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

[Clear Tranquil]

Radiant Historia- Alternate History Chapter Six. Granorg "Turning of the Tide" Saved before the boss. Almost caught up with where I am in the other history now. I have 49.38 on the clock and I never want this game to end~

Hence I am in the habit of fighting bosses with a variety of teams before moving on. Not always such as if there is extra plot scenes/a fair bit of dialogue before hand but it is something I've done a fair bit throughout the game.

Already beaten this particular boss with my standard party of Stocke, Aht and Eruca. Now doing it with Stocke, Rosch and Gakfa! Then inclined to do it with Raynie and Marco as second and third since Marco hasn't received a work out in a while. Probably finish with Stocke/Aht/somebody to grab the shiny from the boss again too =)

I settled on Stocke, Aht, Eruca after using it for a long stretch from Chapter 4 to Chapter 6 Standard History including for desert treks, the forest and the Holff Ruins so yeah lots of fighting going on. I used Stocke, Rosch, Raynie for a while after returning to AH but also tried out Stocke/Aht/Rosch and Stocke/Aht/Gakfa vs the SF boss. Once a Eruca joined in Alternate History too however I couldn't resist switching back to my typical blitz down party!~

(haven't really used Gafka much honestly apart from when he was forced very early on with Aht, against aforementioned SF boss and for his dual to learn the Strongman tech)

**

Edit -

Interesting observations about speed. With my Stocke, Rosch, Raynie team Stocke was getting double turns. Against *SPOILERS* (current boss) Viola turn order is kind of odd. With Stocke, Rosch, Gafka it goes Viola, Stocke, Auto Defender/Auto Defender, Rosch, Gafka, Viola, Stocke, AD/AD, Rosch, Gafka, Viola, Stocke, etc (Viola gets a turn in between Rosch and Gakfa during the third round) With Raynie and Marco turn order goes Viola, Stocke, Raynie, Marco, Viola, Viola, Viola, Stocke, Raynie, Auto Defender, Marco, Viola, Enemy, Stocke, Raynie, Enemy, etc. I don't get it. Something seems off. Viola seems to get an awful lot of turns here unless all three enemies are all actually just attacking all at once during that first round and I'm getting confused by it *SPOILERS*  With Stocke, Aht, Eruca vs the grunts in Granorg Aht goes first and wipes out a bunch of stuff with Cross Star (no pre-emptive strike and no speed boosters)

(other random observations about the boss fight Gakfa dies because I forget to use a MDF+ Herb on him - this is because he only has 32 base MDF! Since I am twinking his ATK with the Bestial Soul. Raynie runs out of MP to use G spells before the fight ends with the Stocke/Raynie/Marco team - Auto Defenders take a while to go down and I end up finishing them off by transturning for Stocke turns and G Fire spam, why does Stocke have more MP than all the girls anyway~ Perhaps I should have twinked Raynie some for MP instead of full on MAG twink (she has La Tormenta from the Thaumaton boss steal, Sable Larme and Eruca's accessory lineup for a total of 164 MAG~)

**

(random musings)

Though I've been a bit puzzled by some of the skill choices PCs have received later on. Mostly recently Aht picked up Air Assault which I believe is an ST launch skill (I admit I haven't used Air Assault much with anyone) Why does she need an ST launcher when she already has an MT launch skill in Cross Star which not only crowd sweep OHKOs your average Astellian/Granorgian grunts (like the Astellian Officers in the current chapter) but takes a solid chunk out of slightly more durable stuffs like thaumatons (allowing Stocke or Eruca to follow up with GT/MT stuffs in Heat Blade/Judgement with extra GT/MT hits added on from the drop due to the MT launcher =)? Also Eruca learns Push Assault after the boss. Yaay?

**

Statistics currently if anyone's interested (before boss) -

Stocke L54, Aht L52, Eruca L50, Gafka L43, Marco L49, Raynie L51, Rosch L43

Stocke
Pieti Edge
Moirae Manteau
Rook Stud (DEF/MDF +10) x 3
HP - 520 MP 215 ATK 108 MAG 113 DEF 145 MDF 139 SPD 38 LUC 37

Aht
Glaux Dagger
Giant Cape
Crystal Charm (MAG +6) x 2 Thaumatech Orb  (MAG+5, MDF+5)
HP - 360  MP 180 ATK 74 MAG 165 DEF 78 MDF 106 SPD 49 LUC 36

Eruca
Vega
Fortune Gown
Thauma Charm (MAG +10) x 3
HP- 348 MP 206 ATK 53 MAG 157 DEF 51 MDF 144 SPD 37 LUC 52

[Talaysen]

Dark Souls:  beat the Taurus Demon.  I didn't realize I should be trying to block his attacks.  I figured something that big would just smash through my blocking attempts but apparently not.  Used my winnings to buy the Force miracle.  Comes with 21 uses... Hmm... Maybe I can use that to run through the area with the ghosts.

I didn't know you could block his attacks either.  I just dodged them.

Also, where did you find that miracle?  I haven't seen anyone selling magic at all...

[Fudozukushi]

Dark Souls:  beat the Taurus Demon.  I didn't realize I should be trying to block his attacks.  I figured something that big would just smash through my blocking attempts but apparently not.  Used my winnings to buy the Force miracle.  Comes with 21 uses... Hmm... Maybe I can use that to run through the area with the ghosts.

I didn't know you could block his attacks either.  I just dodged them.

Also, where did you find that miracle?  I haven't seen anyone selling magic at all...

One of the starting guys in Firelink sells miracles, the one standing with the shield and mace.  You have to bug him a lot to do it though.

[Captain K.]

Also the blacksmith guy in the dark waterfront area near the beginning sells a couple of Sorceries.

And for the record, Force push does not affect those ghosts - at least not when you're uncursed.

Oh!  I forgot to tell about my controller woes.  My wired controller was having trouble with RT and RB.  Nothing like standing there and not attacking to die against a crappy enemy.  So I switched to the wireless 360 controller.  Now remember that Dark Souls has no pause feature.  "Please reconnect controller.". Dead batteries, dead character. 

[Fenrir]

Yes, CK, yes. This is weird. They both always have the same expression!

Vagrant Story: Got this from the PSN store, replaying. (Front Mission 3, too)
This is starting to show its age, but it has some charm. I'm doing a crossbow game with no magic or break art use. I'm not switching weapons, just keeping the same one like last time, because switching weapons is so horribly boring. Wheee.
Right now, after the third boss, I'm wondering how we ever had trouble with this game. Ashley is the crossbow god, who seems to cheat and get nearly unlimited infinite turns while his enemies are stuck with a crappy ATB system. I've only died once because I've underestimated random enemies and fought them with 100 risk.
Sydney is really lame. Wow.


Dark Souls: Yessss.
Female barbarian, because mages were a bit useless in PVP last time. Picked the key. I beat bull head on the first try!! ... By throwing 2000 fire bombs at him. I then went to the blacksmith, saw the thing in his basement and ran the hell away. Seriously. No.

The game feels so lonely compared to Demon's Souls and its Nexus. (Granted, this all went to hell with one particular character)
Anyway it's an improvement in every way. Atmosphere, graphics, music are a lot better. Enemies are more agressive, attack in crowds, use more tricks, don't let you run away, etc. Etrus Flasks solve the severe balance issue Demon's Souls had, as I thought. The luck stat isn't here anymore. Being a human isn't much better than being a zombie but you kind of want to be a human anyway because zombies are just disgusting. The way status attacks are handled now is a nice little touch. Battles are still tight, with perfect level design, etc. I love it. GOTY, definitely. There are very few games I could be more involved in.
I'm only worried about the limited use invasion items.

I've only gotten the message writing item recently, looking forward to being a jerk by writing a message about some shiny treasure near a bottomless pit.
About 10 deaths so far.

[Fudozukushi]

You can get a permanent invasion item but it's obtuse as all hell.  There are other ways to invade though...

[074]

Castlevania: Harmony of Despair:  Go figure, I ended up grabbing this for the PS3 thanks to pressure from Super, among others.  Have to say, glad I did.  Game's fun, with an interesting mix of Classicvania and Metroidvania, with the added element of multiplayer making things interesting--even if I keep getting lost.  Played around with a few characters, so I actually have a good idea of how some of them work.

And by 'a few', I mainly mean "not Belmonts".  Dunno why I've been avoiding them.  Maybe I'll try a bit later on that front.


As for character evaluations:

Alucard: Yeah, I can see people saying he sucks, if we take fully ground characters.  He's fairly solid, however, and from what I can tell, QUITE hard to kill; shields are a very nice defensive boost, he's got a rather quick slash with one-handed swords, and Mist Form is a good dodge against less lengthy attacks if you can get the timing down.  Can't use a lot of the heavy weapons, but what he has works.  Skills take forever to power up for him given how often scrolls seem to drop, so that might be another sticking point.  I'd rate him as a rather tanky, but generally useful fighter type.

Soma: As far as physical types go, he's a lot harder to use than Alucard.  Gear's there, but you don't get shields with him--though I've been tearing things up with a Bhuj as of late.  Axe specials are good for wrecking things in particular.  Souls...are a completely different thing, though; low drop rate, and it's not like AoS/DoS where your souls are fairly competent from the get-go; Soma needs an INT boost to make those be competent.  Also, lot of the early Bullet Souls you get are just awkward to use, at least unless you get lucky and get a Flame Demon soul, or later on a Nova Skeleton.  Probably one of the better characters once he's built up,  but holy crap that's some grinding.  And boss souls never drop.  Ever.

Oh and Soul Eater Rings cost 200k apiece.

Yoko: Oddly enough, she's the only character I managed to beat Drac with.  She's very limited, but what she has is solid.  Three spells, but those three will wreck most things' days; Blue Splash for crowds, Holy Flame for ground-based smaller targets, and Holy Thunder to wreck most bosses.  Doesn't really like the lack of a divekick for some situations, but she's very easy to boost--weapon and spells are all she has, and those level up via Mastery.  Her slight mobility disadvantage aside, she's a force to be reckoned with.

Charlotte: Holy hell, and I thought Soma started slow.  Charlotte's an extremely slow-starter, and it's painfully so with her; her weapon's based on how much you absorb.  What you can and can't absorb seems to be hard to determine, and is a random chance based on the spell, even.  She does get better starting options than Soma, though, to compensate for the fact that she -really- can't melee worth anything at the outset.  Absorption's a guaranteed block against projectiles, though, and that's worth noting.  Like Yoko, no divekick, which makes mobility around large enemies a pain.

I'd comment on Shanoa, but Snowfire already covered a lot of what there is to say for her.

[Talaysen]

You can get a permanent invasion item but it's obtuse as all hell.  There are other ways to invade though...

Hm, gonna have to look this up.

Are there any downsides to invading this time around?  I didn't do it last time because of world tendency bullshit.

I got invaded by someone a few days ago.  We had a pretty cool fight.  I lost though.  I kind of suck at melee characters and it's too hard to actually use magic and even worse in PvP.  Maybe getting something besides an 8 shot fireball spell would help...

[DjinnAndTonic]

Outland: Saw this on Extra Credits and was like "Metroidvania with Ikaruga gimmick? Why yes, I -did- just get a hard-on."
Awesomely fun, not overly difficult, but that could be because the downslide breaks everything. Really tight controls. No complaints - it is what it advertises. The music's a bit repetitive, though. Still, EC hasn't steered me wrong yet!

[Fudozukushi]

You can get a permanent invasion item but it's obtuse as all hell.  There are other ways to invade though...

Hm, gonna have to look this up.

Are there any downsides to invading this time around?  I didn't do it last time because of world tendency bullshit.

I got invaded by someone a few days ago.  We had a pretty cool fight.  I lost though.  I kind of suck at melee characters and it's too hard to actually use magic and even worse in PvP.  Maybe getting something besides an 8 shot fireball spell would help...

Sorta.  You can't heal yourself with Estus(actually as any Phantom but invaders probably have it worst).  I think invading successfully gives you Sin which I frankly have no idea whatsoever about other then it makes you a target for the Blades of Darkmoon Covenant.

[Captain K.]

Sin is when the player you invaded uses an item after the battle to rat you out.  This puts you on a targeted list for players in Darkmoon Covenant (which is probably where serious pvpers will flock).

[Grefter]

Titan Quest - I felt like some Diablo clone since Torchlight 2 hasn't manifested itself yet.  Goddamn this fails at being remotely engaging.  Like I didn't play it long.  All the animations are terrible and floaty, nothing has any real impact.  After having to watch the unskippable intro movie twice (once to install the game and then once for the expansion) I was hoping for some interesting gameplay.  Nope.  Click on stuff until you level up.  Picking up items requires you to be pressing Alt to even tell when something goddamned drops and combat has no sense of connection between your character and the enemies.

This is a very super shallow genre.  The sense of feedback from combat is actually really important, especially early on when you don't have the loot traps to suck you in.  This is entirely unfulfilling.  You click on stuff until you level up and hope you realised you can't pick up or see items until you press Alt (nice that tooltips don't mention it) then you level up.  OH HEY MAKE CHOICES FROM ALL THESE MASTERIES.  Do you know what any of them is?  Nope.  Hope you pawed through a manual or have 20 minutes to look through them all.

I picked Warfare.  I got a stacking damage buff that keeps going up as I attack stuff.  It wears off in about 2 seconds.

Boring.  Stopping now.  I am sure it improves later on, but at this rate it is not worth my time or energy when I could be playing more Torchlight if I wanted light stupid roguelikes or just go to Diablo 2 again and spam Teeth for an hour on a level 1 Necromancer.  It might be pathetic, but at least it feels like you are damned well doing something in Diablo 2.

[Fenrir]

Titan Quest never really becomes good. I stopped about 20 hours in and I had an uber ranger.

Dark Souls: Beat the Capra (?) demon. Simple enough after killing his pet dogs. The gargoyle... wasn't.
I don't really know where to go now. The forest, I guess.

PS3 controller sitting on my thighs -> R2 is pressed -> Uber attack against NPC priest dude that can absolve you of your sins. I mashed the power button but it was too late. Had to kill him when I restarted the game. Hope this won't screw anything up. I bought his book at least. (The three biggest sinners playing the game are priest women!?)
Bought armor from the first shopkeeper, and traded my axe for an halberd, then got it up to +5. It's really good. Really high damage, long reach, but if you miss with it you waste a lot of time. Nice concept.

Still no invasion, I assume that everybody is dead. Getting humanity through the normal game seems a lot harder than in Demon's Souls.

[VySaika]

RH: just got to Granorg on the SH route. Very fun game. Stocke is clear MVP this early in the game due to having left/right/push/air assaults, and just general stat superiority over the others. Rosche is alright, I like his row/column moves, but he's slow enough that hsi turns aren't synched up with the others like Stocke/Rainie/Marco are. Had Aht for just a short bit, but didn't use her at all. The horrible equips she starts with made me reluctant to use her there.

As an amusing note, between RH and P2IS, I am slowly being broken of my "use normal attacks to conserve MP" habits. Slowly and painfully.

[Fudozukushi]

Dark Souls: Beat the Capra (?) demon. Simple enough after killing his pet dogs. The gargoyle... wasn't.
I don't really know where to go now. The forest, I guess.

PS3 controller sitting on my thighs -> R2 is pressed -> Uber attack against NPC priest dude that can absolve you of your sins. I mashed the power button but it was too late. Had to kill him when I restarted the game. Hope this won't screw anything up. I bought his book at least. (The three biggest sinners playing the game are priest women!?)
Bought armor from the first shopkeeper, and traded my axe for an halberd, then got it up to +5. It's really good. Really high damage, long reach, but if you miss with it you waste a lot of time. Nice concept.

Still no invasion, I assume that everybody is dead. Getting humanity through the normal game seems a lot harder than in Demon's Souls.

There's no real "way" to go, you can honestly go and fight one of the Lords first if you want to.  But you are kind of directed towards the Depths/Blighttown after beating Capra.

That is why I unequip my weapon anytime I go near NPCs.

[Fenrir]

The depths/Blight town? Hum. The Master Key made everything confusing I guess, I don't know where I should/can go anymore. Other people: Don't pick the master key.

I just know I'm in the catacombs here and I don't want to be there anymore, right now.
I also have access to the Valley of the drake and I don't want to be there either. Same for where that hydra is.

I see you had a lot of trouble with the Capra demon, but blocking + Strafing worked fine for me really. I beat him on my first try without ever trying to roll, with standard equipment, a good shield and an Halberd+5.

[Fudozukushi]

I see you had a lot of trouble with the Capra demon, but blocking + Strafing worked fine for me really. I beat him on my first try without ever trying to roll, with standard equipment, a good shield and an Halberd+5.

Any time I blocked I got my shield knocked away.  Even with the highest poise I could stack the dogs would keep me stunned long enough for the follow-up swings of death.

The rematches are Pure and Utter Sweet Revenge though.

[Talaysen]

Still no invasion, I assume that everybody is dead. Getting humanity through the normal game seems a lot harder than in Demon's Souls.

Rats drop Humanity items if you really want it.

[Fudozukushi]

Dark Souls: A whole days play for no gain.

When I woke up... whenever, I had a few things I wanted to check off a list.

1. Buy the ugliest set of armor ever.
2. See the fat roll.
3. Defeat the Four Kings.

Despite accomplishing all of these things all the failure just made it so empty.  Mainly because the armor is ugly as sin, the fat roll is embarrassing(and not in the funny haha way) and the Four Kings are boring.

First, in order to actually afford said armor I wander off and grind a bit of soul.  Overshoot hilariously then curse how I have to move to buy the ugly-ass thing.  Then behold!  For the exact same weight as before I'm nearly 80 Defense higher!  Yayyyyy!  Since I don't feel like going after the Four Kings yet I head back to Anor Londo to look at the stats for Boss Soul items.  Specifically the shields.  Now, the Eagle Shield's had a good run, but I feel I need some shinier.  But first I actually get a summon for O+S!  I do the summon job of distracting S until phase 2, but the summoner doesn't do his job and heal while I'm on my last fringe of health.  So when S is down to is last bar I die.  ARGH.  So while I'm grinding in Anor Londo while waiting for the Summon I get summoned again!  By a guy who didn't need my help at all since O was nearly dead by the time I entered the room!  The guy barely needed my help but not like I was gonna say no to 15k souls for no work.  On the 3rd summon(yay!) I actually got to do something and survive!  It was all in good fun too.

So after a good hour has passed I level up and upgrade my stuff and make one of my new shields, making me Captain America in the process.  Or am I Taskmaster?  Now I think is the time to go and fight those Four Kings!  Except I don't even make it to their door because I get ganged up on by 5 enemies at once and spears can't crowd control at all.  But whatever!  I make it the next time!  And after a two minute run down stairs I fall into the depths of the Abyss.  Where I damage-race the Four Kings because that's how you do it.  And my continued streak of losing on the enemies last bar of health rears its ugly-ass head again.  Attempts two and three don't go any better, the only thing of import being that you lose 1 humanity even if you recover the bloodstain.  But on my fourth/fifth/whateverith run down a titanite chunk drops!  Then another!  I can upgrade my spear... twice!  Oh yeah, sweet +5 trophy goodness.  Four Kings don't have a thing on me now!

Elevated by my newfound glory, or actually possibly before it, I decide to go knock the hydra down a few heads.  I somehow win by only killing 5 heads because I used a plunging attack on one head because of glitchy physics.  My reward is a dragon scale)for a weapon I don't use anymore or a Covenant I'll never join) and a caster ring(for my heavy melee guy).  Oh, a set another set of Knight armor in a location far harder to reach then the Elite Knight's armor.  Logic!

I then contemplate my choices, and decide to go to the Painted World.  It's not all that painted though, more like Early Current Generation.  Despite not being all that big, the place has a bunch of hidden passages and twisty mazey stuff and the best enemy ever in the form of a skeleton stuck in a spiked wheel that rolls at you.  Also the worst enemy in the form of some harpy hags who love to spam their bullshit grab for 7/10s of MY life.  Also the Hopilites retarded cousins.

So after a pain of meandering through harpies I get to not-the-boss who's a poison/bone dragon like the one I never killed in Valley of the Drakes.  He never manages to hit me.  So after another ambush and a door I couldn't open I reach the boss!  Who I can happily ignore and run past because she doesn't want to fight.  Neat?  Least I got some EXP.

So I mess around with Covenants a bit more and fail to get summoned for O+S for about a long ass time and figure I should make my choice regarding the Lordvessel.  I make the dull choice because it's not like I'll PVP and the souls for selling are... crap.  ....OK, even if I won't PVP going Darkwraith would have been so much better.  Bah.  Whatever.  This opens up three newish areas.  So first I head to the Duke's Archives, where crystal is the name of the game.  Well the first game are two new giant boars whose heads become my own.  But eventually lots of crystals, and those mage guys who give out a paltry 800 souls on death and respawn and can zap away 4/5s of my lifebar with their melee.  Seriously?

So I continue inwards and upwards to my horrible demise which turns out to be a planned demise as I wake up in some half-metal cage.  After respawning the only enemies I see, I eventually notice the snakeman outside the cell who conveniently has the key.  So my resulting jailbreak has the guards put on some awful music and unleash some sort of blue snake-squid to hunt me down.  Also to hunt themselves down as well it seems since the snakemen run the hell away from them.  I don't know why since they're piss-easy.  And down on the ground-floor my not-good buddy Logan has gotten captured again.  I don't think there's anyway this is actually psychically possible but whatever.  I head up a nearby ladder and turn off the abortion of a sound and get the exit key.  Heading all the way back up, I learn there's actual ladder combat and snakemen have a distinct advantage in it.  But can they fall off as well as I can!?

So, the rest of the Arcvhies are a pain in the ass as enemies are always sniped at you and the souls are crap and it's all an identical maze.  But eventually I surpass the maze and find a great green field and giant white/purple cave of crystals and about a dozen of those crystal golems from around the hydra.  Except these ones are stronger and give off 800 souls(REALLY?).  Also the magical gold golem who spits out Onion Knight's Daughter when I kill it(No, really).  I case the Crystal Cave a bit then decide it's not worth it.  I go and upgrade and level and bust out my second new shield.  Backing the highest base Stability in the game, the Greatshield of Artorias.  I'm taking about half as much stamina damage with this bad boy.

So then I get summoned for round 4 with O+S alright!  This time we go the manly way and fight O second.  But all three of us this time are ballers and we kick his giant golden ass of awesome!  Mmm, mmm souls. 

Hmm, I somehow have three humanity, so I kindle the closest bonfire to Crystal Caves.  Now, let me tell you about the Crystal Cave.  Actually I won't because I'm cruel and it'll make me feel better knowing you all suffered blindly.

[Clear Tranquil]

Had Aht for just a short bit, but didn't use her at all. The horrible equips she starts with made me reluctant to use her there.

Fun fact that I didn't find out about until the end of the game >_> Once Aht gives you the ability to find hidden objects/chests there's a dagger that can be found for her back in Alistel in one of the upstairs rooms (Heiss's?) which gives ATK +12, MAG +18, Speed +5. The speed boost is most noteable and would have been nice to have early on. My endgame Aht with MAG +85 from the Glaux Dagger doesn't really care I don't think <_< Might be worth it to pick it up early Gate though for forced stuffs in the other history though I'm not sure/don't remember if it's better than Aht's storebought stuff there =)

(probably especially useful if you haven't found/aren't buying the speed boosting accessories yet)

I only found Rhapsody while I was back in Alistel during endgame stuff so yeah sadness~

**

Stocke is probably my overall MVP too I think. Assuming early/forever Moirae Manteau of course (and the stat edge/etc earler that Gate mentioned)

Speaking of Radiant Historia saved back in time after the AH final boss. Still to fight the from back in SH proper (scouted ahead/back a bit the other day >.>) Stocke L60, Aht L59, Raynie L58, Marco L55, Rosch L52, Gafka L52. I believe I still have one dungeon left to do so it'll be interesting to see how final levels proper turn out. I'm curious as to how Gate's levels will wind up. I actively avoided randoms during the first half of the game only really fighting them when I blundered/ran into them and when building Rosch levels up a bit so. Trying to get a feel on whether to allow characters their entire skillsets in the DL or not =)

[VySaika]

Yeah, got the Rhapsody early. I went poking around for hidden chests for a bit.

On that note, more RH. This time doing the AH route...pretty much straight from "rescue Rosche" up until the node that FINALLY opens up in Celestia. Used Aht during the section here since I had the Rhapsody for her...and you know what? I regret doing that. Maybe it's just this area, but the randoms are either movable and weak enough that you don't need traps to kill them quickly or immovable and actually durable. Aht is nothing but a liability agianst the latter. Also the boss had two movable opponents that weren't actual threats and I mopped up easily(with traps, of course). And then two immovable ones that were pains in the ass with MT attacks and tankiness and again she is dead weight. I'll give her a go again later when she has more then just "trap one space" going for her, even once she gets MT healing she'll be useful. But damn the girl practically defines slow starting characters.

Paused at the node there to do some sidequesting.

Oh yeah, before I forget, what do the Fire Pact and Death Pact special items I picked up do? Skill scrolls for another char?

[Fenrir]

Yes Gate. It's a bit obscure, though. If you see an unusual, seemingly pointless place, make sure to come back later to check it out.



Dark Souls:

The woman in the sewers sells humanity for 5000 souls too. Probably not that much endgame.

Anyway, I thought that the catacombs were where I needed to go next. (and confused them with the sewers) So many resets here. Skeletons don't give souls, and come back to un-life as long as you don't kill the necromancer nearby. Usually he's not too far, and like bosses he's completely gone from the game when you kill him, but this was still hard as hell.
Ultimately, during one run, I ran like a madman avoiding every skeleton, saw a shiny item down the scariest well I've ever seen, and made a few last jumps, going deeper and deeper with no means to go back. 
Down there was... a blacksmith!? And enemies that completely raped me in two seconds. But I still managed to turn that Halberd +5 into a shiny Fire Halberd. It is overpowered.

So after another "No. Fuck it. I'm not going back there." moment (this really happens a lot) I went back to where the capra demon was and ran through the sewers. Easy enough with a fire halberd, until big boss of doom. How the hell are you supposed to beat him normally?

So... Blighttown. It's like the Valley of Defilement from Demon's Souls except worse.
I won't lie, the framerate drop makes it unbearable, it's like playing a PC game. Playing offline here helps a lot.

I got up to the swamp, saw the spider lair, then no. Screw this place. I'm leaving.
I still got a ton of upgrade items from the worms in the swamp, so my weapon is now a ridiculous Fire Halberd +5. I also grabbed a whip and will level it up to pretend I'm a Belmont.

[Fudozukushi]

Dark Souls:

The woman in the sewers sells humanity for 5000 souls too. Probably not that much endgame.

She has a limited stock.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The procession of Chu-Chu avatars is making me want to play Xenogears again. *shakes fist* CIATOOO!

In other news: FFTA2
Going to make an all-Moogle and Nu Mou team to see if they're any better when not compared to gamebreaking Viera/Hume/Seeq classes.

Flintlock sucks. Goddamn does it suck. Why would you do that to me, Square? Don't you WANT me to like Moogles?

[Luther Lansfeld]

Wait, what? I would never have an XG avatar, nor endorse anyone playing XG ever.

FF7 - Went on a romantic date with Barret. At least, if your idea of romanticism is having a giant black man hovering over you telling you not to date his 7 year old daughter you creepy pedo followed by him machine gunning fireworks because they 'pissed him off'. Then I learned not to trust the mascot character. It's a hard lesson in life to learn.