Playin' any games today, Flying Nun? (WGAYP - 2011 Edition)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Shining Force 3 Part 2 - So a useless fatass healer tried to put up a brave face but then people were like bitch please.  Then we went through a cave and rescued a ninja chick who is probably still a better ninja than Ryu Hayabusa.  Then the useless fatass healer got eaten by worms and nobody cared.

You don't like the healer much, do you. What will you do when you get Gracia in part 3?

[Random Consonant]

Shining Force 3 Part 2 - So a useless fatass healer tried to put up a brave face but then people were like bitch please.  Then we went through a cave and rescued a ninja chick who is probably still a better ninja than Ryu Hayabusa.  Then the useless fatass healer got eaten by worms and nobody cared.

You don't like the healer much, do you. What will you do when you get Gracia in part 3?

Cheer because I got a better healer?  I dunno.

Edit because I feel like I need to elaborate on this: Part one I had three healers by the end of Chapter 3.  Part 2 I don't get a second healer until sometime in Chapter 4.

[DomaDragoon]

Bangai-O HD: Played the demo. It's not remotely as terrible as Spirits, but I still can't fathom why anybody would buy it when the N64 version is so easily emulated and actually a game instead of a collection of gimmick maps.

Because it's legal? Because some people's computers are old enough to be able to post on GameFAQs themselves and can't run N64 emulators? Because they're stupid?

Granted, I haven't really tried any Bangai-O game, so I'm not sure how similar they are.

[Shale]

Okay all of those are good arguments, it's just that the sequels being so stripped-down from the original makes me angry.

[superaielman]

FM4: Tide just got the Minotaur arms.

This was quite literally me when it happened: http://www.gifsoup.com/webroot/animatedgifs/126331_o.gif

[Random Consonant]

Shining Force 3 Part 2 - So we found Snow washed up downriver and then he proceeded to gnaw on Hal.  Of course.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's so fitting.

[Pyro]

Okamiden: Just completed the Lunar ruins.

It is generally a decent follow-up to Okami, but is inferior in quality. The areas, for example, are roughly the same as what was in Okami, but the graphical quality and freedom of exploration are highly limited. In short it isn't as pretty and there isn't as much to do.

But given how Okami was a fantastic game, Okamiden can be a downgrade and still be decent. The characters are endearing and the Celestial Brush is still as cool as ever. Combat is too easy but that is par the course really.

[Fenrir]

Fallout New Vegas Honest Hearts: About as captivating as the title suggests. I like some general ideas and concepts about it, but overall it was kinda boring. Not as boring as Broken Steel or anything, but I can't say I felt invested in anything but the logs. I liked Dead Money a lot more. The Burned Man is not as - OH GOD GIANT CAZADORES!? WHY??

Outland: Finished. Great, A+, will play again, etc. All the bosses are crazy.

Mirror's Edge: Finished. Nice. It is all about a perfect atmosphere at first, but this gradually goes away as the suspension of disbelief becomes hard to maintain, fast. (plot concerns + enemy incompetence)
Removing the Runner's vision (that makes every object you need to use, like gutters, flash red) is wonderful, I suggest doing it immediately after the prologue. With the runner's vision on, you're just following a linear path the whole game. Without it, well... You're left alone. The game throws some Impossible Tasks at you all the time, then after much trial and error you complete them anyway. It takes some effort, which makes it like real parkour unlike, say, Assassin's Creed where you can climb Burj Khalifa by pressing up enough times (which is still great in its own way, mind)
Which reminds me of the most hilarious part of Assassin's Creed 2. Some monuments are just impossible to climb in the early game. There's just no way. I've tried. The main character just can't jump high enough.
Then he meets this uber assassin girl, who teaches him basically this: "So, erm, instead of jumping normally... You need to jump higher" Then he can jump higher and climb everything in Italy. Awesome.

I don't think I'll come back to do time trials in Mirror's Edge. They're good on paper, but they require perfect memorization of every level more than speed. Replaying on hard sounds fun though. Later.

[Scar]

FF4:CC

FF4: Beaten. Missed the spoon this go around. Oh well. Kain still lacks damage, but is a better tank then Cecil. I just gotta give him his real end equipment from his trial. I do not understand how Square could have thought the Holy lance was a viable end game weapon for Kain when Edge and Cecil are like 90 points higher with their respected gear. It's dumb Square.

Interlude: Beat? This was utterly pointles. I was expecting something better honestly.

TAY: Uhm I beat all the chapters, but I saved over Ceodore's tale on accident. Whoops! I guess it did not matter since they used the levels from Kain's chapter anyways.

Oh and the Cock summon is awesome in this game.

So I got to the part where I can finally pick my party. Kain is going to make the cut, as will Edge. I would like to include Cecil for tanking purposes as well. That leaves two spots in the back row. Golbez seems overpowered, so I don't want to intially use him. I could sub out Cecil for now since he is a veggie. I think I want to use a new healer. I may also try to find some boomerangs and throw Edge in the back row. That would leave a front row spot open for a new fighter. I might level up Edward for now since I have so many healing items to waste.

So that means...Kain, Edge, Edward...and two others for now. I like a pure physical team. Bruisers ftw!

[Meeplelard]

FF4: Beaten. Missed the spoon this go around. Oh well. Kain still lacks damage, but is a better tank then Cecil. I just gotta give him his real end equipment from his trial. I do not understand how Square could have thought the Holy lance was a viable end game weapon for Kain when Edge and Cecil are like 90 points higher with their respected gear. It's dumb Square.

In what way is Kain a better tank than Cecil?  Cecil can actually takes hits for allies (which goes well with tanking, contrast to Kain's jump which would serve better on someone frail cause its AVOIDING damage), and has better defensive stats across the board.  There's no real way you can argue Kain is a better thank than Cecil.

[Scar]

His stats are better then Cecil's. He has an extra multiplier which makes him have better defense. It's simple math.

[Meeplelard]

Except that's not how FF4 Defense works.

The Multiplier is an EVASION multiplier, and FF4 Evasion is really bad (Magic Evasion is a little better cause it works against status moves and generally moves that hit less times); Cecil has more raw defense and that's all that matters for taking less damage.  FF4 is just stupid and puts the multiplier next to defense, but in truth, it should be placed next to evasion.

FF2 and FF3 did the exact same thing (the Multiplier is "How many hits you can dodge in a single attack."  FF5 naturally just removed the hit system altogether, hence why FF games since have just used more conventional evasion methods), only it was listed more logically.  So no, its not "Simple math"; its more like "FF4 CC still hasn't fixed that little idiocy of display."

[dude789]

Pokemon Ruby Grass Type Challenge:

Currently leveling up to level 45 before heading on over to victory road. Everyone is fully evolved and movesets are coming together. As expected Winona was a good fight although part of it was due to misplays on my part. I though she her team was Swablu, Pelliper, Altaria, and Skarmory so the starting Swellow caught me off gaurd and resulted in losing Shiftry earlier than I would have liked. Lileep easily the MVP of the fight. He Toxiced Altaria and was able to stall it out despite Dragon Dance and was able to tank Skarmory's super effective Steel Wings while Leech Seed killed it after Gloom got taken out by a luck crit.

Liza and Tate weren't a problem at all. I had dropped Rare Candy's on Lileep so I wouldn't have to level him so he had evolved to a Cradily and he Toxiced both Solrock and Lunatone. Breloom got outsped and OHKOed but, Sceptile and Shiftry were able to take the two out while Toxic helped chip.

Maxie 2 was much easier than last time. Crobat's Air Cutter still hurt, but it was a 3HKO on most of my pokemon instead of a 2HKO and in the end, it couldn't take out 5 pokemon (I have a Zigzagoon for HMs).

Wallace was pretty easy as well. Milotic took out a few Pokemon with Ice Beam, but Cradily got it with Toxic and Shiftry was able to get its health low enough that it started spamming recover while Toxic took off more and more of its HP.

I'll probably be done with the game soon and then I'll post the E4 and final pokemon evaluations.

[Sierra]

Also playing through Honest Hearts. Wandered around for a few hours, looking for odds and ends for the Dead Horses. Apparently I need five lunchboxes but there are only three lunchboxes in the building what.

Yeah, it's so-so thus far. Less story than Dead Money and nothing's a significant threat to me. ("Giant cazador" is scary just because, well, giant cazador...but it seemed like they couldn't cross the river, so I just sniped them.)

EDIT: And seem to be about at the end now. I'd just go knock it out already, but I think I missed one of those logs (that counter that tracks the survivor caches you've found? Stopped at four or five). So I port around the map to see if there are any undiscovered locations and I do see a couple when I jump to the Southern Passage, one due north of the bridge, the other due northeast. When I start to move towards them, the game bugs out and they disappear from the compass. ffffff. I'm not sure if it's giving me phantom signals or if the compass is just wigging out and arbitrarily making things invisible (I could swear it's done that a couple times during the expansion, though). Anyone happen to remember the survivor cave locations? I can at least run the names against what I've got marked already.

[Random Consonant]

Shining Force 3 Part 2 - Man, the Elbesem Temple needs to invest in a better security system.  Also PROMOOOOOOOTIONS.

[Fenrir]

Cid: This happened to me in this expansion, and FO3: Point Lookout too.
The caches I missed were outside Angel Cave (Exit the cave from the back side, then it's hidden near the cliff. There's no log here though) and above the Red Gate (You'll have to climb)

[Grefter]

Fable 3 - So this is pretty awful.  At least it is more streamlined than the previous ones I guess?  A generic experience pool is honestly an improvement.  But this being Fable they stopped calling it Experience, they just gave it a symbol that they refer to it as (Guild Seals I think it says in dialogue?).  So I am going to call it The Statistuc Formerly Known as Experience.

You start the game, your brother is a douche, you have a love interest   Oh hey there is a riot   Your brother is a douche and is going to kill them all   Okay so he makes you pick between killing your love interest or the leaders of the riot, that douche    Now that means you are a hero because people call you a hero often enough   You get some gloves that let you set things on fire, this is a certain sign that you are a hero   You run through some sewers and get teleported into your own special pocket dimension for heros   This means you are a hero   So you go to another village to start a revolution because you are a hero   They don't believe you though   So you have to go to a place to get a special item to prove that you are a hero   You get that so it means you are a hero   Then you do some other stuff to make a town join your revolution and you are proving that you are a hero

So yeah it is still Fable.  I throw fire at stuff and it dies.  At least they made the dancing in front of people and shitting in their face have more effect (you get The Statistuc Formerly Known as Experience for it). 

It is good to be a hero.  Especially knowing that later on in the game the easiest way to win is to be insanely evil for 10 minutes to get a ton of cash and then donate the money to the kingdom's treasury (ie yourself) so you can save everyone through the power of gold.

Fable 3 sends some very amazing mixed signals.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Do we get a series of very special analyses on it like we did on GS3?

[Captain K.]

Last Remnant:  Woo, I beat the Fallen!  Did some skill grinding to get Cachexia for Loki and Leshau, but they never had it come up as an option in battle.  But Baulson just clobbered him with repeated Heaven's Doors for the win on Turn 9.  Now I can get on with the game.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup:  Tried this out since everyone in chat was playing it.  Fairly generic roguelike, nothing really notable except a large variety of classes and races.  Compared to other Roguelikes it's got an increased emphasis on food, decreased emphasis on lighting.  Best character so far was a Draconian Ice Mage, who died on level 6 to the twins.  Killed one and almost killed the other, when he zarked me for 17 damage with an Ice bolt. 

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Do we get a series of very special analyses on it like we did on GS3?

Frankly, there isnt enough game to really analyze at all. It's amazingly short.

[dude789]

Pokemon Ruby Grass challenge: Beaten, E4 was pretty difficult and a couple of times I had to spam Revives and Full Restores to get by. Final levels were between 46-48.

Sidney: Easy. Breloom and Shiftry took advantage of the fighting weakness with Sky Uppercut and Brick Break respectively so he was pretty simple. Vileplume also saw a lot of use and took out his Shiftry and Cacturne with Sludgebomb. Easiest of the E4 by far.

Pheobe: She wasn't too bad either. Shiftry dealt with her team really well. The only roadblock was her second Dusclops which has Ice Beam. It was able to take out Shiftry, but the rest of the team took him out, and I revived Shiftry to deal with the rest. Between Pressure and Spite I ended up using a lot of PP for some crucial moves, but I had a couple ethers in stock.

Glacia: The first real challenge. The first Glalie got stalled out by Cradily. She sent out the Sealeos next but Breloom was faster and OHKOed them with Sky Uppercut. Unfortunately Wailren was faster and OHKOed Breloom with Blizzard. Sceptile weakened Wailren with Leaf Blade and Shiftry was able to take it out with the help of a Blizzard miss and a Critical Hit Giga Drain. The second Glalie wass the big problem. At this point, the well of remaining pokemon was running dry and Glalie could OHKO everyone. I didn't have enough pokemon left to have all the faster pokemon chip him down so I ended up spamming revives until it ran out of Ice Beams. Not the most elegant strategy, but I didn't have a ton of options remaining.

Drake: Not to bad. Toxic stalling took out the Salamance, and Sceptile did a lot of damage with Dragon Claw. Cradily and Sceptile did most of the heavy lifting in this battle.

Steven: Ugh. Probably everything that could have gone wrong in this battle went wrong. I know from the Winona fight that Skarmory walls my team stupidly well. My only real way to damage him is Leech Seed and Breloom gets outsped and OHKOed by Aerial Ace. My plan was for Vileplume to put it to sleep so Breloom could quickly come in and Leech Seed it. Unfortunately, Sleep Powder went either 2-5 or 2-6 and both times the Skarmory woke up on the second turn and OHKOed Breloom before it could use Leech Seed (one of these times it also got past a confusion check). Eventually I was able to paralyze it with Tropius's Body Slam and apply Leech Seed. Cradily was the pokemon out when Skarmory finally fainted and unfortunately, this prompted Steven to send out Metagross next. This was bad news because my initial plan was to use the rest of Steven's team to rebuild my losses from Skarmory. Metagross could either OHKO or 2HKO all of my team and no one was above half health so I was effectively heal locked. I got lucky with Meteor Mash missing a few times, but those misses were cancelled out by critical hits later. I ended up having to stall out Metagross's Meteor Mash and Psychic PP with Tropius. The rest of Steven's team wasn't two bad, but those two pokemon were just ridiculously difficult to take out with this team.

Overall for difficulty
Steven>Maxie>Brawly>Winona=Glacia>Drake=Phoebe>Flannery=Norman>the rest.

Final Team
Sceptile Leaf Blade, Dig, Dragon Claw, Return: I wasn't to impressed with Sceptile. Early on in the game he was just way to frail and his offense consisted of Quick Attack and Absorb for what seemed like way to long. He got better once he learned Leaf Blade, and he ended up fairly solid at the end but I had high expectations for him early and he didn't meet them until later.

Breloom Sky Uppercut, Strength, Bulk Up, Leech Seed: Shroomish is solid but not outstanding, and he dominates for a while when he evolves to Breloom. That attack stat is seriously nuts and he does a ton of damage even without a good STAB move. Probably the best random slayer and Sky Uppercut was the most damaging move the team had in the end. Unfortunately, he stinks against gyms. He's not fast enough and getting outsped and OHKOed was not unusual. Grass/Fighting is a putrid defense type which didn't help things.

Shiftry Faint Attack, Giga Drain, Brick Break, Fake Out: Seedot is almost worthless until Bullet Seed. I don't know what it is with 3rd gen and having a bunch of pokemon who start with no attacking moves. Looking over his moves, he doesn't get a completely reliable attacking move until level 31 where he gets Faint Attack. That being said, Nature Power ranges from solid to very good in use and gives him surprising versatility. Nice TM variety helps as well. Well rounded stats made him never feel like a liability and Fake Out was always nice for some free Toxic/Leech Seed damage. MVP of the E4 and is probably the MVP of the play through as well.

Vileplume: Sludgebomb, Petal Dance, Moonlight, Sleep Powder: Was stuck with Absorb, and Acid for a really long time, but despite this the offense was never bad. Sludgebomb is great damage when you get it and he felt consistently the best option against an opponent who didn't resist his attacks. Granted, awful coverage meant that this wasn't the most frequent thing but still very solid.

Cradily Earthquake, Strength, Confuse Ray, Toxic: Lileep is really boring to use. Toxic stalling with him is a viable strategy, but that takes a long time and generally isn't worth it against random trainers. The problem is that Toxic stalling is all he has till he evolves. His attack is wretched before then and his best attacking move he learns by leveling up is Acid. Cradily is a significant improvement especially in Attack where it goes from really bad to average. Really helpful for most gyms for stalling out the Leaders strongest pokemon, but Grass/Rock isn't as good a defensive type as a originally though. In particular the Steel weakness came up more than I would have expected.

Tropius Razor Leaf, Body Slam, Fly, Steel Wing: Really bad. Slow and with hideous attacking stats. Good defense stats, but Grass Flying is a terrible defensive typing. Only use in the E4 was paralysis from Body Slam.

Final Notes: Overall the challenge was pretty interesting. It was most difficult at the beginning and end which isn't that surprising. You don't get a whole ton of choice for what pokemon you get to use, but the pokemon themselves are fairly diverse. I was surprised at how little status the team used. Cradily and Vileplume were the only pokemon with dedicated status moves and Breloom was the only one who learned Leech Seed. It looked like in 3rd gen they tried to start diversifying grass pokemons' role so they weren't only there for status. Unfortunately, they didn't give grass pokemon enough strong moves to solidify them as powerful offensive threats, but gen 4 would fix this with moves like Energy Ball and Power Whip. If you want to try a single type challenge run through I would definitely do some research first. Make sure you can get a couple pokemon early so you aren't stuck with 1 or 2 for most of the game and make sure that there are at least some pokemon who you're legitimately interested in using. It is a lot of fun to see how restricting yourself to one type changes up the challenge of the game so I'd recommend trying it if you're a fan of the pokemon games.
  

[superaielman]

FM4- Beat this in under 20 hours on the replay, did everything but Darrill's final sim map. I am so psyched about playing FM5 sometime. Mmm.

[Yoshiken]

Went to a small Pokemon tournament in Bristol on Saturday! It went... well, pretty terribly, actually. Kept a log of the day, so this is written from notes from that.

At about 7am, having had about an hour's sleep (because mine & my friend's teams weren't finished), we phoned my friend, Tim's, mum who was meant to be driving us there. "Oh, I've got other plans, can't do it."
...WHAT.
Cue journey to train station to get there for 8 so that we can get to the tournament by 11. wut.
So we spend the entire train journey trying to finish our teams. We've made a lot of changes because there's a lot of stuff we can't RNG well (hi egg moves!) and we're PokeSav-ing what we can because fuck it we don't have the time to EV train. We had a 45 minute walk waiting for us at the other end, which'd get us to the tournament for 11.10 - registration was meant to be at 11.15, eep!
At 9.45, we both needed one more Pokemon, but were having no luck getting them. We pretty much agreed to ignore them for this tournament - there's another in two weeks, we'll get them for that - and just clone Pokemon that the other person was using to fill our team. ...Except Tim forgot to change the party size on PokeSav, so they never got cloned. SIGH.
12.15, and we're sat at a table waiting for the tournament to start. We used their plugs to charge our DSes, trade over our Pokemon, fill in the last space on our teams and then fill in teamsheets and sign up. We finished around 11.55, and they'd told us they weren't starting until... about 11.45. They still hadn't started now. Mrf. Not complaining too much.
Ended up talking to an awesome guy there about random strategies, and he began panicking when I told him about Flying Gem Tornadus' power - apparently he didn't know what the Gems did, so my idea that most people here weren't going to RNG were pretty good.. until I was told about the guy on the side table being Rees Hamilton, last year's UK Champion. Siiiiigh. So much for that.
So Tim's team is pretty effective at what it does, but he's not the best of battlers. My team's not bad, but it's missing its best answer to Trick Room. So what happens?
Yeah, I wind up in a group with 2 TR players, Tim ends up in a group with Rees and one of his friends. Ouch.
My first match, I come up against a pretty obvious TR team, with something like Cofagrigus/Jellicent/Amoonguss/Conkeldurr/Terrakion/Reuniclus. I lead with Mienshao/Landorus in a hope to stop him setting up. First turn, he manages to Protect the (obvious) Fake Out from Mienshao, while Landorus stops his Cofagrigus moving with Fling @King's Rock. Next turn, however, I can do nothing but double Rock Slide while he sets up TR. My Landorus is put to sleep shortly after this while his Cofagrigus sets up a Calm Mind, before hitting Mienshao with Shadow Ball, activating a Sash. Amoonguss finishes it off with a Giga Drain, while Landorus gets hit hard by Shadow Ball. I bring out Scrafty, and Landorus is killed while Scrafty is put to sleep - only to wake up again thanks to Shed Skin. My last Pokemon here is Vanilluxe, which manages to get a Blizzard in before dying, while Scrafty finishes the Cofagrigus with Crunch. He brings out a Conkeldurr, and it's gg from there. He wins 3-0.
Second match, I see Bisharp/Musharna/Conkeldurr/Amoonguss/Bouffalant/Hydreigon and automatically assume TR again (Musharna/Amoonguss much?) This time, I decide to go on the offensive and lead with Mienshao/Volcarona, running into a Bisharp/Musharna lead instead. Huh. I decide to Fake Out the Musharna while hitting both of his with Heat Wave, and all goes according to plan while Bisharp hits Mienshao, activating a Sash. Next turn, Volcarona Bug Buzzes, nearly killing the Musharna, while Mienshao Protects himself from both opposing Pokemon. Hah! Finally, another Bug Buzz and a Drain Punch see his two fall, although not before Volcarona is hit with Sucker Punch. He proceeds to send out Bouffalant and Conkeldurr, who quickly hits Mienshao with a Mach Punch and watches it fall - Bouffalant, on the other hand, hits a Protecting Volcarona. I send out Scrafty, knowing Vanilluxe is fucked against either of his, and hope I can kill Bouffalant before bringing in Vanilluxe. I somehow manage it, although not before Volcarona falls to a double-team and Scrafty is hit by a Drain Punch. Vanilluxe comes out and me and my opponent talk for a while, both considering our moves for a while, before I see my Ice Beam go through. Scrafty and Conkeldurr Drain Punch each other, and I sit back in relief - was really expecting Vanilluxe to die there, but now I stand a chance! I hit him with another Ice Beam and Drain Punch, only to watch Vanilluxe fall to a Drain Punch just afterwards. Now this is close. Scrafty's on about 70 HP, while his Conkeldurr will definitely die in one more hit. I have no clue if he has the strength to KO, but I know I'm faster. Mach Punch: leaves me on 23 HP. Drain Punch for the KO!
Unfortunately, the guy I beat won against the guy I lost to. Since both of those won their games 3-0 and mine was 1-0, I got knocked out. Siiiigh.

Tim, on the other hand? Goes into a group against Rees and one of his friends. Worse yet, he should've won both games, he said, but made a mistake in each. We even ran calculations on it afterwards - turns out, he actually would've won if he hadn't fucked up. Wooooow.

So, all in all, it was an expensive training session. The official tournament isn't for another two weeks, and hopefully we'll both be fully prepared by then - I know my team can survive if I have all the right Pokemon in place (although I'm still changing it up from the one I ran at this tourn) and Tim knows he can win if he doesn't screw up. Should be interesting!

[Grefter]

Fable 3 - Okay this game made me feel incredibly depressed.  At least it wasn't from digging up a condom this time like in Fable 2.

So I go along with the plot to catch the Monorail (with 2 tracks, so it isn't an actual Monorail), it is suspended along the roof of a big cavern.  The monorail kind of explodes and crashes.  The grizzled war veteran buddy character that essentially has raised you, mentored you, taught you how to fight and helped find everyone that has joined up with your rebellion immediately jumps up and says you have to go save these people.  He pries open the locked grate that is in the way with his sword.  Then in spite of his established Claustrophobia he builds up the will to get in the cramped elevator and go down in to the bottom of the cave system with you to help you fight off the Hobbes (goblins) which seem to have caused the crash.  You fight a bunch of Hobbes at the end of the gauntlet of them and you get a scene where you are told that your fight with the Hobbes will be remembered for time to come and unlock more skills.

I guess this means I am a hero

Just how much this depresses me cannot be really put into words.  I am in awe of Walter.  Seriously Fable 3 actually has a character that I like and for more than just being voice acted by John Cleese (who awesomely shills stuff on the online store every time I go into the menuHero Pocketspace Dimension.  And people thought Dragon Age was bad).  However it keeps telling me how awesome I am while he does all the hard work and real heroics.  If the game went full blown Suikoden route with it I could almost take it as an affectionate parody.  As is though it just makes me sad.