Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Idun]

I have Suikoden V up. Ended up playing 'til 4AM this morning only to recognize my inner clock's unique abilities of continually waking me up at 8AM. Anyway, I played 'til that time because I'm extremely eager to see how long I had the clock running with my last save file compared to now. So far, I'm heading to Agate Prison and though some fleeting places like Haud were extremely familiar, I really didn't remember anything passed Lordlake. I did play this game in 2006. Anyway. Battle system is good, though the Auto button and options are pretty silly. Best silent protagonist options ever, and yes I've been pretty mean to Lymsleia which may screw me up later from what I hear. Storyline... man, did the writers of DDS and Shadow Hearts Covenant ever play this game?

[Luther Lansfeld]

Glad to hear you like the plot! Your hate for SHC baffles and disturbs me though.

[Meeplelard]

Oh, and I actually made sure to keep a space for LFE2 & NUKE this time, so if someone could tell me where I find those, that'd be muchly appreciated. <3

In Lufein or whatever the town was called in the NES version (place where everyone speaks a different language and you need to translate the table to understand them), there's a hidden Black/White Magic shop off to the side.  Basically, if you exit to the...west?  It'll look like it leads to outside, but actually leads to another part of the town.

[DjinnAndTonic]

coughcoughHaroldcoughcoughMaocoughcoughAngecoughcough

The real question is has Djinn even played the games where they came from.

I have played ToD2 and ToR in Japanese. I do remember Harold seemed like a fun mage to play, though I didn't find her particularly 'viable' over the melee characters.

As for Mao, admittedly I didn't use him unless I had to, so I can't really judge how good he was.

Who the hell is Ange?

[Luther Lansfeld]

FFX-2- The adventure continues. Well poopie, some mean ol' monster decided to interfere with my concert. God I hate when that happens. So we go into the cave to try to kill the mean monster, and on my path, I get Paine/Trainer's Stone Flurry. Freaking crap it has hit like 15/15, it's just completely ridiculous. DK's Death hasn't worked as well for me or even close, but I could be hitting immune enemies. Even the guys who inflict Stone aren't immune to it though! Trainer is ridiculous. Great, fast, MT, cheap healing and hax status? That combined with the Heady Perfume (which regens MP) is making Paine easy MVP for randoms and vital healer for bosses. We attack zee boss, and I use Berserker's Hurt, DK's Darkness, and Trainer's hax healing. I run out of MP so I switch into a BM with Paine... bad idea! MP Absorb fails because he has no MP, and all of a sudden I am up shit creek without a paddle. Soooo yeah, first death in the game. I came back and whipped his ass though, this time using an Ether. <_<

So, after we dealt with that, YRP celebrated, Paine had a personality switch after a DRAMATIC scene, Yuna danced and EVIL TIDUS appeared. Oh, not TIDUS, you-know-who. So this is secretly a HP/FFX crossover fic. Yuna sang, but I dunno what happened because I went to the bathroom during the scene and I came back and Yuna was fainted and Rikku was being stupid or something. C5 start!

[Sierra]

Oh, and I actually made sure to keep a space for LFE2 & NUKE this time, so if someone could tell me where I find those, that'd be muchly appreciated. <3

In Lufein or whatever the town was called in the NES version (place where everyone speaks a different language and you need to translate the table to understand them), there's a hidden Black/White Magic shop off to the side.  Basically, if you exit to the...west?  It'll look like it leads to outside, but actually leads to another part of the town.

East, actually, but it's the only alternate exit out of the town, so yeah, should be obvious.

[Sierra]

Yep all pretty valid stuff.  I think you are really overlooking just how unique the degree of choice and variety in dialogue is and whatnot.  Glad you have played it and got at least some fun out of it though.  Spot on with the power gaming for skills.  Sooooo off on the perks though >_>  Skill and Exp boosters are horrible perks.

Yeah. I was swimming in extra skill points by the end of the game, so that one clearly wasn't needed. Exp bonus maybe got me one extra level cumulatively? Which really does fail to make a difference. The game folds quickly enough in the face of superior equipment, after all.

Should've noted that I did appreciate the ending. Also, wow that was a lot of credits. I had to laugh when "There are no more credits, stop watching" scrolled up.

~

Started Crisis Core, played through the Wutai segment and did a bunch of missions. I dunno how much I'll keep up with those. The gameplay doesn't seem interesting enough to warrant continuing them.

[Talaysen]

Strange game.  Aside from the obvious, saddening lack of the normal Suikoden setting (and really, this is why we accept even Suikoden IV into the family, it's still setting!)

We do?

Cross Edge - Next boss fights after Jedah were pathetic.  LIMIT 3HKO DAMAGE ON HARD MODE BOURD???  Seriously.  So much failure.

Got two more Darkstalkers characters, went through a dungeon, ran around the next area for a bit, Reicher is a jerk.  Basic stuff, here.  Also got two more awesome accessories.  +INT and good AP yay!  Found another Force Frame too but I only have two mages anyway.

[Shale]

Started Crisis Core, played through the Wutai segment and did a bunch of missions. I dunno how much I'll keep up with those. The gameplay doesn't seem interesting enough to warrant continuing them.

Unless you're playing hard mode (play hard mode) the missions seem like they'd power you up enough to smash the game pretty quickly. They're all pretty much collect treasure -> find boss -> fight boss, so if that doesn't sound attractive feel free to skip 'em. 

[Meeplelard]

Missions are worth doing in Crisis Core Normal mode, just you don't have to be obscene with them.  Supposedly, doing no missions in Crisis Core at all does make even Normal mode actually challenging, but I can't say I know from experience.  They're effectively there in case you feel underpowered for your current arc, you can go do some missions to get yourself up to speed, be it getting some key Materia, accessories, extra levels, etc.

Also, bare in mind that mission difficulty is scaled to your level.  So a mission that was once Hard can suddenly become Normal after you level up a few times.  Its typically a good idea to stay away from ones that are "Very Hard"; while they may be doable with enough twinking, they typically kick your ass.  Similarly, things labelled "Very Easy" are a complete and total joke <_<

[DomaDragoon]

Sam and Max: Cleared. Episode ranking: 4>5>6>2>1>3.

[Shale]

Any ranking that has Episode 4 on top is a correct one.

Anyway, speaking of which, you know what I'm not playing? Monkey Island. Because Telltale won't get off their asses and upload the thing. It's not getting any Tuesdayer!

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

However, it's getting a bit Wednesdayer.

EDIT:

PoR - Dicking around. Again.

[Shale]

It's up it's up it's up it's up it's up it's up it's up it's up it's up it's up

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

And that's the last we'll ever see of Shale.

[Shale]

Come on, give me more credit than that.

I'm posting from work. I won't vanish forever until I get home and install the game. Duh.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Let's just hope those singularity black holes don't feel particularly humorous today and decide to swallow you whole while you go back home. But then, they probably -already- have it.

In any case, in a few hours at most, see you in a couple weeks from today!

EDIT:

In response to Idun.

Storyline... man, did the writers of DDS and Shadow Hearts Covenant ever play this game?

They couldn't unless they had time machines. S5 wasn't released until well over a year after both those games were -localized to the US-.

[Idun]

Glad to hear you like the plot! Your hate for SHC baffles and disturbs me though.

Someone told me my review made it sound like I hated it. It wasn't a bad game, but its storyline really annoyed the living crap out of me, coupled with its horrible cast to boot. >_> I BEAT CERAS LAKE AT 14:34 hours. This means, my last playthrough I let the game lag for 10 hours. And Snow, they should play it now and bake over its wondrous plot. Man. : ) Happy anyways.

[Shale]

Monkey Island: It's a Monkey island game in spirit, style, gameplay and writing as well as name. I am a happy, happy person.

[Meeplelard]

Chaos Wars: Just Beat Chapter 2!  Game is quirky and interesting.  That, and I got Yuri, so nothing else matters at this point <_< >_>

[Ultradude]

SRWD - 6 chapters done. Dunno what's happening plotwise, but I've had Shin Getter for a few levels already, and I got the Mazingers, Big O, and Daltanias on the Super side of things. Meanwhile, my real-type main is pretty good, and the Gun EZ is the most shockingly competent grunt mech ever.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Glad to hear you like the plot! Your hate for SHC baffles and disturbs me though.

And Snow, they should play it now and bake over its wondrous plot. Man. : ) Happy anyways.

Everybody should learn a bit from S5 writing, yes. Especially the early game.

[Clear Tranquil]

Storyline is the only reason I played/replay SHC because it sure as hell isn't the battle system (which kinda made me fall asleep when replaying the game after a SO3 fiending spree >_>) If it weren't for Lucia who suits my playing style I'd have probably stopped my replay.

Glad you're enjoying FFX-2 despite the fail Ciato, the battle/job system is worth it and I have to admit I too enjoyed dress up <_< Game is total fluff and was never meant to be a serious main course of the FF series, might as well use it as an appetizer, sit back and draw as much out of the train ride as you can =-)

Thanks again Tales peeps, I'm saved on my ship now before heading for Atherum. Everyone is L25 or lower, I have no idea if this is the correct level range or not. I'm being forced to use Yuri now so my party for the next task will be Yuri/Repede/Estelle and someone else. Estelle is pretty reliable, I've turned of all her options except the ones I want her to use. I've been controlling Judy since she joined but I might go back to controlling Rita I dunno, Djinn the flag only lets me change what character appears on the field/dungeon/town map not in battle =D Also I've only just figured out where all the different AI options like Heal/Assist/etc are >_>

I defeated the wolf at L14 with Rita and Yuri being stars with Fire Ball (Overlimit) and Destruction Field. I entered with Overlimit at the start to take out the wolf cubs ASAP and then somehow managed the rest of the fight from there. It was still a damn tough fight though even though I headed back to Halure for items. I'm just not very good at this battle system =-(

Oh yeah I saw every plot twist/RPG cliche so far (Estelle, Judith, Atherum) coming, it must be a sign I'm getting old and jaded.

[Hunter Sopko]

Glad to hear you like the plot! Your hate for SHC baffles and disturbs me though.

And Snow, they should play it now and bake over its wondrous plot. Man. : ) Happy anyways.

Everybody should learn a bit from S5 writing, yes. Especially the early game.

Yeah. Early game on what to do, later game on what not to do as it copypastas every Suikoden that came before it.

[Yoshiken]

FF2: Cleared the Semite Cave for the first time. I'm playing a horrible ENGRISH version of this game ("Leon no here." "He sure is alive.") but whatever, it's still good. And I like it~! It's a fun game and I love the system, which could be amazing if done effectively in another game, but I've not seen it done well. (Disgaea had a similar idea, but... well, it didn't seem to make much of a difference with the weapons. Spells, sure, worked well.)
So, Maria is becoming pretty much a pure mage. With an axe. Awesome. Firion and Guy are gonna be pure melee. Boosting all stats except HP is fun - Firion is Lv 13 with Shields and has ridiculous amount of attack, and Maria has quite a few levels on a variety of spells. It's all quite awesome. ^.^