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

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I found playing Gears to be like playing Soldier in ME1. Cause you know I kept going back to ME1 for the gameplay!

[Fudozukushi]

Deus Ex- about five hours in.  Don't feel like I've even scratched the surface yet, but I sort of wandered around Detroit looking for shit to steal and/or investigate.  So far, this game is... actually really good. They even solved the "stealth kills are super godly" problem that Assassin's Creed and Alpha Protocol had by tying them to your energy charges, so you can only do so many of them at once (though they do come back over time).

Frankly I'd say stun was super godly in AC2.

Speaking of Assassin's Creed 2!  I bought it a week ago and finished it last Saturday.  Haven't gotten around to posting because meh effort and other assorted paragons of laziness.  Anyway, game is good, really good, generic praise and such and so on.  Controls are just so ass though, UGH.  Like any good person I died more times to randomly launching off a building then dying or missions failures etc.  Also the endgame fights ranged from "this is pretty cool" to "OK, don't the abstrago guards have guns when even Ezio does(sorta)?" (Does anyone care for spoilers for a year and the half game?  Well, there's a thing.)

Sooo, in order to get the taste of good game out of my mouth(because it's just such a nasty feeling!)

Record of Agarest War Zero: Despie practiclly being pilled as innuendo and near porn and all that, it's remarkably... tame, save the female outfits.  Those... those are something else.  Anyway game is just.... generic and mediocore in it's existance.  The dialouge is just so stiff I fear it'll break itself apart or something that makes sense.

Gameplay is... good, really good.  Positioning is very important for setting up combos to flatten enemies, going for Overkills gets you more materials for the glorious synthesizing crap.  And lord is there a lot of extra grinding-type things.  So, very much.  There's EXp, Gold, Item Enhance points, Item Creation Points, Party Points(which are used to directly increase stats on your party members, so you can actually cap one characters stats stupid early, and they cap at 100 but that's crazy talk.), there's also.. Technical Points which can be redeemed for prizes at another place.  So... much grinding.  But at least the battles are fun!  Though there are so very many of them.  I've only just gotten all of the haremettes in the party and I think I've fought more battles then there are in the Main Quest of some some other TRPGs.  And I'm not even close to done.

And for a random rant--difficulty.  The game starts out stupid-piss easy with enemies dealing single digit-damage to you.  Then the battle before you get your sixth party member the enemies are suddenly capable of killing your tankier characters in a single round without you being able to do shit.  Only the existence of moronic enemy AI helps you, and hinders you if you feel like using the game's auto-battle feature for some dumb reason.  Things don't let up from there, bosses are HP heavy assholes and once again can kill off the tankiest character with his little minions help.  Then the third bosses minions become immune to physical damage at low HP(well, technically they avoid all avoidable physicals, but at the time the only unavoidable physicals I had were the Limit Break type attacks), have high enough Magic Defense that even the dedicated Mage has a hard time hurting them.  And they can combo with the boss good lord.  Then those minions become regular encounters in the next set of battles.  Hahahahaha!

Also for further hilarity, early on I got a consumable HP boost.  It said small boost, so I used it on the Main Character Seighart thinking it'd be like a 100 HP boost or something.  It was 500, which is more then some character's HP maxs now.  At the time he already was the tankiest, and with that he had more HP then the next top three combined.

[SnowFire]

Djinn: So...  did you play FF13?  I mean, I can respect knowing you won't like it from a distance (I don't like Persona 3 from a distance!) but if anything, I'd think you'd enjoy over-the-top Narmy scenes from some of your other tastes.

That is one thing about FF13; it is very much an "operatic" type game since with so few NPCs to play off of, and often times little plot updates aside from "still running for our lives from the government!," the characters are very talky about their internal journeys of self-discovery.  Sure, it's not realistic for somebody to just declare to the world "I've realized that I've been the one fooling myself this whole time!," but hey, it lets the audience in on things.  Again, pretend it's a play or an opera and they're soliloquizing it up.  It certainly works better than the characters saying nothing and stoically fighting onward.  (For all that they give this a try in Chapters 10-12 in parts where they shouldn't....)  I respect the style, and would probably have used it myself for the above reasons - you want to draw your character conflicts and evolutions with a big, vibrant brush due to the lack of secondary characters or other good clues to show this more subtly.

It's just amusing at how vastly different this is from FF12, a game which played its character emotions and thoughts close to the vest.  Ashe was not the talky type who needed to constantly reassure herself "Hey guys, here's what I'm doing and why, and I have doubts about this other thing, but we're going forward!"  You get to find out what she was thinking through her actions.  I think both game's style worked in each game, but can see others disliking one or the other.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I played FF13 in Japanese, and watched a few select scenes on YouTube in English if I didn't catch all the particulars of a scene. (It also exposed me to Vanilla's Kiwi-English... unfortunately.)

I liked the initial setup of FF13 and I thought it was doing some interesting world-building, until it basically shoved all of that off a destroyed bridge and the plot devolved into a nonsensical mess around Chapter... 5? Also, Hope was just annoying enough to miss that "so annoying Djinn finds him funny" level, which ruined a lot of Snow's and Light's scenes for me. Basically, it was a lot of wasted potential, which is the worst thing I can say about a game. And the Narm level never got to the point it was really funny.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

It's just amusing at how vastly different this is from FF12, a game which played its character emotions and thoughts close to the vest.  Ashe was not the talky type who needed to constantly reassure herself "Hey guys, here's what I'm doing and why, and I have doubts about this other thing, but we're going forward!"  You get to find out what she was thinking through her actions.  I think both game's style worked in each game, but can see others disliking one or the other.

One style actually gives you some small amount of credit for being able to figure out how people think and shit.  The other is the opera Fry wrote.

Best example?  That fucking scene where Vanille and Sazh make camp and she draws a privacy line.  He wakes up and she's crawled across it.  Now, most people can figure out what that means, but the game thinks we are dumb enough Sazh has to explain it aloud.

"Your lyrics lack subtlety! That makes me angry!"

[Fenrir]

I actually even like ME1's soldier gameplay more than Gears of Wars. The shotgun rules.

Fudo: Really, with Ezio's final fight being the way it is, all is forgiven.


Speaking of lack of logic:

Sacred 2: I just declared a giant rat an outlaw. Other rats attacked him as a result. (on a side note I'm deleting this game from the hard drive)

Radiant Historia: Stocke attacks Heiss because he's an asshole and learns some uber vanish move.
Then he goes back to standard history, gets an order from Heiss (assassinate a princess) then tries to follow it! Stocke, I'm disappointed.
With the uber vanish move Stocke learned from Heiss I've started avoiding every random battle in the game. We'll see how it turns out. I'm currently right in the middle of Rosche drama in both histories.

[hinode]

Tactics Ogre: Recruited Yuria, and decided to train her up just for the hell of it, since I like her sprite design. Shaman looks like her best bet on paper, but I didn't feel like raising yet another fragile mage class up from scratch, so I opted for Archer instead. This way she could at least contribute while accumulating SP, and a flying longbow archer certainly has her uses with this game's completely absurd bow ranges.

I blitzed my way through all of C2 Chaos and most of C3 Chaos in under two days; assassinate leader missions are a joke now that my team's loaded up with crafted elemental weapons. Bayin gave me a scare when he lost 60% of his life from a single archer shot at the beginning of the fight, but my Ninjas rushed in and started killing/attracting attention fast enough that he thankfully never got hit again. The VLF guest trio all started with terrible equips and spells that I had to replace to ensure their survival, but Cerya started with a Culnikronne, Wyrmscale equips, and the Salamander summon spell. O_O

I don't feel like redoing C4 at all and going for C3 Neutral would screw up Arycelle's loyalty, so there's not much left for me to do in World. I'll probably start trudging my way through the Palace of Neverending Zombies for the stupid Warren quest sometime this weekend. See you guys in a few weeks. :/

[Grefter]

Deus Ex 3 - Rob, I know you have used it.  How fucking weird is the frame on the Revolver?  For something with an item description mentionign the sturdy frame on the revolver you would think it wouldn't have nearly as many moving parts to it.  There is a reason more modern handguns have the cylinder be the part that moves around when working with the gun rather than having the cylinder be solid and in place and have the frame of the gun move to open it up.  That thing must be so fragile.  Would think twice about using one that you even just got from knocking a guy out since they apparently drop it straight to the ground.

[Twilkitri]

Zork Grand Inquisitor - Replayed

Bought a legitimate copy from GOG and thought I could do with a replay. Sadly it did not live up to my memories, but was still pretty entertaining. Probably I saw it as better during my previous playthrough because I had played Nemesis shortly beforehand that time.

Currently have no intentions of buying a legitimate copy of Nemesis.

Wasn't I supposed to be playing RTZ... do I even still have my current save around anywhere.



Dragon Quest: The Hand Of The Heavenly Bride - Finished (minus anything postgame)

I was really enjoying the game until the wedding, then that was downgraded to generally enjoying the game.

The wedding itself reminded me of PSIII's first wedding, although it wasn't quite as bad as hey are you going to marry your fiancée or this woman you've barely spoken to. The main at least has a vaguely good reason for marrying one of the women he's barely spoken to this time.

Following that plot says to go south for more plot so I go east instead to look for non-plot things only to find plot. And find that pregnancies in DQ apparently take place solely over a couple of days. Then everything halts for a while and I miss out on whatever it was I was supposed to be doing in the south (after visiting there later on, it seems like there wouldn't have really been anything to do there anyway, but at the time this was quite disconcertening).

So there is a scene during this where a statue you want to have is shown being taken away by some shady characters for shady reasons. So obviously the main goal once you get control back is to try and follow the trail of these shadies, right? No, they just effectively disappear from the storyline completely (technically, you can go back to the tower where you saw them previously and they're there, but since they're still saying the same lines as they used to say that may be an oversight - and either way, the concept of a trail to follow is nowhere to be found (if you assume that that is an oversight one other minute possibility is that the cave near Coburg, which used to be inhabited by shady characters but is now inhabited by corpses, was inhabited by the same shady characters and the statue was taken from them, but there is nothing to indicate this - plus the people who end up with the statue have no reason to go out of their way and kill for it (unless you assume that they found out that the main was looking for it - whereas previously he was indisposed - and decided they didn't want him to have it - man this is building up towers of assumptions), although there isn't any reason for them to end up with it in the first place).).

Instead you should follow the Zenithia plot and eventually find the statue in a completely incongruous place.

Then the statue is unpetrified by random act of god despite the group needing to exhaust a Stolos's Staff to unpetrify the previous statue - and despite there being another Stolos's Staff available shortly afterwards in Precaria. That you were going to need another Stolos's Staff or something like it was another implied ongoing quest that was just thrown out with the bathwater.

Now take your wife back to people (outside Gotha) who should care that you have been reunited and find that none of them do - there are even generic characters who act as if she was still missing. In fact outside of her own comments she is barely recognised to still exist by the rest of the game in general. I could actually see that as being necessary if the staff thing had been done, because then you might never get her unpetrified, but since it wasn't - that pretty much shattered the whole reason I had been playing since the start of that segment.

Speaking of incongruous places, if/when you eventually visit the place where the first statue was found, you have to wonder why the heck the group ever went there in the first place. Talk about off the beaten track.

The auction site also seems to be in one of the most inaccessible places ever. No wonder it seems to have gone out of business by the time I got there. I find myself wondering whether it's possible to get there during the second segment.

It's a shame that you eventually get access to 4+ humans, which for myself resulted in monsters effectively being relegated to being heal batteries and a last-chance backup party. I assume that there are monsters who would be better to use than Bianca/Madchen, but that's not how I roll. Never ended up using Sancho or Tuppence - I find myself wondering whether there even were any 'extra' characters you could get aside from Tuppence.

so how about them vehicles (zenithia castle and the zenith dragon) that only allow you to access one new location each eh

Speaking of vehicles some of them are far too touchy about how far away from rough terrain you have to be before you can use them.

All up it's better than DQ4.

[Captain K.]

Street Fighter 3:  Never having played this before due to arcades dying by the time this came out, I can see why it never caught on.  The controls are ridiculously unforgiving.  The shotos control fairly well, but the grapplers are horrible.  I'm pretty good at 360 motions, but this game does not recognize them worth a damn.

Got the beat 55 trials achievement out of the way before they patch the stun glitch.

SO4:  Working on battle trophies in preparation for getting Lymle trophy 100.  Have Edge, Meracle, and Lymle over 50% now.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Ghost Trick - Completed.

Man, what to say. I did not enjoy this game at first. This mostly stems from a dislike of the gameplay (which never really changed, just became easier to overlook). Yes, the genre sucks at this in general as far as I'm concerned. However, at least in Phoenix Wright, the main focus of the gameplay connected directly to understanding the plot: puzzling out what about testimony didn't fit with events, which is helpful since the plot/writing is why the game gets played. Ghost Trick just throws arbitrary puzzles at you (and you're pretty much at the mercy of what things have "cores" and how the designers decide to make screwy physics behave) which is just a drag. Huh, guess I care about connecting plot and gameplay sometimes after all.

Enough about gameplay. Now, while the core writing is intriguing enough from the start, it's not really enough. Earlygame has a bunch of problems (having to avert one person's death three times in 4(?) chapters started to feel painfully repetitive even narratively, never mind feeling like an excuse for more 'gameplay'. Also the slapstick comedy of those prison guards was terribad, I really hope that was something cultural that works better in Japan). But once Jowd enters the picture the plot starts getting... very interesting. Just a brilliantly-told mystery really. The game never does humour as well as Phoenix Wright, but damned if it doesn't spin a yarn that had me absolutely hooked towards the end. So clever with some of its plot twists, and just wonderful style. Very likely better than any Phoenix Wright case as far as serious plot goes. Put it this way: despite my dislike of the start of the game I now want to play it again to look for things which connect in clever ways to plot later in the story.

Beyond that, it's really hard to talk about what the game does well without spoilers - I could use spoiler text but honestly, those of you who have played the game probably know exactly the things I'm referring to, and those who don't have no business reading them. So I won't.

It's not an amazing game overall (the flaws I've mentioned certainly drag it down) but one I'd recommend, and I certainly wasn't expecting that in the first half of the game.


(Okay, I lied, some spoilers after all to get some opinions out there mostly)
I liked Sissel's motivation... aloofly trying to solve his own gnawing mystery instead of playing hero. Sooo fitting with the personality we'd expect from who he turned out to be! In hindsight the "I've forgotten how to read!" moment should have been a blatant givaway he wasn't human, but I didn't really process it at the time. Favourite character is pretty easily either Sissel or Yomiel, who just was a wonderful villain, from a convincing reason for how he turned bad to a convincing reason to how was redeemed to some really effective scenes as a menace in the middle (favourite moments are when he (optionally?) catches Sissel trying ghost tricks in front of him, and when he manipulates Kamila towards the end). Most of the major characters were solid; the stinkers were all mercifully minor and gone by around a third of the way through the game.[/quote]

[Cmdr_King]

I don't see any missile hype.  You are a terrible person~

[Dark Holy Elf]

Missile is far inferior to both Sissel and Yomiel!

EDIT: Of course I am almost obligated to like the cat more than the dog.

[Grefter]

I give up.  I will never be able to predict accurately what game elves will enjoy at all.  I am just at the point where Jowd shows up and I thought Doctor Thaddeus Venture as a disco pimp that dances like Michael Jackson would be a pretty big draw card.  Also honestly I have enjoyed Snow the prison guard bouncing off stonewall Zenny prison guard a fair bit.

Now I will say that Jowd is making things far more interesting and the gameplay straight after he hits the scene is the absolute pits.

[Cotigo]

NEB hates the game?  Grefter recommends it? I really need to play Ghost Trick, it sounds like.

Also "Stonewall Zenny prison guard?"  What.  You calling me gay.

I ain't gay bro.  This penis is for the girls yo.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Not that they make -use- of it.

Also, there's no exclusivity clause regarding your ass either.

[hinode]

Tactics Ogre: I just bought Starfall and Wisplight from the first shop in Palace of the Dead/Hell's Gate and... I'm kinda underwhelmed. All my physical attackers currently outfitted with light-elemental weapons are one-shotting (usually overkilling) all the undead, while Katiua can only 2HKO with Starfall, which means the insta-Exorcism effect not nearly as awesome as it could be. Wisplight is a bit less damage when focused, mainly due to Ravness/Valkyrie having a lot less magic power, but with a much shorter range as well.

Meanwhile, my archers are "stuck" with air-elemental bows (range 9!!) since I can't craft a light-elemental one, but they're arguably my best PCs anyways in this dungeon because about 1 in every 3 maps thus far starts you off at a huge height advantage, meaning they can rain death upon pretty much the entire battlefield from their starting position. And on the maps where they actually have to move, they can use Double Shot to turn into long range Ninjas after just a bit of TP buildup.

On the upside, their attacks aren't doing much less damage to the non-undead in here... which means light magic probably isn't getting the damage bonus aganist undead that light-elemental weapons do. Sigh. The weapon/magic balance in this game is so lopsided, and it doesn't seem to change until you hit super-high levels. Elemental weapon users get such absurd bonuses from the elemental augment skills too, I think my Ninjas all got over 100 base power per hand from equipping a +1 Augment Light accessory.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Grefter: Uh wait you are surprised that the pimp character was a bigger draw for you than for me? Really? Really? (I mean, I like him well enough, but yeah.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Wild Arms 4 - Fourth playthrough finished. I did this as kind of a LLG (forced fights only, but no Monopoly Gourd shenanigans or anything like that). WA4 doesn't LLG well because bosses give so much exp, I finished about 6 levels lower than normal. This still made a few fights harder certainly, I had resets on FIORE + ASIA and Hauser. Guardian Chimera, Super Soldier, and Prototype Gear also stood out as competent. Not much else to say. Game took me a bit under 10 hours, so I am Tide mk 2. Jump jump accelerator!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Deus Ex 3 - Rob, I know you have used it.  How fucking weird is the frame on the Revolver?  For something with an item description mentionign the sturdy frame on the revolver you would think it wouldn't have nearly as many moving parts to it.  There is a reason more modern handguns have the cylinder be the part that moves around when working with the gun rather than having the cylinder be solid and in place and have the frame of the gun move to open it up.  That thing must be so fragile.  Would think twice about using one that you even just got from knocking a guy out since they apparently drop it straight to the ground.

Top-break revolvers exist, but who would use them? They're like the only revolver you can jam.

[Hunter Sopko]

Deus Ex 3 - Rob, I know you have used it.  How fucking weird is the frame on the Revolver?  For something with an item description mentionign the sturdy frame on the revolver you would think it wouldn't have nearly as many moving parts to it.  There is a reason more modern handguns have the cylinder be the part that moves around when working with the gun rather than having the cylinder be solid and in place and have the frame of the gun move to open it up.  That thing must be so fragile.  Would think twice about using one that you even just got from knocking a guy out since they apparently drop it straight to the ground.

Top-break revolvers exist, but who would use them? They're like the only revolver you can jam.

Vash the Stampede used one!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Yeah, a Mateba. Italian revolver, rather rare. Design was too complicated for a revolver TBH.

[Shale]

So that's why everybody calls Togusa an idiot for using one.

[Cmdr_King]

FFT A2- Finished.  So, we all know this is basically FFT without plot.  Thus, we will analyse it as such.

Good Stuff

Laws.  Yeah, Laws.  They work exactly how they should in a video game; following the law gives you concrete benefits (A permanent bonus throughout the battle, plus added loot after battle) while breaking the law a) removes these benefits and b) gives you a clear but surmountable disadvantage (losing the ability to revive).  Judge loot was invaluable at several points in the game, while no battle gave me a loss because I'd broken the law aside from one of those 'uphold the law and win' fights (although one came close), but definitely made me work harder.

Class Balance.  Well, that's not entirely accurate, since class matters less in FFTA2 than the race.  And the race balance is pretty good.  while some races have more good classes than others, every race has viable endgame setups, and the difference tends to be how hard they are to get going rather than how effective they are. 

Bad Stuff

Weapon system.  Ugh.  Look, I understand that ability access is how you balanced your class system, but making it so damned easy to miss out on valuable equips because you happened not to get extra for particular ingredients is pretty bloody annoying and really messes with that whole "race balance is pretty good" idea.  I dunno, it works but I really wish there'd be more in the way of failsafes, making items available in shops after passing checkmarks and that kinda thing, y'know?

Weird Stuff

But basically this means the game is a real grind at times, and in a very skinner-box kinda way.  "dammit, I want [dualwield/doublecast/why hasn't I unlocked Ninja yet]" *faq* "... welp, guess I better stop the main missions and grind for 20 battles now".  The trouble is, the game wasn't hard when I didn't have a 20 level advantage.  There just come a point, about 20 hours in, where the game can't realistically fight back against you, and it's really in an easily preventable way on the design end.  On the other hand, since this is really the player becoming very powerful rather than the enemies being particularly weak, there's a certain amount of satisfaction to it at least.

Why do so many named PCs join at the very end?  This highlights the grinding thing, because they're about the same level as endgame enemies, and thusly even more useless than a late joiner in a cross-class dependent game should be.  Kinda sad.

So I dunno.  I played over 55 hours of this game in the space of 8 days, but I don't feel confident calling it more than about a 7/10.  Lots of good ideas that don't really come through when you look at the total design of the game.

[Fudozukushi]

Time for an Epic Post of SCROLL PAST THIS.

Record of Agarest War Zero or "how gaming gave me back problems"

Last time I finished collecting my party and--actually I never said I did that huh?  So I did and...  Well, now's the time to actually talk about the party and fashion and other related things.  BUT FIRST!  Vague mechanics talk.

Break: Break is a bar that when it drops it massivly lowers an enemies defense for the rest of the combo.  Becomes imperitive for getting Overkills.  Your guys have Break bars too but they're so huge that I got hit by an attack that did more damage then the combined max HP of my party and the bar was only at like 60%.

Overkills: Happen when you deal enough damage past zero to hit their max HP again. (IE, doing 200 damage to an enemy with max HP of 100 will be an Overkill).  Overkilling gets you a guaranteed item drop which you'll need for glorious FARMING ACTION.  Your guys can be overkilled too but I have no idea if it does anything since nothing seems to happen.

Extended Area: Each character and enemies later on have... uhhhhh, glowly points extending.  Placing allies on those points allows you to use them in combos.  This allows you to pull the slugass characters up way ahead in turn order.

Now, let's get unto the carrots of this meal.  Actually make it celery.

CHARACTERS!

Sieghart: Our dull as dishwater Captin in the armies of the light and other generic responses.  Y'know, dull as dishwater doesn't mean much since all the germs and stuff are quite fascinating nut then again I'm a day away of shoveling rotting garbage to becoming a germaphobe.  Mysophobe too but that's completely unrelated.  Uhhh, where was I?  Oh yes, Sieghart.  Like any good man he actually dresses not-too-awfully.  I think it's actually a rather nice outfit all told, but I'm playing this game so obviously my senses are shot.  So, uh, Sieghart, he's a PICK-YOUR-CLASS type protagonist while every one else is stuck with whatever.  This means he's going to be the king of versatility.  I choose the mage-fighter path because it sounded neat even though I always do terribly with such types in games.  Lo and behold it turned true because magic blows for damage early on.  On the other hand, he got a spear--despite me making sword choices, but whatever--and spears kick ass.  His LIMIT BREAKU attack--since I have no idea what the real classification is--hits hard and in a 2-swaure diamond area(and multi-square attacks are kinda rare) and debuffs all of an enemies stats.  Pretty much the lead-off attack for a chain of them.  Also he recently got an... I'm gonna say Attribute since again I don't know the correct classification, that massively boosts anyone's AP(what they need to attack) whenever they're in his Extended Area. 

Eugene: Resident ladies man and general pervert and other generic stuff.  Despite this he has the most personality of anyone so, go him?  Least has the good sense to realize that all the girls want Ziggy, or something.  Otherwise he spends most of his time trolling Linda(below) in ridiculously more insane ways as things go on.  On the fashion front--why am I doing this?--he's not as sane as Sieghart but isn't as bad as any woman.  Combat-wise, he's a generic fighter-type focusing more on power and HP then speed but not too much.  His LIMIT BREAKU is probably the worst since it's only affect is that it MAY get a crit, and I have no idea if I've even seen a crit.

Fredelinde (Linda): Generic female officer serving under Sieghart who is madly in love with him and everyone but him knows this.  Nevertheless, her constant back-and-forths with Eugene give her something resembling a personality.  And she doesn't try to assault Sieghart outside of training for some minor slight like those abominable tsunderes.  So what I'm saying is she's probably my favorite despite genericness.  Then again everything's generic so it's not like saying generic--OK I'll stop saying generic.  Generic.  Anyway her outfit is--like you'll see with all the women--hilariously useless for a soldier and pointlessly fanservicey.  Seriously, look at that!  It's depressing.  But not as depressing as it being in the top half of female clothes of the outfits so far.  Uh, let's see combat, COMBAT!  Yeah, anyway despite not wearing armor in sensible areas, Linda is a front-liner and uses Spears so that makes her good.  Especially since I wanted another front-liner and all I had were mages or mage-fighters that were completely invalidated by Sieghart.  Her Extended Area also has useful spots for when she attacks.  Her LIMIT BREAK does piss-all damage but lowers enemies VIT so it's usually second in the chain.

Minmel: Mysterious MacGuffin girl who loses her MacGuffin powers as soon as you meet her and loses her memory because of that.  Whoooo.  This causes her to be childish and clingy and makes her terrible choice in clothes even weirder.  Why is she barefoot?  WHY?  Uhhhh, anyway.... COMBAT!  Her Extended Area is generally weird and her combat approach is also weird.  She's supposed to be a mage-fighter type, I think, but neither are strong enough to be worth investing in both at once so I just made her pure combat.  Which isn't too shabby since she uses Scythes which was pretty good.  Also pretty much the only one who can capture monsters because her LUK is easy to increase.  Her Limit Break heals her when she uses it, something I always forget.  And it's Dark-element.  Surely mentioning that doesn't mean it won't come back to bite me in the ass later.

Alice: Pink-haired(which means I automatically like her despite any massive flaws) elf girl who... well the common attitude of elves currently is being haughty assholes and she's not so... yay?  As the first pure mage she's your taste into early-game mages being terrible.  Despite literally pumping every stat point on level-up into MAG she's doing less damage then the physical attackers.  On the other hand, she heals more health with the basic healing spell then Sieghart has Max so that's something.  As a mage her Extended Area is spread out far in front of her.  And her limit break--not like she'll ever get to use it--is another, actually the only other one that damages in an area.  And it reduces INT!  Now, clothes-wise, she's uh, well not too bad.  Since at least as a mage she can sort of ignore heavy things like armor.  And heck, in the gallery's little comments it's mentioned she doesn't need armor because of... well you'll see.

Gallios: Grumpy old dinosaur man who fights with two spears at once.  Despite being such a ridiculously awesome concept he falls into the same trap as Tunnel Rhino and Wheel Gator in that he doesn't live up to his potential.  He's also not a robot.  I think.  As befitting a dinosaur he pretty much dresses like the Hulk and doesn't have a shirt.  And he has black skin instead of green.  And black pants.  So really he's not like the Hulk at all.  Well maybe Grey Hulk.  So, in combat, he's what you'd expect.  Big, strong and slower then a fall in comic books.  Benifits the most from Extended Areas.  Also his own is a T-shape to his sides and back so something.  His Break Limit is basically just a bunch of strong hits.

Cal-Vina: He's... there.  Really, not like everyone is swimming in personality but really his entire existence is "Routier's(below) older brother and can't cook".  Well, at least his clothes are actually, well sensible.  But despite his appearance he's another mage-fighter hybrid heavier on the mage.  And he can't get INT gains like Alice and his other stats are bad.  But since he's your sixth party member and you're only other choice is someone who probably is better once magic becomes less terrible.  Well I would have dropped them anyway and words.

Routier: Cal-Vina's shy younger sister.  I haven't actually used her since she came lower level then him and was pure-mage, with more of a healing role.  At that point I only had one heal spell and hadn't really needed it and Alice did fine.  Her outfit is, well the best of the girls by a longshot.

Tetora: Cat-girl who dances a dance which purifies evil from the land.  Also wears this.  I'll let you all aghast at your own pace.

Sayane: Winged girl who cannot fly and--what?  Tetora is incomplete?  Well so's her outfit and until that fixes itself we're on to THIS.  Sayane here has the.... not-unique trait of getting lost easily.  Because being on the wrong end of the continent is endearing or something.  As for her outfit--because FLOW--well she at least is old enough to wear something like that, I guess.  Combat-wise, I didn't use her much because more mage-fighter and she used knives which suck.

And that's that!  Or something.  There's a bunch of NPCs, but frankly they've shown up in less scenes then I had before THE EPIC QUEST started.  Though it's vaguely amusing how evil-looking one of them is, complete with "we're better then humans!"  Only to be shot down by mentioning the gods are better then him haha.

Well, now that we're done with our celery sticks and the fresh taste of water is in our mouth, time for a drink.  A long, hard drink.

So when we actually did last leave off, Linda joins our crew and the next set of fights before our destination is against those DODGE EVERYTHING AT LOW HEALTH bastards and a bunch of DODGE EVERYTHING NEARLY ALL THE TIME cat-girls who are unrelated to the cat-girl in the party.  Despite the annoying of them, our group presses on to Bethesda Fortress, where we will make our stand against the Oblivion Crisis and prevent a shitty game from shipping.  Or so I wish.  Instead the armies of the Dark are attacking and it's up to us to put them down because why not.

Anyway what follows next is a series of three battles in a row(Which the game is actually nice enough to give a big old window explaining this and informing you to probably not save over your file.  YAY no longer being burdened by memory cards!)  The first fight starts off with everyone out of position and enemies with more health outside of bosses.  Despite that I get through with minor scratches.  Good thing too as the next fight uses your HP totals, and if anyone is KOed they'd have been gone.  The second fight and all the enemies have double the health of the last fight, ouch but I still get through it unscathed.  Third fight is the boss, he's a hard-hitting bastard, but he has one weakness.  His strongest attack--or so--does dark damage.  Minmel absorbs Dark naturally I learn, and he full-heals her.  I then manage to both off an Overkill on him from Full HP.  YEAH!

So with the Dark routed for now, our party can go back to it's normal quest of fetch-questing.  And again I'm reminding of bitter memories of Oblivion.  So we go to the forest which leads to the elves.  Along the way meeting a second-generation(oh yeah, there's two generations and stuff)heroine which immediately makes things creepy.  We also meet a cool tree.  But that's the tree-lover in me talking.  Anyway, the forest is a dungeon dive, enemies are tough but manageable.  In my search for loot, the battle loads up and SWEETGODWHATISTHAT!  A 3x3 tile monster in a random encounter named: Giant Cock.  Well at least one person had fun on this project.  So, despite making me scream like this one giant baby I know, the GIANT COCK isn't that hard and I think I get an Overkill.  Or I get an Overkill on the second one I encounter because if you forgot this was in a random encounter!  YEAHHHHHH!  So anyway, at the end of the forest I'm ready for the inevitable boss-fight and... nope, nothing.  So it's gotta be at Elf village.  Nope.  Huh.  Well it'll probably be at the end of the next dungeon--NO HAHAHAHA THERE IS NO NEXT DUNGEON JUST BOSS!  The brother of the tutorial boss in all hilarity.  Anyway, he has tough back-up, hits like a truck and all the bad things.  I finally get him in position, everything's going well, the Lreak Bimits are going off he's near death and--OHGODWHYISMINMEL HEALING HIM OHSHIT HER"S IS DARK ISN"T IT CRAPCRAPCRAPHELIVES--four of my party die and I barely scratch out the win.  Christ.

I head back to town to revive--because that's how things work, full heal after battle but not revival.  The costs for reviving everyone actually puts me in the negatives for cash.  CHRIST.  And the revival item only costs 500 compared to the 1,000+ for town revive.  UGH.

So, bucking up, the next dungeon of fetch questing GO.  Oh look, more 3x3 enemies and it's a goddamn Dragon.  OK, hard, but mangable and I get Overkills every time I fight one.  Until I fight two at once.  ARGH!  OK, still miraculously survive that!  Rest of the dungeon goes smoothly, except when a SURPRISE FIGHT!  Causes Sieg to have to tank a 3x3 enemy and a normal one for three turns while everyone else fails to kill a single slime.  Joy.

So at this point, I return to town to collect stuff and do stuff.  Mostly farming, LOTS of farming.  So much farming that I'm actually hoping to be able to cream the boss badly.

It's another multi-stage battle.  Both battles have bosses.  OUCH.  The first boss isn't too bad, but at the end two Minmel and Eugene are low on life, and so going into the next battle they're primary targets for the boss.  Who's a stupidly fast asshole, who recovers health and generates the SP needed for LIMIT BREAKING without doing a damn thing.  he also has a giant AP growth.  But by using Minmel as their prime target, they've drained themselves and left in a bad place.  I take out every minion but one and get Minmel up again.  Next turn I get everyone in position, but--things are a bit hazy here--things aren't as well as I want them.  I'm confident I could beat the boss, but I wouldn't get the rewards for everyone(and Now I remember the one minion left would have meant I had the time to do that).  So, by my past tense you can tell something bad happened.  Well, remember way before when I mentioned the Break bar on the PCS and how huge it was?  Well, this boss is why I learned that.  He wiped out four characters.  At that point I couldn't win so just let the Game OVER happen.  By letting the boss pull off the same move as last turn.  The one that required large SP and AP.  Oh boy.

So, take two, if the enemies keep to the same pattern I can do this!  They do, targeting Minmel for gross overdeath.  But--BUT!  One enemy is in a different position, ONE.  It completely changes my plans, since the previous grouping was too damn optimal.  The battle turns into a goddamn slogfest, with reviving characters to use as sacrifices to take the brunt of the death COMBO.  But eventually I fuck up badly.  Actually I don't so much fuck up as the boss somehow manages to get the first turn over Sieghart despite him never using any AP for turns(AP determines your order during the attack phase).  But I can actually recover from this, but not fast enough and Minmel gets taken out of the battle.  This is the end of it, I load up everything I have.  I kill the bastard--even getting halfway to the Overkill--and breath a sign of relief.

After that is the usual parade of victory with powering things up and claiming farming stuff.

Eventually... uhhh... let's go with yesterday I go around to doing all the story events and stuff.(I had been playing for 12 hours and it was 5 in the morning after I beat the bosses christ).  This is where Eugene is finally starting to shine as so many events were just him trolling Linda.  So, so much trolling.