What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Captain K.]

Eevee vs Nobunaga:  beat the main story.  Omg Nobunaga was only doing it because he loved Pokemon!

I tried to make eevee an espeon, but I guess my link percent wasn't high enough.  So it ended up as a glaceon instead.  Which was kind of lol at the dragon-themed final area.  Final party was glaceon, wigglytuff, beartic, scrafty, luxray, charizard.

The AI in the game is pretty terribad.  You can regularly beat enemies that are stronger than you because they are morons.  Having said that, the variety of moves and such could make this an interesting competitive game over wifi.

I don't know what to make of the aftergame.  It's rather bizarre and perhaps overly complicated.

[Fenrir]

Penny Arcade Episode 3: Wow, Grefter was right. Grandia battle system, job system, HP restored after every fight, MP that starts at 0 and slowly builds up every battle, Items restored after every fight and upgradeable, special conditions, fixed encounters but you can grind in some arena. The DL-est game.
I'm glad Zeboyd has removed level up choices honestly. I prefer having to choose between upgrading weapons, armor, or items.
I'm playing on insane mode and every battle is overwhelming, unique and fun. Well, except the first boss. (I had to pray to the RNG god)
The main classes I'm going with are Cordswainer, Hobo, Slacker and Gentleman, but I use the Elemenstor and Crabomancer in tricky fights. I'm also upgrading the molotov cocktal a lot, neglecting armor and weapon upgrades.

The games have lost a lot of their charm compared to Episode 1/2 though, I blame the removal of the main character, and the crappy Zeboyd graphics. Character sprites are fine, but backgrounds and artwork always look horrible in those games. It actually looks like actual, good pixel art, pasted into Paint, and turned into a jpeg or a gif with the lowest compression method chosen. It just looks cheap and amateurish compared to... something like Black Sigil or actual Snes games.


Mass Effect 3: Started, but it really felt weird. Those faces, maybe? The lack of transition between both games? The boring action on Earth?
Whatever, I replayed Mass Effect 2 first.


Mass Effect 2: Vanguard, Insane mode. (I think videogames are trying to say something to me...)
I went Renegade first time through, and I'm going with Renegade again. Seriously, paragon might as well not exist.
I regret ever choosing something other than Vanguard in ME2. (it wasn't that good in ME1) It's a melee class in a gunz game, involves shotgun blasts at point blank, and somehow requires a lot of thought in a cover based shooter.
I want to sleep with Zaheed but it's just not possible. I'm setting my eyes on the lizard instead.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Vanguard in ME3 is a wonderful thing. All I have is a pistol that fires shotgun shells and a bad attitude.

Put your sights on a target, charge straight in and hit like a goddamn extinction-level asteroid impact, detonate your barrier for extra damage, then turn around and kill the last guy with a fist full of biotic energy. While you hit charge to drop a new target (and refill your shields) Garrus fires off some victory shots while your Speesu Waifu sighs adoringly.

[SnowFire]

Puzzle Agent 2

So if Last Window was more Hotel Dusk, Puzzle Agent 2 is more, uh, Puzzle Agent.  Except of course that Puzzle Agent 1 just kind of stopped, so rather than be its own new story, PA2 decides to continue with PA1's story.  Which is fine by me, since that means more Scoggins, Minnesota.

Anyway.  Dialogue and story is still vastly amusing and utterly bizarre.  More comedy-horror which is certainly unique enough (although mostly comedy).  It's pretty much the perfect thing to play on a trip on a laptop, since it's not like the puzzles require fine control.  PA2 is short (3-4 hours or so?), like PA1, but at least has something of an *ending* this time.

For those who haven't played PA1, I recommend it.  It's not actually about the puzzles, it's about amusing animation & dialogue & Minnesota accents.  And it's super-cheap.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Lost Odyssey: My god this game is slow-going. I always play it for like 6 hours in a sitting, but it never feels like I've gotten any further in making a dent in it. Still on Disc 3. Shit Got Real. I almost care, except that story sequences are so spread out now that the lackluster exploration aspect has worn out its welcome. Unfortunately, the game seems to think that running around an enormous (albeit beautifully rendered) sewer dungeon is what I want to be doing.

Tolten finally joined my party. How the hell does he hit so hard when his stats are all lower than Seth's?

Sticking it out because the game seems to like torturing Cooke and Mack. Also, Jansen/Seth/Ming entertain me. And supposedly there are more Dream sequences. I think I could even mildly enjoy the main plot if it didn't take 2 hours between scenes to actually watch it.




Tales of Graces f: Beat Magic Carta on Hard. Shut out the computer. Only took 30 minutes. Rita Costume GET!
Those quotes are insufferably poorly localized.

[superaielman]

I am t rying to beat magic carta on hard right now. ;_____________________________________________;

[Talaysen]

I'm playing on insane mode and every battle is overwhelming, unique and fun. Well, except the first boss. (I had to pray to the RNG god)

Seemed like the trick to the first boss was to try and tell when it's using the stronger attack by seeing how fast it moves between the command and act spots on the bar.  Then you can defend to not get killed.  There's also a few other things you can do to make it easier, but that's the big one.

Still really difficult, though.  Took me awhile to figure that out and then I won the first time after I realized it.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Order of Ecclesia - Played about an hour of this, got to the third boss, decided he was lame after trying a few times and quit. I may try Portrait of Ruin instead.

So instead I decided to play. . .

Endless Frontier - John Moses is my favorite character so far. Asking if Kaguya is in fact a prostitute seems like the most logical thing in the world.

[Meeplelard]

I may try Portrait of Ruin instead.

Clearly someone doesn't have enough "JOHNNATHON!" "CHARLOTTE!" in their lives...

[Dark Holy Elf]

Normally I wouldn't want to be "that guy" and nitpick typos, but I am amused that you managed to misspell Jonathan in three different places.

[Meeplelard]

Its a name I've never been able to spell right, so shut up you smell

[Tide]

Pokemon Conquest: Up to what I believe is the last gym. Game's pretty average overall I think. It's relatively short, which I guess is good depending on how you look at it.

FFV 4JF: Yeah I signed up for this as well. Rolled my first job as Monk. This should be interesting seeing as how I don't know FFV that well (only completed it once) and I don't know any of the tricks. Add this on to my list of projects, which will probably never be completed >_>.

Wild ARMS 4: Krakken insanity hour tonight. Trying to piece together something solid that works against him. Slumber Fog is the worst thing ever because I can never anticipate what will happen when he uses it. It's just a big ? ? ?. Getting closer to something solid though for a strat and I have a good idea of the things I'm looking for. Will probably begin official recording tomorrow.


NOTE TO SELF: I still owe RICHARD that FF8 challenge and G2 LLG

[Niji]

Phantom Brave: Holy crap so i finally understand the mechanics of this game now, generally mechanics for games are over my head but i seem to have gotten a knack developed now, Marona = lvl 108, on story mode chapter A TOMODACHI AT LAST.

Having a total blast farming dungeons for that pesky hourglass now that I have my fleet of bottlemails to confine to it. And upgraded my owl ninja with prinny passives, hohoho confine in for 766 damage and exit for 1288, he can pretty much clear the field in his four turns.

I've turned marona into a Skull Mark icon whore, she has all the Vase,Can,Crystal spells and some random ones I found on titles and a fleet of buffs and some solid healing spells, though i generally keep her beefy with the Vase and spaming revive on my fragile characters >.> Poor bottlemails!

I've grown fond of making new characters with -30-100 in fire and + 30-50 in wind and ice.

Needless to say certain fights kick my butt but that is what ash is for.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Having a total blast farming dungeons for that pesky hourglass now that I have my fleet of bottlemails to confine to it. And upgraded my owl ninja with prinny passives, hohoho confine in for 766 damage and exit for 1288, he can pretty much clear the field in his four turns.

Notably Blobs work better for this than Ninjas. They only have a 1-turn Remove. You can actually combine them with a Titlist's innate lv30 Big Bang and a Hell Corgi's removal explosion skill for more powerful bombing. If you've unlocked Archers, you can fuse one of them onto the Blob too and get the Swift Attack skill. This will make it so that you Summon->ExplodeAreaDamage->InstantTurnAttackDmg->RemovalAreaDamage all at once. You have literally turned your Blob into a Tactical Bomb.

[Niji]

Djinn but slimes arnt cute owl ninjas with adorable hooty voices. Also thats madness i already run out of turns on dungeon bosses for all 16 of my summons and marona has to finish it :c though i tend to be fighting lvl 420 self titled gods.

[AndrewRogue]

League of Legends: Wavering between awesome performances and absolutely terrible performances.

Pokemon Conquest: DS fixed, so eevee vs the world can resume.

[Nitori]

SaGa 2 DS: This is an extremely good DS remake and anyone who cares about FFL2 should play it.

All...2 of you.

Yakuza 3: I need to stop doing the sidequests since story stuff that isn't babysitting little kids is p. great if Kanda's stuff is any indication.

[Yoshiken]

Street Fighter 4: Got bored of playing Cammy, decided to play some random. Turns out, I can't hit-confirm or pull off any kind of chains/links, but I really enjoy playing as the characters who rely on them. (Cammy, Sakura, Ibuki..) Welp, guess I'm never being good at fighting games.

[Bobbin Cranbud]

Dragon's Dogma

Nearing the end of my first New Game +. I'm probably done with this soon, not for lack of interest - it remains stupidly addictive - but for lack of time. I've got work/reading/life/other games to do, in approximately that order. Brilliant game, awesome monsters, remarkable AI, best real-time RPG I've ever played, hilariously obvious flaws that any playtester in the world should have caught. What a weird mix.

Bastion

Got a controller to work!

Oh, it's nearly unplayable that way, at least with the controller I've got? What's up with the analogue stick only pointing eight directions like it's a d-pad in freaking 1995? Anyway I'm almost done, but I've had to go back to the mouse despite not liking that control scheme in general.

Everything about the presentation of this game is beautiful, and despite my bitching about the controls the gameplay is good, too.

Eternal Poison

Got my PS2 working, so it's finally time to play this!

Oh, it's reasonably hard? I almost lost the second battle by not paying attention.

Oh, maybe it was just the second battle, because I haven't come close to losing another since.

IIRC there's some serious Guide Dang It moments in this game, but w/e, it seems reasonably fun. If I want to get all of the things (all of them) I'll replay it someday. Unless there's one simple thing I need to do to avoid missing major content, in which case hopefully someone will tell me.

League of Legends

I don't think it's possible to make a game I'd be worse at than this. All the precision timing of a fighting game, all the click to target gameplay of an RTS, none of the strategic layer to make up for my poor mousework! Only playing because of friends, but at least it's attractive and they're skilled enough to carry my useless ass (against beginner bots). ^_~

[DjinnAndTonic]

Re: Eternal Poison
The True Final Ending has some FAQ-it moments when it comes to beating certain bosses and capturing enough demons IIRC. Had a pretty awesome plot, so it's one of the times it was rarely worth it to me. The capturing mechanism in this game sucks.

[superaielman]

Tales of Graces: Just got the Magite-erm, Fendel research factory. I am maining Asbel, along with using Hubert every so often to mix things up.

[Meeplelard]

Eevee vs. Nobunaga: SO I went and took over the first of Nobunaga's castles, and I think its time to-...OOOH! THEATRHYTHM CAME OUT!


Dissidia Final Fantasy Super Chibi Rhythm Game Edition: Played the FF1-3 areas, then did one Chaos Shrine.  Cute game and just a nice nostalgic trip and what not.  Also, amusing how while all the songs in the gameplay parts are the original, they use various remixes for menus and such from the 13 games (like Setzer's theme is the "Character Select theme",  the Highwind is for the "Select Mode" theme, "Rose of May" for Card Collections, etc.)

[Sierra]

Dragon's Dogma: Jailbreak! Look, Duchess, this probably isn't the best time to get it on--well, okay, if you insist. Man, this place. Start your escape and immediately get attacked. Why did we bother infiltrating in disguise again? Also the lower levels of the building--the Duke's own manse, mind you--are filled with a horde of bandits. Hire better help, man, seriously. How are you still alive?

Have been running a mystic knight for a while, is pretty groovy. Abyssal Anguish in particular is horrifically effective. Also said to hell with armor a while ago and been tooling around in the indecent stuff Madeleine sells pretty much just because if I can afford to be sexy then dammit I'm going to. I mean, everything dies fast enough that my defense doesn't matter a heckuva lot anymore (even a sensible suit of armor only gets me like a hundred extra defense anyway). My pawn gets the abyssal postgame armor my brother threw at her, because it seems a shame not to use the stuff and anyway she actually needs it (I have HP, she doesn't; I can dodge, she can't).

Pretty sure I'm overlevelled, mind (54, right before Ze Dragon), have been seeing pawns at my levels with better gear for about half the game. Can't remember the last time I died. Oh wait I can--cyclops right outside Heavenspeak tosses me off the mountain, I survive at 1 HP. "Dammit, now I have to climb all the way back up." *Cid turns around, face to face with a chimera* "...Oh, I don't. Okay."

[AndrewRogue]

Yo, Bobbin. Add me at some point. =)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Beat this.

It's absolutely outstanding at being a Batman game, but only so-so at being a game. I'm not, to be fair, the game's target audience (Batman's decent but I'm not a huge fan and I certainly never followed the comics) but I still think the game really nailed what a game should feel like if you were to play as Batman. The way you fight enemies and your various means of defeating them are pretty much all straight out of Batman, and very faithful to his method of fighting in which nobody dies (somehow). The game's writing is pretty effective and basically feels like a significantly longer-than-average Batman movie (with six different villains getting in on the action, for all that there's no question that Joker is the main, and awesome, antagonist).

That said, the actual gameplay could have been a bit better. Stealth sections were fun enough but whether or not enemies spot you felt extremely clunky. Raw combat got better as the game went on and the game actually bothered to introduce interesting weapontypes (you can basically button-mash through any number of regular mooks) but was kinda bleh for a while. Exploring was never much fun at all, I don't enjoy pixel-hunting for the path through areas. The game was at its best when it mixed boss fights with mooks at the same time (pretty great idea honestly), unfortunately there are only really two bosses in the game (and that's counting the one that gets turned into a mook later). Oh well. Still enjoyed it more than I feared I would from the first couple hours, but I'd sooner replay Devil May Cry or God Hand or Bayonetta, as far as 3D action goes.