Games you're playing: The 2009 edition.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I mostly blame Square for living in a magical fantasy land where people will buy multiple copies of the same game. Conventional wisdom dictates that you do not budget a game for more than (amount of money you make per game sold) x (number of consoles that have been sold). Porting to the 360, with its similar hardware specs, was the only reasonable way they could recoup their losses.

[Captain K.]

Clearly Square has been studying the marketing strategies for Pac-Man for the Atari 2600.

[Sierra]

Touhou Odyssey: PLOT DRAMA ensues. Mannosuke uses the power of SCIENCE. Yukari has huge BOOBS. Yeah. Anyway, floor 15&16 enemies are irritating as hell and I've been running a lot. Bad idea, I know. There are three bosses I can fight right now and all are a bit beyond my levels: next plot boss on 16 (tried once on a whim, made it up to the form changeish part; dealing damage is easy, staying alive isn't), recruitable character on 12 (easily manageable on my first attempt until the limit phase, which looks nasty), annoying mook boss blocking optional areas on 15 (this fucker practically immunes physicals and can kill all of my mages with one MT attack. Hate).

[Scar]

FFX-2 - Noticed that this was still in its plastic so I took it out and paid the price. I can't skip any of these cut scenes!? Game went back on my shelf. GIRL POWA!

Endless Frontier - System Hyper Mode! Removing clothing and Limit Barriers GO! I am now on some super cat tank vehicle or something. I met up with a King of some town I have been to, but he didn't want to cooperater with us so he proceeded to slap around my back up fighters which I had in the front lines to gain them some levels. Good times!

[Clear Tranquil]

Yeah as long as the battle system works I'm set, a decent story's a nice bonus. Read info about series staples appearing as fights in the game too so I'm hyped. More important than no towns and save point shops or w/e I'm wondering how the characters' battle AI is~

Whew we've been covering a lot of games at the mini meet. I completed FF1 GBA version on the DS and have started DQIV. Super moped me into it >.> Games that people have been showing off include Dead Rising, Godhand, Grim Grimiore, Demon Souls, an Omninushi game, Tales of Vesperia PS3 to see Putty (yay controllable Repede!, Shadow of the Colossus and moar Dead Rising.

We also played SO3 vs for happy CTs! Xer was kind enough to take me on and I really appreciate the effort he made. I kicked Mirage's ass with counter chaos and short O spam. I didn't use battle skills in that battle because I was trying to get a hold of the controls on the NTSC version, it was a bit confusing at first. Next I picked Albel since Xer picked Nel, opponents from the warring kingdoms oh yeah. I also picked Albel for realsies and as expected he typically failed. Nel's Divine Wrath is brutal, I've experienced that from Nel's boss form in the game so I knew what to expect. Unfortunately I couldn't figure out how to dodge it in vs and so Nel had fun mocking Albel. Divine Wrath is fast and homing and unless there's a wall or something to block it's progress it's likely you're screwed. As Albel was, Xer finally put him out of his misery. Fayt vs Adray was next, I wasn't able to dodge Adray's Fire Bolts and forgot Titan Fist's massive homing abilities but eventually managed to get long O, short XXX juggle combos in until Adray dropped. Next up was a really close match with Peppita vs Sophia. Xer somehow managed to unleash Efreet spam for massive pain. I should have been more careful really, it's not a good idea to get too close to Sophia in vs mode and I should have paid more attention to the fact that Xer might have picked the one with Efreet, as he did. However I survived and managed to run Xer close to the ground with counter chaos and short O while Xer was mucking around with Sophia's physicals. I even somehow managed to dodge a couple more Efreets while spamming shorts Os. We were farting around like this for a bit but eventually Efreet managed to land the final blows and brought Xer the win. Xer had remarked that he didn't hate himself enough to use Roger before picking Sophia but everyone agreed Roger's ass had to be kicked. I picked the little guy and told Xer he had to pick someone to kick Roger's ass with so he went with one of the best characters in the game. Maria of course. We've forgotten what happened in that match, the less that's said the better. Coming to the end now Peppita vs another fighter, counter chaos, etc and then I figured I'd finally show off something other than physicals and counters with Peppita so while Xer was chaosed I unleashed the wrath of a giant furry fluffy ogre teddy thing. Friend of the faeries, Faerie Friend! Xer's character never managed to move out of the range of the move so yeah overkill.

Finally the awesmeness that is Meeple suggested we do 1P vs 2P vs CPU so we went for a tag team beat up with Peppita and Mirage vs Roger. I warned Xer to stay out of the way of Faerie Friend's AoE MT before I unleashed my fury but oops >.> Peppita severely wounded Mirage's HP/MP while the Faerie Friends were going off and completely owned Roger who's MP exploded. MP kill ftw! Poor Mirage never really stood much of a chance after that. Counters, chaos, Faerie Friend overkill. Game.

It was just Peppita, Nel and Sophia's day I think. I think Xer likes using Mirage though =)

Again Xer is an awesme, awesme guy for putting up with the crazy happy warrior CTs! =)

Edit: Oh yeah the guys were playing Eternal Poison while I was typing this and now it's even moar Dead Rising, I'mma go watch.

[superaielman]

Tales of Vesperia PS3 to see Putty (yay controllable Repede!

What CT means here is that you can make Repede your on-screen avatar. Because NOT being able to do that in the 360 version was an inexcusable travesty.

[Shale]

Torchlight is half off on Steam, so I finally cracked and bought it. Man, it is shameless about being Diablo 1.5, but it's fun. I'm playing an Alchemist, and as of dungeon level 13 the game is broken wide open with the combination of a spell that's basically a death laser and a wand that deals free OHKO ranged magic damage as its basic physical and heals my HP and MP with every hit. Oh, and it also gives my main crowd control spell a 25% power boost. Yeah, that's balanced.

[OblivionKnight]

Niu, question I have been meaning to ask:

Can you explain how they would have made Yukiko the Killer instead of Tohru in Persona 4?  What would the style have been, how would it have gone, etc.?  Any full, detailed notes you could provide?

[Shale]

That's a P4 spoiler, incidentally,

[Yakumo]

Man, you should know better than to ask Niu that in here, he'll answer without regard to spoilers.  Take it to PM or something.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Should brush up on your Albel. His Simple style is brutal.

[Sierra]

Touhou Odyssey: The floor 16 boss is a whore. I beat her the first time I made a serious attempt sufficiently prepared, but yeesh. Anyway, done with most everything before floor 17 except Flandre, whose raw power is appropriately scary (though not so much as her dialogue), and FOE: The Return of the Return. Seems like I'm not quite up to killing either, so onwards.

Of course, again I ascend to another floor and again I struggle to even break enemy defenses before my party gets massacred. Bah. Looks like another grinding binge is in order. I have to be doing something wrong with skill point allocation, because the resources that I got simply from normal exploration were perfectly sufficient to deal with anything the game threw at me up until floor 15. I'd guess trying to keep every single PC updated has instead resulted in everyone being sub-par. Either that or, 75% of the way through the main game, some programmer went "Hey guys, you know what this game needs? LEVEL GRINDING." Which would be disappointing since it was very well balanced to obviate that until recently.

By this point, Suwako/Yuugi/Suika are my main damage dealers for bosses (throw in Patchy if the boss lacks MT physicals). Ran is pretty much always in the party now; excellent random-slayer, good overall stats, and buffs that are awesome just for hitting everyone (even reserve PCs), which more than makes up for the boost being comparatively small.

[Grefter]

Torchlight is half off on Steam, so I finally cracked and bought it. Man, it is shameless about being Diablo 1.5, but it's fun. I'm playing an Alchemist, and as of dungeon level 13 the game is broken wide open with the combination of a spell that's basically a death laser and a wand that deals free OHKO ranged magic damage as its basic physical and heals my HP and MP with every hit. Oh, and it also gives my main crowd control spell a 25% power boost. Yeah, that's balanced.

It really really is and this is fantastic.  They even got the same composer on as Diablo 1, absolutely blatant about it and it is great.

[Taishyr]

Touhou Odyssey: Floor 14, exploring, trying not to run into Yuyuko's lethal embrace.

Current opinions:
Rank 1: China, Patchy, Chen, Marisa, Ran
Rank 2: Reimu, Komachi, Alice, Yuugi, Eirin
Rank 3: Youmu, Aya, Tenshi, Nitori, Sanae, Suwako
Rank 4: Sakuya, Iku, Remilia, Rumia, Reisen
Rank THE STRONGEST: Wriggle, Minoriko, Cirno

Chen's too twinkable to not give a 1 berth, to me. Marisa is just excellent at doing damage-swap, and is a better clearer of randoms than anyone else but Ran who she pairs up well with thanks to buffs and Ran having her own excellent MT damage.

Eirin has healing and is a tank mage. Shiny! Damage could be better, but it's not bad.

Tenshi is a tank that relies on defenses. Occasionally very useful! Occasionally shit if the enemy doesn't notice defenses. Nitori is highly reliant on pumping up her Attack stat but is solid damage if you do (though she runs into elemental resists -hard- on her MT.) Sanae is a better Minoriko. Suwako has excellent ST paralyze and damage, and MT stat downs and damage. Useful.

Remilia and Rumia just can't keep up, though neither will drop to a STRONGEST ranking - Remilia has tankiness and competent speed, Rumia's ST damage is still solid. Both are kinda Jeiganish to me, but both are also awesome while they're being Jeigans and neither actually really steals EXP so eh. Reisen... ah, geez. Haven't used her much (THE STATS SUCK) but she's got good skills (THE STATS REALLY SUCK), especially Discarder (OFF SUCK STATS).

Minoriko and Cirno join Wriggle mainly due to becoming obsolete - Minoriko by Sanae, Cirno by Komachi/Suwako. So.

[TranceHime]

The Touhou Odyssey:

Not going to discuss Plus Disk characters because of spoilers, you can poke me on IRC if you want to know about them.

Anyway, my personal insights on the game as a whole since I'm practically done with it (I'm not COMPLETE with it yet, I have to beat the other 30F boss and the True Big Bad)...

This game is a literal Disgaea past Floor... 25-ish? Random durability skyrockets, stat thresholds also skyrocket - I learned that level limit is the same as the 16bit integer limit, 65535. Someone I know cheated a level 3000~ish Marisa and ended up with well over 1.3m Magic, this is actually fairly scary. Tallychu mentioned in chat that stat growth is quadratic, which means this game IS CLEARLY NOT BALANCED and the programmers were on crack when they made it. Also I'm taking bets on how many times I kill the True Big Bad before I get bored of the game. Here's my opinions of some interesting Main Game characters:

Rinnosuke: This character is quite unique, decent ATK but somehow makes a far better twinked tank than even Tenshi, not to mention they have a panic button which pretty much nukes the TP in exchange for an insane buff. I ended up having to resort to this character later on when I found I didn't have enough bulky members on my team. Unfortunately, this person has the highest EXP requirement of ALL 40 characters in the entire game, which makes levelling the damn guy quite a hassle. The rewards are well worth it, though.

Okuu: Superior cat to Chen. Trades twinking capability and some speed with overall superior stats, a better skillset, and most importantly BETTER DURABILITY. Catwalk destroys random trash mobs silly, so she's up there with Ran and Marisa in terms of smashing up randoms. Man-eating Spirit has the benefit of doing dual damage, too, sadly it's SP eating, but it's nothing that SP twinking cannot solve. Overall a very solid character to use when you get her.

Suika: Smashes people to bits with physicals, but has worse physical durability than magic durability, as opposed to Yuugi who has amazing physical durability but gets destroyed by magic. I'm actually inclined towards Suika for the better oni, due to a little more balance. Not only is she faster, but has better growths in SP and Magic/Magical Defense. Also has a skill that restores status and buffs a fellow ally. Yeaaaah.

Mokou: Magical glass cannon what? Not as bad as Marisa, but still. She has some MASSIVE twink potential, and Woo has one of the scariest base mults for its cost I have ever seen (350%) not to mention it is a row based attack. Fujiyama Volcano is solid MT, unfortunately costing 118 MP. While it's nice that Woo is non-elemental, it can only go so far - Wind or Fire resistant enemies will laugh at her other solid magicks.

Kaguya: HILARIOUSLY bad HP growth, that I'm not even sure can be salvaged by twinkery (61 / ~7). Better nuker than Mokou, but far worse physical durability (higher MDef for what it's worth). Also has one of the most expensive ST buffs in the game, costing 132 MP. I actually have to credit Kaguya though for actually having a decent SP growth to support her insane costs...

Flandre: The epitome of physical glass cannon. 113 / 22 Physical Attack rating, also fire does not touch her. Even if it's magical, most of it is shaved off by her superior 342 Fire Resist. >_> Starbow Break is a solid 66 MP costing ST attack with a very scary mult given her stats, not to mention she is quite fast... I guess she's pretty one-dimensional? Actually, even Flandre's Magic attack rating isn't half-bad at 72 / 14... And this is great, considering Laevateinn and Forbidden Fruits run off BOTH her stats... Yeah. <3 She even has HP growth tied with Suika / Yuugi / others to offset her horrid defenses!

Reisen: Gonna have to agree with Tai on extremely MEH stats, but she DOES have a self-buff that boosts her stats by 40% (Medicine of Peerless Kingdoms). Not to mention her skills are scarily good for their MP cost (MT POIZN and 200% Mult off 48 MP? SIGN ME UP). Lunatic Red Eyes I suppose can rape randoms pretty easily if you MAG twink her and give her good MAG gear! I dunno. Still pretty interesting.

Nitori: Easily WORSE stats than Reisen in nearly every way possible (except Phys, which is STILL worse than Reisen's dependent offensive stat). Optical Camouflage is a very neat gimmick though. Would work much better if evade actually worked! But it doesn't so whatever. I used her to kill certain mobs down in certain annoying floors.

Suwawawako: Would actually be nice to have around if her durability were less horrendously mediocre. :[

[Shale]

It really really is and this is fantastic.  They even got the same composer on as Diablo 1, absolutely blatant about it and it is great.

Oh, that is Matt Uelmen? Good, my first reaction to hearing the town theme was that he should sue somebody.

[Taishyr]

If stat growth accelerates fast enough the self-buff on Reisen would be enough to save her later on, yeah. Right now? No.

[Meeplelard]

VPDS: Beat the Seraphic Gate.  Final Team was...you know what, does it matter?  I was shifting every time I got someone new; only person who was consistent the entire way was Fauxnel cause "hey, Mage, something you should ALWAYS USE and all that matters with them is their battle quotes!" much like in VP1 (which is why I'd always use Mystina over other Mages, at least until he SG where Lezard popped up.)

Ethereal Queen was a lame.  Not cause of the fight itself (Generic VPDS boss), but cause for some unexcusable reason, SHE DID NOT HAVE INCARNATION OF THE DEVIL.  Ok, yes, that song did play for Gabriel initially of the two, but then SO3 gave her that cause Mighty Blow sucks, and Garbriel gained some SO3 theme instead.  VP2 and RS followed properly by giving her Incarnation, and it looks like SO4 did too...but VPDS just gives her...not that song? ARGH!

Anyway, doubt I'll be touching the game again.  Easily the worst in the series, by a long shot.  I had a good deal of enjoyment from VP1 and VP2, but VPDS?  Only the SG really was fun, and that was entirely from a writing standpoint (also proved that Fauxnel is awesome; his scene with Freya was pure gold), as the gameplay, while improved (Maps don't take forever and a day!), was still bland.

Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden: Hoopz Saga Part 1: PLayed and completed in 2 sittings, would have been one but combination of lunch and a glitch causing the game to freeze made me unable to do so, but I still beat it in a day!

The game is...what you'd expect.  Lets leave it at that <.<

[Niu]

To those who fear OK's question would trigger massive spoiler response from me, you can now feel safe.

Because my answer is going to be "I don't know".
Developmental material on P4 is pretty limited.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Barkley: Shut Up and Jam Gaiden: Hoopz Saga Part 1: PLayed and completed in 2 sittings, would have been one but combination of lunch and a glitch causing the game to freeze made me unable to do so, but I still beat it in a day!

The game is...what you'd expect.  Lets leave it at that <.<

So, the best game ever?

[Sierra]

The Touhou Odyssey:

Not going to discuss Plus Disk characters because of spoilers, you can poke me on IRC if you want to know about them.

I did, but I think you didn't notice. Toss it in spoiler-tagged post for me?

Anyway, grinding for floor boss 18 now. Painful-looking fight, but it at least has good music.

[AndrewRogue]

WoW- Whee, grindan my badges. Jon might be raiding geared sometime in the near future. Phen, on the other hand, continues to be a secondary project for the time being. I really feel like I ought to swap her over to enhancement for levelling, but considering I want to go Resto anyway, going Elemental is simpler on the whole it seems. Need to get her the heirloom items, too.

Team Fortress 2- 'm so bad.

BlazBlue- Kicked around some with a friend yesterday. Forgot how to play, pretty much. >_>

Dragon Age- Saved some werewolves.

Left 4 Dead 2- 'm so bad.

Silent Hill: Shattered Memories- Beat again with a friend this time. A lot of his stuff was different, but ended up gravitating back to the same ending, which was sad.

[Yoshiken]

Been playing FF3 while I'm away. It's better than I thought it was before, but still tedious. -.- Each dungeon has mostly useless enemies, except there'll be one enemy group that owns you. I'm in the, uhh, Temple of Time, and owning everything... except the Chimera Mages. Those things have MT 2HKOs and are owning me, which wouldn't be so bad if the dungeons had save points. :/ Aaand that there is my main problem with FF3. Ugh.

I'll try to finish it before Christmas anyways, since I'm meant to be getting new games then - DQ5, CTDS and Layton. Yaaaaay~

[DjinnAndTonic]

Finished up Tales of Vesperia. Yep. That last third is just kind of a waste. Still great fun, but not nearly as engaging as the beginning. I went the lame route and just Overlimit-Tidal-Wave-spammed the final bosses. I'm working on doing the arena, so I've got to practice my Judy acrobatics! I've almost perfected her infinite! ^_^

Eternal POIZN! - Uh oh, I think they slipped and left the original title in the dialogue at one point! Unless Poison Pink and the Eternal Poison are somehow different? I can't be sure at this point because everything's pretty vague. Despite my having little clue of what's going on, the characters continue to be engaging and charismatic. It's quite enjoyable. Overkilling things is getting to be difficult in the third stratum, so I may have to make a second run to capture any Majin I missed (sadface).

I had to trade in my Teddy Bear brigade for effective fighters. How disappointing. I'm hoping on my second run, we'll be able to do an all-Teddy Bear + Thage challenge!

I'm not sure I ever intend to actually play the other characters' chapters. Thage is too engaging.

DQ4: Welcome to Zenithia! Finally.

[Meeplelard]

Been playing FF3 while I'm away. It's better than I thought it was before, but still tedious. -.- Each dungeon has mostly useless enemies, except there'll be one enemy group that owns you. I'm in the, uhh, Temple of Time, and owning everything... except the Chimera Mages. Those things have MT 2HKOs and are owning me, which wouldn't be so bad if the dungeons had save points. :/ Aaand that there is my main problem with FF3. Ugh.

I'll try to finish it before Christmas anyways, since I'm meant to be getting new games then - DQ5, CTDS and Layton. Yaaaaay~

If you did the Undersea Cave first, you'd have diamond equips which resist Lightning; that should lower the damage from 2HKO and make things far more barable.