Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Lezard Valeth]

As of now I'm playing Emulators for the bolded and underlined games; SMRPG, GBA Castlevanias, Mario and Luigi Superstar saga, Metroid Prime 3 (I finally beat it at 75% pick up) and Paper Mario.

I'm starting to feel tired of RPG's with random or turn based battles or at least one of those you hit, they hit RPGs.

[superaielman]

MOMO in the ending: "Say hi to Albedo for me!"

That is almost her only line in the ending. XS3.

The XS writers were Albedo fanboys for some reason. Hell, the end of XS2, with Albedo being carried away by a heavenly procession of the little girls he brutally killed made me want to punch through the TV at least as much as anything in XS3.

Stop reminding me how the change of writer between XS1 & 2 totally destroyed everything.
What supposedly should have happened there is only one Krisshweser there to carry him away. What's her number... three hundred something I forgot. Anyway, she is the same one got absorbed by Simeon to boot up the Anima Relic. She supposedly has a long back story Albedo with whole bunch of love/hate going between them. The relationship eventually hit a dead end because Albedo don't know how to express his love and the when that Krisshweser has been insecure of herself ever since she got assigned to a suicidal mission by Sellers (in which she saved Albedo accidentally). The said Krisshweser eventually fled from Albedo and lived as a common 100th Type, but still return to him as she has no where to go. Then she decided to sacrifice herself to Simeon thinking that is the only meaningful thing left for her to do after listening to Virgil's vicious words.

Really, this could have been interesting and can give Albedo some character outside just being psychotic.

*Headdesk* Of course, Albedo having a love/hate relationship with a loli porn bot who only lives to serve Albedo isn't screwy in the least. *Sets fire to XS writers*

[Magic Fanatic]

So...  I decided that...  "Hey, I'm one fat bastard..."  So, I decided I needed to lose some weight.  My chosen method?

That's right, dancing myself into delirium.

DDRMAX2:  Yeah, this is all I have.  Did one song on heavy before I started losing it, then dropped myself down to light to rest and keep myself moving, and gradually built back up Heavy 6-Steps...

Passed the goal of 500 Kcals for my first day...

...Sandwich, 42!

[Taishyr]

CTDS: ...Nu Master for Heavy/Godlike border. 16 speed, init turn, has ID/HP halving/HP-1/3HKO lightning magic/4HKO MT or ST physical/6HKO parasitic healing counters, about 1.2x PCHP by my standards (maybe less), starts off absorbing Dark, at half HP absorbs everything but light and physicals. Sheesh! Also has another form that's got about 12 speed and no init turn, plus only 0.9x PCHP, but can counter with high 4HKO damamge of any element, has the usual HP->1+poke combo and also has MT sleep/stop counters. Amusing.

Otherwise, the new dungeon's been interesting in concept but has failed to impress via execution: it's pretty much been "See Magus Solo" all the way up to Nu Master.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

MOMO in the ending: "Say hi to Albedo for me!"

That is almost her only line in the ending. XS3.

The XS writers were Albedo fanboys for some reason. Hell, the end of XS2, with Albedo being carried away by a heavenly procession of the little girls he brutally killed made me want to punch through the TV at least as much as anything in XS3.

Stop reminding me how the change of writer between XS1 & 2 totally destroyed everything.
What supposedly should have happened there is only one Krisshweser there to carry him away. What's her number... three hundred something I forgot. Anyway, she is the same one got absorbed by Simeon to boot up the Anima Relic. She supposedly has a long back story Albedo with whole bunch of love/hate going between them. The relationship eventually hit a dead end because Albedo don't know how to express his love and the when that Krisshweser has been insecure of herself ever since she got assigned to a suicidal mission by Sellers (in which she saved Albedo accidentally). The said Krisshweser eventually fled from Albedo and lived as a common 100th Type, but still return to him as she has no where to go. Then she decided to sacrifice herself to Simeon thinking that is the only meaningful thing left for her to do after listening to Virgil's vicious words.

Really, this could have been interesting and can give Albedo some character outside just being psychotic.

*Headdesk* Of course, Albedo having a love/hate relationship with a loli porn bot who only lives to serve Albedo isn't screwy in the least. *Sets fire to XS writers*

And somehow, XS2 is still the best game in the series.

[NotMiki]

DDRMAX2

Yay!  Good luck with that.  If you're ever looking to buy more DDR, I highly recommend Supernova (and recommend you stay away from DDR:X like the plague).

[DomaDragoon]

Dissidia: Now 42 hours in. Cecil and Squall are 100, and I'm now bringing up WoL.

[Pyro]

Beat Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road. That was a *fun* game. Short, but that helped in this case since it ended at just the right time (as I was becoming tired of the system). The constant barrage of abilities and the nature of the system, combined with some competent enemies makes for a lot of tactical decisions about how to use resources and fight in general.

Holly was the wake-up call boss of the endgame. Sleep is such a nastier status than anything the other bosses have, and they all tend to be clones of eachother outside of that. Protea had some good physical damage but nothing that couldn't be handled. Oz was durable and took a while but in no way was I ever threatened. Dorothy is just nuts like that.

The plot was pure fluff and barely existed, which was okay by me. Dorothy goes to new world, Dorothy makes friends, Dorothy wonders whether she really wants to go home, problems get resolved by smiting things. Also the "friendship begins with a beatdown" trope being in full force makes me laugh.

But yeah. Fun game for a DS system. Even the sylus controls wound up really working out for me. Surprised at how much I enjoyed it.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Dammit, I wanted philosophical Strawman/Tinman debates... ;_;

*shakes fist*

[Pyro]

Dorothy: MVP? MVP. Acting 4 times means she can hide behind the defend command, making her the most durable character of the lot. Sneak in a heal as needed and utilize the remaining two actions however you want, and only status really even fazes her (exception, a few bosses with massive, massive physical damage). Being the most reliable full healer was definitely a plus, as I relied on healing a lot and using items would have been expensive/left me less for bosses. I didn't get much use out of her sleep spell because in general I preferred to waste less time and just kill my enemies. Her utility spells are awesome overall, although I never even touched Mirror Skin. Power Boost was mana from heaven lategame when she could buff, say, Tin Man and unleash holy hell. She herself was pretty good at damage with Power Boost too, able to turtle up and deal significant damage at the same time. In general just the PC you can fall back on.

Strawman: He is like Dorothy- . Probably the best thing about him was providing lots of items via Plunder which could be sold or used. His speed I found less useful than others because I generally let things go first and then mititgated whatever they did on the turns I got. His last skill can put out some great damage but is not reliable enough to make him a good choice for that, I felt. Besides that, the accuracy debuff was extremely useful on a collection of physical enemies, that is for sure. I hardly touched his dispel but for a few times, however it was very useful those times. Power Boosted enemies are bad. But yeah, if something happened to Dorothy, I could usually rely on Tin Man to hog some actions and correct things.

Lion: LVP? If determined strictly by the time I used him, then yeah. Taking two actions wasn't HORRIBLE but it prevented him from playing utility like Dorothy and Strawman could. He also didn't carry his weight offensively. Still, he proved useful in a couple cases, and at worst he could be relied on to heal/revive someone in boss fights by hogging actions. Funny enough he ended up with the most exp because I used him least. Odd, that.

Tin Man had one objective: Hurt things. Whether it was just taking out a group via an MT attack or laying the smackdown on bosses after being buffed, he was the man who got that job done. Unfortunately, he left you only one spot for utility and he can't benefit from defend and neither can Dorothy or Strawman when acting with him. And he acts last when not under Strawman's First Wind, so you HAVE to tank what they throw at you. Still, his damage was solid enough and he was good at smashing large groups of randoms. Then lategame comes around and he is one half of the Power Boost Battle Wind combo that makes things go splat.

[Clear Tranquil]

RPG!mon Dorothy's hilarious and nuts despite being reduced to GODLY flailing in a Godlike field thanks to Chris Silent Laking said terrain (I haven't played S2/3 but oh I felt the pain from Chris and Jowy - even though it wasn't Dor Jowy was actually attacking >.>) Hatbot kept decreeing that Jowy should keep feeling my desperate struggles and between those and Chris Jowy couldn't stand up to the combined effort of two sisters pitted against him ... then uh they had a family fued ^_~ It was only a matter of time for Dorothy from there.

Seriously though she once got SIX actions in a row. Nuts!~

Edit: Oh yeah I was kind of sad pandas that Dor went last in round one, I wanted to play with that skill set. I never even had power boosted physicals ;_; Guess I respected her speed too much! Should have stuck with Pamela despite no speeds but meh~

[Cotigo]

FFDS:  Wow the Lunar Subterrane is a huge jump in quality of enemies.  On the one hand, it's nice--every dungeon up until this point (aside from The Lair of the Father which has the same enemy set) I left the game on auto battle and ignored it.  This is the first time I've felt being so powerful was necessary.  On the other hand?  It's still tedious ATB, and the enemies keep getting harder.  And, while there ARE save points, they're very few and far in between, especially given that enemies can feasibly KO you.  Meh.  May be fun, may suck.  I'll try again tomorrow.

[Meeplelard]

Blue Dragon: So I finally decided to play this when the TV where the 360 was wasn't occupied (Fuck you Jeff for wanting to watch TWO movies YOU ALREADY SAW exactly when I wanted to play)...

Anyway, just saved Lago Village.

Devee Dance...why <_<?

[Pyro]

Devee Dance of.... SUICIDE!

I wish.

[Niu]

MOMO in the ending: "Say hi to Albedo for me!"

That is almost her only line in the ending. XS3.

The XS writers were Albedo fanboys for some reason. Hell, the end of XS2, with Albedo being carried away by a heavenly procession of the little girls he brutally killed made me want to punch through the TV at least as much as anything in XS3.

Stop reminding me how the change of writer between XS1 & 2 totally destroyed everything.
What supposedly should have happened there is only one Krisshweser there to carry him away. What's her number... three hundred something I forgot. Anyway, she is the same one got absorbed by Simeon to boot up the Anima Relic. She supposedly has a long back story Albedo with whole bunch of love/hate going between them. The relationship eventually hit a dead end because Albedo don't know how to express his love and the when that Krisshweser has been insecure of herself ever since she got assigned to a suicidal mission by Sellers (in which she saved Albedo accidentally). The said Krisshweser eventually fled from Albedo and lived as a common 100th Type, but still return to him as she has no where to go. Then she decided to sacrifice herself to Simeon thinking that is the only meaningful thing left for her to do after listening to Virgil's vicious words.

Really, this could have been interesting and can give Albedo some character outside just being psychotic.

*Headdesk* Of course, Albedo having a love/hate relationship with a loli porn bot who only lives to serve Albedo isn't screwy in the least. *Sets fire to XS writers*

It really isn't though. I would say it is the most human and sensible part of the story the series offered, if it didn't got deleted. The amount of the sanity in this plot arc is awe inspiring.

[Grefter]

Painkiller: Ressurection - Uh wow.  This is total arse.  You know what didn't make Painkiller awesome?  Enemies that just plain pop into existence in front of you.  Convoluted pathways than you have to jump around to get over stupid terrain and kill zones.  First level.  There is a long tunnel that curves up and down all over the place with debris in the way.  I got Demon Form in the middle of it, so bounce along the tunnel with vision obscured (it is a dark tunnel + Demon mode = black screen), I get out of the tunnel and fell into... something that I never even did see because my vision was so obscured and just instantly died.  Yeahhhhhh, fuck you game.  Quit, not doing that again, I will stick with classic Painkiller. 

Sure enemies spawned in front of you originally, but it wasn't from previously empty rooms, you walked INTO a room full of guys and then as you killed guys more spawned with some kind of graphic to let you know that they spawned, not just pop into existence with no fanfare, HERE IS AN IMP RIP OFF FIGHT.  And yeah enemies that shoot fireballs and charge into melee?  Yeah no Doom knock off right there.  Snooze worthy effort.

[Shale]

And this is why I waited on Resurrection until reviews came out. No desire to pay good money for another Overdose, thanks.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

AA - Beaten. Man, this game is like five minutes long.

[Excal]

Wild ARMs 5.  Just got Dean his Tonfa Guns, which, while they may have been kinda cool, sadly come not just after losing what would have been a unique weapon for a main character, but also after showing off Dean's Implausable Shovel Mastery.  I mean...  110% of the stuff he did there was physically impossible, and it would have been awesome to see how he would continue to rape the laws of both physics and common sense as the game progressed.

Also, his love of the giant mecha is such as to make Ryusei seem a sane and balanced individual, at the start of OG1.  This is impressive.


Planescape: Torment.  Argh, bugs!  Chose the dead nations path, except that the script glitched, so after I had completed all of the quests, I couldn't actually get the dialogue option to finish this section.  Not having a convenient save point, and not having anywhere to rest so I could pull out Knock or Friends and use a different way out.  So I decide to bust some heads, and die against Acaste which reincarnates me outside of the place.  Sweet!  Decide to visit the rats, but playing lawful good means they piss me off, so I bust their heads in after intimidating them.  Sadly, the guy with the Key seems to have scampered, so I have to head back to the dead nations.  This time the guy with the key is in a very convenient location, and I'm loaded up with Elesian Tears.  What's that Mr. Skeleton?  You don't like getting hammered with Blunt/Fire damage?  Easy fight ensues.  Amusingly, despite carrying around the head of their leader, the ghoul squad below is friendy towards me, and the Drowned Nations is easily accomplished.

Currently puttering around the Lower Ward, though my attempt to head back to the Hive where I left my collection of nifty skulls confused the game (for some reason it decided I was headed somewhere completely different and then crashed) and I haven't played since.  That said, once this is done, it's time to take Morte and scoure that place for all the Exp it's worth.

[Unoriginal]

Bumped into my old PC game collection a while back, decided to give a few of them another whirl.  And man, I completely forgot about how unforgiving Majesty can get on some stages.

[Grefter]

And this is why I waited on Resurrection until reviews came out. No desire to pay good money for another Overdose, thanks.

This is reviewing worse and I can fucking see why.  How the fuck do you screw up a big cube with 50 zombies spawning in it?  It isn't fucking hard.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Started a new game of GalCiv2. And you know what? Domination victory. The Grand Duchy of Furillo is going to kick everyone's ass and everyone's going to be taking orders from Kelestra City. Started out kind of in the middle, which means that eventually I'm going to end up fighting in all directions at once.

Just got Large hulls. Kind of a bummer only being able to put two in a fleet right now, but such is life.

[Fudozukushi]

Suikoden T that's not tactics: All these unwinnable fights are a goddamn annoying bore.  I did 7k damage god dammit at least put the fucker on his knees.  And the encounter rate is still too fucking high.

[Yoshiken]

SH2: Playing again since my first file was rushed through with minimal sidequests. I still laugh at it saying all of the places are fictional at the start.

[Cotigo]

FF4:  Up to the savepoint before Dark Bahamut.  The game didn't so much get hard as it started forcing me to use spells I'd never bothered with, like Berserk and Stop.  Omnicast Stop took care of everything up to this point, and I expect that Berserk will at least be helpful against those bitch ass MT OHKOing dragons.  (OHKOing everyone except Cecil and Edge, who have HP+50%.)  I still feel conflicted about the dungeon.  On the one hand, the game's making me pay attention to it and making me use all the super powerful augments I have.

On the other hand, if I were playing a legitimate playthrough instead of my roommate's NG+, I would be less interested in the game.  I'm having a fairly easy time running through it, but I also have duplicates of all the useful augments.  2 attackers with Darkness/Focus, the mages with FastTalker/Omnicast/MP+50%, would both have Doublecast if my roommate had gotten that on his first file... Hell, the bosses still tear me apart without proper planning.  I'd hate to try and do this on the first playthrough.  Did they just stop balancing the game by this point, or did they intend for it to still be difficult on multiple playthroughs?  There's a fine line and I'm not sure if the game's crossed it.  I may have to play this legitimately just to see.  On the other hand... eh.