Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Cotigo]

The sound coming back through the speakers isn't fixable, I think; at least I haven't found a way for it to work.  Just move the mic away from the speakers if you can and deal.

[Taishyr]

Persona 4: Beaten. Quick but long lowdown here.

Souji: Despite the usual "P3/4 Main Hype" train, he... noticeably sucks at the beginning! Mainly because your personas fail at leveling with you so that first dungeon, he's got very little to run on. However, after that he gets enough options to weigh that out, and becomes a wrecking ball.

Yosuke: MVP of the non-main crowd. The midgame "lag" for him is the lack of a new physical move. That's it. Otherwise Magarula does him quite well for a long while, and Wind is probably game-best PC element (few walls against it ingame).

Chie: Now, she lags. However, the Furinkazen - Enervation (high) shoes - definitely make up for this and let her be usable during this time frame against the relatively hardest randoms in the game. Rampage is also pretty OK MT for a long while, if inconsistent.

Yukiko: The better healer. It's not because she gets Salvation, it's because Ice is way less common than Lightning. I seriously forgot she had a weakness until the frue final cast Mabufudyne near the end of the fight, making me go "...oh, right!". This also says how often I saw Maziodyne: way too fucking much.

Kanji: Never impressed me. ST physicals!... except by the time he really picks up speed with those, Soji's already better. Rakukaja! ...except Chie gets Tarukaja, and both are outclassed by Teddie a dungeon later in this. MT lightning! ...off Kanji stats. LVP, the durability is no help.

Teddie: The lesser healer, despite the better skillset; the final bosses abuse Lightning way too much in my experience to even consider using Teddie over Yukiko, and his advantages aren't worth enough in random fights to merit him as a choice.

Rise: Godlike, obviously.

Naoto: Okay. Naoto's really fucking weird. Gut says she's actually more useful against the final than Chie but that's due to Megidolaonn not running into that damn phys resist. Otherwise? Clears house with ID, can't be walled ingame by physical/ID immunity due to Almighty, Mind Charge also helps a lot. Yeah, sure, DL reduces her to ID whore. But ingame she's a pretty damn scary character. Used her in all the dungeons except the last where I coinflipped to go with Chie instead. Kinda regret it now, didn't expect the phys resist to hamper Chie badly enough that she became an item girl as a more effective use of her time. Probably right behind Yosuke for MVP title.

Overall, ingame Yosuke>Naoto>Chie=Yukiko>Teddie>Kanji. DL, Yosuke>Chie=Kanji>Naoto>>Yukiko>Teddie. Yosuke to Naoto will probably all get Heavy nods from me; Naoto's ID barrage, Kanji's asston of durability and physical damage, Chie's general inane trick bag and Enervation High boots, and Yosuke's inane option set and solid damage are what sells me here. Note that all four of these guys are probably gonna be low Heavies to me, but hey.

[Niu]

Don't forget to kill Niu for me.

Why? It is not my fault that Nomura think furry is fun.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I like having the guarantee.

EF - A GIANT CROCODILE JUST CHASED AN EQUALLY LARGE KITTY IN A DESERT. Man, this game.

[Meeplelard]

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.

yeah, that was the other problem with SO3 Mages; they were not available for huge chunks of the game.  Furthermore, the level 1 thing for Sophia was ESPECIALLY bad in SO3 cause it had a 3 person party instead of the usual 4 person, so individual character strengths were more important, as you had only 2 characters trying to hold down entire enemy forces (though given the nature of the game, this isn't as bad as it sounds) while that low level PC is being useless just leveling up (not saying Sophia is useless, just initially she is cause of her level.  once caught up, she's fine).

SO4 lacks all these issues with mages, the only downside to joining late is low BEAT, which while bad, isn't character breaking.  Furthermore, since its a 4 person party instead of 3 person, not only does using a Mage trying to catch up hurt your team less, the advent of using two becomes that much more practical, since you still have 2 Fighters up on the front lines taking the the brunt, while the mages do utility work from behind (2 mages does mean double the amount of healing, lets not forget, so using them ups survivability.)

er, yeah, I know you know all this stuff, but just felt like getting it off my chest.  Do note that I'm not saying "MAGES ARE GODLIKE!" or what not, just saying they're solid options and all 3 are viable.  Actually, I don't think any PC stood out as especially bad in SO4, barring Faize who while decent early, definitely stops being good after a point cause he's just a Mage wannabe.  I will say that, however, Bacchus is the biggest pain in the ass to play as.  Awkward physicals, Techs seemed unintuitive, clunky running...yeah.  Not saying he's bad, just struck me as best left to the AI to use.

[TranceHime]

ChinaFE: WoGaE Replay - Started this again yesterday, up to Chapter 9 this time. In my previous play, I went on the Ephraim Hard route, so this time I decided to go Eirika route. Difficulty? Hatbot spewed Normal difficulty for me, so there you have it. This time I arena abused, as opposed to my first time where I decided to use the arena sparingly.

I have only one statement to make:

Celica is a one-woman army.

[Meeplelard]

GX: Game is beaten!  Krotiz 2 was a good fight, like an improved Melfice or some such with annoying support!

Final Boss #1 was a joke.  Just routine beat downs.

Final Boss #2 got me the first time.  Second time, I changed my approach now that I know what Time Evolution does and the fight was far more manageable.

EDIT: Forgot a quick review!

Final Party was Evann (Duh?), Brandol, Jaid and Lutina.  Brandol/Lutina cause they were leveled and I liked what they had anyway, Jaid mostly cause I wanted the Magic Power and what not.

Game's plot...uhh...
Step 1: Get the Elemental Objects to stop the disorder!
Step 2: Run down to ruins to beat up prickish villain.
Step 3: Stop Ultimate Communist Being from taking over Humanity!

That's the entire plot.  No, there is no character development of which to speak of.  No, there is no deep meaning.  That's literally the entire plot.  Well, ok, I guess Kroitz gets...minor...development...sort of?  I'm probably just comparing him to the fact that we learn he's more of a prick and OMG AMBITIOUS compared to everyone else in this cast who...uh...yeah.

And yes, the cast is just as bad as the plot <_<

Gameplay wasn't actually that bad.  Dungeon crawling was boring, and some dungeons overstayed their welcome.  The battle system was...Proto-Grandia 3, which isn't half bad, though, things could have been more balanced on the enemy end, in that they could have, I dunno, made some enemies less durable or less spamming of things like Stram, cause some fights seemed to take forever.

4/10 game? Something like that.  The half decent battle system is hurt by the boring dungeon crawling, and the plot certainly isn't bringing it up, but I struggle to call the game truly atrocious.

[Shale]

Crisis Core: I've done two plot chapters, which took maybe forty-five minutes each, and six or seven hours of missions. Fun game.

My current power combo is a ton of HP boosters (30% bonus from HP Plus materia, and an Iron Bangle), Barrier and Silence Blade. I still don't stand a chance in the Bahamut rematch, but everything else is finally dropping to manageable damage!

[DomaDragoon]

Diamond: 5 Gyms clear, and the continuing absence of good Sinnoh Pokemon makes me a sad panda. Current party is Lopunny/Kricketune/Rampardos/Roselia/Empoleon.

Magic: The Gathering: DOTP - Absence of a good deckbuilder is disappointing. Cleared the first four matches of the campaign, tried out a few of the starter decks.

[Ultradude]

P4 - Void Quest bosses? Meet Oni with Power Charge.

[DjinnAndTonic]

WAXF - Met Ragnar. He's not bad upon first meeting him. He's nice the dog, he seems to be making a meal in honor of dead friends. ...He's an angry sunmabitch at Elesius for some reason. My guess is that the reasoning will explain why everyone trashes his character?

Clarissa's playing around in Gadgeteer and Excavator for the speed bonuses. Levin as a Sacred Slayer is broken. No one ever dies, that's for sure!

Chapter 1 still refuses to let me play the classes I want to play. Geomancer physical damage is more potent than I was expecting, but having to use one in chapter 1-11 was annoying and he was still mostly dead weight.

Levin and Fellius had a 'moment'. I was kind of surprised to hear Fellius talk that much.

[Captain K.]

Pokemon:  So very tired.

PWI:  Level 66 Blademaster, level 61 Cleric

Samurai Shodown Anthology:  Picked this up.  Mmm, classicy goodness.

SS1:  Damn I'm rusty.

SS2:  Still pretty good with Neinhalt and Nicotine.

SS6:  Never played this before, holy shit there's a fuckton of characters.  Basically every single character from every SS game, bosses included.  Rather easy, until you get to supercheap DBZ boss.

[Hunter Sopko]

MK- Through to the end of Chapter 11. Stopped after an annoyingly exhausting round of synthing the ultimate armors. Went with Jess' ending. Just need to kick the boss to the curb and I'm home free for the final chapter.

[Clear Tranquil]

L1 SO3 characters are easy to level up, I don't know what you're talking about =D Counter hax~
*flees*

I agree on Lymle, since she's mastered Healing and Faerie Healing long before other mages join plus a raised up BEAT for rush comboing if you're into that kind of thing too (though it's possible to have her fairly well built up between Strike and Rush before then also) I didn't find it worth switching her out. I did find the support mage also worth it though and since I liked the two of them ended up just keeping them both. I also tried out fan service before annoying voice joined but I wasn't that impressed. That impression was enforced as she did still level up from chest/mining/EXP and I learned that she doesn't gain Faerie Healing until like L47. Plus she still hasn't learned Restoration yet.

Anyway SO4 now in the first of the optional dungeons, just have the super boss of that left to defeat. Defeated the final boss and completed the main story obviously. One reset, mainly because I was trying to be smart attempting to pull of fancy tricks with blindsides on the thing. Then annoying voice died and somehow there was a loop of me reviving characters, them dying again straight away, reviving them, them dying, etc until I was out of fresh sages >_> Second time round I just said screw this and went for a full on assault spamming L10 Drill Spikes like crazy (ATK Boost, Berserk, Focus) with kitty <3 Speaking of which eat Drill Spikes you evil optional dungeon bees! Watched the ending, obtained clear game data. As far as extra/character endings go I got Lymle's and Mega Man's which were both expected then kitty, chicken and jiggle's which I didn't think I was going to get since I never viewed all that much of their PAs. I did do a bunch of the funeral boquet PAs though including theirs so I guess that works. I DID NOT obtain Reimi's ending despite viewing a lot of PAs with her including her funeral boquet one *and* her final PA what =( Kitty and chicken's endings were amusing as well as chicken's being pretty nifty, fanservice's was eh. Ending was pretty good overall, nice visuals, Commander Kenny is smexy, etc.

Worth watching the PAs if you can be assed Gref, they can be triggered on the ship when travelling between planets for the most part. Also they may or may not make Lymle more tolerable for you depending (especially her final one) and you may or may not find them amusing. It was also because of the PAs 'n stuff that I decided to keep Lymle in my final party, just because she really felt like a part of things by then.

In depth review of the game and characters over all will probably come at the weekend. For now I'm rating this one at 8/10. On a extreme PE level it's higher to me though~

[Shale]

Crisis Core: Hey look, plot. Finished Chapter 5 and about 12% of the missions. Really enjoying it, if you couldn't tell by the rate of progress. Build-wise, Zack is level 20, with about 4700 HP thanks to a cumulative 210% HP bonus from materia and accessories. I need that bonus, too, since enemy damage is sitting at around 600-1000 per hit (although Barrier and MBarrier makes it a lot easier to deal with). The silencetouch accessory is serving me very well, and a Dispel attack would be nice at some point, if I can get the components together, since some Mission enemies are starting to use barriers. Next upgrade I'm looking at is fusing my Elemental Ward (with a 120% HP bonus) with a Libra as soon as one of them gets mastered, for a Wall.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

EF - STOREBOUGHT SP +50 WEAPONS THAT ARE UNIVERSAL AND A STRAIGHT IMPROVEMENT FROM MY CURRENT WEAPONRY AW YEAH

Also, what the hell, you fight just about every NPC in a big boss fight in this game. This is like the tenth DL Godlike boss fight I've had in less than ten hours. >_> On the other hand, shouting "ANCIENT EGYPTIAN GAY CAT FOR GODLIKE" isn't something you can do every day. God bless the Endless Trainwreck.

P.S.: Cat Ears Unit - KOS-MOS exclusive. An attempt to pander to all you freaks out there. -> Actual in-game description. Speaks for itself.

[Meeplelard]

Crisis Core: Hey look, plot. Finished Chapter 5 and about 12% of the missions. Really enjoying it, if you couldn't tell by the rate of progress. Build-wise, Zack is level 20, with about 4700 HP thanks to a cumulative 210% HP bonus from materia and accessories. I need that bonus, too, since enemy damage is sitting at around 600-1000 per hit (although Barrier and MBarrier makes it a lot easier to deal with). The silencetouch accessory is serving me very well, and a Dispel attack would be nice at some point, if I can get the components together, since some Mission enemies are starting to use barriers. Next upgrade I'm looking at is fusing my Elemental Ward (with a 120% HP bonus) with a Libra as soon as one of them gets mastered, for a Wall.

Just be sure to tell us how much damage Octaslash does when you face the boss that uses it (should be pretty damn obvious.)  Mostly cause despite the big awesome animation and the "OMG HARDEST BOSS IN THE GAME HYPE!" and its his strongest move...1200 damage...when you should have like 6k HP <_<

[Magetastic]

Crisis Core: Hey look, plot. Finished Chapter 5 and about 12% of the missions. Really enjoying it, if you couldn't tell by the rate of progress. Build-wise, Zack is level 20, with about 4700 HP thanks to a cumulative 210% HP bonus from materia and accessories. I need that bonus, too, since enemy damage is sitting at around 600-1000 per hit (although Barrier and MBarrier makes it a lot easier to deal with). The silencetouch accessory is serving me very well, and a Dispel attack would be nice at some point, if I can get the components together, since some Mission enemies are starting to use barriers. Next upgrade I'm looking at is fusing my Elemental Ward (with a 120% HP bonus) with a Libra as soon as one of them gets mastered, for a Wall.

Just be sure to tell us how much damage Octaslash does when you face the boss that uses it (should be pretty damn obvious.)  Mostly cause despite the big awesome animation and the "OMG HARDEST BOSS IN THE GAME HYPE!" and its his strongest move...1200 damage...when you should have like 6k HP <_<

To be fair, it is unblockable, and that speaks a lot for itself in Crisis Core, the game where you can dodge almost everything. He also has other gimmicks to make him hard. Just because he only 5HKOs you with his strongest move doesn't mean he's THAT terrible. (Unless you've learned how to cheap out the game. Then everybody fails, but really)

KH2: Beat the game. Forgot how fun it was, despite Donald's voice and the overserious plot. Gameplay is fun to play with. Leveling the forms is harder than I expected, though. Final boss was kinda a joke, though. Gonna replay it on Proud Mode (like I should've started on, it seems) after I cheese the game a little and pound Sephiroth into the ground. Looking forward to the replay.

[Shale]

Still, the threat of an undodgable 5HKO doesn't exactly loom large when compared to, say, Bahamut Fury's 3,000-damage-through-MBarrier undodgable Hexaflare. (Okay, that might have been Gravity. Even so.)

[Cmdr_King]

Sephiroth's problem isn't so much the lack of damage alone (you don't have to have great damage to be threatening in an ARPG) as his slowness.  The fight is definitely inspired by his KH designs, but he quite simply doesn't attack as fast or, indeed, fast enough to really mess with your timing or score multiple hits at once.  Considering the game has perfectly good healing, you need fast, multihitting offense to pull off 5HKOs and Sephy doesn't manage it.  Also lacks counters beyond teleporting away, as I recall, another way to be threatening in Crisis Core (Penance for example; what's his strongest move?  The lightning that shoots out his ass if you try to string criticals on him.)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

How did you not get Reimi's ending? I thought the game handed it to you like a Claude/Rena ending, like something you have to try not to get.

But yeah, first bonus dungeon is fun (though the difficulty spikes hard on the first floor. Those bees are fucking terrifying, as bees should be). Second bonus dungeon is not fun and made me quit.

[Meeplelard]

Some mild gameplay spoilers to Cirisis Core below, read at own digression, etc.

Its pretty much what CK said why Sephiroth is bad.  And a 5HKO move is bad no matter how you look at it; Sephiroth can't apply the pressure needed to keep you held up, even with his Materia summons.  He hits you once wiht Octaslash and you...heal if you're threatened.  You shouldn't be knocked down to a point in that fight where you're near dead, outside of Heartless Angel, which of course screams "USE HEALING NOW!"   The 2nd fight is somewhat tougher ONLY cause of the gimmick; if there wasn't a gimmick, it'd be the same thing over again.

The only remotely competent thing Sephiroth does, Heartless Angel aside, is awesome flinch resistance; he doesn't flinch to any attacks except for Critical Hits, so you can wail on him, and he'll smack you back in the process.  Still, he attacks so infrequently that you have plenty of time to heal.  I'm guessing in Hard Mode, the upped damage might make him an actually decent fight.

Its worth noting that of the last 2 Hojo Experiments, the 2nd to last is MUCH harder than the last.  While I knew what the fight was going to be after seeing the 2nd to last one, I was expecting them to mitigate a lot of his problems...but no, they're still very much there.  He's so much easier its not even funny.  The guy before him is worse stat and moveset wise, IIRC, but he's so much more aggressive, he's a much better fight in all ways. 

And yes, Shale, Exaflare is Gravity.  In most cases, those big animation moves are gravity on the enemy end.  Octaslash is a rare case where its not.  Exa-flare has another fun factor, which I'm not sure if you noticed, where it nukes your MP and AP as well, so yes, its very threatening.

Though, the most threatening of these moves by far is Judgment Arrow.  High damage if you don't have max defense, *AND* lowers MP and AP to 0 *AND* DISPELS RERAISE, so you absolutely have to survive it (unlike every other attack in the game which can be Reraise cheesed.)

[Shale]

Yech. What uses that?

[Cmdr_King]

Crisis Core: the game where they knew EXACTLY how much cheese they gave you and made the superboss able to compete.

[AndrewRogue]

Cross Edge: "The next time we meet, it will be a carnival of death!" Up through Demitri/Lillith1.

Randoms are getting more solid, while bosses are getting a bit easier (a consequence of PCs getting more competent, I think). Still, surprisingly respectable all things considered. Was playing around with Raze/York/Felicia/Morrigan for a while, but started needing Aurica again, so I've been busily mixing my party up for fun. Let Ashley choose my party a few times, and she apparently has a pretty solid eye for it, because they've all worked decently.

Costumes are fun, although I'm disappointed by the lack of male clothes changing. Would have been awesome. Still, the girl half stuff is fun enough and... well. Some of them are really fantastic as far as stats go. Marie's jumps to mind, with its +2000 HP (when my best HP currently is around... 1200?). Turned her into a ridiculous tank. And the Str boost turned UNI into a fairly decent attack.