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

[Grefter]

Naturally Grefter is in this topic crying about games that he knew he wouldn't enjoy from the start. Wow, how predictable.

A game that I spent money on years ago so feel like I should actually play it and hey I may not like the series or enjoy playing it, but outside of the plot and horrible dialogue I am enjoying seeing the series evolve (Or return to form with less bullshit?).  The crying is purely for the comedy reasons (Except for when the plot or dialogue breaks my brain).  You can see they have improved a lot when my tears are all about FIRE EMBLEM PLOT and there is a couple of generic side things about FE gameplay.

It isn't like I have a big long teeth gnashing rant about Thieves promoting into assassin's making them damned useless or how absurdly frail low level but good growth starters are and how damned many of them you have to baby or anything because OH SNAP the game actually isn't doing that kind of shit (yet?).  Seriously, they give you a set of capable quite usable characters pretty much straight up front and the ones that start at low level (Marcia being my best example I guess) are quite usable to level up.  Sure there is Rolf thrown in the mix there and if he was in a more archer friendly game he might be better, but he is far enough in that you have quite a competent team enough that you can probably baby him up or you can just throw him on the wayside and not care about him.  This speaks volumes because he is like the 4th or 5th recruit you get?  Seriously they have made a lot of improvements and the reasons I dislike the game are the core ones with the series.  None of that stops playing the game from being an interesting exercise even if I don't enjoy the game itself.

Bonus points because it gives me chances to have over the top drama jokes about the plot.  Trust me the other candidates for bad things I have spent money on that I feel the need to play has things that I am dreading far more than this.  I have Baten Kaitos to get through on this emulator next.  I have Fable 2 to get back to.  Considering I got through like one dungeon of BK and Fable 2 still makes me feel dirty with how ridiculously shallow and stupid it is that lead to the horrifying things it does without even thinking about it.

FE9 is a competent game for what it is, it just isn't my flavour.  I reserve the right to bitch and moan like a big fat drama queen because shit that is what I do.  It pleases me that really all I have to criticise about it is plot when all it really needs for plot is some vague excuse to string together a series of fights.

Seriously the only real gameplay flaw outside of the core philosophy of the game is that that maybe Strength is a bit over valued for physical characters now that it is how heavy a weapon you can carry, but that just puts it on the same level as the already overbudgetted Speed anyway, so boo fucking hoo.  I am still really not sure what I think of it for casters.  It is effectively an incredibly weak stat for them, but it is so rare for them that it is pretty nice when they do get it, so eh.  Might matter more if most magic users didn't suck big fat ones in this game.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SH2 -

<Hello-DojimathedralWaddleDee> Woohoo Kurando is a tranny.

[DjinnAndTonic]

In FE9's defense:

Pirates: People with Ships who attack other People with Ships.

Ravens: Flying People who attack People with Ships.

The term "Shipless Pirates" makes sense, since the Ravens live in an island nation and they only attack Ships.

He calls them nothing more than Thieves to contrast the Hawk Tribe, which does the same thing, only they only attack Ships from Rich nations, like Robin Hood Pirates without ships.

Convoluted explanation, but you're taking the line out of context and then whining that it doesn't make sense out of context.

[Niu]

Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.

I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.

Baal stole mostly none of those in reality. Most people say so because they need someone to blame, especially Asagi.

SMT SJ: Just beat the boss of Grus. She was pretty disappointing overall. Her damage was unthreatening and unlike the other bosses she didn't have status or offensive buffs to back it up. Her gimmick was pretty stupid too and didn't do anything besides lengthen the fight. Fortunately, buffs and debuffs don't trigger her counter so my newly fused Anubis with Luster Candy helped to speed things along. The cutscene afterwords had the typical SMT scene where everyone goes there seperate ways based on alignment. I also just realized the pun behind Louisa Ferr's name and I'm kind of surprised that Atlus couldn't come up with more subtle.

Better than nothing, in the Japanese version, they didn't even bother to make a new name and still use his old alias: Louie Cypher. But than, Louie wasn't really trying to hide his identity in the first place.

[Magic Fanatic]

Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.

I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.

And now, you're approaching getting my favorite "unique" character.  My Heart Shakes is just so over-the-top fun to watch, and Love Dynamite is...  Well, a 3x3 attack that you get for free.  Shame it's not transferable, but it makes building up Fist Fighters and Martial Artists for going towards Big Bang SO much easier.

Disgaea 3 - All the Gents have now been defeated and 19 stages of the X-zone are done.

I did however get smacked down by Axel due to being underleveled. Baal stole his super stardome or so he says. Baal seems to be Carmen Sandiego in disguise because some of the stuff he has stolen is downright impossible. Salvatore's womanliness, the "a" in Big Star's name, Asagi's game where she's the main character and Marona's innocence.....! It seems Baal has upgraded from joke bonus boss to complete loli devouring monster. Bastard is going down for such villainy.

Baal stole mostly none of those in reality. Most people say so because they need someone to blame, especially Asagi.

But...  Master Bigster...  How?  I...  That breaks my brain to think about.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The pirates line made perfect sense in context to me, yeah.


Wizard of Oz - Holly is a biiiiitch. But I beat her first try anyway. Very evil fight, the charged MT attack was far more deadly than that used by her sisters even before you factor in the "OHKO Strawman" thing and both her speed and durability are insane. She almost walled me with healing there at the end, and I used all my revival items just staying on top of things.

Guessing the game's nearing its end now, with one egg left to collect (and I'm sure there will be no plot twist at that point involving how much better people my enemies are than my boss).

Charming little game overall, quite impressed with the aesthetics since I don't think I've mentioned that, and challenge level is about where an RPG should be. Far from perfect or even great but it succeeds well at what it sets out to do. Best Dragon Quest game ever.

[Grefter]

Just for the record, the comments were in chat are live as I was watching it just to fill in a dead morning in chat.  So ranting for jokes and not because it was so bad I had to scream at something.

I still don't see how the pirate line makes sense in context, the only context you have about birds first time through there is that some attacked you and that they were pirates. (You haven't even had a scene with Tibarn, you have one throw away line about there being 2 kinds of birds and nothing else)  None of that matters, the line is not confusing, the line is just a bad line.  Thus why I talk about bad dialogue not OH MY GODS THE PLOTS IT IS SUXOR.  They are comparing two entirely negative things and making a big deal of it.  Having seen more scenes Freedom Fighters or Corsairs would have been a far more fitting description than pirates without a ship.

One more chapter done.  I really should start playing sooner after I get home.  Should turn off animations as well, but eh.  Stuff.  Game is happening, phasing out other units as the realisation of just how much more exploitable mounted units are than the other options.  Was meaning to ask Brom vs Gatrie post before last, but hey clearly I needed to get people cut up by making fun of some dumb shit right?  Settled on Brom since he was faster and 7 levels lower.  Think Gatrie has better growth or equal maybe?  I remember checking their stats and there wasn't much difference at 20/20  Edit - Missed words in last two sentences not good read making for times.

[Monkeyfinger]

I for my part am done with FE10. I've been emulating it, and I made it to part 3 epilogue before it finally gave up the ghost. Corrupted data or something, I always get a crash when I try to load the level. Welp. It was a pretty decent game while it lasted, but that's the end.

I definitely found it easier than the GBA games, even ignoring battle saves. Sire grunts take more oomph to bring down, but they don't hit much harder, and there's less nasty surprises - no enemies with multiple weapons to mess you up, less flyers to do surprise picks on someone squishy you put 1 square too close, less fog of war, less dying to 10 attacks because you kept killing everything with counters, more ways to null a boss's crit chance, etc.

Nolan and Aran carried the DB, Elincia and Geoff carried the CRKs (surprise), Haar and Nephenee carried the GMs. Final group would have most certainly been picked from them + royals.

I was also kind of looking forward to see the story play out, and there's a lot synopses won't tell you.

[superaielman]

You can't download a save from GF, Monkey?

[Monkeyfinger]

Nope, it's all endgame/clear file stuff. wiisaves.com has end of part 3 saves! But they're all european.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The pirates line made perfect sense in context to me, yeah.


Wizard of Oz - Holly is a biiiiitch. But I beat her first try anyway. Very evil fight, the charged MT attack was far more deadly than that used by her sisters even before you factor in the "OHKO Strawman" thing and both her speed and durability are insane. She almost walled me with healing there at the end, and I used all my revival items just staying on top of things.

Guessing the game's nearing its end now, with one egg left to collect (and I'm sure there will be no plot twist at that point involving how much better people my enemies are than my boss).

Charming little game overall, quite impressed with the aesthetics since I don't think I've mentioned that, and challenge level is about where an RPG should be. Far from perfect or even great but it succeeds well at what it sets out to do. Best Dragon Quest game ever.

I knew the game would be right up your alley.

WAoO - Yeah, I'm replaying this at lunch break. Currently dawdling at the beach, just learned the fourth skills from Gou Yoku - i.e. Strawman starts beating Dorothy out as MVP for randoms. Life is good.

[DjinnAndTonic]

SaGa debugging comes through with something interesting. Apparently the designers have some interesting balancing going on with their status effects and dispels.

Most relevant - it turns out that DarkSphere (the highest-level Dark magic spell, which is less damaging than its Light magic counterpart and therefore always seemed worthless) is actually the best Dispel move in the game. It dispels all status effects and does decent damage. Great for those pesky buffing enemies.

It also dispels any status effects that you might have cast on an enemy too... like Psychic Prison. So you don't want to hit the same enemy with both of these.

It also -doesn't- dispel passive ability-based buffs, like Photosynthesis' regeneration effect. Related note: SaGaF has a 'Null Regeneration' status effect that -does- stop the Regen from Photosynthesis, Deathsynthesis, Self-Repair... and from normally-casted Regen spells like Vitality Rune.

So... conceivably there's some interesting skill balancing going on here... if the game actually told the player that any of these things existed (or what their effects were).


FE10 - Chapter 3 - Endgame. I love the ticking time bomb in the corner. 80 Sacrifices seems like such an arbitrary number for resurrecting a dark god.

STK - Need to invade Astrasia for its own good. I wonder if we're not being a little hypocritical here.

Yggdra Union - No, I'm not actually playing this, it just looks really really interesting and I can't seem to find a good review of the system to figure out if it's as interesting as I think it is. Also curious if the PSP version actually has anything appreciably different from the GBA version.

What else has STING made besides Yggdra and Riviera?

[Niu]

SaGa debugging comes through with something interesting. Apparently the designers have some interesting balancing going on with their status effects and dispels.

Most relevant - it turns out that DarkSphere (the highest-level Dark magic spell, which is less damaging than its Light magic counterpart and therefore always seemed worthless) is actually the best Dispel move in the game. It dispels all status effects and does decent damage. Great for those pesky buffing enemies.

It also dispels any status effects that you might have cast on an enemy too... like Psychic Prison. So you don't want to hit the same enemy with both of these.

It also -doesn't- dispel passive ability-based buffs, like Photosynthesis' regeneration effect. Related note: SaGaF has a 'Null Regeneration' status effect that -does- stop the Regen from Photosynthesis, Deathsynthesis, Self-Repair... and from normally-casted Regen spells like Vitality Rune.

So... conceivably there's some interesting skill balancing going on here... if the game actually told the player that any of these things existed (or what their effects were).


FE10 - Chapter 3 - Endgame. I love the ticking time bomb in the corner. 80 Sacrifices seems like such an arbitrary number for resurrecting a dark god.

STK - Need to invade Astrasia for its own good. I wonder if we're not being a little hypocritical here.

Yggdra Union - No, I'm not actually playing this, it just looks really really interesting and I can't seem to find a good review of the system to figure out if it's as interesting as I think it is. Also curious if the PSP version actually has anything appreciably different from the GBA version.

What else has STING made besides Yggdra and Riviera?

I am wondering, who is cracking the SaGa code for you?

Also, Yggdra Union is HARD. PSP is easier, GBA one is PSP hard mode. PSP also have special scenario on second cycle if you play the hard mode.

Sting's other games are Evolution series and Baroque series.

EDIT:
BTW, the chronological order of the game is Blazing Union->Yggdra Union->Knights in the Nightmare->Riviera

[Lord Ephraim]

Yggdra Union PSP is pretty good. It's hard like Niu said but easily playable.  Sting also made Knights in the Nightmare which is downright bizarre and not for everyone. Also upcoming next week is their new game, Hexys Force, which I have no idea what its about! Niu!

I love how Djinn is trying to breakdown the shitfest that is SaGa Frontier battlemechanics.  If I had my old computer I would have uploaded a pic of the game cd shredded in a blender.  Fucking waste of 14 dollars.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I am wondering, who is cracking the SaGa code for you?

Also, Yggdra Union is HARD. PSP is easier, GBA one is PSP hard mode. PSP also have special scenario on second cycle if you play the hard mode.

Sting's other games are Evolution series and Baroque series.

EDIT:
BTW, the chronological order of the game is Blazing Union->Yggdra Union->Knights in the Nightmare->Riviera

The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool. There's a girl there who has been translating the Fuse scenario from the Essence for a while now. There's also Zaraktheus, the main debugger guy who has made a lot of the recent breakthroughs... he has a half-complete BMG up on GFs shows most of his progress, though he's shared a bit more with the community casually while he's working on making it reader-friendly. There's another guy who is scanning all of the Essence for posterity, and there's been a recent push to translate the scans. We also have a bunch of people synthesizing gameshark codes and testing Zaraktheus' finds to round out the group.


Yggdra Union: This game is freakin' cool. I found a BMG for this, so I'm probably gonna stat topic it, despite it being the least stat topic-friendly game ever. Not that this has stopped me yet...

List of games that shouldn't have been stat-topicced that Djinn has stat-topicced:
Star Ocean Blue Sphere
Soul Nomad
Final Fantasy 12 Revenant Wings
SaGa Frontier

And I stat-topiced Tales Radiant Mythology, but a mere action RPG is pretty tame compared to those others with problems like 'no damage figures'.

I also have spreadsheets with completed stat topic info for Eternal Sonata (with bonus dungeon equips, but I lost my boss notes so I got discouraged) and The World Ends With You (but Niu and RadLink beat me to this, so I just gave up on it).

Stat topics are only fun if I have to struggle with weird interps to make them.

Though Yggdra Union might be the first one that stumps me completely. I'm going to buy the Japanese guide and see if that fills in any wholes.

[Bardiche]

I'll provide favours if you stat topic Rondo of Swords.

Because Cotton hype.

[Meeplelard]

Yggdra Union: This game is freakin' cool. I found a BMG for this, so I'm probably gonna stat topic it, despite it being the least stat topic-friendly game ever. Not that this has stopped me yet...

Chaos Wars wants a word with you.

[SageAcrin]

No, no, Yggdra Union may well be worse.

I remember playing it just enough to go "Is a stat topic for this possible in any meaningful way? I'm not sure.". I'd rather stat topic Megaman.

[superaielman]

TF2- Engie+good team=yay positive kill count. My ego needed that after the last time I was pitted against team Trips/Laggy. Now to master ninja Engie with Sage. *Nods*

FE10- Finished E-2. Almost done!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.

I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.

[Bardiche]

The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.

I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.

This coming from someone on the RPGDL?

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The GameFAQs SaGa Frontier community is actually cool.

I would think if they're putting this much time in to decompiling and analyzing battle mechanics from Saga fucking Frontier, they're probably quite the opposite.

This coming from someone on the RPGDL?

If you ever catch me heading north again, let me know.

[OblivionKnight]

TF2- Engie+good team=yay positive kill count. My ego needed that after the last time I was pitted against team Trips/Laggy. Now to master ninja Engie with Sage. *Nods*

Ninja Pyro is fun.  I like the changes they made (...after...making changes...).  Flare Gun Sniping is finely annoying to people without medics.  I love the auto-crit at long range - people really don't watch it well enough.

Practically not that effective, but still fun!  Coming behind a pack of people and burning all 6 of them down is fun.

[Captain K.]

Rattata Stories (HG):

So instead of Human and Fairy paths, you have Humanshape and Fairy egg groups?

Also, I remember the picture of the SaGa CD in the blender.  Good times.

[NotMiki]

If I had my old computer I would have uploaded a pic of the game cd shredded in a blender.  Fucking waste of 14 dollars.

Dude, $14 for a blender is a great deal.