What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't actually remember that scene*. I do remember lots of Edward crying over his 17-years-ago dead girlfriend though!

*I probably don't remember many TAY scenes at this point

[Anthony Edward Stark]

If you use Kain and Edge and Edward you should probably be sent directly to bad character hell.

He's playing TAY, so he's already there.

(But seriously Edge is the best character in that game. All that gear with sweet itemcasts and stat boosts? Also he gets scenes that aren't complete ass, which puts him way up in the ranks of non-terribly writtenness).

[Luther Lansfeld]

The three mostly just suffer from living in a time capsule where the game doesn't seem to realize that it is 17 years in the future. (But yes, the point about general character hell is well-taken.)

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Say what you will, Edward is better done than Porom. Kain might be a better character than her even.

(Edge isn't in a time capsule, he's just hella inconsistent on when he can be pragmatic and intelligent).

[Cmdr_King]

In Edge's case, I feel like him changing over the course of 17 years would be less plausible.  Edge is Edge.
 Kain now, fuck that guy.  So hung up over his best friends wife that his evil half's only goal in life is to kill said best friend and steal the wife away.  Dude, they have a kid, I think she's over you.

[Fudozukushi]

The real question is why the seneschal keeps calling him young master when Edge is 43.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Edge is sensitive about his age. The seneschal is just doing as expected. It's a bit of subtle character building, clearly!

Playing The Last Story:

My roommate and I picked this game back up so it's getting completed before all the other things on my list.

I'm of mixed feelings on it. On one hand, it's got a decent plot going on, with some cliche, but reasonable motivations all around for the characters good and bad. Some good music, and a battle system that remains fun even after 30 hours, though it can get repetitive.

On the other hand, we just stumbled onto a sidequest where you talk to a psychic and collect adoring women.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The real question is why the seneschal keeps calling him young master when Edge is 43.

Because the seneschal is a condescending douchebag who is trying to belittle him.  I'm pretty sure seneschal is Spanish for Grand Vizier, which is Persian for fucking traitor.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FE13 - Chapter 5, you -rude- motherfucker.

[Dark Holy Elf]

<FE13> We heard you liked wyverns. And ninja reinforcements. And wyverns who are ninja reinforcements.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I actually managed to solve the chapter with only one reset. Pairing up Miriel and Lon'qu turns her into a gorram death machine, she just munched through the Wyverns while sitting inside a fort. Also, I'm very sorry I said you're rude for C5, FE13. Paralogue 2 is considerably meaner with the archer swarm and forest tiles hampering your movement feom saving Anna. >_< Doesn't help that Sumia really can't take hits to save her life.

[Dark Holy Elf]

You don't need or even get anything for saving Anna in that map.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Wait wait. I can let her -die- with no consequences? What about the village, is it a shineys?

[Dark Holy Elf]

I didn't get the village myself... checking Serenes, it's a Physic.

[hinode]

Plotwise, the Paralogue 2 Anna is alive at the end of the chapter even if she 'dies' on the field, so there is really no reason to bother keeping her alive.

If you want the Physic, I'd suggest pairing up Frederick with Sumia, rushing them towards the village, and not worry about your exp too much on that particular stage.

[Meeplelard]

I don't actually remember that scene*. I do remember lots of Edward crying over his 17-years-ago dead girlfriend though!

*I probably don't remember many TAY scenes at this point

It's not as awesome as Edward fans would make you think.  Oh sure, sounds cool until you realize the plan isn't well thought out at all.  Kain is clearly stronger than Edward, if Edward is to survive such a move, Kain would definitely survive it too (and he does.)  The plan has this "OMG THAT'S AWESOME TAKE THAT!" thing but then...it does absolute jack squat to prevent the outcome of the scenario, and it's not in a typical "Maiden is a Villain Sue", or "Kain fan-wap" but just general Edward trying to be badass and failing in some very basic ways.  Again, he relied on ROSA as a contingency back up plan, and all this ended up doing was getting her kidnapped.


I think the best way to illustrate the failure of Edward's BRILLIANT PLAN!!! is through the results of it:

-A charred castle
-Dead ZOMBIE Guards
-Baron Queen gets Kidnapped
-The Fire Crystal, the #1 priority you were intending on protecting, gets taken anyway

Take off the shallow factors and you realize just how bad Edward's plan is.  And to think, he could have fixed the entire scenario by just MOVING THE DAMNED FIRE CRYSTAL from it's most obvious of locations.


I'll give him props for the Whisperweed thing.  That was actually well thought out and executed (and it succeeded in it's role at that); the "Set Castle on Fire" plan?   He played his trump card without, you know, actually using his other options first.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Plotwise, the Paralogue 2 Anna is alive at the end of the chapter even if she 'dies' on the field, so there is really no reason to bother keeping her alive.

If you want the Physic, I'd suggest pairing up Frederick with Sumia, rushing them towards the village, and not worry about your exp too much on that particular stage.

While I'm glad, I'm also vaguely disappointed. It just felt so -possible- to save Anna, yet so dickish. Almost felt like a FE4 map without the ten-hour duration.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Dark Souls - Well, I figured out pretty quickly this is the type of game I'd need to FAQ to enjoy, fortunately we live in an era where such things are possible! The setting also feels very bland so far - I suspect the underuse of music is to blame - which is not something I expected to say of a game where you start off as an undead. Otherwise, the game seems like it will be fun once I get into it, but I haven't reached that point yet. It really does remind me of Zelda 2.


God Hand - Up to the final chapter! I had almost forgotten how out-of-nowhere rude Great Sensei is.

[Meeplelard]

Plotwise, the Paralogue 2 Anna is alive at the end of the chapter even if she 'dies' on the field, so there is really no reason to bother keeping her alive.

If you want the Physic, I'd suggest pairing up Frederick with Sumia, rushing them towards the village, and not worry about your exp too much on that particular stage.

While I'm glad, I'm also vaguely disappointed. It just felt so -possible- to save Anna, yet so dickish. Almost felt like a FE4 map without the ten-hour duration.

For what it's worth, I managed to save the Village, but not Anna.  I just went with it, and yeah, learned that it didn't make a difference.

I forget how I saved the village, but I know I didn't use Frederick (I stopped using him after Paralogue 1 where I needed him to baby Donnel), may have just done Sumia+Kellam combo or some such.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

The +5 Defense from pairing up with Donnel certainly would -help-. I'm still using Frederick, though, the Silver Lance fuck you is just so good. It's still OHKOing people or near that much even in C6. I s'pose I'll just give him a second seal if I need him to catch up or something, since he's building supports with a few key people in my army as it stands. By the way, is Sully just supposed to turn out good? Mine is really shaping up, and she supports with good units too (oh hai Sumia and Miriel). I kinda wish FE:A was more liberal and allowed S supports with same-sex people just for that. I mean, all the people I want S'd are girls right now, except maybe Lon'qu. (<_<)

[hinode]

A-rank supports give you about 95% of the benefits of an S-rank support in battle. Same stat boosts from Pair up, so you're just missing out on +5 hit, +3% Dual Guard, and +10% Dual Strike (the one that actually matters).

The main thing that you're missing out on are the kids, and the limitations on S ranks are there for a reason. <_<

[SnowFire]

There are NOTABLY fewer options for same-sex supports in general, though.  Which is somewhat understandable, more marriage options probably comes first, but it's not uncommon for a character to have like 7-8 potential marriage partners and only 2 same-sex supports (and an Avatar support which can be either romantic or not).  For all that FEA *massively spoils* me with an abundance of support options compared to old FE games, which is great, I'd still be greedy and hope for a bit more - maybe something like half the number of same-sex supports as romantic supports, rather than a quarter.

[hinode]

I guess you could make an argument for generic supports limited to a B rank mechanically or something, but in terms of actual support dialogues I can understand why there aren't more; there's already significantly more support text in this game than in FEs 6-9 combined, even counting all the semigeneric supports as only one set each. IntSys eventually released a couple of easy DLC chapters specifically to add extra character interaction dialogue, mostly for same-sex character pairss and for the spotpass PCs who don't support anyone but Avatar.

The non-romantic supports also benefit from the fact that the writers specifically wanted those two PCs to interact instead of being mandated for gameplay shipping purposes, so you don't get the filler that some of the weaker romantic supports feel like.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

ALTERNATIVELY: Chrom/Frederick is totally a romantic support. I mean, from the C support, you already know Fred's seen Chrom naked!

[Grefter]

Edit - just because he has seen you naked doesn't mean he is romantically into you Snow.  No he isn't going to call and yes this is why you are a slut.

ToGfffffff - This game just keeps going.  It honestly has kind of outlived its welcome.  Having had two points of climax where you confront the big bad just to have it go "Nope" and then you get a filler distraction arc already I jumped ahead in a FAQ to make sure it wasn't going to do it again.

Still not as oooooomfg just end as TotA gets near the end with its filler arcs.

A I near the end I really must say they are doing some neat things on a Best Of Tales mash up game here.  There is a lot of good ideas.  Unfortunately the more interesting Tales ideas plot wise are few and far between and most of the good ones were done okay in the first place.  Bad tales plot is baaaaad, so even when Graces saves them it can be a bit weak.  That complaint might not happen if I wasn't playing

FF: Dimensions - I am in the last dungeon now.  The final dungeon takes place inside The Void which has swallowed pieces of the world.  You actually walk around on those dunks of land and interact with the lost villagers.  This dungeon also is inside another dungeon.  FF:D literally taking the FF series and running it through Pimp My Ride. 

So yeah it holds up right to the end.  Best FF game this side of 10 I would say and it takes the referential riffs on old plots and mixes them all together in a big dumb fun way that improves them all really.  It is light hearted and kind of stupid about it, but the game calls itself on it.  Even at its worst character wise there is straight up a point that I can't tell is parody or not, but is so brilliantly so that I will interpret as such regardless.