What Games ya Playin' 2012 - Suplex a Train Edition

[Cotigo]

Bought a copy of Mother 2.  Trying to play through it but it has this problem where if the console moves even slightly the game crashes and I have to restart.  Frustrating. 

I'm getting ready to fight Frank.  Having to restart frequently makes the game really frustrating and I think I'll just download a rom after much more frustration.  Turns out as far as Japanese study goes replaying RPGs in Japanese may be a great way to do it since I basically already know what people are saying.  Also, given that I learned to read English in part thanks to these RPGs it just kind of makes sense.  Plus I get to play Earthbound and call it studying. 

Speaking of, at a store in the city, I bought boxes of SNES games that may or may not work.  These things are kind of a lottery both because of that and because they only show you 12 of the 30 games you're getting.  Incidentally, I now own a possibly-working copy of every SNES MMX game, a bunch of RPGs I may or may not care about, a possibly-working Super Mario RPG, and a possibly working FF6. 

On top of that, I have a bunch of games that are complete ass.  Like, just completely fucking awful.  You think Breath of Fire sucks? FF4? Dragon Quest? Fuck you, these are worse.  Turns out a lot of the games they weren't localizing is because they are fucking terrible.  Of those that I've played so far, one is a shitty pachinko game, and the other is a VN game where you are a high school student and you need to box these guys in the boxing club but you don't actually control any of the fighting and it's just bad bad bad bad bad.

In related news, since I'm playing on a Super Famicom, does anyone have any idea on how I can stream these awful games for the amusement of the masses?

[SnowFire]

Cid: I loved Heavy Rain, but yeah, ideally they'd have even more endings written for it.  They have a pretty decent number already (like ~5 or so major ones IIRC?), but obviously some of them are a bit screwed up, and none of them really sell me on Ethan's relationship with the police.  It seems to be either "shoot him on sight because that's what you do to suspects with their hands in the air right?!" or let him off totally.  Needed to be more "rot in jail" versions, especially when Jayden dies as you apparently had him, and especially if you go through with the murder.  For me, Jayden lived & Ethan didn't go through with the murder, so.  Which brings up my only real complaint about the game...  Okay, I respect the need to red herring you and give good indication to both the viewer & the police that Ethan is the killer, but.  What the hell was Ethan doing with the origami?!  He has way more of it than just the ones given to him in the letter.  And for that matter his convenient blackouts right during hte kidnapping.  Are we claiming that the killer magically knew he was going to have a blackout exactly at the right time?  Oh well.

Madison is the most tacked-on of the 4 mains, no question.  Oh well.

I abandoned my partner in the sinking car too, but when I realized I'd screwed up, I just paused & reset the PS3.  Take that, autosave.  That was BS enough it was worth circumventing.  (Actually I tended to do that a lot, I don't take failure well.  Stopped the store robbery, too.)

While the game is all Quick Time Events, it does things with QTEs no other game does, and figures out all sorts of interesting new things to do with 'em, so no complaints here as far as I'm concerned.  It really did feel like an interactive movie thanks to well-done & innovative QTEs.

[Tide]

Zenny: There is a thread regarding streaming, but to put a long story short:

- If the Super Famicom is connected to the TV, you'll need some sort of tuner. I'll probably get Pinnacle if you're not planning to do anything like recording since Hauppage is like $250 Canadian. Not sure if they sell those down in Japan, but there are probably equivalents. You may have to shop around.

- If you're playing by emulator, you can run a desktop capture program like ManyCam. May cause some lag though. As long as you don't care about that, it should be fine.

- If you know your computer stuff, install an internal tuner.

Right, games:
TOPSP - I'm trying to do some after-game stuff, namely getting equipment. If someone knows of a good way, let me know. Right now I am FAQing battles because TOPSP drops/recipes are the worst thing ever.

[Random Consonant]

FF1DoS Mod of Balance - did the Soul of Chaos dungeons, beat Chaos.  I more or less agree with super with regards to what is good/bad/godawful about it.  The hack didn't even change Chaos much, just boosted his attack a bunch and doubled his INT, which when combined with the changes to spell damage explains the mass OHKOings at levels one might otherwise consider sane.  The shittiness of the optional dungeons is compounded by the schizophrenic level of challenge to boot.  Just... ugh...

[Shale]

Cthulhu Saves The World: Holy fuck did the challenge drop off a cliff at the end. Father Dagon is not especially challenging but when you first enter R'lyeh the enemies are reasonably dangerous, especially if you fight a bunch of Deep Knights with a heal-happy priest. Then you level up a few times and get innate Dark +50% and now Dark Slash overkills everything ever and the last two bosses die in like five rounds each, two of which are buffing turns. Cthulhu's Angels sometime soon, I guess.

[superaielman]

FF1DoS Mod of Balance - did the Soul of Chaos dungeons, beat Chaos.  I more or less agree with super with regards to what is good/bad/godawful about it.  The hack didn't even change Chaos much, just boosted his attack a bunch and doubled his INT, which when combined with the changes to spell damage explains the mass OHKOings at levels one might otherwise consider sane.  The shittiness of the optional dungeons is compounded by the schizophrenic level of challenge to boot.  Just... ugh...

What level did you beat Chaos at? I'm at L52 right now, still in the motherfucking Whisperwind cove.  And Chaos's hit was massively jacked; he sliced right through Blink spam.

[AndrewRogue]

Persona 4 Arena: I'm apparently maining Labrys.

Guild Wars 2: So yeah, I've been playing this too, I guess.

On the whole, I've been having quite a bit of fun. The action MMO move is pretty cool and the game does a lot of things very right. For example, the fact that I can pile in and murder mobs with other players and not be missing exp/loot is rocking. The quest system is enjoyable and really works well with the pile in gameplay and events. Events add variety to stuff to do when roaming around.

Skill variety is pretty cool and the weapon change makes it rocking.

That said, there are some things that really bug me. The game could really have used an actual tutorial of value. Engineer weapon kits REALLY need default auto-attacks (I can't imagine using them in PvP). Something about the interface is lacking. Camera hates life.

[Sierra]

I abandoned my partner in the sinking car too, but when I realized I'd screwed up, I just paused & reset the PS3.  Take that, autosave.

I actually did this too. Usually I'd accept whatever happened, fair's fair, if I screwed up I'll live with the consequences. I'm pretty okay with the long-term effects of player actions turning out differently than expected (I actually wish more games could do this properly), but when it's not entirely clear what different buttons are going to make your character do immediately, that's too much bullshit for me to leave someone's fate to autosave. The only other time I employed the reset trick was when Madison jumped out the apartment window (in which case I really, really should've known better anyway).

Re: the police, Blake is just hilariously dumb. He's like a drunk terrier with a badge. Every single suspect you approach, "THIS IS THE ORIGAMI KILLER, PROBLEM SOLVED." And yeah, even the genuinely surprising reveal comes with its own caveats, mainly that some of the ways they maintained the lie are pretty artificial in retrospect: Ethan + origami, as noted (I'd actually forgotten this somehow!); deliberately omitting things your character does in the middle of an ongoing scene when Shelby kills Manfred (at least there would've been an excuse for this with Ethan and his blackouts); and that there's no reason at all for Ann Shepherd to whisper her son's name to Madison other than to keep the audience in the dark for a few more minutes. She was perfectly fine talking at normal volume for the rest of the conversation! That was otherwise a good scene, but having Madison look all shocked at the answer seems pretty silly in retrospect. She's never heard the name before! How could she be surprised about hearing it? It's annoying to see them force the lie like this when they were otherwise pretty good at it (basically anytime Shelby does something "helpful.")

I admit they were fairly inventive with the actual controller inputs. I would constantly mix up the "move right stick" and "move controller" messages, which bugged the hell out of me, but it's not like the icons aren't distinctly different, and I can't really get pissed at the game for me being incompetent. The thing is, even while I can understand why developers might want to employ QTEs, they've never felt to me adequate from the perspective of cinema or gameplay, and even a full-length game built around them hasn't managed to change that. And I love the idea of all these branching pathways, but it just doesn't gel in the ending (at least not the one I got).

[Nephrite]

Sounds like you two are just FUCKIN' ASSHOLES.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

FF1DoS Mod of Balance - did the Soul of Chaos dungeons, beat Chaos.  I more or less agree with super with regards to what is good/bad/godawful about it.  The hack didn't even change Chaos much, just boosted his attack a bunch and doubled his INT, which when combined with the changes to spell damage explains the mass OHKOings at levels one might otherwise consider sane.  The shittiness of the optional dungeons is compounded by the schizophrenic level of challenge to boot.  Just... ugh...

That's what "old-school JRPG challenge is" mang.  Time sinks in grinding for cash, time sinks in grinding for XP, random difficulty spikes requiring you to grind for XP again.  Bosses didn't do things like "punish straightforward tactics," "used special fight mechanics" or anything, they just had really big numbers.

[Fenrir]

There aren't really that many instances of forced grinding in old JRPGs. Mostly asshole Dragon Quest final bosses.


Deus Ex: Got my weapons back. I thought for a moment that I'd never find my modded autoaim autokill everything handgun, but there it was on the shelf (along with a few other mods!!)


It's cool to have different ways to finish objectives in this game. But honestly, who doesn't visit everything anyway? Like in Human Revolution, you often get goodies/ skill points / interesting stuff to see in every path, so you're compelled to do everything. Which kind of defeats the whole purpose?

Restricting yourself to one path actually feels like playing a challenge playthrough. It's nice when you know the game well; it puts you at a small disadvantage but allows you to blaze through it.
I doubt even 1 of Deus Ex's players out of 100 tried to do that on their first playthrough, and actually enjoyed it. (They'd get lost all the time too, backtracking without realizing it)

[SnowFire]

Fenrir if you mean "went and explored the swimming tunnel alternate route in because maybe there are some potato chips there," then no, nobody did that.

That said I agree that the main base complex usually got a thorough investigation, especially in the 2nd half of the game.  I usually felt that I only need to take one way "to" my objective, but once I got to the objective I'd explore it fully.

[Nitori]

Wind Waker: Beaten, this game makes OoT look like Super Meat Boy, but on the plus side I got to give Snow all my money. It's like S4 if Viki was a talking frog on a cloud except the boat doesn't control as awful.
LttP > LA > OoT > WW , I'm retro

God of War: In the desert temple, I don't actually need any buttons other than square, L1, and the analog sticks. Oh and R2 because for some reason they make you mash R2, nobody wants to mash R2.

[Sierra]

Fenrir if you mean "went and explored the swimming tunnel alternate route in because maybe there are some potato chips there," then no, nobody did that.

I dunno, this pretty accurately describes how I approached Human Revolution.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

I was there and gone like a thunderbolt.  Bitch I'm a goddamn ghost.  I got no time to poke around in sewers for candy bars.

[superaielman]

OMD2: Got to wave 44 in Wind up without a damage floor trap.That was pretty wtfy but fun.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Wind Waker: Beaten, this game makes OoT look like Super Meat Boy, but on the plus side I got to give Snow all my money

<Nitori> I consider monetary abuse an avantgarde form of affection

[Yoshiken]

I finally got a 3DS, which means I got Theatrhythm. Still playing through the basic stages, which are annoyingly easy at this stage - going through games in order, and I just fully critical'd Terra's Theme.
Already cleared 3 Dark Notes and got 3 Indigo Shards as well as one Scarlet and one.. towards Cid, can't remember which it is. >.>;

[Monkeyfinger]

I was a one route guy in deus ex, but plenty of people I saw talk about the game said they explored everything.

[Grefter]

I explored everything in Deus Ex, but that is what I was used to doing after playing through the demo dozens of times prior to release.

[Fudozukushi]

Dark Souls: Made a a new character so I could make an Enchanted+4 weapon without killing any bosses just to prove I could.  Along the way blow-dart assholes in Blighttown respawned and cost me 11 humanity.  Joy of joys.

[Sierra]

So interminable titanite farming with slugs and crystal golems? Fudo, I also go out of my way to break the game in half, but that's just masochism. Enchanted weapons aren't even that good! I mean, okay, for a starting PC I guess they're good, but they're still pretty squarely the worst kind of enhanced weapon.

I am positive blow-dart goons never respawn unless this was changed in the Prepare to Die edition. From what I've read poking around on the wiki, it does seem like there was a general patch implemented in that? Ninja ring nerfed, for one. Which is sad but pretty necessary. Random question about that, incidentally: at what point in the game does new content become accessible, and is any of it missable?

[Fudozukushi]

Slug farming only took two trips, and while I normally end up drowned in Blue Titanite this time it took something like 25 trips(100 kills), not even including the ones that died during hydra attempts.  Elementals have been nerfed too, and Raw and Crystal will still be worse always, not even counting Occult and Divine's specificness.  Anyway, the Enchanted Claymore+4 has 400-some attack so it's all gravy.

They shouldn't.  Even my first guy kills remained.  But this one persistent asshole revived.

Flippy ring, Eagle Shield(95% phys wtf?), elementals on average have been nerfed.

New content is available once you place(PLACE, not get) the Lordvessal.  It's fairly easy to miss(especially if you don't read item descriptions), but you can't lock yourself out of it.

real masochism is +15 normal before any boss

[Sierra]

Eagle Shield probably was slightly too good (I base this on the same standard as ninja ring--it basically replaces all other items of its type once I get it). Nerfing the physical reduction is a pretty weird way to fix this though, just because the thing looks like you're holding a damn wall in front of you. I can't say elemental weapons getting the nerfstick bothers me much. Anything that discourages darkwraiths from making low-level runs just so they can come back to Undead Parish and one-shot starting players with lightning katanas? Fine by me.

Also please tell me you haven't actually done that spoiler text.

[Fenrir]

(Grats NEB)

Regarding Dark Souls:  I like those nerfs. Fire and Lightning elements were too good, you could easily have a mage do extremely high damage with an elemental weapon with low requirements (A lightning club for example) Strength and dexterity always looked like lackluster stats.

Deus Ex: Guess I was wrong, I'm surprised by the few people who tried to be most efficient when playing Deus Ex for the first time.
It seems to me that the fun of the game lies more in exploration than anything else (exploration of the game world, and of the ramifications of the story. Stuff found on datapads and computers) Combat and stealth really aren't remarkable at all.

I'm well past the point where anything can be challenging even on realistic mode. I don't like using the word broken, but the regen aug is just plain broken.  Every other aug is useless now. Well, I also use the one that lowers the cost of tevery other aug, and the Super Denton Bros super-speed super-jump, which cuts time and is fun to use. I've only raised those three augs so far, because the game doesn't really give a lot of opportunities to refill energy.
Super Denton Bros mode is great fun. Jumping from rooftop to rooftop, I've managed to get into The Place Where I wasn't Supposed To Be, staring into the deep void that is the 2D background image. I imagine this is what the end of the world sounded like back when we thought the earth was flat.
Skills wise, I have level 4 swimming, level 3 gun/computers, level 2 hacking/lockpick, level 1 everything else.

I have rarely seen a game where the bad guys looked so incompetent. I'm just barging into their bases, triggering alarms that no one notices (this is no Goldeneye), blowing up everything they have, while they always seem to be one step behind. I'm travelling the city with superspeed, throwing around sofas, cutting their guards one by one with a lightsaber; no one ever notices anything. I'm supposed to be hunted and restless!
Worse than terrorists, and the majestic 12, the hardest enemies in the game by far are the ladder. I don't know how Denton uses a ladder, but this isn't the right way. Ladders have killed him about 15 times already.

I suspect Deadelus is Bob Page. Reasons: The magazine plot item with his face on the cover has been sitting on my menu screen for a long time now, while every other plot item has disappeared. I think it's a subtle way to remind you he exists. Human Revolution had Zhao Yun Ru as the exact same character as Maggie Show, so it might as well have Hugh Darrow as Bob Page too.