Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Pyro]

TWEWY:
This game is just way too much fun. There are countless different systems and sub-systems at work, but they seem more like optional fluff then things that you have to navigate through in order to stand a chance. The challenge isn't there right now, but there have been some hard fights. The requirement that you pay attention to both screens more or less makes things interesting, although I frequently find myself just jamming one direction with Shiki (occasionally glancing to see if I'm whiffing) while Neku gets used to full brutal effect. The gameplay is absolutely crazy (fun) and I love it for this fact.

Plot is absolutely crazy and I love it. It's very novel and seems to have good style to back it up.

The characters are absolutely crazy and I love them.

The music is absolutely crazy and I love it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It'll keep up throughout, Pyro. TWEWY isn't the most accessible game ever, but it's an experience that's not easily forgotten. Most creative game I've played in years.

EDIT:

VPDS - And Gleipnir's Brokenness conquers even Reinhilde's Dimness. What happened after the fight was facepalm-worthy, though, considering the battle's context. Oh well.

btw valmur sucks ass

[Clear Tranquil]

P4- Baad bear. Needs me some silence protection. Or some better preservation of my revival beads or something. Growwwl~

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That boss has silence? Never knew. Hope you're blocking when he does the charge attack, though. Also, -ndas are your bestest friends ever.

EDIT:

VPDS - Smaaaaaaaaaaaaash.

[Captain K.]

btw valmur sucks ass

Plume his sucky ass.  Hoenir's Arc is a *fun* skill.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

btw valmur sucks ass

Plume his sucky ass.  Hoenir's Arc is a *fun* skill.

Thought for a replay. Meanwhile, Phiona at least works as a strong fourth PC.

[VySaika]

Wait, Valmur is bad? I...know I'm using him in my current run, and I seem to recall finding him quite good. At least at racking up hueg amounts of crystals with one of his moves. Hell if I can remember what his damage is like, but the rest of my team is good enough at that that I prolly wouldn't notice if it sucked. <_<

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Well, it's mostly that his offense -blows-. Worst PWS I've ever seen, and his attacks are terribly slow and end up not finishing before the SC round-'n-round kicks in. If you can take advantage of the gem racking due to the hueg hits, that is probably less of an issue, but christ, the offense is impressive.

[VySaika]

Alright. Yeah, I guess I'm just not noticing the damage fail because the rest of my team makes up for it. That or it's just due to me being on an NG+, even though I'm trying to keep my equips about equivalent to what you'd have normaly for that time in the game.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Probably the former. The latter also doesn't -hugely- matter, and I guess my other perspective comes from having him coupled with Wylfred and two mages, so his offense looks a lot worse. >_> On the other hand, Phiona deals far more suitable damage herself and I've gotten more luck racking gems with her than Valmur. Mileage matter, really.

[Magetastic]

I found that lancers just kinda generally sucked for most purposes. Aside from the cowardly one's plume skill, they just weren't doing enough damage, getting good enough weapons (or elements), didn't have very good SC's, and couldn't combo very well either because of incredibly difficult timing or because they just didn't have combo moves.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Heugoe has solid comboability. He has the other issues that usually plague lancers later on, though. Man, their best maingame weapon is the Mistleteinn? Jesus, that's midgame swag. Although I have no idea why mention that, given how Valmur is an archer and Phiona is a Heavy Warrior. >_>

[Magetastic]

Because apparently I confused Valmur for someone else. >_>
Who's the lancer you get if you help out the rebellion? That's who I thought Valmur was.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's Earnest.

[Magetastic]

Oh, right. I'm... honestly not sure how I managed to mix them up, thinking back on it. >_>
Oh well. From what I remember, Valmur never had huge damage issues, if you gave him a good weapon. He was also really good at getting me crystals and gems, though that may have been in part because of the fact that I had a team very set up for sending people into the air multiple times, and had plenty of good weapons at that point.

[Shale]

VPDS: People talking about this prompted me to download it and try it out for myself. Doing the first battle now. If it's worth sticking with, I'll be trying to avoid both Sin and the Plume as much as humanly possible, because why not?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

It should be possible indeed. You'll probably end up bashing your head against a wall on rescue missions due to how amazingly stupid the guest AI is, though.

[Strago]

Exit Fate: About to go de-vampire Credence Castle. The game is... Suikoden II with... worse writing, thus far? Certainly the world feels a lot less fully realized. Oh, and there's a protagonist who actually talks, but he's sort of a bland wanker, so I honestly don't know if it's a real improvement. The game is certainly more challenging, but the battles aren't actually all that much more interesting. Just requires more grinding. I guess the plot seems to have some interesting things happening, at this point, which is why I'm keeping with it at least a bit longer.

[Veryslightlymad]

Dwarf Fortress:

Started a new Fortress, I'm less than a year in. I have found no magma (dunno if I have any) and no gems. No real PRECIOUS metals, and no seemingly precious rock. (Though, I dunno what rocks are precious, off hand.)

In other words, my most valuable resource so far is GOPHERS. I have an economy based off of GOPHER. Figure that one out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Sims 3:

For as often as I play this, you'd think I'd be more than a 4th generation in, but that's the one that just started. I gave up on my other town, because I can't think of anything fun to do with it. I'm looking forward to the expansion, even though the vacation packs are supposedly not great.

Actually, I'll probably do what I did with my first family, and base them off of the eventual PFT champs.

[Shale]

Well, I'm liking VPDS enough to continue. Midway through C2A, and the game just threw its first real roadblock at me in the form of a Realmstalker in the second plot fight of the chapter. Good durability, OHKO damage and three attacks per round...ouch. I needed four Union Plumes to get past that thing. Of course, then the game promptly shot itself in the foot by dropping an Elemental Edge, which has 166 attack power and a Soul Crush. The greatsword I'm using at the moment has 20-something power. Yeaaaaaaah.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I await more logs of this playthrough with bated breath, incidentally. That sounds hugely entertaining.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I never gave Valmur a fair chance. I'm not hugely enamoured of archers because they compare so poorly to mages but there are worse choices for the fourth slot.


Being in airports for hours means games, games, games!

VPDS - Huh, Save Rosea battle was easy. I guess I got lucky? But it really looked like only three enemies started in range of her; two of whom are far enough away that they have to use spells (which don't 2HKO) and the third you kill turn 1.

In general, earlygame is certainly harder than lategame in VPDS (go balance, too much of this difficulty comes from the way Soul Crush weapons are and are not handed out) but the replay, knowing the system, has been pretty easy; the last fight of C2 was decent (Aullewyn Keep route this time) but I don't have a reset yet.


Castlevania: Dracula X: Rondo of Blood remake - Up to like stage 5 of this. Not much to say, pre-SotN Castlevania gameplay still feels needlessly clunky but I am in the mood for filler; mainly bought this for the SotN remake. Also either I am missing something or Maria is so much better than Richter it isn't funny. Better jump + better normal attack + can slide = urrrr. I dunno who has the better subweapons, probably varies by situation.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

VPDS - Roieburg OHKOs through Defiance! Wouldn't if SCs didn't ignore it. Says something that the only reason I garnered a reset there was because I realized I would be like 30 Sin away from 200%, though.

[Random Consonant]

VPDS - Huh, Save Rosea battle was easy. I guess I got lucky? But it really looked like only three enemies started in range of her; two of whom are far enough away that they have to use spells (which don't 2HKO) and the third you kill turn 1

Actually, I'm fairly certain one of the ghost-type enemies can attack her physically.  Doesn't matter, as they still can't 2HKO her... unless one of them happens to crit, like they did first time I played that scenario!

All this CotP talk makes me actually want to finish it...

[SageAcrin]

VPDS - Huh, Save Rosea battle was easy. I guess I got lucky? But it really looked like only three enemies started in range of her; two of whom are far enough away that they have to use spells (which don't 2HKO) and the third you kill turn 1.

As mentioned above, one of those ghosts can physical and just won't always do it. I had it crit her once and kill, and then dizzy her once and kill by it's self.

It's only really an issue if you want the 200% Sin req though, I'll admit, as rigging up good Sin counts on a few of those enemies is tricky. Most of the game isn't too awfully hard if you don't care about Sin, honestly...