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

[DjinnAndTonic]

Raven's loops are only ridiculous in PS3 version, I thought? Either way, I find him annoying to control. Even Repede is more fun to combo with.

[VySaika]

Beat the E4 on the first try. Sandslash didn't do a whole lot, as predicted. That kinda happens when half your move slots are shitty HMs. Also when your only good move is EQ and there are alot of flyers around.

Highlights of the run:

vs Koga: Muk comes out, there are already toxic spikes everywhere, I counter swap to Butterfree thinking I can wear him down. One small problem with that plan. Muk is faster, 'free eats OHKO. Okay. So Sandslash gets her moment of glory by coming out, taking the poison, and returning the favor with EQ.

vs. Karen: Gengar gets owned by Butterfree in hilarious fashion. Sleep, FLASH SPAM, and suddenly the mighty Gengar is useless. Scizor comes out to close the deal and slowely chips it down with Bullet Punches.

vs Lance: A couple here. Butterfree does the samn damn thing to the Thunder spamming Dragonite(courtesy of the Bright Powder making it's initial Thunder miss~). Sleep, Flash spam, swap to Scizor and watch the chipping commence. One Thunder gets through the accuracy nuking, but isn't enough to kill Scizor. Prior to this, the Level 50 Dragonite squared off against a level 41 Feraligatr. Dragonite goes first! Outrage! 'gatr hangs on with 12 hp left. Guess what move Feraligatr was using? Avalanche. Double the power since I was hit means that the strongest pokemon of the strongest trainer eats OHKO from a move that isn't even STAB. I love how much 'gatr gets to take advantage of the phys/spec split now.

[Clear Tranquil]

Oh yeah I remember those ToV puzzles >.> Synthing didn't bother me much mainly because I didn't do it <.< Except for the Limit Duo/etc items and Limit bottles for Rita which ... yeah.

FFXIII- Trying to beat Atticus with PC Vanille + low stats. All goes well until he starts whipping out Meditate -_-

[Meeplelard]

Its hard to take a Synthesize Rant seriously when one of the main points was "YOU CAN'T BE STRONG UNLESS YOU DO IT!", which I totally spit on considering my little sister mostly ignored Synthing herself, and got through 80% of ToV Normal Mode without much problems (one fight with the Hunting Blades gave her some trouble, but mostly cause she was low on items and forgot to restock).  So there really is no justification for that claim; ToV is balanced such that it is perfectly playable without much synthing.

Synthing really is one of those "If you like it, you'll get rewarded for applying it.  If you don't like it, ignore it; game is balanced around not using it."  I can't honestly hold this against a game too strongly, cause Synthing really isn't that significant a factor like Tide made it out to be.  Hell, the stuff you get out of synthing isn't THAT significant a push in power; a few extra skills are nice, but not game breaking barring some notable exceptions, and the stat increase...well, I was often using underleveled weapons anyway due to the nature of the skill system, so that kind of defeats the purpose there.

Regarding the Altered Arte thing...
I do agree you kind of went overboard there.  A lot of what you said could have been said in a far more concise manner.  You went into depth about things that are blatantly obvious in terms of their flaws.  Requires a skill, then doesn't tell you what skill gets altered until you use it, THEN requires you use it 100 times, and worst part is, if you have multiple equipped, I don't seem to recall the game actually telling you which Altered Arte skill is being applied.  This is just as informative as your major rant, and gets the point in a much more concise manner, and is easier to read, cause anyone with half a brain can see everything that's wrong here. 

Also, IIRC, Altered Artes are identical to Arcane Artes in terms of tiering for combos, so you can do Arte -> Altered Arte just as well as going Arte -> Arcane Arte WITHOUT any skills.  SO I don't get the whole "You need skills to combo them!"  No, I'm pretty sure you need skills to make advanced nonsense combos that distinguish the two like going Arte -> Arcane -> Altered, which is something totally different, and lets be honest here; its completely justified considering the existence of Overlimits and how nasty they can be, what with the addition of Burst Artes.

Don't get me wrong; Altered Artes were idiotically handled, and hell, if they were removed the game probably wouldn't have been any worse, but I don't think going into that much depth did any favors; if anything, it made it harder to follow just what you were chipping on about, especially consistent comparisons to TotA's FoF's, which the two aren't that similar beyond "they change skills." 

I know, I'm not one to talk about keeping things concise, but I don't think I've ever attacked singular, minor points in that much depth.  I could just have shitty memory though.

[superaielman]

Who gives a shit? It's a games topic made for ranting. Let the man rant. Most of his points are valid, as ToV does have plenty of flaws.

FE9- Up to map 19. Still enjoying the game.

[Tide]

Its hard to take a Synthesize Rant seriously when one of the main points was "YOU CAN'T BE STRONG UNLESS YOU DO IT!", which I totally spit on considering my little sister mostly ignored Synthing herself, and got through 80% of ToV Normal Mode without much problems (one fight with the Hunting Blades gave her some trouble, but mostly cause she was low on items and forgot to restock).  So there really is no justification for that claim; ToV is balanced such that it is perfectly playable without much synthing.

Synthing really is one of those "If you like it, you'll get rewarded for applying it.  If you don't like it, ignore it; game is balanced around not using it."  I can't honestly hold this against a game too strongly, cause Synthing really isn't that significant a factor like Tide made it out to be.  Hell, the stuff you get out of synthing isn't THAT significant a push in power; a few extra skills are nice, but not game breaking barring some notable exceptions, and the stat increase...well, I was often using underleveled weapons anyway due to the nature of the skill system, so that kind of defeats the purpose there.

I dunno, getting new skills is definitely a form of "Getting stronger" to me. And there are a lot of skills that only come via synthesized equipment. Heck some things you synth are definitely a form of getting stronger (limit upgrades for example). So I would argue otherwise that, yes, synthesizing is definitely a form of getting stronger. You can argue that its not needed to finish the game (hence, you can be strong without synthing it), but do you really want to argue about that?

Besides, that wasn't the main point of the rant; the main point is the stupidness they require you to go through in order to synth items. And that if you miss some synthes, have fun trying to hunt down certain items to get those skills. It's the core principle that annoys me. They could've made equipment that teaches garbages skills on it, and I would still be annoyed by this factor. I'm pretty sure to its credit however, that ToV puts several chests in place so you can get items through synthing in chests anyway. Just that you end up getting it later. Of course, there is no way of knowing this the first time you play it so its kind of a crapshoot if you're betting on getting something from a dungeon.

SIDE NOTE: Oh yeah, if the skills don't make you stronger, then it just bothers me further. Yes, make synthed weapon take around 2 hours longer to get for grinding materials because of this one skill that doesn't do anything thereby making the system pointless.

Regarding the Altered Arte thing...
I do agree you kind of went overboard there.  A lot of what you said could have been said in a far more concise manner.  You went into depth about things that are blatantly obvious in terms of their flaws.  Requires a skill, then doesn't tell you what skill gets altered until you use it, THEN requires you use it 100 times, and worst part is, if you have multiple equipped, I don't seem to recall the game actually telling you which Altered Arte skill is being applied.  This is just as informative as your major rant, and gets the point in a much more concise manner, and is easier to read, cause anyone with half a brain can see everything that's wrong here.  

Also, IIRC, Altered Artes are identical to Arcane Artes in terms of tiering for combos, so you can do Arte -> Altered Arte just as well as going Arte -> Arcane Arte WITHOUT any skills.  SO I don't get the whole "You need skills to combo them!"  No, I'm pretty sure you need skills to make advanced nonsense combos that distinguish the two like going Arte -> Arcane -> Altered, which is something totally different, and lets be honest here; its completely justified considering the existence of Overlimits and how nasty they can be, what with the addition of Burst Artes.

Don't get me wrong; Altered Artes were idiotically handled, and hell, if they were removed the game probably wouldn't have been any worse, but I don't think going into that much depth did any favors; if anything, it made it harder to follow just what you were chipping on about, especially consistent comparisons to TotA's FoF's, which the two aren't that similar beyond "they change skills."  

I know, I'm not one to talk about keeping things concise, but I don't think I've ever attacked singular, minor points in that much depth.  I could just have shitty memory though.

Man, I don't know why you guys keep emphasizing this, especially when I already apologized for being long winded. If it seemed like I was being sarcastic, I wasn't . Again, the only reason why I'm spelling it out is specifically so that I have it on record exactly what I hated about it. Could it have been more concise? Sure. But I would believe that by spelling it out, I'm at least getting the point across why I didn't like it. And if there was something they did right, it would have been mentioned. Would you like me to change the entire rant to just, "I disliked ToV", void of any explaination? That would be a lot more concise and probably just as informative since I already ranted about it in chat. And as you put it, anyone "with a half brain" can figure out why I didn't like it based on my random schpeels about it in chat.

Actually, speaking of which, the only reason it was even that long was because I hatbotted the decision on ranting;I was originally just going to say, "finished ToV, didn't like it. Here's its score". So if you want to blame someone, blame Hatbot >_>.

Also, Meeple, you're wrong on the Altered Arte thing. I just booted up ToV to check, and there is a SPECIFIC skill (Super Chain 4) that lets you chain base artes to alter artes. If you could do it the same way as base -> alter, I don't understand why they would give you a skill to learn that lets you do the exact same thing as you could normally. Not to mention I tried it in-game and I definitely recall that you can't which is why I remember it personally.

I'm not sure where these "constant" comparisons are. As far as I know, I only did it twice in that paragraph. The reason for drawing them is to basically compare it to something as similar possible to show how badly implemented it was. Altered artes are not FoF changes, but they are the closest thing I could think of at the time. The "They changed skills" thing was pretty much enough I felt to draw the comparison. It's not perfect, but then again, I'm not claiming it to be perfect either. And even though I have an interest in writing, I'm not an English major. So sue me for ranting on and eventually masking/covering up what the big deal was. Whatever.

[Yoshiken]

Pokemon Heart Gold: Currently doing Battle Frontier stuff to try and get several new moves. Was -not- expecting to have Guillotine hit 2/2 times on Fight 19, nor was I expecting to be TrickScarfed on Fight 20. Ended up losing that one eventually, which sucks - would've been nice to get to 21 wins to get another batch of BP, but oh well. Now using Multi Battle, since the majority of allies use Pokemon that immune/resist Earthquake and it's oh so easy to sweep the opposition with it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Who gives a shit? It's a games topic made for ranting. Let the man rant.

This. zomg people have different opinions. Tide wasn't trolling the game's fans or anything, just putting his opinions out there. If he was being a bit long-winded, well, there are some people in this topic who have no right to berate others for that fault. Not to mention nobody forces you to read the whole rant at gunpoint.


Metroid Fusion - Hahaha Nightmare is dead! DEADDEADDEADDEADDEAD YESSSSSSS. *cough*

Okay that was one of the more satisfying game experiences I've had in a while. God Nightmare is a whore. Pretty much had him figured out by the end though, manipulating his third form is a lot of fun, would be less aggravating if you pretty much didn't die for one mistake (he 2HKOs you but screwing up once often leads to taking an unavoidable second hit) but hey that's what challenges are for. Anyway, Security Robot 2 wasn't so bad, only giving me about 5 or 6 resets, which is the least of any boss in the second half and even less than Serris! Wow. Ridley on the other hand has been posing problems (not Nightmare-level problems, but problems). Funnily enough I have LOST respect for him as a fight because he dies almost instantly now that I know how to really aim shots at him, just he does some things which are basically impossible to avoid so it seems to mostly come down to luck. If he doesn't do things like corner you then randomly turn around so HEY MY TAIL IS IN YOUR FACE LOL 2HKO he's quite beatable, I have actually beaten him once but then I had an epic screwup and died to the Core-X. That was facepalm-worthy. Anyway, battles with him are hilariously fast, over one way or another in under 20-30 seconds tops.

Somewhat dreading SA-X now but the run is distinctly coming to a close!

[OblivionKnight]

Who gives a shit? It's a games topic made for ranting. Let the man rant.

This. zomg people have different opinions. Tide wasn't trolling the game's fans or anything, just putting his opinions out there. If he was being a bit long-winded, well, there are some people in this topic who have no right to berate others for that fault. Not to mention nobody forces you to read the whole rant at gunpoint.

I actually like reading long posts, so...uh...more power to you!  I guess? 

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I make extensive use of my mouse wheel, personally.

[DjinnAndTonic]

For what its worth, Tide, I didn't have anything against the length of the your post and it was an interesting enough read. My post was just addressing on -why- I thought they implemented those features the way they did.

The comparisons to TotA -did- feel out-of-place, and it felt like you missed the easiest comparison to make between FOF effects and ToV Altered Artes - that they are optional and mostly there for the people who like to play with the combo system. If you -like- the combo system, then seeing situational opportunities like FOFs or having it grow beyond what you expected to further abuse the system (like ToV Altereds) is actually a really fun extension of the normal system. Another side challenge. I felt you inflated their importance and then bemoaned that it was too challenging/annoying.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The real problem is that it's adding mechanics that, at best, are way too situational and underwhelming to actually add depth to the game system. I can't speak for ToV, but TotA's FoFs certainly felt like a half-implemented mechanic that either added nothing of important to an efficient strategic plan or had essentially idiotic exploits (i.e. Guy's brain-damaged semi-infinite). Vying for FoFs in TotA tends to even run anathema to effective, efficient game-planning, since setting them up is slow, awkward and unreliable given it relies on the enemy's spatial location (which is amazingly erratic and turns the FoFs hard to utilize) almost as much as your PCs', and the vast majority of the FoF skills exist only to be flashy, having little to no tactical relevance - i.e. you're mostly hamstringing yourself when trying to apply FoFs outside the exploits, which are the result of poor planning and implementation to begin with. When you pull off a mechanic that manages to detract from a battle system rather than add, I think you have the right to bitch about it. It's inelegant design at best.

[Luther Lansfeld]

TotA FoFs were nicely ignorable. I wouldn't use them in an argument against the game since they are easy just to shrug and pass over.

[DjinnAndTonic]

TotA FOFs were only strategic in multiplayer mode. And if you had two players, they were actually incredibly efficient and fun to set up. This could have been possible in singleplayer if the AI was better at it, but with someone sitting next to you, FOFs were awesome.

Also, it's how Anise and Luke shine. They make a particularly good FOF-abuse team. Anise can set up Light and Dark FOFs rather early on, which allows access to all elements rather easily. Luke has all four elements attached to at least one of his physicals, so if the FOF disappears, you just use a set-up physical to reopen it and then spam your new combo with a FOF-cancelling finisher (he can also take advantage of all four elements rather easily, so the choice is yours on which move best fits the situation).

This was one of the great discoveries my brother and I made while playing wtih TotA's battle system.

Again, Tales has some design ideas that aren't implemented for every mode of play. FOFs are non-factors in singleplayer mode, so it doesn't detract from the normal Tales experience... but in 2-player mode, they're that hectic kind of 'shout out what you're about to do and get your friend to set you up/take the setup' fun/challenging that keeps you entertained for hours.

[Meeplelard]

TotA FoFs were nicely ignorable. I wouldn't use them in an argument against the game since they are easy just to shrug and pass over.

ToV's Altered Artes, for what its worth, are very much the same way; they only matter for those HARD CORE COMBO FREAKS, and can be more or less ignored entirely otherwise.  I frankly ignored them outside of getting a few just to see what they looked like (well, I did use the double fireball from Yuri, but that's mostly cause it seemed like a logical move.)

Also,, guess I should elaborate, I wasn't so much slamming the length just so much as trying to put into perspective why Tide's length was a bit overboard (I'm not one to talk, I know.)  Mostly cause it felt hard to actually keep up with what he was going on about, and some of his points felt a bit off.  I guess I should apologize for that.  I still think he did go bit overboard having to point every freaking flaw with something, in major depth, when some are self explanatory.  I guess I'm saying it was more the style of the length rather than the length itself?  Really felt like he was going into things into such depth for things that were...so minor, if that makes sense? 

I guess my first part ties into part of what irked me a bit; going into huge depth about something that is totally ignorable, and can be overlooked, and the game is still fully playable, but slamming it like its such a huge factor...I dunno.  Feels like people who slam FF8 or FF9 cause of their card games, when they're totally optional and you don't really suffer (Especially in FF9's case) for not using them.

...I should probably shut up at this point <_<;

[Cotigo]

Re: TotA FoFs:

Eh, you can use them in single player, pretty easily, in fact.  The secret is to have Jade in your party casting spells.  I had no real problems getting some use out of them in most battles after Jade got his second tier of spells, since there usually ended up being so many open at the same time.

[Grefter]

Altered Arts are far more hidden than FoF, partly for the reason Zenny has stated above (I certainly got plenty of use out of Wind and Fire FoFs when I was playing), Altered Arts on the other hand require a random smattering of skills to unlock and there is no hints in game as to what unlocks what.  None of the moves are necessary but some of the moves are straight up superior to your basic arts (Some of Raven's altered arts are dramatically better than his other bow skills, he gets other element spells to give him more diverse options, Estelle's area based buffs are nice) and some are just straight up great (Nightingale and well Nightingale).  They are far to obscured, the using them a bunch of times isn't a huge drama though, you will have the time to do them for sure since this is a Tales game and you WILL be fighting a lot, but it is one more thing to grind out after you have found the requisite combination of skills.

Synthing though?  You can do fine without it, but the game actively cock blocks you in it fairly often.  Didn't get like 30 Ice Crystals when you were in the desert?  Well those weapons you unlocked just after going through it are unavailable for now until a good portion of the game in (without abusing Search Points, which are yet another obscure FAQbait component that are obtuse as all fuck to abuse) and with them went those elemental skills you need to learn Altered Arts (lawl).  Then there is later when you need Spirit Fragments just as Zaude surfaced, oh wait the ghst pirate ship just disappeared until you have got past that plot point, WHY DIDN'T YOU GET 12 SPIRITS FROM THAT DUNGEON YOU DID 1/3 OF THE GAME AGO RETARD.  So on and so on.

They are optional side things, and they just kind of randomly have thrown up these brick walls in the way of them.  I did them and enjoyed the synthing even (got myself a Last Fencer very early which took far more effort than it should because the game strips you of control over the weather until late in the game and that is a big part on Search Point manipulation), but that didn't mean I didn't note and be annoyed by the brick walls they threw up.  It is the kind of obtuse bullshit that keeps making Tales games for Tales fans and not really anyone else.

[Pyro]

Pokemon Platinum: Just started. Hit with a fresh wave of good old fashioned nostalgia. It's been many years since I touched a Pokemon game, and I can see why they are fun again. Went with the fire monkey starter. Unevolved Pokemon are so bloody cute. Also, is there a difference between male/female trainer at all?

[TranceHime]

I am doing an FFT Let's Play on another board, so I've been playing that. So far, in Chapter 2, merrily destroying everything ever because enemy encounter scaling is ridiculous crap.

Also, Trickster Online, mwahahaha.

EDIT: Since Djinn reminded me you can read the LP here, but you'll need to register for it unless you were one of the DLers who attended the Mafiers game there.

[Talaysen]

Pokemon Platinum: Just started. Hit with a fresh wave of good old fashioned nostalgia. It's been many years since I touched a Pokemon game, and I can see why they are fun again. Went with the fire monkey starter. Unevolved Pokemon are so bloody cute. Also, is there a difference between male/female trainer at all?

No.  Probably some dialogue but that's it.

[Meeplelard]

Yeah, male vs. female is mostly just there for sprite purposes, as well as default name.  I don't think the dialog even changes thinking on it, mostly cause when the character is referred to, its either in 2nd person, *OR* they just refer to you by name.

So yeah, when it comes to male vs. female, its pretty quite literally "choose who looks better."  Well, in RSE, I think Male vs. Female also determines WHICH HOUSE IS YOURS, and alters which your rival is (your rival is whoever you didn't pick), but that's being nitpickey.

[NotMiki]

I don't get how Altered Artes are obscure at all.  The 8 skills you need to equip in order to get them all flat-out tell you that's what they do, there's no penalty for equipping more of said skill than is properly needed, and if you use the base arte with the proper skills equipped, there is a 100% chance that the altered arte will be used.  All you need to do to discover them is cycle through your artes with all the altering skills equipped (except for the very few base artes that generate multiple altered artes, but even for those, once the first altered arte is learned, the base arte starts generating the second altered arte).  I agree they take too many uses to learn, but they're not tough to discover.  I mean, this is Tales.  Cycling through every skill on a character takes like 2 random encounters.

[Meeplelard]

That's just it though; you either equip all Altered Artes skills (Which is by no means trivial, even WITH a weapon that has it innately on), and then use all your Artes until one becomes an altered.

OR

You equip one skill, cause you want to conserve CP, go through all your artes and mark down which turns into what, and then do them one at a time.

Its really just not fun and gets tedious and boring.  The idea behind Altered Artes was actually kind of neat; allowing you to get Upgrades or variations of your lesser Artes. But the implementation was just bad. 

Tales of Symphonia 2 had an Altered Arte style thing, but handled it infinitely better if only for one factor:
The game openly tells you what skill gets changed by the respective skill. 

It didn't really matter here, and generally you didn't use them cause they were often a waste of AP, but they were still nice enough to tell you.  ToV?  Its tedious and a lot of trial and error; it gets old fast, and its a waste of CP if you don't use the Altered Arte (IIRC, you can't change Techs midbattle, barring ones directly linked to equipment.)

[Talaysen]

Pokemon Heart Gold - Beat up Morty.  He was a joke.

Current team:

L11 Zubat
L17 Heracross
L19 Flaafy
L20 Butterfree
L21 Togetic
L23 Bayleef

Going to replace Flaafy with a water pokemon real soon for Surf, but I'm not sure which yet.

[NotMiki]

That's just it though; you either equip all Altered Artes skills (Which is by no means trivial, even WITH a weapon that has it innately on), and then use all your Artes until one becomes an altered.

OR

You equip one skill, cause you want to conserve CP, go through all your artes and mark down which turns into what, and then do them one at a time.

I don't get that, really.  Yes, it takes a lot of CP to have all the skills on at once, but you only need to do it for literally a fight or two per character to discover all the artes you have available to you.  Once you've discovered them, the game tells you exactly which skills you need for each, so it's not a longtime burden on CP.  None of that takes away from the amount of time you'd have to spend to master the artes, but discovering them is a short and simple process of elimination (except for base artes that spark more than 1 altered arte, but there are only like 3 of those).