What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Grefter]

Yeah that is cool, how about all the ways he is a complete and total shit before that though?  Or the way that regardless of how he fucks up it turns out to be for the best and just the right perfect thing to do because the plot demands it (Of course me trying to drop an entire tank squadron off a cliff was stupid, but it is okay Sophie teleported back into existence and now everything is fantastic ^_^  It was a good thing I went off and joined the Knights instead of not being a total bell end because that way I got to form close relationships with someone high up in the Knights who are going to betray the country  ^_^  It is a good thing Sophie died because that way it healed Cheria and I got special Magic Powers from it ^_^)  You can't try to humanize someone by making them a shit and then make their actions consistently have no consequence at all.  The gap in execution between Luke and Asbel is astounding.

Edit - which is the setup for Snow to come in and say <SNOW>  The gap in execution between my cheeks is aspounding.

[superaielman]

He was a total brat as a kid, yeah. No arguments.  I also totally disagree about the consquences part. Asbel completely destroyed the relationship with his family (Including Hubert) plus Cheria.  Richard is about the only person who he hadn't really fucked things up with at the point you're at, and he has a pretty bad blind spot there. 

[Grefter]

Yeah I don't know why it is not blindingly obvious to him that Zombie Ghost RICHARD is actually Dracula.

[Niu]

Considering the problems there with his own brother, it is understandable why he went with that option.

This is the part I can't stand Aston the most. Understandable or not. When parents reflects too much of themselves on to their children, from my own experience, the effect are mostly negative.
If anything, this is just telling me the parents couldn't properly distinguish the character of their children.

[Clear Tranquil]

Moms are tough!~

Your dreams shatter and burn! Punishing Blossoms! super~

Yeah Cheria is the game's Straight Guy but hey somebody has to do it and try to keep crap together. Actually in the original game before they added the F Arc I like how they left the ending kind of open ended where Cheria was off doing her relief work on the battle field where Richard was and even with the F Arc she didn't come back to Lhant immediately, she was off doing her own thing in Barona before meeting up with Asbel and she's off doing her relief work on battlefields, etc throughout the game like where she stays behind to help in Lhant instead of going with Asbel round about where Gref is at currently~ There's also the stuff with Bailey and Raymond and the Dream Chaser event/title where she fends off Bailey and Raymond, and Asbel there too at that time to follow/continue with her relief work at that time, I really liked that~ I also think Cheria grew up and matured a lot since childhood and through F Arc, more than Asbel anyway since just when you think Asbel is going places he pulls off some more fail, and I think if it hadn't been for Richard's words of encouragement and Sophie at the end of F Arc she'd have finally thrown in the towel for good, made a clean break and continued to progress with her relief work as she had been doing, and lived her life for her work, life, etc but that just might be me. Maybe found someone else. Like Malik  I would say Richard but yeah heheheh ^_^ Also I actually enjoyed Cheria's relationships with the other characters but yeah~ She gets some hilarious and nice stuff with Frederic, Malik and Richard mainly from the post game stuff though Ewww Grandpa!~ as well as the more traditonal sweet/caring looking after stuff with Sophie, Hubert and Pascal Oh the stuff with the latter and trying to get her to take a bath was hilarious as well. One of my most favourite duels in the game~

[Scar]

FE:A

Donnel gets some lame level up stats considering his supposed boosted parameters skill. ARGH! He's still getting raped by mostly everything. You'd think I'd just place him on the shelf and be done with him...in the end it seems I am a glutton for punishment.

Oh, FE, how I've missed you.

[Tide]

Zombie Ghost RICHARD is actually Dracula

Grefter, is this your way of making me play this game? Because Zombie Ghost RICHARD sounds p.awesome

[Dark Holy Elf]

FE13 - At chapter 13 now. I can finally buy Master Seals so I should possibly just mass promote everyone now, but eh, will wait until 20. Game has been doing some pretty cool things with map design recently. Had a fair bit of trouble with chapter 11's boss fight, it's a bit reminiscent of HM Ashnard except there is support to worry about.

I've adjusted to the ninja reinforcements (which, to the game's credit, it always warns you about one way or another first) but it'll never be a good design choice.

[Pyro]

Cheria could have been a much more interesting character if they had played up her ice-cold bitch capabilities more often (She has them, as she demonstrated when she was dealing with Asbel early in the game).

I kind of figured that her defining her life through her relationship with Asbel as a child was a coping mechanism for dealing with the fear of her own (what was at the time) inevitable death.

Ni No Kuni: Esther and Oliver have some fun interaction. Esther finds out Oliver can magick up various kinds of food? "CANDY. CAKES. NOW." Finished a boss fight without soloing it last, and it was a decent slugfest between the boss and the 6 monsters I arrayed against it. Wish I could switch DIRECTLY to one of the other PC's mons, instead of like Oliver Mon->Esther->Esther Mon. Needing two switches slows it down a bit. For all that Esther's healing is fine if that is what I am switching for.

The genie who pulled out a flaming sword 50% of the time and a harmless parasol 50% of the time was pretty funny.

[Monkeyfinger]

Tried out Ni No Kuni for a few hours and hated it.

Both the main plot and the sidequests are filled with unskippable walls of sappy text that doesn't interest me at all, and the merit stamp awards you get for doing quests seem pretty important. There's tons of backtracking too. So far it feels like a really small RPG with tons of rote filler to pad it out.

Combat feels a lot like an infinity engine game - it's a real time system where your characters auto attack enemies by default, and you can pause the game to navigate menus and give out orders to your PCs. Each PC has a short cooldown on performing non-attack actions (like spell casting and item use), and spells have cast times. The strength of this kind of system lies running it in seamless areas with a top down view and lots of PCs to control. It feels just wrong with an over the shoulder camera, 1 or 2 people, and a separate combat screen.

At least the voice acting is top quality.

[hinode]

FE13: 5 chapters + 1 paralogue down.

Veteran is every bit as broken a skill in practice as it is on paper. Avatar has a clear lead on the rest of my team in terms of levels and would be the runaway leader if I didn't intentionally hold her back. 14 speed at L9 means she can double pretty much every enemy on Normal, and any speed boost from Pair Up guarantees it. Magic is also definately the best weapon type thus far, which helps.  Chrom is a close second, with 13 speed himself and good all-around stats otherwise. He also has an A support with Avatar already, which seems crazy fast for only six maps thus far.

Sumia has outstanding speed (15 after skills) even at only L6, but her strength and defense are kinda shoddy due to some unimpressive level-ups. Frederick provides enough strength to one-round most every enemy, but even with +4 defense she's kinda squishy right now. Her evade's starting to pick up now which helps, but she could use some better level-ups soon or I'll drop her by the time I get my second Peg Knight.

Liz has definately gotten the short end of the stick as far as level-ups go, aside from Strength hilariously enough. Now that I've got Maribelle I'll probably bench her until I've beaten the game and am ready to grind up NUNSWITHAXES for the sake of awesomeness.

Stahl and the Vaike are the other PCs I'm feeding regular exp right now. They're both got nice strength, but need speed boosts from Pair Up to double things reliably. That's okay, Pair Up is there to be abused. Sully and Kellam I've mainly used as Pair Up support thus far, while Miriel and Virion haven't done much besides chip and occasionally providing some backup. Donnel and Ricken will be benched for the duration of the main plot this run.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

so much envy of people playing fe ksdfnldgh

* Jo'ou Ranbu checks prices on pre-ordering FE13 in Brazil out of spite.

...

Hey, it's actually not so bad! Yeah, gonna order it from here. Like hell I'm waiting nearly five months to play it.

[Luther Lansfeld]

FE13 - Doing Paralogue 4 right now. Avatar has turned into a fast mage with a bit of STR, and Chrom is a death god. Somehow Sumia in 11 levels has gotten zero defense, so she is le glass cannon. Using Chrom/Robin/Fredrick/Lissa/Sully/Cordelia/Sumia/Miriel/Anna when she joins after this map but right now I have Gregor the Russian mercenary.

Stahl and Virion and Tharja and Lon'qu have deceased.

[hinode]

Chrom and Avatar hit S rank support by the end of Paralogue 2. Geez, it's not even chapter 6 yet, and I haven't done a single skirmish or DLC chapter. Are all supports this fast?

The resulting dual strike activation rates are just ridiculous for this early in the game.

[Luther Lansfeld]

I think it is really based on how much you use them together. Mine is at B in Chapter 9.

[Captain K.]

KH3D:  Beaten.

First things first, I loathe the drop system.  Forced swapping of characters after a timer is a terrible idea.  When you get back to your other character you have no idea where your current location is or what you're doing.  Makes hunting for treasures obnoxious because you can't take the time to explore.  And if you're fighting a boss, the whole fight resets when you return.  WTF Square who thought this was a good idea?

You can mitigate this to an extent by just dropping the other character immediately when you take control of them.  But the game wants you to drop and you miss out on all the bonuses inherent with that.  And it still doesn't solve the problem of bosses resetting.  Also Riku's sections are notably shorter than Sora's so you end up force-dropping with Riku all the time just so Sora can finish a damn area.  Also needed a lot more save points.  It's a portable game, people want to stop playing after short intervals.

Beyond that, I liked the game.  Standard KH battle system, nothing too crazy added other than linking with spirits which was decent.  Story was good as KH stuff goes, although I had trouble remembering which silver-haired bishie was which.  Want to buy more distinct bad guys please.  Dialogue was good overall, especially everyone talking about how dumb Sora is.  Fantasia world was FABULOUS.

For most of the game, I went full mage with Sora and attack skills+healing items with Riku.  Sora being the more effective of the two because item healing sucks in KH.  Riku's chain battle with Ansem was a nightmare, no pun intended.  I tried several different configurations of skills/spirits but each one had weaknesses to one of the three battles.  I finally just dumped everything and went with Dark Splicer/Curaga/Curaga with Pricklemane for attack and hp boosts and the snail for defense boosts.

Now I have to find a copy of Fire Emblem Awakening, which apparently nobody realized was going to sell well.  There is a massive shortage of the game everywhere.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I recall reading somewhere that Avatar F had a faster support with Chrom than Avatar M but I haven't seen support speed otherwise documented so not sure. But yeah it's of course based on how religiously you build support points.

I haven't abused pairing up (mostly use it when the extra stats will be crucial), the idea of doing FE with half as many people is ick. Put me down as one for whom Veteran is certainly less broken in practice than on paper, as such.

FE13 - Chapter 14, promoting people! Fun times. I have recruited one kid character so far (Kjelle), will get Morgan next. I have paired, without too much planning, Chrom with Sully, Avatar with Frederick, and am working on Cordelia/Libra. I am also using Henry and have to decide what poor, poor woman I will inflict him upon. Probably Cherche since she feels the biggest lock for the team among my other female PCs who can have kids. (Also using Tharja, Sumia, Anna, and Not!Marth.)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Tried out Ni No Kuni for a few hours and hated it.

Both the main plot and the sidequests are filled with unskippable walls of sappy text that doesn't interest me at all, and the merit stamp awards you get for doing quests seem pretty important. There's tons of backtracking too. So far it feels like a really small RPG with tons of rote filler to pad it out.

Combat feels a lot like an infinity engine game - it's a real time system where your characters auto attack enemies by default, and you can pause the game to navigate menus and give out orders to your PCs. Each PC has a short cooldown on performing non-attack actions (like spell casting and item use), and spells have cast times. The strength of this kind of system lies running it in seamless areas with a top down view and lots of PCs to control. It feels just wrong with an over the shoulder camera, 1 or 2 people, and a separate combat screen.

At least the voice acting is top quality.

I would ask how a modern RPG gets released without dialogue skip function but... Japan.

[Niu]

I finally just dumped everything and went with Dark Splicer/Curaga/Curaga with Pricklemane for attack and hp boosts and the snail for defense boosts.

You could have used Dark Aura instead of Dark Splicer? Dark Aura is like the next best thing than spamming Balloonga, it completely rapes Ansem and Xehanort to the point of not funny.
Even you don't have enough Dark Aura, Dark Break is a good enough substitute after the initial Dark Aura.
And.... no comments on the awesome wall kicking? It really turned TWTNW from a drowsy map to almost the best map in the game.

[superaielman]

Monkey: I know there is a sceneskip option and you can speed though the text by mashing the accept button.

[Meeplelard]

Tried out Ni No Kuni for a few hours and hated it.

Both the main plot and the sidequests are filled with unskippable walls of sappy text that doesn't interest me at all, and the merit stamp awards you get for doing quests seem pretty important. There's tons of backtracking too. So far it feels like a really small RPG with tons of rote filler to pad it out.

Combat feels a lot like an infinity engine game - it's a real time system where your characters auto attack enemies by default, and you can pause the game to navigate menus and give out orders to your PCs. Each PC has a short cooldown on performing non-attack actions (like spell casting and item use), and spells have cast times. The strength of this kind of system lies running it in seamless areas with a top down view and lots of PCs to control. It feels just wrong with an over the shoulder camera, 1 or 2 people, and a separate combat screen.

At least the voice acting is top quality.

I would ask how a modern RPG gets released without dialogue skip function but... Japan.

It's called "being Dragon Quest 9" apparently.

[hinode]

Dragon Quest games never count as modern RPGs, no matter what year they were published.

[Meeplelard]

Dragon Quest 8 begs to differ.

[Clear Tranquil]

Perhaps Pyro to a certain extent, but then if they had been too heavy handed the other way maybe she wouldn't have been interesting, she'd just be mean and nasty! ~

SO3- Casual segmented speedrun. Clocked in at 4.47.28 at the save point right before the final boss~
What I did with Peppita was rather go out of the way to level her up/spend any excess time on that was to level her up on the way while continuing with the plot. Did still get her Spike Shoes from the bar though. The strategy was to have Sophia and another low level character in as bait vs the Arkives Security soldiers while Peppita does her thing and hopefully triggers an attack with shoots powerful balls of ice off the Spike Shoes to take the entire group of soldiers out at once. I tinkered around with setups for this and saw a few resets before I finally came out with something that worked which was to set the Formation to Escape and to put Peppita in the third character slot in the menu set as Leader. Get a bit of distance to the right once the battle starts, make sure soldiers have started attacking other characters/they are drawing the enemy fire then run in with Long O, Sophia and the other character should go down while this happens, then hopefully Peppita will finish the fight off with ice ball triggers from her Long O. She'll get all the EXP and go from L1 to L18 this way, picking up Power Dance in the process~ Best place to save before trying is probably the save point on Styx. An alternate way of dealing with this would be to remember and keep/bring/make some extra Tricky Duck Duck bombs while doing the Peterny IC on disc one, this might save some time from getting the Spike Shoes as well.

Highlights of this run were the hilarious mocking of Azazer who went down well within thirty seconds to powerdanced Hammer of Might and Scatter Beams spams, some excellent synergy for rapid fire blitzing vs the Lesser and Dark Eyes with Power Dance > Magic Hook > Short O spam, Fists of Fury and Scatter Beam, same goes for Stone Golem and Battlecopter, how easy and quick the Spiral Tower sub/pseudo bosses were. Of course despite managing to get good times on the Kaddan fights I also manage to lose some getting hit by the moving blocks and going the wrong way/getting a bit lost on the way back out~

Anyway now that I know I don't need Orichalcum/Item Creation for disc two stuffs for next time I can probably save more time on disc one by leaving money chests alone except any in front of me and getting Sidekick by the Legion Dragons, instead of having to IC for that will probably save time as well~ I need to be less vigilant on saving/spend less time on that. I also need more stamina and concentration powers for playing any length of time without screwing up, it's hard/hungry work!~

Thanks again to Xer and Withhelde for the inspiration here~

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Dragon Quest 8 begs to differ.

It begs for a running over with my car.