What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Fudozukushi]

Last Andy Dark Souls post I can be arsed to find.

Pft. PFT. A real man only needs ONE weapon and is totally willing to just aggro all 8 skeletons to kill the necro.

I'd rather just ignore Tomb of Giants forever, though. I've had one experience with it on my previous playthrough. I think I made it 10 feet before I decided I had entered hell and would run away screaming.

Then a giant skeleton killed me.

Now unto my.... glory...  yeah... glory...

45. Wasps+Swamp=BULLSHIT!
46. Quelaag uses me as a butt post.
47. Quelaag uses me as a plate.
48. Quelaag, she slices, she dices!
49. Ceasless Discharged all over the place.
50! Chaos Ember suicide run.
51 Lava run, trying to get that other useless prize.  Go the wrong way!
52. Lava run 2.  Go the right way, just not allowed up on the little island for whatever dumbass reason.
53. Capra demon felt that being fair was impossible.  Seriously, took out all my stamina and 90% of my life in one hit!
54. Worm jackass eats me.  Did you know that pyro hands can actually tak durability damage?  And when they get broken they lose all scaling?  I DIDNT"!
55. Taurous demon decides that completely ignoring my shield is fair.  Bye bye 60k souls and 5 humanity.
56. Crushed by a boulder while trying to grab Acid Cloud.  I deserved it.  Then I learned they weren't guarding Acid Cloud and I cried.  What I was looking for was Poison Mist which I bought from Eingyi and wasted 10k souls on.  CRY.
57. Dog chew toy.
58. Sif slice and dice special.
59. Sif slice and dice not-even-able-to-take-three-steps-in special.

New record for most amount of deaths in one session!

General Notes
-If I hadn't lost those souls Pyro Hand would be at Ascended+5.  But right now I languish at +3.
-Chaos and Large Fire get.  Will probably make a trip down to Vamos to get a Fire Reinforced Club+6.
-Nearly everything I can kill outside of Sen's is dead.  Taruous Demon will be my second-to-last boss kill, Ash Lake Hydra is far too annoying a trip without the Lordvessal, and since I don't like randomly murdering NPCs I'm not doing the 4K.
-Joined Chaos Servant to get he pyromancy.  On that note, did you know that Kirk is actually a Chaos Servant?  COMEDY*!
-Didn't actually get the Gargoyle Tail Ax.  My club literally three-shotted him.
-Maybe it's just being a greatshield user for...ever, but man does everything just love to destroy my stamina.
-Randomly had a bunch of enemies give me half souls.
-Reinforced Club+10 with Magic Weapon did over twice the damage of the Magic Reinforced Club+4
-I got eggheaded for fun and profit.  Got rid of it for Sif though.

Current Goals
-Upgrade my Fire Reinforced Club
-Beat Sen's
-Get my Lightning Reinforced Club
-Beat Anor Londo
-Cry?  That or have a panic attack.
-Probably get my pyro-hand to +5.

[Scar]

Pokemon White

This game is fun.

I am 6 badges in and currently trying to evolve some of the random pokemon I have found.

Oh I got my first legendary too. that steel fighting pokemon guy. I nicknamed him Boshzilla.

I started out as grass. I am finding it a chore to find fire pokemon! I have two I think in my entire arsenal. 

i think this is the first pokemon game that I have specifically given EVERY pokemon I captured a nickname.

Some of the pokemon I have enjoyed have been the electro-spider. I nicknamed him Goldbug.

My starter is ok, I was hoping for better, but he will do for the time being.

The water tadpole thing is good. He just fears grass types like a mofo!

The dog you get early on is my TM whore because he gets surf and strength!

Haven't found a fun Dark type to tote around yet.

Think my highest level pokemon is that Gurdurr guy at 38...

I'm not using any guides this time in a pokemon game which is a first so figuring out who needs what in order to evolve is tricky!

Having fun getting immersed in these damn games again...and I think I got my gf addicted too. I bought her Black and she is about in the same area as me.  (she chose water and hr pokemon looks cooler than mine!) =(

[AndrewRogue]

Indeed, it appears I was last at Sen's Fortress. I also remembered my build was apparently RAWR STR, rawr End, eh some Dex. I wield a Zweinhander. If I recall correctly, that is all I wield. I may screw around with other melee weapons, but I believe I have 100% forsaken ranged weapons and pyromancy for the entirety of the game.

Anyhow, through Sen's Fortress (although I didn't explore much). Scored about 10 deaths on the second axe bridge, because pendulums + lightning snake = obnoxious.

One shot Iron Golem.

Over to Anor Londo now. Made it into the Cathedral and died a couple times to accidentally falling or thinking it was safe to drop to the floor.

Just using a +10 Zweinhander because I'm not sure what to do with it. Armor is a mish mash that I can't recall away from the screen.

If I recall correctly, I think I have killed...

Asylum Demon
Bell Gargoyle
Capra Demon
Ceaseless Discharge
Chaos Witch Quelaag
Gaping Dragon
Iron Golem
Moonlight Butterfly
Pinwheel
Stray Demon
Taurus Demon

[Sierra]

You really don't need much else if you've got Zweihander +10, yeah.

And Fudo: magic weapons are totally worthless unless you're running a pure sorcerer and therefore have ass for all offensive stats but INT. And even then they're outclassed by the mage-oriented boss weapons. In other words, the blue titanite slab is the biggest troll move in the game. I died more trying to get that than to almost any individual boss.

[AndrewRogue]

Are there any Ultra/Great Swords that have swing patterns half as amazing as the Zweinhander?

Dat R2.

[Fudozukushi]

You really don't need much else if you've got Zweihander +10, yeah.

And Fudo: magic weapons are totally worthless unless you're running a pure sorcerer and therefore have ass for all offensive stats but INT. And even then they're outclassed by the mage-oriented boss weapons. In other words, the blue titanite slab is the biggest troll move in the game. I died more trying to get that than to almost any individual boss.

I need to get the Magic Reinforce trophy, which is why I'm still upgrading it despite being crap.

[Grefter]

Not especially El Cid.  That is honestly the weakest point of ME1 was that it had less dialogue with the party (and is partly why everyone loves Garus and Wrex because they have the most).

Saints Row 3 - Most of the way through this.  It is dumb fun as people wil have heard.  I am starting to hate missions with picking people up and driving them places.  My brothers are sick of me yelling "Get in The fucking car!" at my computer.  They will just stand around getting shot at or while your car soaks up damage for ages and it is so aggravating that the hard part of a mission isn't the escape or picking up people, it is just getting them into any kind of vehicle.

[Fudozukushi]

DARK SOULS!

60. Shiva got sick of my shit and pushed it in.
61. Silver Knight Sword through a pillar.  That's a new one.
62. Silver Knight spear through a table.  That's a dumb one.
63. Silver Knight spear somehow kills me when I'm behind him.  Sense takes all leave.
64. Silver Knights swings for the fences.
65. Silver Knights blocks his back too well.  Surprising because the shield is in front of him and not actually raised.
66. Ornstein and Smough(actually entirely Ornstein) kill me before I can even hit them once.
67. Ornstein's spear of death claims me again.  At least I get a hit on him this time.
68. Manage to kill Ornstein this time, but I completely and utterly fuck up my positioning on Smough and get trapped in a corner.
69. Trapped in Smough's death zone.
70. Fell to my death in Painted World.  One of those holes in a roof led to death instead of the floor below.  LOGIC!
71. Royal Sentinel didn't take kindly to all my warpping.
72. Blue phantoming in the Undead Burg.  Get dragon-head glitch pushed around off a ledge.  Was actually funny.
73. Same invade as above.  This time it's poor netcode that gets me.
74. Same person AGAIN.  But I get the last laugh as I manage a good meaty hit and a Hollow Soldier finishes her off hahahahahaha!

15 deaths again.  Giggity.

General Notes
-Grabbed the Dusk Grain Ring.  It's awesome!
-Sen's and Anor Londa went disturbingly easy.  Easiest time I've ever had.
-All those Silver Knight deaths?  All from trying to farm a Silver Shield.  When the damn thing finally drops I learn I don't have the Strength for it hahahahhaa....
-Pyro Hand at +5.
-Painted World also went easy.  I believe this is setting me up for some horrific fall against New Londo and the Four Kings.
-I've been in every Covenant except Darkwraith at this point.
-Only managed to land the killing blow on one guilty target, self-death and Hollow Soldier took two others.
-Current and probably final armor load-out is Father Mask/Xanthous Overcoat/Smough Gauntlets/Smough Leggings.

Current Goals
-Get 10 Souvenirs of Reprisal so I can get the Miracle.  5 to go!
-Get 10 Eyes of Death so I can get the Miracle.  1 to go!
-Get 10 Sunlight Medals so I can get the Miracle.  5 to go!
-Get 30 Humanity so I can get the Pyromancy.  5 to go?
-Putz around dreading Four Kings.
-Farm Titanite Chunks so I can get my Lightning Reinforced Club to +5.  Also get a Lightning Crossbow.
-Hopefully kill the Four Kings!

[Fenrir]

What's your b.net ID?

If it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you mind sticking that information in http://www.rpgdl.com/forums/index.php/topic,6057.0.html as well?  Always good to know who plays what for easy cross-referencing.

Diablo 3 isn't on my computer (I'm just borrowing an account) so I can't share.
(Xbox: Not paying for Gold. PS3: No multiplayer games. With the excepting ofLord of the Rings War in the North now (It sucks) Souls game don't count)

I have found this to be true of every Bioware game I've played. Are people surprised at this point that they tend to fail on plot? Or were ME1&2 actually better about that?

Yeah, agreed. What's different in ME3 is that conversations between NPCs you can hear while walking around are often more interesting than the usual conversations with the Normandy crew. (I blame the smaller, less interesting roster compared to ME2, for all that Dudebro surprised me)

Etrian Odyssey 3: Finished. This took a while. The game ending pretty much laughed at me. Turns out that there's an obscure Castlevania like FRUE ending with more bosses, but it's locked to me now because I didn't put the Holy Relic on the Magestic Pedestal while hopping on one leg before.
No strength to continue into post game after that (or do an extremely easy NG+)

Party:
Monk: Heals everything. Can't imagine going without him; Prince's healing looks laughable.
Gladiator: Does all the damage, and lowers defense. Felt overpowered, then I gave him one of those 200k gold weapons after a few Farmer only runs.
Arbalist: Straight up worse than the gladiator.... She's from the back row but who cares? She has some MT damage, but that's nothing compared to...
Zodiac: Very useful for those bosses with good defense, as expected. Subpar otherwise. He went from gamebest to near gameworst damage, but lategame he can use that very useful "No MP consumption on one row, at all" magic.
Wildling: Summon something -> Unsummon something >>> Randoms. He just isn't terribly useful for bosses past one point, but that beast can still take some extra hits.

[Grefter]

I am finding in EO3 that it is the first one that I am actually planning to retrain characters to use other skills and Combat Study is letting me plan to swap out characters as I move on.  My solution to Monk VS Prince was to use both early on and I am going to put the Prince on the wayside once I am comfortable in the Monk's ability to do things I want him to unaided, will swap out my Arbalest for a Ninja/Zodiac for unlimited manaz and the Prince for a Gladiator.  Well that is pretty much the long term plan anyway.  Not sure at what point I will make the change over.  I need to retrain sometime in general to reshift the focus of my Hoplite and maybe clean up some of the skill selection on the Buccaneer.

[Talaysen]

Etrian Odyssey 3: Finished. This took a while. The game ending pretty much laughed at me. Turns out that there's an obscure Castlevania like FRUE ending with more bosses, but it's locked to me now because I didn't put the Holy Relic on the Magestic Pedestal while hopping on one leg before.
No strength to continue into post game after that (or do an extremely easy NG+)

The frue ending requires NG+ anyway from what I remember.

[Tide]

Grandia 2 LLG -

Claws of Valmar:
Took a while to get there since there are a few dungeons and a lot of plot scenes to go through. Before the fight, preparations are as follows:

- Ryudo gets the Silver Freeze from the ARM WRESTLING mini-game. This is his strongest sword to date and can item-cast Freeze. He never had to use it, but I got it because Freeze is likely to help with Melfice. His armor is the Illusion Clothes (+5% evade) and the Mirage Earrings as his accessory (+15% evade).
- Millenia gets the Glass Slippers for +20 Act, again, from the ARM WRESTLING mini-game. Nothing else of note.
- Roan and Mareg get nothing special. Mareg gets a new weapon and Roan equips the POIZN knife although neither had to use their attacks ever during the fight.

For skills/magic:
- Diggin gets maxed. Holy Egg gains Magic Seal and Move Seal spells. Zapfire Chant gets invested to improve spell cast damage. A third HP Up gets invested into and maxed, so now three characters can run around with +800 HP. An additional level of Act is invested into so now it is at +30 (I think).
- Before entering the dungeon, I mass buy 20 Icefang stones and about 10 Holy Wound Salves and 10 Scroll of Alhealers.

Now as for the fight itself, the claws' support (left and right claw) have a couple of fatal weaknesses. The left claw can be silenced, and the right claw can be slept. Both claws can be Move Sealed. As such, Ryudo becomes the status whore and spends the first several turns shutting the support options down. The main part can cash Refresh to remove it, but he can only remove one claw's status. With the support crippled, they can only attack physically, which is slower (they have to move to hit you) and evadable (see Ryudo's set up). The main claw doesn't become that big of a threat. Avenging Claw is the move that needs to be defended or cancelled as it deals a lot of damage (about 800+ through 5 Diggins I estimate). It is however ST. It also has Inferno Breath which is fan fire in front of it. The key to keeping damage manageable is to spread out so that the fan/line attacks can't hit everyone at once. For offense, with Millenia getting a boost in Burnflame and the 20 Icefang Stones I bought, I can sling both for about 600/1000 damage each. The support at once point manages to cast Healer once or twice or the main body, so I had to spend a few turns more than normal. Overall, pretty manageable.

Team's levels now are: 20, 20, 21, 20 respectively for Ryudo, Elena, Mareg, Tio.

[AndrewRogue]

Painted World explored. Woman with tail and scythe told me everyone there was friendly. My experience with the fire breathing toxic bastards disagrees. Still, she is sorta cute, so I spare her.

Avenge the Fire Keeper in a simultaneous deathblow.

Ornstein and Smough prove to be complete assholes, but Sunbro  makes the save around attempt 6.

Wearing Zweinhander +10, Silver Knight Shield, Haval's set, Ring of Favor and Protection, and Haval's Ring.

[Meeplelard]

MGS3 HD:  Started this.  Not much else to say other than noticing already how much is changed (for better or worse) relative to previous games.

[Fenrir]

I am finding in EO3 that it is the first one that I am actually planning to retrain characters to use other skills and Combat Study is letting me plan to swap out characters as I move on.

Yes. You have to know about it beforehand though (I didn't), since the description is badly translated and RPG instincts are going to tell you that no skill in the game would possibly give your benched characters 100% exp.


Dragon Age 2: Went into that game with an open mind.
Such terrible gameplay! There are tons of enemy reinforcements in almost every battle! Unlike Fire Emblem, about one half of the total enemy force is a reinforcement. Mostly archer appearing out of nowhere and sniping your ass. Insanity.
Combat itself is Baldur's Gate's... Except you can only control one character. Trying to have real control over more than one character is very unintuitive and imprecise. There are gambits but... They just don't work well here. FF12's gambits kinda worked because movement didn't have such a massive role in that game (and you had 3 characters instead of 4)
Oh and there's level scaling.
This is probably going to be the first time I chicken out of a high difficulty mode in an RPG. It's not necesseraly a totally brainless game, but player input is too unimportant for me to care.
Picture FFT, except you can only control one character from your team, the others have to rely on AI and gambits like "Run away when you're surrounded by 3 enemies". Does anyone would want to play a very hard mode of that game?

Plot, quest, skill and money are all handed well. (and ruined by gameplay) Money is actually what Dragon Age games do the best.

[Grefter]

Yeah I would honestly say straight up put it on Easy and just rush through the grindy gameplay.  It is pretty easilly the worst Bioware game for gameplay unless you are absolutely adamant against point and click interfaces and are playing the console version.

Saints Row 3 - Finished.  It is okay GTA clone.  Less good than San Andreas, controls better than Vice City and is sure as shit more fun than GTA4.  Floats generally around that same tier of play that Rockstar set which is better than the second one did on PC (controls bad).

[AndrewRogue]

Have to ask as well. What version are you playing?

[Fenrir]

PS3.

Controlling two or three party members in Console DAO was a bit of a chore but still manageable, I thought doing the same thing in DA2 wouldn't be this unpleasant...
Is the PC version still vastly better about that with DA2, or something? (Didn't really seem so)

[AndrewRogue]

Plays like a standard isotropic RPG on PC. So I had no problem with multiple PCs.

[Grefter]

It also helps that on Normal the game is pretty much a cakewalk.  I specifically didn't play DA2 replay on hard because I didn't trust myself to be able to do the fine level of control I thought I would need.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Saints Row 3 - Finished.  It is okay GTA clone.  Less good than San Andreas, controls better than Vice City and is sure as shit more fun than GTA4.  Floats generally around that same tier of play that Rockstar set which is better than the second one did on PC (controls bad).

As someone who is currently playing GTA:SA and recently finished SR3 I have to disagree simply based on how user-unfriendly SA is by comparison.

[Shale]

Holy shit, my Internet doesn't suck anymore. It took six hours with a Verizon tech but I don't lose connection every ten minutes now. Thus: back to Diablo!

Finished Nightmare, almost to the Skeleton King in Hell. Finally triggered Matriarch's Bones! About damn time.

[Niu]

GoC6 - This really is a Union series game instead of IF game. On top of that, this is a SRPG with no battle animation. Think SRW with the skip option on the whole time.

[SnowFire]

Portal 2
Pretty awesome despite some niggling bits.  But really, the niggles only stand out because the game must be compared with Portal.  Wheatley & GlaDOS are a ton of fun, lots more quotable lines, although nothing as memetic as cake / companion cube as Zero Punctuation pointed out.

If I have a complaint with the game, it's the middle Cave Johnson section.  See...  despite the fact that it was a puzzle game, Portal succeeded entirely as a horror / thriller, too.  You are trapped under the thumb of an insane AI, do something about it.  It works!  While I'm glad Portal 2 decided to mix things up and let you escape from GlaDOS once more after the first third, the logical place to go afterward is some kind of Half-Life 2 mashup with Chelle escaping to the rest of the world.  Instead, thanks to BS Valve railroading, just walking out is inexplicably not an option.  You are forcibly led to old Aperture, still in working order despite not having a godlike AI cleaning up, to solve more puzzles.  GlaDOS says sarcastically "you must really, really love to test" after being resurrected; I guess she was right and Chelle was just pumped up for some more deadly testing.  Okay you can maaaaaaaaaaybe argue that Chelle was searching for GlaDOS and somehow knew she'd been flown inside of old Aperture AND wanted to use her to displace Wheatley, but meh.  I'm fine with the Chelle - GlaDOS teamup for sheer comedy value for all that it doesn't really work dramatically.  "Have I lied to you? I mean, in this room?" does not really make for someone Chelle would run for to get an ally; just run away and if Wheatley manages to blow the facility up you'll probably be out of the blast radius since you do have a portal gun and all.  Of course, with a silent protagonist, it'd have been hard to sell some new goal as an excuse to WANT to go to old Aperture; you can do "escape" pretty easily, but not "quest for potatOS."  So yeah, part 2 & 3 work for gameplay & comedy, just not really for the srs bizness side of Portal.

A more minor complaint was that P2 definitely played up the cerebral puzzles over the time pressure puzzles, but whatever, the puzzles were still pretty good by & large. 

Anybody w/ Steam Portal 2 not done the multiplayer maps yet?  Ping me!

Ys: The Oath in Felghana
Niu, I'd argue that "monster-infested mine" is clearly more core to the Ys experience than your other options.  Adol's only 1/3 in drowning and Dogi is 2/3 in wall-breaking, but the world seems to have quite a knack for combining mines & monsters.  Also everybody giving Adol their treasured family heirlooms handed down throughout the generations because he's clearly the chosen one is also clearly a key feature of Ys games.

Anyway.  Fun stuff!  Good combat, which is the big draw - Ys I combat was just aggravating, and Ys II combat against randoms was trivially easy.  It's fun to fight through the hordes.  Also the plot has been rewritten into something actually sort of good, for a SNES traveling silent hero anointed with cool powers fighting evil type setup.  Ys I & Ys II were, at best, something like the story of Jason in Greek myth - goddesses come down and hand him magic artifacts and guide his path all the time.  That's still in Oath, a little (the big with Genos granting his power), but at least it feels like Adol is helping out because he wants to, not because destiny forced his hand.  (The big with the exploding crystal ball in the intro novella was amusing too.)  As usual the RPG elements are a little bit too powerful for my taste - it was not uncommon to run a dungeon and be viciously challenged by the enemies, which was fun & exciting, then get *eviscerated* by the boss.  After gearing up & cleaning out the dungeon for goodies one more time, Adol steamrolls the random enemies he once feared greatly, and now the boss is suddenly far more manageable.  Ah, subtractive defense.  At least there's enough skill in the fight that you have to work to beat most of the bosses at a reasonable level, which is good; better super-difficult -> good fight rather then good fight-> lol on the level scale.

Spoilery plot comments:

I liked McGuire ending up being a vanilla bad ruler rather than some megalomaniac.  Yeah high taxes are annoying but he's not exactly a monster.  It's unclear exactly how much culpability he bears for the Genos Island thing, but I'll assume it was the Bishop's op which ended up bloodier than advertised.  Speaking of which, the Bishop Nikolai & Sister Nell twist was pretty well done.  I was really not expecting Nell to be Dularn but sure I buy it.

Adol handing the statues to Chester was usual video game BS.  Adol you coward, he TOLD you what he's going to do with them.  Much as you're friends with Dogi, you do not trade your friend's life for hundreds of innocents!  I guess they didn't want to godmode Chester into beating Adol or something, which I respect, but I wish they could have figured out a different excuse for Chester to get the statues - trickery or something.  Why are JRPGs so obsessed with this kind of twist, anyway.  Damnit heroes, stop trading the ultimate destruction artifacts to get your significant other back.

Chester had no regrets, Elena?!  WTF!  If he hadn't died back on the island, we may have had to kill him for psychotic ill-directed mass murder.  To his credit, he DID regret murdering most everyone in Valestein Castle in about the most foul way possible.

Oddly enough Oath in Felghana is one of the rare game plots that would translate decently into a movie.  Games have far more time to develop setting & do meandering plots than movies, and the games with light plots tend to also be terrible plots to translate into movies.  I could easily see a low budget fantasy epic basically run with a mildly simplified version of Oath's plot.

I randomly loaded up Ys 3 SNES ROM which I recall briefly trying and finding the game terrible.  The game is still terrible, but some amusing differences.  Adol talks!  (Why the regression?!)  It's Dogi who has his fortune told, and this time the fortune teller is helpful enough to say "Galbalan!!1!" rather than just clamming up.  It's ELLENA not Elena (explains the pronunciation at least), Robert not Bob (sure), the villains are more plotless, and Chester's plan is dumber.  Also the music sucks, amazing what the remixers did with it in Oath, making totally bland & pedestrian dungeon themes awesome.

And oh yes, let's not forget the obvious, the soundtrack is amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGTeMaChKVg&feature=BFa&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnNgMaXapDM&feature=autoplay&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9eVKSZVD5o&feature=BFa&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKvJ_pjGmbc&feature=autoplay&list=PL3A6421B7047011D5

--
Starting up FF13-2 and Ys 7 now.  Yech at the art style to Ys 7.  Ys I-III have been vanilla anime, nothing special but nothing off, while Ys 7 seems to be imitating 80s American cartoons a la Bluth.  Also we're in !Africa but everyone is still lily white.  I see.

FF13-2...  I'm less concerned by time travel than usual because the gaping, gigantic, massive unresolved plot thread the characters inexplicably ignored in FF13 was WTF happened to Pulse, so maybe we can do something Xenosaga 3 Disc 1ish here.  That said we seem to be looking the wrong way - I don't care about the future, I care about the past.  You better hook me up with some resolution, Serah, I'm counting on you.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Your eye for caring about Ys plot amuses and endears me in ways I didn't even think possible. It's so entertaining.