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

[Luther Lansfeld]

Yeah, I kept the other ninjas alive and I didn't go item hunting in the penultimate chapter, so I didn't really get any good stuff for him. I basically did the chapter as quickly as possible so I could use the PCs I actually wanted to use instead of Golbez ~ It's not so much that I had trouble keeping him up as much as that he didn't really do anything when he was so I thought it was pointless!

Edge is quite good now that he has the crazy good magic spell but he sure as hell wasn't against the Mysterious Girl. I've been running ten people in the final dungeon and he is one of the best in the B party. (Which is Cecil (now that he's better), Rosa, Edge, Golbez, and Kain.)

I am bitter over Kain being a solid PC, personally.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I completely agree, Edge is amazing in TAY. He just... has everything. Fast, high physical damage, high HP(!?), amazing equipment selection, seems like every chest in the last dungeon is an upgrade for him, good MT damage eventually (!?!?!?).

Though, if he finished his chapter fairly low level I could see him being bad, the best thing to do is probably just kill off the other ninjas when they rejoin and let Edge get all the EXP.

Also, itemcast haste, itemcast protect, and itemcast blink. I did level-cap him and his ninjas from his CD, because it was one of the few I bothered to do (the time limit made it interesting), though.

[Luther Lansfeld]

What is the level cap, btw? I am a pretty minimalistic player, so... didn't hit it.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

40 in character chapters, I think 45 in the second part, and then it gets steadily raised as you beat certain bosses at the end until you hit 99.

Coming in with a level 40 Edge and Yang totally ruins this game's shit.

[Sierra]

I am really impressed with Ulysses' voice acting from what I heard in OWB. He did a pretty good job conveying the character we know nothing else about.

I pretty much expect that kind of quality from New Vegas VA, by this point.

[Luther Lansfeld]

40 in character chapters, I think 45 in the second part, and then it gets steadily raised as you beat certain bosses at the end until you hit 99.

Coming in with a level 40 Edge and Yang totally ruins this game's shit.

I bet it does. I started the final dungeon with a bunch of Level 25 PCs and it was balls-to-the-wall hard.

[Niu]

I am surprised that Ciato said nothing about Odin smashing Cecile.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I honestly forgot about it!

[Captain K.]

DQ9:  The game finally stopped trolling me and gave me a Fire grotto with S-rank monsters.  That only took, oh, about half a year.  So now 100% defeated monsters and all quests completed.

Twin Blades:  So I'm a lesbian nun who shoots zombies with a revolver.  And then I commit suicide because I can't bear to be apart from my dead lover.  This is writing genius.

Resonance of Fate:  NOOOOO, Cardinal Pater!  I did LOVE YOU!

Tekken Bowling (free on Ipad and Iphone!):  I am much better at this than actual bowling.

[Shale]

You bought Twin Blades too? Huh.

I played a bit of the survival mode yesterday, so I have yet to see the glory of the story mode. Gameplay is ridiculously simple, but engaging enough.

[Captain K.]

Bought it last week when it was on sale, but got stuck at the second boss because I couldn't figure out which weapons to use (color-based puzzle and I'm color-blind).  Saw you playing it last night so I figured I should try it again.  Finally stumbled on the right weapon order (explosion -> flamethrower -> ice) to proceed.

[Shale]

There are bosses in story mode? That would make things better.

[Hunter Sopko]

Catherine: Played to the 3rd day. Fun game, if a bit rage inducing even on Easy (well, after the first boss at least). Mostly due to iffy controls. You're moving so fast you're never sure if you're gonna climb up or drop off sometimes. Bosses are pretty fair in the ways they can screw you over. Most of the time it's just a matter of figuring out the puzzle in time. Seems like the game will fly by though, honestly. Figured there'd be more interaction, but still early.

Jonny is a bro. Totally need to switch over to him. Orlando (current avatar) is cool too, just not me. Jonny forever.

Both girls have their plusses and minuses so far. Game totally needs an Erika ending though. ::Nod nod::

[Shale]

I don't know if it was me sucking or the demo being wonky or what, but when I tried it out it was damn near impossible to climb onto a block if you managed to get Vincent turned around (so his front is facing you thorough the block).

[Meeplelard]

Lost Odyssey: Up to the 2nd town in the game and all that.

Call me a sap, but I nearly cried at the first dream sequence the game gives you (the one with the girl at the inn.)  Actually, I find those sequences just well written in general.

[Talaysen]

Call me a sap, but I nearly cried at the first dream sequence the game gives you (the one with the girl at the inn.)  Actually, I find those sequences just well written in general.

Best parts of the game.

---

Oh yeah I play games.

Final Fantasy V Advance - Did the four job fiesta.  White Mage / Summoner / Beastmaster / Samurai.  White Mage and Summoner kind of crush the game so I ended up finishing at level 32.

Cthulhu Saves the World - Been playing this on Insanity.  It's, um, insane!  About on par with earlygame Cross Edge hard mode / earlygame Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne hard mode in terms of difficulty, except... doesn't drop off as much.  Up to the volcano now, but first getting shinies from the Ice Cave.

Record of Agarest War - Up to the second gen now.  Gameplay's decent but has WAY too many randoms.  Pretty much ignoring everything that has to do with plot since it's kinda bad.

[Clear Tranquil]

Lost Odyssey: Up to the 2nd town in the game and all that.

Call me a sap, but I nearly cried at the first dream sequence the game gives you (the one with the girl at the inn.)  Actually, I find those sequences just well written in general.

Daawww ^_^

Yeah LO did make me get rather watery too a few times both with the dreams and in terms of plot scenes at times. I even got teary at the happy! scenes because I am a really big sap when it comes to stuff like that. Join the sappiness club! \0/~

(the game can also be tear inducing in another fashion as well though so watch out for that one - wonder if the game will claim another victim there >.>)

Marvel vs Capcom 3-

Picked this up on the fly when I went on a wild random shopping spree last week. For £13.99 I couldn't resist. Also I had to fulfill my duties as a Hsien Ko fangirl some time. Not to mention a certain someone gnawing down all my defences and constantly laying out baits relating to the game until I finally submitted! Well I don't play much fighting games so it is a change of pace from my usual. It seems different from the rare fighting games I have played in that I can't just button mash bulldoze smash my way to victory to clear the game which is a good thing I think. I have to work at winning, learning how to use moves, guard and so on. I can only become a better player for it My friend was very patient with me on this and has been helping me through tough situations.

First team was Ammy/Morrigan/X-23 and this wasn't too bad for me. I managed to clear arcade mode relatively easily with these three but then I was using the Very Easy! and "Highest!damage"  modes because to begin with I just wanted to clear it all the times required towards getting enough points towards unlocking new characters to play with. So I did this until I unlocked them all the way up to Hsien Ko at least Even then I still had to think some about incorperating some functions like tagging with characters, team combos/supers etc by the end especially for the arcade big boss. I will confess I did do fair bit of button mash for bulldoze smash during these first few rounds too though. As a result sometimes things happened like a character glowing red and apparently becoming more powerful and I had no idea what I just hit to cause it <.<

Next I decided to SAVE the EARTH with Team CT, Gate and Snow. This time on Normal difficulty with Medium damage. Yeah this did not go well. I couldn't really manage this for the life of me for a while. The team ended up getting their asses kicked a lot. Whenever I did manage to make any progress it was down to Snow!Tron  being awesme and finishing off most of the rounds I did clear solo - MVP! Then I came to one fight I totally roadblocked at and ended up calling it quits for that night. Talked it through with the friend some and learned about X Factor so next time I played I managed to do better, incorperating that and I also tried to make better use of assists and supers which also seemed to help. Finally after much practice Team CT, Gate and Snow managed to make it to the big boss and in the end they managed to SAVE the EARTH ... after it was already destroyed several million times over Again I was given advice on how to deal with this and once I started incorperating guarding into the boss fight it became much easier Still screwed up some however and as a result ended up finishing the fight off with an epic!CT solo (she SAVED the EARTH!!!)~

(thanks to everyone for the game recommendations earlier, I am going to be working on those too soon )

Edit: Team CT, Gate and Snow are now much better at saving the earth ... or at least at getting to the final fight for it. Galactus is still a pain even though I've been trying to guard at the right times as much as possible. I'm not very good at it. After the earth was destroyed several million times over again Hsien CT ended up with the win for the second time running despite my best efforts to try to avoid this since I wanted the Hulk/Tron ending. Oh well. Gustaff Fire is awesme by the way. It has really helped a lot since I've started trying to abuse it as much as possible~)

[Grefter]

Lufia 2 Remake finished - I like what they have tried to do with the narrative, they really streamlined it so it isn't so sprawing and dispersed around the world.  It helps back the Sinistrals up as a credible threat because they actually pressure people and places more than once.  Lots of stuff was put together in ways that make a lot of sense and it was told relatively well.  It is a shame the source material is a bit stale at some points.  I love love love how much more effort they put into the Erim/Iris and Maxim relationship.  It actually makes the core story of the series have some legs to stand on.  A shame about the rest of the series olololol.  It is still complete and total fluff of a plot, but at least it isn't so clunky anymore.

Character stuff was generally pretty good even if everyone was pretty much a walking stereotype, but the game never really tried to be super deep or anything so that is fine.  High points were Neo (Matrix) Artea and Dekar ultimately pulling a Goku from DBZ at the end of the Namek stuff.  Not because they were good but because they got a laugh that they actually did that shit.

Final boss terrible as advertised, but I didn't really get as much slowdown as I did in some other areas of the game.  I did get instant killed by something I am not sure how the fuck to dodge a few times and anyone but Maxim can't actually fight the boss so uh, okay.  Still he was generally doing 1 damage a hit to Maxim (omg 40 with the magic damage rings!!) and only took so long to kill because he spends half the fucking fight either air juggling you for pitiful damage or flying out of range.

Oh well, game done.  It was okay and I am glad I picked it up.  next game pulled out of the bag was Etrian Odyssey.

[superaielman]

FF4 TAY-Good to see Edge has the same level of sense and impulse control as ever!

OB Neph- Finished this. Go play it! Neph needs feedback on this, and it's a fun attempt to rebalance the game. Things to possibly do: Alter bosses, change items, maybe fix bits of translation.

[DomaDragoon]

Heh, been a while since I posted.

Banjo-Tooey: I'm going to go ahead and say it - I found B-K to be superior in every single way save one - the fact that they let you know how to get the Jiggies. That's not to say that this was a bad game, just a very mediocre one.

CSI - Deadly Intent: This, on the other hand, is a bad game. I liked it, but it was a bad game. It's weird that for all that I think Telltale is the greatest gaming company currently making games that are released relatively on time, there are at least two series they do I think are bad despite liking the source material (this, and Wallace and Gromit). Conversely...

Back to the Future: The Game - About a third or so (I think) of the way through Episode 2. I really like this so far despite it being fairly easy and thinking that the original trilogy movies were mediocre at best with a few good moments. Still have to download the last episode.

[Captain K.]

Blazblue CT:  Beat score attack mode.  I originally tried Tager, but got frustrated trying to beat Unlimited Niu with him.  So I switched to Jin and used the ice car -> throw cheese which worked great up until Unlimited Ragna.  For him, I had to play super-defensive and just throw ice while dodging his distortions.  Now I never have to see that accursed mode again... until the next game.

Also doing decently in the online mode with Tager.  Still have the grindy achievements left, but I'm up to level 18.

[Meeplelard]

Lost Odyssey: Beat Disc 1.

Really didn't expect a sequence like that in the game, though it only really got me at the funeral, mostly cause I felt like I could relate to the characters in question having been to funerals and all, and done something parallel to what they did.  They conveyed it actually rather well the kind of emotional tension going on during a funeral, I felt, rather than just going "its sad, lets move on."  Plus most games don't even HAVE full funerals (I think it says something that Leo's Funeral in FF6, is a rare case of a genuine attempt at a funeral, and is the only other instance I can think of offhand...and that scene was mostly a superficial "aww, how sad" moment.)

Also, game has gotten notably easier suddenly. An extra character, and a lot more skills to play around with makes a huge difference; I'm fine with this though cause the first dungeon's difficulty banked heavily on the resource management aspect, which I wasn't fond of during a point when you're still trying to grasp the game basics.  Its made a quick recovery at least.

[Grefter]

You have been to funerals with clowns as well?  The next 2 dungeons are the last of the hard ones if I am remembering the sequence of events correctly.  After that the game kind of gives up and curls up and dies.  The Forest is a bit of a breather, then it tries again but I think the next dungeon isn't much harder than the Forest once you know the enemy kill priorities (there is a lot of status being bandied around).  One after that is straight up hardest section in the game I think.  Then the game curls up and dies as you have learnt to many skills on your Immortals.

Dragon Age 2 - So I had a game of this going on Easy mode face roll as a warrior just before I went on holiday.  Loaded it up yesterday and saw some new DLC advertised.  Wondered when that came out.  Seems it came out yesterday.  Good timing.  Bought it and finished it.  The plot there is actually pretty interesting, but uh being able to do it in chapter 1 is a bit baffling given a plot power thing.  Oh well, not bad. 

[Nitori]

Aquaria - The sun god is a fish, that makes sense

[Hunter Sopko]

Catherine: So bipolar... Finished what will probably be my first run through. Might play the game again though. Should at least try Normal.

From the point I last checked in, the stages got progressively more frustrating, and the story just didn't support the effort needed for them. Not enough stuff happens during the days leading up to the finale, though Catherine does prove to be creepy and sexy, and everyone at the bar is fun to be around.

Then you reach Day 7. Hoooooly shit this was what I was hoping for the whole game. Yeah, some Xenosaga-length cutscenes here, but it was all golden. Some of the most promising things didn't pan out the way I hoped in the end, but it was still great and made up for a lot. Even the levels that come after this were the fun brand of difficult rather than the obnoxious brand thusfar. I had a blast. If only the whole game was this enjoyable.

I will say this though. Seriously. The game needs an Erika ending. Maybe it's one of the other ones...

Got the Normal Lover ending. Spoilers:
Relatively satisfying. Lots of handwaving though, especially with regards to Catherine. At least Vincent is enough man to admit that whether she was real or not it was still intent to cheat and therefore wrong. Just feels like he's forcing the issue too much, you know? I guess it's kinda convenient that Erika was there for Boss's confession and Orlando and Jonny were also having the dreams, but... uh... shouldn't they be dead, or something? Or I guess they're saved since Vincent won before they could die. Probably the case.

Poor Jonny's unrequited love, but screw you dude, she's mine. I still can't tell if Katherine was cheating or not either. Her reactions during the scene where Vincent confronts her about Steve totally shout 100% lying, or at least hella dodgy, even if the Steve thing didn't pan out specifically. I guess it doesn't matter now.

I was reaaaaaally disappointed Boss didn't turn out to be Nyarlie. That was such a nice setup too. They almost shouted it from the rooftops during that scene, but I guess they didn't want to follow through with it. But really, I gotta hand it to them, that scene restored my faith in the game. So damn awesome. Erika ending could easily stem from that! C'mooooon DLC if one doesn't exist. The confessional voice being Astaroth was a nice touch though.

Otherwise, I don't quite know what to make of it. Lots of really solid ideas that shine in places and are overshadowed by questionable creative decisions and a lack of substance in most of the story. I guess they didn't want to overload the game with stuff since it's meant to be replayed, but the game HAS scene-skip. I'd call it a 7/10 game at the moment. Will contemplate more once other people finish.

I reaaaaaally should have had a separate save file before the final dungeon to try for some alternate endings, if possible. Derp derp derp.