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

[Cmdr_King]

Cthulhu Saves the World- What SNES games wanted to be.  Fast, efficient, gives the player something to think about without having to spend hours analyzing the entire system to get good results.  7/10?  It has a strange dichotomy where it both wore a little thing as certain elements were obvious novelty yet still a little too short and lacking in satisfaction.

[NotMiki]

Mana Khemia - I am playing this.  I must say I am impressed and surprised by the depth of combat and overall level of difficulty.  Bosses, in particular.  Nice to see a game that gives you tons of superpowerful options, then sets the game's difficulty to a level where you actually need to use them.

This is way belated, but what part of Mana Khemia is proving hard?

Randoms at night and a coupla bosses.  I mean, they're not hard hard, but they're 'you have to play well if you want to win' hard.  Think the trickiest boss was Tony and Renee during the fighting tournament, when you're missing Flay and Jess.  At that point, if I recall correctly, there's no MT healing available, common healing magic sucks, and even X Potions or whatever they're called don't fully refill you, not to mention them I *think* being a pain to make at that stage.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I thought MK1's bosses were generally quite solid aside from a bad patch early on (Chapters 2-4 or so weren't great) and maybe a bit of a letdown towards the end. Randoms... don't especially agree with, except at night, and something about fighting randoms at night bugged me.

[Fenrir]

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet:
Too little too late! The game was original and cool back when it was announced, now it's lost in the sea of other similar games. I'd be fine with this since the Metroidvania + twinstick shooter is mastered and the graphical style is still great, but it's too easy and short; and it costs 15 bucks instead of 10 like it should. (Unless there's some inverted planet or something and 200% completion to get)

[Cmdr_King]

I imagine a game design that can be summed up as "It's more efficient and less annoying to just sit there and wait for time to pass" is not going to agree with you much, NEB?  At least for me the nighttime bonuses on randoms jumped the gap pretty far and went from "randoms mean nothing" to "randoms outstat you so bad and you have to go all out on every fight", which is not really optimal in Mana Khemia.

[NotMiki]

At least for me the nighttime bonuses on randoms jumped the gap pretty far and went from "randoms mean nothing" to "randoms outstat you so bad and you have to go all out on every fight", which is not really optimal in Mana Khemia.

It's doable once you get your back row SP regen boosts, but yeah.  More than them being hard, randoms are tough to avoid at night, and MK is not a game where you get much out of extra fighting.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I imagine a game design that can be summed up as "It's more efficient and less annoying to just sit there and wait for time to pass" is not going to agree with you much, NEB?  At least for me the nighttime bonuses on randoms jumped the gap pretty far and went from "randoms mean nothing" to "randoms outstat you so bad and you have to go all out on every fight", which is not really optimal in Mana Khemia.

Yeah, my objection is probably something along those lines. It's not something I'll defend too hard, but yeah, despite enjoying challenge in RPGs, I never was a fan of night combat in MK. Jim's point is also probably quite relevant; there are times when I don't want to fight randoms, and at night they're hard to dodge and punish you for trying to avoid them since they're more likely to ambush you (hitting the wrong button due to trying to jump or whatever) and I don't really feel like being punished for that.

[Captain K.]

Plants vs Zombies: Now that I have played this, I have been reminded how much I love Tower Defense games.. and I want to play ALL of them now. Every Tower Defense game. Ever.

Play Ninjatown!  It has ninja cookies!  And ninjas with cellphones.

Blazblue CS:  beat normal and hard Legion mode.  Go go Unlimited Taokaka's down+D in the air.

Dungeon Crawl:  Found red Dragon Armor on floor 2.  Found an Ice Beast on floor 3.  FFFFFUUUUU

[superaielman]

Play Defense Grid. It's pretty and has good voice acting!

[Grefter]

Etrian Odyssey - Okay so Floor 11 was pretty easy.  I cleared it out when scouting it out.  Only reason i didn't just save at the Geowhatever and go to the next one was inventory space.  I forget it is limited sometimes.  Anyway, go down there OH GODS CURSE FROM FROGS is scary when you see it first just after using Allslash on 3 enemies.  Didn't kill the Landshark that used it, but was close.  Of course it was followed up with a Physical, but hey, almost lived!  Floor is pretty under control now that I know it is coming though.

[Fenrir]

Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet: Finished.
It was as short as expected. It looks like the game developers removed all the filler that was in the game, unfortunately. I like filler! There weren't enough things to shoot!
The game will be worth it once the price goes down.
Props to the final level for being innovative and really damn scary. About as scary as Pyramid Head from Silent Hill 2 or Baron Von Blubba from Bubble Bobble. Seriously. You're stuck in a dark dungeon with a lantern and horrible things lurk in the dark, tentacly things try to steal your lantern and electrical things make the power of your lantern run out.

Ms Splosion Man: Roughly halfway through.
Game of the year so far! 2D Platforming heaven. Perfect flow, numerous checkpoints, difficulty without being cheap or relying on precise jumping.
I like the humour but it's hit or miss and won't age well though.

[hinode]

Tactics Ogre: *watches Haborym get himself killed before any of my units get close to him*

Well, some things haven't changed. Time to work up a plan.

[Nephrite]

At least this time you have Chariot!!!

[hinode]

Well, in fairness Ozma refusing to attack him in L does make things a million times easier. Sadly he still got killed by the ~3 enemies on the righthand side anyways.

[Yoshiken]

Finally got to play Dragon Age, having heard so much about it. Might have to buy this, it's kinda amazing. I picked the anti-Rob (City Elf Rogue) and went on a slaughtering spree in a nearby palace. Nice start. Haven't seen much of combat, so hopefully that'll be interesting enough, but the character interactions are amazing, and I'm loving the things I've heard about some party members. Hm.

[Clear Tranquil]

FF5a- Finished World 2. I am just trolling the game now >_> Randoms in Exdeath's castle were a breeze more or less, even the likes of Yellow/Red Dragons if they were supposed to be a threat at all well they were easy. Carbuncle was easy, I didn't even know he had form change. He used Cura once I think, some mid level elemental spells earlier or something but other than that fight was over fast and I wasn't even trying. Did the Gilgamesh/Excalipor thing just for fun (and to rock out to Battle on the Big Bridge yo) Lost to Exdeath once because I thought it would be fun to try and finish off the end of the fight with most of my characters zombied and then Krile got zombied and it was game over <_< For the win I amped up the pain some to end the fight quicker, Carbuncle for reflect on all allies, Mix + Elemental Power, MT bounced Lv5s off all my characters to do 6000~ a pop to Exdeath, Ranger!Krile chimed in some with lucky Rapid Fires from the Hayate Bow. Yeah I had fun with that fight.

Earlier Guardians were an interesting/fun fight and Gil Turtle had me roadblocked for a while trying to figure out how to break the turtle but thanks to a handy link to a Mix list from a friend I eventually managed to take one out (Mix = double HP, Haste, Protect/Shell/Regen from Dragon Defence (and Reflect but), multiple level boosts, Float to deal with Earthquake which I added after actually managing to win one fight thanks to other boosts but ended up being wiped by the death counter at the end >_> Enhanced durability Golem abuse, full revival/healing from Mix, etc - for offence my Ranger was doing 500~ 500~ 1000~ 1000~ w/th Rapid Fire using that shiny, shiny piece of equipment known as the Elven Bow after the level boosts from Mix and my Chemist did some shiny damage with Sword Dance! too thanks to the Dancing Dagger =) After that though I was mostly out of Dragon Fangs for mixing and decided doing the whole Gil Cave thing wasn't really worth the effort over all since Gil hasn't really been hard to come by anyway. I just wanted to take a turtle because I own them in FFXIII <_<

Did some JP grinding and mastered some jobs in Bal castle before heading for Exdeath's castle so yeah the Gil really racked up there in any case so =)

Edit: (and it turns out I hadn't saved - I went ahead to scout out Tycoon castle in World 3 but I must not have saved afterwards, either that or my saved game was acting funny because apparently I hadn't hard saved since F8 of Exdeath's castle - yaay for save states though~ Refought Exdeath yet again and had some fun with Double HP/Elemental Power + Holy Breath this time. Rocked out on Battle on the Big Bridge again before hand too. Also got to see some Vacuum Wave spam from Exdeath! He has offence no way!?~)

Vital Statistics!

Krile LV36- Black Mage mastered, Chemist mastered (yaay Galuf), LV5 Summoner, L2 Ranger

Lenna LV36- L6 Black Mage, L5 Summoner, L4 Chemist, L3 Ranger

Faris LV36- Black Mage mastered, Ranger mastered, LV5 Summoner, L2 Chemist

Bartz LV36- Ranger mastered, Summoner mastered, LV6 Black Mage, L4 Chemist

Playtime - 31.40

Gil - 211'529

Currently Krile, Lenna, Faris and Bartz are Black Mage, Summoner, Chemist and Ranger respectively (changed jobs around some for the rematches with Gilgamesh/Exdeath)~

[superaielman]

LFT- Chapter 4 of my challenge run.

<2011:08:04:>[21:27:02] > Thief/Monk
<2011:08:04:>[21:27:02] > Chemist/Knight
<2011:08:04:>[21:27:02] > Oracle/Ninja
<2011:08:04:>[21:27:02] > Squire/Summoner
<2011:08:04:>[21:27:02] > Geomancer/Mediator

Each character can only use those jobs/skills from those jobs. Plot fights haven't been easy, but I also haven't had a ton of resets outside of zodiac demons. That said! I tried the C4 rare fights and got absolutely slaughtered, so ouch. I'm up to Meliadoul's fight now.

[OblivionKnight]

FF5 4JF

Aaaaaaaand finished up the Pyramid of Moore in World 3, and ran around grabbing stuff. 

Game actually had some semblence of challenge for the Exdeath fight...and that's about it.  Still fairly easy.  Randoms are a bit tougher now, since some of them actually survive a single Ninja scroll (2 usually wins, though!). 

MVP is still Ninja, but the others are catching up.  Time Mage has Quick, so once I get Meteo, things will crash.  White Mage is good - I got the Sage's Staff, which will make Holy awesome once I get it.  Dancer is...status immune, though I will attempt to turn it into an offensive beast.

Picked up the Chicken Knife, as well as Sage's Staff, Sasuke's Katana, and Assassin's Dagger from the Sealed Temple.  I also can FINALLY STEAL!!!!

Intending to finish every sidequest I can - going to have think a bit about set-ups, but...Time and White should see me through most of it.

As will cheese.  Yay for Carbuncle dropping status immunity in the curing phase. 

Ninja's got Sasuke's and the Assassin Dagger, Dancer will eventually get Chicken Knife with a Sword Dance set-up, and White Mage/Time Mage don't give a shit about equipment, honestly.

Lost track of the number of rods/scrolls used.  Definitely over 100 in both cases - Equip Rod is awesome as an accessory when your characters lack damage!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Finally got to play Dragon Age, having heard so much about it. Might have to buy this, it's kinda amazing. I picked the anti-Rob (City Elf Rogue) and went on a slaughtering spree in a nearby palace. Nice start. Haven't seen much of combat, so hopefully that'll be interesting enough, but the character interactions are amazing, and I'm loving the things I've heard about some party members. Hm.

I recommend doing all the origins once. They're all, by and large, pretty good. The Dwarven Commoner is probably the best, though. Hard as fuck.

[Grefter]

Dwarven Commoner is pretty good, I found it very satisfying.  If you want to power game then the Dwarf Noble is head and shoulders above everything else with the ability to buy and sell items to a character in the capital at cost.

Etrian Odyssey - About to fight Cotrangl, I think my bus ride will be spent exploring the area behind violet doors though.  Levelling a Ronin to 20 for the quest and going to max out the ID Iai strike purely to try and one hit kill Golem next time he is up.

Speaking of Golem, so glad I learnt Erasure on the Troubadore.   For serious, fuck people that say you want Survivalist for that last slot.  I miss the damage potential and some of the support skills.  I would miss Relaxation so much more.  Holy shit it makes this game so much better.  Dungeon trips mostly being limited by inventory instead of MP reserves with the added bonus of not having to haul around piles of MP restoration.

[VySaika]

Randomly started up Suikoden 5 again for reasons I still haven't quite figured out. Just felt like it I suppose.

About to get the castle, been trying to use different peeps then before this game. Which will sadly mean no Belcoot or Cathari later on. I will give Richard a shot though.

Quick question for anyone who remembers the game better then I do: what do you need to do to start training up Royal Paradise? Is it seriously "get all basic skills to A" like the guide vaguely suggests? That...will take awhile if so.

[Fudozukushi]

Quick question for anyone who remembers the game better then I do: what do you need to do to start training up Royal Paradise? Is it seriously "get all basic skills to A" like the guide vaguely suggests? That...will take awhile if so.

Yes.  Zerase recruitment is the earliest you can get it if you want to burn Group SP.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, I've never been able to afford Royal Paradise myself. Not enough grindin'. (Which says something because my replay party was capable of doing 5-digit damage total per round reliably.)

[VySaika]

Well, this is a new game+ run, so I have a rather large amount of party sp sitting around. Maybe I'll shoot for it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Oh yeah, I'd imagine that makes it doable!

Also be sure to get it on Roy!!1

Okay, at the max level Roy can get it to, it barely does anything, especially since his other skill is locked.