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

[Pyro]

inFamous: Beaten. Did good path, although I saw the inFamous sphere scene/ending.

Generally a fun game, with lots of cool gameplay elements (SUPER PARKOUR BROTHER). The game gets a point for having possibly the most frigteningly accurate enemies I've seen in a game, but still staying on the right side of the "challenging/frustrating" line.

The game's plot and character stuff is just bleh. I don't feel the need to care about it. This is of course okay because it doesn't put too much emphasis on the plot and has fantastic gameplay. I would complain a little about the need to rapid-press the fire button but you could work around that with other powers. I was annoyed at the protect-the-bus mission until I realized that you can infinitely time-slow snipe on any charged platform, which is just broke.

Not sure what I'll play next.

[Idun]

Darken Forest. The mist has arisen.

[AAA]

Prototype-Fun but seriously flawed. The platforming is so hard to control and floaty that it basically makes any of the finer platforming challenges incredibly frustrating unnecessarily. The problem is that they tie the parkour to one single button, which also happens to be the sprint button. Which means you're constantly platforming around at breakneck speed and bouncing off walls like a meth addict, and it's impossible to adjust your trajectory because the instant you stop sprinting Mercer un-glues himself from the walls and you fall down. Exploration also suffers, but at least you get a nifty Glide ability that helps move things along.

The targeting system is a fucking nightmare. I thought GTA3 was the last game that had such shitty targeting. You see, it seems to just randomly target enemies wherever. And in an open-sandbox game that's also sort of a zombie apocalypse roughly 80% of the NPCs running around at any time can be an enemy, even if they're not attacking or doing anything to you. What this means it that while you're trying to target the GIANT FUCKING TANK RIGHT THERE, the game decides you really meant the one guy with an assault rifle down the block. Or the random zombie five blocks away just standing around doing nothing. Or the water tank 10 stories up that you can't even really see. Or any goddamn thing. Switching the targeting around means the game will happily target every. single. fucking. thing. in a 20 mile radius while ignoring the actual thing you're trying to target.

Besides that combat is pretty cool. It's fun to run around causing chaos and beating up military. I have to say it's the first game that's let me kick helicopters to death. The different powers are fun to use even if the Whipfist is way overpowered compared to everything else. The ability to hijack helicopters and tanks is useful when taking down a base but otherwise nothing special. Generic weapons aren't very helpful nor add much to variety, I don't think I ever used anything beside the rocket launcher unless the game made me. One thing that really annoyed me was the later military bases, which are a major pain in the ass to take down. Not only do they have tons of health but almost immediately after attacking like 50 tanks and helicopters and guy with rocket launchers show up and spam you with rockets until you're knocked into an endless loop and die. I mean you can always hijack a helicopter beforehand and spam missiles from a safe distance but it's annoying they forced me to do so.

Boss battles sucked. Especially Elizabeth Greene. So it's one of those "destroy x amount of weak spots to get at core to actually do damage" bosses, and of course the weak spots have plenty of health on their own. This wouldn't be so bad but it's impossible to use your more powerful techniques because they're all close range and you just sort of randomly get knocked back and take damage if you try to close the distance, and if she decides to use her massive AoE technique at that range it's basically game over. At range she's got two homing projectiles that can put you in a stun animation loop and they're spammable without any real limit as far as I can tell. So to actually do any damage to the boss at all you have to hop around like a maniac slowly chipping away at 3 weak points while avoiding tons of projectiles that can knock the shit out of you at any time. But wait, there's more! The military is also there so there are tons of tanks and helicopters and the like running around. They're not actually attacking you, but the game still considers them enemies so often I'd wind up having them targeted even if I'm directly in front of the boss, which tended to fuck up my strategy.

If you take too much damage you can retreat and consume people to up health...but there are Hunters running around all the time and they're constantly pursuing you, so if you stop to try and consume they'll probably find you and knock you down before you can get any health. So you can forget any type of healing or regen. And of course once you've actually gotten to the core of the boss and started doing damage they're more than happy to show up and attack you from behind, wasting precious time while you deal with the stun effect.

None of the bosses are much better, though at least they take less time.

Story's a bunch of random nonsense and the characters suck. Mercer is utterly generic, bland to the extreme. Nobody else has significant screen time or any kind of personality. The story makes no sense and just randomly cuts a bunch of times without explaining anything or even the most futile attempts at making things interesting. Even by sandbox standards it's bad.

So 7/10 I guess? I mean I came down on it really hard here but I still enjoyed my time with it.

Halo 3-Sucks my balls

[Grefter]

PC or console for Prototype?  The controls aren't very tight from my experience, but aiming wasn't much of an issue on PC, plenty of other issues though.

[SageAcrin]

Touhou 12.8:

https://sites.google.com/site/sageacrin/th128_01.rpy

I...

What the fuck is this game's Normal?

What the *fuck* is this game's Normal? My god. I mean, I cleared, first try, but jesus christ. It's harder than SA's.

Edit: Hammering this home, I tried Route B and *died out* at the final boss. (Route B is harder because Luna Child becomes the final boss focus for attacks. This produces some sickening PoFV Komachi style brutal crap.) Good god.

(Then again it is six in the morning and, despite that being eleven hours awake for me, nonetheless I am pretty tired.)

[Fudozukushi]

The story makes no sense and just randomly cuts a bunch of times without explaining anything or even the most futile attempts at making things interesting. Even by sandbox standards it's bad.

I think there's supposed to be over a hundred of the "web of intrigue" targets.  Making most of the backstory optional is urghhhhhhh.

[AAA]

Well it's not even the backstory, which is pretty obvious if you think about it. It's shit like Dana being captured and then rescued comatose. He leaves her with the doctor and for the rest of the game she's never mentioned or seen again. You do enough consume events and you can confront Karen Parker about her betrayal but the scene just abruptly stops and it's never clear what exactly happened or why she did it. While chasing down Taggart Mercer acts all pissed but we've never seen this guy do anything to anyone and he was barely mentioned before you consume him.

It's like they just sort of ran out of time and went 'fuck it'

edit: Console version Gref.

[Tide]

Arc Rise Fantasia - Managed to get to some commercial city that sounds like Carbuncle. Randoms in this game are largely pushovers. Bosses in this game are insanely badass. In fact, let me give a summary of the bosses so far!

Deathchanter (1/2):
The first form had a high 2HKO fire atta ck (around 60% PCHP) and he triple acts. Every phase, he spends the first one summoning a skelly though, so only double acting in practice. The guest PC tends to focus on killing the skellies, so you can focus on the boss...except he's also quite durable. You need a lot of turns to bring him down since your damage options at this point kind of suck. Excels take a while to charge and 3 AP cost is pretty steep at these levels. Once you take him down below 50%, he gets a new AoE dark attack that can also inflict sleep. Because he wasn't good enough. Should you survive the first encounter, you'll get to fight the second form pretty much right afterwards after a short dungeon. Here he has 3HKO damage with his physical and triple turns. Which can become a 2HKO anyway because of his passive ability (Deadly combination is a guaranteed crit, even though it looks like it only triggers 25% of the time). He also has a higher damage 2HKO move on a double action.

Loli Twins
The big difference in this fight seems to be whether or not you got the extra AP regen point before fighting. Niko already has his. Ryfia gains it next at level 12. If you fight them at level 11, you won't get the extra AP which strips you of an otherwise pretty big leverage. Damage is pretty nasty - each twin gets 2 actions and I think they deal 3HKOish damage or so? Possibly 4HKO damage, nothing to laugh about. The real problem is once they get their skills access which adds debuffs and the 3HKO damage is upped to a 2HKO in return. Durability isn't too hot, but with two of them, it'll still take a pretty long time to down both.

Big Plant:
Argh, 2HKO with status. Argh MT OHKO special move. Argh, switching between good magic defense/physical defense.

Death Scythe:
Has a high MT 2HKO attack (we're talking about 75%-80%) when not blocking. Oh, AND it added confusion so your other characters can fuck themselves up afterwards! Also high GT 3HKO (40% or so) with double acting. AND it can reflect physical attacks from time to time. Should you manage to survive and knock it down to 50%, it will drop the MT 2HKO attack for a ST 2HKO attack, but is stronger (85-90%) AND he can get a follow up turn right afterwards. Is an optional boss. BUT STILL.

Giant enemy crab:
It has a weak point that you should hit for MASSIVE DAMAGE. However, you have to fool around with the terrain. Oh and he has the typical ARF boss package. That is to say a very power 2HKO that is MT, a regular 2HKO ST technique that adds Defense down and Resistance down, and a randomly bad ass passive - in this case: Auto Guard.

[Grefter]

So much of the backstory for the plot for who betrayed Mercer, what happened to his sister and so on are just dumped half way through the game because of the spoiler plot issues, the reality is that these things no longer matter to Alex at all, so they are dropped.  No point chasing up shit that doesn't matter anymore.  The number of web of intrigue targets is pretty huge, but a larger percentage of them are key side mission targets and everything central to the plot is really discovered during the main plot.  The only stuff that really floats around the free roam world is unimportant side stuff or stuff that you can fill in the gaps to work out.

None of that means that the writing is any good though.  The concept that these things don't matter anymore are incredibly poorly communicated to the player and they just feel like dropped plot threads, so the feeling of them just running out of time just amplifies as it highlights those deficiencies.

Still feel like Prototype is a fun enough game that is worth the time, but for a sand box game with funnish plot it is the wrong place to look, if that is the side of the spectrum you want then you play inFamous, if you want serious plot then you will want GTA4.  Prototype is the one you play for fly kicking helicopters and killing builldings with tanks (And grriiiiiiiind).

[Excal]

Ok, three games on the jumper at the moment.

Shadow Hearts 2, managed to reach the final dungeon.  Not entirely sure I like the direction Yuri's plot is taking, though I'll see how it pans out.  Done almost no sidequests, and as they'd almost certainly involve more Shadow Hearts gameplay, I will not be doing them.  I suspect this means I will get the bad end.  Oh well, at least I will have kicked Kato's face in.

Godhand - Currently on Stage 6, and mostly enjoying this.  Doing a good job of scratching my itch for something actiony to play.  Combat is fun, and it's sense of style is pretty damn strong.  The characters are also surprisingly strong, with Devilhand being the current leader, far and away, for worst real character.  (Stuff like the Shuffle Rangers don't count)  Action itch is kinda scratched for the moment, but it'll come back, likely before my brother is done with the game.

SRW@ - Having seen how many scenarios there are, I boggled.  Then again, I'm also noticing that this game will not shy away from the occasional short level.  Like the map with three enemies followed by the map with two (where apparently you get penalised for killing those two enemies?  WTF).  So, this game is going by surprisingly fast.  It's also interesting to note how many enemy casts have ways to just shut down the entire Gundam cast, either by being flying with Beam nulling barriers, or by being Angels with their AT fields that only the heaviest hitters can pierce.

Either way, core units at this point are Giant Robo, Raideen, R-1/2/Gun, Huckbein Mk2, Com-battler V, Re-GZ, Z/ZZ Gundam, Getter Robo, Eva 01/02, and whatever that Dunbine upgrade is (Balbaria or something like that.).  Mazinger works as filler now that it has Strike, and the Dunbine and Cybuster are around for other dodgy filler units.  Macross just showed up, though it hasn't been useful yet, so I suspect that Valkyries will also show up soon.  Also vaguely wondering when the Balmars are going to show up, as they've had about two appearances so far.

At present, I am at the point of the game where I must deal with Israfel.  Naturally, I turned down brute force in favour of dancing like I want to Win.  May get me less Scenario Points, but that is immaterial.

[Captain K.]

TvC:  tried out the online play now that I have a working wi-fi connection.  Since I hadn't touched the game in a few months, I predictably lost quite a few matches.  But I didn't do badly - many losses were very close, despite being against people with good records.  There are three problems with their wi-fi matchup system though:

1) you get matched against people with hundreds of matches (and good records) even when you first start out
2) you frequently get matched up with the same person you just fought, even if you click "No, I don't want a rematch"
3) If either player disconnects, you get a loss.  This happened to me twice when I was winning - the second time I already had "KO" on the screen when I beat him and it still gave me a loss.

DQ9:  Got my whole party up to 99 and revocated once... which took the fun out of the game.  Going from doing high-level stuff back to level 40 stuff is dull.

[Ultradude]

BoF 4 - Finished. Tyrant and Astral weren't easy, but I had plenty of resources to spare at the end and only had a few deaths. Generally pretty excellent despite a lot of issues with visibility and controls in dungeons - Scias is a true blue badass, and some of the best antagonists in any RPG I've played. 8,9/10? Need to not go entirely on reaction.

[Shale]

Shadow Hearts 2, managed to reach the final dungeon.  Not entirely sure I like the direction Yuri's plot is taking, though I'll see how it pans out.  Done almost no sidequests, and as they'd almost certainly involve more Shadow Hearts gameplay, I will not be doing them.  I suspect this means I will get the bad end.  Oh well, at least I will have kicked Kato's face in.

Which ending you get depends entirely on a choice you make inside the final dungeon, and has nothing to do with sidequests or gameplay of any kind.

[Pyro]

DQ9:  Got my whole party up to 99 and revocated once... which took the fun out of the game.  Going from doing high-level stuff back to level 40 stuff is dull.

So I suppose what you're looking to do is to master all of the passive abilities for the other classes and then just switch back to the Lvl 99 classes. Then take on the ultimate superbosses and stuff?

[Luther Lansfeld]

I suspect this means I will get the bad end.

I think it's irrelevent but I'm not sure? it's just a yes/no question in the final dungeon iirc

[Cotigo]

I suspect this means I will get the bad end.

I think it's irrelevent but I'm not sure? it's just a yes/no question in the final dungeon iirc

Yeah, when Yuri's Little Girl Spirit Guide asks him how he has decided to live (or something along those lines I don't really remember), your response determines what ending you get.  I recommend at least Youtube-ing the scenes from the Man Festival if you don't do it.  It's pretty entertaining, although if you hate SH gameplay it might infuriate you.

[SageAcrin]

SRW@ - Having seen how many scenarios there are, I boggled.  Then again, I'm also noticing that this game will not shy away from the occasional short level.  Like the map with three enemies followed by the map with two (where apparently you get penalised for killing those two enemies?  WTF).  So, this game is going by surprisingly fast.  It's also interesting to note how many enemy casts have ways to just shut down the entire Gundam cast, either by being flying with Beam nulling barriers, or by being Angels with their AT fields that only the heaviest hitters can pierce.

Either way, core units at this point are Giant Robo, Raideen, R-1/2/Gun, Huckbein Mk2, Com-battler V, Re-GZ, Z/ZZ Gundam, Getter Robo, Eva 01/02, and whatever that Dunbine upgrade is (Balbaria or something like that.).  Mazinger works as filler now that it has Strike, and the Dunbine and Cybuster are around for other dodgy filler units.  Macross just showed up, though it hasn't been useful yet, so I suspect that Valkyries will also show up soon.  Also vaguely wondering when the Balmars are going to show up, as they've had about two appearances so far.

At present, I am at the point of the game where I must deal with Israfel.  Naturally, I turned down brute force in favour of dancing like I want to Win.  May get me less Scenario Points, but that is immaterial.

IIRC the dance option gets you more skill points.

Not that it really matters outside of a few secrets you'll almost certainly miss playing casually.

That, incidentally, is part of the Gundams thing. Standard Gundams are massive project beasts and many of them get some truly sickening secret upgrades(as well as doubleacting) fairly soon, if you'd done that. Which, you haven't, so they tend to be sorta so-so after that(double-acting is at least not secret, just levels). But, yeah, they're weak before that, especially really early.

Alpha has secrets that would matter an irritating amount if the game was, er. hard. or if you couldn't field a damn good field of frontliners no matter what, the cast is simply huge and many people tend to be various levels of broken on either innate abilities like AT Field or statistics or large spirit pools, whatever.

It doesn't really matter, since you still have Macross and Gundam Wing, both of which don't rely on secrets and are sick as well.

And yeah I think SH2's ending doesn't care if you've done anything optional.

[Excal]

I've actually found a really good FAQ for listing what the requirements are for each skill point, as well as showing how they're spread out over the various path splits.  The main downside being that it doesn't give info on when a person will run (not to mention one case where an Exp Point bearing boss ran when they still had, like, 20k HP left.  I'm not sure even a Valoured HTB Cannon will do that much damage at this point.  Though hey, maybe it would if I went out of my way to unlock the thing's high Morale requirements and then also bought up it's power.

But yeah, Two Gundams and Brute Force both have the same potential for Exp points.

Ending also seems to be determined by these things.  But honestly, yeah.  This is a casual playthrough, so I'm not overly worried about doing the best at anything, and will take the bad ending.

Also, currently in the middle of Space Fold, or, Stage 32.  Finally got the Valks, which are doing their jobs.  Likely only going to be keeping Fokker of the Skull Squad, though Max and Hikaru might be kept around as filler.  Also having fun with the upgrades to R1&2 as well as the Huckbein.  R3 has shown up, but sadly, is not powered.  The two Gundam Wing units I've been given are less than stellar.

Re: SH2.  Likely going to end it in the next day or so.  Glad to hear the ending depends on a choice made in the final dungeon so it'll be easy to check both.  The Man Festival being optional is a bit surprising, but I suspect I'll lose nothing on missing it.  Especially since it seems to involve gameplay.

[Captain K.]

DQ9:  Got my whole party up to 99 and revocated once... which took the fun out of the game.  Going from doing high-level stuff back to level 40 stuff is dull.

So I suppose what you're looking to do is to master all of the passive abilities for the other classes and then just switch back to the Lvl 99 classes. Then take on the ultimate superbosses and stuff?

Done the superbosses already (at low levels - they optionally level up and get harder as you defeat them).  Actually when you revocate you go back to level 1 in that class.  So I have no level 99s at the moment.  But you do get a semi-useful accessory for each class you revocate in, so right now my goal is to revocate each class once and get all of those items.  I'll get the passive abilities along the way, but slowly.  You get crap for skill points at higher levels.

[Scar]

Quick Question:

If you were limited to buying one of these four games, which would you buy.

Also, if it's not too much to ask could you rate each game based on how much you enjoyed them...excluding the games you mightnot have played. (DNP or something)

Reasons behind this are I want to buy a new rpg, but I don't know what I want really. I only really want to buy one, possibly two games in the near future and all these games are old school cheap games found in bargain bins at the moment so i can splurge a little bit.

Megaman X: Command Mission, Ar Tonelico 2 (Mind you I haven't played AR T1, so I dunno if that matters.), Growlanser 5: Heritage of War, or Sands of Destruction.

Thanks!

[Lord Ephraim]

Of the 4, I enjoyed Growlanser more.  However, aside from Tallychu, only MMXCM is the only well played game here so you're not going to get many opinions.

[Luther Lansfeld]

MMXCM is good if you don't mind mockable plot. No comment on the others.

[Random Consonant]

Sands of Destruction is okayish if you don't mind chronic unbalance.  Dunno about the others.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SO1r - Beaten. Man, so much unbalance. Weird, though, I kinda like the game anyway. Probably a 5.5/10 game.

[Sierra]

MMXCM is worth playing. Combat's fun; everything else is silly nonsense but at least it doesn't try to pretend otherwise.

GL5 is...okay. See above except combat is somewhat less fun and the plot is dumb without actually realizing it.

I only played Ar Tonelico 1 but it was bad enough to convince me that I don't need to play anything else with Tonelico in the title.