What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[DjinnAndTonic]

Shin Megami Tensei Gaiden: Last Bible / Revelations: The Dragon Slayer (US Title):
Randomly stumbled across this little SMT title while looking through my completely-legal collection. It is SMT-style gameplay but in a standard tropetastic JRPG world that might well have been directly stolen from Final Fantasy IV...

Of course I loved it.

Finished it in about 8 hours with a guide and the emulator's 'go faster' button. I never knew this title even got -translated-. It's really fun collecting the various demons and fusing them together, and the fact that there's multiple human PCs to play around with really rounded out the experience. Plot was Lufia 3 bad, but I love Lufia 3 too. There's something about Gameboy Color RPGs that I can't help but love. I'd say it's nostalgia except that I never played a handheld RPG until GBA's Lunar Legend (and THAT most certainly did nothing to encourage me to play more handheld RPGs... >.>;; )

The final boss is named Lucifer, but other than that, I'm not sure what any of the game has to do with Last Bibles...

[Sierra]

Bayonetta: Well, it's basically a DMC game, so naturally I die a lot. Aside from some camera dickery, though, combat is pretty smooth and polished. Everything else is the expected manner of ridiculousness, which mostly just washes past me. Also, if Enzo isn't Joe Pesci, the voice actor is a pro at mimicking him.

[DjinnAndTonic]

So yeah, it looks like Disgaea 4's been putting out DLC for a while now. But now I have recruited Priere, so all is right with the world. Additionally, Nisa is available. Oh the fun I shall have. Currently playing the Tyrant Valvatorez flashback chapters. They're actually quite good storywise, assuming you like bromance. Fully-voiced and full of awesome. Looking forward to the release of the Zettai Hero Project Unlosing Ranger DLC! Then I can have -all- the Superhero N1 characters! Prism Red, Nisa, Unlosing Ranger, Dark Hero Axel, and a random Masked Hero would round things out. Kind of wish Almaz was available...

N1: gotta catch 'em all?

Reminds me that I need to buy Dis3 Vita

[dude789]

I had a hankering for some pokemon so I decided to start up a new play through on HeartGold and to make it more challenging I'm going to do a grass type only run again. It should be different from the RSE playthrough because the grass type pokemon are just so different from the ones available in RSE. So far, I just beat Morty's gym and the final team looks to be something like Victreebell, Meganium, Sunflora, Jumpluff, Exxegutor, and Tangrowth. Levels are around 21 and I have everyone except for Tangela. I feel that overall these are better pokemon than the ones available in RSE, but HG is a lot less kind for grass pokemon than RSE what with all the poison types running around.

The team definately feels a bit different right now. Right now my offense is almost entirely normal and grass type moves and it sucks not having a pokemon like Nuzleaf who can use Nature Power or something to get in some different attack types. The good news is that HG's grass types are a bit more traditional than RSE and I have much more access to status powders and leech seed compared to RSE where Breloom and Vileplum were the only ones who got them. It also feels like I have a lot of pokemon with Synthesis.

As far as significant battles go, mostly they've just been a matter of surviving while leech seed and poison wear down the opposition.  As such, Falkner, Bugsy and Morty have all been pretty hard. Bugsy and Morty both had pokemon who could 2HKO all of my guys and were faster (Scyther with u-turn, Gengar with shadow ball) and I had to wear them down with Bayleef and Sunflora respectively. Whitney and the rival battles have been pretty simple. Milktank loses to Bayleef one on one if it's been leech seeded and poisoned and the rival has been pretty dumb in all of the battles I've had against him. His Quilava preferred debuffing my guys instead of Flame Wheeling them which means he gets taken down by leech seed and poison. I think my team's movesets are going to get a little better soon so hopefully the future battles won't take as long.   

[Yoshiken]

DDS2: Fuck the Gate Core. It's fine normally - Flare Cannon isn't usually barely missing a OHKO, thanks to buffs/debuffs. In a DL-legal run, though, nobody gets those. That means Flare Cannon is potentially leaving people on single-digit HP. That's not too bad, though. What is is when the other two guns manage criticals/weakness every single time and somehow land them in just the right places to barely KO my party.

I should really either grind or just stop playing so I stop getting annoyed at games, but I'm apparently a sucker for being killed in the most irritating way repeatedly.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You're playing SMT. Being annoyed is the crux of the experience.

[Sierra]

Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.

I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.

[dude789]

Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.

I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.

Most of the levels will have these hidden teleporters called Alfheims hidden around where you have to beat up angles in a time limit with a certain restriction in place (enemies can only be hurt in witchtime, must use angel arms etc.) They look like yellow orange circles glowing on the ground. Doing the Alfheims will fill in the blank entries.

[Talaysen]

The core of the system is pretty good. Chain Capacity gives a great deal more flexibility than the typical normal combo -> Arte -> Arcane Arte mixup that is so overused in other Tales games. Most characters have Artes that function differently enough in terms of AoE/damage/typage/windup/recharge to make Chain Capacity pay off in terms of balancing various options for starting/ending/escaping from an attack sequence.

I think any moves do. Just spells takes longer to cast if you start with them, so the reduction effect takes longer to be apparent if you starts off with only spells.
A-Artes is much fast to use, you can acquire reduction of 3 actions worth in a just a few seconds.

This lines up with my experiences as well.  You can kind of see it if you use cheap B-Artes that cast quickly (Pyro Ring for example) but A-Artes are just faster still.

[Yoshiken]

DDS2: arghlefuck, reached Vritra. Here is where I lose all motivation to continue.
Tried it a few times already. First, got him to 25% before getting fucked over by Sonic Wave, of all things. Second try, I got wiped in one turn - Gelid Torrent off the bat, double-froze and 3 MT attacks after the Torrent meant Cielo couldn't survive. Well fuck.
One more try at Lv 38, grinding a little if this fails.

[Sierra]

Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.

I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.

Most of the levels will have these hidden teleporters called Alfheims hidden around where you have to beat up angles in a time limit with a certain restriction in place (enemies can only be hurt in witchtime, must use angel arms etc.) They look like yellow orange circles glowing on the ground. Doing the Alfheims will fill in the blank entries.

Ahh, I see. That would require me to actually be capable of clearing any of said challenges. Alas.

[AndrewRogue]

League of Legends: Derp, derp. More or less.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Disgaea 4: DLC

Finished up all the available DLC chapters/bonus battles for this. The Tyrant Valvatorez flashback chapters are the highlight here, though there's a fair number of hilarious scenes in the DLC PC's recruitment battles. Particularly liked Adell/Rozalin's. Looking forward to the Phantom Brave, Zettai Hero, and Baal package, as well as the new Desco/Fuka Mode.

So yes, lots of cool stuff. But mostly it's the fact that now I have pretty much the entire roster of world-destroying entities of the N1 universe at my command on a single team.

TL;DR:

[Meeplelard]

Bayonetta: Well, that's one way to make an exit, Jeane.

I get stone awards for every chapter. Not hugely surprising, but I notice the medal lineup on the score breakdown screens tend to have some blank entries. I guess I'm missing fights or something.

Most of the levels will have these hidden teleporters called Alfheims hidden around where you have to beat up angles in a time limit with a certain restriction in place (enemies can only be hurt in witchtime, must use angel arms etc.) They look like yellow orange circles glowing on the ground. Doing the Alfheims will fill in the blank entries.

Ahh, I see. That would require me to actually be capable of clearing any of said challenges. Alas.

First off, if you get to an Alfenheim, I'd say try it out first, and see what the requirements are.  Some are actually not too bad like "Beat this fight with only taking 3 hits!", which is a good opportunity to practice dodging at no real penalty, and possibly get reward in the process.

Secondly, some of the fights do require some backtracking.  The game will always tell you what Verse you've just completed, so you can check if you've missed any kind of through that.

You don't have to do all of them, of course, if you're playing casually and just want to finish the game, but if you want a COMPLETE PLAYTHROUGH!!!!! or something, you'll need to do them all, but seeing as you are probably skipping Alfenheims (which count in this regard), its probably best you don't bother worrying about it too much.

[Sierra]

Did I really just kill an angel by chaining her astride a metal horse and stomping her into pieces. Is this really a thing that just happened. I think it is.

Re: Alfheim, yeah I'll always walk in and give it a try if I find one because why the hell not. Haven't passed one yet. No real plans on going back for 'em. As with DMC3, game is fun enough for me to keep going but not so much my style that I want to do a completionist run.

[Yoshiken]

DDS2, DL-legal run: So apparently I wasn't Lv 38, my levels were 36/36/34. Checked a guide, it recommends 35-40, and that's with things like Void Fire, Dekunda and Sera being able to do something useful.
Welp. Now I'm 37/37/36, and cheating slightly. (Using Karma Rings, for all that I'm selling away all of the gems to boost them.)

Not really sure how to take the Hidden Mantra on the Mantra Grid. I guess, in a DL-legal playthrough, if they're activated, then they'll go towards their final stats/the averages. Not that it matters hugely, it just draws in the curve a bit.

Anyways, first run at Vritra with new levels, and I get murdered on the first Inferno Roar because of Sonic Wave -again-. Fenrir, are you sure that's 20%? I'm consistently getting at least one, usually two characters hit by it, and not just because of Cielo's weakness. But anyway, I'd decided Sera could have Bufudyne so she could take out Tentacles. Turns out, having Bufudyne while Panicked and using it instantly to waste all of my turns -isn't good-. Next Inferno Roar left Gale on 11, and he got Panicked as well. Well. Fuck.

Edit: Second try at these levels is a win! Apparently, only getting silenced by Silent Howl once, never missing with Zionga/Zanma and having Vritra spam Gelid Torrents at the end, right into Ice Drain, means I'm very likely to win.

[Shale]

SRWZ2: This game is so broken you guys. SO BROKEN.

For one minor example, let's take the Love spirit. It's one of the most desirable spirits in the game - damage, guaranteed hit, immunity to the next attack, extra experience and cash.

There's an item that casts Love for free once per battle.
There's an original who gets Love for 40 SP, in a game where SP totals run in the mid-100s with 12 stages to go.
And then there's Basara, who can cast what is essentially Love (minus the guaranteed hit) on up to four people at once for 35 SP. And he comes with SP Regen.

So....yeah. It's a testament to the shocking competence of original enemies in this one that I've still managed to have people die in the last couple of stages.

[Nephrite]

SRWZ2: This game is so broken you guys. SO BROKEN.

For one minor example, let's take the Love spirit. It's one of the most desirable spirits in the game - damage, guaranteed hit, immunity to the next attack, extra experience and cash.

There's an item that casts Love for free once per battle.
There's an original who gets Love for 40 SP, in a game where SP totals run in the mid-100s with 12 stages to go.
And then there's Basara, who can cast what is essentially Love (minus the guaranteed hit) on up to four people at once for 35 SP. And he comes with SP Regen.

So....yeah. It's a testament to the shocking competence of original enemies in this one that I've still managed to have people die in the last couple of stages.

Whatever spirits Basara has on him at the time (less Gain and Lucky since they're automatically transferred) are transferred via that spell. So... Hot Blood, Awaken, Accelerate, Lock On, Concentrate.

You can indeed transfer what is effectively Love to four people.

[Meeplelard]

Did I really just kill an angel by chaining her astride a metal horse and stomping her into pieces. Is this really a thing that just happened. I think it is.

And that isn't even remotely close to the nonsense you'll be seeing later in the game!

[DjinnAndTonic]

Lost Odyssey:
Still putting away at this. The level of quality "JRPG-ness" has dropped considerably, though it's still pretty good for a standard JRPG. The cackling-mad villain is starting to grow on me in an ironic way, which changes the whole experience. Also, Tolten is such a dumbass. How long do you need to figure out that someone is evil when you -catch them standing dramatically over the ruins of a disaster, cackling evilly-?!

It's called genre-savvy. Get some.

Also, I thought I noticed a few other people playing this on backloggery - any updates on where you guys are?

[Shale]

Well, I figured out what can make me ignore Z2-2 for a while. Diablo 3 beta. Free weekend. This will either be awesome or horrible, but at least I'll find out.

[Captain K.]

Witcher 2:  Everyone in this game is either bald, or wearing a head-covering to cover up their baldness.  Seriously, watch this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6Ri3HqKvig&feature=player_embedded

Only the main character has hair, which is to make it obvious to the person playing the game that he is the main character.  He's like Bobobo-bo-bobobo fighting the Hair Kingdom.

Anyway, Bobobo has recently failed to stop the evil Hair Hunter from killing King Foltest.  Honestly, shouldn't he have seen that coming from the title of the game?

And before someone says that Triss has hair, that is obviously a wig.  I saw her naked, and she is like chemo-patient hairless.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Lost Odyssey - Huh, the first boss was pretty legit.

Not much to say past that. Glad that we finally got some gameplay, it was getting a bit slow. Gongara is such a great human being, he just saved Tolten's life! I'm glad we're working for this guy. Also Jansen is a complete idiot, I just can't decide if he's a funny one or not.

The game's voice acting and especially body language/motion capture work is a bit stiff, unfortunately, which really hurts the epic storytelling feel they're going for. Ah well.

The game is very clearly in the same series as Blue Dragon, but the tone is just so utterly different. It's a bit jarring. All I will say is, thank god we didn't get a thousand years of Shu's dreams. Nobody wants to see that.

[DjinnAndTonic]

The game is very clearly in the same series as Blue Dragon, but the tone is just so utterly different. It's a bit jarring.

Wait, whut? Why is this the first I'm hearing of this?

Also... how?

[Cmdr_King]

I think he means same series in the same way FF games are the same series.