What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Shale]

And later on you fight two at once!

[Sierra]

El Cid: You need to keep the ring against the four kings, but don't have to keep it in the Abyss afterwards.
Nowadays I sometimes die against Pinwheel and Iron Golem, never against Bell Gargoyle and Taurus Demon. Weird, huh?

How do people die against Pinwheel? New game+++ or something? OR are you just running there right after arriving at the Firelink Shrine (which I guess is possible, and probably why his HP's so terrible?) Funny how boss difficulty can go between players sometimes. I hear horror stories about O&S and Four Kings, then die less to either of them than I died against Seath this afternoon, despite being told the latter is one of the easiest bosses. Maybe that's the problem. Expecting something in Dark Souls to be a pushover is a pretty great way to get yourself killed.

I don't know who thought the game needed a giant lava armadillo.

Who are you and what have you done with Meeple.

[074]

Ah, filler bosses.  They always seem the most bullshit for some reason.  Probably due to a distinct lack of plot relevance and thus the inability to show off their awesome powers in cutscene-vision.

Disgaea 4: So, let's talk about 9-7 for a bit.  It's not that I had much trouble with it once I worked out my strategy for the second attempt at it, but it's more of how I should not have been able to beat it at all.

This is totally serious; 9-7 has just about everything roughly 10 levels above me, minimum.  The Cyborgs there have enough raw power to one-shot most people with anything better than a basic physical.  This is before they start with Magichange shenanigans.  The boss there (and the map doesn't end if she's beaten, since she's more of a glorified generic not unlike C4's boss) has stats on par with other bosses, and starts with a Giant Magichange weapon.  On top of that, 10% cHP regen and if you save her for last, her stats all double due to One Man Army.  There are no terrain quirks that one will be taking advantage of, and no Geo Panels to do the same for.

Statistically speaking, this should have been unwinnable for me at my level.  And yet thanks to the raw cheeze that is Heart Cannon, I managed to systematically take the fight apart after killing the three problem magichange monsters in the first round. (the Baciel and Chicken/"Roc" to use the official terms aren't worth the trouble.  Conversely, the Dragon, Alraune, and Reaper must die -yesterday-).

If nothing else, I guess this is a testament to just how damn overpowered Heart Cannon is, because nothing says overpowered like tripling the number of attacks in your queue against a given target.  Also this had made my Archer hit level 80 by the start of Chapter 10.

Gave in and decided to throw out a couple of shop upgrade bills after 10-2.  Spent my ass off with Rank 22-24 gear, which I'm convinced is going to be actual endgame for me.  Currently in a reincarnation grind because my Mage-Knight just unlocked Tier 3.  Regrettably, that -doesn't- come with Giga spells.  Or even new sword abilities.  Boo.

Quick Cast Update:

Valvatorez: Most of the recent fights have been short and brutal, often with few kills.  This doesn't fare too well for him, though, since he absolutely loves fights with large numbers of enemies.  He also hates being stuck with enemies who either heavily resist physical attacks or are at such a distance that he can't do anything to them.  Looking at you, 10-2 and 10-3.

Fenrich: He's gotten some use back, between oneshotting the reaper in 9-7 and enemies in C10 lacking resists altogether.  I am so tempted to have Hina(Nekomata) magichange with him just to see what kind of horrible things he can do with that S-rank skill.  Oh, and magic counts for nekomata counters. 

Fuka: Running into the same physical walling as Valvatorez.  Oh, and a lack of space, too.  She's fairly good at damage when she can use it, though.  Prinny Kaiser XX is still awesome.

Desco: Beastmaster+temp-movement=stupid stat bonuses=effective 3000+ ATK or so.  Desco is indeed final-boss-like.  The raw stats plus amazing range have made her highly effective.

Emizel: You know that issue he had in C9?  Gone now.  He's nuking again, and with the aid of glasses, better than ever.

Vulcanus: No real change.  Fits well in Heart Cannon slotting.  Her specials also have very good vertical, which I can never deny the value of.

[Fudozukushi]

El Cid: You need to keep the ring against the four kings, but don't have to keep it in the Abyss afterwards.
Nowadays I sometimes die against Pinwheel and Iron Golem, never against Bell Gargoyle and Taurus Demon. Weird, huh?

How do people die against Pinwheel? New game+++ or something? OR are you just running there right after arriving at the Firelink Shrine (which I guess is possible, and probably why his HP's so terrible?) Funny how boss difficulty can go between players sometimes. I hear horror stories about O&S and Four Kings, then die less to either of them than I died against Seath this afternoon, despite being told the latter is one of the easiest bosses. Maybe that's the problem. Expecting something in Dark Souls to be a pushover is a pretty great way to get yourself killed.

The game sorta directs you to the Catacombs with Rhea and Petros, but well, no one really takes that route that way.

[Meeplelard]

Who are you and what have you done with Meeple.

Ninja Gaiden 2 is one of the few games that does NOT get improved by such things, believe it or not.

(Now, Devil May Cry?  That's a totally different story!)

[Captain K.]

Well, Pinwheel gets stronger the longer the fight goes on.  So on New Game +++whatever when you can't kill him quickly, he can get out of control.

And yeah, I think I mentioned how bad Centipede Demon is on New Game+ compared to New Game.  Dark Souls boss difficulty is all over the place.

[Sierra]

If nothing else, I guess this is a testament to just how damn overpowered Heart Cannon is, because nothing says overpowered like tripling the number of attacks in your queue against a given target.  Also this had made my Archer hit level 80 by the start of Chapter 10.

Heart's Cannon is ridiculously broken. More than one boss I obliterated in a single attack chain and usually HC was responsible for a good 50% of that damage (if not more).

The game sorta directs you to the Catacombs with Rhea and Petros, but well, no one really takes that route that way.

The respawning skeletons were enough to keep me away when I tried to go there early on.

[Fudozukushi]

The game sorta directs you to the Catacombs with Rhea and Petros, but well, no one really takes that route that way.

The respawning skeletons were enough to keep me away when I tried to go there early on.

Andre eventually points you towards the Divine Ember after talking with him enough and after Gaping Dragon/Quelaag upgrading/Sen's will be on your to-do list.  Doesn't mean going there's a good idea anyway ha.

Soul Calibur V: So, got this Tuesday, but didn't play until Wendsday.  Was the reason I've been absent/as lurky as always and why I haven't voted on music tournament or added links for AC0.  Until now.  Or something that makes sense.  Man, I reuse material too much.

So uh, the game!  I haven't tried out everyone yet, or gone online, mostly did Story and Training and Arcade and Quick Battle.  And Create a Soul.  So, first off, let's go with something like who I have used and what I think!  Because I am terrible.

Siegfried: My SC4 boy!  Oh how you've changed.  I can't really compare well since I am terrible, but he's been reworked a bit.  His movement speed seems much, much faster, but changing holds seems so much slower.  He's also lost BBB which was my damn workhorse!  And some other of my prime moves were switched to being Brave Edges which consume the brand new special bar!

Nightmare: Holy SHIP is he a Nightmare!  I r punmaster.  Anyway, he's gained a LOT of ground-damage moves, and a ridiculous move in A+B.  His Critical Edge/SUPER is goddamn amazing though.  If they don't block it it does a ton of damage, if they attack while you're charging it then it goes off on them without a chance to dodge/block.  So throw it up when you know an attacks coming and POW.

Patroklos: His attacks can be so jumpy and air-comboish that it's easy to rack up the Counter damage on him.  But if he gets going effectively he's tough to stop since he has a lot of speed moves.

Pyrrha: Scardy-sister is also kind of jumpy and floaty like her brother so falls into the same Counter damage.  And unlike him she can't take hits at all.  Nightmare's Critical Edge/SUPER can near OHKO her.  Her throws are awesome animation-wise though.

Ezio: Haven't played him much myself, but seeing others play and fighting him too much in Quick Battle's given me something resembling an insight.  He has a lot of variety and his crossbow is nine-flavors of bullshit.  Even top AI can be taken apart by it.

Viola: Viola is very, very difficult to use.  She requires an insane amount of set-up and positioning.  She has some damn insane range and lots of surprising attacks.

ZWEI: Pre-release info I read about him made me dread him.  A werewolf-ghost guy who uses a sword like a tonfa?  Even for a game with sentient swords and vampires and lizardmen that's almost too much.  Yet, he rarely actually does use the sword like a tonfa, and he's actually pretty decent all told for story purposes.  In combat he's all about setting things up with his werewolf-ghost.  His Critical Edge/SUPER does garbage damage so it's all about the set-up.

Xiba: Is basically just Journey to the West Goku.  Food-loving thickheaded.  Also he's Kilik's replacement so that means he's the glorious staff-cheese guy.  And what a way to cheese!  He's more involved then Kilik, which is like saying 2 is higher then 1.  His moves tend to be utterly hilarious or flashy, unlike Kilik's narrow-arse.

Natsu: Taki's replacement.  Despite being a red-headed ninja is actually not all that bad since she's constantly being snarky in her few, so very few, quotes.  Anyway, is, well, Taki.  Does too much damage for her speed and not as frail as she should be.  Also air combos and throws.

Ivy: Now wears a thong and thigh-high boots and one of those like noble-coats with the two folds out the back so they cover her buttcheeks.  She has a punch of weirdly placed moves and throws.  So, she's Ivy.

Astaroth: BULL RUSHING FRANKENSTEIN WITH AIR AND GROUND GRABS!

Aeon/Lizardman: Has wings for some reasons.  Also breathes fire. 

Rock: Isn't here at all thank god.

Alpha: Jesus if he can get going nothing can stop him.  Most of his moves are so hard to pull off though that it'll take a ton of practice to get down.

Omega: Is sorta, there?  Basiclly Pat and Pyrra with less air and more ground.

Algol: King of throwing everything everywhere.  Why he shoots giant black balls from spikes out of his chest I'll never get.

Mitsurugi: Still does too much damage for how fast he is.  Seriously, Natsu's combos should not be doing less damage to him then a single counter hit he does to her.  And half the highest AIs in quick battle are him for some dumb reason.

So uh, not all the cast but for the most part ones I've seen/played the most!  Which is so depressing, which you'll learn why this is the case and many things when we get unto story mode...

Soul Calibur V, Story Mode: It is a bad thing.  In order to paint a better picture, I'll talk about SC4's story mode, which was simple.  Pick your character, go through five fights/levels get your ending.  Short enough to want to beat with every character, and easy enough to beat with anyone you were unfamiliar with.  At the start you get your scrolling text of PLOT and at the end you get your, ending movie which ranged from awesome(Zasalamel's musing in the 21st century) to the ironic(Voldo guarding Soul Edge so well people stop coming for it and Soul Edge fades into nothing), to the weird(Amy pushing Rapheal into a put) to the incredibly stupid(WHY DID YOU RANDOMLY MURDER SIEGFRIED TAKI) to the stupidly feel-good ending(Talim).

Soul Calibur 5 will have none of that.  It's a series of 20is fights where your character is selected for you at all times.  And half the available cast don't appear and of the half that do so very few actually do anything.  Maxi and Natsu appear for one fight and contribute nothing to the plot.  Now for someone like Astaroth this is fine, but Natsu's supposed to be looking for Taki or something(not like the game tells you this, OR ANYTHING since character bios have vanished) and why's Maxi not hunting down Astaroth again?

Anyway, the story starts with a cutscene of Siegfried beating Nightmare, except the world doesn't end with being frozen over for some reason.  And now despite being in the perfect position to destroy Soul Edge he... doesn't.  So, fast forward 15 years for Patroklos to be fighting some rebels against his lord and stabbing dudes who look ugly because looked bad is a sure-fire sign of being evil!  Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere.  He's still looking for his kidnapped sister, so apparently Sophitia and Cassandra both failed.  Anyway, after getting his gut punched in by ZWEI his lord turns out to be evil and has Voldo for a guard(Also Voldo now has a manthong!).  So Patroklos somehow finds Siegfriend and gets Soul Calibur.  He then finds Tira and his sister Pyrrha and leaves for home because hey, mission accomplished.  Except HIS LORDO is waiting for him and is Nightmare.   So Pyrrha pulls out to fact that she's actually still feeding off of Soul Edge's power and beats Nightmare away then pat runs because he is scared out of his mind about Pyrrha's new CLAW!  This of course encourages him to repower Soul Calibur and kill her because he is a jackass.  Then he rewinds time and doesn't and they all live happily together forever.

Except nothing is really resolved.  Yay.  And just for some form of inconsistency, add Ivy, Astaroth, Viola, Xiang, Xiba, Natsu, Maxi, Edge Master to the list above to get everyone who actually appears in story.  Most of this group for no more then one actual scene.

So on to less... dumb, propositions.

Quick Play is gonna be the bread and butter for people wanting to play.  Offering 240 semi-randomly created opponents for you to fight!  Ranging from so dumb it's possible to get a triple-perfect(of yeah matches are best out of 5 now as the baseline for some dumb reason), to I never managed to get them below half health in nine rounds!  Currently I've taken down around 190 of the bastards.  With about 40 of those being through PURE Natsu cheese.

[Fenrir]

Pinwheel does a ton of damage with his clones, he's a glass canon. With a low damage character (priest), you can easily get bombarded and die.
You'll never hear the end of his cool boss theme in game in any case, this battle is quick.
Iron Golem is slow and all, but if he grabs you there's a good chance you're dead (Same thing, to a lesser extent, with Gaping Dragon), and if you're too busy locking at him all SotC style, you might fall into a pit yourself.

I never died against Seath except by getting way too careless (no curse protection) Just try getting to his tail and you pretty much can't get hit. I don't get it. Anticipation must have a good influence, yes. Just imagine Four Kings with no knowledge whatsoever of what's going to happen, and a crappy weapon that doesn't kill kings quickly enough (getting you into a fight with 3 of them at the same time).

I also hadn't figured out divine weapons killed skeletons by the time I got to Nito first time through. This was hell.



Dragon Quest Monsters Caravan Heart (GBA):

Lots of weird mechanics here, introduced to the player one by one.

The monsters are the core of the game. You can use three of them in battle at the same time. They learn skills by levelling up.
Killing a monster sometimes gives you its heart. Fuse two hearts with one monster (level 10 or higher) and you get a brand new level 1 monster that keeps all its skills and can eventually learn all the skills of the two original monsters the hearts come from. (you can only have 6 skills max though) Getting back to level 1 is not much of a problem since you keep something like ~75% of all your stats and get new levels at a crazy rate. The class of your new monster only seems to have an influence on growth rate.
So, pretty standard monster breeding system, with a good potential for broken.

Now, each monster gets a caravan. Each caravan has four slots where you can put people. Say, in order, a fighter, a priest, a mapper and a dancer. On turn 1, the fighter wil attack an enemy, on turn 2 the priest will heal, on turn 3 the mapper will do something that has probably no use, on turn 4 the dancer will do a little worthless, on turn 5 nothing happens, and on turn 6 the whole thing starts again.
Those dudes have no HPs/MPs, they only act as support to the monster who's guarding the caravan, and their stats are directly linked to the monster's stat.
Some people have an use outside of battle, the mapper can whip you some maps free of charge if you bring him with you, for example.
Obviously some dudes are better than others, that's why there's a weight system. Each dude and monster has a weight, and there's a max weight of 10 for each caravan.
An obviously awesome strategy is to put a priest on the first slot; this means free healing at the start of every battle.

There's also a food system, not unlike roguelikes. Move around and you'll use food/restore HPs. With no food, your Hps will go down.
Travel for a while and the caravan level will raise, enabling you to carry more food at the same time.
The old lady at the camp can refill your food for a price, 1G/ration.
Travelling on a plain consumes much less food than travelling in a forest, travelling in a forest consumes much less food than travelling on a hill/desert. Moving the main camp around (where there's your church, shop, the old lady, etc) also consumes a lot more food.


So, world 1 is nice enough. I have one slime, one caravan with three people inside, battles aren't tough, there's a nice guy that can give me free food, there's not even any boss.

World 2. Enemies aren't getting much better, but I consume a ton more rations than I get gold. After using up almost all my money, I panic and go back to the first world. Free food guy has disappeared. Oh god. How can a kid play this and not be terrified?
I start eating every item in the inventory (the lunchbox, the apples), and just when I have nothing left, I get my first merchant. If he gets a turn in battle, I get 10G. Screw the priest, I put that guy in the first slot. No more food issues, probably ever. The rest of the chapter is a breeze.

World 3. I get a new monster and a new caravan, enemies are getting tougher. I'm getting the hang of this game.
SOLO time! I only ever get to use one monster and his caravan.
I get my ass kicked, but eventually learn how to fuse monsters, and turn my puny one star slime into a cool two stars dragon. With the help of a little grinding, Sap and a lot of healing items (you can use an item and have the monster attack in the same turn, handy), that dragon beats and gets the heart of the first boss (a gargoyle)
I thus promptly fuse my dragon into a three stars (!!) dragon with additional healing. I grind some more to get him up to level 10 or so, laugh at the Melfice wannabe boss, and proceed to World 4. That's it for now.

[Fudozukushi]

I never died against Seath except by getting way too careless (no curse protection) Just try getting to his tail and you pretty much can't get hit. I don't get it. Anticipation must have a good influence, yes. Just imagine Four Kings with no knowledge whatsoever of what's going to happen, and a crappy weapon that doesn't kill kings quickly enough (getting you into a fight with 3 of them at the same time).

Seath is totally hard if you have someone screaming completely wrong facts at you.

[Twilkitri]

Solatorobo: Red The Hunter - played through, including all the DL missions (currently available? The last one I've done required that all other missions be completed first, so it seems reasonable to assume it's the last one)

Reasonably good. Very lightweight in areas which it isn't focused on, though, like SRTOGSEF. For example, character sprites in towns are low-res with small animations that loop endlessly -particularly annoying are Theria's, Chocolat's, and Arzane's. Along the same lines, some enemy mechs essentially have the faces of the pilots 'pasted' onto them rather than them being modelled, which is really noticeable when they're on certain angles.

I don't see any point to the Hunter Rank system, or at least any point which pleases me. For a start, all the storyline missions have a rank requirement, and only storyline missions have a rank requirement. For a followup, I was doing all the side missions possible before doing the storyline missions, and I was never more than one rank or so above the storyline mission requirements. So - doing side missions to increase your rank doesn't give you any rewards at all, while not bothering to do side missions ends up locking you out of storyline missions due to you not having a high enough rank.

I used only attack and hydraulics parts for customisation throughout the vast majority of the game and never had any problems, only swapping in a defence part for the boss rush missions. Never used mobility or revive at all. I feel like that indicates that there is something wrong with the customisation system, but I'm not sure what. Ended up with 10 sockets still locked on the second tier of customisation... I assumed that the corners were going to become available at some point as well, but they don't seem to have. Possibly they are on a different frame, but I never bothered with any of the other ones since the default one boosts attack/hydraulics and the others don't.

The racing mission type is fairly horrible, but after taking forever to beat the Suzette/Diamundo racing mission I didn't end up having any trouble with any of the rest, except for some amount with the second race in the scrap area.

Need to remember to nom Drop Of Light next time such a course of action is possible.

[DjinnAndTonic]

And yet thanks to the raw cheeze that is Heart Cannon,

If nothing else, I guess this is a testament to just how damn overpowered Heart Cannon is, because nothing says overpowered like tripling the number of attacks in your queue against a given target.

It is pretty overpowered, but honestly, I welcome any mechanic to Disgaea that increases the importance of positioning. Considering that the Lift/Throw mechanic is one of its biggest (only?) unique features for maingame playthroughs compared to other SRPGs, I'm okay with them tossing in a broken ability like this. It really made Dis4 play a lot differently than previous Disgaeas.

[Captain K.]

PSIV:  A cute android girl joins the team.  She has useful skills like accurate ID and revival.  She also gets upgrades to all her armor and weapons in this dungeon, making her the strongest character.  Odds of her being the next PC to leave the party?  100%.  But on a brighter note, Gryz finally leaves the party to make room for Hahn++.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere. 

Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.

[superaielman]

FF13-2: So we're now molesting sheep and changing weather patterns. This is clearly FF: Australia or something. Fang does have that accent...

[Niu]

RS3.12 - Forenus is down. He'll be the only noble devil I killed for a while. Took him down only because I need a few thing from the Ocean Palace. Namely the Meteor Shard and meeting Subier.
Grey learned Triple Thrust early made the fight much easier. Thanks to the termite quest let a few end game bugs make early appearance.
Then what's left is to tweak water immunity on everyone, place Alkaiser in the center of Flying Phoenix formation to absorb all physical danage, Mad Thunder ends up becoming Forenus's threatening offence. He went down pretty quick.

Now it is time to head to the east to complete the Demon Brand event so I can kick Grey out and put Asellus back. Meanwhile picking up Gerald but not making him nto Final Emperor yet.

Byunei is going down after I am done with the east, so I can finally access the lab.

[Clear Tranquil]

FF13-2 - Back in the Historia Crux after the boss fight with Caius in Oerba Joke fight? Ended in less than a minute and a half flat. Though not so much of a joke for Noel since the boss did manage to finish him off at least (which is kind of fitting given the plot) while I was busy kicking ass with Serah ^_^ Serah's SAB, RAV and Ruins are good stuffs. After the fight and returning to the Historia Crux via the gate with the new CPs I'd earned I was able to upgrade the Crystarium more and picked up other fondly rembered FFXIII SAB spells like Imperil. Shiny~


The area/plot progression path I've found myself in has went New Bodhum > Bresha Ruins > Sunleth Waterscape (yaay Vanille's theme after some story stuff~) > battle arena place > back to Sunleth > Yaschas Massif > Oerba so far. I briefly visited the Steppes after Sunleth but left after the opening scene so I could go back and follow the Yaschas arc =) The first encounter with the big boss at Sunleth was definitely something else compared to the most recent boss fight I've done. Considering Serah and Noel only had around 580~ HP with Cait Sith not having much either at that stage it was a long, painful, frantic fight full of paradigm shifting and SEN/SEN/MED + Potion spam abuse. Somehow I eventually won though. It was scary stuffs near the end of the fight when the boss used it's limit special and gained Haste so it kept constantly and rapidly attacking my characters but I managed to keep my head and shifted/healed fast enough to keep up with it. Also the first time I experienced the effects of the Wounded status proper as my entire team also became severely crippled by that near the end of the fight and it took me time to work out that's what it was. Thankfully I had a Wound Potion in my inventory.

Nice to see Oerba is as beautiful/haunting as ever~

[Talaysen]

FF13-2 - Back in the Historia Crux after the boss fight with Caius in Oerba Joke fight? Ended in less than a minute and a half flat. Though not so much of a joke for Noel since the boss did manage to finish him off at least (which is kind of fitting given the plot) while I was busy kicking ass with Serah ^_^ Serah's SAB, RAV and Ruins are good stuffs. After the fight and returning to the Historia Crux via the gate with the new CPs I'd earned I was able to upgrade the Crystarium more and picked up other fondly rembered FFXIII SAB spells like Imperil. Shiny~

That fight is ridiculous if you're not heavy on offense and underlevelled.  I had to change my setups for PROizn strats to win.

[Monkeyfinger]

You can afford to play much more defensively than normal in that fight, because you have Snow there as a guest constantly hitting the boss. That means you don't have to worry about the stagger gauge emptying out.

[Sierra]

Dark Souls: Demon Firesage got punked by a fire sword. Way to fail at being a firesage! Centipede Demon killed me a couple times, though. #1: "Oh, well, if you're just going to stand way over there, I guess I'll shoot arrows at you. Oh, he's winding his arm back for an attack, I should probably--" *splat* "...move..." #2 was a lot of me stabbing his feet while he stood over me, which went pretty well until he hit low health and went berserk with the red cyclone farts. Wasn't too bad once I knew to get out of the way of those.

So, Lost Izalith. Died once to Bed of Chaos and decided that fight could wait 'til tomorrow, called it a night. Though not before clearing the place. Solaire...Nooo, don't do this, bro! *GRIEF* But at least I saved Siegmeier, right? Right?! *warp to Ash Lake* ...Goddammit man, why did you just keep standing there in the poison slime? I didn't save anybody, did I.

[Fudozukushi]

Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere. 

Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.

Rapheal was hunting after Soul Calibur in 4 so he shouldn't have been anywhere near Sopthia.  Unless that whole Nightmare-is-possessing-Rapheal's-body thing is true and the SC5 Rapheal in-game is actually now a ghost-vampire.

Solaire...Nooo, don't do this, bro! *GRIEF* But at least I saved Siegmeier, right? Right?! *warp to Ash Lake* ...Goddammit man, why did you just keep standing there in the poison slime? I didn't save anybody, did I.

Welcome to my world!

[Captain K.]

I didn't do Siegmeyer correctly in either of my first two runthroughs.  So on the third I just killed him myself so I could finally get his ring.

[074]

It is pretty overpowered, but honestly, I welcome any mechanic to Disgaea that increases the importance of positioning. Considering that the Lift/Throw mechanic is one of its biggest (only?) unique features for maingame playthroughs compared to other SRPGs, I'm okay with them tossing in a broken ability like this. It really made Dis4 play a lot differently than previous Disgaeas.

Fair enough.  I admit Dis4 has made me consider positioning a good bit more than other Disgaeas.  The main story maps frequently have a lot of terrain variance that really makes it important that you have solid positioning and know your vertical tolerances for skills.  In theory, this capacity for massive vertical tolerance is an upside to Vulcanus...except that her damage is nowhere near the best and were it not for the fact that guns are awesome for Heart Cannon, her stats and damage output easily indicate "Healer".  :|

Speaking of which: Finally beat Disgaea 4.  Long analysis is going to be a while in coming, but suffice it to say my endgame level wasn't too far different from Dis3 (75 for Dis3, ~80 for Dis4, counting gains from killing boss support in the final area.  Of course, this is also spread over about 12 different PCs or so, whereas Tal's playthrough ended with the plot PCs being Level 100 or something I guess).  If I write my own stat topic I'll probably take Tal's endgame level just due to how it's a requirement for Desco's final skill (and it lets me use a good number of Tier 4 generics aside from the starter classes), but I'm most definitely treating the frequency of high-accuracy enemies (Archers, Gunners, Rifle Demons) as an outlier for stats, rather than let it destroy any semblance of evasion cast members may have.  Seriously, some of these guys had a HIT of 3300+.  You're not dodging that shit no matter how hard you try.

The ultimate testament to Heart Cannon bullshit?  An incomplete chain (8 out of a possible 10 people--Emizel got killed early and I couldn't get Val positioned just right) played out to its full potential against the final boss.  With a lot of his support still active.  The total damage?  ~32,000.  Out of 40,000 or so.  Credit for surviving a chain that long, but at the same time, god damn.  If I had gotten a full ten-action chain, I'm betting I could've one-rounded the final.

Speaking of the final...placing him is tricky, and it depends a lot on how much you'd allow support credit for him(It's not like Hugo where you'll get swarmed in short order.  Still say he's flat out one of the best fights in the game.) and let it affect his stats.  With the bonus, he'd be a decent Godlike off of the stats (Unlike Aurum, his basic physical does something, and he still has a -lot- of damage he can pump out with Fear the Great.)  Without....eeeeeh, his gimmick doesn't translate well to a duel and I'd see him as...probably a high Heavy (Special's still an OHKO, just nowhere near as strong of one.)

I admit I didn't use as much as I could have to my efforts to win; Magichanging my nekomata lategame would've given Fenrich an S-rank skill that would have been -stupid- off of the stat boosts he usually gets from Valvatorez.

And as one last note for tonight: Sardine Thief hype hasn't ended yet.  Catsabers have an S-rank skill by level 100.

[Clear Tranquil]

That fight is ridiculous if you're not heavy on offense and underlevelled.  I had to change my setups for PROizn strats to win.

Hahaha I used those with Vanille for similar situations in FFXIII too What levels were you for the first fight with Cauis Tal? I don't remember my exact levels before the fight but after upgrading my Crystarium back in the Historia Crux I now have Serah L38 COM, L38 RAV, L21 SAB, L6 SEN, LV1 MED and Noel with L40 COM, L40 RAV, L20 MED, LV 5 SEN, LV1 SYN for Noel. I've been mostly focusing on big MAG upgrades for Serah and STR/HP for Noel. As for monsters I have a maxxed out Pulse Knight, a L25 Cait Sith and a L15 Nekton in my current deck

Serah's Poison and Deshell/Deprotect/etc were still quite useful on the boss I think just Poison probably wasn't as useful as it would have been at lower levels.

Nekton is a nifty little critter for those missing XIII's Slow by the way. Nekton inflicts it as well as other debuffs with it's Spider Web Feral Link I think it's neat anyway~

**

Monkey - I forgot about that! Good point. That probably definitely helps with eventually breaking through the Sunleth boss's Regen too. Go Snow!~

[Meeplelard]

Patroklos boya here is Sophitia's son, raised by Cassandra because apparently Sopthia died in SC4 but you'll never know that because the game never says that anywhere. 

Apparently Raphael killed her, even though the two of them don't even fight in SC4? I would assume it was because she dared to challenge the Thin White Duke, and he shows no mercy.

Rapheal was hunting after Soul Calibur in 4 so he shouldn't have been anywhere near Sopthia.  Unless that whole Nightmare-is-possessing-Rapheal's-body thing is true and the SC5 Rapheal in-game is actually now a ghost-vampire.

I think the answer to this is quite simple:

SOUL CALIBUR PLOT!!!