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

[Captain K.]

Don't fuck with Marco!

Infinite Undiscovery:  also playing this, albeit on Easy difficulty because I'm trying to get all the retarded achievements related to situation bonuses.  Just hit Disc 2.  Story is surprisingly interesting.

The game is easy to break with item creation, except that it's not.  You can make fantastic weapons to tear enemies up, but armor is never very good.  So you can still die if you get swarmed by a lot of enemies.  There are lots of long-ranged and magic enemies teamed up with melee types, which is pretty clever design.

Also Fenrir, get Edward and Eugene to IC 3, then make Smiley Charms for mass profit.  Then when they get to level 4, make horseshoes instead.  $$$$$$

[Fudozukushi]

Record of Agarest War Zero, or how my knowledge of manipulating transplant lists came in handy.

When we last left off--by we I mean I, by which I mean the royal we--I had just gotten a sneak peek at a dual boss with more combined HP then every boss combined.  Combined.  They have 40,000 HP combined--so 20,000 each because I'm patronizing you--and their three minions with 2,500 each.  Fun.  So, my first goal is to go and grind up enough Enhance points to upgrade all my equipment to it's max.  Unfortunately there's a weapon that takes more EP to upgrade to level 2 then I get in a fight and it increases from there and I have other things to enhance and bluh.  Eventually I upgrade everything but that weapon and go out for a test run against the bosses--after I fuse one of them in the Monster's Guild and see it only has 2,000 HP normal of course.  It uh... well, doesn't go well just seems like an understatement.  The little minions move faster then Sieghart or Linda so they get the first tunr, and since they combo with the Golems they manage to kill off Sieg before he even gets a turn.  But this is a LEARNING experience so it's OK!  Revive Sieg go after the minions, get'em nice and low and MISS MISS MISS OHGODNO.  They--all of them--have the Willpower abilities that make them have perfect Evade against physicals and magic when at 25% or lower HP.  And that means 500 HP, which is more damage then  can do in a single hit(most attacks are multi-hit here).  Hahahahahahaha, I don't manage to kill even a ONE of them before I get creamed.  Oh yeah, they can also heal themselves to full.  And it's group healing! 

So, after a bit more something, I go for attempt two.  I've boosted Sieg's agility enough now that he can go before the minions.  I don't actually have him attack though--I'm doing this to boost everyone else's AP.  Sieg gets killed again, I kill off two minions and revive him.  I kill off another minion, and eventually put my new knowledge to use and have Minmel use her LVL2 Limit Break to don't act/don't move one of the bosses.  Because they're actually a normal enemy remember?  With one down, I can promptly wipe the floor with the other and win!  Yay!.

Now for more glorious plot stuff and.... w-what?  Why is it different then the GLORIOUS TRUE END guide?  Uhhhhhhh...... no, no I refuse to believe that the very second choice in the game could have ramifications this goddamn far into this.  Ughhhhhhhhhh, finish that, and oh-look, the event that's supposed to be before the trainwreck and would have let me fix everything showed up after!  FUN FUN!  Oh gods and I saved after and.... oh GODS I'M GONNA HAVE TO FIGHT THE BOSS AGAIN TO FIX THIS.  Game off, crying and liver failure go.  Game on, boss kills me because I screw up my positioning.  Take 4, I win--with a better time then before honestly.  I create multiple saves to safeguard and... ugh it's the wrong scene again!  What why is this screwing up?.... oh, oh god no.  The scene I want will only happen with enough points for one girl but because of my second choice I don't have enough of.  So I can only get it after the event I don't want yet.

Que an hour of manipulating damn near everything to even myself out with the GLORIOUS TRUE END guide.  I have to screw myself out of a bonus dungeon in order to even this out.  DEAR GOD why do you hate my liver?  it's been ever so kind and pious.

Everything becomes an annoying blur--except fighting the Golem bosses as normal enemies a mere two fights after beating them, and they had more 3x3 square monster back-up.  And... oh yeah, the Golem boss was the last guardian of the MacGuffin item, so the first generation is coming to a close.  Just one last boss to go.  He's after another multi-stage battle and once again he.... well he has more HP then the individual golems but not by much--23,000 for those not-curious.  he's also that brother revenge guy.  Also he has a Limit Break that doesn't cost SP so he can spam it every turn and it has a huge attack radius and frankly it's no surprise I had more Game Overs to him then every other Game Over combined.  Hilariously, when I actually defeated him, I took him out before his minion cover.  Because he had been killing my guys so much I had enough Sp to unleash everyone's LVL2 Limit Break at once.  Har.

So, with him down, the end of Generation comes I pick Sieg's wifu--Linda in this case because you can check what the offspring gets in town and that pairing was the best.  After hilariously stupid things, Sieghart and all three brides are forced to sleep.  Wait, what?  Gods, I pity the poor fool who was using them because you can cripple yourself so badly for the Second Generation.

Probably why the start of the Second doesn't actually have a Save Point until after a gauntlet of new--not actually tough but losing my best character and another solid one for wankers makes them hard.  Speaking of new characters...

Leonis: Is a wanker.  He's stuck with daggers and frankly if I hadn't been randomly making things at the blacksmith he'd have sucked more then he does.  And this was the best possible choice for him too, since the only other options were dagger&staff but terrible stats, or staff and pure mage.  I do not want more mages.  His extended area is also crap, while Sieg's could position his entire part with decent balance, Leon can't.  And his Limit Breaks are crap too, his first is single target and can only land a crit, his second is the stat-down but getting to it is a pain since lol 100 SP.  Except I saw it twice because everyone was dying so hard because he and Niel suck.

Niel: Eugene's son, somehow.  Uses guns, somehow.  Summons those wooden training dummies for his second limit break, somehow.  Is also a wanker.

So, like I subtly eluded to the Second Generation leads off with a battle and Leonis is the perfect age for JPRG fightin and Captainin it seems as he now leads Sieg's old unit into battle.  Joining him is Alice--who as an elf hasn't aged--Cal-Vina who also hasn't aged and why hasn't he ugh I thought you'd be less lazy then this game.  Oh well, oh hey new face and ABUH?  Eugene actually aged?  And he's still a Lieutenant for some reason.  Ah, that's right, Cal-Vina actually isn't human...  No one else has aged either so... something.

So with great difficulty I beat the first two fights and set off to spend my huge amounts of consumables upgrading things because I do have a lot.  Then I don't.  I also blow 1/3 of my party points to boost Leon because he's a STR-less wanker.  Dodgey, but STR-less.

So after I used so to start another paragraph, actually before that, before all of them, I went and started the next even and got the first of the Second Generaction harem-ettes.  Woo-hoo?  Apparently she was actually mentioned--but not seen--in the first generation as her father wanted her to marry Eugene.  This won't be awkward at all!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

DX3-  Well, I would have liked if the ending you got was more involved in its selection than a last-minute decision, but DX1 was that way too.  Other than that, pretty great in how they tie a lot of innocuous things back to the final reveals.  World building was great, though I felt some of the character building was a touch lacking (namely Megan).  Not that big of a deal, as the events are, after all, far bigger than any individual person.

Some of the cuts that had to be made for disc space and time were sorely missed (I can see, from the size of Detroit and Hengsha, why the Upper Hengsha and Montreal hubs were cut, though I curse consoles for necessitating it). All in all, though, the game did a great job of drawing me in and getting me involved.  Looking forward to a new Thief on this engine.

All in all, an awesome game you should play if you have taste.

[Dark Holy Elf]

XF Fiesta playthrough log (Fantastica/Excavator), first half of chapter 2.

I synth a bunch of +1 equips with my new item scope, mostly MAG-boosting slingshots, ATK-boosting bells, and EVA-boosting badges.

2-1 (kappa): Strong enemies here, but I take them on in small numbers at a time so they're manageable. Long fight so Nectars are a must. Berserkers come forward and die. Tony enters the swamp to bait the grapplers, who are pretty tough but also die. Then I move everyone forward to the island to start dealing with the main force, luring a few then picking them off with slow down and then combination arts. A bit tricky, but mostly fine once the striders and grapplers are dead.

2-2 (sentinel switches): I allowed myself to use sentinel here for fairly obvious reasons. Two sentinels and Tony fairy the three excavator/fantastica types upwards, who proceed to kill everything with combination arts and healing items, except for Sharp who bites it to good ol' Feeble Mind + Switch. The sentinels are tanky enough to take down the reinforcements without too much difficulty, though Devastate is certainly potentially scary.

2-3 (meowsery): I'm a bit careless here and lose a few PCs, but overall, not too bad, the usual combination art approach generally works, and in fact isn't interfered with much by misery!

I get my third job, which is Berserker. On the one hand, YAY DAMAGE. Great synergy with Rush, too. On the other hand, synergy is otherwise kinda bad, since they're poor at both formation arts (due to spears only being able to activate the three-man variety) and combination arts (due to having issues get in position). And they don't have much damage on rough terrain until Valiant. We'll see.

2-4 (gate of hell) [3 resets]: Everyone knows this is the hardest map in the game, right? I don't deploy Tony, he's just a liability. Clarissa/Ragnar/Felius as berserkers, Excavator Labby, Fantastica Levin. The first two sentinels are easy enough to drop into critical. Slow Down on EVERYONE, then sneak past, watching out for the possibility of Heavy Strike off the bridge (which happens once). Elementalists hit very hard. Never be in range of both of them. Feeble Mind to get them under control, after Slow Down of course. Rush helps a lot for a variety of things (Slow, Feeble, and the berserker charge moves to get in position). Once everyone is behind all the enemies, drop an elementalist into critical, Rush + Slow Down the reinforcements while escaping. In the end not too bad but a long battle where strategy needs to be executed pretty much perfectly.

2-5 (sentinels) [1 reset]: My offence is low so I decide it might be worth it to turn on the gravity pulsar. This is stupid. I'm never doing it again. It quardruples everyone's weight, but the enemies have ludicrous VP (500ish) so it hurts you more than it does them despite their heavy armour. I could have won anyway but only after wasting lots of valuable items (potion berries and revive fruits both still cost a notable amount). I do the battle again smartly, mostly involving combination arts (majority of team in excavator for those slingshots!) and it's fairly easy.

2-6 (Asgard): Fantastica = single best class to have for this fight. Slow Down is the second best skill you can have here. Feeble Mind is the best. Apply them, and laugh.

2-7 (Rupert 2): First person who tries to argue this is Rupert 3 due to the prologue counting gets punched in the mouth. Anyway, SLINGSHOTS dominate here again! The enemies prove somewhat troubling and I do lose a couple PCs, but yeah, 5-range post-movement attacks kill off all the generators before the enemies can do too much that's bad.

2-8 (plot fight): Is a plot fight.

2-9 (Elensia escape run): Haha, three best classes possible for this map probably! It'd be interesting to see how some other combinations handle it. Berserker mobility is what it is, Excavator is #2, Fantastica is a bit slower (Levin is mine so that he can keep up some) but Rush is wonderful with Berserkers. Charging Thrust from 8 range 2HKOs all the sentinels at the end, so I'm able to rout the enemy with my three rushed Berserkers.

[hinode]

Finished Coda episodes 3 and 4 today in Tactics Ogre. The last battle in episode 4 was pretty fun, a slugfest against all 8 Dark Knight Commanders + a bunch of Templar Knights, with plenty of dialogue from special characters. It's a shame they locked it away behind a forced PotD run in Coda 2. Didn't get much in terms of loot besides a novelty Supple Whip, but I'm basically done with the game so it doesn't matter.

Lord Denam managed to exceed 999 attack per hand at some point around L38, despite "only" wielding Brilliant Daggers. He has less dex than Vyce and Ninja Hobyrim and much weaker weapons than the latter, so I'm not sure what's going on; maybe Lord just has a hax attack stat multiplier somewhere.

[Fenrir]

Don't fuck with Marco!

Infinite Undiscovery:  also playing this, albeit on Easy difficulty because I'm trying to get all the retarded achievements related to situation bonuses.  Just hit Disc 2.  Story is surprisingly interesting.

The game is easy to break with item creation, except that it's not.  You can make fantastic weapons to tear enemies up, but armor is never very good.  So you can still die if you get swarmed by a lot of enemies.  There are lots of long-ranged and magic enemies teamed up with melee types, which is pretty clever design.

Also Fenrir, get Edward and Eugene to IC 3, then make Smiley Charms for mass profit.  Then when they get to level 4, make horseshoes instead.  $$$$$$

Don't worry, the worst achievements related to situation bonuses are on disc 1.

Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I'm also playing without online vouchers. I love them and all, but they make IC too easy!
Smiley charms are still an option now. ->

Anyway, just got Gustav, level 18. The game is still pretty easy so far, aside from those monsters who have uber HP and don't flinch. (ogres, bears...) I did get a few game overs.
The compulsive achievement is a nightmare, but I'm not giving up so far. We'll see how this goes... There are a lot of games I've played where I've gotten every achievement but the most retarded. (Nier, Last Remnant, Shadow Complex...)


Devil May Cry 4: Mission 17.
I mostly suck with Dante but he seems to have ridiculous attack power. Game overs are a thing of the past. I'd still like to have Nero more.
Like in DMC1, Dante's weapons get progressively both cooler and less practical to use. I'm sticking with the sword and the shotgun. I believe this is the first piece of fiction I've ever seen that starts with serious plot and ends up with comedy. This is weird.

[Cmdr_King]

But if anyone was going to do that, would it not be Devil May Cry?

[Niu]

It is good to see that Fudo is enjoying himself in the dark depth. Soppy, I must say this is better than I have expected.

[Hunter Sopko]

It's quickly becoming one of the only games in town. The population boom is to be expected.

[Yoshiken]

Fudo needs to write more things on these forums because they are glorious to read.

Oh yeah, more DDS2 happened. Well, not much more because, when I last posted, I was against the last machine gun gate thing. I had to grind a little to learn Zionga/Bolt Flare, but that completely trivialised that boss, and the next fight was.. hilariously easy, despite nobody having any fire spells whatsoever. >.> (Apparently, hitting the normal Nagas for weakness with Terazi and then spamming damage against the Raja Naga is enough to beat him. Oh, and having status healing/revival on Cielo.)
But yeah, after that, EGG Mk 2 comes, and oh gods this dungeon whyyyyyy. I'm struggling to kill half the randoms, since this is where DDS2 decides that enemies don't need normal weaknesses any more, they can be weak to things like Death or Guns. So I struggle to kill Hraesvelgrs and Baphomets and have to grind for a while anyway because Argilla was the only one who had electric skills before this dungeon. Sera is now close to learning Bolt Flare/Zionga, but does have Mazio. So, naturally, I try going against Vritra.
Turn 1, he criticals and nearly wipes my party. Urk. Full-heal and throw out a couple of attacks. Turn 2, he Gelid Torrents into a double freeze into mass critical into game over. Siiiiigh.
Yeah, I need to grind for Mazionga at the very least. Preferably more than just that. That said, I recently got both Ghost Trick and Vandal Hearts as an early birthday present, so might be putting DDS2 on hold yet again.

[Lord Ephraim]

It is good to see that Fudo is enjoying himself in the dark depth. Soppy, I must say this is better than I have expected.

There's no place for IF/Compile Heart to go but up!  Honestly though Agarest 2 and Neptune mkII don't look too bad?  Niu, I need your professional opinion here.

Xenoblade - So the stretch of Valak Mountain, Sword Valley, and Mechon Fortress is a welcome change from dungeon, 100 sidequests, dungeon to dungeon, dungeon, dungeon. PLOTZ got more epic though.  Is the Pretty White Hair Guy™ going go all ToV Duke on me? Dickson goes from random old man to old man that knows everything but won't tell you shit?  Is there potential for a love triangle with sexy robot girl and bird princess?

Can't really bother to care anymore cause the next MYSTERY town just dumped me another 100 quests I have to do because I need them for the aftergame.   Naked Dunban no longer solos things and with every heavy armor upgrade Reyn looks more and more ridiculous.  Going to wait for an extensive FAQ.

[Twilkitri]

A New Beginning - Played

Reasonably entertaining. Early on is a bit gratingly anti-nuclear, but loosens up on that a bit once there are characters available to villainise. I liked the comic-style cutscenes, but they had a tendency to desynch.

The puzzle with the red & yellow plugs broke on me, which was annoying. Two of the counters ended up counting one more than they were supposed to, so it wasn't possible to get to the desired setup. Conveniently, this was one of the puzzles which they added a skip button to. Hm. Didn't ever need to use the skip button on any other puzzles.

The IKEA Antenna puzzle. The last components for the antenna are stunningly inane. Game, it does not improve matters for you to call this out yourself a number of times.

Irritatingly, the game started crashing close to the end. Generally I could progress past whereever it had crashed after bringing it back up, and thankfully it autosaves reasonably often for the continue function, but there was one point where it kept crashing over and over. Fortunately there was something else I could do at that point, so I did that instead, and after having done so the initial action I had been trying to take no longer caused a crash.

Game decided to throw back to Fate Of Atlantis at one point and stopped displaying Bent's sprite. I put up with it until the following chapter, and then I killed the game and brought it back up, whereupon happily the sprite came back. Even if it hadn't come back there were at least no doorway mazes to deal with anyway.

Not very impressed with the way the game handles Salvador's actions. In Oslo he probably kills Dr. Braun, given he has the guy's hair and there is blood on the floor where he did whatever it was he did, yet you're allowed to just leave to go fetch Bent despite Salvador being ludicrously obviously not Dr. Braun and having been accosted by security just before. Then near the ending of the game he kills a bunch of people in the power plant, but when he and Fay die shortly afterwards Bent is all just 'TWO PEOPLE JUST DIED HERE' with Salvador getting off scott-free (in a manner of speaking) again.

I particularly like how this event is used as evidence that nuclear power plants are dangerous. Because one guy kills a bunch of people there and then sabotages it to melt down, and a woman sacrifices herself and him to prevent this, nuclear plants are dangerous. Certainly doing a good job at conveying your message there game. Maybe evidence that the emergency flood controls were put in the STUPIDEST POSITION EVER.

I could go on for a while about dumb things that happened, so I will change tack and talk about how the twist effectively invalidates the events of most of the first half of the game and has left me unsure as to what the reality of the situation is. I would really need to play that part again, but I have no intention to at the moment. Oh well.

[Fudozukushi]

It is good to see that Fudo is enjoying himself in the dark depth. Soppy, I must say this is better than I have expected.

I'd say enjoy wasn't the right word but it's not like else much fits with how much time I've spent on this game.

Fudo needs to write more things on these forums because they are glorious to read.

Now I'll write for two egos!

There's no place for IF/Compile Heart to go but up!  Honestly though Agarest 2 and Neptune mkII don't look too bad?  Niu, I need your professional opinion here.

Up is certainly a direction they wanted something to go.

[Niu]

It is good to see that Fudo is enjoying himself in the dark depth. Soppy, I must say this is better than I have expected.

There's no place for IF/Compile Heart to go but up!  Honestly though Agarest 2 and Neptune mkII don't look too bad?  Niu, I need your professional opinion here.

Xenoblade - So the stretch of Valak Mountain, Sword Valley, and Mechon Fortress is a welcome change from dungeon, 100 sidequests, dungeon to dungeon, dungeon, dungeon. PLOTZ got more epic though.  Is the Pretty White Hair Guy™ going go all ToV Duke on me? Dickson goes from random old man to old man that knows everything but won't tell you shit?  Is there potential for a love triangle with sexy robot girl and bird princess?

Agarest 2? Well, if you can tank the X-Edge, Agarest 1 and the zero. Then Agarest 2 should make no difference to you. It really is just the same formula over and over again. of course, to a loyal Netherworld minion, make no difference equates to a purchase without a second thought.

As for Neptune. Ignore it. It is also the same formula, but it actually has something outside the typical Netehrworld bad quality. But you can't really appreciate it unless you follow Japanese game blogs, 2ch, and other industry news closely. IF goes all out on their trolling act in this game, and the personified game blogs are just so wrong.... just you'll probably not get it.

Also, spare the white hair pretty boy, he stays on your side. But that should also tell you who is not.

It is good to see that Fudo is enjoying himself in the dark depth. Soppy, I must say this is better than I have expected.

I'd say enjoy wasn't the right word but it's not like else much fits with how much time I've spent on this game.

The very response I am waiting for. If you are putting up with the Netherworld even you are not enjoying it. It means that the world below has finally got your soul.

[Clear Tranquil]

Epic Battle Fantasy 3 - Epic Mode - Final boss cleared. The fight wasn't too bad. I didn't prepare as much as I could have done, didn't bother with buying extra Pizzas and stat boosting afterall, some equipment wasn't maxed, etc. So there were a few resets until I picked up a feel for the battle but yeah nothing too bad, nothing like the hard time the Kitten Ruins boss gave me. The final boss fight became a lot easier to control when I decided abusing Auto Life, particularly for Nat but on other characters too when needed/possible was better than prioritising Regen and trying to keep everybody fully buffed like usual. Regen served it's purpose for most of the game but yeah Auto Life was better here. I did get Regen/buffs up when I could but yeah for the most part focused on getting/keeping the Auto Lifes up this time. Otherwise Nat abused Kyun when it came up which was five or so times over the course of the full fight. Kyun is so excellent/OP, I love that skill. MVP is Natz with it for sure  Nat also used Healmore when/as needed too. Yeah she didn't really get to go on the offensive in this fight. Sad panda. Matt mainly focused on using Power Metal near every round for crowd control and the back up healing, exploiting Cleaver for mass critical damage on the boss proper when Kyun buffs/debuffs were up. Lance mainly served as main offence and general item boy when needed, abusing Tera Drill when possible (i.e when I judged it safe to hold off using Dispel for a while, allowing the target to keep it's buffs up for a bit) Unload after Kyun, MP restore items, Double Shot, Pizzas (ended up with all three of my Pizzas used up by the end of the fight, funny thing is I didn't use any Hamburgers >_>) etc. His counters were nice to have again too, was good to see them when they showed up (he really helped me out with certain fights over the course of the game thanks to those) =)

(also had Matt/Natalie use Nettle/Toxic to stick/restick Poison over the fight as needed as well, while Poison wasn't quite as OP vs the final as it was against some other enemies/bosses it still helped~)

Set ups -

Matt

*L30/All skills maxed

Blizzard L4/Dragon Killer L5
Mage Hat L5 (resist ID aww yeah)
Genji Armor L5

(Resistances - 50% ice/50% water (50% thunder/50% stun w/th Dragon Killer) , 50% earth, 50% syphon/silence, 50% death

Natalie

*L30 All skills/maxed

Nimbus L5
Cat Ears L5 (resist ID aww yeah)
Pope Dress L5

(Resistances - 50% fire, 50% ice, 50% water, 50% dark, 50% holy, 100% doom, 100% stun, 50% death)

Lance-

L30 All skills/maxed

Deep Blue L5
Officer Hat L5
Officer Coat L5

(Resistances - 30% fire, 30% thunder, 50% water, 80% dark )

Fun times (I tried other stuffs equip wise at first like the Ninja Cloak/Red Jacket for Matt but as mentioned before not everything was maxed, also since some of the resets were down to mass ID hax from the final I decided to go with Mage's Hat/Cat Ears for headgear at the expense of giving up full dark/holy protection from Nat's shiny Pope Hat*)~

Edit: Thanks muchly again to those who helped me out through this one.

Currently just fiddling around with my old file. After defeating the final/ending get I reloaded and set out to get the Slayer/100'000~ Damage trophy. Picked up this one vs a dark weak enemy at the Kitten Ruins by having Matt use Fear to lower it's magic defence, then buffing Natalie's magic attack and having her abuse L5 Black Hole off L5 Obsidian vs the fully debuffed dark weak enemy =D Result 243'724 damage! Then I decided to do it again even although I already picked up the medal from that result because hey that was fun and I liked that shiiiny damage~ Result 380'641 critical damage !!

Afterwards went to the shop and worked on maxing up a whole bunch more of equips with the result I went from 800'000 Gold to less than 80'000 =( Still have quite a bit of equipment left to max too~

Oh for anyone else who has done this, if I decide to do a new game+ is there any penalty for carrying everything over? I'll still be able to raid all the chests/do all the quests again and get more stat boosting items/etc? =)

[Dark Holy Elf]

XF Fiesta playthrough log (Fantastica/Excavator/Berserker), second half of chapter 2.

2-10-A (enter the Zortroa): Generally pretty easy fight that mostly serves to let you know how the Zortroa operate. Back to 3 excavators / 1 of the other classes / Tony. Slingshot combination arts for everyone.

2-10-B (Chelle and King Tarrasque III) [1 reset]: "Nobody can die" makes this a bit tougher than it would be otherwise, the KING criticals Tony at a point I don't expect and death ensues. Otherwise, not much to say about it. The king is immune to Switch (as is Chelle) and has regen, so he's pesky to kill with his defences, but Slow Down and combination arts serve everyone well enough. Mostly a matter of watching out for enemy attack ranges, and with slingshots, this is easy enough to do.

Lefas Corner, buy +2 equipment (same stuff as always: ATK-boosting spears and bells, MAG-boosting slingshots, EVA-boosting badges).

2-11 (Fairylight swarm): Tricky one, but not one that kills me, though it certainly comes close and drains a few key items out of me. Close quarters and the fairylights are very fast even before Quicken, so I get beaten around a lot. Follow Around lowers MAG but luckilly for me they mostly use it on the wrong people, and even if they hit the right it's not as bad as it could be because I only need it for whoever finishes the combination art.

2-12-A (desert): The Martial Guard here has pretty decent stats and comes at you in three waves; the second provides the most test. The map is flat so Berserker gets to shine more than in previous maps, though it's not perfect because a few of the enemies are quite evasive. Fortunately, not a very long fight which limits some of its challenge.

2-12-B (pale ogres): Kite, kite, kite! Pale Ogres have monstrous physicals, but only 3 move. I have 5 range with slingshots, so abuse can happen. Sleep is dangerous, but the enemies don't use it quite as intelligently as they can and I get a bit lucky with it. The Zortroa here are ineffective due to hanging back. Traps... I can't do much about (don't quite remember where most of them are) but they're not too bad; Shut Out is an annoyance as is cHP/2 damage (rounded down). The gella trap is the most annoying since it robs me of about 1500 gella, but not too big a deal.

2-13 (damnations): lol this map. I guess it is Edna's idea of a clever trap, but lol. Possibly the easiest "real" fight in the game, I take no damage. Badly outranging the enemies is just overkill.

2-14 (paigeols): More clever Edna traps. I guess this map is less terrible than the last (enemies have ranged magic damage!) but still. One of the paigeols does reach a leypoint but he doesn't have the HP to sustain much of a magical beating.

2-15 (Strahl Gewehr puzzle): Second and final "stall point" of the chapter as it absolutely, 100% forces Dandelion Shot. See regular playthroughs.

2-16-A (Clarissa and Alexia): So Alexia is apparently bad when you ban all her sexy Royal Fencer stuff. It makes sense, these are supposed to make up for her late jointime. The archers at the start still aren't too bad (I mainly use formation arts). Mages are a bit more tricky but some range-watching keeps the worst under control. And Slow Down, of course.

2-16-B (rescue): Certainly the harder map of the two, I eat through several revive fruits here and this map would be quite monstrous for this challenge if it included a loss condition of Alexia/Clarissa's death (which it probably should, to boot!). Ultimately despite my efforts both do die from the ambush (Clarissa almost makes it) but I'm sure I could have prevented this. Otherwise, the battle is a very long slog, so I'm sure to bring Nectars. Some hairy moments and as mentioned, some revival definitely gets played, but the combined force of slow down, Switch to help with taking out the High Cavaliers, and the usual combination art nonsense (with some berserker thrown in) takes care of things.

[Magic Fanatic]

Afterwards went to the shop and worked on maxing up a whole bunch more of equips with the result I went from 800'000 Gold to less than 80'000 =( Still have quite a bit of equipment left to max too~

Oh for anyone else who has done this, if I decide to do a new game+ is there any penalty for carrying everything over? I'll still be able to raid all the chests/do all the quests again and get more stat boosting items/etc? =)

No penalty at all.  All the chests have what they had in them, you can keep all your gear/items, and can even choose to be able to break L30.  Medals are game-saved instead of file-saved, so you could start a new file on Easy if you wanted.  The last treasure room, however, requires ALL the medals gained.

[VySaika]

Entirely too much Dissidia Duodecim lately. Randomly got back into when I wanted to play something actiony that wasn't musou.
 
I've discovered that apparently the characters I'm actually best with are Firion and WoL. So Prishe joins the growing list of secondaries, with Vaan joining as well(though he was never a main of mine at all).

Also, today alone, i've had two JUST AS PLANNED moments while playing.

The first: using Bartz, I acccidentally hit square and use Ragnarok Blade. Despite the fact that I wasn't intending to attack at ALL, much less use that particular easily dodged one, the enemy dodges right into it and dies.

The second and better one: Using Gilgamesh! Just threw his Missile HP attack on to give it a shot. It's not great, but funny, so I use it. The stage is World of Darkness Omega. So what happens? Well, I throw out a missile, the enemy dodges, the stage picks that exact moment to change form...depositing the enemy right in front of the still moving missile. Boom and victory. Just. As. Planned~

[Luther Lansfeld]

FFTA2 - Beat the game! It's fun but marred by a few flaws, like its slowness and its skill building/weapon acquiring system. The combat is fun enough otherwise, even if the game was fairly easy even on hard mode. It gets bonus points for having an all-out main female villain who isn't a space flea nor shares the spotlight with other villains (like Miang).

The game is like FFTA1 except with all of the incredibly stupid things about the first game removed, like the laws, the weapon stealing, and the horrid horrid storyline. I think this makes the experience enjoyable enough, but it really doesn't stand out as a game. However, I do love me some SRPGs, so it gets a higher score than it would if it were just a regular RPG that was pretty unimpressive in most ways. Probably 5-6/10.

[Fudozukushi]

Record of Agarest War Zero: Where the Bunny-girl costumes are more concealing then common outfits.

What last we left off we were discussing my ability to never start paragraphs with varied openings.  And there was probably a game there too.  With girls.  Lots of girls.

Dana: Looks like a physical attacker with less actual STR and ATK then Minmel.  Actually she looks like a--well stripper is an overstatement really, and she's supposed to be a blacksmith apprentice of all the stupid things.  Also will probably never see use.

So with our 8/9 haremette introduced and--wait, 8?  Am I getting ahead of myself?  No, right, that fairy-thing was shown earlier but not recruited.  So, uhhhh, our goal!  Go meet the ~MYSTICAL BLACKSMITH~ forger of artifacts and get his latest works.  So of course the first battle on the way is a 4-pack of 3x3 monsters yearning to pound Leonis into a crystal.  Because your guys become crystals when they get KOed.  No, really.  So, now I'll sort of talk about how Leonis and Niel wank some more before going off on some other random tangent when I should instead add a paragraph break.  So, Leonis!  He's kinda bad.  Sieghart was my best character and Leon is... still probably the best but not by the gap Sieg was.  Daggers suck compared to anything but especially spears, his Extended Area is wonky as hell and can't synergism well with anyone.  Leon's skillset is, well lopsided as hell.  Because Skills are everything and even affect... well I can't even say basic attacks so I'll say attack typing, you want a decent spread of Skill-Slots.  Sieghart had 4 Skill-slot-types.  I think.  Leon, really only has two.  Two that once again, don't synergy well with others.  Niel's slightly better as one of his two types can be combined with anyone and the other, well it's the same as Leon.  Bah!  And the worst of this, is that Leon doesn't have Sieg's ENERGY willpower which boosts the AP of anyone in his Extended Area when it's his turn.

But Alice does have Energy now for some crazy reason.

OK, so now I'm gonna be centering my party around Alice.  Except she's kinda slow while Leon's the fastest character I've had even if he was stripped NEKKED.  So, after making new items and blowing half my PP on her, Alice is now the fastest character!  And has 500 more HP because I had that item!

And those enemies that become immune to avoidable physicals at 25% health are back with more health then ever!  Also Leon has that ability now but it's useless because anything that gets him that low can kill him anyway!

Plot, plot, maker of magical macguffins doesn't have the macguffin.  Shock?  Clearly evil boss-guy doesn't care, sends us to front lines because armies of dark are attacking and blah.  Get there and evil boss-guy reveals himself as evil.  After introducing the guy who I said couldn't get more villainous-looking got more villainous-looking.  His new default sprite has its ARMS CROSSED!  Now, while I say these dudes were clearly evil, that's really from the player perspective.  To all in-game characters they've been unfailing polite and reserved and frankly if GENERIC wasn't powering so much wouldn't really come off as villains until this scene.  Heck, it's taken them... uhhhh... I'm gonna say 18 years at least to pull what they pull off so it's not like it's some five-second betrayal or something.  So after watching the entire NPC-force get horrible things done to them, it's finally fight time.  It's another multi-part battle--with the first fight having Leonis display his mad AVOID skills by getting hit by 2 of 30 attacks--with the twist being the second-final battle being a plot-fight.  I'd say guess against who but it's not like I gave any NPC names, or know any.  So, he has 55,555 HP and deals nearly all of that in damage to poor deserving Leonis when he attacks.  Hilariously I thought Leon might live to counter because he activated the 25% no-hit thing and that's probably what saved him from being hit for over 55,555.

So, after that, plot, plot, plot.  Fairy-girl joins and the haremettes are officially 8/9!  And Niel leaves because he is too big a wanker.  I'd celebrate, but my only choices to replace him are the blacksmith stripper and fairy.

Fairy it is.

Apli: Fairy-girl, older then old since she's the catgirls 4x-great-grandmother.  I don't even know if I should wonder how any of that works.  Is a rebel for her kind because she goes against the common grain of the fairy-folk by not being a secluded bitch or slave"familiar".  In battle she's another mage, and frankly with all the 25% no-physical enemies about I need another one.  On the big upside, is she plays at that game too, having the same 25%.

So, I head in and start the next dungeon a bit.  I get a plot scene of the evillest villain transforming into generic JRPG boss-monster and then I turn the game off because it's time for Deadliest Warrior.

Next time on Record of Agarest War Zero!: I probably recruit the last haremette and weigh the pros and cons of her because she has the most clothes.  Also probably some hilarious overkill boss.

[Fenrir]

CK: I dunno, I'd have expected that from a crazy indie RPG that suddendly everybody in the DL loves, not a big mainstream title.
Granted, Bayonetta exists.

DMC4: Stuck during the boss rush because I still haven't learned how to properly beat bosses after three fights. I blame camera angles.


Radiant Historia: Finished (the ending was ridiculous with next to no sidequests finished), faqed for four hours to do some sidequests, got owned by the superboss.
This game is unique and interesting thanks to a neat concept, but if you think about it more than one second it just really doesn't make sense at all. This is the usual problem with time travel stories, except here it's 1000 times worse. And I usually never notice plot holes! Fortunately, the game avoids clichés and pointless character interactions, and has a great main character that steals all the plot (for all that he'd probably be annoying in real life)

Gameplay's great except when you're fighting giant spiders. Fuck giant spiders.
I was annoyed by how the game forced Raynie and Marco in my team all the time so I used them as little as I could. My main team was Aht / Stocke / Rosche or Eruca.

Stocke: Red mage. Not the crappy FF3 red mage. The good, FF1 level red mage. Stocke can do nearly everything rather well, he's the best character in the beginning and middle of the game and starts to drag a little later on.
Aht: MVP. Aht starts rather awful but has great damage through traps, which works nicely with Stocke. Then out of the blue she becomes the only viable healer of the group. Bosses with status are owned by Polaris. + Gamebest speed.
Raynie: Pure black mage, nukes things after everybody has moved.
Marco: Starts as the healer of the group, then becomes... Kind of useless as he just stops learning healing spells. I suppose you could use all your MT stat boosting spells then use nothing but Trans Turn with him and he'd be a decent ally, but that's boring.
Eruca: A lot like Marco, less healing but more utility. Then she just disappears at the end of the game, unfortunately!
Rosche: Waaay underleveled, compensates with monster durability. Rosche can move enemies around but he's not as good as Stocke about it, with his lower speed. Otherwise he does various shades of pseudo MT physical damage, which can be useful here and there. Decent if you're underleveled like I was, bad otherwise.
Gafka: I honestly never gave him a chance until Wind God Strike, which was too late.


Infinite Undiscovery HMSNV15HIM: Beat Disc 2.
Vesplume Tower was where things started to get serious. Capell solo has difficulty handling more than 3 soldiers at once (even crappy soldiers), but I'm getting better. Worst comes to worst, he has an HP regen accessory so he can just run around for two minutes if things get awful and the last savepoint was 20 minutes ago. I still got a ton of resets in that place.

Especially to Kron, AKA Megabitch. This is some giant eye boss with paralysis (= Instant Death to me) and two wolves. The wolves are weak to earth and the boss resists it. Things went so bad that I contemplated adding earth damage to my weapon to kill the two little whores faster even if this meant fighting the boss for five minutes. Eventually I learned how to beat those things properly though (by immediately owning one first with Cutting Gavotte, for once)

Moments later I was up against Dmitri, AKA UBER Megabitch. He's a boss archer with six archer girls on his side (= Stunlock), paralysis (Again??), and some plot boss doing his own stuff on one side of the battlefield that can hurt you if you get close to him. AND he can summon 3 uber soldiers at once at low HPs.
Fortunately, he's weak to earth. I went into full crafting mode (Atk boost, Def boost, Hit boost, Paralysis immunity, earth damage for 10 minutes) slaughtered the girls with Cutting Gavotte, then pounded him with Cutting Gavotte + Slashing Cannon like a madman. I did so much damage to him that he was dead before his reinforcements came to me. KNEEL! I AM GOD!
... Then I beat the 3 other guys by running away for a while.

This challenge is fun but I can't see myself trying it on infinity mode, honestly.


Dungeon Siege 3: Finished. Lots of tough fights at the end. The balance between our two characters was perfect.
This might be the best couch co-op RPG I've played, but that genre is starting to become a rare breed. Other people like playing on the Internet more.

[Fudozukushi]

Record of Agarest War Zero wherein Fudo is a liar.  But not for reasons related to this game.

Last time, I predicted that I'd be facing an overkill boss and getting my last haremette(my?).  So, to do this we continue diving into this dungeon!  And then we're at the end!  Meanwhile in NPC-land the last stronghold of light is under attack by the forces of darkness.  I'd care, but if it falls Niel will probably die so yay!  Though at least we get to here the hilarious reasoning of the big bad villain wanting to cover the world in darkness to even the playing field between God and Man.  Since the gods of this setting are totally dicks I'd be totally fine with this.  So, dungeon end and.... another dungeon?  Ugh, and it's the same one that I went into to search for MYSTICAL BLACKSMITH which is why we're here so fine.  We're coming in on a different path, and I'm encountering forest spirit monsters here in a mountain range.  I wonder why that bothers me more then wolves and werewolves and such in these places.  Ah, whatever.  So, I slog my way through the battles to reach the Mystic Smith, and I see his giant-ass sprite.  This here is also when I realize that all 3x3 square monsters use 3D for their appearance.  Weird.  So, uh, plot, the game tries to encourage that an enemy type that's been playing second-fiddle in threat since the first generation is somehow worth a damn.

So the fight starts, there's two of them--the same amount at the final first generation boss.  And the enemies are the same as in the first second generation fight, without even any casters even.  So of course it turns into a SURPRISE FIGHT! and my formation is ruined.  So, I set myself up, kill one of the two and wait for the next turn.  So of course on the second turn they outspeed my guys and kill off 5 of them, leaving only Apli alive.  I still stand by that these guys aren't a threat, because even though I blow half my revival items I do win.  Sure, they can kill most of my party, but even one alive is enough!

So after my thrilling victory, more of them show up in cutscene form.  Since one of them in cutscene meant two in battle with 4 minions, this means the 3 in cutscene form means 6 with 12 minions!  So I'd say that's why the Mystic Blacksmith tells us to run because we're outnumber and doomed.  At least until GUNSHOTS RING OUT!  And Niel jumps to our rescue!  And scares all of them off by having Leonis' unit appear off-screen and bluff them away.  This would have been more effective if it wasn't Niel and if they had actually said that Leon's unit wasn't accompanying them.  Oh well, it's fair enough.  But that's not enough for cutscene power, so we still have to run because the villains are coming to take the artifact and we still can't take them out because this artifact isn't fully powered or something despite being able to destroy the prime artifact of Generic menacing name.  So Leon and co run like little girls because mostly the group is little girls who are older then dirt.  This leaves the Mystic Blacksmith to face off... against the two villains who were present at the last stronghold of light.  Ah, well, that doesn't bode well for Alice's father it seems.

So, the party meanwhile has to slog through even more battles to reach the dark side of the continent to meet up with the final haremette who can supposedly help unlock the true power of the Sword Artifact.  It has a frankly hilarious name that I've forgotten half of so dang.  Also Leon uses a Sword in cutscenes despite being a daggers man.  Sieghart did this too, but he at least at the tutorial battles to use a sword, and a sword is in his normal artwork.  Meanwhile Leon has no weapon in artwork, just two sheathes.  Weird.

So, uh, yeah!  At the end of the mountain range, the Mystic Blacksmith gets... sealed or killed or something since he disappears in a flash of light and hell if I know how his race is supposed to die.  The villain there with the unique model transforms into a generic model and I wonder if I should be scared he's stronger or weaker.  Back at the party, Niel says that he's only dumb because Eugene is dumb, and the generic soldiers all talk about how awesome Sieghart was and how much a cheapskate Eugene is.  Hilarious.

At this point I see the world map has cut me off from all the northern territories.  This won't have any deadly ramifications at all.  We head over to the closest town, which actually has a different background appearance then every north town but the exact same shop NPCS.  That's also when I realize that none of the store NPCs have visible ears.  The deadly ramifications hit as I realize how much I'm now cut off from smithing materials.  So much so that I cannot make the accessory that grants AP recovery+.  ASRGH!

Right, so, time for another bloody dungeon.  At this point I'm low on time so I don't check out the obvious sidepath, and instead move straight for the event as I see it.  There I meet the last haremette, who on closer inspection doesn't actually wear the most clothes it's just that her skin is eggshell white so I thought she did.  So, as yet another not-elf, she's also apparently so old she knew the Mystic Blacksmith back before he was imprisoned which was about the early stages of man's time on the planet.  Spiffy, why are they all so old?  So, she knows a secret path to wherever it is we're going and joins us to do so.  Also joining us is her small army of chickens.  So that we may feast on their eggs and fleshy chicken meat.

Shernini: Yet another battle-mage type with daggers and oh-god why must I suffer?  It takes more to raise any of her stats then it would Minmel, and all of her own stats are lower.

Decimal: A rooster and the only NPC I give enough of a damn to name.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Fenrir, re RH characters:

First off, a note that being less underlevelled makes everyone but Stocke/Raynie/Marco notably worse. I think they're probably the best 3 PCs but it's hard to pick an MVP in this game.

Stocke: Definitely lags late, though G-Fire if you get it is a great pickup for him. I'd assume you didn't, though.
Aht: In the second half of the game I found items better for healing than techs anyway, so I found that aspect of her pretty worthless. I guess if you run all the time they're actually a notable pocketbook hit?
Raynie: As you said.
Marco: That boring strategy is indeed how you use him (plus he also has Grapple, which Stocke misses) and he's quite effective. He's a notably better Trans-turner than Eruca due to better stats, availability, and Grapple. That said...
Eruca: Once she gets G-Frost, she definitely has the best damage by quite a ways even at a level disadvantage, which is nice. Too bad about the whole leaving thing; her window in which she is good is too small, for all that until she left I figured she'd make my final party.
Rosch: LVP by far if you ask me. The definition of total overkill durability, needed a cover move or something.
Gafka: No hype for Quigong Wave? One of the only good physical attacks for raw damage. He can push multiple people around at once which is pretty cool. Definitely a late-bloomer, though (WGS is a huge spike up), and even then not very impressive for the last few largely unpushable boss fights, though the best in randoms.

[Captain K.]

SSF4AE:  Working on miscellaneous achievements.  Got Hakan up to C rank in AE (already had it in Super).  I'm winning ~30% of my fights, which I'm fairly content with.  Would win more if I wasn't so bad at flowchart Ken/Ryu.  If anyone with Super catches me online hit me up to watch replays.  I have some very hilarious ones.

[Fenrir]

- Stocke did get G-Fire right at the end. The final dungeon has this nasty habit of making unavoidable crystal enemies respawn all the time everywhere, I got a lot of levels there. I think Stocke's level against the final was 50.

- Aht's availability is actually not bad at all, especially compared to Rosche, Gafka and Eruca. Once she joins in both paths it's pretty much for good, IIRC. She's just underleveled at first, but that's still during the easy part of the game. Right now she's only one level behind Stocke (who always gets all the exp)
Those 300 MT healing items cost 1500 gold, that was just waaay too much for me, considering how often I used Aht's big MT healing spell. I did probably outfit too many people for a regular playthrough, but I still couldn't afford accessories! And the game likes to switch your team all the damn time.
Polaris is invaluable too. I only saw a status go through it once in the entire game.

- I noticed Eruca's good damage, but I always had her either casting support skills, switching turns to Aht so she could heal more, or being dead. She's my overall LVP honestly, she's only good against the optional boss. Raynie is about as competent with much more durability and more elements (Thunder's especially good since there are A LOT of giant robots everywhere but no giant lava monsters in the game!), and Marco is better at giving turns to everyone else.

- I can easily see Rosch as LVP, but if you give him a chance he can shine when you don't expect him too. He reminds me of DDS Heat.
That thaumachine battle early on is a good example, I also found him very competent against those unmovable crystals. The durability didn't feel overkill for me, because Radiant Historia is the kind of game where you can still rely on good ST healing later on. (Durability matters less in games where MT healing is everything)
Still probably not worth it yeah, objectively.

- Gafka's probably decent if you use him well, but he's just impractical most of the time. I really disliked the fact that he has neither simple move skills nor Trans-Turn. Wind God Strike is awesome but so late.

Aaaanyway...
Radiant Historia: 100% finished.
I had to grind for a while to beat the "optional superboss", but not -that- much. My final levels were 58 (Stocke) /57 (Aht) /52 (Eruca)

I gave everyone massive sleep resistance, then abused all those awesome items I collected during the game:
- 1000 MT healing
- Revive with 500 HP
- All three PCs take 0 damage from two attacks
That last one is awesome because the four clones only have ST damage, and often waste times trying to put people to sleep or lowering attack power. I had four of those items, they allowed me to beat two of the four clones without much trouble. lol at the rest of the battle.