesome skillset. Got great utility out of everything, since Replica seemed to be the go to way for skill point farming. Attack and Aim Down and the Magic Boost are both great. Wish Crit&Extra Turn worked with the make skills crit passive. Would have tempted me to somehow create a double-acting Labyrinthia fighter.

Tony: Trash. Usable part of Ch 1, and then absolutely horrid. Doesn't even work as an item dog!

Levin: Blast was awesome, and the rest of his skillset had it's use. While his DL strongpoint is Cancel Strike, I really didn't use it much in game since I got a fair amount more utility out of making Blast destroy things. His passives are lolworthy. His speed is double-edged. He'll get so many turns but...with his move he'll either be so far in front of everyone else, making him easy to pick off, or he'll be wasting VP sitting there. Turn Shift...would work but he's also so fast, and it's not a cheap skill.

Ragnar: Hyper+Ranged attacks is a great combo. Worked well in the physical beatdowns. Think I threw a few other buffing skillsets on him too.

Mild Spoiler PC: Felt she would have been better if enemies started closer (Then the buffing+Initiative would be awesome combo; Sadly, enemies just tended to be too far away for it to working that well). Still solid as my third physical fighter, although definitely my LVP.

[Xeroma]

Persona 4 - Beaten.

Wonderful game that I probably can't gush over enough, so I'll keep it brief: I liked this game a lot. Like, really a lot, it's the best megaten I've played in all areas I look for. 10/10, and I don't say that lightly or with silly overhype attached.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I think Faize's point was to be a Fighter/Mage, leaning more towards the Mage route...except they sort of forgot that basic physicals can't do shit in a Star Ocean game for damage, and his attack style is awkward. The other Eldarian is the opposite, being a Fighter/Mage who leans towards the Fighter Route...except he's actually GOOD at the Fighter thing (lowish mults, but strong weapon out of the gate, so it checks out), and he debatably has more useful spells than Faize anyway -_-

He gets ridiculous when you get Dragon Roar. Ridiculous.

[Shale]

Crisis Core - I'm done with XF, so on to the next PSP game on the list. Playing Hard mode, so I had a ton of resets in Wutai while I got used to the system, but it's a good game. Like I mentioned in chat, it'd be a better game without autotargeting, but that's true of every ARPG that's ever used autotargeting, so it's not like I haven't had a chance to get used to it.

Plotwise, it's FF7 compilation material. The only thing that really stands out so far is that Zack's disturbingly bloodthirsty when you think about it. Well, that and that the Getter Robo references in the first boss fight were completely weird.

[Scar]

So, like before I play with you all again I should seriously get a new mouse and fix my Mic problems.

Like I told Super, when i touch the Mic, the sounds comes back through my speakers. Wish I knew how to fix that.

The mouse I think I just need a new one.