What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Fudozukushi]

They're all slightly slanted so if you have bad enough luck to be running near the edges you can slide off.  There's also one of the normal(nroaml!) pathways that you can slide off easy if you're running because of a nasty incline on the left.

[Clear Tranquil]

ToGF- Good to see more peoples are playing this, I'll be interested in reading Snow's thoughts =)

Saved at the start of the final dungeon of the F Arc. Managed the boss at the lab first fight this time and the boss in the gardens wasn't too bad this run either. I think the min/max CC and HP+1000 DLC has helped a lot~ Don't think I'm overlevelled, only L65~ Avg or so~

Well Temporal Rift/Time Stop, Runic/Round Shield and Arcane Vigor are some of the best Accels =) Sophie's fits her very well too~

It's reaching the stage where I'll soon have to do all there is to do before leaving the F arc like getting all the dolls and most titles for spoiler PC which will be quite time consuming and grindy so I'm going to hold off on that for a while.

Star Oceans 4- Since I am fiending on this instead. Around 12hrs~ in. Just finished off the Triom Village side quests/shop orders. Between this, collecting ingredients for Item Creation, materials for the quests on Aeos, filling in Monster Data (I made a fol increasing jewel from the scumbag thief types), monster surprises and ambushes, plus general absentminded wandering/roamings (am I going the right ways?) Edge and Reimi are already L20, with Faize and Lymle close behind and I haven't even been to the wind swallow valley/celestial ship yet!~ Since I've already did two runs of Graces and one of this without any extensive tinkering around in item creations for OP equipment, items and such during the game for overthetop curbstompings and the likes I have decided to let go and do so this time~ Edge is currently sporting a Flame Sword and Aqua Mail, Faize an Iron Sabre and Aqua Mail, and Reimi has a Earthsoul Bow. Lymle just has the wand from Woodley but I gave her the Magic Bracelet I had Edge steal from the bully kid~
I think in general I'm probably going to end up really overlevelled and overpowered this time through the game since I'm going for the achievements this time as well like complete all shop orders, collect monster datas, etc. I know I had to complete the Triom quests before clearing the celestial ship and make sure Aeos is all finished before setting a course to EnII. Well I don't know about getting all the monster data for points of no returns on one run. That might get tiring. I think monster data carries over at least.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

In terms of ToGf, I'm just getting a feel for the game right now. The writing still lands within the usual Tales fare (i.e. lulz), but I never expected more. Gameplay I'll form a more solid opinion once I get used to it and actually get to explore B. Artes, but I found the decision to make the control scheme reminiscent of a FPS a bit questionable at first, especially considering the limitations on moving around the 3D environment. But it actually works in its favor once you get used to it, especially considering how often the angles switch in battle. Allowing R-stick shortcuts to amplify your skill roster in-battle is a wonderful decision, though. How do I improve the CC from minimum during battle, though? The only reliable way I've found so far is killing enemies in battle, but I feel like I'm missing an intricacy here.

[Talaysen]

In terms of ToGf, I'm just getting a feel for the game right now. The writing still lands within the usual Tales fare (i.e. lulz), but I never expected more. Gameplay I'll form a more solid opinion once I get used to it and actually get to explore B. Artes, but I found the decision to make the control scheme reminiscent of a FPS a bit questionable at first, especially considering the limitations on moving around the 3D environment. But it actually works in its favor once you get used to it, especially considering how often the angles switch in battle. Allowing R-stick shortcuts to amplify your skill roster in-battle is a wonderful decision, though. How do I improve the CC from minimum during battle, though? The only reliable way I've found so far is killing enemies in battle, but I feel like I'm missing an intricacy here.

Some A Artes will do it on crit, IIRC.  They should say something like chance to increase CC by 1.  Might need titles to get that effect on them though.

[Fenrir]

To get Seath's tail weapon you just have to run to the tail and attack it.
If Seath starts turning, stop until he stops turning (that means he's targetting you) then run up to the tail again.
If you aim for the tentacles he can only really hurt you with the tentacles stomp attack, but he doesn't use it that often. And worse comes to worse, you can take a hit, roll and estus away, he's slow enough.
I found both DLC tail weapons much harder to get.

For the invisible floor in the Crystal Caverns  I just bought something like 999 stones and walked veryyy slowly the first time through.
Nowadays I just never get the blue slab, and every other path is simple enough.



Anyway, ZHP. (More cheap downloadable PSP games!)
This game has all the terrible NIS trappings but I'm a sucker for roguelikes that have a way to raise your level 1 stats. (Which means: This, and Baroque) This is betraying the very nature of those games, but I just can't help but love a sense of progression in my games, you know?
The roguelike part itself is decent, with a good variation of items and situations. Being able to see the enemy field of view helps manipulating battles more easily than in most roguelikes.
It's too easy so far but I've just stacked SAT chips on my character. This just seemed like the thing to do. The real game begins in the aftergame, I presume.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

In terms of ToGf, I'm just getting a feel for the game right now. The writing still lands within the usual Tales fare (i.e. lulz), but I never expected more. Gameplay I'll form a more solid opinion once I get used to it and actually get to explore B. Artes, but I found the decision to make the control scheme reminiscent of a FPS a bit questionable at first, especially considering the limitations on moving around the 3D environment. But it actually works in its favor once you get used to it, especially considering how often the angles switch in battle. Allowing R-stick shortcuts to amplify your skill roster in-battle is a wonderful decision, though. How do I improve the CC from minimum during battle, though? The only reliable way I've found so far is killing enemies in battle, but I feel like I'm missing an intricacy here.

Some A Artes will do it on crit, IIRC.  They should say something like chance to increase CC by 1.  Might need titles to get that effect on them though.

This makes sense. More reason to encourage effective critical gauge management. It's kinda overwhelming at first, though, but hopefully I'll manage long-term. This game has more of a learning curve than any other Tales I've played, which is both good (because it makes the battles considerably less mindless) and bad (because it can be frustrating at first to effectively deal with the systems in play). It's a net positive, though, and as I get other PCs, I'll probably settle into someone I can use comfortably. The character variety is one hell of a step up from TotA already and actually feels comparable to a Star Ocean, which is honestly always a compliment.

[Clear Tranquil]

A Artes/critical hits are indeed good for building up/recovering CCs~ You'll get a support/buff skill called Insight which boosts ACC and critical rate, one of the battle tips you get for Cheria will mention how Insight boosts the critical rate and to use time while an enemy is stunned/staggered for using low CC artes to build up CC/etc. Hubert and Cheria have some of the best critical rates and Accuracy stats in the game which Insight on top polishes off nicely but depending on the difficulty mode you might not get to see the overall effect of that for a while (higher difficulty modes have enemies with higher EVA which ACC is taken against)~

SO4- Back on Aeos sidequestan' Team is L24 now >.> Used Edge for the celestial ship boss. One of his attacks did 7000~ damage <.< I used a hamburger steak before battle and a Enhance card to boost ATKs as well. Forgot to mention earlier I've also been enjoying cooking and making/using symbology cards this time =) Cleared out all the monster data for the celestial ship. The Lizard Commander took a while. Also turns out the save trick for getting 100% boss data still works for the PS3 version. I forgot about it for the two earlier bosses though >.> I now have 50'000~ in monies, I think I might buy four First Aid manuals, I have all the other skill manuals available so far including Chain Combos for everybody. I am going to finish off the Aeos quests then head for the mothership.

So far I have some manuals I still haven't used yet like HP Boost, Focus and Critical Hit since I'm not sure who to give them to yet. I was thinking of giving Critical Hit to Reimi and keeping Focus till Meracle joins, or maybe the other way round, not sure what would be better (could give them both to Reimi but iirc she leaves the team a couple of times) 

[Dark Holy Elf]

Reimi leaves for the first half of the brief dungeon where Meracle joins. She also leaves for a bit on Roak but there's no battles during that besides the Edge arena fight.

Oh yeah, and it seems I have to rescind my comments about crit multipliers. I dunno if they existed in SO4j but everyone has the same crit multiplier (1.2) as far as I can tell. Good news for Meracle fans, it means Reimi and Meracle use Focus equally well mechanically (Sarah should be a lower priority because crits barely help magic). Stat topic is sitting at around 85% done, prepare for Morphus hype~

[hinode]

Almost done with FE12 now. The ninja reinforcements on hard and above are some of the worst in the series, unfortunately; the ridiculously high move of mounted classes (and even worse, Wyverns) combined with competent stats make them ludicrously dangerous if you don't know what's coming beforehand. There's almost never any warnings about them either, unlike FE13. Playing on Casual means that they're generally more of a nuisance than a show-stopper, but it's still pretty annoying as a design decision. It's also kinda bad that I had to resort to Casual to not get completely frustrated by asshole reinforcements.

Chapter 19 is probably the nadir, throwing 8 promoted enemies per wave at you near the end of the stage, in an area that already includes 4 ballistae, a recruitable enemy, and some regular Horsemen/Paladins/Generals mixed in. I'm seriously struggling to see a way to handle it without casualties and still recruiting Wolf (who is admittedly useless, but hey, completionism) besides having Caeda fly in and kill the boss with Wing Spear, then burning a Rescue staff charge on her or warping in help so she'll survive the ensuing enemy phase.

[Meeplelard]

It is possible to bait out Wolf without triggering the reinforcements.

[superaielman]

etrian odyssey 4- Just finished the first Maze, levels are L18-19. EO is a Wizardry type dungeon crawler. I'm enjoying the game overall, but I have some problems. Or see below:

The good: Gameplay, challenge- Class balance looks decent too. It's tough and gives you the option to play on easy if you don't want to deal with permadeath. I approve.
The bad: 'automap', writing- Writing is obvious. Game can't write worth a lick, and I doubt that it'll change. The writing is incredibly stock when it's there, which is not often.  It's not a big deal though, I don't play dungeon crawlers for plot. The automap is garbage. Oh goodie, It 'maps' things but you have to mark thing like doors, passages, etc.  That isn't gameplay, it is an annoying gimmick. Have an option for a full automap for those who want it, and let the pen and paper crowd fill it out.  You're forced to fill it out or memorize dungeons (You don't beat dungeons in one go), and as it's FPS you really need to fill out the map.
The ugly: The art. DEATH TO LOLIS.

[dude789]

Dark Souls: Had some experience with PvP yesterday. Main thing I learned is that people online do not equip for magic defense and it's kind of funny. One guy invaded me while I was wandering around in the Catacombs. I cast Homing Crystal Soulmass and he made the mistake of bowing when he got close. The Homing Crystal Soulmass then blasted him for 400 damage. The DLC sorceries are a lot of fun too. Especially Dark Bead which caught some guy wearing heavy armor for like 700 damage.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FE13 - DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL

[Sierra]

Dark Souls: Had some experience with PvP yesterday. Main thing I learned is that people online do not equip for magic defense and it's kind of funny. One guy invaded me while I was wandering around in the Catacombs. I cast Homing Crystal Soulmass and he made the mistake of bowing when he got close. The Homing Crystal Soulmass then blasted him for 400 damage. The DLC sorceries are a lot of fun too. Especially Dark Bead which caught some guy wearing heavy armor for like 700 damage.

The DLC sorceries are grotesquely unbalanced for PVP. Dark Bead is bad enough, but Pursuers can crack 2,000 damage if you're properly twinked out.

[Shale]

ShF3: Almost time for second promotions! Holy fuck, the first fight of the chapter is brutal. Giant clump of enemies that borderline OKHO (loooots of surviving with 1-5 HP) and like to add status. Especially sleep! Man, fuck sleep. Reinforcements that appear right next to you when you move too far. Secret room all the friggin' way on the other end of the map with the material for an ultimate weapon inside (and unless you thread the needle just right with a flyer, you trigger reinforcements on the way there). I went for maximum turtling and status-whoring, and it was still an "ohgod the pain" sort of experience. Luckily the boss of the map is ID'able - once it got within range, one lucky crit with the Assassin's Knife ended the suffering.

This is my first time playing through S3 in English, so I didn't realize before that the fairy who joins you is another cameo from Shining The Holy Ark, along with Julian and Galm; that game had a system where you could recruit generic fairies to deal some MT damage to enemies at the start of a fight, and apparently one of them grew a name and decided to turn into a full-fledged PC.

[Nitori]

Tomb Raider: The only correct way to play this game is axe only as soon as you unlock it, it's a nice reprieve from dying to QTEs (there are a lot of QTEs)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Anyway, ZHP. (More cheap downloadable PSP games!)
This game has all the terrible NIS trappings but I'm a sucker for roguelikes that have a way to raise your level 1 stats. (Which means: This, and Baroque) This is betraying the very nature of those games, but I just can't help but love a sense of progression in my games, you know?
The roguelike part itself is decent, with a good variation of items and situations. Being able to see the enemy field of view helps manipulating battles more easily than in most roguelikes.
It's too easy so far but I've just stacked SAT chips on my character. This just seemed like the thing to do. The real game begins in the aftergame, I presume.

The game gets pretty challenging right at the end, and due to the sudden-death nature of Roguelikes, it can always catch you off-guard if you're not careful.

Kinda surprised you didn't mention the story or characters, though. ZHP's writing is probably is strongest point.

[Fenrir]

Kinda surprised you didn't mention the story or characters, though. ZHP's writing is probably is strongest point.

Sorry Djinn. I'm really only there for the roguelike.
I liked the part where the former hero gets hit by a car. I didn't like anything else.
I chalk it up to different cultures between the east and the west, and NIS always exacerbating it. (+extremely drawn out story sequences)
I know an autistic guy who always interacts with others to reassure himself. The game kind of sounds like that.
Its life lessons are lost on me.
(As is its fourth wall breaking since it's everywhere now)

The game gets pretty challenging right at the end, and due to the sudden-death nature of Roguelikes, it can always catch you off-guard if you're not careful.

Yeah.
There were two challenges:
- OHKOingEnemies in late dungeons. Once you know who they are, it's easy to get around them with a surprise tech attack. (+ a physical if that wasn't enough)
- The stat god final boss. I just came back with mad +Sat equipment (Including two Dark Repulsors from an optional dungeon), unleashed Super Extra Speed mode and 3HKOed him.

[Nitori]

Tomb Raider: I forgot there was a stereotypical old Irish guy, then he died. I fell into a river of blood and lost all my guns but if you're using guns in this game you're doing it wrong

Far Cry 3: So that's what fratbro "Space Cat" sees while high...

[Hunter Sopko]

GoC6- Finished. So many mixed feelings about this game. Weird, but fun. Not wholly satisfying but pulled me in all the same. They coulda done more but the simplistic nature also helped keep you focused in battle. A bit repetitive/needed some variety but still made you think each time/kept you on your toes. Story worked for what it was. Usual JRPG fare with few good or bad points. Hard to score. I'd recommend it to anyone looking for a weirdly different RTS/SRPG hybrid, of sorts.

[Fenrir]

Now that I think about it, ZHP had a decent cock joke in its tutorial too.

The NIS effect:
 
I just did an optional 60 floor dungeon.
Remember, this is a roguelike where you always go back to level 1.
I literally took no damage from enemies for 59 floors.
On the last floor there was Flonne with four weaker monsters.
One of these monsters attacked me long range for OHKO damage.
No damage for 59 floors, then OHKO damage from the weakest enemy on the floor.
(I had Auto revive. I immediately turned Unlimited Turns mode on and 5HKOed Flonne. Dungeon cleared)

NIS makes Tri-ace games look balanced

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dark Souls - So, Four Kings. I realised I was doing better in this fight when I just spammed attack. So I just spammed attack. Victory get. The game's lamest boss fight so far? Almost certainly! C'mon game I expect better of you. Now to go back and have equipment with non-fail curse resist and kill Seath.

[Sierra]

Bosses that are not Bed of Chaos are not as lame as Bed of Chaos because they are not Bed of Chaos.

~

Mass Effect: Borrowing the trilogy from the elder sibling. I am running a soldier who shoots things. So naturally I immediately spent all my level-up bonuses on charisma/intimidate. Then I got lost for a couple hours on Babylon 5, except I don't think Babylon 5 had a strip club.

How much of the series DLC is worth caring about?

[Grefter]

The DLC is generally pretty okay, above average.  None of it remotely essential.  It really is buy it if you are enjoying the games, if the price tag doesn't seem worth it then skip it.

[SnowFire]

Can't speak to ME1 DLC.  I enjoyed most of ME2's DLC that was actually content rather than a new piece of armor, but I haven't played it all.  It is super inefficient as far as "price per hour of enjoyment" compared to the maingame but whatever, I'm willing to pay 6 bucks for an hour of gameplay I guess (after paying like 20 bucks for the entire Digital Deluxe ME2).  (And some of the DLC is free.)  Zaeed and his mission are kind of boring.  Normandy crash site is free but very short.  Overlord is actually a lot of content and some interesting ideas mixed with some total whiffs, but hey, it's amusing.  (It turns out autistic people speak Geth or something.  Wut.  They also invert the proper way to do a horror scene of the "seemingly empty ship with a lurking threat.")  Firewalker is silly vehicle shoot'em ups.  Kasumi's mission is fine but really short (1 hour?) and apparently she and her dead boyfriend, despite having super-Japanese names, are lily white.  I see, the future.  I still need to do Lair of the Shadow Broker & Arrival, but eh, saving that for before starting up ME3, which I have still failed to do.

In other news: FE13 Lunatic Casual beaten.  Maybe longer ramblings on that later.