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

[Shale]

Batman : beat the sandman. Pretty neat boss, even if they totally botched the voice. And I finally unlocked the second Riddler hostage on my way up.  That's a weak deathtrap, Edward.

[DjinnAndTonic]

@Glen Veil: Disgaea 1 has balance issues compared to later entries in the series. One of the better strategies is to simply power-level one PC (usually Laharl) and use the rest of your characters as Throwing tools. So don't worry so much if they fall behind in levels. Once Laharl reaches a high enough level that you can raise the enemy level, the other PCs catch up with little-to-no grinding. At least, that was how I tackled it. The same strategy does not work so well in future Disgaeas.

[Sierra]

Batman : beat the sandman. Pretty neat boss, even if they totally botched the voice. And I finally unlocked the second Riddler hostage on my way up.  That's a weak deathtrap, Edward.

Collecting the Riddler trophies that unlock the deathtraps is way harder than the actual deathtraps.

[Grefter]

The Riddler being more about Riddles than deathtraps?  Hey what a concept, I could use a little fuel myself and we could all use a little change.

[Shale]

Yeah, I'm not saying they should be big boss fights, but maybe something more brain-teasing than playing the shell game with X-ray vision.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

My early access for SWTOR started today. Anyone else planning on playing?

[Bobbin Cranbud]

I'm also playing Celdia's Complete Patch for FFT.

I didn't notice the "Rocket Tag" problem too much in the beginning, but it definitely doesn't have the tight mechanical balance of LFFT.  Then again, neither did the original. I feel like the initial balance is on par with FFT's except that Homemakers seem much more useful than Butlers. (Also Butler should totally be an end-of-job-tree class and simply the best there is.) Once Mystic Knight and Loremaster are unlocked, the balance gets considerably worse because those classes do indeed have a rocket tag flavor to them; their damage is twice or more what anyone else is doing.

Also, what is the point of the Ghaele? It seems like an inferior, MA-dependent, MP-dependent equivalent to the moderately MA-dependent, non-MP dependent Champion that you have to spend six levels in to unlock it from.

Despite these balance issues, a "total class replacement" patch like this is really neat to see and fun to play around with. I hope you continue to balance it, Celdia, and you've certainly come to the right place to get feedback for the balancing stage!

[Fenrir]

"The cap isn't 99, it's more like 100~ish because you can still use stat potions to break 99 when the stat is 98. But yeah it's no longer 255. Plus there are equipments that boost the stat. Well I'm assuming you're referring to SaGa2 remake, anyways."

I was actually talking about the SaGa 1 remake, but I'll get around to play the SaGa 2 remake at some point.
Well, it looks like I can forget about doing a SaGa 2 Human solo right away.


TO Archer SCC: Well, this is a hell of a lot harder than it seems!
I'm in the middle of Chapter 3, I think I've lost about 8 people.

The enemy AI is too good:
- It tries to kill you instead of waiting until you're in their attack range like morons.
- It tries to kill the weakest characters.
That's about it, but it's better AI than every SRPG ever. I think.
Obviously I don't have resurrection. Oh, and in the Snes version you can't do a hard save between consecutive battles. It's like not being able to save before Angry Wiegraf in FFT.

Archers have kickass damage and range, but they don't have the H4X evade right away, and they're at a big disadvantage on a lower ground level. In most battles I try to find a place where they have a relative height advantage and snipe everybody from there.
Fortunately it feels like things are starting to get easier. Hopefully I don't get to fight Aloser once again, she's such a monster.

NO CLERIC SCC.

[Twilkitri]

Radiant Historia - completed

I finished this æons ago but I thought it wouldn't take me anywhere near as long to finish FFTA2 as it has(n't) ended up taking me, and decided to wait until that point before updating anything. Consequently I've forgotten pretty much anything I had to say about it. One of these days I will write a post where I don't complain about forgetting about things!

Anyway, I remember it being pretty good all up.
Floatbomb armour and status stage of final were evil. So was the superboss but that was to be expected.

Not a fan of the more abstract crosspath effects. Especially the ones which go back in time.

Have recorded that I got 216 of the nodes legitimately. Don't remember which ones I wouldn't have had done. I think there were a couple skill items I didn't find which would have blocked off some, and there was the one regarding Raynie with the horrible preconditions (and I think that was required for another node later, so that's another one).

Wasn't expecting what happened in the best ending to happen.


VC Super Mario Land 2 - completed

Still easy


VC Kirby's Dream Land - completed

Actually harder than I remembered. Gameovered against Whispy Woods! (on Extra. 4-damage Gordos ;_;) (Meanwhile Extra Kracko Sr. is a scrub. Go figure.)


VC Metroid II - completed

3:05. Still entertaining. Still needs a remake.


VC Mega Man I - completed

Still decent. Enker/Wily were easier than I thought I remembered. Now they need to skip MM II & III and go straight to IV & V.


Final Fantasy Tactics A2 - completed enough

I don't like the law system. I don't like how laws are fixed and you can't cycle dumb ones off. I don't like how the enemies don't have to obey laws, even enemy clans, for all that the way the law system is set up and how enemy units never revive other enemy units you wouldn't really notice any difference if they did have to obey them. That's probably enough about the system in general.

I don't like the 'Harming the Weak' law. It tends to be forbidden in battles where it's impossible to win without harming the weak, because they normally have the enemies lower levelled than all your units and they normally have to be harmed. Ignoring the fact that you can harm them all you want with reaction abilities without it breaking the law because that is stupid and has to be an oversight.

I don't like the 'Swimming' law. It says that entering a water tile is forbidden, which is a lie, you just have to not end up in one. Stupid law making me make people walk carefully around water so they wouldn't go through it.

I don't like the 'Libra' privilege. The manual says that you will get it as a bonus if you play with FFTA in the GBA slot, which is a lie. I even loaded it up to make sure that it was working. But mostly because they made me think I was missing something useful and it really, really isn't. It's vaguely okay in battles where there are likely to be traps set up initially and the law is impossible/nigh-impossible to follow.

I don't like having to go through the airports to get from one continent to the other. I particularly don't like how they default the take-flight option to 'no', often forcing you to have to reenter the airport.

I don't like how they ruined the use of the house in Loar.

So I finished Brightmoon Tor 3, and trotted off to take The Final Quest. I was unhappy to find that the game was conducting the same speedhax chicanery here that it had been pulling throughout the Tor. I was especially unhappy midway through when this resulted in 4 members of my team, including both my item users and my phoenix user, suffering bad karma before any of my units got a turn. The remaining two members did not last too long faced with that. Well, I can tell when I'm not wanted - that's enough for me.

Sadly I didn't record how many missions I completed legitimately. I know that most of ones I needed to look up the preconditions for needed me to get other exits from that one mission, which I consider to be a somewhat daft mechanic. I don't remember whether they all needed that or not.

Ended with six item slots left in the bazaar. Not sure how many of them I had made that needed to be remade and how many of them I hadn't made at all - I know there's at least one I hadn't made at all, and I think I had made at least three of them before.

Another thing I didn't like - after beating the game and being offered the chance to save clear data, I took the obvious route and saved clear data to the second slot, all unbeknowing that unlike 99% of everything, FFTA2 just marked whichever save was selected as having beaten the game. The second save at this time being one I had accidentally made aways back, which was far away from being in any position to have beaten the game. So I got to rebeat the game in order to get to mark the main save as having beaten the game :DDDDDDDDDDDD

Game was fairly entertaining all up.

[Meeplelard]

I have just completed two games within like one day of each other.  As such, I must do the logical thing and directly compare...



to...




They are both sequels that came out around the same time, to games that both came out around the same time, made by Capcom.  CLEARLY THEY SHOULD BE DIRECTLY COMPARED TO ONE ANOTHER AS A RESULT!!!


First off...lets start with the protagonists of both.  DR2, you play as Chuck Greene, a celebrity motorcyclist who is a father of a young girl.  After Frank West of DR1, whose really one of those "Kind of a stuck up douche, but not actually a bad guy" characters, Chuck Greene is surprisingly likable as a human.  The guy is just a father who wants what's best for his daughter, even if it means risking life and limb to insure his daughter gets one more day of life.  His motives for actually going ahead with the story are simple; he got framed for doing something HORRIBLE and wants to clear his name.  He's not a complicated or deep character, but he's likable and realistic.  He doesn't feel like a Video Game cliche.  Oh sure, he has action movie one-liners (Villain says something like "You'll never catch me alive!" only to fall off the rafters onto a buzz-saw and get sliced in half.  Chuck Greene responds with "I saw what you did there.")
Really, its more that its nice to play as someone who while still having those "bad ass" qualities of an action hero, but is not actually a cliche ridden super guy, just a father willing to go the extra mile.

Okamiden, meanwhile, you play as the son of the hero of the first game!  So you're a puppy.   I...uhh...lets just be blunt:
CHIBITERASU IS THE MOST ADORABLE PROTAGONIST EVER.
Seriously, just look at him.  How can you not want to hug him?  He's got the same personality and temperament as his mother...which is fine cause hey, actual character!  He barks, growls, howls, etc.  Honestly, he's exactly what you'd expect out of a character named "Chibiterasu."  He also shows large amounts of emotion and lot of potential tear jerker moments related to him.

So whose better?  Likable father figure with cheesey oneliners or one of the single cutest things to ever be directly playable in a video game...really, there's no contest here.


But what about the game openings?
Dead Rising 2 opens with Chuck Greene on a motorcycle with dual chainsaws attached to it, riding through zombies, in Not!Vegas.  Then has to barrel through a bunch of zombies after the contest to save his daughter and get to the safe house.
Okamiden opens with an explanation of the backstory, followed by Issun ranting and meeting Chibiterasu, followed by several other Okami cameos.

...yeah, those openings are totally similar.  So lets move onto MOOD AND TONE!

Dead Rising 2 is your typical zombie apocalypse.  Zombies have broken out, kill them, rescue people, find the conspiracy.  You do this by using whatever you can find as a weapon ranging from baseball bats to guns to park benches to servbot helms...and sometimes a combination of these things!  Chuck Greene can also put on a dress if you're so inclined.  All the characters sans Katey are adults, and Katey is very clearly treated like a young girl, who loves stuffed animals, plays video games, etc.  She even has a scene where she hides under the couch because "The bad guy appeared."  Otherwise, Chuck's two allies are both adult females who are strong in their own right (They both had DiD moments but those were exceptional circumstances not related to their incompetence.  And Chuck Greene himself got into some binds as well), the villain consists of a stereotype pimp black guy obsessed with money, and then there's old security guard dude whose just there because a safe house should have SOME security ok, really, he's the REAL villain of the game, albeit TK is still the final boss but by then the situation has shifted so dramatically, it was more just built up to be "Chuck finally gets his chance for payback" as well as setting up Stacey as the implied future Step-Mother of Katey.

Okamiden is a game where you play as a puppy teaming up with children younger than the FFTA cast, running around restoring nature!  There's lots of humor, the dark stuff comes off as lighthearted, and...ok, if you've played Okami, you know exactly what to expect.

BUT THEN WE HAVE GAMEPLAY!!!
In Dead Rising 2, you beat up zombies and psychopaths.  You have time limits to do things.  You save people and get EXP.  You then smash a zombies head against the pavement, and grab a sledgehammer and beat up more zombies.  Then you grab a Paddle and a Chain Saw, and create the sacred forbidden weapon of THE PADDLE SAW and murder everything around you.  So basically, FUN HAPPY MINDLESS SLAUGHTERING!!!!
Okamiden, you run around beating up demons, solve puzzles, draw pictures in order to solve these puzzles, and buy stuff at shops.

So yeah, those games are basically the exact same thing, if we ignore...well...everything!  I mean, you can run, jump, attack, and blow things up with bombs.  That's close enough as far as I'm concerned.

BUT WHAT ABOUT GRAPHICAL STYLE AND VISUALS!?
Dead Rising 2 looks like something from a Western Zombie movie, with realistic looking characters, western themed city and attire, and takes place in what is basically a Las Vegas clone, in modern times.
Okamiden uses classical japanese ink style art, to represent Feudal Not!Japan, in a cartoonish manner.

...I want to pretend these two are very similar, buts it quite literally impossible.  You cannot get more different art style than "Game trying to look realistic" and "Okami" really. 


MUSIC!?
Dead Rising 2 uses random rap and rock lyricals for bosses, and then nothing but elevator music otherwise.  IT does however have the most important song ever!  That song of course being...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KUQLAInPZ4
(yes, that's DR1, but its the exact same song in DR2)
And really, isn't that all that matters?

Okamiden uses classical Asian style music, with some themes reused from Okami.  Ok, not really reused so much as songs are half original themes and half songs from Okami.  By which I don't mean half of the songs in the game are from Okami, I mean the SONG IN QUESTION is often Half original, and Half Okami.  To illustrate this point, listen to these two songs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YRu2pqK3g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkQpJl6FwoY&feature=related

That said, the music resembles Okami very much albeit lighter in tone in general.  Okami music is good, so this is good too!

...but really, Okamiden doesn't have the important Dead Rising theme, and really isn't that ALL that matters!?!?


...
SILLINESS FACTORS ASIDE, time for a quick rundown of both games in a more serious manner:

Dead Rising 2: Its Dead Rising but improved in everyway.  Combo Weapons > Camera Gimmick, better controls, more likable cast, the Walkie Nonsense is handled infinitely better (This cannot be stressed how significant it is; the whole "YOU CAN'T DO SHIT BUT RUN WHILE LISTENING TO OTIS!" in DR1 was one of the worst things ever), Survivor AI is now COMPETENT, and game is a little more logical about its plot.  See, DR1's plot was "Zombies exist because Americans are fat!"  Kind of ridiculous.  DR2's is "Zombies exist because some people are trying to get rich off it!"  Its...a little farfetched but at least it shows logical sense, since "Motive for Money" is just an easy safe haven.

...honestly, the rescues alone deserves its own attention.  Dead Rising 1, characters would often stupidly run into walls until you changed their route so they'd go around it, and if caught by one zombie, they were locked down until either you saved them or you were lucky enough to have another survivor with a weapon that would bail them out.  Dead Rising 2, not only do they follow a far more logical path (run around objects instead of through them), but if caught by a zombie, they'll shake them off and either run immediately, and escape them (Even if they're swarmed by an army), or if they have a weapon, smack the zombie first then run.  To give you an idea of how different it was...

DR1: Oh, I can carry this character!  Sweet, that makes it sound much easier!
DR2: Oh, I have to carry this character.  That's going to slow me down.

Also, having Wheel Chairs was a huge help, letting you transport survivors WHILE barreling zombies.  Honestly, if there is one that makes this game worth playing over the original, its just how much they improved it.  Oh sure, everything else in the game is better too, but this stands out the most by far as the most frustrating thing about DR1 was rescuing people, especially multiple, because of how stupid the AI is.


Okamiden...is kind of the opposite truth be told.  Its Okami but worse in almost every-way.  To be fair, its kind of expected.  DR2 is on the same console as DR1, and was definitely made with the Dragon Quest mindset of "Take a game, then improve upon it to make a better game for the sequel!"  Okamiden was clearly made with the idea of "Okami would work really well on the DS, but the game isn't going to fit", so they made a watered down version instead.  And honestly, if you just LOOK at the game, its clear they were aiming for a "Okami-lite."  Just the fact that in Okami you're playing as a sun goddess saving the world from baby eating 8 headed dragon, while in Okamiden, you're playing as a newborn puppy (whose the son of said goddess) basically going on an ADVENTURE with a bunch of children to save some in-determinant evil...yeah.  Its not just Chibi too.  Look at all your allies:
Kuni: resembles a child version of Susano.
Nanami: Young Otohime.
Kagu: Young version of the Queen of Sei-an (name eludes me)
Kurow: Kid Waka
Manpuku: Is a fat kid who actually is an original design, but seriously, HE'S A FAT KID WITH FLAMING HAIR. 


That's really the best analogy for Okamiden.  The immature spawn of Okami, and it feels like it was intended as that, and thus, they played to this fact by making the game just come off as more playful, lighthearted, and younger.   Granted, Okamiden still had some moments that it actually outdid Okami on.  Mostly notable is basically a lot of the final boss related stuff.  Ok, sure there was no big emotional power up scene but it still had a near tear jerker moment related to one of the characters namely Kurow.  The fact that the game actually not only had a child die, but DONE IN BY THE MAIN CHARACTER HIMSELF, and there was no catch to the scenario?  Holy shit that's unexpected.  What I think is best is the game actually goes out of its way to reinforce what it did in that scene, basically to avoid the "There's a chance we didn't see something!" by essentially going "no, its for real.  That did just happen, and we are not reversing it."

This isn't a bad thing, so much as just illustrating you can't go into Okamiden expecting the 2nd coming of Okami.  You go into it expecting an Okami style game that wasn't aiming to be as good as the original, just a decent fun experience, which is really all I could ask for.


SO which game is better? Honestly, they're about equal.  Yes, DR2 did improve upon everything from DR1, while Okamiden was worse in just about everyway barring a few exceptions...
But what that really says is that Okami >>>>>> Dead Rising 1.  Dead Rising 1 wasn't bad so much as clearly unpolished and ambitious.  They were trying something new and had a lot of kinks to work out; Dead Rising 2 just addressed like all of them and very well at that.  Okami was a ridiculously well done game that following up that is really hard, merely having a game that actually got the spirit of Okami right and was still a fun adequate experience is enough for me, even if its a very clear step down. 

So in short...
Dead Rising 2:  Liked Dead Rising 1?  Play this, ITS BETTER!  Never played Dead Rising 1?  Skip it and just play this, you aren't missing much.  Played Dead Rising 1 and hate it?  Umm...this depends on WHY you hate Dead Rising 1 before I can suggest playing it.
Okamiden: Liked Okami?  This game is probably worth playing, but don't go in expecting the same level of satisfaction.  Its a nice casual follow up to Okami, but not much beyond that.

[Clear Tranquil]

Obligatory dawww! ^_^

CLEARLY THEY SHOULD BE DIRECTLY COMPARED TO ONE ANOTHER AS A RESULT!!!

CLearly!

Chuck Greene can also put on a dress if you're so inclined.

Aww hells yes.

[Monkeyfinger]

Floatbomb armour

wut

[Twilkitri]

I don't know whether you're confused by my use of nonstandard terminology or by my lack of competence.

In case it's the former, the internet says that the proper names are Thaumachine for the armour and Clockwork Thunder for the floating deep sea mines (although the attack he brings out more with is called Float Bomb so).

[Shale]

Batman: Holy crap, a predator-mode boss battle! I'm kind of surprised it took a game and a half for them to think of that, but it worked really well. Good times. Now I'm back in the steel mill and beating up goons left and right. Should probably try out the freeze-bomb at some point, and I need to wrap up the Zzasz and Fragile Alliance sidequests.

Also I punched out the Mad Hatter, but let's be honest, nobody cares about him.

[Glen Veil]

@Djinn: That's pretty much what I've been doing, mainly focusing on Larharl and Etna for Slaughter, the point  decided to level some other people was after failing that stage where Larhal gets his stats nerfed, Etna wasn't quite beefy enough to tank the focus and a spear user I missed kind of just one shotted my cleric who I thought was safe.  Definitely plan to come back to the game, just needed a minor break after that item world whorery.

Persona: Got that Persona with Megidola, stuck it on Matt, he now ohko's shit that doesn't absorb reflect or null it~.  Just picked up the pocket mirror thinger at the forest in the west side of the city, everyone is around level 34ish except for Nate because he's 29 and sucks.  Matt is still using the level 18 persona with Megidola because seriously, it does more damage then the level 30 some persona's even >.>.  He is starting to turn into a bit of a glass cannon though because said persona has an assload of weaknesses, which is amusing because he has the most hp >.>.

[OblivionKnight]

Ah, Persona level balance~

Yeah, keep that CHARIOT Persona - it's pretty brutal for the whole game.  Also, there's a level 18 JUDGMENT Persona (Halo in the PSX version, think it's...Phaleg in the PSP one?) that's an insane healing/defensive Persona.  Move that CHARIOT Persona (Vortek in the original) to people to help them level.  Also, for Mark, get the level...22 SUN Persona (Sumi - it's like the Gemini twins, IIRC) to level 8 and delete it for an awesome weapon (his second strongest in the game, boosts some stats, etc.).  Other good low-level ones...anything with MT damage is pretty brutal >_>.  Nate does need a good one, though, as his starter is fairly crappy outside of the support skills.  Get the level 23 MOON Persona (I think it was 23...might be lower), originally Remy, as well - it's a great defensive Persona, and you can drop a rock on it to give it an offensive skill (I suggest a MT Zio skill if you can).  There's a couple other great ones, but yeah - level of Persona has so little to do with worth - the skills make a huge difference, as do the defensive parametres.

[Glen Veil]

Good to know I still fail at names forever and ever~.  As for Nate, I think I actually got him that persona, but didn't think to give it a decent spell with a rock.  So instead I mostly just have him shoot stuff with his machinegun of op mtness that is slowly starting to put out decent damage.  And at worst he at least spits in the face of those status spamming randoms by reflecting their shit back at them for me~.  He's mostly behind right now because he's the only one who hasn't gotten a persona that just rapes a particular group of randoms like all the other characters have had at one point or another.  Spamming shoot and none mt spells, note so good for xp :-(.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't know whether you're confused by my use of nonstandard terminology or by my lack of competence.

In case it's the former, the internet says that the proper names are Thaumachine for the armour and Clockwork Thunder for the floating deep sea mines (although the attack he brings out more with is called Float Bomb so).

Pretty sure it's the former, most people I've talked to consider that one of the best bosses in the game (often enough the best).


Saga Frontier - Beat T2's quest with a party of T2, EngineerCar, PzkwV, Fei-on, and Riki. It was going to be Slime instead of Riki so it could be a party full of people I'd never used all the way to endgame before (excluding T2 obviously, and speedruns in EngineerCar's case) but by the time Slime joined Riki was dramatically better in every way (owing partially but by no means entirely to him a lucky MagicHeal pickup) so yeah, too bad for him. Anyway, Fei-on and PzkwV were not very good, while EngineerCar was pretty great. No surprises there. GenocideHeart was much, much easier this time now that I knew the game better (in particular, having monsters with multiple armours equipped); no longer even sure he's the best final boss (has some pretty darn crappy filler moves, as well as probably the lowest durability of any of the finals), though Carnage is certainly extremely rude.

PCs I still haven't used to endgame: Annie, Dr. Nusakan, Silence, Rabbit, Slime, Suzaku. Only two of those at most should come at much surprise!

[TranceHime]

"The cap isn't 99, it's more like 100~ish because you can still use stat potions to break 99 when the stat is 98. But yeah it's no longer 255. Plus there are equipments that boost the stat. Well I'm assuming you're referring to SaGa2 remake, anyways."

I was actually talking about the SaGa 1 remake, but I'll get around to play the SaGa 2 remake at some point.
Well, it looks like I can forget about doing a SaGa 2 Human solo right away.

SaGa1 got a remake that wasn't on the Wonderswan?! What is this.

But yeah you probably should just forget about doing a solo anybody in SaGa2 DS because while a bunch of stuff got unchanged I think some of the bosses actually got more competent.

[superaielman]

Who is better for Saga finals?

FF13- Chapter 10, just beat the midboss of the dungeon. Double Sab owns the world so far; slow+defense down buffs tend to result in horrible things happening  and Raines was no different.

Using all three girls at the moment.  Randoms took a large step backwards in challenge from C9 but that is okay; the last fight before Bart I (Four astronauts+rever) was one of the hardest battles in the game. Enjoying the hell out of the combat system while the story is breathtakingly bad in both execution and writing at the moment. Thankfully the game is mostly ignoring plot to focus on shiny combat.

Edit: This is one of those games where it's worth separating characters and plot when you discuss them. I have some serious problems with the PC cast, but I can see why people like them/what they were going for. The plot on the other hand has been bad from the start and has only gotten worse.  The scene with Raines in C10 nicely encapsulates it- You have an NPC that had next to no dialog or plot impact get rolled out as something we should care about. The NPC's and villains in this game outside of a few exceptions don't have the camera time or structured plot around them to have any value.  The game sacrificed the plot to focus on character interactions and setting up their personal stories, rather than the world at log. The datalog attempts to remedy this, but that doesn't cut it with me.

Also, what the fuck. Vanille's VA is *awful*. I'm not sure if it's technical issues or the VA just completely flubbing her lines, but it stands out in a game that had exceptional production values.

[DjinnAndTonic]

PCs I still haven't used to endgame: Annie, Dr. Nusakan, Silence, Rabbit, Slime, Suzaku. Only two of those at most should come at much surprise!

I always ended up using Annie for Emelia's quest because just the amount of exposure time she has there makes her end up functional. Also, Nusakan is the obviously competent one there. And I always used Rabbit in Red's quest because he's cute/unique there. In general though, that list is pretty much the dregs of SaGa cast (if you add in Rei, Ildon, and RedTurnip).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Well I already used those three for the lulz. Also Lute and Fei-on if we're talking about dregs! Rabbit suffers from being compared to BJ&K (hi I am Rabbit with a free supply of PowerCures) but is otherwise fine, Nusakan suffers from being compared to Mesarthim (LifeRain > game) but is still decent. Annie, yeah, usable on Emelia's quest, but I've only done that once and no way was I turning down the ability to use the unique (half-)mystics who don't suck.

[SageAcrin]

FF4: TAY:

Completed...mostly, still planning on going back and killing the three bosses I didn't kill in the final dungeon.

Final levels of 52-55, Ceodore/Ursula/Kain/Rydia/Leonora final team(Fuck your "Curaja", who needs that. I have X-Potions.).

General thoughts...well, it's an odd game with surprisingly more to talk about than expected. I think it hashes out as a 6/10 game.

On the one hand, there's the plot. Or: OH GOD THE ENTIRE PLOT OF FF4 IS HAPPENING AGAIN NOW WITH SUPERFLOUS GREEN HAIRED GIRLS BEATING ON PEOPLE AND STEALING SUMMONS wait now the moon's falling  because of THE POWER OF EVOLUTION which apparently drives people insane and causes them to create clone armies of green haired mind linked girls to assault everything they used to hold dear. also apparently the myriad facets of evolution allow you to create FF1 through 6 bosses, but no original ones besides the final. huh. how about that.

On the other hand, within that, the whole concept could be worse. The plot reads like mediocre fanfiction made into a total conversion hack-but, not actually *bad* fanfiction. The distinction is that the character work usually is bland to good (with one hiccup in early Edward, though at least it wasn't out of character for him to be that pitifully stupid) and that new characters aren't bad by and large.

Also, two things tend to make me excuse it: One, to judge by things like the developers room(which seems kinda small...) and the fact that it was episodic with multiple episodes coming out in a month originally(if I read that right), it kinda had restrictions on how much polish it could have, and two, the fact that it manages to better the source game it's a sequel of in plot. Basically I respect it's technical limitations about as much due to that, if I understand this right.

I'm not defending it, overall, though. It's not good on plot, much like FF4 is not. But it's probably a bit better.

Gameplay...again, the game plays like a big total conversion romhack, and this is where it shows more. A few FF4 dungeons are *not* reused(higher floors of Babel, Giant of Babel, uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh), but they're definitely a minority. On the other hand there's a bunch of new dungeons, including Challenge Dungeons...which have very hit and miss designs. Sometimes they're basically FF4 dungeons, sometimes they're not good(No...no, the impact crater idea was not good enough to make me do versions of it three times). Sometimes they're lazily phoned in things like Yang's "Hold up while sleeping" Challenge Dungeon, sometimes they're Edward's actually neat-if impractical to repeatedly do-Challenge Dungeon.

Even within recycling, there's a lot of variance-Sometimes the dungeon is FF4's final, which you retrace twice as an intro dungeon and a final in Lunarians chapter, and is generally kinda fun for what it is...Sometimes they're redoing waterfall cave. Twice. urgh.

The mainly consistent thing is the actual gameplay, though. About half the additions and all the old characters but Cid are usable to good, which is about 15 out of 21(I believe)-not too bad. Out of the ones that suck, at least they had coherent ideas except for Harley, who may have been a victim of time constraints.

Enemy design tends to be FF4+bigger skillsets+2x damage and durability, which tends to be great, and some of the gimmicky CD bosses tend to be fun. Final dungeon has a lot of fun boss designs too, though they have so many bosses(like 30 in that chapter?) that they start to hit the limits of FF4 mechanics for how much different you can make bosses. At my low levels, several fights seemed impossible and a few others took surprising strategy. It works in that regard.

Also shoutouts to built in frameskip autobattle. Extremely good idea that needs to be in more games.

AND NOW, RANDOMLY COMPARING CHARACTERS BECAUSE I LIKE FF4 GAMEPLAY TOO MUCH(for some mysterious reason)! The only place you'll see someone say more about Zangetsu's gameplay worth than *flush*!

In the order I got 'em:

Ceodore: Hey look it's one of the interesting new character designs, where you put Cecil and Rosa in a blender and see what comes out.

Ceodore has three real phases in the game-1 to 20~, 21~-44 and 45+.

That is to say, from L1 to L20 Ceodore is *amazing*. He picks up healing at intervals as regular as any of the White Mages and heals about as much per shot(a bit less, albiet, and with less shots), and hits things harder and takes hits better.

Then he drops off a cliff in the middle as you realize that A: His HP relatively sucks for a tank build, and B: He takes a while to get above Cura, and C: His Cura scales worse than a real White Mage. He functions, for a while, like Cecil/Kain with far less HP and less damage and uh Protect/Shell...?

Then he picks up his good buffs and Curaga in the late 40s and his niche is back, albiet weaker than it was before. He worked extremely well for me at my pitiful levels by that point, because he can and will live through things that will flatten any other healer at those levels. This is nice. Also he gets Reflect/Protect/Shell which are great on a secondary character.

Nothing wrong with his equips either, Awaken got used a few times but probably less than most abilities(needs less charge time so I can heal with it). Pretty good, albiet weird.

Cecil: Hey look, it's FF4 Cecil, except...uh, everything's working against him except one thing. Let's count the ways, shall we?

-He is utterly crap until Depths. At which point he's L40. Which was...average for me...who was using everyone in the cast and trying to keep levels down on purpose. For anyone *sane* he's underleveled badly.

-There are multiple heavy armor/holy sword users now. Namely, Ceo and Kain.

-Ceo and Kain have more strongly defined niches. Specifically, Kain is better than Cecil at what he does(*everything he does*, unless you really value Cover), while Ceo has better healing.

-Holy Sword focus is flakier in this game. Excalibur is good when you get it...at the start of Depths, which is roughly 40% of the way through the final dungeon. Ragnarok and Ultima Weapon are excellent...but Ultima Weapon is notably not a Holy Sword(so Golbez wants it too), and Ragnarok is, from all accounts, on the hardest boss to beat(I didn't bother trying Atma/Shinryu/Omega yet, disclaimer).

Now, this hits Ceo and Kain...but, Holy Lance is actually pretty good in this game, 140 power and flying/holy seems to hit a lot of enemies hard(Deathgaze was the most notable, or "Ha ha 10k jumps".). Cecil's fallback is...axes. Which are about as good on raw power...but don't have the good element and cut off shields. (he still may be the best axe user. sadness.)

So you've got a character with good stats and equipment who somehow is fairly useless.

Except he does have one secret upside. You see, there are Bands in this game, AKA CT combo attacks except...uh...no, that's basically it. They're useful in one of four cases:

A: The token roughly .6 repeating per chapter good Band before endgame.
B: White mages who deal crappy damage up until the final bow unless they're in a combo. (This does very very little for Rosa, more for Porom who at least gets upgraded Twincast, and...I think it's actually best for Leonora, need to test Particle Bomb at endgame though. I know the Palom/Rydia/Leonora combo actually did the hands down most of any combo for me at around 20k with a fairly decent charge time, though.)
C: Kain combos, because Kain is the best at everything.
D: Cecil combos.

Cecil gets Trinity Crusade with Kain/Rosa for one of the highest damage values I saw out of Band testing(17kish), Twin Drive with Yang(which seems to be 5-6k and fast enough to justify it, which is okay), Vibra Plus with Ceo(which I think unfocuses against multiple targets, the times I used it against crowds got respectable MT damage but I've heard reports of it slamming hard into the damage cap against bosses), and Double Pressure with Golbez(MT ...para? stop? with no charge time at all, seemed to work pretty solidly.).

Does any of this save him? No probably not, but at least he A: Has some point, and B: Has good raw stats as well. This will put him above some people I will talk about...

Cid:

uh...Cid's horrible.

How bad? How about half average speed before equipment(which he doesn't get speed boosting versions of)? How about axes/hammers which are all twohanded at endgame? How about no good point in the chapter he's a part of *or* the final chapter? How about no less than four other people better at using axes than he is, and three better people at using hammers? How about not even being all that special on HP, and gameworst Spirit/Int so that he can get smacked harder by magic?

He's bad.

Rosa: Kinda boring. Statistically best white mage with lousy combo attacks(Doesn't matter once you get Holy.  Which of course I haven't yet.) and good everything else. Her vs Porom is "Rosa is slightly better until about three or four bosses from the end, then Porom mauls Rosa with Doublecast, unless you don't give that to her.". Blessing is kinda neat(low MP healing!) but otherwise she's basically standard.

The Hooded ManDark KainKainHoly Dragoon KainThe Turbaned Man EL HOMBRE DEL TURBANTE:

Well, let's see.

First, there's the vastly superior turban Kain. Who basically kicks ass: End chapter equipment in Ceo's chapter, basically just a generically good tank in Kain's...rather shortish on raw gameplay...chapter. The latter is probably the worst point for any Kain or Kain derived being. I cannot believe I just typed that sentence seriously... at any rate he gets the chapter's token one decent combo(with Ceo...who he gets two later good Bands with as well...) and generally is pretty solid. The only reason not to abuse his awesome is because you want to break later Kain more. He doesn't need it.

Then there's Dragoon "I cut myself while having wet dreams about Rosa" Kain. Who is for no good reason better than the vanilla flavor, though this is mostly due to positioning and levels. Still, that's worth a ton-in Porom's chapter he makes the Challenge Dungeon go from HELL to doable thanks to his great equips/levels and he's basically perfectly capable of soloing things the other times you get him. Which is good, as he's soloing things the other times you get him.

Finally, there's Holy Dragoon Kain, who gave up his Turban for power, a dark path indeed. Sadly, it worked. Depending on when you upgrade him his HP ranges from "great" to "jesus christ why are you matching Yang on HP" and holy swords is a nice pickup. Blink and Haste(which he always has no matter his level at transformation) is a wee bit more major than anything else he gets, not that Esuna's bad either.

So basically he's Cecil+. Oh and Jump can be twinked this game thanks to Rapid Ring 3/4thing charge times if you get it(or the v2 halving it but tail drop plot. The v1's at least just Challenge Dungeon plot.). Yeah he's kinda stupid good...

Rydia:

Earlygame she's randomly L15 and starts with Stop and Ra spells, which randomly makes her the most durable character in her team for a short period, and makes her basically the person that's killing everything.

Then for the rest of her chapter she doesn't get better, until the Challenge Dungeon decides to randomly force her levels to 40 in order to clean it out. mutter.

Generally speaking, Rydia functions like a Black Mage that A: Works better at lower levels(thanks to fixed summon pickups; In particular, Leviathan's very reasonably fast, and Mist Dragon's not bad either.), B: Doesn't have to worry about MOOOOOOOOON (and can still take advantage of Black Magic+ moon phase), and C: Is fundamentally boring. Obviously I used her because of that A thing, though. I mean Palom wouldn't have gotten Flare until like the final two fights or something at my levels. <_<

Luca:

Cid, now with twice the magic stats(still bad), less HP and Attack(not enough less to really matter), 1.5x the speed or something(still bad, but this is a notable improvement), and Minerva Bustier(which is basically tailor-made for Luca).

Unlike Cid this is actually pretty usable, though not especially good. Bonus points-she's bloody great in Rydia's chapter, where A: She's the tank, and B: She gets access to a 55 power weapon like halfway through it(just walk out of the Sealed Cave after two minutes or so in and toss some Ore at the axe you just got. Voila, 55 power axe.). She also gets times where, you know, the ability to equip a shield *matters*. stupid Cid.

Calca:

Uhhhhhhhhhhhh well in Rydia's chapter he can slooowly do less magic damage than Rydia. Or status maybe. Or you could say fuck it and have him use a Dancing Dagger instead. Dancing Daggers are pretty good.

In final...well, the dolls get a really nice set of unique equipment, albiet as *very* late rare drops. And get Final Outfit's 30/15/+10 to all stats, which is shiny.

...that makes Calca still a very bad HP fighter who has a by-now *very* bad skillset. Calca isn't redundant, unlike many TAY characters that have issues...he's just hopeless.

Brina:

Well, she has all of the traits statistically Calca does, except even worse Strength and Stamina. And the same equips.

And a skillset. That...consists of randomly casting one of: Cure through Curaja MT, 20% MHP MT healing, MT Protect/Shell/Haste/Blink with a moderate charge time.

Both in Rydia's quest and in final, this gives her a use, unlike Calca. She's fairly good mindless random-bashing healing, MT Blink/Haste are good things, and her poor stats get augmented a lot by Final Outfit. With the uberdrops she's probably outright good(150 power dagger and armors with better defense value than Adamant), and even without them she's at least not awful thanks to Final Outfit/Assassin Dagger giving her a very fast turn to get to her healspam. It's okay enough, though not better than Edward as I initially thought it would be.

Yang: Yeah he's pretty awesome.

Generic clothes? Surprisingly good lategame. Claws? Multiple good options. Twinking? Fun fact; An Adamant Shield doesn't slow down Monk damage. (this is twinking by FF4 standards) Stats? Basically awesome, including gamebest HP(I think, though this probably varies. I'm pretty sure Golbez at L30 has more than Yang at L30...) and good stats overall. Focus ignore moon for some reason? Sure. Cover Counter is actually vaguely useful? Again, sure.

Yeah, he's pretty awesome. Simple, but.

Ursula:

Yang with FAR less HP, notably less Strength/Vitality...and a more useful skillset, including free heals(not that great), Tenketsu's random "normal physical or hit weakness/ignore defense(I think) or big explosion 2x damage(I think)" which is actually good for a short charge time. Also way more speed. Also Minerva...which...matters less than it should, as Brave Suit actually has better bonuses than Minerva(just...Brave Suit's available to half the cast. So Minerva still matters). Also access to a back rank attack if you get the Queen's Whip.

So basically she's comparable to Yang. And both are really good. Go fig.

Palom:

Uhhh Rydia that relies only on one skillset, gets the spells fast enough to at least vaguely keep up with Rydia in the endgame, and gets a crack at Doublecast. If you give it to him. Which, you may not.

He's pretty simple. Marginally worse than Rydia/Golbez unless you get him that, at which point he's better but not unmitigatedly. Simple.

Leonora:

Oddball. She functions a lot like Ceodore, in a way.

That is, during the earlygame she starts out (at L3) with Cure/Esuna/Raise. Gets Cura at normal levels. Picks up...lousy damage L1 spells as well. Picks up Stop at L30. Actually is pretty good for this stretch!

Then she uh stops getting spells for a while. Well, I mean. There are spells gained. They are all white magic status spells. That are worse than Stop. Picks up...L...2 black magic at mid-40s. Takes until like 45 to get Curaga, at which point she stops *utterly sucking*...but the other White Mages pick up Curaja notably earlier than her(which you want for the final battles. Not that I had it~), and Arise/Holy *way* earlier. Especially Holy. Which she gets at 70.

So basically she gets a good status but has worse healing gains later to make up for it. This makes her awful until she FINALLY gets Curaga, not as good as the other healers until she FINALLY GETS CURAJA, and then she...still can't do damage as well as them until L70, but at least Stopping randoms is actually good and at least the bosses do enough damage so that this isn't as pitiful as it is in FF4.

Basically she's not actually abysmal but she's got problems. Ultimately she's the best white mage, especially if you give her Doublecast, but that eventually is L70. She's interesting as a design, at least.

Edge: Really good.

The dual-wield weapons generally tend to be better(The best boomerang actually raises a stat holy shit), the ninja unique equips are nice(Flame Scarf, in particular, is just awesome for being a Cursed Ring without the downsides and with good stats), he has well balanced stats, his MDur isn't pitiful anymore, I think higher end Ninjitsu is relatively better than the old ones used to be(though having said that...they're later), and he gets ST healing(which matters during his chapter, at least. X-Potions rule this irrelevant in the final chapter).

Oh and he can toss stars for 5k, which is nice. And cash is not very much of an object in the final dungeon. (If it becomes one equip the Gil Band on someone. I mean he's not tossing 50k Shuriken at randoms, but...)

I mean he's kinda weird, but he's good. In fact if Gekkou didn't exist I might take him over all three of the other ninja put together...

Gekkou:

The best axe/hammer wielder? Likely, actually. Better speed than either of the others, ninja equips are good enough to compete with Minerva(he gets a crack at Brave Suit, like Yang does, but even if he doesn't the Scarf's still good in a different way), and Shuriken, again, mean potentially high damage for bosses.

And Blast is...probably a better skillset alone, even off his poor magic stats, than Luca and Cid get. I mean, it's 3k damage against a Malboro! That...probably owns "I'm not a generic physical with range, honest" Big Throw and...whatever you call the thing that is Cid's special.

I'll let you know when any of this matters. But in all seriousness, he's good enough to actually be used. And for once I don't feel like an Axe/Hammer's two handedness is actually wasting much...

Izayoi:

Pretty solid in Edge's chapter, thanks to having both the decent generic ninja Heal Pill, the power of Ninja ST Curaga and Ninja Raise, and the fact that Edge's chapter doesn't make the weaponry in it *too* far apart for raw power.

Utter trash after that. As in, very nearly as bad as Harley. ST healing and revival can entirely and VERY reasonably be replaced by items, leaving you with a character with mage weapons(albiet, those suck a lot less than FF4) and Frost. Which...is not a lot of damage and takes forever to get to boot. Still it makes her better than Harley? I guess. Yeah don't use her after Edge's chapter...

Zangetsu:

OLD MAN POWER. You kinda want Zangetsu to be good, conceptually, old guy with the power of human kite. Unfortunately, he uh is basically meant to be a mage type...that relies on Jump for most of the game. Now granted, Jump seems to ignore row, so he can be used. "can be used" is not a glowing assessment, as he's not particularly good at anything physical, and his magic stats-for some reason, the highest of the Ninjas IIRC-can't be used with anything notable until the 40s.

Basically he hits harder than Izayoi with everything, is more twinkable thanks to Adamant Shields at least being usable with *his* best weapon(Izayoi uses bows if you're sane), and er...uh...not much else. He's pretty bad. He's not much during Edge's chapter either, which is a pity.

Tsukinowa:

er he's Edge except worse at everything but speed.

He does have gamebest speed though, and at least his equip choices aren't horrid or anything. Uh...he'd...be worth thinking about if Edge didn't exist, but he does. Yeah. On the upside he has the whole "Second best character in Edge's chapter, probably" thing going for him, mostly because he's so damn fast early on. It levels off somewhat later, and equips make it level off more though. And he basically has no skillset. Unless there's some good steals I haven't heard about. Which there aren't.

Porom:

Bla bla healbot marginally worse than Rosa until she gets Doublecast if she gets Doublecast at which point she's better. The only notable thing here is that, unlike the Rydia/Palom dynamic, Porom would probably just be better than Rosa at equal levels. You're not likely to get those equal levels, thanks to Porom being one of the two worst chapters for EXP and Rosa starting out at like L30. But if you did...yeah.

Edward:

Hey look it's a healer that runs off cash.

Hey look it's a final dungeon that will give you 50k for one fight. Which you can boost if you want.

Edward gets kinda inflated by the final dungeon's cashflow. He's pretty good in his own chapter-his damage isn't as low as it should be(Edward's mighty scrub army is special), and Bardsong, which mostly not worth hitting enemies with, is a good support skill for free Protect+Shell/Haste and for free heals.

In the final chapter though, it's all about the Salves. Which gets you Curaja level healing and MT revival. Which, when you consider he can avoid telegraphed attacks with Escape(Hide), well...that's actually pretty good. Especially since he can buff too. Unreasonably good? Probably. Can sub for a White Mage? Surprisingly, yes! Can he do damage with his physical? Weirdly enough, his 98 power ultimate does good damage(because it hits weakness on every monster subtype). So yeah he's...oddly good. Go figure...

Harley:

This space reserved for someone that doesn't suck.

Or, see Izayoi and remove Frost and the useful period during the respective chapter. Yeah I'm sure they had more planned for her and just ran out of time. Or at least, I really hope so...

Golbez:

Hey look it's someone that can wield *everything*. And who is a black mage.

Golbez is a weird bastard. He has a tighter version of the curve that Ceo has(which in turn is a tighter version of the curve Leonora has).

That is, he is stupid stupid stupid good when you get him and you need him to be this good because his chapter hates you and all you stand for. Ga spells? 2971 HP? At L30? Yes please.

When you hit the final chapter, his stupid good weapon range and the fact that he has Ga spells and 2971 HP still shine very well! Until about L45 or so...where all he's gained from there is Quake. And he's...still good! Because he's a black mage with heavy armor and above average durability for a black mage and good physicals for randoms and etc.

I gather he starts getting HP again at levels past what I beat the game at, which would make him good again. That and he gets Ultima Weapon. Which I didn't get. But. In general he's really good anyways, so who cares?

So yeah that's babbling for you, have fun. ^_^

[Captain K.]

Skyrim:  Finished the Companion and Thieves Guild questlines.  Mostly just clearing up my random questlog at the moment.  Oh, and I started the Dark Brotherhood questline.  The leader of the Dark Brotherhood locked me in a cabin with three other people.  She told me I wasn't getting out until I killed someone.  So I killed her.  Surprisingly not only does the game let you do this, it gives you a special quest for it: "Destroy the Dark Brotherhood!".  So I went to their hideout and killed them all.  My reward?  3000 gold.  Not worth it.  Reloaded an older save so I can get the achievements for their questline.

KoF Orochi Saga:  Finished all the challenges and unlocked everything in the gallery.  Also beat KoF 94 with the AMERICA team.  Wow they suck  Hell yeah, America is the best country in the world!

Advance Wars DS:  Finished Hard Campaign with Kindle, Jugger, Hachi.  So I now have all the wallpapers except for the one for 300 medals.  Of which I'm up to 255.  Grinding time.

[Xeroma]

Hey now, Heavy D! was a fun and only kind of low tier character in KoF98!

*ignores how Brian and Lucky are both bottom tier*