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

[superaielman]

FE10- Finished. I didn't bother to watch the ending; I just wanted the game to end.  It was a fun game that is largely an improvement over FE9 in most regards, but I was also very ready for it to be over.  I need to be better about protecting support units. I didn't have a single dragon or heron by endgame, and both would have been very helpful there.  It's built for high level play. Unlike FE9, your stat caps matter a hell of a lot and so do your innate skills. The support system is far more gameplay friendly; anyone can support with anyone and supports are quick to build. BEXP's also a great way to cap out your stats at endgame instead of a way to catch some PC's up.

The good: The game does a good job explaining exactly how the Mad King's war came about when it made so little sense on paper. The rotating system lets you use far more PC's than the typical FE game, and the challenge is much improved from  7-9.  A lot of the unbalance (Hay Forging) has been rebalanced. Laguz are good this time around!
The bad: You are completely at the mercy of the RNG at the start of the game. If you aren't getting the levels early, good luck getting to the point where Jeigans can carry you. BEXP only helps so much as it almost always hits the top three stats, for a PC like Leo (HP/skill/RES are his top five IIRC) it is useless in catching them up. Fuck the Dawn Brigade in general, on that note. Part 1 went on for way too long. While it isn't a big deal, hard mode fails beyond belief. The main villains are terrible (A proud FE tradition).

I like it, but not sure I like it notably more than FE9.

[Luther Lansfeld]

FE10- Complete~ MVP: Nolan. For realz. Ike doubling the Black Knight was hi-lar-ious. (Okay fine it was only one round. It was an "I'M NOT LEFT HANDED EITHER" moment.). Calill does not have as much Magic as I thought but she is uber-good against the non-RES-panel final boss dudes, especially next to Nasir where she gets +5 Magic AND can double. Hell yeah. Overall I had a lot of fun and already want to start my fourth playthrough already *gets hit over the head with a bat by Elfboy*. Ow.

So, overall, biggest problems with the game.

1. Conversations forcing you to stay on the panel you are in AND being at the top. Sure, you can just be attentive and notice them, but I feel like most people aren't always attentive and they shouldn't have to be~

2. E-3 and E-4 villains could really be less lame. I really like the Senators, but holy hell do I hate E-3's boss. What a fucking worthless sack of shit wanker.

3. Less Ike god mode. For fuck's sake, he's not a deity.

4. The ending suuucks and is unskippable on the first playthrough.

5. Why can't you view your characters post-epilogue?!

6. The GMs really could have used a couple less boring easy chapters. I'm looking at you, 3-7 (the battle vs. Mic) and 3-8 (the volcano). Just stick Septy somewhere else.

Obviously none of these are gamebreaking problems but they are all things I noticed throughout the game.

[Talaysen]

NIER - Finished!  Hard mode, 100% quests, all endings get.  Not much to add to what I've already said.  Plot needed to have more explanation though.

And the soundtrack is still amazing.  Cute that that all four different versions of the ending song (four different languages) were used in corresponding ending credit rolls.

Not sure what I'll get into next.  Need to get back to progressing in Pokemon Heart Gold but I might go back to Cross Edge postgame stuff.  And Hexyz Force comes out this week, too.  Hmm...  Might check that out instead.

[metroid composite]

Subterranean Animism: been feeling the call towards this again.  Performing...unspectacularly; not guaranteed to beat normal, for instance.

[Niu]

But this is card that can only be used once a map, not a PC.
And unlike FE, where you can use Arena and realistically get everyone even HP, this is impossible in Yggdra Union.

You'll make the card score more flat than it really is.

[Excal]

Didn't you hear, Niu?  They removed arenas from the Fire Emblem games.

So instead of Wil, let's use Edward as an example.

[Rozalia]

Online cutting out = not cool. Back to playing Disgaea 3.

So Baal didn't steal the stuff? So everyone is basically doing the whole gambit of blaming someone they know can't defend themselfs? I would have thought Laharl would be more angry at Baal killing his father but whatever.

Beat Axel with the old and true method of lifting him into the air. Its incredable that even in the third game bosses can still be lifted. Prinny mask is the only boss that can't and thus is hardest boss in the game as a result.
Laharl time now and he isn't to hard. I beat him and all his lackeys before Etna killed me so a few more levels and the tiny overlords going down.

I also finished Raspberyl mode with Vulcanus's cameo being the most hilarious even though he didn't say anything. I guess thats why you don't mess with Seraph Lamington.

[Magetastic]

Replaying FE9! And Ike is still awesome!... despite having a few bad levels and a 1-stat level. Yeah. I'm also running into the party of no Def, so HP and Spd are kinda the god-stats in my playthrough, as despite getting all the way to recruiting Volke (btw, is there actually any way to sneak in on that map? Or are you always spotted?), nobody can survive much of being looked at sideways. Except Rhys. Who is getting into the 3HKO territory of durability now, which scares me. Hmm... maybe he really IS Mia's white-clad rival!?

[Just Another Day]

You can sneak through it, but it's pretty tricky, and basically requires (hilariously) cavalier abuse. Worth it in bexp, though.

Those sneaky horses.

[Magetastic]

And how, exactly, do you do that? Kill people before they can say anything?

[Just Another Day]

Stay out of their attack ranges, other than the boss and his flunkies. Like I said, cavaliers are the sneakiest.

[Magetastic]

Oh, is that all it is? Thanks

...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.

[Just Another Day]

I see better when I'm carrying a javelin.

[Meeplelard]

Also, keep stuff like Sephiran's Cell closed; there's no reason to open that and if closed, enemies won't see him.

Deploying less units is naturally helpful in the "Sneak" situation.

[DomaDragoon]

3D Dot Game Heroes - Cleared the first dungeon. Woo, Zelda clone.

Fable - Supposed to be helping traders through the Darkwood, but abusing quest saving and blackjack instead.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, only deploy the mounted units (Marcia, Titania, Oscar), the laguz, Volke, and Ike. I think you can have one other combat unit if you reaally want but IIRC the one I chose just ended up being stuck in a corner somewhere along with whichever mounted unit had rescued him. You only need to talk to Nephenee and Brom (Kieran recruits himself anyway, Sephiran does nothing) and that's only if you want them as PCs. Oh yeah, and don't ever attack a door; enemies can hear that and it alerts them. Basic strategy is to rescue Volke and Ike so they can get places faster; Volke needs to open doors (and later chests, since you won't be able to get the guards' chest keys), Ike needs to recruit Neph/Brom and eventually escape. You'll need to fight the boss with a relatively small number of units which is potentially scary but if one of said units is Titania you won't have much to worry about, especially if she has a Hammer.

[Ultradude]

Touhou Hisoutensoku - In a casual tournament with some people from elsewhere. Three rounds so far, the third knocking me into the loser's bracket, but teaching me some hopefully valuable lessons. Matches are best of three, different characters in each fight.

First match, I took three goes to beat Utsuho with Meiling (got nailed with Giga Flare in the second round, OUCH) then destroyed Youmu with Remilia.

Second match I lost the first round of each fight - narrowly beat Iku with Suika, then somewhat less narrowly beat Yuyuko with Utsuho, bringing me to having used all four characters I'm good with.

Third match I discovered that Suika has a hard time with Remilia, though it wasn't terrible. Utsuho destroyed his Reimu - for the second time in the tournament. Then I fought Patchy with Meiling with a deck that was all wrong for the fight at hand and got beat down. Fortunately, I think I can take the loser's bracket and figure out ways to take Remi and Patchy next time, and I can't imagine him getting better at Reimu vs. Utsuho so I have to try to get that match-up again.

There's a YouTube playlist of the matches if anyone's interested.

[Cotigo]

IIRC, there's a FAQ with a turn-by-turn guide to get you through that map the stealthy way.  What was the point of doing it that way, again?  I remember doing it but forgot why.

[Dark Holy Elf]

You get a fuckton of Bonus Exp for it.


WoO - ULTIMATE BETRAYAL!!! Pretty fun times, at the final dungeon. Ju Kaku 2 decided it would be a good idea to use Power Charge + Magic Thunder to cancel it himself a lot so yeah he kinda failed.


FE9 - Up to Chapter 27. So yeah, I was all "Stefan can totally save me a turn if he kills Bertram" and I saw Bertram's 1% crit chance (on a 55% hit rate) and I was all "well if it happens, it'll be hilarious." It happened. Same thing occured with Ike the following round, but Ike didn't get critted, so no ludicrous 1/40000 odds fucking me over beyond belief. That would have been the best thing ever. Going on with the game because Stefan was finally falling back to the pack (Zihark became his equal with like 4 maps left, omg totally a better SM) and I dislike resetting anyways these days.

He's my second casualty that I care about, Soren ate it to a crit from the last SM in Chapter 21 and I was all "Soren if you're going to be killed by someone who does singledigit damage to much of my party DESPITE my giving you an Angelic Robe that's really your problem". He was okay until then, although his staff use was laughably useless, still have never gotten much out of a Sage's staves in FE9.

Lethe isn't so great any more but she's still gunning for overall game MVP.

Oh yeah, and after Soren died I pulled barely-used Oscar out of for Chapter 22, gave him 3 levels to catch him up a little and since then he's been quite possibly my best unit. So broken. Fixed mode btw, and I haven't given him any stat boosters, and he's still my lowest levelled PC if no longer by much. Oscar just owns.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

WoO - ULTIMATE BETRAYAL!!! Pretty fun times, at the final dungeon. Ju Kaku 2 decided it would be a good idea to use Power Charge + Magic Thunder to cancel it himself a lot so yeah he kinda failed.

I hate you so much.

[Rozalia]

Oh, is that all it is? Thanks

...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.

They're obviously rented out genome soldiers. It always bugs me how wrong stealth sections are done in games, especially turn based games.

[Magetastic]

Oh, is that all it is? Thanks

...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.

They're obviously rented out genome soldiers. It always bugs me how wrong stealth sections are done in games, especially turn based games.

Yup, especially games like XF. They totally did it all wrong.

EDIT: But seriously, I think the stealth sections of MGS were just fine, and a lot of games handle it about as well as I expect. Which is to say: Not impossible, and not hyper-realistic.

[NotMiki]

Oh, is that all it is? Thanks

...wow, people in FE have really weird vision, then.

I have a theory: strobe lights.  Makes TOO MUCH SENSE!!!

[Excal]

Speaking of Stealth Sections, currently in Growlanser dealing with one.  Where there's a mob of goons ready to surround and rape you if you screw up the stealth section, and all the entrances are guarded by folks who will see you if you go near them regardless of whether or not they are facing your direction.  So...  looks like I'm going to have to figure out how to win the fight.

[Rozalia]

But seriously, I think the stealth sections of MGS were just fine

Whats that noise? Whats this? The wall seems to have been blown up by C4! I'm sure it was nothing and the wall just blew up on its own so theres no need to radio HQ or anything. Man we genome soldiers are the best guards ever!