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

[Meeplelard]

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.

And yet, beyond maybe some difficulty due to resources in Djinn's Cave, I find FF3's early game pretty routine without grinding.  No, its not EASY, just I never thought I needed to grind.

Did you do the Tower in the Castle (I wanna say "Samite" but I could be mistaking the name)?  Has a few randoms, a pseudo-boss Monster in the Box, and nets you a damn good sword (Wight Slayer).  That could be the culprit here...

But either way, FF3DS was not a game I really grinded ever in, barring the "Get JL71 Thief" thing.  Well, I guess my first playthrough, paranoia made me grind to get out of Job Sickness with my 3 Dragoons, only to learn that 3 Dragoons vs. Garuda in this game is overkill (relative to FF3o where you practically NEEDED 4 if you wanted to not tear your eyes out against him), but those were exceptional scenarios (albeit, if there's a boss that needs grinding, Garuda is it, CoD aside.)

You are using a Black Mage with a Bow, right <_<?  Because odd as it sounds, Black Mage is very competent physical fighter using that, and can even run back row damage.

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

If you're expecting good writing with regards to ANYTHING Vaan does, you're going to be disappointed <_<

[Hunter Sopko]

Not even expecting good writing. Even average writing would pick that up.

[dude789]

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

That boss can be pretty nasty. If you can get one, try to bring a demon with Dekaja.

[Taishyr]

Strange Journey: Said boss thrashed... kinda. Was somewhat intimidating but Luster Candy and Debilitate handled it decently well (though I quickly figured out debilitating it into negatives was baaaaad.)

Now in G-

OWOWOWOWOWOW RANDOMS KICKING MY ASS HOLY SHIT DIFFICULTY JUMP. Welp, time to fusion magic for a bit.

[dude789]

I think the general rule with buffs and debuffs is that you can get away with +/-3 but go any further and most bosses will dispel it.

[DomaDragoon]

Red Dead Redemption: I've put in about 20 hours in the past three days with this game. Multiplayer is full of griefers, though I got to try a co-op mission that was interesting. The open world is full of lots of nothing, and it's frustrating having to go from one end of the map to the other for lots of the story missions. I'm in Mexico now, looking for treasure and picking butterfly plants and getting taught by some old gunslinger.

[Yoshiken]

FF3 stuff

Yeah, did the stuff at Castle Semite. (I'm sure that's the wrong name - that's somewhere in FF2? I know the place, though - the one you meet Ingus at) I actually died on my first run or two through that place, typically enough. >.>
And yeah, my Black Mage has a Killer Bow right now, methinks. Or Great Bow. Whichever's better. I don't use the physical much, since I'm usually spamming Blizzards at the moment (hi Fire Caverns!)

On that note:
FF1: Training! Mostly grinding for money here, trying to get enough for Lit2/Fir2/Cur2. Got 2/3 so far, so nearly there! Then I'll go train at that place near Pravoka that has late-game enemies. <3
FF3: Argh fucking Fire Caverns asddgfhfd. Died to randoms, then trained a bit. Got through, died to Salamander twice - Fire Breath is OHKOing at least two characters, usually three. But Ingus survives!!11!1one! Need more training. Just enough to have Luneth survive Fire Breath, or for Refia to get 2-3 more casts of Cura.
FF6: Blitzed through the early sections, grabbed a load of Relics in South Figaro and continued. Vargas fell surprisingly easily - I remember having trouble with him on my first playthrough. Edgar continues to be overpowered as all hell early on - NoiseBlaster is <3<3<3. Got the Genji Glove because I saw the other conversation on my other playthrough and wanted to see what happened if I refused to help. Saved on the Lete River.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

On FF3: wear more fire-resistant gear, I think those already exist by then.

[Yoshiken]

Some, but not much. Think I equipped everything I had, although I know I missed the Ice sword that's in that dungeon on my last run, so that'll make things slightly easier.

[Dark Holy Elf]

They certainly do: the Ice equips, from the Dwarven Hollows. Might want to turn one of your mages into a Red Mage in order to be able to use them.

[Meeplelard]

Right, Semite is FF2.  It definitely begins with an "S" though for that castle, I believe; I know its NOT Saronia though.

Fire resistant gear is gotten from Ice equips; FF3DS sort of fails for not telling you this.  I mean, it'll have shields say "Protects against status" and nothing else.  Then again, FF4DS told you the elemental resists of an equip, but failed to tell you that ANY status protection exists (to FF4DS' credit, game does state Immune or Guard or something, instead of just "Miss" when a status is resisted.)

EDIT: Damn! Elfboy beat me to it

[Yoshiken]

Fire resistant gear is gotten from Ice equips; FF3DS sort of fails for not telling you this.

...Right. This explains a little. I was working under the assumption that Ice armours blocked, y'know, ICE.
Guess that'll make this slightly easier when I try this again tomorrow. >.>

[Meeplelard]

Fire and Ice resisted the opposing elements until FF5, where they finally decided to be more intuitive and make Fire resist Fire, and so on.  FF4 actually took it a step further and made Fire stuff give you Fire weakness and what not.

Similarly, Diamond Stuff gives you resistance to Lightning; this was actually kept true in FF5!  FF6 removed it, though I wanna say FF12 brought it back, and I think FF12 may have even done swapped resistances for the elemental shields, but I can't say I remember offhand.  FF12 elemental resistance is a blur beyond "Wind Breakers resist Wind, Black Masks Absorb Darkness, White Masks (I think?) absorb Holy", cause those are the 3 things you care about for super bosses.

This is yet another example of why FF3DS needs punting for the in game documentation.  They HAD the ability to tell you crucial things like elemental resistance, but the game does not.  I could forgive it in FF3o, cause back then, the idea of "in game descriptions" hadn't been thought of, so whatever.  FF3DS, if they can say "Resists Status", why can't they say "Resists *element*"?  Blindly equipping stuff is an artificial way to increase challenge, afterall, and is more a case of "bad polish."

Though honestly wouldn't surprise me if this was one of those "YOU MUST KEEP THE NATURE OF THE ORIGINAL GAME IN TACT!" nonsense Japanese gamers decided should be, which led to the stupid "Save Pointless Final Dungeon with the hardest boss in the game (and probably hardest final boss in the series) right at the end...and this dungeon is NOT SHORT."

[Luther Lansfeld]

AAI: 5-3. How the fuck is this arrogant, incompetent fucktard allowed to tell ME what to do in my own district!? Man, shove your grudge against me up your ass, Lang. Otherwise the case is good! Kay is hilarious, the three cameos are all quite good. Still, Lang does a lot to make me like it less; I was finding the lack of clearly antagonistic rival kinda nice.

[Tide]

FF7 CC:
Finally finished. Only took around 2 years. The last 2 to 3 scenes are some of the best scenes in the game (especially the 4 years bit). Past that, mm...combat's a little dull (final in particular was very disappointing) sans the optional stuff. Quests take up a crap load of time and is pretty much why it took so long (most of them being the EXACT same thing) since they aren't exactly interesting either. I've done more than 50% so I can say at least half the quests are like that! Game's largely fluff, does a better job as a prequel than FE7 (omg accomplishment!), but then what doesn't? Still, pretty solid, but not stellar. A 6/10 game or so for? Has its definite moments, but yeah, not something that hooked me from start to finish.

[Just Another Day]

I generally agree, emphatically second you on the closing scenes. I've always been pretty meh about FF7 plot, but Crisis Core actually got me pretty interested, no small achievement in a spin-off title.

Agreed also on the combat, that common issue where the most interesting stuff is optional, but doing the optional stuff unbalances the game and renders the plot fights even more meaninglessly boring.

[Tonfa]

I was finding the lack of clearly antagonistic rival kinda nice.

Dammit people stop skipping AJ

Disgaea Infinite: Gotten a few endings. Short visual novel distraction with amusing enough writing, watching NISA even poke fun at their own previous translations is great. The PoV change gimmick is pretty neat. Will probably try to fill up the list of endings.

LFT: Started MR4M, up to Wiegraf 1. Bomb supremacy.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I'm not skipping AJ, I'm just playing them in the order I'm interested in them chronological order. What can I say, Edgey is sexier than Hobo Phoenix.

[Cmdr_King]

Mind, Klavier is probably the only compelling reason TO play AJ.

[Excal]

Really?  Personally can't stand the guy, I'm just there for the Hobo-Fu which is truly mighty.

[Grefter]

Suikoden Tierwhatever - Started this up after reading Djinn's babble about it from a while ago.  A few things to say after getting up to Grayridge and watching a few scenes.

Worst possible implementation of the DS touch screen ever?  I am assuming it is some kind of mandate that you must have some kind of touch screen functionality or some shit.  Pro tip, don't make the stylus fucking useless during regular gameplay and then expect people to use it for conversations.  Don't highlight a dialogue option if you aren't going to make the A button select it.  Really annoying because about 70% of the time the first option is the one you want to pick anyway, so you have to hit down then up to pick it.  Shitty shitty shit shit UI is annoying when I am playing a game when testing the implementation of what is essentially a new UI for a program at work (when I am working overtime for testing at that!) is a serious irritation and amazingly bad timing.

The game starts with and got marketted with a neat concept.  All 108 Stars of Destiny are pretty much dead.  Shame the real game is about interdimensional travel so the interesting plot point is just a vague story hook and not the actual interesting plot that was hoped for.  Nope you still get to start as a clueless 15 year old kid instead of a grizzled war veteran.  Suck it Konami, go back to Suikoden 3 style.

Corrupt religious figure!  Cackles evilly on like his fifth line of dialogue.  Innkeeper's daughter pretends to work with him so she can reveal his corruption?  Not a bad plot point albeit not overly original!  Revealing this to the party and her father by sneaking into your room at the Inn to give you a midnight snack after presumably sneaking out of the church she was absconded to?  That is retarded!

Sooooo yeah.  I think this is going to be one of those games.  I play it and it makes me go "Oh man I really could go a 2D sort of console RPG right abouts now" and all it makes me want to do is replay BoF IV on my PSP.  So I might dislike the game a bit irrationally just because it isn't really what I want to play, but that is fine because by all reports there is enough rational reasons to dislike it anyway.

Edit - Oh and most underwhelming application of multiple dimension Star of Destiny plot potential ever?  Possibly!  I had flashes of having half your stars from one world and the other half being their opposite counterparts from the other world so having 54 mirrored Stars of Destiny in a concept that could have been ripped straight from Chrono Cross and then not fucked up would have been fun.  Oh well.

Edit 2 - Not that it matters, but posting after Shale did.

I thought we had been over this and you had learned not to make getting around painfully slow guys.  S1 was pretty annoying but at least you had Gremio or Viktor to throw a Holy Rune at most of the time.  We won't go over Suikoden 4 boats again.  Not even having a movement speed modifier is a new kind of bad though.  Snail racing the RPG is going to bring me endless glee.

[Shale]

Agreed also on the combat, that common issue where the most interesting stuff is optional, but doing the optional stuff unbalances the game and renders the plot fights even more meaninglessly boring.

That's what you get for playing on Normal, you pansies.

[Meeplelard]

Agreed also on the combat, that common issue where the most interesting stuff is optional, but doing the optional stuff unbalances the game and renders the plot fights even more meaninglessly boring.

That's what you get for playing on Normal, you pansies.

Hey, I'll play Hard Mode eventually!  I just...kind of...need to get the game back first...

[Bardiche]

Started Tales of Innocence since it's in English - so far so good. It's not terribly good writing-wise because well, derp, it's a Tales of series and I never quite like them for their awesome story, but the hero's tolerable so far, and the battle system is Tales of battle system.

Currently equipped the Obsidian to Luca which is a ridiculous sword that restores TP faster than I can use it without going overboard on Skills Only. Yeah.

Just two hours into the game. Level 13, got a pretty nice setup for my team and the game's pretty easy so far so I might crank difficulty up from Normal.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Worst possible implementation of the DS touch screen ever?  I am assuming it is some kind of mandate that you must have some kind of touch screen functionality or some shit.  Pro tip, don't make the stylus fucking useless during regular gameplay and then expect people to use it for conversations.  Don't highlight a dialogue option if you aren't going to make the A button select it.  Really annoying because about 70% of the time the first option is the one you want to pick anyway, so you have to hit down then up to pick it.  Shitty shitty shit shit UI is annoying when I am playing a game when testing the implementation of what is essentially a new UI for a program at work (when I am working overtime for testing at that!) is a serious irritation and amazingly bad timing.

Yeah, there's hardly anything redeemable about the gameplay. It's like being back in the PS1 era, only less polish and touch-screen controls!

The game starts with and got marketted with a neat concept.  All 108 Stars of Destiny are pretty much dead.  Shame the real game is about interdimensional travel so the interesting plot point is just a vague story hook and not the actual interesting plot that was hoped for.  Nope you still get to start as a clueless 15 year old kid instead of a grizzled war veteran.  Suck it Konami, go back to Suikoden 3 style.

Don't worry, we get back to this eventually~! Perhaps knowing that will actually detract from how awesome the focus-switching is... hmm...

Corrupt religious figure!  Cackles evilly on like his fifth line of dialogue.  Innkeeper's daughter pretends to work with him so she can reveal his corruption?  Not a bad plot point albeit not overly original!  Revealing this to the party and her father by sneaking into your room at the Inn to give you a midnight snack after presumably sneaking out of the church she was absconded to?  That is retarded!

Diadora is the villain you want to be looking at for anything resembling interesting.

Edit - Oh and most underwhelming application of multiple dimension Star of Destiny plot potential ever?  Possibly!  I had flashes of having half your stars from one world and the other half being their opposite counterparts from the other world so having 54 mirrored Stars of Destiny in a concept that could have been ripped straight from Chrono Cross and then not fucked up would have been fun.  Oh well.

Actually... yeah. I'm gonna have to agree here. They touch on it here and there, but they really could have down more with this idea, and that's kinda sad. I haven't finished the game yet, so maybe it gets awesome towards the end?

I thought we had been over this and you had learned not to make getting around painfully slow guys.  S1 was pretty annoying but at least you had Gremio or Viktor to throw a Holy Rune at most of the time.  We won't go over Suikoden 4 boats again.  Not even having a movement speed modifier is a new kind of bad though.  Snail racing the RPG is going to bring me endless glee.

You get one these around midgame. To be honest, I can understand -why- they did this, there's so little opportunites to actually use the battle system that they seemed to need something like this to get any kind of battling in. Not a good design choice, no. There's really not much to say for a lot of the design choices.

Fedecca is hot, make sure you get Fedecca to get the most out of the game.