Let's Play Some Motherf*$&ing Games: 2010!!!!!!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Superior in all stats on level 1. Sadly he doesn't seem to get stats from leveling. Except HP.

This is exactly how Ramus worked in Silver Star Story Complete.

[Bardiche]

My copy must've been different then, I recall him gaining stats until the Meribia sewers at the latest, before he leaves your team. And he never stood out as a good character, but in the PSP remake his hits are more damaging than Alex's.

[Grefter]

The location where you beat a mission should have nearby the next numbered mission. This is true for like the first 30, the next 8 are in the same area (The circle of stones) and the next 16 are again all together in a small area. There is actually only about 5 stones which they give no clue to.

http://twobrothersandasister.com/wp-content/images/2010/march/ffxiii/guides/maps/11gp.jpg

Just to make this clear to people, I am talking about the stuff around Mission 10ish here.

Mission 12 ends about where you see Mission 52 is, Mission 13 ends up close to mission 17.  Things like that.  They are about a minute or two walk from where you just killed the boss and they are definitely not within your field of view when you beat the last boss.  You can see them on the map (maybe).  Oh and the game differentiates them from completed missions by making bright blue icons flash white periodically.

All of this without telling you that this is how it works.

[Meeplelard]

My copy must've been different then, I recall him gaining stats until the Meribia sewers at the latest, before he leaves your team. And he never stood out as a good character, but in the PSP remake his hits are more damaging than Alex's.

Were you playing Lunar Legends?  Cause in that game, Ramus gains actual stats upon level up, just less than what the other PCs get.

[Bardiche]

My copy must've been different then, I recall him gaining stats until the Meribia sewers at the latest, before he leaves your team. And he never stood out as a good character, but in the PSP remake his hits are more damaging than Alex's.

Were you playing Lunar Legends?  Cause in that game, Ramus gains actual stats upon level up, just less than what the other PCs get.

I played the GBA version only briefly. ...

Wait, Ramus stops gaining HP past a certain level, doesn't he?

[Dark Holy Elf]

I believe that's correct, although for me at least that level came after Ramus left. It's unlikely to impact him significantly unless you powerlevel early.

[superaielman]

Ramus caps out at 85 HP.

[Bardiche]

... I cede that I may just have remembered him gaining HP every time and mixed memories with the GBA version, if he gained stats there.

I... don't remember Ramus being distinctly better than Alex in the stats department but I'll take your word for it.

Right now, Alex does ~30 damage to Slimes, Luna does ~25 and Ramus does ~33. Ramus is my top physical attacker, which is why I thought he was superior to the PS remake.

[Grefter]

FF13 - So technically finished with Chapter 11.  Going to put off decding whether to jus finish this piece of shit or do some of the Skinner box grind quests for another day.  So this chapter is really long and full of all the sidequests.  It is also entirely fucking worthless plotwise.  So you got absconded and teleported down to Pulse ostensibly by the the Big Bad/Not Bad/Jesus Pope.  You walk around for a while and the character focussed plot development happens while you are on your way to Vanille and Fang's hometown.  All of this happens on the way to the village, so when you get to the village the character driven plot for the chapter is already resolved, so there is no point to even go to the village. So by nature of it being character driven this could have happened anywhere.  Then hey since you are all done with some (lame) plot Big Bad/Not Bad/Jesus Pope turns up and gives you a plane to fly back to Cocoon.

Which makes this entire part fucking stupid and pointless.  There is no reason to even go to Gran Pulse other than to have an excuse for sidequests (which don't even unlock plot and are "Go here, kill this dude" but give you good rewards!  GOGO GS SYSTEM FROM XS2 WITHOUT THE BENEFITS OF CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WITH NO VARIETY AT ALL) and my other complaints still stand, the map sucks and they are all about running around the map.

I have played games with roadkill that were more engaging than this.  The bosses can kill you sure, but mostly only if you are looking away and don't pick a defensive party before/after their big attack.  Snoooooooooooooooooooooooooze.  Oh and yeah bosses HP just got fucking huge, there is 2 in this chapter and they have health pools that are magnitudes bigger than the last.  Also both of them resist all elements ^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^__^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^__^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^_^

This game is so boring.

[Sierra]

DMC3: Rat reminded me that I had this, I figured what the hell. Started a new game since I didn't remember the controls at all, played up through Agni & Rudra. As far as I can tell, the winning strategy there is: mash triangle until you knock away one's sword -> mash triangle more until that one dies. I got worn down when I tried anything fancier.

[Meeplelard]

Actually, that strategy is likely to get you killed if you just do that.  A better strategy would be alternate between the two, such that when you kill one, the other is mostly dead.  This will avoid their evil little Solo Phase, where the two swords combine.  Alternatively, you could attack one til its near dead, then shift to the other...just don't let one be alive with too much health.

(Did it that way in case you don't want to be spoiled on how to approach the fight, dunno if you want hints or not)

The knock sword out of hand part, mind is actually a sound method, though might I recommend you try Helm Splitters (diving slash move with Rebellion)?  Seems to be better at repelling the sword, and I think it doesn't force you into those deflection locks like basic attacks do.

[Sierra]

I actually did beat the fight doing just what I described, but it was fairly close. Solo phase is indeed evil.

[Pyro]

FF13: About where Grefter is. While I can't really argue about the plot, I crushed the boss' 5 million HP in 1 stagger chain and a few nonstaggered hits. Goooooooo Imperil/Deprotect/Deshell. Combined with Curaja being good MT healing to prevent you from getting actually killed and the fight was much easier than the prior one (which spammed MT knockdown magic. Now THAT was a whore).

[Grefter]

It took me two good stagger phases to get it down (First one uh didn't count because I did in fact look away from the TV for a good 30 seconds since my brothers were talking and eating dinner while I was playing), probably could have done it in one and a bit if I had used Shrouds, I am pretty bad at remembering to use them.

Just to reiterate, doing it in one stagger or two, both are damned boring.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Finished FFXIII while I was hung over.

The ending seems like it would set up a sequel that might actually be interesting or something. Also people live thanks to deus ex machina. And of course the Cavalry survives because they are the one part of the government that is 100% uniformly not evil. I'm pretty sure like 99% of all people are now dead, but I just didn't care that much. I didn't really feel any affinity or affection with anywhere except the main field on Pulse so the fate of all those faceless people is totally immaterial to me.

As far as the final dungeon goes, holy shit it actually felt like a Dungeon instead of a hallway with a boss at the end.

The game still would have benefitted greatly from having Gran Pulse be the majority of the game and start up like five hours in, but Nomura is the dumbest man ever.

[Rozalia]

Na they all died. The soldiers in the ending are Psicom elites with some of edens Guardian corps, the cav guys aren't there.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Na they all died. The soldiers in the ending are Psicom elites with some of edens Guardian corps, the cav guys aren't there.

Good thing I don't really care about them either, then. I guess that's what an inability to invest the player in the characters or game world will do.

[Niu]

This game is so boring.

At last I find another person who think this way.
Flame this game more, Grefter, I beg you.

The game still would have benefitted greatly from having Gran Pulse be the majority of the game and start up like five hours in, but Nomura is the dumbest man ever.

This is an overstatement. The game is done by a man even worse, the very same person who did FFX-2, also the plot writer of Bahamut Lagoon. In other words, this game is done by the person who came up with idiocy that is Sendak and Matalite.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

How is that an overstatement, then? Seems to me you're only affirming that Nomura is the epitome of all things that are causing the wasting death of the jRPG genre.

[Niu]

How is that an overstatement, then? Seems to me you're only affirming that Nomura is the epitome of all things that are causing the wasting death of the jRPG genre.

My bad, I was trying to say understatement.

[Meeplelard]

I find it hard to call Matelite and Sendak "idiocy" in the way Niu is describing cause they were obviously made primarily for comic relief; Bahamut Lagoon was not a game that took itself seriously for the most part.

That said...

FF13: Just got to Orphan THrone Room thing of massive trippiness.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Clearly not. They stopped doing that right around the time someone pitched the idea, "Hey, so what if we made this game good?"

[Bardiche]

For those interested, an English patch for the SNES Slayers game has been released.

[Cotigo]

Uh, Rob, as much as I like to rag on JRPGs you realize Nomura only does the character designs, right?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Who directed that pile, then?