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

[Grefter]

I need something to play now that I've finished Dragon Age. Shale and Gref, suggest me something that's not shitty.

Errrr I can't think of anything with some longevity, but Psychonauts and Zenoclash are both cheap and Zenoclash might give you a day or so of fun.  No where near as good as DA, but an interesting little indie FPS shooter/beat 'em up.  Played more for some art style and to punch things in the face than anything else.

[Pyro]

Muramasa can be an absolute joy to play on some of the randoms, what with the flying around the screen like crazy and pulling off all sorts of attacks/specials. They pretty much heard Shale's complaint of a lack of attack variety and cranked that shit up to 11. Muramasa bosses CAN be ball-crushingly difficult on the hard mode though, yeah. Forces you to use the item/food system the game has to get the extra leg-up you need.

OS SHOULD get easier as you go along and get into the groove and figure out what items are good/what strats to use. The character variety is nice, at least.


But really these games get hype less for gameplay and more for the stunning visual style and story, which tend to be good times. I kind of disagree about Muramasa getting old fast because it is a much shorter game than OS, and you are constantly switch swords/styles. Not to mention the variety in attacks you have at your disposal allows for lots of twinking.


AAI: Just about at the end here. Thoughts later.

[Scar]

FE3DS - Beaten.  Final was pretty cool because dragons don't completely fail as enemies, for all that Medeus was kinda lol himself.  Game itself could've used a few extra things like having units be able to rescue again, but all up it was a pretty enjoyable run and certainly better at keeping my attention than Shadow Dragon.  Team for the final was Marth, Mage!FemChris, Cecile, Catria, Linde, Julian, Sirius, Caeda, Feena, Minerva, Merric, and Maris.

Marth: Well, his growths got a kick up from SD, so he's at least better at holding his own.  Having a forced item that gives him +2 to all non-HP stats for endgame helps too.

Mage!FemChris: Mages are pretty good in this, due to tomes being about as silly in this as FE6 Anima was, so Chris the Customizeable Character (because alliteration is fun) did pretty well for herself, for all that I'd hesitate to call her the MVP of the run.  Couldn't really take physical hits, but hey.

Cecile: Cecile is... pretty much Lyn on a horse as far as the stat spread goes, I think.  Granted mine was an absolute freak this run and went and capped strength, but still.  The durability is pretty uninspiring for a frontliner, but it's alright enough for the lower difficulties and her growths allow her a few cute options.

Catria: Possibly MVP?  Maybe.  Pretty nuts from start to finish.

Linde: Pretty awesome.  Not only did they have her join early, they gave her a silly-ass speed growth and Nosferatu on top of Aura.  Durability on both fronts was pretty disappointing, but hey, Nosferatu.

Julian: Filler.  His growths are pretty awesome so if you can get past the fact that he starts with an E in Swords he makes for a fairly competent combat unit.  Still, starting with an E rank is pretty ew, since it's pretty hard to be effective with just iron weapons.

Sirius: Is basically Seth who joins in C4 and has better growths.  Starting off with A Lances/B Swords is pretty sexy too, since weapon rank takes a while to build up.

Caeda: Well Wing Spear hax isn't as good since there aren't as many armored/mounted units running about but she's still pretty awesome.  Not quite as good as Catria but still.

Feena: Dancer.  What is there to say, really?

Minerva: Token axe user.  Pretty awesome at it, too.  Overall, improved from her SD appearance, which was already pretty nice.

Merric: Well Excalibur's still badass.  Too bad about joining midgame with unimpressive bases.  He can play catchup, but man, talk about getting hit with the nerfbat.

Maris: 10 base defense on a Lv10 Myrmidon what the heck.  Pretty solid option for a Myrm, at any rate, and SMs can actually dodge stuff due to getting +10 evade now.  Navarre's probably better but hey.

People who got used but didn't make the final cut:

Luke: Was pretty badass and I kinda feel sorry about dumping him.  Still, that speed wasn't really going anywhere after a point and double-attacking is kinda not trivial in this game.  Still turned out to be a badass tank, though.

Rody: Got dumped early on.  He's not *bad*, just he's the middle option of the starting three cavs and doesn't really have much to show for it aside from a superior LUCK growth.  I imagine he'd pull ahead on the harder difficulties due to durability mattering more but as is, eh.

Gordin: Oh hey Gaggles still sucks.

Ryan: Uh he owns Gaggles. <----------------------


SOLD!!!!!!!!!



(ahem)
Also, for the Elfboys: Rankings are back.

[Ultradude]

Damn Fudo. That's dirt slow for Eirika.

[Fudozukushi]

Damn Fudo. That's dirt slow for Eirika.

Now that you mention that, I'm going to check my Eirika path save.

...
...
...

24 Speed at 20/11.  Vanessa has 25 and she's 20/5

Then at 20/20 Eirika has 30 Speed hahahahahahaha.

[Grefter]

Mass Effect 2 - Finished Renegade play through, saved everyone this time.  Game is awesome and people should play it and stuff.

[Dark Holy Elf]

3-4 (Striders at the Guardian Shrine)

Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread
Elayne: Elementalist; Enig/SS OC, Gadg EQ, IFF, Accelerate
Vin: Strider; Fant/Gadg OC, Sec EQ, Atk+25%

I decide to switch back to Strider here because the climb is super-mobile. As it turns out from here, I decide to stick with it to get Aim+25%, which is pretty sexy. Anyway, this lets her navigate quickly and kill some of the enemies on cliffs. Otherwise this is a fairly straightforward battle, no reinforcements and nothing really exceptional on the enemy end. Elayne masters elementalist from this battle, and the other two hit Level 40.

3-5-A (Inside the shrine)

Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Fantastica; Enig/Elem OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Sent OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%

In preparation for the next battle which is probably unnecessary, I decide to get Fantastica OC on Elayne. I figure the more people who have it, the better.

Anyway, while Chapter 3 continues to, in general, not be tooo tough, this is at least a better fight than most of the previous (well, probably not the Forsaken Mutants or Chelle 2). Heavy Strike as always is to push people into the abyss but it's not really too necessary. What is, perhaps, necessary, is making sure the enemy Sentinels don't do the same thing right back! In desperation, Mesmerise stops that crap, and in general is very useful on this map. I split up here to cover the map in a reasonable length of time, which does make things a bit trickier, but I think it's probably worth it, CSP is good and all. The wave of reinforcements, which include a pair of quite powerful elementalists and some always annoying grapplers, throw a bit of a ripple into the fight but it's nothing that isn't manageable.

3-5-B (Edna makes the world a better place)

Clarissa: Fantastica; Enig/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/Fant OC, Elem EQ, Accelerate, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Sent OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%

Wow the final boss has terrible HP here, unfortunately that's no help to me! Fantastica for everyone, probably overkill but I figure it'll be handy to have later at worst. Once again I split folks up. Fright Knights... hmm. No major weaknesses (just a minor one to fire), so Devastate is generally superior. They have pretty good Def for the time (300) but it's not unmanageable and their evade is kinda low to compensate. They hit decently hard but not amazingly so, and can heal. Not really as good as they should be plotwise, but not something to take lightly by any means, I do lose a PC to them.

Heavy Strike is an option though not as effective a one as in the previous map due to the shape of things. Beyond that, it's a matter of cutting enemies down, making sure to heal so I can't be overwhelmed, and finally reaching Katrina and nuking her MP to bits. She doesn't fight back in this form, which helps.

3-6 (Samille, El Jackson, and the Shut Out wall)

Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/Elem OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%

Only seven enemies should make for an easier fight than this. It's not terrifying or anything, but yeesh do the elementalists hit hard. Over 500 magic? What is this crap. To make matters worse they have Reflect. Anyway, I don't really go in with a great anti-elementalist strategy so if this battle were any harder I could probably resort to that.

A single Widespread Dispel deals with the wall, and then it's a matter of getting in there, busting things up and healing as quickly as possible. Nothing too significantly interesting beyond that.

Items have reached the point where using them is actually cost-effective, I just need to train myself to actually do it.

[superaielman]

Freedom Force- Just started this. It's an RPG with comic book characters, what's not to love? The interface is as clunky as you'd expect from a PC RPG from the early 00's, but it still has sharp writing and the game is pretty.  First mission's done, starting on the second. I need to be careful about bugginess, as the game has issues with windows 7.

[Sierra]

It has issues with Vista, too. Sound cuts out after a couple minutes of my playing it. Which wouldn't be a problem if text boxes didn't cut out shortly thereafter.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Freedom Force- Just started this. It's an RPG with comic book characters, what's not to love? The interface is as clunky as you'd expect from a PC RPG from the early 00's, but it still has sharp writing and the game is pretty.  First mission's done, starting on the second. I need to be careful about bugginess, as the game has issues with windows 7.

My favorite character? Mentor. That voice... FUCK.

[superaielman]

VA/sound keeps cutting out, sadly. I need to look more for a patch for vista/win7.

[Captain K.]

DQ9 players, what do you think about using level 40 as endgame for stat topic?  Pure class of course, multiclassing is another kettle of fish.

[Xeroma]

Doesn't sound too bad to me

[OblivionKnight]

grind moar

[Twilkitri]

Disgaea DS -

Finished. Final levels: Laharl 86, Etna & Warren (Warrior) 60s, most others 50s, Prinny Brigade 40s.

Lamington was overpowerful and I went back to grinding for a bit. I ended up spending most of my time then getting magic that I had no intention or ability to use though, so probably did not need to spend the amount of time that I did.

Whoever decided that being thrown onto the exit panel for Point Alpha-III shouldn't count as reaching it, leading me into thinking that it wasn't the 'secret' entrance after all and I had to manipulate the cannons into shooting a wall or something, needs to be punted.

Ending is not clear enough that Lam is spared. Maybe this is more noticable if you get a different ending first.

Any point to playing Etna mode?

[Dark Holy Elf]

3-7 (Samille, El Jackson, and the power of friendship)

I have tier 4 classes now, but decide not to make use of them for this battle. I'm not exactly sure how to work them into my upcoming strategies, besides Debilitator for bosses and Emulator for... well, a bunch of things. Doubt I'll use Nightstalker much, its advantages aren't generally relevant on this challenge, and High Cavalier... we'll see.

Clarissa: Enigmancer; DS/SS OC, Elem/DS EQ, Widespread
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/SS OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%

Elemental resists everywhere here, hence the lack of Elementalist OC. Also, the enemies have various high-level skills like Reflect and Retaliation. The enemies fight in pairs and like to boost each other with Zone Effect, but it's not really a big deal, and it's mostly a matter of blowing them up in the usual fashion and watching out for the various defensive skills the enemies employ. I do fail to take my own advice and eat my own reflected Sacrifice at one point, yay 330+ damage! But besides that it's not too hard a battle. Mesmerise and Prevent both see some use at containing certain enemies.

3-8 (evil royal knights)

The coolest thing about this battle is that there's a generic royal knight named Kahn who has 1500 VP (this is insane, might even be game-best), more HP than the boss, and manly sentinel skills. Clearly a reference to the BoF4 guy.

Clarissa: Enigmancer; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Elayne: Gadgeteer; Enig/Elem OC, Elem EQ, IFF, Mag+25%
Vin: Strider; Fant/Grap OC, Sec EQ, Weapon Block, Atk+25%

I have rather little to say about the battle itself. It's mostly teaching you to watch enemy skillsets, since the royal knights actually play like various common classes (Sacred Slayer, Elementalist, Secutor, Sentinel) but if you don't watch for which is which you'll be in trouble. Esperanza, the boss, deserves note because he has a pretty solid set of boss immunities and non-fail HP, but offensively he's just another Sentinel. Highlights of this battle include tossing enemies off the bridge and then drop kicking them.

3-9 (Nightstalker status whoring) (2 resets)

Clarissa: Emulator; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread, Crisis Rfx Up
Levin: Emulator; Elem/SS OC, Elem EQ, Widespread
Alexia: Sacred Slayer; RF/Stri OC, RF EQ, Leader's Duty, Strong Heart

This battle totally came out of nowhere and kicked my ass. Easily the best fight in Chapter 3 so far.

First of all, I decided I badly want to take certain emulator skills out of this battle, namely sleep, petrify, and misery. Not only are these good statuses to have in general, two of them totally hose some upcoming bosses who might otherwise be quite dangerous. I opt to use Levin because Execrate is that darn good for said spells. Levin has poor offensive stats which has made me generally shy away from him this playthrough, but good speed and MP and those are the only stats needed to statuswhore effectively.

Anyway, deciding to get those is a mixed blessing for the battle itself. On the one hand, Emulator is a great class; MP Regen and Conserve MP combine for someone who can use powerful skills for a long battle, and Exploit Weakness is a huge damage boost against anything with a weakness (i.e. everything in this battle, for starters). On the other hand, it means I can't kill all the Nightstalkers as fast as I'd like. There are five, each armed with a different status spell. Initially I figure I'll grab poison and disease too, but after it becomes clear how challenging this battle will be, I give that idea the finger. Neither status is particularly useful anyway.

My first reset comes brutally and quickly. The Nightstalkers start in status whoring range, and petrify/sleep/misery are all pretty much fatal. I scramble to keep up and repair what they do but it's hopeless and after a drawn-out fight in which the outcome is never in doubt, I die.

So I come back with Alexia in my party, as a Sacred Slayer, for one reason and one reason only, and that is to open the battle with Widespread Status Lock. Things go better this time but eventually I'm overwhelmed by NIGHTSTALKER PHYSICAL BLITZ once they're out of MP. They're just faster than I am (they're fast even for nightstalkers), and their defence-ignoring physicals wear me down eventually. Once again, not a swift defeat by any means, but a defeat it is.

In the winning run I'm more aggressive, quickly killing off the two Nightstalkers I deem expendable (Exploit Weakness hype goes here), and also make use of Mesmerise to control the surviving ones. It's not really perfect because Alexia can't re-Status Lock herself after 3 turns, and Mesmerise wears off fairly quickly due to nightstalker speed, but it gets the job done. It's quite a grind and people definitely die. In fact, I'm fairly convinced I'm going to have a reset here as at one point Levin is all alone against two nightstalkers and at critical HP, I gamble and have him put both to sleep. (I'd already tried this once and missed). 50% odds, but both hit, and I'm able to regroup and revive. To my great fortune, one of the two never even wakes up. I get all the status spells downloaded, and kill the last two nightstalkers. Battle over!

Or not. Apparently there are still 7 royal knights to kill. They're pretty similar to the last battle, only I have more offence due to Emulator and my shinty new status spell options (Petrify sees some use). However, I am -badly- worn down and out of revival, and the Sacred Slayers are supercharged by their dead buddies. I lose Levin during the fight against Esperanza and his Sacred Slayer buddy, and have to be careful about overwhelming the healing. Fortunately I'm able to do that, then finally proceed over and finish off the last three.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I realise that I probably could have had both Execrate and Widespread by now on Levin if I'd played my cards right, and goodness knows that would have helped a lot. Oh well, having to be in Martial Mage for Execrate is an acceptable cost.

Next up is Asgard and oh shit he has a lot of HP. Time to exploit boss status weaknesses~

[hinode]

Finished up basically everything in Muramasa now; all 108 swords, every ending, both characters at level 99 with every accessory in the game, etc. I think Kisuke has a few of the white Enemy Lairs you need only beat once to get a sword remaining, but that's pretty irrelevant at this point.

Momohime really got the short end of the stick in terms of bosses - Giant Oni and Raijin are the two hardest ones in the game, IMO, with Chimera and Pig Demon to a lesser extent also giving me trouble. Fudo-Myoou's the harder of the final bosses as well. Meanwhile on Kisuke's side Dragon God stood out for difficulty (but still less than Giant Oni/Raijin) and... I'm not sure I even bothered with healing items against any of the rest. Maybe a few against Torahime.

Narukani bracelet is hilariously overpowered, though considering how much effort it takes to acquire it's fair enough. I deliberately saved all the harder bosses (save Dragon God, wanted the Nio Bracelet for Total Pandemonium) until after getting the Narukani Bracelet so I could effortlessly tank through all their worst attacks and lengthy invincibility periods.

All in all, Muramasa lived up to my expectations: a gorgeous-looking game with gameplay that never got tedious or punishing. Also optional difficulty modes for those who are better at action games than me, but I didn't touch those; still nice to have them.

[Sierra]

Nier: At least even the game acknowledges Kaine's a weirdo for fighting monsters while wearing lingerie.

Anyway, sometimes it's like the game's just sort of there, like when I'm running around doing random fetch quests for villagers, and then other times I wind up in a town where everyone's stricken with crippling narration syndrome. It was a pretty hilarious bit of fourth-wall breaking and I kept a save file just for that. "I can tell that the one called Nier is disappointed that the torn dress will be given no further description, but he hides it well." Hah. It was also a pretty amusing coincidence to find a town full of people stuck in their dreams right after getting home from seeing Inception.

[Taishyr]

Borderlands: Beaten. Level 36 at endgame. Quite enjoyed even the singleplayer, multiplayer should also be quite enjoyable but it wasn't an option here. Was Soldier, mainly used Eridian Weapons/Sniper Rifles but everything outside Launchers was above 5 prof.

Needed a -bit- more visual variety but otherwise was quite fun visually, and the dialogue was enjoyable. Remind me to avatar a CL4P-TP sometime. Uh, Tannis was hilarious, as was Scooter. Fights were generally entertaining but this might be in part because I suck at shooters. Anyway, fun game, not sure what to say.

[SageAcrin]

Wild Arms XF:

Started this up again. Went from 2-1 to 2-9 in the past couple of days.

I feel like I ought to mention this, as I'm fairly vocal about the game's map issues-what everyone says is indeed accurate and the game has less things I consider issues as it goes on.

2-1, for instance, is pretty normal. It has a gimmick! You can...turn off, effectively. Or abuse to kill enemies. It is, in other words, not one-sided, not class related, is instead terrain related. And it's hard but not unreasonably so.

2-2's gimmick requires you to put two people in a job that I'd rather not put two people in(Sentinel)! Except...it's the closest thing to an actually optional gimmick so far. Which, is to say a normal team can actually have everyone do useful things on the map. As, that's what mine did.

Now, 2-3 was kinda a bastard. But...it's not a gimmick. As I found myself laughing at the time, a set of enemies I generally find more competent than the(not incompetent) stage before it, combined with OH FUCK UNCURABLE SILENCE IN A GAME WITH POOR PHYSICALS, is not really a gimmick in the standard sense, and in any other game-ones that hadn't had a bunch of limiting gimmicks followed by relatively weaker enemy forces-it wouldn't have stood out. As it is I just found myself baffled. It goes against the game's design philosophy so far. I can't really say that's bad, per se-my issue with XF is that, when it's going for gimmicks, it's boring as hell. This wasn't boring.

(2-3 does have a USE NORMALLY CRAP FELIUS SKILL gimmick. I prefer to ignore that on the grounds that if you can't manage the battle enough for Felius to get there you're dead, and if you can you probably can manage the battle anyways. That and I forgot the skill and had to be reminded of this.)

2-4 got hype as annoying. I don't see it. Except the part where there's a pointless three turn walk up to the enemies, followed by a vaguely slow paced weakening, and then a 15 second sequence where you watch a gate very slowly open. This is minor but irritating as it is a stage that is easy to screw up and I want those eight minutes back from my two retries. Otherwise I really liked the stage, though the OH LOOK TIME LIMIT RUSH RUSH oh yeah that kills you~ is a jerk move(one I shouldn't have fell for, though. The way to handle it is definitely not to try to run through the deathtrap with all enemies still live. Either kill them or get to the gate first.).

2-5 has a mostly cute gimmick that doesn't require you to deal with it and is a fine map otherwise. Not really special but fine. 2-6 is kinda sad in that it can only kill you if you screw up or don't know what's coming(It Barrier Storm'd a Replica, so I...summoned more...and it never used it again...um.). 2-7 is a nice timed map, 2-8..."Huh, wonder why the FAQ calls this easy, I barely made it to the enemy I was supposed to hit." *Crush.* *No damage.* "Oh. Plot fight.", 2-9 cost me a reset because I was lazy and didn't want to change my team at all(also I kinda didn't look at the map and realize how big it was), but otherwise was pretty reasonable. Would have worked better if I'd done more than just use Move 4 and up people and actually used good Move people, but.

Anyways, the point is yeah it does improve. It's nice.

Also, I would like to point out that a certain person in the Elesius sequence there:

A: Gives long knowledgable speeches to various characters about life and philosophy.

B: Despite being ill, kills ten people at once. With no build up beforehand for this ability.

C: Punches the fuck out of something.

D: Explodes.

It's Gawn+. I swear to god.

[Cmdr_King]

I got the impression that, like Ferid in Suikoden V, the Queen married him because he was the biggest badass in all the land.  This being a country built on the corpses of every OTHER country, and thus presumably filled with badasses.

[Crystalgate]

Fire Emblem 8: Started it on the hardest difficulty which so far seems about as hard as the normal difficulty on Fire Emblem 7. Victims of war is rather tricky though.

Anyway, I've decided to pick Ephaim's route once I get the decision and this time around I'll use more strong characters and less of the swift ones.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Also, I would like to point out that a certain person in the Elesius sequence there:

A: Gives long knowledgable speeches to various characters about life and philosophy.

B: Despite being ill, kills ten people at once. With no build up beforehand for this ability.

C: Punches the fuck out of something.

D: Explodes.

It's Gawn+. I swear to god.

XF just sorta cranks the cheese the series is know for up to eleven and then goes beyond the impossible with it. Just wait, it gets more insane.

[Sierra]

Nier: Acquired 1x Captain Skullhead. Out of curiosity, would refusing to petrify Kaine have actually led to another story branch, or just a cutscene game over? Also, guys, it's been five years. Fix the library already--the rain can pour right in and ruin the books. You didn't even move the fragments of the broken roof out of the building! Not even I'm that lazy!

Also, boo game, throwing a time jump at me when I haven't finished all the current sidequests. That was very rude. Now I'll never be able to give that melon to Yonah.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I thought trollans was Cavia's business.