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

[SageAcrin]

And as the resident Chinese of DL, I'll just say this......
Fuck romanization, just fuck it.
It does NOT get the point across at all. Especially on how the vowels work... it made it harder then it really is.

I'm Chinese too, you know >_>

Touhou Souzinengi - Genius of Sappheiros
I've completed this a few days ago, but never got around to talking about it, not even in chat, so I suppose I'll get around to doing it here. Debating whether to include spoilers or not. But basically... If you hate bullshit or haven't already planned on it, DON'T FINISH THIS GAME. For the love of all that is holy, DON'T FINISH THIS GAME unless you're a masochist. Past stage 13 onwards, the difficulty never stops spiking. There is no reprieve at all, you're constantly assaulted with high durability randoms, gimmicky bosses, bosses with even higher durability, and the final boss is a form-chaining cheater that might be better than Kefka by sole virtue of durability ALONE! Seriously, shit's not cool. On the flipside, I really liked the gameplay system and that's pretty much the only thing that's kept me going on long enough to finish it. However, I don't particularly like some of the obscura behind Satori's skill learning, that's a pretty big minus for me because I'm a stickler for trying to learn super broken skills (Unfortunately Darkon Laser isn't until L99, and Satori was like L80 when I finished).

This would be longer but that's only because I didn't include SPOILARZ

I got to Stage 6 before clicking to this. >_>

[Meeplelard]

No you're not.  I'M Chinese.  You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!

Look, OK, just cause you can't read New Jersey Road Signs doesn't mean you're Chinese.

[SageAcrin]

Yeah, it makes you human.

[OblivionKnight]

No you're not.  I'M Chinese.  You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!

Look, OK, just cause you can't read New Jersey Road Signs doesn't mean you're Chinese.

Look whose talking, Mr. "I can't direct you from the airport to my house on the phone"!

[jsh357]

More Secret of Evermore!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO_HyeQOW7o

So, I've been playing a monotype run of Pokemon Emerald on the can.  I chose Flying because I thought it'd be easy for my first monotype run, but then I made it to WATTSON.  The only Pokes I have at this point are Ninjask, Wingull, Gyarados, Swellow, Beautifly, and Golbat.  This is proving to be a bigger challenge than expected, since there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to his Manectric.  Stun Spore is an option, but he OHKOs Beautifly.  The Voltrob he starts with is problematic too, as it has Soundproof, which blocks Supersonic.  I can only beat the Magnemite with my Gyarados's Rock Smash, generally. 

I never thought this might actually turn out challenging.  Go figure!  (I'll beat him eventually, I'm sure.  Just gotta make enough sacrifices to the hax gods)

[Grefter]

LO - Sooo yeah I got like one dungeon done?  I need to not play Recettear instead, it is roughly as bad as Space Trader: Merchant Marine was.  The torch lighting mini game is obnoxious.  Press the button to move the torch in this direction, direct the torch with the stick!  Sounds easy, you try to line up the torch and press the button and fucking nothing happens.  OH WAIT.  You are supposed to press and hold the button down and then move the stick to line it up.  Mack moving the torch without any buttons pressed throws the player and makes the controls seem shitty and annoying and nothing working.  I honestly had to google it to find out what the fuck, then got an answer like nearly 20 posts into a thread of people going OMG UR RETARDED to someone eles.  Glad it wasn't just me.

Jansen continues to have far and above the best lines and is honestly probably the only thing really propping the game up.  So much dialogue is improved and naturalised by him, he interrupts people, has snide funny come backs and generally is a sarcastic coward.  He is great.

The more Mack and Cooke talk the more I want to punch them in the head.  I looked it up and have realised partly what it is.  The lady playing Cooke also plays Cubert from Futurama with almost the exact same voice at times and that is the exact response Cubert is intended to invoke.  Also doesn't help that their lines are insufferable.  OH SHIT WE ARE UNDER MILITARY ARREST AND ESCAPING.  Along the children come to help us.  Giggling incessantly argh.  Edit - Checking her other roles she even has a decent range.  Not sure what the deal is here.

So yeah even in a single dungeon the game wobbles backwards and forwards for me.  It is a good play, it is just very inconsistent in how it makes me feel.

[Meeplelard]

No you're not.  I'M Chinese.  You and Niu are IMPOSTERS!

Look, OK, just cause you can't read New Jersey Road Signs doesn't mean you're Chinese.

Look whose talking, Mr. "I can't direct you from the airport to my house on the phone"!

Except...I did tell you properly?  I didn't get you lost when Super was in the car, I don't think I even spoke to you on the phone much then!  Not to mention its hard to direct you to my house when, you know, you didn't tell me WHERE YOU WERE.

[Pyro]

Tolten - Why did the guard have something to save him with in the train? How did he get it? Did Gongora want Tolten to be saved or something? o_o Also they never really went anywhere with the Tolten's eyes thing >.>

I assumed that the mage guard on the train knew some teleportation magic or something to that effect.

His eyes were a sign that Gongora had 'bugged' him, and was watching everything he was so he could perfectly time his icy-doomstrike. Once that was over they were no longer useful.

[DjinnAndTonic]

So, I've been playing a monotype run of Pokemon Emerald on the can.  I chose Flying because I thought it'd be easy for my first monotype run, but then I made it to WATTSON.  The only Pokes I have at this point are Ninjask, Wingull, Gyarados, Swellow, Beautifly, and Golbat.  This is proving to be a bigger challenge than expected, since there doesn't seem to be anything I can do to his Manectric.  Stun Spore is an option, but he OHKOs Beautifly.  The Voltrob he starts with is problematic too, as it has Soundproof, which blocks Supersonic.  I can only beat the Magnemite with my Gyarados's Rock Smash, generally. 

I never thought this might actually turn out challenging.  Go figure!  (I'll beat him eventually, I'm sure.  Just gotta make enough sacrifices to the hax gods)

This Monotype run thing sounds pretty interesting. I haven't heard of any other DLers doing a monotype run before, so I'm looking forward to hearing more of these entries.

Are there any Flying combinations that hit weakness on Electric types early on?

[SageAcrin]

Elfboy did a Normal-only run of...original Red/Blue I think?

As to Wattson...kneejerk is gooooooooooooooooooood luck. I don't believe there are any weakness hitting Fliers(Electric is very non-interactive in general. What's it weak to besides Ground, anyways? Anything?).

Just to be sure, you can't just walk past Wattson, right? You could conceivably get a Swablu(->Altaria->not Electric weak) if you could, but I'm pretty sure you need his badge to continue to the north. Not certain though.

[jsh357]

Nope, you need Rock Smash to get past Mauville.

Is Swablu even available yet?  I haven't seen it!  Guess I should have checked the FAQs, heh.
If it weren't for the FSCKING MANETRIC this would be easysauce.

[SageAcrin]

It's available to the north of Mauville. So, apparently not.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Sweet merciful awesome.

Zaraktheus has created a pseudopatch to do some class-balancing in SaGa Frontier. (It's actually just a collection of RAM-modifying codes at the moment.)

The coolest new feature is the ability to unequip and re-equip Monster skills at will. http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/198537-saga-frontier/55577788?page=5

This means that Monsters have full control of their skillsets once they absorb something. It also gives them near-full control over their form after one battle. This basically turns them from a crap race to a very usable, if somewhat -more- generic, one.

Additionally, there are codes to create hybrid races, so there are options to create Mec/Human and Mystic/Human and Monster/Human skillets (Aka, Humans that self-develop Mec skills or Mecs that learn Weaponskills; Mystics that learn weaponskills, Monsters that learn weaponskills... they can also learn magic if an initial spell is hacked onto them, giving a lot of room for customized character skillsets outside of the established ones).

Some other codes include little things like allowing Mystics to remove some locked equips and the Mystic weapons, permanent Alkaiser, playable Alkarl. Right now, it's just customizable stuff and no skill-rebalancing has been done, but the plan is to eventually create a rebalanced (and non-glitchy) SaGa Frontier game.

Overall, I'm really excited to see how this project has been shaping up and it's nice that there's a beta playable codeset already.

[hinode]

Unfortunately, I think you're boned. You can't get the TM for Protect or or Return or Dig yet, none of the Electric-neutral Flying types are available yet, and Shock Wave means you can't try to sand attack/double team your way to victory.

Seems like your only option will be to massively overlevel something. Either that or raise a fleet of Pelippers and pray Protect works enough consecutive turns to run it out of PP.

[jsh357]

Unfortunately, I think you're boned. You can't get the TM for Protect or or Return or Dig yet, none of the Electric-neutral Flying types are available yet, and Shock Wave means you can't try to sand attack/double team your way to victory.

Seems like your only option will be to massively overlevel something. Either that or raise a fleet of Pelippers and pray Protect works enough consecutive turns to run it out of PP.

What I'm doing now is gaining a level between attempts, then hoping for Stun Spore/Supersonic hax.  Haven't had any luck yet.  Ninjask can usually take down the Electrike no problem, but the other 3 are a challenge.  I'm not sure, but I do believe Beautifly should be able to survive a Shock Wave soon enough.  If I can just get it paralyzed, I'll be on the way to victory.

[Dark Holy Elf]

LFT - Chapter 3 beaten. Only battle that posed any particular problem was Izlude, which got to be the chapter's only reset and the only battle in the whole game I came close to a second. Now playing around with Rafa and Malak. Having just switched off a Summoner to use them, the downgrade still feels clear (even with the offensive improvements, the unreliability always exist except in very contrived situations). They should improve as I get them more skills then can move them to actual mage classes, of course. Starting them with some real jobs open is a help, although L1 chemist is unfortunate.

Gene - Likes to punch things. I dunno, there's not much to say here. He definitely peaked in power as a Geomancer, even Attack Up Monk feels less damaging, but does have the benefit of getting a real secondary (Guts in my case, yay Heal/Cheer Up/Accumulate, for all that I don't use any terribly often). But is quite fragile. Hmm. He's learned Defence Up and Equip Armour in case I need those, may toy around with what works best. Thinking on it, I probably should head back to Geo unless I'm expecting real oddball status attacks. Or pick up Scream. Scream's cool. Decisions!

Miakis - Did her ninja thing, gave her Abandon + Elf Mantle so she could take hits, worked well in general.

Nena - Summon-bombed the crap out of things, Leviathan was the workhorse but opting for Titan's speed was often helpful, and Golem is still great. Moogle exists. Got Odin right at the end but never really devastated randoms with it. Probably MVP.

Agrias - Spent most of C3 with Attack Up picking up Holy Knight stuff. Geomancer period was definitely a peak (have I mentioned Geo is a really strong carrier now?) but she's been okay since, durable at least, and being HK does free her up to have a secondary, in my case Raise (and Cure, but that sucks).

Mustadio - Probably a downgrade compared to Elvis the Orachemist, but he's got the job done. Very traditional Mustadio stuff, Snipe/Item of course, spent so much time there he got Auto-Potion which is always amazing. Now that that's done I think I'm going to go switch Snipe out for Talk Skill, proving that generics are still better than him. <.< That said, he'll have the perk of already having Equip Gun as he moves through Priest/Oracle! Or something.

[jsh357]

Arhrgjharghjgeto4w
Well, I took down Manetric for the first time.  Here is my log of awesome fail:

He sends out Voltorb, I lead with Beautifly.
I Stun Spore, he Shock Waves me down to critical with a Critical hit.
I use Mega Drain futily and Beautifly dies.
I send in Wingull to avenge him.  Get paralyze hax and two Water Guns take the Voltorb out.
He sends in Electrike, I swap in Ninjask.
Ninjask uses Cut to get rid of about 3/8 of his HP.  He Howls.
I use Screech, and he Shock Waves me to 1/2 HP.
I Cut, dead Electrike.
Wattson sends out Manectric.
I use Screech, Manetric kills me with Shock Wave.
I send out Golbat.  For some reason, Manetric always uses Howl a few times before attacking my Golbat.
I use Supersonic and it works.  He uses Howl.  Now he has ATK+1 and DEF-2.
I swap in Swellow.  He uses Howl again!  Oh baby, oh baby.
I use Quick Attack.  He hits himself in confusion.  Yes!  It knocks him to critical and the Sitrus Berry restores 30 HP for Manetric.  Static paralyzes Swellow, and at this point I'm thinking "awesome, I'll get a Guts boost!"
I use Quick Attack, get paralyze screwed.  Damn it!  Then, thank all that's holy, Manetric kills itself with confusion.  I almost screamed, but I didn't want to bug my wife.
He sends out Magneton.  I have a paralyzed Swellow with full HP, Gyarados, a weakened Wingull, and a full HP Golbat.
Wanting to save Swellow for last, I switch in Wingull to confuse him.  Supersonic hits and he hits himself in confusion.
Water Gun, confusion hit.  Water gun, confusion's over and he Shock Waves me to death.  But he's at 1/2 HP.
I send in Gyarados (Intimidate, unfortunately.  I hope this doesn't screw me over if I manage to confuse him again)
Rock Smash doesn't lower his defense and only knocks him critical.  His Shock Wave leaves me with 9 HP.
I know Wattson will use a Super Potion, but Rock Smash again anyway.  No defense down.  Third one lowers his defense, but he revenge kills me with Shock Wave.  Now I'm in a pickle, but I go with Golbat.  Swellow can probably get the kill, but will need support.
He T-Waves me and I miss with Supersonic.  He uses SONIC BOOM and I miss again.
Shock Wave knocks me critical, paralyze hax.
One more Shock Wave nails me.
... DAMN IT ALL.
All I have left is Swellow, who at best has Quick Attack.  Wing Attack will be 4xresisted.  He uses SUPERSONIC to add insult to injury, then a Super Potion when I actually get him in critical.  The final turn, I hit myself in confusion and he Shock Waves me to death.

Flying.  Lots of choices.  Easy challenge.  I'll keep telling myself that one.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Emerald is probably the hardest game in the series, so I'm not shocked that a boss who hits weakness on your entire team (in evade-ignoring fashion for extra insult, as hinode observes) is giving you problems. Good luck!

[jsh357]

Finally got him!  Really all I had to do was get Gyarados and Ninjask to Level 25 (Dragon Rage and Swords Dance).  
Lead with Ninjask instead of Beautifly.  Swords Dance up, watch Voltorb die but end up at critical HP due to another CH.  Electrike Quick Attacks me like a pro, he kills Pelipper, but Gyarados revenge kills him with Dragon Rage.  
When Manetric comes out, I immediately switch to Beautifly and Stun Spore him.  Then Golbat manages to Supersonic after a couple of failures, but dies anyway.  Fortunately I managed to get his HP down (I forget how) and swap in Gyarados for the kill.  I switch Beautifly in and use the same strategy on Magneton.  

So essentially, as long as Gyarados and Ninjask are Level 25 and Beautifly knows Stun Spore and can survive a Shock Wave maybe, you're golden.  It's still kind of frustrating, though.  

Oh yeah, and another Secret of Evemore video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zlb4ezKx1NI

[DjinnAndTonic]

The most exciting Pokemon writeup I've read!

Pokemon HeartGold: Beat Gym Leader #2! Not nearly as exciting or difficult as jsh's challenge. But I -did- come in with 2 traded starters, like a cheater. (What? I wanted all three starters!)

[Clear Tranquil]

Thanks Pyro =-)

Yeah that makes sense. I think the party says something about his eyes later on but they were probably just teasing him >.>

Jansen continues to have far and above the best lines and is honestly probably the only thing really propping the game up.  So much dialogue is improved and naturalised by him, he interrupts people, has snide funny come backs and generally is a sarcastic coward.  He is great.

Yeah he and Sed are probably what really props the game up and save it. Both of them can be really ridiculous at times too "Momma!" but otherwise yeah good stuffs~

[AndrewRogue]

Contrary to popular belief, I do play games.

Metroid: Zero Mission- Knocked this out pretty quick. 3hrs 1Xmin, 49% completion. Not bad on the whole, although I did have one small annoyance where I trapped myself by bomb jumping an obstacles I shouldn't have. Whoops? Had a few deaths, but overall, the game was pretty easy. Stealth sequence was annoying as hell. Its pretty clear why Samus is the universe's only hope: nobody else has a weapon worth a damn in the federation. Screw that freakin' pistol.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I played some MOTHER FUCKIN' GAMES!

NSMBWii- Just finished World 4. I am terrible at this game. I game over'd once and lost all my items.

[Pyro]

Valkyria Chronicles 2: September.

So the game decided to be all "RAR NOW IT GETS SERIOUS" plotwise. Because fighting a war against genocidal maniacs isn't serious in the first place. One of the chars I actually liked got fragged, which is a pity since I was hoping for a recruitment instead.

The game's combat system is still a blast, especially with the hard mission they throw you in at the end of August. V2's EVERYWHERE along with a very powerful armored boss. Tier 3 classes are amazingly powerful good at what they do though, so with a few of those I managed to beat it with an A rank as normal.

Probably the only true complaint I have is the promotion system in the game. It is so very frustrating because you have to grind for specific credits for each PC to promote. Tier 2 promotions weren't so bad because it required 2 types of credits out of 8 and a 'certificate' which is awarded at random to units who do stuff like capture bases or kill aces/commanders. Tier 3? Same basic thing except it requires 3 credits out of like 16 a level-2 version of a certificate. In short, instead of being something you come into naturally during gameplay promotions are something you have to grind for. While this might not be a bad thing in itself, it makes unpromoted units less and less usable as time goes on.

Also, I have to say I'm disappointed with Fencer Elites broadswords. It is actually a step *down* from the basic sword, since it gains like 10 Anti-Prsnl attack but loses like 200 Anti-armor, rendering it incapable of ever killing even APCs if you need it to. Marauders now, those things OHKO non-boss/aces and most anything armored.

So it is a fun game, but with some very frustrating flaws. I am happy to hear that VC3 will return to a more serious tone. It fits the setting.

[Twilkitri]

Disgaea DS -

Finished Etna mode. Ended up with Etna on level 150, Flonne on level 130, everyone else in the 80s.

Accidentally killed off one of mah guys while in item world. Not sure whether that has any effect on Etna mode ending.

The final was happy to stand there next to Etna while she was on a recovery square rather than moving down and attacking people he was far more effective against and I was happy to let him. Helpful since it took forever for Etna to kill him and it would have taken even longer if she wasn't able to get buffs/etc from the others.


Dragon Quest 4 -

I put this off for far too long >_>

Managed to get to the top of the tower without being Thwacked to death this time, mostly because I only ran into the enemies in question once on this trip.

Psaro's formchanging was a bit of a letdown - I expected them to be more different from each other than they were. The first couple were the real problem in this regard, the later ones were fine. Chapter 6!Aamon is worse having one of his forms be just a palette swap from the previous. What was the point of that.

Fairly enjoyable all up.