What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Clear Tranquil]

It happened to me a few times especially since for some parts my old XB360 kept causing the game to freeze/crash as well >_> Also happened with Blue Dragon. Then yeah it just does that some bits anyway for S04~

Mario Kart 7- Yaay. There is no Daisy or Kirby in the game so apparently I'm a Peach by default~ Have tried the Balloon pop, coin collect and time trials modes so far, I did the best/had the most fun with at the coin collect Having fun though I still have to figure out how to get across gaps and other stuffs~

[Dark Holy Elf]

Happened with me in Lost Odyssey too. Possibly FFXIII, I forget. It's fine, just a bit of a "whoa" moment the first time it happens and you're all "oh god did it freeze, wtf no games freeze mid-cutscene".

Yesss another MK7 convert.

[Hunter Sopko]

Cole was pretty good overall, Evil Cole was...similar and the things that were different felt universally better.  Uh, yeah, this made me LESS convinced that having 2 Coles was necessary, seeing as their movesets were more similar than I was led to believe, and Evil Cole just felt straight up better for the most part.

Sounds like inFamous 1

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Star Ocean 4 - Almost died by being ambushed by zombies and then watched an extremely long scene. This game seems to be fond of its very long scenes. Almost done with Disc 2, it looks like!

At one point my controller turned off so it paused the scene and I thought the game froze.  True story.

in any game made to be halfway decent, that would be a sign that your scene needs to be cut down. Fortunately you are playing SO4!

[Random Consonant]

Soul Nomad - right I play things that aren't robots.  Finished up normal route.  Game rates about a 6 or 7?  Room setup really needed to be handled better and the game could've stood to allow for setting targetting priorities when it was busy deciding it wanted to copy OB combat but still considerably more my thing than Disgaea.  Also has Gig, who makes things better.

[NARFNra]

FFTA2 - Replaying it after finding it a few months ago. I'm taking missions a bit slower because I like to replay my old favorites, just reached the Three-Way attack from Duelhorn. Considering a challenge of some sort for my next playthrough, 'cuz the game really is too easy.

Kirby Mass Attack - Beat World 4 boss, discovered to my chagrin that in order to enter the final world I need to collect more medals. Thus, procrastination time.

[DjinnAndTonic]

@Random: Yay! Soul Nomad is good times. Are you going to play Demon Path? It's about a quarter as long as Normal Path.

Wild ARMS XF w/ Snow:
"I don't care if the wind's in my face!" "There's no justice on the battlefield, only in the soldiers' hearts!" "I'm a very capable woman you know!" "I hate lying..."
 * Take one drink every time you hear one of these lines
 * One drink for every time the council is outright being evil in front of the whole world and getting away with it
 * Chug/Finish your drink every time Felius flashbacks remind you that there were spaceships in the Wild wild west
 * Take a very small sip every time someone uses Turn Shift or Rush...

Man guysh, this ish like... teh greatest games evar~! ^_^

[Luther Lansfeld]

SO4 - Dungeons really aren't this game's strong point. Doing Arumat's first dungeon and it is trainwreck city.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

XF - Late Act 2, where everything turns into rochefort cheese and never lets up. Teaching Djinn the joys of Rush+Devastate is one of the simplest, yet most fulfilling deeds I could possibly do in 2013.

EDIT: Also, I like this game every bit as much as I remembered liking. Did you know Striders with axes actually wipe faces clean? Yeah, neither did I.

[Sierra]

@Random: Yay! Soul Nomad is good times. Are you going to play Demon Path? It's about a quarter as long as Normal Path.

Yeah, this is highly recommended if you enjoyed the game at all. Soul Nomad's demon path contains some of the most fucked up stuff I've ever seen in a game. When the voice of reason in your party is the child-stealing slaver, something has gone horribly wrong.

Also Prism Beige.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

And Penn. Just... Penn.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Wild Arms XF: Just got to chapter 3, still waiting for the "Ragnar sucks" bomb to drop. So far, his biggest issue is that he's just kinda dull-witted. He (and everyone he talks to by proxy) throws the phrase "Destroy the country" around like it's going out of style. The problem is that they take this phrase to mean something completely different than its standard meaning all the time. Sometimes switching up the intended meaning of the same phrase in the same sentence! Kind of aggravating, but Wild Arms is full of cheesy linguistics like this.

He's also a little slow to let go of his anger, which is a little annoying, but understandable. And at least he doesn't spend too many words actually talking about how emo he is over (death of his family/death of his friends/death of his revenge target/loss of motivation/pick 3). Unlike a certain character from FF13 who I hate with a fiery passion. Conversely, I kind of loved his scene with King Hrathnir, where he gets verbally owned for not understanding his own motivations. It was clearly a growth moment for Ragnar and I liked how it was handled. (Of course, the following scene shows Ragnar being indecisive, but at least that's a change from the single-minded stupidity from before.)

The only thing that I can really see as potentially egregious are his few-and-far-between scenes with Levin talking about women? He's kind of a playboy/jerk, I guess. Honestly, I found it funny. And Levin calls him out on it, so it's not like the game is framing it as a good thing?

Still haven't seen his interactions with Chelle yet, though. So maybe -that's- the big deal?

[SnowFire]

I thought Ragnar / Chelle was fine myself.  It was more Ragnar's early scenes that annoyed me, and even then I don't blame him so much as I'll hate on dumb writing + plot hammers.  Ragnar can't be allowed to just explain about the Black Arms; he must storm off in a huff because otherwise we miss out on our chance for TRAGIC FALLEN HEROES or something.  This is blatantly to set the mission up, and I'm willing to cut characters a wee bit of slack when it's obvious that this is a plot-driven rather than character-driven moment.  (This is another case where I'd rather the writers write the heroes as intelligent and perceptive and then come up with a villainous plan that works anyway, which makes me respect both sides more, rather than a rather flimsy plan that works because the writers make them grab the idiot ball.)

This is also where I mention again that the only way that whole plotline makes even a SHRED of sense is for everyone at the fort to try on their sweet new Black Arms simultaneously, since the transformation is instant and the undead aren't really subtle.  If one or two people found some in the rubble, at worst they attempt to go on a berserk killing spree, and everyone else stops and wonders what could have caused that as patients 0 & 1 get beaten down.  They at least show the simultaneousness in the town and own the stupidity, for all that this makes little sense as well!  (Even if Ragnar totally failed to convince them, and Our Heroes couldn't convince the drifters to just let one brave volunteer try it on first, it's still some pretty epic dance coordination - given an extra 2 seconds, it'd be pretty obvious that your comrades had just gone crazy...)  Of course all this could have easily been resolved by simply having the Black Arms work on a time delay, but whatevs gamers are impatient or something.

[Dark Holy Elf]

* Chug/Finish your drink every time Felius flashbacks remind you that there were spaceships in the Wild wild west

You're far enough in the game to know that Felius isn't from the wild wild west setting... in fact the very first such flashback should have made it obvious.

Ragnar is terrible because he's so utterly clueless and blathers non-stop about destroying Elesius. His plan to kill a king who has for literally 20 years dedicated his life to stopping the Elesius war machine borders on braindead. "Emo" is in fact the most positive label you could place on Ragnar; I could kinda buy him acting like a moron out of some revenge-twisted rage. Unfortunately the game generally plays him up as not this; we're supposed to believe his passions have reasonably cooled and he legitimately thinks this is the best course of action for ensuring that nobody has to suffer like his friends did. I also completely disagree with you and I thought he spent some crazy number of words reminding us that he lost his family and friends to war. (He also doesn't have any excuse for this behaviour, unlike some similar characters... he's not a teenager, this happened to him years ago, he's not currently in a state of great stress, etc.)

He's not sooo bad after Hrathnir completely destroys him, yes, except when he talks to the Zortroa. Unfortunately he does that quite a bit.

[SnowFire]

And oh yes.  If I took Ragnar's blathering about destroying Elesius even remotely seriously then yes he'd be (even more?) terrible as per Elf.   (I basically always treated it as Mr. Good At Heart lashing out and whining teenager bad-boy style for why I'm not hating on him so much, makes him pathetic rather than crazy.  But yes, it's entirely reasonable to read the plot wherein he's actually serious this whole time and then genuinely changes his mind after talking with Hrathnir, which is idiotic, if he really was that crazy it should have shown in other ways.  It was really obvious that regardless of what they meant to do with him, he wasn't going to be a regicide anyway, so.)

[DjinnAndTonic]

Okay, so I totally read the Hrathnir/Elesius thing as Hrathnir basically not being good enough at his job of keeping peace that Ragnar assumed that Elesius hadn't changed that much. This is probably entirely the Council's fault, and Ragnar's anger at the King is simply misdirected. Also understandable, it's not like he's familiar with the supposedly unknown  backdoor dealings that the Council engages in, he's just seeing the broken Elesius. Notably, he said he joined the Martial Guard to tear apart Elesius, but then quit when they didn't seem to be doing that. I took this as he must be new to the country, only now seeing what kind of place it is. Even if Elesius hadn't been actively at war for twenty years, there's no telling how damaged the other countries where people like Ragnar came from are. If they're still feeling the effects of Warlike Elesius (and judging from the number of dead mercenary friends Ragnar has, that's possible), then Ragnar's feelings aren't just 20 years old and in a vaccuum. He's still feeling the effects of it.

[Luther Lansfeld]

It would be character development if he actually changed!

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hrathnir being a big proponent of peace and dismantling the Elesius war machine isn't some obscure fact known only to shady elites, though... he's been doing it since Ragnar was a child and random townsfolk throughout Elesius talk about it. Even if we could believe Ragnar has somehow lived under a rock and chooses to be purposefully ignorant of the politics of the country whose course he seeks to change (which makes him an idiot), Labyrinthia and Levin, among others, articulate this quite clearly to him. Yet still Ragnar clings to the symbolism of killing the country's king (which would only give the hawks in the Elesius government more power!). "Whining teenager bad-boy style" really does some it up well. (I'd have... remarkably less problem with Ragnar if he were a decade younger, now that I think about it. He'd still need a good slap but at least I could buy him being that dense.)

[SnowFire]

(Ninja'd by Elf.  Well.  Similar thoughts.)

Well except that absolutely everyone you talk to gives the timeless Great Lie: the King is perfectly good and wants the best for all his people, and everything bad that the government ever does is the fault of the chief vizier / prime minister / advisor / whatever who occasionally gives the king bad advice.  (It is actually true in XF of course, but in history it usually isn't.)  XF certainly doesn't portray Charlton as trying to ruin the King's name, but rather leech off the legitimacy that the royal family has.

Now.  In fairness, the King being respected by Elesians might be worthless in Ragnar's eyes, so if he started the game thinking that the king must go (and presumably his government, too, Charlton doesn't hide he's a militarist), fine.  But he's working with the "princess" and the king's friggin' chief wizard.  He can ASK them and find out more about what the king has actually done, or he can be so infused with rage against the machine that he'd refuse to work with evil Elesian government types like them and be some kind of dark horse NPC.  Working with the "princess" and being all "yo imma kill ur daddy" is...  okay it's silly enough that I can only presume Labrynthia didn't take Ragnar seriously either, this is just a scene that doesn't work without ending in a fight if done seriously.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I mostly agree with SnowFire's assessment. Ragnar's not perfect, but I just don't see the egregious failure that NEB's espousing. He's not really a character to take seriously, but from the venom, I was expecting Shion-level misframing.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Funny, I mostly agree with Snowfire as well...

[DjinnAndTonic]

Well, at any rate, I am enjoying the game immensely, and Ragnar has little impact on that.

It seems the game has some pretty favored classes. A good 5/6 of my party all have the same sort of setups involving Fantastica/Elementalist/Sacred Slayer/Enigmancer OCs and support abilities. If it weren't for the Story PCs having unique classes, they'd all be almost literally the same. Still, there's some pretty good class balance once the rest of the classes show up. Strider in particular FINALLY makes physical builds work.

Got to Clarissa's third outfit. Ugh. Now normally, I like pigtails for adding an interesting shape to character design and being cute and such, but holy crap these are terrible and do NOT suit her at all. Particularly with the artstyle, which already draws Clarissa as stick-figure-skinny and gives her this massive clump of hair... it's bad. Really bad. You win this round, Andy.

OH, and a list of Generic DLers that make up our Chevalet Blanc army. Snow and Hatbot chose the classes mostly at random, which makes it funnier to me. Some male DLers were made female to get a more even gender ratio so there'd be less overlap. (Some DLers were made girls because Snow and I thought it was funny har har)

Battle units:
Grefter - Enigmancer w/ time spent in Elementalist, Sacred Slayer, Fantastica
Djinn - Strider, w/ time spent in Secutor, Geomancer, Sacred Slayer
CT - Gadgeteer w/ time spent in Fantastica, Elementalist, Sacred Slayer

Search units:
Ciato - Sentinel
Idun - Nightstalker
Random - Berserker
Trancey - Female Fantastica
VSM - Female Excavator
Zenny - Female Grappler
Pyro - Gadgeteer
Aiel - Female Geomancer
Dhyer - Fantastica
Glen - Female Sacred Slayer
Sage - Elementalist
Elfboy - Female Enigmancer
Reiska - Female Excavator
Snow - Enigmancer
Celdia - Strider
Magic - Geomancer
SnowFire - Secutor
CK - Female Extremists
Laggy - Excavator
Nitori - Female Gadgeteer
Tonfa - High Cavalier
Tide - Grappler
Tally - Female High Cavalier
Soppy - Strider
Alex - Female Elementalist
Shale - Extremist
Cid - Sacred Slayer
Andy - Female Berserker
Ashley - Secutor
Fenrir - High Cavalier
Ephraim - Grappler
Excal - Emulator
metroids - Female Emulator
Gate - Sentinel
OK - Emulator
Neph - High Cavalier
Niu - Female Extremist
Meeple - Nightstalker

Dismissed units:
**Magey - Male Fantastica
**Eternal - Male Grappler
**dn - Female Fantastica
**Kurosu - Female Berserker
**Dune - Female Geomancer

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

They're all in plurals, by the way.

Also, we're on 3-9 or something. POWER THROUGH EVERYTHING EVER

[Shale]

Shale - Extremist

I was going to object to being linked to XF at all, but this strikes me as appropriate.

[Random Consonant]

The 2nd Super Robot Wars Original Generation EPISODE 3 THE GAIA SAVIOR (Now With Even More Oversized Fruit) - Well the MX upgrades are hilarious.  Not as hilarious as the D upgrades though.  Getting stuff like a 4600 base power 110 Will 3-10 range ALL on top of other stuff certainly tries though.  Snipe?  Who needs Snipe?