What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Shale]

ShF3: Optional dungeon finished again, got Medion's ultimate weapon. One more run to go, and it's with the strongest party which also has a truly ridiculous number of healers, so it should be a breeze. That probably means there will be a run of crits that massacres my entire party via OHKOs, but c'est la vie.

[Grefter]

WA:XF - I want to like this game so much more than I do.  So much of this map design can go fuck off and die.  Where Chapter 1 was puzzle oriented of varying quality that is well covered.  Chapter 2 is about "Reinforcements arrived up your butthole".  I can deal with that, I am assuming it is going to happen now.  Leaving your mages at the back is going to get them ganked by 8 dudes that spawned because you killed 3 of the 7 enemies on the map.  I could put up with that I guess.  It just so consistently being setup that maps feel like Overcome obstacle -> Dudes spawn -> Clean up.

It is just kind of boring.  That isn't making me hate though.

What is making me hate is this map where I need to not kill dudes.  That is cool, not killing dudes is a fine thing.  The reinforcements that come after you achieve the super vague target of getting a certain number of dudes into near death range is achieved even spawn in front of you.

No one can die.  They don't tell you that anywhere.  Which changes the dynamics pretty heavily.  I want to get my dudes to stick together far more for example and probably use another Sacred Slayer OC.

This is especially annoying because to this point just eating the death and using Revive Fruit was actually a pretty good strat (because Revive Fruit more OP than Phoenix Down in FFT).  That 2-2 Elevator shit (thanks for the heads up Elf) was handled quite handilly with a suicide blitz by Levin to lure all the dudes to the ledge and blow like half of them up.  Liberal abuse of moves with near infinite vertical tolerance (Lightning) cleared up the rest.  The map where they introduce Misery to you, well that is a fine way to cure that shit, especially if you had suicided a Gadgeteer.  Suddenly on this one map though?  Oh that is a terrible thing and we won't let you do that.

Also of note is that they make the enemy drop Peppy Acorns on that map with Misery.  So you can get Peppy Acorns first on that map if you kill things with an Excavator.  You could in theory then equip them with the Excavator skill In & Out.  But you can't because Misery blocks it.  Dicks.

[Shale]

Yeah, WAXF has the misfortune of being an awesome core gameplay and class system shackled to completely shitty level design. It would be so much better as a PC game where custom maps could be a thing.

[Fenrir]

The annoying maps don't stop there. Sorry.

There are more and more reinforcements as the game goes on. I think we've understated how they're terrible design.
I often forced myself to play very conservatively in fear of them: I didn't want to run into the risk of having 0 Mps as 8 new enemies appear, as restarting a 20 minute SRPG battle is dreadful no matter what.
Reinforcements are more reasonable in something like FE (as long as they're not ninja), where you don't have to manage resources.



ZHP: Screwed up somehow and lost all my items despite the insurance. I'm not picking this up again for two bosses.
Laharl was another ultra lame boss. In the 149 floors dungeon, I took 0 damage from everything but one monster, OHKOed everything but 2 monsters. Then I 16HKO Laharl and he 3HKO me back. Lolz.
N1 really doesn't know what the fuck to do with the numbers in the aftergame of their games so they just make them bigger. A shame.


Uncharted Golden Abyss:
I'm weak and got up to the end despite weak gameplay. I enjoy yhe Indiana Jones barter, various artefacts, cool statues and lush forests.
I don't know what my reaction is supposed to be when another platform collapses and Nathan Drake falls to his death but oh wait he can catch another. For the 167th time.
I was kinda surprised the first time, I found the game kinda lazy the third time, and I'm not even reacting anymore at this point. I'm just going through the motions.
I like the shotgun a lot. But this is one of those dumb two weapons games, so I often have to swap it with an assault/sniper gun and go back to play Ophtalmology: the game.


Infamous 2:
Surfing on tramway overhead lines, pwning pigeons.
Karmawise I chose Nice over Jerk but I might replay this. I mean, you get orange lasers instead of blue lasers.
Thegame's shockingly competent but lacking in vision, and inspired by comics. So it's like Darksiders. (But obviously not as dumb, rest assured)
This feels very different from the usual sandbox games, mainly because you end up spending very little time travelling between or during misions. Meanwhile GTA feels like its 90% travelling without a special objective from point A to point B.



FF9: I kinda want to solo this. Does anyone remember how available Vivi and Freya are? Do theh disappear for a large portion of the game or anything? (I doubt anyone but those two and Zidane are reasonable choices for a SCC)

[Hunter Sopko]

You won't be disappointed in choosing Good side for inFamous 2 once you get Ice Rockets.

[Tide]

FF9: I kinda want to solo this. Does anyone remember how available Vivi and Freya are? Do theh disappear for a large portion of the game or anything? (I doubt anyone but those two and Zidane are reasonable choices for a SCC)

Yes, I did a Hatbot Solo challenge a while back (change solo PC after every major event). Incindentally, I got the best PC drawn at ALL the worst times possible. Fuck you too, bot.

Anyway, Vivi is available for a large portion. Freya kinda disappears on Disc 2 late. Disc 3 is pretty even though. The hardest SCC by far is Garnet but for all the wrong reasons. The opening forest dungeon is actually also really tough with Steiner for some reason. He has issues trying to save Garnet inside the plant as his Bronze Sword deals shit for damage and he's not fast enough to juggle between damage, keeping damage off Garnet and keeping damage off himself.

[Dark Holy Elf]

If you do an FF9 solo, for goodness' sake use someone besides Zidane. Anyone, I don't care. Vivi sounds cool though and IIRC his avaiability is pretty excellent.


I can't say I found reinforcements that big a problem in XF? Unless you're spamming Turn Shift like mad you shouldn't be running out of resources due to them (except maybe trying to do 1-15 without Sanctify). And even if you do run low on resources you have several recourses, formation arts (physical dudes) and combination arts (magical dudes) are a pretty effective way to output damage without MP. (edit: MP Burst can also help, but it's gambly. It works better if you have a Magic Berry or two just in case, or some other method of regenerating MP to try for MP Burst again, such as the various "___ and Heal MP" skills.)

2-4 is a jerk, no question about it. Game does tell you that losing a PC is a loss condition though, it's in the condition screen (always check for "any ally falls in battle" vs. "all allies fall in battle"... latter is more common but more puzzly/trickier maps call for the former often enough). I had thought the game tells you you have to lower three enemies into critical, too? Could be wrong there. Regardless you know it now. It's still a nasty map, but yeah, what you have to do is critical three enemies then rush through the gate. I recommend getting as many people as possible near the gate before you trigger it to open. (The much-maligned Geomancer can let you sneak some people over there, and their armour resists the nasty elementalist offence!) For another protip, the reinforcements can cast Shut Out to stop you from escaping so either escape quickly or carry people with Dispel to deal with it.

Also Felius' Status Absorb lets you yoink away Misery from all your PCs, and either he/anyone he status absorbed can then use those Peppy Acorns (which I never knew about, shows how much Excavator I use probably; kinda cool though). If someone dies you can also revive them and they won't be miseried any more, though that's less elegant.

[Grefter]

Revive Fruit zerg was how I did that map without beating my head into a wall (it is pretty doable with just Formation arts and shit), but yeah good point on Status Absorb, hadn't thought of that.

It isn't that Reinforcements are troubling or burn through excessive resources, it is just that they are straight up boring as fuck and kind of shit on this "Preplanning without prior knowledge" thing.  If the solution to a strategy game is to load up the map, eat a reset and then know what is going on it hurts it in my opinion (part of why people dislike Fog of War maps in FE non?  Also it really kind of defeats the purpose of the honestly neat descriptions from Labyrinthia).  That and the already bitched about "And now put the PSP down while the AI gets 9 turns in a row where you can't respond" is the thing I take issue with.

I am not going to check a Conditions screen when the game forces me to read through a scripted description of the mission objectives for every single story mission in the game just in case they didn't tell me shit.  That can eat a bag of dicks.  Also why the fuck is it a condition there?

[Sierra]

ME3: Dammit Kelly don't give me my fish back I'll just kill them like all the rest.

Bug hunt day. Man, I was hoping for better payoff than that. ME1 = release space bug queen, expect space bug allies somewhere down the line; ME2 = space bug queen is still alive and apparently rebuilding quietly, yay; ME3 = space bug queen got weaponized again and needs your help to stop it again, then you get some offscreen workers you'll never see for your mystery weapon. Bwaah. I guess a BIG DAMN SPACE BUG HEROES moment was too much to hope for. Speaking of, I can't say I'm fond of the idea of building some magic bullet to wipe out evil space robots for us. Running around the galaxy building alliances for a huge collaborative Suikostyle effort is pretty cool, building the Death Star just feels like a distraction.

So this is the first time I get to see a galaxy map that has spheres of influence outlined and apparently humanity claimed like a quarter of the galaxy in three decades. That is pretty nuts and suddenly I can't really fault all those aliens complaining about human expansion. All the other big players have been at this for thousands of years! Also apparently ME's stance on gay marriage is that in two hundred years it's totally normalized and no one even blinks anymore. Cid-approved social development! Except for the evil space robots.

I am definitely digging the sentinel powerset. Running up to dudes and exploding at them is pretty great. Running with minimal weaponry to punk cooldown times and maximize facexplosions, works pretty well.

[Grefter]

There might be something come up with that later super minor spoilers, but I think it is a split you won't see Even if you kill the queen you still get that mission.  I am pretty sure if you save her then you prevent a new queen from being fucked up by the Reapers who if you save gets controlled at a later point and losing some progress on Project Crucible.

I am glad you are digging a game where you are a Space Opera Lesbian.

[Sierra]

Like that wasn't the selling point in the first place.

[Grefter]

It took 3 games to really get there though.

[Fenrir]

Ok thanks!
I kinda wanted to do Zidane but I knew my DL reputation would have never recovered from this. (and his options are lacking)
Vivi sounds really cool though.


In XF, not burning through resources mostly meant:
- Not using Turn Shift, so the Sacred Slayer in the team was always lagging behind everybody else (I'm not waiting for Sacred Slayer to catch up with infinite turns Nightstalker burning through her VP)
- Not using Intrude ever
- Not using Rush a lot, which locks a hell of a lot of options
It would have been great to use those in the few battles where I could have

Sopko: Ice Jump is already badass. I don't know how I could play this game without this move anymore.

[superaielman]

Zidane would be really dull. You steal a lot and then spam thievery.

[Meeplelard]

Not really.  Zidane's best damage is pretty much always his physical.  He does way more damage in game with his physical than he does in the DL; Thievery is a huge waste of time outside of LLGs.

[Fenrir]

I think I'd have refrained from using Thievery/Frog drop/Dragon lance anyway.

[superaielman]

I maxed thievery pretty easily on the last run I did of FF9. The best argument against it would be how much it'd slow down the game (Did FF9 even have mug?).

[Meeplelard]

It does and it doesn't.

Mug exists, but it's "Does damage on successful steals only", as opposed to classic "Attack + Steal." 


Thing is, Thievery is gotten late, and Zidane using the Ultima Weapon can pump out 9k+ easily enough end game.  Orihalcon can easily net like 6k+ if properly built.  Just MP Attack + Beast/Bird/Demon Slayer is enough to give him a huge boost to damage as is.  Only advantage Thievery has is saving Ability Points for Status Immunity and such (no need for MP Attack, Slayers, and if care, Long Reach)

[Dark Holy Elf]

"use your physical a lot" is even more boring than "use thievery a lot" though! (Also seconding that Thievery sucks, needs 600+ successful steals nooo thanks.)

Fenrir: Yeah agreed about Turn Shift/Intrude, Rush shouldn't be a problem though. It's 8 MP. I used it all the time on the 3-person playthrough when I had half as many resources!

Grefter: Checking conditions takes like 3 seconds. But sure, if you don't want to do it in general, then don't... that said it is worth doing whenever you are confused about precisely what the objective is, though (such as in 2-4), and you can even do it mid-map. Everyone has to survive 2-4 because the goal is to get everyone through the gate, and you could cheap it out by killing off a bunch of people and just having the last one escape. As a warning other maps where you have to have everyone escape or reach a certain destination usually have the same condition.

As a general design decision I'm not a big reinforcements fan (more player knowledge is better) but they're a way for the game to handle more than the normal limit of number of units on a map at once (I would strongly suspect that XF can't handle 24 units on screen at once, sprites are a bit too detailed unlike FE or SRW). They don't act as soon as they appear or anything so you can react to them pretty appropriately. Also almost every SRPG ever (except FE11-13 and anything else with a similar feature) forces you to sit through lots of enemies acting in a row at points. At least hiding half the enemies as reinforcements on some maps keeps these times down!

[Tide]

Not really.  Zidane's best damage is pretty much always his physical.  He does way more damage in game with his physical than he does in the DL; Thievery is a huge waste of time outside of LLGs.

Just going to second Meeple here. I didn't have Zidane all the time, but his physical is top notch. Especially with killer and MP Crit. He's good in the sense he never really lacks damage (because he has lots of physical twinking options), just his secondary skills suck. So if you can't physical something to death, level up and try again. Literally more boring than Steiner as the latter at least has some gambly sword techs early.

Fenrir: Vivi should be interesting. Especially once you get elemental armor that allows you to heal with Dual cast in trance. I had Vivi for a part of disc 2 and it was pretty neat despite how frustrating it was. Have fun against the Beatrix fights by the way. I couldn't find a way to get past that outside of needing to grind for HP as nothing seems to stop those OHKOs.

[Meeplelard]

"use your physical a lot" is even more boring than "use thievery a lot" though! (Also seconding that Thievery sucks, needs 600+ successful steals nooo thanks.)

Can't agree with that.  Physical is a quick animation and doesn't require sitting through the same 5 seconds of a chest appearing, opening, exploding on enemy all the time.  Physical ends things in same number of actions in a fraction of the time. 


It's not more FUN per se (both are dull), but Physicals are at least a lot faster and don't require grinding a lot on the side.

[Dark Holy Elf]

As if I remember Thievery's animation.

"These are both equally boring but at least this one is less slow" <- FF9, ladies and gentlemen.

[Meeplelard]

Well, generally speaking, in FF9 (and...most RPGs offhand), physical animation is shorter than everything else.  Even not remembering the animation...yeah...

[Grefter]

As if I remember Thievery's animation.

"These are both equally boring but at least this one is less slow" <- FF9, ladies and gentlemen.

Beat me to it.

I could totally open the Conditions screen.  It just pisses me off that there is so much competing design going on there.  I mean It is like if FFT didn't tell you all the objectives at the start of battles (even if they are Engrishy as a motherfucker sometimes) and XF uses whole sentences and is in character voice.  It doesn't tell you all the objectives and with such liberal use of Reinforcements it doesn't even give you a good overview of the battlefield.  It pretty much turns a neat feature into a burdensome waste of time.

And really I wouldn't be shitty at Reinforcements if it wasn't like every single map.  Even ninja Reinforcements in FE don't bother me as much as they do most of you guys (FE has way bigger issues for me obviously >_>), especially because it uses them sparingly.  This chunk of XF has been a slog of them map after map. 

I could buy the technical limitations if they didn't spawn nearly as many as they do after killing so few.  The number of times the optimal strategy has essentially been to do what 2-4 forces you to in nearly killing dudes and then cleaning up is the best choice is frustrating.  With the best part being, here in 2-4 I think Reinforcements are fine conceptually!  That is actually the exact point you should do them, but at this point I have done like a billion maps overflowing with reinforcements and now I am just completely over the mechanic.

Edit - Oh and for reference I did beat the level, it is just a point of discussion, I am not raging for days about a level I can't beat.

[Fenrir]

FF9 has three battle speeds: Very slow, Even slower, Slowest.
I'm wary of the length of Vivi's lategame magic animations, but I played FF8. Twice. I can live with this.
(I wonder if someone did a GF only challenge in FF8.)

Anyway Vivi the pyromaniac burns random beasts and plants in the forest. He casts fire, preferably multitarget, on everything. There's a giant boss plant, he casts Fire on it, then he casts Double Fire on it. And Fire again.
Then the forest fights back and it's supposed to be the bad guy there?


Uncharted Golden Abyss:
Ended the best way any game could end.
With a ~30 touch screen QTE fight where any mistake restarts the battle.


NEB: Rush wasn't very costly but you often have to recast it, and it's competing with more "deserving" skills for MP like Slow Down and whatever else your fantastica might have at the time. I did spend one or two battles wasting too much MP on rush.
Oh, the way combination arts do magic damage was really clever from the developers, but it wasn't well explained in game. I realized how it worked lategame.