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

[MC50]

Talking about TAY, I've played through the game twice (Once on Wii with friends, once again on the rerelease on PSP).

Character thoughts both times, if you were wondering!

TEAM 1
 - Edge
 - Rydia
 - Luca
 - Porom
 - Edward

- Edge is probably the best character I've used in either party. He has offense, he has HP, he has magic, he has Itemcaste Haste and Blink. He has SMOKE. Smoke is amazing. He's great. Excellent equipment selection, too. He can even use stuff like Godhand, which is found early.
 - Rydia is solid enough. Leviathan gets used a lot. Bahamut is way too late to see much use but he's good too.
 - Luca is... mediocre. She's not bad or anything! She just didn't really impress. Good HP and good equipment, but that's about it.
 - Porom is a solid enough White Mage. Dualcast is nice but way late, as was said. Spent most of her time buffing, instead of healing, because...
 - Edward is more then enough for healing. By far the biggest surprise, I'd say he was the second best PC in the party. Instant 4K heals for everyone! Phoenix Downs for everyone! Oh yeah, MULTITARGET BLINK BAND with Rydia. As for Bardsong, there are worse ways to waste turns. You might get MT Haste! Protect/Shell isn't bad either. Hide even helped against Ahriman, and beats death counters. Edward Hides, everyone elses timer runs out, MT Phoenix Down. His biggest problem is getting him out of that level rut he's almost certainly stuck in.

Second Team (PSP) was

- Ceodore
- Ursula
- Palom
- Leonora
- Zangetsu

- Ceodore starts off a little slow, but he is really good eventually. Twin Rush is an excellent Band, his White Magic is good, and he is fast. His lower HP is a bit of a problem early on, but doesn't matter much later.
 - Ursula is similarly good. Tenketsu is a good substitute attack, Chakra is usable. But really, she's strong, she's fast, and that band is again very good. It charges quickly and doesn't cost much MP.
 - Palom starts off slow too. His speed is low early on until you get equipment to fix that, and it takes a little while to learn spells like Quake. But when you get Quake and similar spells he becomes amazing. Dualcast is late, again, but really good, making him pump out 16000 damage a turn.
 - Leonora is... She's OK. I didn't level enough to get any actual Black Magic besides... Stop and Osmose. Now, Stop is actually really good! But it's probably not worth the slower White Magic learning.
 - Zangetsu is... Well, he's not great. But he's not as bad as I was expecting! I was expecting him to be awful, especially after his pitiful performance in Edge's chapter, but he has a few things going for him. He gets a strong MT Lightning spell, and his INT is actually higher then Edges. And... Human Kite stops Valvalis Spin! Yes! ...OK, that's about it. He's not good, but he wasn't as bad as I thought.

But really, the character balance really is pretty good outside of some (Harley).

[Fenrir]

I'd play TAY but I think the Wii price still hasn't gone down. I'd love digital downloads but:
Digital -> No used market -> Prices don't particularly need to go down to compete -> BS

Why is the FF5 locked class challenge so popular here nowadays? It definitely sounds fun in any case (but I've already done Bartz/Butz/Bart/God solo before)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

snip

Wow, someone used Ceodore? I've always found him to be amazingly shitty.

I always wished I could put four people in the front, though.  Edge/Yang/Ursula/Cecil would wreck house.

[Xeroma]

http://www.letsplaying.com/lets-playing/FF5FF/index.php

For Fenrir. This is why.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Cecil is the one I think isn't very good. Ceodore has the same stats basically except has good White Magic... and Cover isn't as good in this game as it is in the original.

[superaielman]

Fenrir: Grab the PSP version, it should be down to 20ish euros and that version is better.

Ceodore's better than Cecil. The white magic is useful enough (Mostly haste and Curaga in a pinch), and he probably has better overall stats. Cecil is only usuable in the final dungeon as well which sucks, since it means he will be underleveled.


I just beat up Ultima weapon myself. Going to finish this run up and then post thoughts on the game.

[Luther Lansfeld]

The option to make him into a semi-competent second white mage with a staff and robe is cool. Did that vs. Omega.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Cecil is the one I think isn't very good. Ceodore has the same stats basically except has good White Magic... and Cover isn't as good in this game as it is in the original.

One cover isn't that good. Two covers means that you can make your white and black mages never take physical damage, which is awesome.

Haste is okay, but once I get the Masamune I usually just let Edge do that cause holy fuck does he get that on everyone fast.

[superaielman]

It's still an advantage to have Ceo with it. I used Ceo/Edge/Rydia/Rosa/Urusla, and that is probably the best team in the game. Granted, some of that is Edge/Urusla being your main fighters, so Ceo/Cecil's spot should more be used for support. Cecil is pretty underwhelming in general compared to Ceo/Kain until his stats pick up. I think he's better than Kain at least by the end due to equips. Cover  I didn't find useful- physicals either slaughtered you or weren't worth paying attention to from bosses. Randoms tended to get blitzed.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I think physicals in that game are too nasty (on bosses and some randoms, at least) to make that strategy as viable as you are hyping. Blink allows two hits to go without taking any damage and Haste means he can cast Blink a lot! 

(And Edge's Blink weapon? Is extremely late... you get it with like two bosses left...)

[AndrewRogue]

I miss the days when we were just making fun of TAY. =(

[Luther Lansfeld]

Discussion of games is pretty terrible in the Games topic, I know.

[AndrewRogue]

Seriously.

[superaielman]

I miss the days when we were just making fun of TAY. =(

The person playing a sim dating game is about the last person on earth to make comments there.

Speaking of! TAY: Finished. Enjoyed it, will do a wrapup post in a bit.


TAY: The PSP remake really helped. It was just a damn pretty game, and polished in nice ways (YAY auto battle). It was a slow starter, as the early chapters had a lot of repeating due to the episodic nature of TAY beforehand. For the second half of the game, you are stuck on a moon and it's more or less straight combat. I already liked FF4 combat, and TAY made some balancing choices (Nerfing speices/elemental weakness, balancing gear) that improved it. It also made buffing more viable in general, and the challenge is quite good outside of a few stinker fights and the Lord Dragon.

The story is more FF4. The writers didn't take it seriously from all the in jokes and nudging, so I'm perfectly content to do it as well. I liked some of the character work (Palom and Porom) off the top of my head, but for the most part... yeah. It uses the established characters. The ending is just hilarioiusly over the top. That said, props to the 'main' villian for who they controlled/how they approached it.


FF13- Start of C4, I believe. Game is stunningly pretty and the gameplay's gotten way better with jobs. I am trying to not dislike the cast (Outside of hope, fuck him. He is being made as obnoxious as possible as a plot element), but man it is hard at points. We'll see how it turns out.

[Grefter]

I miss the days when we were just making fun of TAY. =(

Etrian Odyssey - Beat Fenrir (take THAT Mr French man).  Yeah working out what you need to do to kite him made that fight way easier.  I do really like the way the game makes you handle FOEs sometimes.  Work around them a fair bit, but by the time you are ready to beat the boss you should have handled them as well.  It is pretty neat honestly and works better than it sounded like they would  (I was honestly expecting Persona 3 Death style stuff which is mega zzzzzzz implementation.  Randomly an end game enemy will pop up!  Booooorrriiiiiing).  So yeah Stratum 2 and you pretty much lose absolutely all progress you have made.  Immunise and Guardian both are fantastic assuming the randoms don't kill you before they even cast of course. 

So back to a bit of grinding.  Went to B1 again and went to the secret area.  Rapier is good to get.  Complete and total faqbait though.  Huge congratulations to anyone finding that area without using maps.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I think physicals in that game are too nasty (on bosses and some randoms, at least) to make that strategy as viable as you are hyping. Blink allows two hits to go without taking any damage and Haste means he can cast Blink a lot! 

(And Edge's Blink weapon? Is extremely late... you get it with like two bosses left...)

Edge gets Mirage at the very start of the game? I don't really need itemcast blink for him.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It's a pretty notable advantage to be able to cast Blink on other people, though (if you're being blitzed physically, you want to get Blink up on as many people as possible). This isn't to say Ceodore is better than Edge, but it is an advantage he has, and certainly relevant in a comparison to Cecil/Kain.

[Meeplelard]

Lost Odyssey: Beat Disc 2.  You know what's annoying?  When a game gives a hint that you're suppose to take quite literally in battle, but the nature of it makes it sound like a plot event of some sort.  Had me tripped up in that last dungeon for a while.  I guess if I had Treasure Analysis skill on (which I took off cause, well...I never use Steal since its so unreliable, why the fuck do I need to care about Treasure?), I would have figured it out faster so its partially my fault in this regard.

Other than that little nuisance, my only gripe with the game so far is that I have 7 PCs and 4 of them are pure mages, and the 5th is STILL a Mage, just with a Semi-Competent physical (meaning he can do something almost resembling damage without MP.  Its not that mages are bad or anything, just I'd like SOME variety in the front lines rather than Kaim/Seth.

I know, there are two more physical PCs, I just was hoping they'd appear sooner rather than later.

[Captain K.]

Bastion:  I asked Xeroma if this was worth $15, and he said definitely.  He was right.  I love the weapon variety and upgrading, and rebuilding the Bastion is fun also.  Plus you get to smoke weed and go on acid trips.  I am actually not kidding about that.

Hunting shards right now, and have mastered two of the Proving Grounds (crossbow and scattergun).

[Grefter]

Indeed Meep, especially since I consider the physical characters more useful as well just due to being lower maintenance.

Mack is honestly pretty terrible other than buffing people (which other people can do better due to having more HP and MP regen and so on).  Having a bad physical is totally a liability when mages can spam magic with impunity and get more damage out of it than either of his options.  When you have to use him you can pretty much get by spamming Gamble and do better than anythign else he would do with his turns other than buffing.  I honestly just had him defend when I was using him.

[Clear Tranquil]

FF5a-

Picked up the Walse, Jachol treasures and Ramuh. Fought Sandworm, went through desert and into the Town of Ruin. Plot stuffs. Went to Tycoon Meteorite and fought a turtle. More plot stuffs. Airship get. There were more plot stuffs at Bartz's hometown (went there via Black Chocobo) and Tycoon Castle. Once I'd finishing wandering around progressed to the floating ruins. There were cannons and a boss. All of the fights were easy. Went through the ruins, picking up treasures and eventually made it to the second save circle/final area. Fun boss fight. I lost once because I wasted time hunting through my inventory for Phoenix Downs when one character fell and it turned out I didn't have any left. The boss revived itself too which I wasn't prepared for. Second go at it went smoothly, everyone was able to stay alive and kicking through both stages of the fight thanks to Ranger deciding to spam Nightingale. Used spells/summons vs the target's first form and Chocobo as my main offence during the second (gogo Fat Chocobo!) >_> Also used Attack/Aim with Ranger equipped with the Dark Bow + Power Armlet and Attack with Lenna equipped with the Main Gauche~

Earth Crystal allocated me the Chemist job.

* Clear Tranquil has Black Mage, Summoner, Ranger and Chemist, breaks game

(well ok I have to get a fourth PC again first but sshh~)

[VySaika]

Woooow. That team is pretty damn brutal.

Just got the earth job myself in my second run. Leaving my team at Knight/Red Mage/Geomancer/Chemist. This was almost looking like the lategame would be a challenge. Then, well, chemist.

[Tide]

Ranma 1/2 RPG: Yes I know that's not the name. But whatever, you know what I'm referring to. The best feature about this game is the ability to save anywhere at anytime >_>. Given my awesome work schedule this is incredibly important. Just got up to the village and rescued Akane.

I am mostly playing this because I've been on a Ranma 1/2 high recently. Guess I will get BOSS STATS while I'm at it. KUNO WILL REIGN SUPREME IN THE DL. You just wait.

[Fenrir]

Super: No PSP!

Xer: Oh, I see. Hum. Nice, but it looks like it actually really gets easier as it goes on. You can also have either a really easy or a really hard time depending on your luck, but that's also part of the charm I guess (Thief/Berserker/Bard/Dragoon team ? Still not that hard perhaps)

Grefter: Oh yeah, EO is good stuff.
The game is unforgiving as you can really end up with a really shitty team.  (But that's not going to happen to you) That's my main problem with EO1, a ton of skills are just awful and there's no way to know which ones. EO2-3 at least let you reroll your awful characters with minimal losses.
I never really had that much problem with the game though. Kill monsters -> Sell drops -> Dudes can sell you new shiny equipment -> Upgrade -> Victory, whenever there's trouble with an alright enough team. This works if you're not in the optional uberdungeon.

[Dark Holy Elf]

FFT - Replaying this, about halfway done. It's awesome. More details on the playthrough can be found in the metagame thread if people care.

FF13 - This was going very well until it got sidelined by FFT, and being sidelined by FFT when I'm in an FFT mood? Is not a bad thing.

Overall impressions of the game so far are generally positive. I have two main complaints, so let's get them out of the way first:

1. First two hours of gameplay are boorrrring. I get that there's a plot justification for it, but they could still have tried a little harder to make things interesting. As soon as you hit Chapter 3 it's night and day, there are paradigms and roles and the game starts quickly expecting you to use them properly or die.

2. Main character death = game over. This is stupid and makes utterly no sense. Really disappointing. (Interestingly, the other design choice I was really apprehensive about, only having direct control over one PC, actually works perfectly in practice given the pace of the battles; it's like an ARPG in that regard.)

Okay a third kinda maybe: this doesn't bother me on a first playthrough, but on a replay I could see getting a little annoyed with the lack of choice in terms of who I control? First playthrough it's a great way of the game to force you to experience different people.

Otherwise, it's... clearly a very ambitious game. Both the gameplay and storytelling style are quite different from most things I've experienced previously. I really dig the storytelling style and like most of the characters quite a bit - I think it's great how they aren't all just lovey-friendly with each other and there's very visible friction between most of them. They're in a very tough spot with different ideals. I'm also liking how the story clearly starts in medias res (gameplay would have been boring before this) and how it fills in the past at various points. Fun stuff. It's a pity it sounds like it comes off the rails a bit later but for now I really appreciate it over generic RPG cast mark 23. Gameplay is pretty fun, and again, unique. We'll see how I feel about it at the end of the day but it's certainly keeping my attention for now.

Also, it's all story and gameplay, none of that exploration or minigame or time-waster sidequest nonsense. I can deal with those sometimes but I really like the pace of this; like MMXCM.