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

[Luther Lansfeld]

Nice, Djinn. You really hit the nail on the head with Shion in particular.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Always love a good rant; that was great. I think you covered some pretty excellent points with Shion, Kevin, and the series' general pacing and writing issues. Obviously I don't agree with absolutely everything you wrote (or I wouldn't have a reasonably high opinion of XS2 still) but it was still a well-written and highly entertaining read; sums up almost everything you could want about the series' failings.

EDIT: Also, have to third the "Zuh?" at needing to grind in earlygame FF3DS. I could maybe see having to grind for Garuda or Cloud of Darkness but the earlygame? That shouldn't be an issue unless you think running four Monks is a good idea or something like that.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Always love a good rant; that was great. I think you covered some pretty excellent points with Shion, Kevin, and the series' general pacing and writing issues. Obviously I don't agree with absolutely everything you wrote (or I wouldn't have a reasonably high opinion of XS2 still) but it was still a well-written and highly entertaining read; sums up almost everything you could want about the series' failings.

Oh yeah, I suddenly remember that I wanted to bring up a point you mentioned in chat while we were talking. You left before I could tell you.

You mentioned how XS3 smacked of being full of last minute rewrites, and how T-elos in particular should have at least been hinted at before XS3. I personally disagree, to a point. I get the impression that XS3 was basically exactly as it had been envisioned  from the beginning, the 'tacked on' feel stems mostly from the huge amount of cut content that was XS2.5, Pied Piper, and the attempts to squeeze it all into a third game. T-elos, in particular, actually WAS mentioned waaaay back in XS1. It was in on a computer console in the Proto-Merkabah, where Kevin would have been designing her. It shows a small bit of her design plan and mentions her by name, so there's no chance that she's a last-second addition. Her role may have changed slightly, but there were always plans for Lesbian Robot Fights.

I'm not sure if this is really said in -defense- of XS3... it's just something that I felt you should know since it colored my opinion of XS3 somewhat differently from yours.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Interesting. I'm surprised the fanbase never keyed in on this, since "alternate KOS-MOS" would have attracted a lot of attention, and the fanbase was very good at noticing small things and figuring things out IIRC.

I still think XS3 feels like a huge leap away to talking about different, unrelated things in general, though yes, the deletion of "XS2.5" is probably a large part of that. Regardless, it doesn't work.

[Shale]

From the player's perspective, having a story in mind from the beginning but never getting around to actually setting it up isn't that different from pulling a plot twist out of one's ass.

Edit: Yay, kicked Jeanne's ass in Bayonetta. No deaths, either. Had to go back and redo the chapter from the start to get back in the flow of things, but it worked. Bought the bat form and got midway through C6 before calling it a night.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

To Djinn: very well-written rant, and entertaining. Also, for someone who ended up hating the series by its conclusion so much, I can't help but notice how kind to it you've been -even so-. The Shion comments were pretty spot-on, the emphasis on why she failed so badly as a character was very precise.

Also, to Niu from Djinn's topic: -how many people do you see giving SMT plot credit around these parts-? >_> Not to mention even SMT doesn't take its retarded blasphemy as seriously as Xenosaga does, and XS, from what I -already- know, paints a misanthropic, excessive derailment of religion that plays a far bigger disservice than SMT's admittedly adolescent nerdrage. It ends up even -worse-, because you can see it has an at least educated background and foundation, which are used to... ultimately create an even more childish picture than SMT's.

[Luther Lansfeld]

AAI- Maggey Byrde fails. Stop being such an insufferable pity whore.

[Dark Holy Elf]

PW3 - Maggey Byrde fails. Stop being such an insufferable pity whore.

[Crystalgate]

Fire Emblem 8: Tana just joined. Then she proceeded to get great level ups. Then I got a character killed because I didn't keep the fact that enemies can also get two attacks of if they are fast enough (they rarely get two attacks unless I'm bringing the heavy armor guy) in mind.

The overall story is still looking good, but the writing not so much. Stop kissing Ephraim's ass, dammit, and give Eirika more braincells.

I must however congratulate the game for making a high percentage of the characters useful. I remember FE games usually having more use impaired characters.

[Fudozukushi]

FE8: So, with all the talk I see everywhere...  Started playing on Saturday.  Beat it Sunday.  Final time was 16 hours.  Bleh, sure didn't feel that long....  Went Eiraka route because... well I dunno.  Ephraim annoyed me I guess?  Doesn't really matter.  Things were fairly easy, and the monsters were just unfun to fight.

So in the continuing tradition of talking about characters because who cares about anything else...  here I go!  Characters ended up in the 20/10 range because i didn't feel like grinding them to 20/20 for no real reason.  So I'm sort of guessing at where their averages are based on what I could lazily find.

Eiraka: Was probably going to cap Strength, Skill, go above average for Defense and Res, and end up below-average for Speed and Luck.  Weird.  Paired her up with Seth because I like him and it helped her damage out.

Ephraim: Forced use on the last two chapters?  Screw you too game.  Less because he was a liability, but more because I already had my team.

Seth: Started using him once Eiraka promoted.  Got Strength every level up.  Would have capped too.  Most of his other stats would have ended up average.

Gilliam: Gained Speed!  And got a seven stat level up once!  Was already above 20/20 Speed at 20/11.  I made him a General.  Sadly, we would have ended up average or below-average in every other stat.  But speed!

Vanessa: Got replaced by Ephraim in the last Chapters because she was my weakest link.  Despite being A Support with Lute.  Tch.  Made her a Wyren Knight.  Would have probably ended up average on everything except Defense where she would be above.  Would have capped Speed and Skill.

Neimi: Ranger, paired with Colm.  Would have capped Skill and Speed; gone above-average for Strength, Luck and Defense; and been below-average Res.

Colm: Rogue kill machine.  Would have capped Strength and Speed; been above-average on Skill and Defense; and been below-average on Luck and Res.

Garcia: Fighter, paired him with Gilliam.  Strength gain machine.  Had 16 Strength at level 12 unprompted and hit the cap before level 20.  Would have capped Strength; was above-average for Defense; would have been above-average for Skill and Speed; and below-average for Luck and Res(like everyone).  For absolute hilarity, he killed Valtar with a Hand Axe crit.

Lute: Went Sage.  Would have ended up with above-average Skill; but below-average everything else.  Ouch.  Still murdered things handily though.

Natasha: healer.  Don't care.

Joshua:  Swordmaster, paired with L'arachel for comedy.  Would have capped Strength; but been below-average on everything else except Res of all things which would have been above-average.

Tana: Wyren Knight.  Already capped Speed; would have capped Strength and Luck; was above-20/20-average on Defense; would have been above-average Skill, Defense and Res.  Had the best Stat gains jeez....

L'Arachel: Healer, don't care.


So..... yeah....

Gilliam and Garcia did most of the work.  Then Colm and Neimi.  Tana did worse than with her stats would, but still managed to never die despite all the bad luck that gravitated towards her.  Eiraka was actually kinda Strength starved in the early game but her Lord levels boosted her big time.

[Shale]

Bayonetta: Well, after the grind that was C5, 6 was a nice breather. Lots of fodder to smash, a ridiculously easy boss and a new toy to play with (killer ice skates!) - fun times. I used the tons of halos I picked up there to get my first accessory, the one that regains health when you taunt, and then took down Temperance. Fun, God Of War-ish fight (in a good way!), and it made me finally use a health restorer. Man, those things don't do much, do they? I used a Mega and got maybe a third of one health bar.

[Dark Holy Elf]

DMC3 - Wait they randomly changed the controls from DMC1? Despite it being a game from the same system? Why would they do that? *goes to controls menu, makes controls the same as in DMC1* *blissfully plays game until Chapter 3* Wait a second, why can't I activate those sword switches? Oh, apparently it's because "melee attack" is now the same button as "examine", which creates a conflict, and there's no way to remap examine to any other button. Well fuck. *remaps melee attack, starts learning new controls for no damn reason* gj Capcom.

Fun enough game otherwise so far, though too early for more in-depth comments. The style is pretty awesome, and the opening of Mission 1 remains one of the best things ever. Though I will say I liked Vergil better when he didn't talk.

[Shale]

To be fair, they made that change in DMC2, and DMC3 just didn't change it back.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I have no problem with them not changing the control scheme back, then, but the "unmappable examine button which clashes with other remappable actions" is pretty stupid and really needed to be fixed if it was in 2.

[Shale]

Yeah, that one you can blame them for. IIRC DMC2 had that same problem.

[SageAcrin]

Though I will say I liked Vergil better when he didn't talk.

Definitely need to play his mode then.

I think he gets around one-two line(s).

Yes, I know that's unintuitive.

[Niu]

Not to mention even SMT doesn't take its retarded blasphemy as seriously as Xenosaga does

Snow, your misunderstanding starts right there. Especially considering Kaneko's style of freedom of interpretation. What Kaneko has done with Selenen just recently is far more of an offense to Jesus than XS can ever do (not that I disagree with it, though).

[SageAcrin]

There is a difference between subtle analogy and blatent outright statement. SMT does the former most often, lately.

The difference is, you see, people can ignore that stupid crap if they want to.

Also, while SMT has down outright statement, it's worthy of note that they never make it feel like a commentary in any normal sense. SMT1 had angels being overly law-oriented dicks and demons just being "chaotic" and still killing everyone mind you but they were more natural law oriented, etc, etc, and none of it felt like any kind of direct commentary because of the setting being so warped.

Also because well what the hell at least it's remotely open to interpretation that God could just be vengefully law-oriented. Most people aren't going to agree but hey.

I don't think it's open to interpretation, no matter how you read the Bible, that Mary Magdelen had booby cannons and that there was some magical girl boy behind Jesus and etc, etc, it's biblical fanfiction and completely ridiculous/unfitting the setting even if you saw it as pure fiction/not funny like Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter. It's a bad way to go about things.

[Ultradude]

So accurate, Djinn.

So painfully accurate.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Yet more evidence that Xenosaga would have been better as "URTVs fighting each other using self-generated nuclear blasts, featuring a cyborg and Jungian philosophy."

[Grefter]

SMT doesn't get hated on because it uses religious paraphenallia from everywhere to talk about purely philosophical concepts that are disengaged from religion entirely.  Xenosaga uses philosophical paraphenalia to talk about religious paraphenalia in ways that have nothing to do with the religions of the philosophies.  Essentially the SMT stuff is fairly minimalist and tends to talk about some fairly shallow philosophical concepts to give your dungeon crawler a plot.  XS stuff is fairly (Poorly) highly educated references to philosophical concepts to make a really shallow flashy movie full of stupid and wank loaded up with a crate full of COCKSCOCKSCOCKSCOCKSCOCKSJESUS.

The difference is monumental.

Edit - Oh and you know, SMT actually tends to do it in fairly interesting and even kind of unique ways which is certainly something else for a video game.  Is Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army a particular deep concept?  Not really, it is much more like a really awesome B Movie, but the concept certainly carries all that B Movie charm with the flair and high concept nonsense it needs.  That is definitely bringing something fresh to the table.  Even if you are going to restrict yourself to the core series, SMT 1 and 2 are approaching 20 years old now.  SMT3 definitely stepped up and while again being fairly shallow, did bring something new and fairly unique even to the core series.

[Captain K.]

I don't think it's open to interpretation, no matter how you read the Bible, that Mary Magdelen had booby cannons

You're obviously reading the wrong version!

Megaman Zero Collection:  Needed something to tide me over until DQ9, so I figured 4 games for a decent price should be good right?  Unfortunately, I find out later that these happen to be the four hardest MM games ever made.  For example, I finally figured out a strategy to beat Aztec Falcon without getting hit - except that they also throw in a time limit on that fight and you can't beat him with that method in time.  Luckily they threw in an Easy mode on this game with infinite lives so you can actually get to play through it.

SoaL:  Also replaying this.  Up to Horteka.

[Yoshiken]

Also, have to third the "Zuh?" at needing to grind in earlygame FF3DS. I could maybe see having to grind for Garuda or Cloud of Darkness but the earlygame? That shouldn't be an issue unless you think running four Monks is a good idea or something like that.

See, endgame? No grind whatsoever. Doing sidequests is more than enough to blitz the entire endgame dungeon with absolute ease. But, hey, guess what? Dwarven Hollows, and more grinding needed. Manticores are shredding my team apart - 3 fights with them and I'm running back to heal already. (It's not like I'm spending hours and hours grinding levels... Just usually enough to get some equipment/levels to survive. Oh, and running War/Thf/Blm/Whm at the moment.)
Also, bored of FFI already. Will come back to that later, gonna start FFVI for now, methinks. Been meaning to replay that again anyways.

[Taishyr]

See Grefter re: my thoughts on SMT, pretty much, with a dose of "SMT is upfront about taking stuff and skewing it. Xenosaga wasn't, apparently did it worse than SMT does on a bad day, and almost sounds like it hamfisted it harder than SMT's 'yeah, this is how it works. So?' tends to go."

Related note:

Devil Survivor: Day 7, beaten up by an evil dream potted plant's gimmick.

Strange Journey: Getting off my ass, stopped looking for Red Rider and just moving on. Approaching boss of F.

[Hunter Sopko]

FFXII- Out of the prison. Getting used to the system now and starting to enjoy it. Doing the two hunts that opened up along with Basch before going on with the story.

Oh... and... WHAT? That's some rapid change of heart thar, Vaan.