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

[Rozalia]

On to Dark Bahamut who oh holy shit what the fuck damn Impulse is freaking evil. Yuna dies in seconds, and I make the stupid, STUPID mistake of using Assault. Welp, there goes any chance I had. Dead. >_>

... ... ... ... ... !!?

WKC - I've got 38 S ranks now, 12 to go.

Plain trouble: That damn Captain Roberts needs help again but this time he is too injured to join in the fighting and thank god for that. The mission is saving his men by getting them medicine made of bee livers before they die. The boss fight is two dire waterspiders + some trashy minions which went far better then I expected as everyone knew what they were doing. I unleashed Senko-Jin to knock down one of the spiders and then the whole team unleashed massive beatdown to kill the first spider in under a miniute. Felt bad for the spider as I saw one of my team-mates smack the spider in the face with a Renzokuken.

Only Game in Town: Kill four goloms in 40 miniutes. I thought I wouldn't make this as I only had two people with me and it took us twenty minutes to take out two of the goloms. Thankfully we kicked into gear and defeated the other two with six minutes to spare.

[Magic Fanatic]

Disgaea DS -
Up to Point Alpha-III. The majority of my team has been faring pretty poorly recently so I have halted progression to grind a bit until everyone is at least level 30, which should be over fairly shortly.

Item World some stuff.  Even if only up to F10, you'll be a lot more able to destroy worlds.

Of course, grinding character levels works too.



Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky - Chapter 4.  After getting a Riolu the third time in a row in the character test, I decided to stick with it and got a Torchic to go with me.  So far, I've been having fun and been avoiding some of the Outlaw missions, as the ambush outlaw missions rape me seven ways to Sunday.


Trials of the Pokewalker - I found someone else at work who has a Pokewalker!  Item gaining will be a lot easier now, especially if I can get my other friend to lend me her Celebi for a bit.

[Cmdr_King]

XGPR- Finished.  Final clock (at save point) 25:47, beat Urobolus at 26:07, credits ended at 26:19.  Game's been beat faster, but given I made two notable mistakes in the overall run which in turn cost me an extra turn or two in several boss fights, and that I wasn't trying that hard, still impressive.  Although getting it under 25 by any notable margin would still take craziness.

Anyway, moving on.

Solaris- Before heading out, I buy enough Power Magics to deck out Elly (replacing her E Circuits) and WEltall.  All told went more smoothly than expected.  I opt to pick up Elly's Psychorod, but end up not using it; elly's offense is irrelevant except to kill Edef Down security cubes, and for the most part I only fight enemies because I realize Citan is very close to Festive Wind and want some power for the upcoming bosses.  I ignore every sidepath here (obviously with liberal FAQing) EXCEPT I nab the Speed Ring S.  This helps in both remaining ground bosses.  I swap Elly for Emeralda, and equip her and Citan both up to 14 speed.  Miang gets off an ID spell (the first time I've ever seen her use it.  Seriously.) as I take out Grahf first, reasoning that my armor blows.  Aside from that one death, which ate my last Zetasol, no sweat.

Vendetta- Fei gets 3x Power Magics.  Due to my underlevelledness, I only have his Triangle infinity attack, plus he does something over 8000 damage with Flaming Hell anyway.  Ramsus are pain.

FT. HURRICANE, INVINCIBLE MOBILE WEAPON- X, Ygg Cannon, T.

Sufal- Fei/Citan/Maria.  For whatever reason, Graviton Gun doesn't hurt the support here much, although Robo Kick gets them.  It does a number on the boss, though, and between her and Citan the fight takes, oh, a minute.

Anima 1-  It turns out, anima dungeons are short when FAQing liberally.  Fei/Elly/Maria.  Maria makes use of the Speed Ring S, and thus gets a turn before every Element but Seraphita, who luckily EP-nukes Elly and thus they all eat Graviton OHKO.  G-Elements doesn't fare much better, what with the 8-9k damage off elly and Fei, and another 5k off Seibzehn.  So, two turns.  This is Elly's last stand; while she's available in the next dungeon, she leaves after the boss fight with no chance to deequip her.  I needs my Ether Doubler.

Anima 2- SECOND ETHER DOUBLER.  Fei/Billy/Maria.  It turns out that Rico's Omnigear change triggers the character swap bug, which causes accessories to... not... work quite right, and fail to add their bonuses.  All my ether amp gear is disabled, and I probably could ahve saved a few seconds fleeing the fight, but I was pissed and wanted him dead.  Annoying.

Mahanon-  Deus cooperates and halves his HP twice, attacks physically three times, then halve his HP into kill range.  Relatively short here.  I take Citan in addition to Fei and Billy, because this is one less person for Grahf to kill; while I could definitely kill him without having intentionally upgraded since, uh, Babel, it'd take llike ten minutes, instead of the thirty seconds it takes to die.

Merkava- I mix up my fights here a little.  It turns out RAMSUS has 28k, while Miang has 22k.  I get scared for a minute, because Ramsus didn't die before getting a non-initiative turn, but he blows his second attack on another HP->1 and dies.  Miang meanwhile DOES die to my first three attacks and doesn't get a turn, which is good.

Zohar-  These fights are wusses.  Billy and Maria makes Id cry, Xenogears would have to try very hard to lose against Grahf (although it's a slower fight than I'd like.)  Xenogears swaps to a Response twink for the remainder of the game.

Endgame- I upgrade Renmazuo's and Seibzehn's frames (HP), just in case it comes up.  Also because it's RIGHT THERE. I also buy the birds and nab the Speed Shoes, another bit of twinkery for Fei (mostly because, while Deus doesn't take that much extra time this way, it shortens the Urobolus fight a bit).  The final dungeon is less drudgery than expected; the fight count is high int he first area, but I just flee the fuckers.  The scond area meanwhile has a large central puzzle room, so woooooo no battles.  Side areas also seem to have lower rates than the first area.
Deus himself I charge straight at.  Since my gears are at base armor, they take a lot of damage from the, uh, one offensive turn he got.  His next turn is used to launch the Miang/Elly angels, who do 3k or so to my shitty armor... enough to be worrisome, since they counter twice, with random targetting, to any attack.  Fortunately, the RNG doesn't decide to rape REnmazuo, and the thing falls in about 4 minutes.  Urobolus is annoyingly long for a fight I KNOW can't kill me, but so it goes.  And that's it!

I'm surprised at how little the endgame punished my lack of character armor; I really thought I'd see something like 400 damage Grahf combos.  Maria's awesome was surprising, although her lack of availability for the ONE fight it really mattered makes it sorta moot (woohoo, OHKO all four elements.  So hard.)  gear upgrades matter less than might normally be thought, but since part of my non-Tide inspiration was a no upgrades challenge, well, y'know.  I knew what I could get away with and which fights REALLY needed the upgrades to speed up the process.
So yeah, not a bad way to replay the game.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Very impressive, CK. Good read, too~

[Glen Veil]

Beat SH3 a few days ago, Lady managed to surprise me with her durability, not only did she have a notable HP lead over the previous boss, but it seemed like she also took less damage.  So my only solution to one round her like the combo freak I am was to feed Hilda Fruity Fibers and abuse her slim mask form.  Mask for Hilda for Godlike blah blah blah.

Decided to replay FF9 since I haven't played it in years and I honestly could not remember anything that happened out side of Beatrice plot rape into lolnecron comes out of no where.  Just finished the Iifa tree, and I'm beginning to suspect that I have no memory of the plot because it is just horrible and I wanted to erase it from my memories or something.  Things of note, Beatrice letting you're party live for no clear reason when she just led an assault where they slaughter Burmecia and whatever the sandstorm place was called. A two hour fight Lani where I sorely regret sticking auto potion on Dagger as Zidane fails forever at stealing the Coral Sword while a blinded mpless Lani reduces my potion stock from 85 to 7 while she repeatedly attacks dagger with a 25% hit rate, soon after which i come to the conclusion to say fuck it towards stealing and only make attempts until the boss is dead if the items can be acquired through a store eventually.  Back to plot, removal of the mist after beating the Iifa tree, the first thing that comes to my mind when seeing this scene is "Wait, airships on the mist continent run on mist, the Mist just got wiped out suddenly with no forewarning, did Zidane and crew just commit mass genocide?"

At this point I'm just hoping that something I'm forgetting about later in the game will help explain plot fail away, but until then, ugh.

[Niu]

Blazblue CS-

Finished all the story routes. Conclusion: Terumi is a troll and Kokonoe needs to get smashed in her face.
Also, this game seriously needs a stand alone button just for a forward jump.

[Yoshiken]

On to Dark Bahamut who oh holy shit what the fuck damn Impulse is freaking evil. Yuna dies in seconds, and I make the stupid, STUPID mistake of using Assault. Welp, there goes any chance I had. Dead. >_>

Impulse is 3/8 cHP damage, which is just pathetic, physicals suck, Megaflare is like a 3HKO but takes forever to charge...what kind of setup ARE you using?

He has HP so Assault is a Bad Plan, that's it.

Yeah, that was pretty much it. He's damn fast in comparison to my team (White Mage/Thief/Warrior, for the record - Thief's the only one close to his speed) and is double-turning Impulse, which suddenly makes it quite threatening.
But yeah, I was surviving well enough - tanked a Mega Flare easily enough, stayed healed up, and then... for some reason, decided to use Assault. And he killed Yuna while she was changing to Thief and it was charging, so... yeah. Dead.

[Clear Tranquil]

FFXII-Revenant Wings- Chapter Six: Act Five. Stuck. Managed to pass the previous fight out of sheer stubborness by retrying over and over - the boss was like fifteen levels higher than my highest levelled character and I only eventually managed to win by keeping Penelo and my healing Espers at range as well as winging it with Llyud so he could revive peeps as needed. However the current mission seems to shred through my characters like paper with my own attacks barely able to put a dent in the enemies. Vaan's Quickening doesn't seem all that powerful either as I found on the previous fight too.

Previously the other fight that I was really stuck on was the protect Fran one earlier in the chapter. Though I'd found other missions challenging before then this was the one that made me finally go screw this time to do some of the optional missions >.> Then I discovered I wasn't getting much EXP from that anyway so just sold some of the out of date treasures that I received from them as well as some stuff from my inventory - then used that to buy some new equips including the increase Mist charge one for Vaan. Once everyone was decked out in their most up to date equipment I went back to Fran. Still struggled but somehow eventually managed to win with everyone but Penelo, Kytes and my strongest Espers ded <.< Yaay for range!

Other fights that I found challenging include the protect Velis one and the one before the protect Fran one too but I eventually managed to pass them without doing anything optional. Oh yeah also the Belias fight I ended up soloing with Penelo as she buffed and healed Shiva and co, every time an Esper dropped I summoned more for Penelo and sent them after Belias until eventually he could take no more >.>

The Vaan solo map earlier in the game was tough too (I fail at being a ninja!?) but I eventually managed to get past the first two look outs and get a head start on the fire sword guy to pick up the treasure at the top by the exit point. Then I just made an exit dash from there. Had to buy the immune Immobilise accessory first though and decided not to bother about one of the treasures.

MVPs are currently Penelo, Llyud and Kytes I think. Of the original five Filo seems to be the most disposable and I even switched her out with a certain bangaa for a bit. Maybe that will change later though and Filo will actually turn out really good or something.

[Idun]

I like the Last Remnant. I just finished Fornstrand, which really didn't yield anything besides an increased troop amount. I would have preferred an increase in leaders as I'm growing tired of generics. Not only that, but recruiting more generics drops your groups overall stats because of their lack of battle experience. I think I can see where the amount of AP can later become an issue, but thankfully Irina gives you a boatload for just being a group. Therefore, she's with Emmy though I'm debating on Torgal because Torgal is slowly starting to outshine Emmy. Plus, no Emmy quest. Not yet. Actually visited all the towns besides Nagapur to see if I had any more quests to do, and there are none. I have two *so far* that show up in Nagapur, and I'm currently doing one. So. Once I'm done with Nagapur, I'll move on with the game. I'm debating on just Harvesting, because Mr. Diggz is literally rocking since the Assistant quest which gave him massive digging exp, and getting upgraded weapons, but I think I'm going to wait. That way, some of my good items won't go to useless generics that I haven't developed. I think, I think, oh woe is me.

[Meeplelard]

Glen: Beatrix doesn't want to run around slaughtering people.  She's NOT doing that.  Its the Black Mages who are doing the butchering.   She very clearly is not proud of these actions.

On the Red Rose, she thinks to herself what's the point of going to such lengths?   The only reason she's doing this is cause of loyalty, but she's starting to doubt if that's even enough.  Unlike Steiner whose completely blind going "NO! THE QUEEN KNOWS WHAT SHE'S DOING!" Beatrix is more starting to question her authority, but she's wise enough to keep it to herself for the sake of avoiding treason.  This is why Zidane was ultimately able to reason with her.  Had he not witnessed the sensitive side of Beatrix, I doubt he would have even tried the verbal attempt, but he saw that Beatrix isn't actually a bad person under that cold exterior of a self she shows on the battlefield, and that she's not really proud of her recent actions, but she's still duty bound, like any loyal knight.

Combine with the fact that to her, your team is *NOT* threatening, good chance she let you live cause there was no point in killing you.  She's not an axe crazy murderer, but an actual sensitive human being, and she's willing to spare lives if necessary.  Merely beating your team down to the point where they can't fight back is enough, especially since she already had what she came for.

[BaconForTheSoul]

And the Mist thing for airships is probably similar to gasoline.  If we stopped all gasoline production in the world our planes wouldn't all suddenly crash.  The pilots would all be like "wtf we can't refuel" and not take off again after landing.   

It's also possible that it took a few hours for the mist to dissipate, allowing them time to land.

Seems like an odd detail to be annoyed about.

[Meeplelard]

Or its like a pool of water being drained and refilled at the same rate; its being kept constant!  But then you stop refilling it...so the water level starts decreasing as a result...but its gradual!  How fast depends on a number of factors, but its not "WATER IS GONE GOOD BYE!"

I can easily suspend belief that the Mist dissipated slow enough that people landed safely, and at a rate that people noticed it was thinning out.  honestly, though, this is not much different than your usual fridge logic jRPGs have, and should just be shrugged as a result; when generic suspension of belief can get you through the scenario, let alone some simple logical conclusions the game doesn't touch up on cause they don't wanna hammer you with facts, I'm honestly not gonna hold it against the game.  Oh, I'll credit a game that totally AVOIDS relying on stuff like this (while keeping the explanation sensible of course), make no mistake, but considering how often jRPGs do this?  Not something I can realistically hold against FF9.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Aren't airships lighter-than-air vehicles anyway?

[Ultradude]

Aren't airships lighter-than-air vehicles anyway?

By the real world definition, yes.

In Final Fantasy... depends on the game.

http://www.ffodyssey.com/editorials/bishop001/14.jpg
http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-02/art/ff12-airship-alexander.jpg
http://www.videogamesblogger.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/final-fantasy-ix-airship-wallpaper.jpg

[Glen Veil]

The thing about the Red Rose scene, is that Beatrice doesn't really start thinking like that until after Brahne summons Odin as massive overkill.  And sure Beatrice may not participate in the actual fighting, but she is still the General planning the attacks and giving out the orders.  The party openly falls for her diversion while protecting the tree, and if Brahne really just wanted the stone from the harp, they could have just as easily skipped slaughtering half the place and instead just have Beatrice ninja it like she eventually does anyways.  Since the invasion was planned out by Beatrice, I have no problem assuming she has no problem with causing deaths, and so it just strikes me as odd why she would let a party live when one of the people is the race of the enemies, let alone when that enemy is actively trying to beat you after you organized an attack that slaughters the citizens of your enemy who are downright unable to fight.  Sure the party might not have been an active threat to Beatrice herself, but that doesn't mean they can't come back and slaughter half her troops.  I would think the thought would occur to her that the people she just beat could come back and kill her troops in a later battle, which is precisely what happens.  Her not liking needless deaths when she sends her own actual Alexandrian troops in as a distraction when she could have just used more black mages strikes me as a downright contradiction.  The third fight was really the only one that felt like she had proper reasons to leave you alive.

About the airship thing, probably overblown, but for some reason the general boat design just had me thinking the mist was kind of like water for the airship, and that it draining so rapidly could theoretically cause damage, probably something I shouldn't have thought so hard on, but eh.

[Meeplelard]

The game suggests Beatrix has been thinking like this for a while.  Its a pretty blind stand point to assume that she only started thinking of it NOW.  That's not what's going on.  What's going on is that this is the first time we see a PERSONAL Beatrix moment; Beatrix in privacy (or so she thinks she is; obviously she doesn't know Zidane and co. are spying on her) is not the same person she is in public.  In public, she's gotta keep this heartless cold general exterior, lest she shows weakness.  People know her as this invincible warrior, she's gotta keep that facade up.  But when she's by herself, she can drop it and start thinking emotionally and what not.  That's really what's going on.

The only reason it happens after Odin is cause, as I said, its the first time we see her.  This is the first part of the game we see Beatrix when she's just being a person, not a soldier, and we finally are seeing "Wow, maybe she is human after all", which also shows that while Brahne maybe evil, not all her subordinates, loyal or otherwise, are.  And unlike Steiner, Beatrix is showing logical thought in the idea, rather than just blowing it off entirely as "NO! The Queen has some grand scheme that I just don't understand, and its for the good of everyone! I trust that!"  I believe she was actually more like "Something is wrong, but...I can't really prove it.  My loyalties still lie with her, but I won't deny the truth."  And naturally, later on, when she sees Zidane was protecting Garnet, and Garnet was put under a spell, etc., that was the proof Beatrix needed to finally pull her Heel Face Turn.

And...I don't think the Invasion was planned out by Beatrix, she just carried it out.  Remember, Kuja was charged with a lot of Brahne's strategic related stuff, including supplying her with all the Black Mages.  In the scene where he's introduced, Brahne's even asking Kuja for how to deal with Cleyra.  Beatrix just carried the plan out, and the Red Rose scene showed she very much wasn't fond of her actions.

Also, don't forget this factor:
Beatrix is a human being; she can hold back if she wants too.
The Black Mages, who did *ALL* of the killing, were puppets and weapons of mass destruction.  The only thing they knew how to do was KILL, and that's all they did do.  She didn't exactly have control of that.  Brahne just told her "Send Black Mages in", and all they knew how to do was kill.  Beatrix and her troops did nothing.  And its naive to think she could run in, undetected when the entire village is on alert.

Edit: Actually, lets look at the script!

This is right before Beatrix's first fight:

Kuja: "Of course, Your Majesty. I will present you a marvelous display
      of my power. I am certain that you will be most pleased. I was
      wondering if you would gather your troops near Cleyra. I'm
      certain those filthy rats will retaliate in full force, and my
      black mages may not be enough."

Suggests that the whole plan was Kuja's idea in the first place. 

Following the battle, she knocks your team to their knees, and then mocks you.  Brahne tells her to come.  If it makes you feel better, then just assume Brahne told Beatrix to come with her, not to waste time.  Brahne wants results NOW, killing 4 people wastes time when Beatrix had already just won.

Next off....look at how long the attack on Cleyra took.  Again, its naive to think Beatrix could just run in there undetected and get out easily.  If she could, why not waltz in while the Sandstorm was still up, when they had a false sense of security?  Simply put...she couldn't.

Reading the dialog...again, another case of "I don't have time to waste, you guys are beaten and not threatening, I'm leaving."

I dunno...I really think you're just slamming FF9 for things so many other RPGs are guilty of.  I mean, FF8 is a far bigger offender here (not that people support FF8 plot.)  Why did Edea, whose possessed by Ultimecia, who wants Squall DEADED THAN DEAD to avoid dealing with the time-loop...spare his life?  Its far greater "What the fuck?" moment here.  If it was Seifer who did, I could understand, but Edeamecia had no reason to keep Squall and Co. alive.

At least with Beatrix, the whole "She's got morals and is human too, you know" thing fits and makes sense for why she'd spare people.  Again, she had no reason to kill your team; her goal was just "Get Jewel by any means necessary."  Curbstomping your team was enough to get you out of her way, and even if you did follow, she'd just beat you again (which more or less happens exactly as I stated.  Beatrix isn't evil, and has morals.  And again, her troops didn't kill anyone; it was all the Black Mages, who are under Brahne's control.  Beatrix was just using the troops, and pretty much entirely as a diversion.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XF - Switch >>>>>>>> Eisen 1. Glory.

[Shale]

Odin Sphere: Just finished Gwendolyn C2. Such a freakin' gorgeous game, and it plays pretty well (if monotonously) too.

Do I ever get more bags? Sixteen slots would be fine just for food and accessories, but when you throw in seeds and alchemy material it gets annoying.

[Magetastic]

Oh right, I play games.

MK2 - Beat Raze's Path, got Lily Ending. Disappointing on Raze's end, there. So much potential for more... As for actual stuff, it was cute, fun, and pretty. Favourite part of the entire damn game was definitely either Buffacow or killing the damn final boss. One for hilarity, the other because it was about damn time. Don't really like Raze plot, overall. Feels weak and cliche, in a lot of ways, with lackluster writing. Also felt like they definitely could have done a little more with Ulrika's group there, since there was MORE THAN AMPLE REASON TO, but nope they just drop that completely never comes up again except for lame "is x why he's like this?" stuff. Blah.

Characters feel roughly balanced, with, oddly, Lily feeling like the weakest. Everyone else had something to contribute in order to help just SMASH, but Lily had tons of MP and lots of skills, with very little to do with them and was the weak mage. If anything ever had an Ice weakness, she was totally there, but far more things seemed to wall it when it was important, or just not be weak, and all she can really do is have Ice attacks. (Yes, I'm rating Yun > Lily here, because Yun can consistently do damage/lower defenses, even against fire-resistant enemies)

Gonna try to do at least a little of Ulrika's path before it goes back, but I doubt it.

[Dhyerwolf]

You are hyping Yun's 5% Defense breaking over Lily not running out of MP every other turn after using her best skill like Yun? I personally found Lily to be the MVP on Raze's path. Yeah, she trails off, but she gets GT, MT, decent and very early ST, and timed card skills (Not to mention that most of the better CS are magic based, so has that edge over non-Puniyo PCs. And Taro's Strictness is late and costly!). Before trailing off, she's basically solid on most every type of damage you'd want besides against those that resist Ice.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Not to mention that most enemies who resist ice are weak to fire, so slap some fire common skills on Lily and she's basically always hitting high damage. I personally found the ice GT stuff just so good that I was using it even when some enemies resisted it, but it does vary by how much of her stuff you get; I forget the exact triggers for them (i.e. how much was synthing, how much was turning enemies into desserts). Generally seconding Dhyer that I found her the MVP on Raze's path.

[Dhyerwolf]

It was pretty easy to get her upgrades via desserts early. I basically had them all before I even realized that other character's had upgrades (or before they got 4th tech at times, IIRC), but it certainly didn't hurt that you got desserts by using one of your best damage sources at the time.

[Magetastic]

Guess I just wasn't getting the right sweets, then. (also, didn't get her Sweets-getting move upgraded to doing real damage until late mid-game)

[Sierra]

Odin Sphere: Just finished Gwendolyn C2. Such a freakin' gorgeous game, and it plays pretty well (if monotonously) too.

Do I ever get more bags? Sixteen slots would be fine just for food and accessories, but when you throw in seeds and alchemy material it gets annoying.

You can carry...five bags, I think? Maybe six? They're on the expensive side but worth saving for.

[Grefter]

Mass Effect 2 - Replaying as a Biotic Douche.  Being a renegade is awesome fun.  Conrad Verner encounter is much better as Renegade.  *Shoots dude in the foot* Now what were you talking about?  Someone tricked you and is being a dick?  Okay, I will go threaten to kill them and get a discount at their shop.  Now I will lie to you so you go away.  *Quest finished*.  Good times.