Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Cotigo]

DQ4:  I am habitually underlevelled (~32ish... just enough to have Omniheal/Revive, and IIRC Meena's a low enough level that she just got Insulate too); that's what happens when you go straight from place to place.  Heh.  Anyway, fighting Necrosaro, and losing.  It's not too bad until he gets to the start of his final forms, when multi-target elemental attacks and dispel kick my ass.  Swapping out Sofia for Meena just to get the elemental resist on everyone else up is a pain when Meena dies so quickly to it herself.  Also problematic is that the Shimmering Dress bounces back magic more often now than in the original, so next go I'll have to play around with Alena's equips. 

Question.  If you have a buff on a character and toss 'em back in the wagon, do the buffs stay active so long as they don't act, or do they wear off per usual?  If the latter, I should be kabuffing while Meena's active, too. That'll make this fight a lot easier since Meena will stay buffed and insulated while everyone else loses it to dispel.  If not, I'll probably just have to grind up against some King Metal Slimes.

[Shale]

They stay buffed. I know I only brought Meena out for buffing rounds, and when I switched her in for the next one, she was still taking hits like somebody not made of cardboard.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I had Alena with the Magical Skirt in the maingame (Angel Leotard after). It provides elemental resistance of some form, forget what exactly. In general, you should be equipping for that, since physicals won't be what kills you if you have Kabuff handy (and Def doesn't make a huge difference if you don't).

[OblivionKnight]

Zenny, L4D is $15 now.  If you want it, today's a discount day.

[AAA]

A poster who don't read he Misc. Links topic

a shameful poster

[Cotigo]

Just bought it.  I'll probably play it later; I've been slacking and have some work to plow through tonight.  Perhaps this weekend.

DQ4 - Yeah, beat Necrosaro this time.  Get the feeling I would have beaten him the first time if I didn't turn the game off so readily, but whatever.  Form 7 was pretty threatening since two elemental blasts killed Meena before she could insulate, but Omniheal and Oomphed Alena eventually won out.  Doing the dungeon to get Saro now.

[Twilkitri]

Edit 2: MURRAY HAS RETURNED

jlfjdsl;fas;flj2asdf why must it be so long until the end of next month



Final Fantasy X - Inside Bevelle, heading to the trials

The big scene in the basement at Home was done pretty nicely.


Valkyrie Covenant - One map in to chapter 5C

Game, why is it after I give you faint praise for the chapter maps being not so stupidly easy as the optional ones you proceed to do nothing but throw me ones where I get effectively maximum sin when I hadn't managed to do so on any previous -_-

Save Phiona, is she supposed to be dead/dying the whole time and they were just too cheap to alter the system to be able to show that sort of thing? It would explain the aftermath and the fact that she didn't get up to anything throughout, although it wouldn't explain her freakishly high durability. And the fact that there were no enemies really near her at the opening of the map, or why they would eventually decide to go over there and attack her.

I seem to have missed my chance to do any pluming in chapter 4 when it ended before I expected. This is not going as well as I might have liked. The map I'm looking at lists 0 plumes in Chapter 5 as going to Chapter 6C and conveniently doesn't list any other amount of plumes as going anywhere; initially I thought this was a sign that the plume wouldn't be usable here, but I seemed to be able to use it in the previous map (although I didn't due to wariness). Hm.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Game, why is it after I give you faint praise for the chapter maps being not so stupidly easy as the optional ones you proceed to do nothing but throw me ones where I get effectively maximum sin when I hadn't managed to do so on any previous -_-

Welcome to VPDS difficulty balance. The further you get into the game, the easier it gets in a rather landslide-like maneuver. It's on par with the other VPs for that, but generally VP games aren't a lot better than, say, non-3 Grandia games for challenge, although VP1 enemies have okay bases - it's just that Guts+Angel Curios and the weaponry you can get from Creation Jewels are some of the dumbest things ever to slap into the maingame, let alone that early.

[OblivionKnight]

A poster who don't read he Misc. Links topic

a shameful poster

What is this Misc. Links topic you speak of?

[superaielman]

I don't think it's a shame? If anything, it should probably have been earlier, judging by some reactions.

Let people who want to grind do so easily, and let those of us who don't ignore it entirely. Done and done. The game is clearly balanced for the CSP gain rate of plot battles, but if you want to master everything for giggles, they make that doable in a reasonable time if that's your thing.

I'm saying it should've happened earlier. XF is too restrictive in general, both in forced setups and how little CSP it gives you. (The game giving you limited access to the fight as well is also cute.) By far the best feature of the gameplay is mixing and matching the skills and setups, and you can't fully do that without working for that CSP. I shouldn't be repulsed at the idea of replaying the first chapters to get back up to the point I was at (Just unlocked the third tier classes).

[Dark Holy Elf]

By far the best feature of the gameplay is mixing and matching the skills and setups, and you can't fully do that without working for that CSP.

I didn't grind for CSP in either playthrough and had no trouble building lots of really fun and potent setups. Your comment is like saying you don't get enough JP in plot battles in FFT so you have to grind to get more. It's true if you want to master 6+ different jobs on one character (in both games) but for anything more reasonable there's more than enough just by playing the game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Grandia 3 re-enacts the Titanic: a Nautical Disaster (for the enemies) and Yuki is King of the World in a touching romance. But Alfina's jealous husband La-Ilim isn't happy with the situation!

Soo yeah. Nautica. You are not the hardest dungeon in Grandia 3, shall we say. Bit of a step down from the Verse Realm. It's not horrible or anything, just disappointing by Disc 2 standards.

Well, except the plains part at the start. That is pretty inexcusable. Granted, it features the return of GRANDIA THREE SHEEP so you knew it was going to be easy.

With this dungeon, I keep Alfina with the All Elements Egg because honestly, fire is just that useful. Definitely the best Grandia 3 element, I think? Too bad Water is second, and no egg strengthens both except the ones which get all. Also I can finally take off the damn paralysis protection. Yay! Back to ATK/MAG boosting. I give Alfina the Revenge skill for this dungeon but it doesn't activate much.

Nautica Truffle - Worse than their Verserealm mushroom equivalent in almost every way. Their breath inflicts Confuse rather than Paralysis (along with fan wind damage) and they lack the big hit of Quake. Less HP and speed too.
Nautica Rabbit - Most notable thing about them is they are a pain to catch on the map. I catch all of one. In battle? OHKO bait but at least they have some evade. I still burn 'em up, generally. Not much damage but they're fast and it adds up.
Woolwool - GRANDIA THREE SHEEP. Yeah these ones basically can't do anything either.

So uh let's just forget that area existed. Onto the Ruins...

Angry Spirit - Undead Mage mark 2. Not as overall impressive statwise, but their fire spells certainly do hurt some when they get 'em off. They do have just enough HP to not be utterly trivial to deal with, too.
Skeleton Knight - They have a pretty competent ST physical tech which is ITE (just under 500 damage) so I kinda fear that. They also come in the largest numbers, and when they do it's probably the scariest battle in this area.
Blood Demon - They have a bunch of earth magic. I think. Now that I think about it I may be mixing them and Angry Spirits up, they're similar. GRAVITY isn't really much of a bother, nor is Def-Loss. Tremor's okay.

So yeah, still kinda yawn-inducing. Anyway, we walk into some fog, and as soon as we do, ALFINA GETS KIDNAPPED! I am shocked. La-Ilim is holding her hostage so he can kill the party or... something. It'd probably be faster for him to just claw Alfina's face off then and there if he can ninja her away from the party like that, but whatever. Pyro would probably have liked that version of G3 better. Anyway, Yuki and Ulf talk trash, Dahna gets shit done by stabbing La-Ilim in the eye with a card (bah, swords and maces are children's weapons by comparison! That's why you guys aren't in the party). And we get a boss fight. Kinda.

La-Ilim - He has a bunch of ice magic and POIZN. The more damaging ice spell is evadable. He's got good defences but not so great HP for this point, only 12k (less than Excise Psi).
Undead Dragon - He's certainly the scary one. ST physical tech is a solid 2HKO + IP damage + cancel, GT physical is a modest 3HKO, physical cancels and is pretty damaging for a basic G3 physical (which means it still sucks, but hey). He's also very fast. La-Ilim is probably some who-cares MIddle but this guy's a Godlike, go figure. He also has more HP (18000) but it doesn't matter.

It's not a BAD boss fight on this challenge. Certainly keeps me on my toes, the two enemies behave differently and between them get quite a lot of turns, probably between 3-4 a round. Watching out for Hell Fang, the Undead Dragon's ST tech, is the key, since the damage it does is very nasty on top of its other effects. Cancelling/defending as usual. When I get openings to attack, I take aim at La-Ilim. He takes under 2000 from Hellburner, so yeah, he's pretty tanky. Unfortunately, I still only need four attacks to win (the fourth being a Drak's Orb since I am worried about the battle slipping from my control and hey, it's instant). Why?

Because La-Ilim runs away below half HP. And because the Undead Dragon runs away after La-Ilim does. Bye guys. Hint, having more than 6000 HP helps you be a decent Disc 2 boss fight. Still, the final fight seems like it could be interesting, now.

Last area of Nautica, the quarry:

Gilled Mage - They cast high-level fire spells like Hellburner and Boomor which do some pretty big damage; 700-800 for Hellburner! Not bad for random scrubs who can swarm. So fire protection is go.
Gilled Runner - They have a mediocre ST physical tech. Whatever, obviously not the competent enemy here.
Gilled Sniper - They have pretty decent HP and a couple nasty attacks. May Showers hits a fan, does some decent damage, and paralyses. They have another tech which racks up big damage against a single target, but I forget its name. Definitely an enemy to take seriously, especially since blocking fire makes me not want to block paralysis (Snipers are rarer than Mages anyway).

Towards the end of this dungeon I get my first super-sweet gear. Two pieces, in fact. One is the Ebony Armour which halves all elements. The other is the Golden Ring which blocks all status.

And that's it! Next time, more stupid plot will occur (but not very much!) and then it's time for a rumble in the jungle against some far improved randoms. Also ETHER EGGS! Yay.



---

Dragon Quest 4 DS: Beat the aftergame. Aamon was a real bastard. Being able to double the crazy 200+ damage ice breath was just nuts, nobody had that much HP to survive that, although elemental resistance might save the tankier types, barely. I went out, checked a FAQ, and fought the first superboss over three times for some gear for Psaro, which helped a bit, but ultimately not much. The more important thing was just settling on the right party, making sure I had as much elemental defence stuff as possible, and fighting carefully to maintain buffs (very important despite the fact that Disrupting Wave is always present... it's not overly common). Aamon is basically Necrosaro except the earlier forms aren't as weak, the last form has more HP, and his damage/speed are way higher, and as noted by myself and Zenny, Necrosaro's already decent in this version. Oh, and the last form has Eyes Gleam Eerily, which got a serious buff to be "Deep sleep" (lasts 3-4 turns) so... yeah. And you have no wagon for him.

Party was:

Psaro: He's forced, and pretty good anyway. Strangely I was tempted to remove him, then found you can't. He has the best overall stats (durability in particular) and does everything pretty well (strong physicals and Multiheal are the relevant moves here) but doesn't have any true money spell which makes him indispensable here. His skillset seemed more built towards fighting randoms and groups, which... he never does! Seems like a real waste.
Kiryl: Kabuff. Kazing. Multiheal. Three reasons to use him. Kazing in particular is damn near essential. Why didn't Meena learn it too? Oh right, Enix hated her.
Meena: But they hated her less in this version! Insulatle is basically essential in this fight where it was merely good against Psaro and Egg/Chicken. Unfortunately she was a bit underlevelled and her HP isn't the best even when she isn't so I gave her like 8 Life Seeds to catch her up to speed.
Borya: Fighting this boss without Acceleratle is like beating your head into a wall. Sap is also really important to actually do real damage. Gave her the same "get some damn HP, mage" treatment I gave Meena. Forgot to mention that Aamon has some nasty pseudo-ITD physical which they just... weren't surviving when I first fought him.

No Alena (which makes sense, she's more geared towards randoms) or Sofia (a damn shame, because I wanted both Cock-a-doodle-do and Omniheal. I had two Yggdrasil Leaves and a Dew, used 'em all here at key times. Kerplunk Bracers also helped some.

Random thoughts:
-I tried to abuse the casino but had no luck whatsoever. It's a pity; I really wanted a Meteor Armband for Meena to get Insulatle up as fast as possible after Dispel. Made do with the Mercury's Bandana instead.
-My habit of hording seeds in DQ4 paid off since I got to use a whole bunch against the one fight I really needed their help against, and they made a pretty big difference (~40 more HP for the mages, ~15 more Agility for Meena, a bunch more Str for Psaro and MP for Kiryl).
-Aftergame needed to be less FAQ-bait in general, as I mentioned. Plot wasn't terribly satisfying either, but I guess that's not the point? The point was having an honestly hard lategame boss (Marquis de Leon is relying on your crippled low-level spellsets to be good) in the Dragon Quest system, which is a nice way to cap off the game. I guess DQ8's aftergame may have done something similar but I lacked the patience to play that because DQ8 was already so damn long (over 2x DQ4) and had less interesting gameplay due to no character choice. Also playable silver-haired bishie if that's your thing.
-Psaro sounds like he gets some sweet stuff if he levels, but that basically requires grinding? Even fighting Egg/Chicken three times he didn't gain a single level (other PCs gained 1-2) and the important spell I see on his list (Kazing!) is 4 levels away. Odd design choice. They should definitely have given Aamon a nice big dungeon, I kinda feel, so that Psaro would have more time to shine. Could have shortened the Egg/Chicken dungeon since that was hueg.

Overall, doesn't change my opinion of the game, but don't regret playing it.

[Cmdr_King]

It's all down to how you think about these things.  The tempting thing to do is get into a class like Sacred Slayer, see "Widespread" at the bottom of its mastery list, and think "man I gotta get that RIGHT NOW", which tends to blind you to more cost efficent methods involving the synergy between different OC/EQ mix and matches... hell, just proper application of simple skills in the PCs skillsets (I'm looking at you, Encourage) has astounding results with a little planning.
But at the same time, seeing skills you know are there but not being able to use them freely is pretty frustrating, so blah blah playstyle.

Kingdom Hearts: 358 Days/2- ye gods this is a cumbersome name.  Anyway, just a couple hours in, but fun fun.  I wish I could swap controls more thoroughly (they've got B as jump as A as confirm, in effect leaving it Japanese style rather than the US standard "attack with the bottom jump with the right"), and I think adjusting to that is why it feels a little stiff so far?  But whatevs, it's Kingdom Hearts.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The tempting thing to do is get into a class like Sacred Slayer, see "Widespread" at the bottom of its mastery list, and think "man I gotta get that RIGHT NOW"

Of course, I understand this mentality, but in practice, it means you have to patiently build towards it. Widespread is an incredibly potent ability which is not balanced to be gained quickly on anything besides Sacred Slayer stats.

It is anlogous to Red Wizard's Dualcast in FF5, and to a slightly lesser extent something like Time Mage's Meteor in FFT. I guess you can grind to get both instantly, and that's an option of playstyle that exists in both games... but I don't personally think that's the "right" way to play the game (meaning it's not what the game was balanced around) and it's not personally what I enjoy (though if others do, nothing stopping 'em). Patiently acquiring key abilities is part of these games, just like patiently waiting for Rosa to finally learn a freaking attack spell is part of FF4 and patiently waiting for Magikarp to do something besides fail is part of Pokemon.

EDIT: And really, the great thing about XF to me is how much is available -without- much CSP accumulation. It takes 1-2 battles to gain OCs which you can port wherever, and the L3 and L4 come pretty damn quickly too. There's a lot of low-level twinking and customisation you can do... want a mobile mage? Excavator + Elementalist OC. Want an elementally tanky healer? Slap Gadgeteer OC (and bring the Equips along for the ride!) or Sacred Slayer OC on a Geomancer. The game seems to have a good balance between light-investment twinking and heavy-investment twinking which I enjoy a lot.

[Shale]

Aamon hype? Huh. I gues I did more grinding with the chickens than you, but he didn't strike me as that much better than Psaro, even with the lack of wagon taken into account. But then, I never saw him double the ice breath.

[Dark Holy Elf]

His ice breath does nearly double the damage of Psaro's and your HP is nowhere close to double, never mind the speed + sleep. Don't see them as especially comparable.

[Ultradude]

FF7 - At Forgotten City, saved at first save point. AERIS WENT AFTER SEPHIROTH ALL ON HER OWN I WONDER WHAT WILL HAPPEN.

Still using Cait/Yuffie party. Demon Gate seemed intimidating but was kind of a pushover, nothing much of importance to report. Well, I got three HP Plus materia, and I may end up with two on Cloud instead of just dividing them evenly because of Cover.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Kingdom Hearts: 358 Days/2- ye gods this is a cumbersome name.  Anyway, just a couple hours in, but fun fun.  I wish I could swap controls more thoroughly (they've got B as jump as A as confirm, in effect leaving it Japanese style rather than the US standard "attack with the bottom jump with the right"), and I think adjusting to that is why it feels a little stiff so far?  But whatevs, it's Kingdom Hearts.

Oh yeah, KHDays came out in the US today, didn't it?

Someone needs to get the Wizard of Oz RPG that just came out in English and tell me if it at least got a good translation (because it's certainly too generic to be winning any gameplay awards).

...And yes, I know I'm about to ask about GRANDIA THREE PLOT, but I never did figure out what the hell La-Ilim was about. What was he? Why was he there? Where did he go?!

These are serious questions and that's sad.

[Shale]

His ice breath does nearly double the damage of Psaro's and your HP is nowhere close to double, never mind the speed + sleep. Don't see them as especially comparable.

I don't think I saw the sleep at all? Didn't really test the fight, just went in and kicked his ass with Solo, Psaro, Ragnar and Alena. It worked pretty well.

[Dark Holy Elf]

What level were you? I was 38-40 on my main team (about 4 above what I was for endgame), 35ish on Meena (along with others I hadn't used much previously), 35 on Psaro. It could make a pretty big difference.

[Shale]

39 for Solo, 37 for Psaro (enough to have Multiheal; I can't remember if he started with it or not, but that'd make a big difference), and 42 for Alena and Ragnar because they level really fast and rarely left the party for all of C5.

Edit: More than that, though, it seems like Aamon really does need to be taken out quickly (relatively speaking) if you don't want to eventually eat a double ice breath or sleep spam, and saddling yourself with three mages in a game as inimical to attack magic as DQ4 seems like it would hurt more than their buffs help.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, he starts with Multiheal.

Go figure, not much of a difference, and I always dismissed Ragnar as kinda useless (but he'd be solid enough for that fight because... the HP). His last form's HP isn't huge so I could certainly see the blitz working with luck. Never really thought of that; cool.

[Shale]

Ragnar's odd because the game makes him a lot more useful than your average no-skill fighter without extraordinary stats. DQ4's range of equip options lets him tank magic and elements as well as anyone if you set him up properly, and while he's not beating out Solo or Psaro for damage they're all pretty close together by endgame (none of them touch Alena, but that isn't a surprise), and all worlds beyond the magic-users. You give up defensive magic, but you're getting enough extra damage per turn to speed the battle up dramatically - not because Ragnar's overpoweringly strong but because attack magic just sucks that hard.

[Grefter]

...And yes, I know I'm about to ask about GRANDIA THREE PLOT, but I never did figure out what the hell La-Ilim was about. What was he? Why was he there? Where did he go?!

These are serious questions and that's sad.

La-Illim exists to please OK with his existence.  He has like 3 scenes or something.  He spits on a mirror, does the first fight, then stands around in another scene so you remember he wants to have sex with Emolicious just like all his other minions.  Then you kill him.  His weird Asian butler guy disappears though I think.

[AAA]

Asian Butler guy appears in one scene, long enough to get a name, then gets killed off having had no real relevance to the plot and his whole side section making absolutely no sense at all.

G3 plot encapsulated, basically.