What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Dark Holy Elf]

Polaris isn't the brightest star in the night sky (or even close); that's Sirius.

Now back to regularly-scheduled gaming-related nerddom.

Kid Icarus: Uprising - So I beat the game. That was weirdly, weirdly short... something like three and a half hours? Short enough to piss often even me who often extolls the virtues of short games. So I beat the final stage and the boss rush and the three-stage final boss and got my victory credits. At which point Tim Curry appeared and literally clawed them away. Excellent.

This game's pretty fun. Kinda half Star Fox, half Devil May Cry, weirdly does a decent job at both though I'm not sure what I think of the stylus part of the control scheme. Too easy at base but you can adjust difficulty to make up for this (though if you die the game lowers it a bit each time unless you restart the stage, which... eh, works. Kinda God Hand-ish.) The constant banter is pretty hilarious stuff on the whole, fourth-wall breaking everywhere and all the characters are pretty fun, even the bit villains.

[Niu]

Elf, we are talking about Devil Survivor wise.

It was my way of saying I got the Kingmaker Ending.  Al Saiduq is such a you character.

And I'm comparing it to eva because the Septiontrones art and gimmicks remind me of Eva's Angels (for obvious reasons in the case of art).

Oh, I see. But how misleading, Alcor is pretty dim you know.
But speaking in comparison of Eva, Al is really how Kaworu should be written. Appealing to people like without going over the top and actually makes enough sense while doing so.

[Cmdr_King]

I figure the heavenly throne imparts shininess.

But yeah, I had honestly planned to go for the Restorer route but seeing the AO scenes made me think "nah, I like this guy".  While he's clearly not human, it's also pretty clear that he's sincere in what he says and he tries to reign in some of the mistakes he makes in terms of unnerving people.  And honestly in the context of how that universe works it really feels like the best ending, albeit I get why it's not in game mechanics terms.

[Meeplelard]

Kid Icarus: Uprising - So I beat the game. That was weirdly, weirdly short... something like three and a half hours? Short enough to piss often even me who often extolls the virtues of short games. So I beat the final stage and the boss rush and the three-stage final boss and got my victory credits. At which point Tim Curry appeared and literally clawed them away. Excellent.

I love that little troll move the game pulls.  "Yes, you beat this short game...WAIT NO YOU DIDN'T HERE'S SOMEONE ELSE!"  And the neat thing is the fake final stage actually does have a nice lead-in to said character introduction with Pit questioning Medusa and her response being suspicious.

Anyway...

FF4 Interlude:  Short and brainless.  THat's fine for gameplay though would have preferred some originality on enemy design rather than just recycle Mom Bomb but change it's name and palette, literally refighting Demon's Gate, a bunch of improved versions of generic randoms, and...ok, the Final Boss was kind of neat, at least first fight; 2nd fight was too basic outside of the opening scare attack.

Plotwise...ok, I know this is meant as a lead-in to FF4TAY, but this is a huge case of "nothing happened."  It's just random monsters appearing, beating them up, then Tower of Bab-il looks weird, so investigate it!  Answer can be summed up as "We don't know!" which if anything, implies the crew is a bunch of morons because sounds like they completely forget all this stuff happens for 17 years, then act surprised that another EVIL THREAT has arrived.


...then again, Cecil shows off more of his abusive husband ways to Rosa here.
Cecil: Ok, I'm going with Cid to the Underworld to investigate the Sealed Cave!"
Rosa: Count me in! Until death do us part and all that good stuff.
Cecil: No, Rosa! It's too dangerous even though you've dealt with far worse!  By the way, I'm taking the 5 year old magic twins with me too.

[Monkeyfinger]

I figure the heavenly throne imparts shininess.

But yeah, I had honestly planned to go for the Restorer route but seeing the AO scenes made me think "nah, I like this guy".  While he's clearly not human, it's also pretty clear that he's sincere in what he says and he tries to reign in some of the mistakes he makes in terms of unnerving people.  And honestly in the context of how that universe works it really feels like the best ending, albeit I get why it's not in game mechanics terms.

I picked ronaldo's route because I'm very lazy with social links in these games, so I wouldn't get to recruit very many people after the split up, and I wanted ronaldo's crew the most.

[Cmdr_King]

We must have very different playstyles, Otome's good but Joe and Airi were some of the worst performers I thought.  Although I never paid much attention to maybe Ronaldo himself is good.

Granted, without SOCIAL LINK GO you very likely would have only gotten Daichi/Hinako/Jungo on that path, which is crummy since Daichi and Hinako want the exact same setup, while the other team involves Keita who  can go fuck himself >.>

[Sierra]

Dark Souls, the many deaths of Indiana Jones edition: Lost Izalith -> Great Hollow -> Ariamis -> time travel. No deaths in Ariamis somehow! One of the small saving graces of the whip: it can be surprisingly good at staggering some enemies. I was able to stunlock harpies to death. I left the dragon zombie alone completely because I have no idea how you're supposed to fight those things in melee. Just grabbed his loot and ran. Also did not fight the boss because, well, I never do, and Indy does not hit girls (unless they vomit lava at him, or if there's a bar fight going on and look things got a little hectic okay?) Also, continuing to pump VIT/END to 40 because what the hell, game's still throwing souls at me, might as well use them. Deathcount!

Lead farming failure deaths: 1. Tried to aggro one darkwraith from the ghost house, got both. Flanking ensued, followed shortly by death. Titanite chunks are the only thing I've done any grinding for on this run (wanted +9 armor).
Fuck Bed of Chaos deaths: 2. Still my least favorite fight in the game.
That was 90% gravity deaths (Great Hollow): 1. Surprised there was only one, since this is the only time I've bothered trying to loot that place since I first played the game.
Forgot to switch rings before fighting Sanctuary Guardian deaths: 1. Then I beat him without needing to heal. Did not bother getting his tail. I would need to put levels into STR to use it and more importantly it's just not Indy style. (I am also not using the notched whip. Because it's even weaker than the standard whip, bleed is kind of useless on a slow weapon, not much left in the game is weak to it, not Indy style, etc.)
Artorias is a bastard deaths: 6. Buffed Artorias is the worst thing. I couldn't reliably interrupt the casting animation unless I was right on top of him when it started (needed three hits, whip attacks have long wind-up, and even when it worked I had a fraction of a second to spare). Just ugh.

Honestly not that worried about Manus. Find it pretty easy to dodge all his attacks by this point. If I soloed him on NG+ with a 16 VIT character then dammit, Indy can take him on NG. The #1 thing left in the game that does terrify me? Dog skeletons. I have no clue how to deal with this with neither a shield nor OHKO damage. So Tomb of the Giants is basically the last thing I'm doing.

[Dhyerwolf]

The enemies are never threatening

I would say thankfully! I hated the battle system but loved everything else. Threatening enemies would have been a horror for me playing VS.

[Niu]

I figure the heavenly throne imparts shininess.

But yeah, I had honestly planned to go for the Restorer route but seeing the AO scenes made me think "nah, I like this guy".  While he's clearly not human, it's also pretty clear that he's sincere in what he says and he tries to reign in some of the mistakes he makes in terms of unnerving people.  And honestly in the context of how that universe works it really feels like the best ending, albeit I get why it's not in game mechanics terms.

The restorer route felt too much like SMT3's normal end that I really can't deem it worthy. You must be really really dense to tolerate a YHWH equivalent hanging above your head.
On the other hand, Al's ending happen to caught me in surprise, in a good way. Like.... what is going on here? SMT for the first time ever is giving us a deity that is not an ass??

[Fenrir]

Cid: I beat them with the dragon bone fist by abusing nvincibility frame? Equip the DWGR (optional), roll towards the dog, attack, roll backwards. Couldn't see any other real way with fists only, except for mashing R1 and praying. (maybe good enough if you have 20 estus flasks)

I only have the DLC + Final boss left. The gravelord was interesting because the dragon bone fist's range is so low that you can't hit him at point blank range from the back, you need to face him. In fact, many times a combo only hits the enemy half the time because of the terrible range. Fist weapons!

But really, the game has been way easier now that
1) I don't have to put all points into strength and dex and can spend all of it in vit and end
2) I have an estus flask +6 and 20 flasks anytime. Sorry, nice spider lady and Anastacia, you are way more useful to me as delicious estus souls.

Pokemon White 2: Playing this daily to get more Join Avenue visitors. Not progressing through the game. Help.


Dhyer: Oh yes. But battles could have probably been good with a better system, and the game could have handled a higher difficulty as a result.
For example: L1 and R1 now switch equipped weapons (you can have 5 weapons equipped) while L2 and R2 control the camera. Weapon forging is friendlier and makes it easier to manipulate weapon affinities, but your resources aren't infinite; you kind of have to choose how many weapons you want to use (1 doesn't really cut it anymore) and which emphasis you want to put on each. Etc etc

[Captain K.]

Pokemon White 2: Playing this daily to get more Join Avenue visitors. Not progressing through the game. Help.

Wait you mean there's more to the game besides Join Avenue?  I did not know this.

[Fudozukushi]

Honestly not that worried about Manus. Find it pretty easy to dodge all his attacks by this point. If I soloed him on NG+ with a 16 VIT character then dammit, Indy can take him on NG. The #1 thing left in the game that does terrify me? Dog skeletons. I have no clue how to deal with this with neither a shield nor OHKO damage. So Tomb of the Giants is basically the last thing I'm doing.

RUN.  I'm not kidding, with some fancy footwork you can skip them all.

[Yoshiken]

Been wanting to do a challenge before playing Black 2, and still missing a few Pokemon for it. Asked around on Facebook with no result, so... could a few people fill in the last gaps in this team?

Current team is:

Grimer - Achoo!
 - No Poison moves other than Sludge
 - No Poison moves if evolved
 - Max of one TM

Sandile - (Not sure on nickname yet)
 - Only allowed to use Dark moves
 - Can evolve once when all 4 moves are Dark
 - Can evolve once after soloing a Gym

Snivy - Sir Collar
 - Must switch in against every Fire-type
 - Can evolve after defeating a Gym Leader Pokemon that Snivy is weak to (Must complete twice)

Looking to have stuff with evolution conditions, ideally, and a couple of different types. Also avoiding trading for stuff.

[hinode]

Pokemon White 2: Playing this daily to get more Join Avenue visitors. Not progressing through the game. Help.

Go make a Pokemon Global Link account if you haven't, sync it with your cartridge, then login at Pokemon.com and change your Dream World settings to allow everyone to see you. Every day you'll get random visitors to your Dream World home looking for berries to water, and when you wake your Pokemon back up via Game Sync all of them will arrive at Join Avenue.

Come to think of it, this might not be the sort of help you were looking for... <_<

[MC50]

Fire Emblem: New Mystery
 - Started this. Hard mode, which seemed like a mistake at first, with the prologue chapters actually being tough, but the actual story chapters have been... Much easier, if bigger, so now I'm glad. Fighter MU. So far so good, at chapter 5. Hardest level so far was probably prologue... 6. Against Ogma. There was just no room to run - I had to restart a lot.

Also been playing some Pokemon. Thinking of training a couple pokes in case they ever release a Wii U game for random battles. (I know that the DS games have them, but I really enjoyed Battle Revolutions randoms for some reason)


Oh, here's a challenge for you if you wanted one.

Tynamo
 - If Tynamo's health is in the red, he must choose to switch out (If possible)
 - Must always have at least one physical move, one special move, and one "other' move. The last can be anything. (When possible)
 - Can evolve after eating 5 different berry types in battle. Can evolve again after eating 9 different berry types in battle. (Types of berries - Cheri, Chesto, Pecha, Rawst, Aspear, Leppa, Oran, Persim, Lum, Sitrus
.)

[Fenrir]

Hinode, you monster.
I've actually tried connecting to the internet but I can't with my connection. That might not be a bad thing, in retrospect.
What I don't understand is that I've 4 visitors / day while my girlfriend only has 3. I think the only thing I did way more than her is Pokewood. Anybody knows if this is related?

I'm going to try a blind FE12 no reset normal playthrough. We'll see how it goes. Jeigans/Oswins welcome. Most myrmidons/Ninos out.

[Hunter Sopko]

P4: THE GOLDEN- Beat Yukiko's Castle. A few gameplay changes. You now restart from the start of the floor if you die, and once you find the stairs, you can go off and explore the rest of the floor and get back to them by hitting Square. So some good streamlining there, unfortunately to balance they took out the save point at the top of the dungeon. Not too bad, since you just restart there if you die, but the loss of a savepoint is the loss of a savepoint for convenience, and you actually need to use a Goho-M if you want to return to the entrance. You also fight Chie on the second instead of the third floor. Avenger Knight the same.

Beat Lacy Unmentionables with Archangel and Double Fangs/Media. She's weak to ice now, didn't summon Prince until halfway. Prince is more durable, but ran away when his health was around half. Used Burn to Ashes earlier but not as much.

Story hasn't changed. Started the Aeon link, which... kinda reminds me of Elizabeth.

[Sierra]

Dark Souls, Dr. Jones chooses poorly edition: Done. No deaths for most of the remaining bosses (one notable exception). Manus is very easy to dodge by this point, though I still would've died from full combo/head-on spell impact if not for HP bloat (I kind of feel like I cheesed things out by pumping vitality to 40, but it's not like I was ever grinding for souls or anything. Didn't even use all of what the game gave me). Four Kings were honestly pretty laughable--stand right up against one and they only ever hit you with the handle of their sword. One estus flask for each of them, mash attack for win. Gwyn, uh...that was another story. Deathcount!

Miscellaneous looting deaths: 6. Got kind of careless and impatient while cleaning out some areas I'd just run through before.
Black knight death does not bode well for Gwyn deaths: 1.
Okay, I'll just run past them deaths: 1. Rolled off the bridge. (It worked every other time, though.)
Gwyn can't be that hard, can he? deaths: 9. The frustrating part was I'd almost nailed it on the first try. Needed like two more hits, then fucked up and blundered into a full combo. Then RAGE kicked in and almost every other attempt I died after landing one attack. Ultimately had to work in rolling light attacks, otherwise was just not killing him fast enough from just waiting for him to fail grab attempts so I could do leaping attacks. The worst part of this was the charging thrust attacks--everything else I could dodge just rolling backwards, but that would still hit me unless I rolled to the side and they're just too fast for me to react properly. Always threw me off.

Total deathcount: 56.
Duration of Dr. Jones' stay in Lordran: 21 hours, 21 minutes.
Death occurred on average every: 23 minutes.
Final level: 88.

Number one thing this run made apparent: From Software really did want absolutely everything to be evadable, assuming your timing is good enough. It's just, you know, penalty for failure is pretty high when you fuck it up. Also, the whip's two-handed heavy attack is just the worst thing. You might as well be walking around with a Kick Me sign taped to your face if you ever try to use it. Flubbing the input for a leaping attack and standing there like a goon mid-animation was one of the more frequent causes of injury and death.

So yeah, I've cleared Dark Souls without shields/magic/summons, using just leather armor and the whip. I think the show's over here, save maybe for co-op when my brother happens to be on. I should probably take the radical step of playing something new now--wait no I've got Toejam & Earl 1&2 on my PS3 right now.

[Fenrir]

Grats.
I now only have the dragon, Manus and the lord of cinder left, but I'm not feeling it.


FE 12 No resets, Hard Mode:
I wanted to play this on Normal mode but it was all:

Welcome to baby's first Fire Emblem!

And I wanted to notice that characters could actually die and stuff. Also:

Hard Mode? More like lolmode. Except the prologue.

And I was CRUSHING the prologue.
The biggest problem by far is that on hard mode, reinforcements act on the same turn as they appear. (Terrible idea, by the way) I'm just really going to lose this in the worst possible way.

Anyway the prologue went nicely enough until the last two chapters where all hell broke lose and I lost 5 units. I'm going to get them back eventually, but I really don't like this foreshadowing, guys.
Yattaf, the female main character, is a cavalier with long brown hair and an eyepatch, also a complete stat monster. I'm counting on her to eventually solo the entire damn game while Marth stays in the kitchen.


I played the BS chapters ASAP and got totally spoiled about the second plot twist in the entire Fire Emblem series. (First one was what happens during the middle of FE4) It was executed poorly anyway. Just slit Marth's throat instead of talking, bad guy. I guarantee it's going to be more efficient.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Walking Dead Episode 5-  Holy living fuck.  I can't believe I'm going to say this but...

that QTE was fucking brilliant.

_{There are a few points throughout the game where a QTE is "unwinnable," and no matter how fast you hit the button you won't succeed.  As Lee gets weaker they become more common. I strangled The Stranger to death with my one remaining hand.  The marker stayed a fraction of an inch from the end no matter how hard I tried to move it, while I have this guy pinned down and choke the life out of him and he struggles to get away.  The cursor goes dim like the event is almost done, and I keep hammering on Q because I am so incredibly angry at this man that I just want to watch him gasping for air for another moment.  The indicator is gone, but I'm still hitting the button because I hate this asshole.  Other players, who let go, said the guy manages to come back when you let up and Clementine has to kill him to save you.  I did not.  Because I was so angry at him that hitting that button became a simulation of the kind of single-minded fury required to choke another person to death.}

It is the best use of that mechanic that has ever been attempted, and it does it without calling any attention to it.  Most players don't even realize there ARE multiple outcomes to that scene right away, because the game keeps the instructions to a minimum.  Genius stuff.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Kid Icarus Uprising: Still having a blast with this. I kinda get the feeling the combat's depth is a bit shallow compared to DMC but it's still a lot of fun. Replays will have to be the judge there... and to the game's credit, I'm pretty sure those will be coming at some point, so that's a plus! The game's sense of humour and style is just wonderful. Man there must be other action games that put the dialog mid-battle like this but I haven't seen it (probably only works if a game really doesn't it take itself seriously). Even if almost dying because I'm distracted by near-laughter is something I'm not sure how I feel about. I remain pretty amused at how effective most of the characters are, the latest one being Troy Baker as a superhero sun god gone evil. I guess Dark Pit's an exception but the main characters call him Pittoo so he ends up making me smile anyway.

Mario Kart 7 - I hate blue shells so damn much. They really put a damper on the fun of higher-end multiplayer. But otherwise still enjoying this of course.

Lost Odyssey - I beat disc 2. Recently this game has struck another one of my pet peeves: long streteches of dungeon with no save point. In two cases I went over an hour between them. Why does this game think this is acceptable? Argh. Anyway Tolten just saw Gongora laughing maniacally so he may be finally about to figure out that Gongora's not the nicest guy in the world. Mmm... maybe the heroes should prepare a neon sign proclaiming this just to be safe, though.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Disgaea Infinite: It's a Visual Novel! Gameplay is nicely streamlined so that you can play through the scenarios multiple times quickly to figure out the solution, but won't auto-skip any dialog you haven't read yet. Very nice.

The storyline is cute, light-hearted, and generally makes me chuckle. The main trio still plays off eachother well, and Gordon and Jennifer are in fine form. Mao and Beryl also show up. The story fills in a lot of holes for what happens between Disgaea 1 and the sequels. Like "How Flonne became angel again." Pretty cool.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Ys Origin - Just beat Jenocres after remembering I don't need to charge in order to pew pew losers with shiny eyes. Right now, I need to kill a bunch of random skeletons in Detonation Mode that take 6 damage from my shots, 6HKO me, swarm me in a pack of five and are pretty much faster than I am. Uh yeah I think I want to be a couple levels higher than this.

EDIT: Also, for all that the plot writing is a synchronized coreography of egregious failures, Hugo commands a few oddly entertaining lines. I'm fine with having my main character be an unrepenting asshole when everybody rags on him for being a dick (except Miuscha, but Miuscha is Rinoa-level useless and deserves all contemption she gets). That and he does have a point when he calls the goddesses idiots in -their faces- for playing into the retarded mystarious thing I need to doz tropes. His self-awareness over the whole thing borders on fourth-wall-breaking.

[Fenrir]

Fire Emblem 12 No resets Hard Mode:
Freaking Palla died in Chapter 3.
And then Yubello, Ogma, Sirius, Julian all died in Chapter 4.
....
....
I think that's it? Good run! Normal mode maybe wasn't so bad!


Dark Souls: Finished the fist weapons only challenge.
I still have a lot of trouble avoiding Manus' uber combo, he's honestly the most difficult boss in the game for me as of right now.
The final boss was impossible to beat for me because I couldn't parry his hits. Remember, you need to block the first hit then parry the second to have an easy chance of parrying. Well, blocking one hit with the Dark hand flinches the character who's using it, so that plan goes right out of the window!
I instead went in wearing Full Havel. Turns out it's a fairly neat and really easy way to finish the game. I just withstood the first hit and parried the second, but I could have just mashed X and square in front of him with the same result . Poise rocks.

I should have probably gone with 40 dex and claws+15 , but the dragon bone fist w/41 strength was fun. I never went back to standard cestus after getting the claws, and the Dark hand is 100% worthless, even considering no other shield available.



SD Detective Blader: Great Nes graphics.
I guess this was a budget title, so the areas are small and to compensate, the game has the worst encounter rate this side of Black Sigil. Even Pokemon caves can't compare. Fortunately battles are quick (unlike Black Sigil) because they're all 1 on 1.

I am a normal detective dude but can transform into a super detective dude. As far as I know, this does nothing.
Could this be the NES L.A. Noire?? No. This is perhaps the least detective-ish game. Right in the intro you know that X is a badguy, probably the final boss, and that you need to kill him. Almost no detective work involved.
I just bought two bazookas and a sword for my single detective dude, who uses violence against everything.

[SnowFire]

<3 <3 <3 Hugo xD xD xD

It's amazing what having a character who calls everyone else on their bullshit (and sprinkles in a fair amount of his own bullshit) can do for a game.  Ys Origin is mostly a disaster in its "plot," but Hugo recognizing this at times really does make it fun anyway.  (WTF, Goddesses.  You're allegedly uber-powerful, but your constant reduction to damsels in distress implies you aren't actually, so don't go rogue in a stupid fashion.)

Jenocrates was a pretty cool fight.  One of the easiest bosses in the game (especially as Hugo who just lollercoasters), but still recognizably a version of the fairly bland Ys I boss except not bland anymore.