What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Meeplelard]

Re FE9 stuff: yeah, pretty much what Elfboy said.  Oscar is arguably the MVP of FE9 due to having good stats where they count, supports with the right people (most notably Ike), with a good affinity on top of that (Earth is OP) and is a good Class.  He also gets Lances, which are "good enough", which makes the Bow option on promotional generally a no brainer.  To be fair, E Rank Axes still allow Steel Axes for some reason, which are a nice alternative for extra Weapon Triangle affinity without any training.

His token red counterpart that uses Axes is pretty much the same thing stat wise, and thus treated similarly.  Not quite as good due to lacking Earth Affinity granted, but definitely a strong character in his own right.

And yeah, Titania's probably the best Jeigan simply because of FE9's structure.  Early game has limited number of units that not using her feels like a legitimate penalty, existence of Bonus EXP means anything she steals can be compensated for (and the game rewards you for finishing maps fast, so she helps get MORE Bonus EXP), has good bases and Growth combo to make her viable the entire game, etc.  She's probably the worst Paladin come endgame...which is still arguably above average overall for a quality PC!

Yeah, most of the FEs are structured in a way that doesn't develop many characters outside of supports. The series without supports has some serious problems with memorability of non-mains. I generally like the goofy characters more because holy shit compare this to like FE6 tertiary cast. You could probably fall asleep during Alan and Lance's supports. FE10's 'supports' actually work better than the regular supports because the game can time when you see them rather than having to guess awkwardly at what point you'll see them. In FE13, there was a scene where Sully and Sumia talk about their sex lives and Sully says " W-well, it doesn't matter anyway. My love life's duller than a sack of flour." After, you know, she could be married to Chrom and have a child. I mean, maybe having sex with the hottest dude in Yllise is -that- boring, but maybe you shouldn't confess it to a Chrom fangirl. ;)

Yeah, pretty much.  That is one thing FE10 has going for it using Info sessions instead of Support Convos, is they're always relevant to the context of the game. 

Oscar was always the Savior Of Everything in my games. In general I find cavs underappreciated and myrmydons overappreciated in just about every FE but 4 (where myrmydons really rock and cavaliers are really really bad)

To be fair, Ares in FE4 is extremely good himself.  Won't defend Alec or Noish though.  Oifaye is a typical Jagen I suppose.

Myrms in FE5 are good too, mostly Shiva and Mareeta though.  The Cavaliers in this game are...iffy at best, unless you count Cavalier Derivatives like Lance Knights and such (in which case, Fin and Fergus are both very good.)  One thing Myrms have going for them of course is indoor Chapters they aren't affected at all, while all Mounted Units are hurt in some regard, be it simply losing mobility, or having to change their weapon entirely, and losing their awesome unique weapon in the process for the chapter (Fin and Dean are both prime examples of this, albeit, Dean isn't a Cavalier at all, but not the point.)

Mother 3 is actually at its core doing the opposite of following Earthbound's footsteps for better and (mostly) for worse, with the heavy handed anti-consumerism message and everything. It is almost apologizing for Earthbound like a 30 year old looking back in horror realizing how shameful and terrible Xenosaga is and burning the CDs.
Anyway the humor hit its low point with the magipsies.

I...agree with this for the most part, yeah.  I mean, there are times it differentiates from Earthbound in ways that help, most definitely (the serious stuff in Chapter 1 was actually quite good, and nothing Earthbound does really compares to it), but a lot of it is just clumsily handled stuff.

And yeah, don't know what they were thinking with the Magypsies.  I didn't mind it at first because I thought it was a one time gag that I would have probably forgotten about, but the game seems to think the idea of explicitly manly Drag-queens is hilarious, and then takes it a step further with the O2 Refill machines being essentially the same style joke only now forced down your throat.

[Grefter]

<CIATOS> HOT SLOPPY MAKE OUTS IS JUST SCIENCE.  Organic chemistry at its best bitches.

The Bureau: X-Com Declassified - This is better than Enforcer.  Go it.  It honestly is kind of meh.  It plays like a cheap Mass Effect game.  The controls are clunky and the AI is the worst.  Just the worst.  I was playing on Veteran (default second hardest difficulty) and got up to a point that I was just sick of it and decided fuck this shit and dropped it to easy.  That improved fun a little.

It doesn't fit into any canon established by the new game.  It is purely another timeline reboot which is disappointing just out of interest in how they would tie it in.  Wait for it to go on sale if you even care.

Also now that it kind of blows and doesn't really fit the other games well I don't mind so much that it is up in B in my steam list instead of down in X like the others.

[Dark Holy Elf]

FF5 solo - Beat world 2.

Last time, I'd just beaten the Big Bridge. So I get to Regole, buy Gaia Gear and lots of spells. Regole area has a few monsters of interest:

Fairy Orcs - They'll revive dead PCs as zombies if they get a turn. This is annoying because zombies apparently gain levels if they win the battle, which will make the PCs harder to kill off in the future. No thanks. Solution: Ninja with magic, throw a scroll at them.
Kuza Beast - They have which is very, very fatal given a chance, and are immune to a few key statuses. Not Break though.
Shield Dragon - Control sees its second use.

Anyway, get up to the Moogle River, which explodes to Ifrit/Ramuh like little else. Tyrannosaur is the recipient of a Phoenix Down (see, they have a use on this challenge!). In the desert afterwards, Cactuses are a way for me to learn 1000 Needles (I couldn't do it back in Ronka due to HP concerns, but here, Blue Mage with Control is durable enough). Sandcrawlers are durable bastards with Maelstrom to be annoying, but Break tells them to have a nice day. Aqua Breath wold also wreck them, just at a high MP cost, so my Cactus-farming setup would also have won.

Here in Bal, bad jokes will get you PUNished... Objet D'Arts explode to good lightning damage (2HKO), just need to make sure I'm faster than they are so because they can use Break on turn 2.

Bal area randoms notable for Cursed Beings, another notable revive-as-zombie random. Ninja, Lightning Scroll, dead. Drakenvale I go back to rocking Summon while levelling up whatever I feel like. Zombie Dragons are annoyingly durable, taking several Ifrits to down, so whatever, they can be friends with Mr. Phoenix Down. Otherwise, Ifrit/Titan sends most everything packing. Switch to Ninja and Fire Scroll things when MP runs low.

Golem - Requiem would make this easy, but I don't really want to sink JP into Bard (I may anyway at the pyramid, but not yet). The undead accosting him are apparently Heavy, so Phoenix Down is out. Protect/Shell on Golem, cast Ifrit a bunch, smack one of them with a Heal Staff once the other dies. I do use one Elixir on Golem which is a waste I could have avoided with a better setup.
Dragon Pod - In case you didn't know, this boss is terrible. Golem utterly shuts it down. So does casting Titan every turn for a MT OHKO while it wastes turns summoning. lol.

Onto the ship. Gobbledegooks are jokes. Gilgamesh/Enkidu I beat with Time Ninja, Haste/Slow/throw all the scrolls. Easy although I do need to be merciless since Gilgamesh will cast Death Claw eventually, which is potentially an instant loss as I still can't block paralysis. Hermes Sandals can't come soon enough!

Barrier Tower's a fair bit rougher than previous dungeons. I have 2 resets here. Travellers are weak but will use Time Slip, crushing my damage and leaving me prey for a bunch of free enemy hits as a wake up. Magnetites pull me into the front row where Reflect Knights can do real damage. Level Trickers will hit me with Level 4 Graviga (I'm level 36) and finish me from there with physicals. The overall scale of damage is still pretty low but these are things to watch out for. Anyway, a mix of rod-using summon classes is helpful here, as Titan wrecks some enemies, but spares Magnetites and Travellers, and Ramuh is good against those (especially Magnetites who get OHKOed). Comet also sees its first use here, as its damage doesn't suffer after a Time Slip, and it hits everything pretty well. I also level white mage some but it's riskier since it takes 3 Ramuhs to drop a Traveller. I also want to get some Blue Magic, so Summoner with Learning. Time Slip's not too bad past the annoying Old status. I also grab Off-Guard from the Ziggurat Gigas, a random which is otherwise notable mostly for being a durable flying type.

Red Dragon - So the thing is here that you can fight either Red or Yellow x2 in a couple chests in the dungeon. Reds aren't too bad, they have decent damage but a bunch of weaknesses. Heavy/Undead typings are annoying, but two castings of Titan and they're done.
Yellow Dragon - Titan blitz is somewhat less effective here, it would take five of them to bring them down. So the trick is to have another skillset which can deal with them... such as Blue! They're not Heavy, so Missile kills them nicely. Vampire can also be used to heal if this battle goes too long, as unlike Reds that is certainly a possibility. So, Summoner with Blue proves the way to go for these fights.

The second one guards... a Gold Hairpin! Excellent! *air guitar* This gets used forever in mage jobs from now on, it makes a ridiculous difference for spamming Titan and the like.

Atomos (1 reset) - Things I learned about Atomos: (1) Pull and Wormhole are both MT, (2) He only needs to use pull 4-5 times to eat things (I didn't count exactly), (3) He has enough speed to pull and devour the entire party, AND waste a turn casting Slowga (which mercifully missed), before I get my third. As soon as this happens there's a Comet blitz and even with Shell it's pretty hopeless; maybe if I had Curaga. Redo, Black/Time, Haste, then Sleep, then Bio. Return if Sleep had missed.

In Ghido's Cave, two winning strategies exist. Ninja with two Air Knives can hack through Metamorph and use Flame Scrolls to kill the slimes. With Learning, I can wait until I meet an Enchanted Fan, which uses Aeroga. Hell yeah! That unlocks the other strategy I use here, White Mage with Blue, as Aeroga and Flame Thrower can deal with each fight, even unboosted. White Mage, of course, I am using primarily to level. I switch between them depending on my MP needs; if the Ninja uses the Dancing Dagger, I sometimes even get MP back. Pretty cool.

Forest of Moore's a bit trickier. Galajellies use Rainbow Wind which inflicts blind/silence; both of these can be defended against however. With the ninja setup, I use the Bone Mail to block blind, Flame Scrolls to kill everything except Galajellies (need two for Imps), and physicals have a 75% chance to kill Galajellies (while also restoring MP with the Dancing Dagger, if desired). I also run White with Summon, using a Sage's Robe to defend silence. Even without any strengthening this works fairly well, as Titan/Ifrit takes out everything in no less than two hits, and Galajellies can be killed by Sylph (or Chocobo, but that hits their high evade). Wyrms are a bit peskier as they take a whole bunch of Ramuh castings, but Wyrms also suck. Heal Staff is also an option for restoring HP if I feel like saving MP.

I forgot to bother with Lilliputian Lyric. I always forget this even exists. I will grab it later. I do remember to grab the Aegis Shield, which gives me a way to block petrify (besides Ribbon), very important.

Seal Guardians (1 reset) - I forget that Firaga focusses and thus does way more damage than I'm used too. Oops! Fortunately I was running a suboptimal setup anyway so I come back with a better one: Time Mage with Level 4 White (levelling the class has paid off!). Haste, Protect, Regen, Slowga/Slow, Shell, Float tilts things decidely in my favour. Graviga + a Comet or two kills each guardian and the often don't even get a turn. I drop the earth user to low HP and leave him there because haha Earth Shaker, the rest aren't a big problem as thanks to Shell even the fire (who did more than I expected, as mentioned) struggles to deal a borderline 2HKO, and the others just suck.

Random world 2 bookkeeping time!

Catoblepas - With the Aegis Shield from the forest, he's a joke. I guess I could have used a Ribbon to get him earlier, he might have been somewhat useful in Moore. I use Knight here for the first time because it feels like the most valuable shield-user to sink JP into at this point.

Gil Turtle - Black + Summon. Dicy fight with this setup, but I really want a good way to output damage (Blizzaga is the best), and Golem is the most effective way to slow down his offence; at my unusually high levels it gets destroyed in 5 shots in the back row. Having Time or White would both be huge helps, but skill slot limits exist for a reason. I do cast Float before the fight, of course. Anyway, keep Golem up as much as possible, cast Blizzaga, count the number of hits so I don't do anything stupid like provoking counters when Golem only has one hit left to go. Elf Mantle decides it really likes me in this fight so it ends up shorter than it probably should be.

Castle Exdeath is probably the toughest world 2 dungeon (2 resets overall)... probably the toughest in the game in fact, but we'll see. There are a few problematic enemies. Black Warlocks can cast Confuse turn 1, Stop turn 2. Leaving one alone is bad because they gain a bunch of fatal status. Summoner (but not other classes) have enough oomph to one-shot them with Titan, but this is still a bit risky because the warlocks can go first. Ninja only two-shots with scrolls, BUT they can use Bone Mail, which blocks confuse. Bandercoeurl also can use instant death when alone, but they can be statused out first easily enough. Red Dragons get 2HKOed by Titan, other dragons fear gravity, so a setup of Summon and Blue handles them well. Otherwise, a mix of Titan/other summons and scrolls works well here. My attempts to level White Mage get mostly put on hold in this dungeon because it's just not good enough, but I spend a lot of time levelling other key jobs like Time Mage, Summoner, and Ninja.

Carbuncle - Catoblepas to the face once he drops his defences.
Gilgamesh - He has a bunch of status (including the potentially fatal Time Slip), so I go for a Bone Mail setup. Ninja/Blue, he doesn't have much MEvade so Vampire is reliable after Hurricane.
Exdeath - Time/Summon, Haste/Golem/Carbuncle, cast Titan a bunch. In theory he can cast Doom turn 1 (I don't see it), so Time also has Return to make sure that doesn't happen. Easy past that.

I'm Level 44 (yep, past normal endgame). Current job status:

Level 4: White Mage, Time Mage, Summoner
Level 3: Black Mage, Blue Mage, Ninja
Level 2: Monk, Beastmaster
Level 1: Knight

I'm close to Throw now so that's an obvious upcoming project. Otherwise it'll probably just mostly be raising up some things so I have a reasonable shot at Omega and Shinryu (Time 6, Black 5). If I somehow run out of things to do I will go after ninja mastery (for a much better Freelancer) or maaybe Dualcast but probably not.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Wild Arms 5 - There are four Sentinels. There are four towers. I see where this is headed. I just want to slap Chuck over and over.

[Sierra]

-Starship Troopers assault rifle because the Verhoeven connection with Robocop.  Would you like to know more?

It doesn't end there, either. Some of cyber-Steelport's feminine statues have three boobs.

SR4: *Romance Kinsey*

"Hey Kinsey, want to fuck?"

*Kinsey punches you in the face, then jumps your bones*

What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more.

[Grefter]

FF5 solo - Beat world 2.
...
Excellent! *air guitar*

Grefter approved.

Ninja uses the Dancing Dagger, I sometimes even get MP back. Pretty cool.

Laggy approved.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

-Starship Troopers assault rifle because the Verhoeven connection with Robocop.  Would you like to know more?

It doesn't end there, either. Some of cyber-Steelport's feminine statues have three boobs.

SR4: *Romance Kinsey*

"Hey Kinsey, want to fuck?"

*Kinsey punches you in the face, then jumps your bones*

What is love? Baby don't hurt me, don't hurt me no more.

There is a romance option that involves the conversation

"...See, I respect you so much that-"

"No, you don't. What's your real angle?"

"I'm looking for rough sex and Kinzie scares the shit out of me."

[Meeplelard]

Ducktales Remastered:  Finished.  Fun Stuff.  I'd do a review of the game but really...I think this is a better and more efficient way to waste your time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woJrjb91pW4

[kokushishin]

Juggling a bunch of games at the moment.  The only thing I've beaten of late is Crimson Shroud, but I've been getting into the Paper Mario series,  plan on starting BL2 sometime after the upcoming update, and Dragon's Crown when it arrives.

FFT War of the Lions translation wanted to be as different from FFT's as possible, so went with the "WE MUST SOUND AS IMPRESSIVE AS POSSIBLE!"  This led to, well, what Andrew said.  Also they love to use "Th" over "S" a lot.  Argath is probably the best (worst?) example of that.

The problem with that example is Argath is an actual name.  It's not even a Johnny vs Juan or Roland vs Orlandeau.  It's calling Harry "Harry", not "Hair E" or "Heri".   
I don't think it's too much to ask someone to have a bit more familiarity with Modern English if they can rote through random Japanese loanwords or Greek and Latin.

You'd be suprised how many allegedly "old and obscure" words people gripe that Smith used are still around today. 

Like say
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weald-Artois_Anticline
or perhaps
http://www.phillymummers.com/

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Project X-Zone: Finally beaten. Now may we (I) never speak of this game again.

[Meeplelard]

Ok, just completed two games in the last few days, I'll be giving you a DOUBLE RANT!!! or something...in two different posts.

THE FIRST ONE...you all probably know what it is already, so let's stop with the silliness...despite the game in question...

Mother 3:

So here's this game that is a sequel to a cult classic in Earthbound that came out 10 years later and never came stateside.  Then a (competent) fantranslation comes out, and suddenly people rave about it a lot, like it's the next coming of Video Game Jesus or something (well, not that much, but some people act like the game is the most incredible thing ever), yet...interestingly, apparently Japanese Fans weren't anywhere near that thrilled with the game.  Won't say it's hated but the West vs. East situation apparently is pretty notable difference in popularity.  To me, that raises a red flag of "A lot of people decided they liked the game before they played it!" since the combination of "Cult Favorite getting a sequel" and "Game never released stateside" is a winning combination for instant gratification when someone actually gets to play it.

Now, I played Earthbound back in the 90s, enjoyed it fair enough, but I know the game is completely a product of it's time.  I already ranted about the humor elements, so I'll spare you that angle, but other elements Earthbound had were things that were starting to phase out around that time.  Limited Inventory with equipment taking up slots in that inventory, or 1st Person Battles that were primarily text based instead of using visuals.  To illustrate what I mean, just compare (S)NES Era Dragon Quest to an (S)NES era Final Fantasy, and you'll see a dramatic difference in how battles play out.  As a result, I can forgive a lot of Earthbound's failings to some degree because at the time the game was made, these were fairly normal, so I can't blame the game for that, for all that it is still a flaw.

Mother 3 didn't really fix most of the issues.  It may have lessened some of them, like larger inventory space, or showing damage in battle via damage display instead of just "The target took 100 damage!" indicators, leading to faster battles, but it still feels like a game made in 1996, not 2006.  Even with a larger inventory, I still hit the inventory limit plenty of times and there's actual moments in the game where a person will give you an item, and oh wait, your inventory is filled, can't give it to you...and you lose the item permanently.  Worse, there's at least one moment where because Lucas had a maxed inventory (while Boney had open spaces), I missed an item and reset.  One thing the game does do right is making a "key Items" section separate from the rest of the game; that's something that was annoying about Earthbound, to be sure.  I'm also not convinced that random dude standing in places is better than Escargo Express in Earthbound as a storage system.

As far as battle system goes...well...it's Earthbound with a Rhythm based system, better difficulty, and a far worse cast.  The Rhythm thing is kind of neat in theory, but I never really learned the system, and the game doesn't do a good job of telling you how to pull it off; getting one hit felt like a crap shoot to be honest.  Yes, it's no different than Timed Hits in other games, but other games do a much better job at telling you about them.  One thing that makes SMRPG's timed hits so much better than other games is the well done tutorial.  Simply says "Press Button right before impact extra damage", and the key was just figuring out when that moment was.  Mother 3 just says "Hit it based on the music, put enemies to sleep to make it easier!"  I did the latter, and it never seemed to work, and the fact that they made it based on music just made it all the harder.  Thankfully, it's not important and I got through the game fine without it, but it did make Duster and Boney really damage anemic at times.

Next off, the Rolling HP system.  I didn't mind this in Earthbound where it felt like an extra neat mechanic that you could choose to use to your advantage, or ignore and not really suffer, mostly there for psychological effects of letting enemies have massive damage self destruct moves, which mostly meant "kill these guys last", and little else.  Mother 3...feels like they incorporated them as a basic mechanic that it was "use this or you will suffer a lot!"  In fact, the entire final boss was nothing but learning how the mechanic works, unless you managed to hold onto all the Magypsies Mementos the entire game, something neither insured nor does the game do anything remotely in hinting you're coming up to that.  To the game's credit, it is lenient on Game Overs, as it just sends you back to the save point, with all EXP gained between then and now intact (ala FF6), and Save Points are often right before boss fights, so good design there.

What about the worse cast thing?  Well, see, here's the thing about Earthbound:
All 4 PCs seemed to have a use and were varied.  3 of the characters had full, varied PSI Skillsets, and Jeff had all his unique tools and Bottle Rockets to find various niche purposes.  Those who haven't played Earthbound, I know you may find this weird to hear "What? Paula is useful!?" but bare in mind the DL does not translate these characters well at all; they're actually fairly well balanced in game.

Mother 3, by comparison?  Well, Lucas and Kumatora are fine; I have no complaints for them.  They're essentially Ness and Paula all over again, with a few spell adjustments, for better or worse.  The problem is the other two.  Duster has the same 6 moves the entire game, and 4 of them are Single Target Status moves; he's got HP I guess.  Boney is even worse; he's fast!!! and can SNIFF FOR WEAKNESSES! And is...completely ineffectual othewrise.  He's got HP and Attack on par with Kumatora, can't realistically use some armors without completely destroying his attack, etc.  The only thing he has going for him is good speed to be an item boy for, which with less equip slots, he does have more item slots.  You know XF Tony, and how he sucked and his sole purpose was basically a high move, high speed character until Excavators appeared, and was in a game where one crappy character wasn't a big deal because you can completely bench them in favor of Generics or something?  Yeah, Boney's like that except with the option to bench him.  He's basically a Warm Body and inventory space, nothing more.

Oh, and gonna throw this out there, but the "fever" system?  Pointless.  It's a way to waste time learning something forcing you to walk around in circles for a while until you get the "You learned a new PSI!" thing.  Compared to like every other game where you simply gain the level, learn the spell!  I don't mind alternative methods of learning things of course, but the "fever" idea just feels like an extra time wasting factor.  If you're not learning the spell related to level, just tell us "the character learns the spell!" as an independent variable of levels.  No, "it stops you from running so making it harder to avoid enemies!" is not a good excuse; it's just a nuisance.

The cast is another problem for the overall game.  Lucas is a silent protagonist, after they established he can talk in Chapter 1...basically, this game follows the rules of "Are you the main character of this chapter?  If so, you can't speak!"  DUMB STORY DESIGN GUYS STOP DOING IT.  There's a reason that Silent Protagonists in jRPGs are scarce by the PS2 era.   Kumatora and Duster both speak but show little to no characterization at all other than "Kumatora is a nice girl" and "Duster is suppose to be a silly slightly incompetent guy"; when I say "suppose to", I mean Chapter 2 tried to build that as his character but the game never really goes back to highlighting it.  Then we have Boney, a dog, who sometimes makes translated comments to himself, but is ultimately completely lacking in characterization.  I don't mind Dog PCs in games, but either they should talk normally (like Red XIII), or the cast should be big enough that one mute PC doesn't hurt (see Repede.)

...which really, when you think about it?  Mother 3 is Wild ARMs 1's cast but with worse writing.  Lucas = Rudy, Duster = Jack, Kumatora = Cecilia, Boney = Hanpan.  Now let that sink in; Mother 3's main cast is a lesser version of Wild ARMs 1's cast.


The plot of the game?  First off, anti-consumerism message got old fast, though game does eventually drop it I guess, but not for necessarily something good.  Quite the reverse, it replaces it with no real theme as it hamfistedly introduces the 7 Pins, and the game basically says "Pull them all to beat the game!"  Yes, a Zelda's Axiom introduced halfway into the game.  The game flow also halts dramatically here.  A comparison I can think of is Valkyrie Profile 2, where Chap 1-2 are quick and straight to the point, then Chap 3 comes along and you're just on a wild goose chase jumping from one dungeon to another serving no purpose other than padding, because "Your PrincessThe Dragon Orb Is In Another Castle Ruins!"  Only once does this arc end does VP2 start to get moving again.  Chap 7 of Mother 3 is the same way, really.  Game is moving along fine enough during the earlier chapters, then introduces this, and it halts.

But wait, Earthbound did the same thing you say with the Sanctuaries?  No, it didn't.  Earthbound introduces the Sanctuaries right in the start of the game, saying "There are 8 locations, the first one luckily is near-bye!" and also states that these are necessary for Ness to unlock his full potential to fight Giygas.  Ok, so we know exactly what to expect the entire game, and it's built up right at the start, and naturally, the Sanctuaries are spaced out throughout the game, with "plot" interspersed.  While Earthbound has a number of things that haven't aged well, it's pacing certainly is still fine.  Mother 3's section really just comes off as "This game is too short, quick, toss in an excuse to make a bunch of dungeons to pad this out!"

To credit Mother 3, they did have a good excuse to why Lucas needs to pull it, as "Good Guy pulling = Dragon is good! Bad Guy pulling = Dragon is bad!  There is a bad guy who can pull Needles too!" and having the Magypsies disappear actually lent itself well to an excuse as how the Villain can learn about where they are through a Magypsie who betrayed the others and helped the villain  but also explains why the villain didn't pull the one nearbye.  Of course, this whole plot is related to Magypsies to begin with, which Mother 3 tries to pass off as legitimate humor but and uh, see my earlier rant.

The other thing Mother 3 does right is getting some serious moments well done, particularly Chapter 1 has some really well done moments.  Problem is that any serious tone the game has is completely dropped in Chapter 4 and on, which several DLers called a "mood whiplash" which...sorry, I can't say is a good thing.  The game clearly wants you to take it seriously at times, but when you pull that "mood whiplash", it compromises any scene that can be taken seriously.  The big reveal in Chapter 8 for the game's backstory where this is actually a post-apocalyptic game with everyone but Leder having their memories erased and all history deleted such that only Tazmily Village was left, and everyone can live in peace and harmony and off the land with a well done, well thought out explanation would have been great in most games, honestly.  It shows a lot of thought and effort put into a reveal, and outside of the constant "DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?" statements, the expository speech actually kept my attention, long as it was, I was even able to ignore the design of the guy telling me this.  The problem is that it's an anvil of seriousness crashing down when the game has been completely goofy since, and the game takes an immediate turn back to goofiness right after, completely wasting the reveal.  The reveal also is wasted as it doesn't really build off it, as it ends up saying "Good, now go save the world and beat the villain!"

Now yes, bipolar games can work; Shadow Hearts Covenant comes to mind.  The difference is SHC actually understood what kind of humor meshes well with serious stuff, knew when to be silly and when to be serious, and actually had characters and writing to pull off both.  Just imagine SHC if Yuri were a silent protagonist instead of the Snarky Ass With a Heart of Gold...game is suddenly way weaker on all fronts now isn't it?

Speaking of Villain...seriously, game?  You're trying to make Porky/Pokey, the completely incompetent, total parody Bestfriend turned evil henchman in Earthbound into a legitimate, serious threat?  Oh, they keep silly antics to be fair, but it's hard to  really go with a game selling you on "THIS GUY IS A SERIOUS THREAT!" The entire last part of the game felt like just a lot of Earthbound fanservice, though the boat room where it had a lot of Earthbound objects did leave a sense of nostalgia.  Also played the Mother theme song "Pollyana" there, which was a HUGE breath of fresh air after hearing the same melody in the Villain's theme being played as every other track in the game, a melody I am way less than fond of.  I hated it in Brawl, this game only made it more annoying, it's practically the Theme Song of the game, even though it's technically not.  Actually, that aspect alone made me hate the OST, as there weren't really any stand out songs in the game otherwise; just a bunch of whimsical songs that felt soulless compared to Earthbound (Earthbound's OST is not something I'd hype either mind.)

When it comes down to it, as I have said in chat and probably once before in this topic, the game's greatest draw is easily it's biggest weakness:
It is a sequel to Earthbound.

As a result, a lot of stuff it was good at (legitimate serious scenes when it tried) gets compromised by the failed humor I indicated in an earlier post.  Everything the game does gets compared to Earthbound, and while it does some things better on fronts, many of them aren't "better enough" to make up for the failings, especially considering the 10 year difference between the games.  This is not a good game, sorry to say; it was kind of dull for the most part, the humor had me going "uh-huh..." more than actually cracking a smile,

Do I sound like I'm being too negative?  Perhaps, but the game failed to deliver, and I really wanted to just end it.   As I said, the game feels like an SNES game made in the PS2 era, and that's not a good thing.  It is not well polished, the game tried for humor and failed to deliver in most cases, what have you.  It very much failed to capture that spark Earthbound had, and Earthbound is not a game I'd deem to have aged all that well for a number of reasons, yet Mother 3 seems to not have learned from that much at all.

So yeah, I am giving the game a 3/10.   Is this harsh? Maybe, but it was not a fun experience, and whenever I think of something good to say about the game, multiple bad things come up to compromise it.  Reminds me of FF10-2 in that regard (no, I am not saying Mother 3 is like FF10-2, I'm saying both games have this thing of every-time I think of something good about the game, a bunch of the game's problems start surfacing again and I am reminded why I didn't like it.)

[Pyro]

Defeated the Golden Mage Knight.

The third part of that battle was a hell of a fight. 3 bosses each capable of putting down a world of hurt. Status flying around, multiple PCs being KOd at once near-constantly, having to try to stop the bosses from healing each other... just chaos.

I ended up cheesing the hell out of it with Elize/Leia keeping the corpses from ever hitting the ground. Elize could layer on the Auto-Lifes and put down MT heals at breakneck speed while Leia could do MT revival through items that was instant and had no recharge time. ToX has the best healers in the series bar none, and you need them on the higher difficulties.

Alvin manned the offense. He has the best straight up attack move in Variable Trigger/Blast. It is fast, ranged, and knocks the enemy back, holding up a boss that would otherwise be wailing on your party with any number of nasty gimmicks. He also has a skill that grants full auto-crits in Overlimit mode, which means that since only one PC can really whore out the Overlimit mode, there is no reason to NOT use Alvin to unload a world of hurt whenever you fill up the bar.

I didn't really put enough attention into it before but mages have a good use for strength-up skills since they can transfer them to fighters via a link. And there are good reasons to link fighters to mages. Elize's link handles all your TP problems (which items can do too, in fairness). Teepo Drain, Elize's Link action also fills up the Link gauge very very fast, leading to more offense from Alvin. I found out that Rowen's "Stop Time for 3 seconds on a successful backstep dodge") is a Link skill, which means that Jude + Rowen can whore that out brutally... There are actually  fair number of combos like that.

Enemies using Milla's spells are a lot scarier than she is with them. Since they have, you know, actually threatening damage.

[Fudozukushi]

Now do it two more times(unless that was your third).

The most devastating part of the bastard was the Grave-like ! counter that two of them did.  One-shotted me every time until I learned it had shit for vertical reach and so I spent most of the battle with my feet off the ground.

[Meeplelard]

NOW FOR THE OTHER GAME! This game I stealth played so I wouldn't be talking about it in chat, accidentally spoil anything, and because SCIENCE and all that.  Only a handful of people knew I was playing this game at all.  So uh, yeah,  that said, time to reveal that the other game is...




I originally had a different pic, but it was huge to the point where it's obnoxious.  Yes, this picture is big but barely fits in the margins so shouldn't bother anyone for scrolling purposes?  Anyway, about the game itself...

AS A WARNING, THERE WILL PROBABLY BE SPOILERS.  I WILL DO MY BEST TO CENSOR THEM BUT YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Xenoblade Chronicles was a game that gets universal praise like everywhere.  You never hear anything bad said about the game outside of "WHY IS IT SO HARD TO GET!?" or "IT'S TOO EXPENSIVE!" but that's NoA's fault for not printing enough copies, not the game itself's fault!  The game was then highest ranked Wii game in famitsu's "top 100 Nintendo Games of all time" in like 2012 or something, its score on aggregate sites is over 90%, scoring no less than a 9/10 from like every publisher.  Despite the limited number of people who played the game, Shulk is one of the most commonly talked about potential candidates for SSB4, and the fact that something looking like Shulk's face appeared at the end of the initial "X" trailer got people psyched as hell for a potential Xenoblade sequel (or at least, a spiritual one.)  Consistently, I've heard the game touted as "FF12 DONE RIGHT", and worth noting that I liked FF12, though won't defend it due to it's niche nature.  I've even heard one online reviewer, in a random podcast, call Xenoblade a "Once in a Console generation kind of game."

...basically, this game has a lot to prove.  That is probably one of the worst mindsets to go into a game with I know; might have ruined Mother 3 for a me bit, I won't deny, but I stand by all that I said about Mother 3 above!  Back to XBC, though, I've not heard of a game with such a strong standing behind it in years (...well, I guess Persona 4 thinking on it?)  It was also made by Monolith Soft who brought us...well...



Though really, one bad game shouldn't compromise other great stuff they've done...except outside of Xenosaga 2's gameplay and some legitimate good character work in that series (Virgil, Cherenkov, Albedo's backstory in XS2, to name a few), I was never a big fan of their work.   And the game is suppose to be long as hell, to the point where Elfboy keeps asying "NO ONE FINISHES XENOBLADE!!" (if jestingly) ...well, this is going to be a painful ride, isn't it? 80 hour game made by a team whose stuff I'm lukewarm to at best with possibly the most hype of any game in the genre in years leading to a biased viewpoint of the game, etc. 

This is where a lot of you probably stop reading and going "oh great, Meeple destroys another highly regarded game, that's two in a row, the guy is completely un-pleasible.  I'm never reading another Meeple rant again!!!"  I totally don't blame you either...though, there is one small problem with that assumption.  That problem?

It's that my opinion of the game is actually...well...
THIS GAME IS FREAKING AWESOME!

Yes, you read that right; XBC is a great game, and actually lived up to pretty much all of it's hype.  I am legitimately shocked by this.  Ok, to be fair, I wasn't expecting to hate this game, or even dislike it.  I was expecting to find the game merely "decent" but it completely showed up my expectations.

So...let's start with the things XBC didn't do right, because that's easier.

First off, the Interface is kind of annoying at times.  Why they did a pop up menu that leads to a normal menu baffles me.  I wouldn't mind this so much if leaving the normal menu screens cancelled out of everything, but it doesn't, and sometimes you forget this, and plan on pressing, say, the Map button and instead get the Story Memo button, or you want to target an enemy, and instead you get nothing.  Now being ambushed by an enemy isn't a big deal in this game usually, just means the music is different...often for the worse, as the two battle themes when you initiate a battle (Time To Fight and Mechanical Rhythm) are considerably better than the two ambushed ones, which brings me to another flaw...except not because I still have one other interface complaint, that being targetting.  Given the basic hecticness of battles, it's sometimes hard to see what you're targeting due to health gauges super imposing over each other, and sometimes you'll target an enemy off screen.  The game could have benefited from what FF12 had where you can actually have a "Wait" mechanic going through menus and change targets that way; would have made it easier to see whose targeting.  Note that the Menu Interface is fine in battles, and actually works well in them; it's just the whole "Pop Up menu -> Real Menu" thing that's pointless, would have been better to just have one menu screen cover the pop up menu.

Now onto the OTHER issue:
How music worked in battles at times.  Now I don't mind music changing based on situation; Skies of Arcadia did this well for example, and there being a "Your party is in trouble!" theme wasn't so bad as once you got out of trouble, it'd revert back to the original theme.  The real problem, though, is visions, in that when you see them and change them, you get this...intense "HURRY AND ACT!" theme...which is weird seeing as you already changed the vision.  Ok, I don't mind that though just the song LASTS THE ENTIRE FIGHT in most circumstances, and it's a pretty blech song compared to most battle themes (the two I mentioned + You Will Know Our Names.)  I wouldn't be surprised if this was a bug or shoddy programming and the intent was for the songs to end once the vision attack was finished, but nothing was a greater kill joy for being invested in a fight than having "You Will Know Our Names" play, fight is really heating up, then you see a vision, and my reaction was often "OH FUCK NO!" especially when it happened early, NOT because of the attack, but because the music was going from Top Tier to Blech.


So what's good about the game? Well...just about everything else.

The game does a good job at world building, with the Bionis and Mechonis, and establishing locales.  There is a lot of exploration to be had and the areas feel vast to an almost overwhelming degree, but a lot of it is optional, and the game is good at telling you where to go with a Minimap and a pointer so you don't get lost in these vast areas.  There was only one part of the game where I got lost figuring out what to do and that was entirely my fault as I didn't realize there were actual "Yes/No" prompts with NPCs indicated in that style, so I thought the "Wait til Later" option that was default was actually the game telling me to "wait til later to continue the plot", and not the just the "No" prompt!  The game does it right by starting things off with a bang, with 3 strong PCs in basically unlose-able fights to give you a sense of what battles feel like, then goes "ok, enough playing with the Light Saber Wielding Bad Ass, here's the real protagonist: This seemingly wimpy blonde haired nerdy kid named Shulk.  Don't worry though; he's got a 7 foot tall seemingly steroid induced muscle bound best friend named Reyn, so it's all good!"  The big reveal in the ending about the setting probably would piss me off if the game dwelled upon it but really just used it to finally fill in some holes, and go "look, that's all in the past, let's move on with the future ok?"

The plot kept me legitimately guessing.  I mean, yes, there were clear cases of "This character is up to something" but it was really hard to guess what or the connection, and in some cases, the game even seemed to imply "maybe they're just going to reveal some major contingency plan that screws over the villain!"  and in at least one case, Alvis, said character kind of does.  The stuff that was predictable was handled well enough that I didn't care that it was predictable, either because it had good style in pulling it off, or guessing when it was going to happen was tough.  It's amusing that the game is not easy to predict what direction it's taking at times when one of Shulk's super powers is Pre-cognition.

Then again, the whole theme of the game is basically "Fate is not absolute, the future is not set in stone."  It gets this noted right early on, when Shulk first gets his visions, showing him getting beat up, and he's able to react and avoid it, and later they're worded as "These visions are a possible future", and they're acting to insure they don't happen.   The cast never really compromises this belief either; never at any point after Shulk recognizes he can change his visions does the team give into this crap about "predestination" or anything like that.  It's always "we're alive, we can make a choice, and damn it, we're going to fight for the future we want!"  The game also doesn't really hammer it in; I mean, yeah, it's obvious, but the game makes it work with the tools presented, not in spite of them.   Sometimes, stories it's hard to find the theme in because it is juggling many of them at once, and as a result, those themes never get quite developed enough.  Other stories have this problem of beating you to death with the theme; XBC is a game that finds a good balance, of making the theme clear and apparent, but not bringing it up TOO much that you're sick of it.   I mean, I'm not entirely certain XBC's theme is brought up as often as  "You'llneverknowuntilyoutry!" in a certain OTHER game for example (no offense to that game with awful plot and amazing gameplay!!!!)

One really neat thing about the game's theme is because of Shulk's Visions, they actually incorporate the theme into gameplay too.  You can get visions about hints for future sidequests, as well as the Vision System in battle, going "hey guys, THIS ENEMY IS GOING TO USE A BIG ATTACK, YOU MIGHT WANT TO REACT!"  I'm aware part of the reason is because of the nature of Xenoblade's battles, a big evil attack out of nowhere is a big middle finger, and can completely change the fight with no way to recover, so it was a way of having charge times and making them obvious, which is totally fine.  Combine that with actually established plot and thematic elements the game establishes, for a genuine sense of plot and gameplay integration, and you have an amazingly well thought out idea...if only the music didn't futz up though >_>

Even when the game actually pulled an an FF4 moment with Fiora surviving it was handled in such a way that didn't feel like it compromised the scene and they did explain how we got from Point A to Point B.  Contrast this to, oh, Cid exploding with a bunch of bombs and ending up just being bed ridden in a dwarven castle, and the only explanation that makes sense is "A Spoony Bard did it...and Moogles.  What do you mean there are no Moogles?"  I was at first annoyed they pulled the stunt, because the scene prior does a good job of establishing the character's fate, but it does lend itself well into other things, so I'll say the positives outweigh the negatives here, which is really all that matters.  The game doesn't compromise this in other areas really, so doing it once isn't such a bad thing.

One of the interesting things the game does, back to the world building, is just how it treats multiple races.  I mean, yeah, Nopon are silly cute little creatures, and talk with odd dialogue, but the Homs characters don't even think twice about it, no matter how silly Riki sounds.  Easy to understand since the game right in the first town shows Nopon merchants walking around and interacting with Homs as an everyday thing, so we can easily believe that it's just an accepted trait of these creatures, and as silly as Riki sounds having a heartfelt talk with Dunban, you don't bat an eyelash in seeing Dunban treat him with mutual respect (then again, this is also Dunban, but I'll get to CHARACTER ANAYLESES!!! later.)

Gameplay..."improved FF12" gets it right...kind of.  It's better than FF12 in some regards (mostly a lot smoother) but also different in a number of others ways.  The game would be really annoying to play given how far the terrain you take, so going back and forth would be a major chore...except for the existence of fast travel.  Being able to warp between certain points at will completely negates that potential issues, and makes backtracking so much easier as well as going to specific points on large areas.  Having limited healing, with only 3 PCs having actual healing moves and only one of them (Sharla) having adequate supply for long fights to rely on was an interesting design decision, but they did compensate well enough with Aggro, having enough defensive buffs and strategies to prevent taking damage, manipulating masses, etc.  Heck, a Boss having just ONE enemy on support can completely screw a fight over, even if the enemy isn't very strong.  All 7 PCs were varied with niche uses, between Reyn being a tank built around pulling in aggro, Melia the only reliable source of Ether damage, or Dunban being the speedy damage dealer.  I was constantly swapping characters and it did take me time to figure out what was the best way to use each character, seeing who works well together, and frankly just like the Affinity System to make characters capable of sharing more skills!  I guess one complaint I have is skill growth system; it's fine with the AP costing system, but having to find books to upgrade further, and sometimes the manuals are drops from monsters is not design I'm fond of.  Thankfully upgrades provide marginally, while still significant, boosts, and are not crucial.

Also, the game does have the "Main Character dies = game over" thing, but it does have fail safes.  First off, there's a bit of a delay; if the other characters finish the enemy within a few seconds of the character dying, you'll still be given the victory.  Secondly, the party gauge system allows that if you have any gauge, the fight will continue and your party member will come and heal you at the cost of a gauge.   You can also choose "Run" at any moment and avoid most fights going south fast.  If you do die?  Game is lenient on game overs, sending you back to last major landmark, which can sometimes be a notable distance but never too far.    Boss fights send you back to like right outside the minimal range of engaging, and even skips the cutscenes leading up to it immediately, so you don't have to do scene skip (...wait does the game even have Sceneskip?  I don't know, seeing as I don't sceneskip on first file unless for Reset purposes, and due to how Xenoblade's resets vs. Bosses work, it never comes up there!)


Music...well, it's quite good!  I'll just say songs I really liked were "You Will Know Our Names", "Engage the Enemy" "Gaur Plains (Day)" and "Mechanical Rhythm."  The only song that stood out to me as "bad" are the negative battle themes one, but I guess they were intended to not sound good so you stop hearing them...except the GOD DAMNED VISION THEME NEVER ENDS >_<


So...onto the main event: THE CAST OF CHARACTERS!!!


...except to do this Meeple style would take way too long, so I'll just do a general explanation.

Basically, I didn't really find anyone in the cast I hated...outside of maybe some of the High Entia villain characters.  Lorithia felt woefully underdeveloped, mostly there because "right, we need a female for these things" and the EVIL STEP MOTHER thing was resolved almost as quickly as it was introduced.  I guess I should say "High Entia females Not Melia were the only characters I didn't like" because most of the males were fine, at least Kallian, who was a nice breath of fresh air.  What's this? An Older Brother who not only is supportive of his little sister taking the throne, but actually is the guy who recommended it in the first place?  And his reasons for it?  Clearly he's got ulterior motives!  His reasoning is BECAUSE SHE'S THE BEST PERSON FOR THE JOB AND THE TRUE HOPE OF THE HIGH ENTIA!

Ha, I knew it! His reasons are because he thinks his sister would make a better Empress than he would Emperor, and could lead the HIgh Entia to prosperity and is...actually...totally...ok with this...and even lies on her behalf with nothing to gain from it himself...huh...it's almost like he's completely legitimate in everything he says.   Ok true, we later learn WHY he thinks that way, but that was also for good reasons, and there was nothing sketchy about it, so yeah, nice to see an noble elder brother Prince without any sort of evil douche qualities whatsoever.

The character I was afraid of most was Alvis.  He's introduced helping Shulk, but in a MYSTERY!!! kind of way, so you go "he's up to something."  Then he helps the team out and seemingly is a good guy after all, once we learn who he really is.  Ok, fair enough...then talks to Lorithia, who has "EVIL VILLAIN CONSPIRATOR" written all over her in a suspicious way, and I was like "NO! PLEASE DON'T GO THAT CLICHED ROUTE!" The game both does and it doesn't, as they never really reveal Alvis' motives, truth, etc. until the very end, and it's nothing like you expect.  And in the end of the game, he was actually sincere with many of his claims.  I was expecting a "He backstabs the villain last second" situation so he remains like-able but the twist was something completely unexpected.  He was never on the villain's side to begin with, really, nor was he his disciple, but was faking it the entire time, instead just kind of observing to see how things go until someone can change the course of the future.  The super computer reveal was kind of forced, I guess, but at least it explains why he's so rational and logical, and shows almost no emotions.

The PC Cast?  Well, Shulk is a like-able nerdy fellow; he's something different though not entirely original.  I just prefer having heroes who generally not either "ADVENTURE TIME!!!!" like, oh,  a certain goggle wearing red head, or emo anti-social douches, and I like my heroes having personality and, you know, dialog.  Shulk clearly has all that, and his negative qualities feel more like legitimate human flaws than anything else.  The "Book Smart but questionable Street Smart" angle worked, and gave a nice foil to Reyn, who in some regards was the opposite.  Reyn worked as the best friend, who wasn't a total idiot at least to basic common ideas, and even good at emotional support or simply making decisions based on moral thoughts.  He was the one, after all, who said "Shulk, you need to tell us your visions" giving the most basic, and simple reasoning of "We can't help you on what we don't know!"  Some funny interactions with Sharla, who is not afraid to say "Reyn, you're an idiot", and Riki, where it's basically "Hulk vs. Puffball."  The ending having all 3 of them together fishing and basically bouncing off one another was a great capstone on Reyn's interaction with both characters.  Speaking of Sharla...probably character I have the lowest opinion of in the main cast?  I mean, she has some good lines in battle ("This is proof that Brawns is better than Brains!" "Ok, I can't let THAT one slip, Reyn!"), and it's easy to sympathize with her stance but she didn't leave a strong impact.  I guess she's kind of like Lulu in FF10, in that she's not a bad character, but leaves little impact.  Speaking of which, another FF10 Parallel that's obvious is the next character, Dunban!

Dunban is basically Auron but friendlier and more open.  I don't mean this as a put down to Auron at all, just a difference in personality.  They're both the mentor figures of the main who were heroes in great events before, both are bad ass swordsmen, and heck, both even had a trinity of friends in the past!  I was legitimately surprised when Dunban ended up surviving the attack on Colony 9, because "Badass Swordsmen with super legendary weapon, overleveled, does un-remove-able gear...yeah, this guy is going to be dead by this sequence, and Shulk is getting the Monado", and then when he joined, and had a whole skillset with normal equips, I was basically "Wait, the badass mentor dude is not only alive, but a PERMANENT PC!?  I can get behind this!"  It's nice having that supportive mentor figure who isn't perfect, to be the "Team Dad" and simply keep things in line.  I found it also amusing that, of all people, when they were on the fallen Arm of the Mechonis, Dunban had a character introspection scene with Riki...and it worked.

Speaking of Riki...and yes, I know Melia should come next but shut up, HEROPON MORE IMPORTANT!  Riki is a really weird case of a character who SHOULD be played for laughs, but played straight for the most part despite his odd dialog, and it oddly doesn't seem intrusive.  I guess because Xenoblade gave him just enough dialog to flesh out his character and keep him a regular plot character, but not too much to the point where he got annoying.  He's actually funniest when paired with females in battles, such like Melia going "Here Riki Riki Riki.  Can I pet your hair please!?" "For you, Melia, ANYTHING!"    His attacks also show what kind of character he is.  Speaking of attacks, Riki took me the longest to figure out how to use him, and when I thought he'd be a pain to control (generally speaking, I didn't like controlling Sharla or Reyn, because Healer and Tank tend to be better AI controlled), but then I figured out he's best when just stacking a whole bunch of Gradual Damage moves like Poison or Burn, and watching the damage pile up fast.   Also...

Why does this guy:


Have more HP than this guy:


So...yeah, Melia...when you think of "NIntendo Princess", you probably think of the DiD duo in Peach and Zelda.  Well, Melia says Bollocks to that and gets...put into a DiD situation early on, gets healed, then kicks ass with Ether, assassination attempt on her life, gets out, then kicks more ass.  Yeah, don't know where I'm going with this.  She just worked as being a dignified noble character to contrast the whole team of commoners, I guess, while not being an arrogant bitch about it.  The one thing that felt off was the forced Love Triangle tossed in which went nowhere...I guess it was put there because we needed to give Melia an emotional reason to stick with Shulk over her own people?  I dunno, felt like it was there for the sake of being there.

So...last character...must be spoken in SPOILER manner because...it's Fiora, the character you think is dead for half the game then pops up all GUNDAMNED OUT but seemingly amnesia'd NO WAIT JUST POSSESSED BY A GODDESS, ok, she's back to normal, except now she's KOS-MOS. Uh, ok, random, but does make for a unique look, character mechanics, and easy explanation for how Fiora can keep up with the other 6 characters despite being MOSTLY DEAD for this entire time.  I was worried that after her original appearance, she'd be all Tsundere-like, being all SHULK I LOVE YOU, but I'm also going to yell at you, combined with Reyn hating...then she dies, ok, nevermind.  Then she is undied and is not like that.  Frankly, this makes sense; she was put in a situation she never expected to see Shulk and Co. ever again, and having been reuinted with him, even in a manner that is less than ideal, she's going to look at all the positive sides of things, so being back with Reyn is going to be more a sense of familiarity than an "ugh, Reyn, shut up."  Furthermore, she's good at looking at the bright side of things.  Case in point, how she treats being in this new body.  Rather than whine or be emo about, she simply says she prefers her old body but can acknowledge the benefits of the new one, and willing to accept it just because it means she has a second chance at life.  It is, again, a nice breath of fresh air to see someone acting rationally and not getting all emotional over every little thing.

I'll give Monolith Soft one thing about that character in terms of design:  They made a Robotic Female who was not entirely fanservicey for once.  I say "entirely' because some armor options she has are a bit revealing, but don't worry, nothing on the level of BOOB CANNONS, at least in any obvious one (I think the medallion on the chest opens for her big ultimate attack, but you really can't see stuff with all the laser's flying around.)

Also, generally speaking the character interaction is top notch.  The existence of Heart to Hearts, while a pain to unlock sometimes because Affinities take a while to build up, just add extra scenes between characters which is also a bonus, and characters having unique battle dialog based on party members is nice.  Again, most obvious when you have Riki paired with 2 females, and he's talking about being the HEROPON PROTECTING THE LADY HOMS! and the two girls are all "My hero~" *fake swoon* after a fight ends.

Villains...meh, they worked, I'll just say that.  This is getting too long as is.


So...yeah, I think I've raved about this enough.  Don't have much else to say...or maybe I do and don't feel like it...or maybe I just don't know how to put it into logically sounding fitting words.  Well, no, I'll say one last thing:

A very odd strength I feel the game has is it was on the Wii.  As a result, it didn't have the graphical capabilities of the PS360, but rather, limitations that forced them to find ways to compensate around it.  It reminds me a lot of PS2 RPGs, like FF10, where characters do have odd exaggerated actions, constant close ups on who is talking, and scenes are more exposition than action based.  Strange as this sounds, this worked to the game's benefit, as the graphics are still just good enough to get all the important things across and make action related cutscenes look cool, but at the same time, never gets bogged down with feeling it needs to force action or special effects to that HD LEVEL!!!  I dunno, but it did remind me of how many PS2 RPGs looked like this, and in a good way.  I do wonder if it goes back to what Kitase said about FF6 recently, where one of the game's strengths was the fact that the Dev Team had to work under restrictions relative to what exists now, so you couldn't take this mindset of "Put everything in!" that many modern games fall into, as to some degree, feels like XBC was working in a similar vain, albeit, Wii has far less restrictions than the SNES, so maybe not <_<


So screw it, I will just say this:
9/10 game, maybe 9.5/10.  The game's flaws are minor and I can overlook it, and otherwise a really damned good game.  It's long, but honestly, that just gave a sense of wonder I haven't had in a jRPG for a while, and it's well paced as a lot of the time spent is stuff you're doing, not what the game is forcing you to do.  Took me nearly 80 hours to beat,  but don't really have a complaint about the length.  This is not something easy to say, all things considered.

[Sierra]

SR4: "I won't have some effeminate alien dictator stomping all over my expanded universe fiction!" Paranormal bromance.

I've done enough of the sidequesting that the NPCs have started glitching out. Now Steelport is filled with citizens suffering from SD Head Syndrome, people trucking around with giant eyeballs instead of heads, dudes walking upside down, floating through the air motionless, crackling with electricity, waving around wiggly Reed Richards fingers...It's official, folks, things are gettin' weird around here.

[superaielman]

LFT- Forward the White Lion of Andor! I just beat the game with a Andor themed team. Setups:

Aviendha- Bounced between Monk, Ubersquire, and Geomancer. Final setup:

Squire

Guts
Punch Art
Counter Flood
Martial Arts
Move+2

Avi also used Jump quite often with the Dragon Spear.

Thom: Mostly a thief with a mantle. It fit his fighting style perfectly. I had him as a Bard for a little while, but it just wasn't as effective as thief.

Thief
Charge
Abandon
Attack UP
Move+3


Birgitte- Archer unsurprisingly. She really came into her own once the special bows became available.  She had a large level lead late due to the autohaste bow.

Charge
Battle Skill
Speed Save (Death only makes her stronger, after all)
Concentrate
Move+2

Elayne- Focused on making things go boom boom. Also gave her talk skill since it fits her role later in the WoT books. She was awesome early on for black magic. BM trailed off late due to charge times going a little nuts, but talk skill filled the gap nicely.

Wizard

Black Magic
Talk Skill
Counter Magic
Magic Attack UP
Teleport

Nynaeve- Bad besides for revival early, scary late. Math skill is still an extremely effective niche.

Priest

White Magic
Math Skill
MA Save
Short Charge
Move+2

For the first three and a half chapters, I avoided using the Move+ skills. That however bored the living fuck out of me and created some frustrating situations (Goland was a nightmare, had a lot of resets due to Olan biting it before I could get near him).  Had fun with this run. Biggest issue besides for movement was the lack of revival- I had two revivers, neither of which was from Item. I had to be careful to keep them both up at all times.

[Otter]

CT initial equip: beat Magus without using any items in a fight that was pretty indicative of the challenge in general.  Benching this until the next time I resort to phone gaming.

LFT: Innovation challenge run just made it past the sluice.  I just realized that twitch records when I stream so maybe at some point I'll organize and title the vods.

SR4: just got to the They Live fight scene.  Pretty amazing, as was the Streets of Rage segment.  Blahblah best sandbox, everyone's hyping this without my help.

[Dhyerwolf]

I suspect that given how CT defenses work on a curve, later on that no armor upgrades will be a bit more difficult.

[NotMiki]

Dragon's Crown - beat.  This game is two gigantic boobs away from perfection.  It is the new high water mark for side-scrolling beat-em-ups.  There's not a lot of plot, but what is there is inoffensive and well-executed.  Animations are smooth, art is stunning.  Now let's talk gameplay.

Where Dragon's Crown absolutely shines is meticulously balanced gameplay.  There are 6 classes, and the ones I've spent time with all play quite difrferently, but I'd be hard pressed to say any one of them is actually better than the others.  Here's one example of balance: the durability curve is pretty flat between magic and physical classes, but physical classes have a much easier time interrupting melee attacks because of their longer combos and wider attack range.  There's a level cap for the regular game, but if you hit it (which you will if you do sidequests and you won't if you don't), you keep on gaining experience which, on NG+, is immediately applied.  Nicely done.

So far so good, but what really makes the game shine is stages and bosses.  There are 9 stages, and each one has a split path.  Stages are rather short (looks like they learned their lesson after Odin Sphere), packed with loot, and sprinkled with secret rooms.  Bosses are where the game really shines.  first of all, there are tons of them.  19 to be exact.  And almost every one of them involves some special feature.  Gimmick is too pejorative a word because these features really enhance things.  Just a few examples - there is a mage's tower.  the path splits and either you descend to the depths and fight an evil warlock, or you ascend to the top and fight a gigantic chimera.  When you fight the chimera, it takes up almost the entire room, and the fight continues you smash through one floor after another until, finally, if the fight lasts long enough, you smash through the bottom of the tower and the chimera falls into a pit of lava.  Or the pirate's den, where you fight a horde of pirates.  Who possess a genie's lamp.  If a pirate is holding the lamp, it summons a genie that does Bad Things to you.  If you get hold of the lamp you can summon a genie to do Bad Things to the pirates.  Naturally the lamp-holder can't defend themselves, but that's what you have allies for.  It is a good time.  Or the Wight, which is immortal and chases you through the catacombs, and is only vulnerable while light from a statue of the goddess shines on it.  Fortunately there exist a few such statues in the area.  Unfortunately the wight and its undead minions will try to destroy the statues when you get to them, so you are frantically protecting the statue, beating back the undead horde, and oh yeah trying to kill the Wight.  Good, good times.

Oh yeah, and the game has a slew of quests, the majority of which are interesting and fun, and all of which present neat little vignettes about the world.  Quests like 'defeat the harpy alone' because the requester doesn't want word to get out that his son, a young and foolish knight, was bewitched by the flying fiend.  Or 'secure the plans from the orc base without waking the sleeping orcs' or 'find the secret room in the wizard's lair, disrupt the ritual, and destroy the evil statue,' 'defeat the vampires without a single maiden dying' et cetera.  Fun stuff.  Did I mention there were a lot of them?  Oh yeah.  when you beat the game, another 20 or so open up.  Good, good times.

Anyway, game's great.  Play it.  9.5/10.

[Nitori]

Tales of Graces f: this is like game of thrones if game of thrones was boring

[DjinnAndTonic]

So... exactly like game of thrones?

[Cmdr_King]

Presumably he means like game of thrones without the sex and violins.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Star Ocean 4: Beat the second Seven Star Cave boss. It is a boss fight against four people, the leader has a passive which boosts all his team's offence by 50%. He has a million HP. He is also, I learned by complete accident, vulnerable to freeze. </nelson-laugh>

Suikoden 3: Hugo, chapter 3. Man does Wind of Sleep tilt tough fights. Enemies hit like trucks against my crappy armour, but WoS, man, it's good stuff, even at C rank. Hugo does benefit from most of his tough fights being against humans, as some monsters do immune it.


FF5 solo - Beaten. Recap of world 3:

Antlion - So I have a Level 7 Krile and a Level 2 Bartz. Whatevs, solo this with Level 7 Krile because it's funny. With a high-def setup in the back row she barely takes any damage (7HKO), Time Slip then Goblin Punch to death.
Gargoyles - Put them to sleep.

Moore Pyramid: Black Magic gets a real chance to shine in this dungeon. Almost everything here is weak to part of it. MP can be concern, so switching to Ninja does okay here too... and then I finally learn Throw, yay, so Black Mage with Throw for best of both worlds. Kaboom! I have one reset here from an ambushed by Accursed Ones who actually hit quite. Oops. Defaulting to the front row solves this problem because almost everything can be one-rounded if I'm not ambushed.

Melusine - Put her to sleep.

So at this point as usual things get a little crazy. Hermes Sandals are no less godly than they always are. But since I have summons at my disposal, I get another huge upgrade, in Syldra. Boosted Syldra is gross, using it off auto-haste annihilates randoms for most of the rest of the game. I don't completel lack resets but any I do get tend to be due to clear mistakes.

For my first three weapons I grab the Magus Rod, Assassin Dagger, and Sasuke's Katana, I believe, although of the three only the Magus Rod sees significant use. I was thinking I might try to master ninja which would have made Sasuke quite useful (super Main Gauche) but I never do. Magus Rod becomes the weapon of choice as it both cuts down on loads of weapon switching (Air Knife, four elemental rods), it also replaces Gaia Gear which is quite inferior to the Black Robe.

Odin - Well Skull Eaters are kinda jokes now. So is this guy. Four Syldras and he's down, pretty much.
Exdeath's Soul - He has instant death of several flavours, so Bone Mail comes out to play. Syldra and hope he doesn't use Banish (which there is no immunity to). Extra problematic is the fact that I also need a way to deal with Shield Dragons which I sometimes run into (I run with black magic once. Against an enemy with reflect. This doesn't work, hi reset).

Island Shrine: Fairly easy dungeon overall, summon wrecks things. I raise up random mage jobs at this point just to diversify my skillset. There is one huge exception though.
Tot Aevis - This guy is a dick on a solo. He has lots of HP and evade, and absorbs wind so killing him is a slow process. It would be easy, except I learn he has petrify. Well fuck. Using an Aegis Shield or Ribbon will stop this, though throws me into a weaker job of course. Blue Mage would probably be the best choice here (shield + hairpin) but I run knight in order to get Two Hands. Odin (Gungnir) is a decent way to chip him down, but slow, or I can hit him with the Brave Blade and hope I hit.
Wendigo - By contrast this guy sucks, put everyone to sleep then Syldra Syldra Syldra.

The second set of weapons I get includes the Sage's Staff since Holy is around the corner, Excalibur to hit the odd holy weakness, and Masamune for itemcast Haste.

Okay, so Fork Tower. This isn't really solo-friendly, so I decide that I'll run the non-Faris PCs as a low-levelled team (with no previously built up skills!). The enemies here are easy, except for Dueling Knights which counter. They're actually quite tricky. Fortunately they don't counter sleep! A mix of Blue Mage and Throw takes them out, Throw takes out everything else, so I run a blue mage and two ninjas.
Minotaur - Samurai/Ninja/Knight. Samurai itemcasts Haste on everyone, ninja is pointless but uh hey tanking counters with Sasuke (should have used something else), Knight uses Brave Blade. I was going to use Ninja for secondary offence but the counters make it not worth it. Not too bad, with protect and back row and good armour on my knight he doesn't actually do that much damage. Kind of terrible actually seeing as how frail my team is! (300 HP or so.)
Omniscient - Well I figured this was the tougher tower so I sent Faris to it. lolol Reflect on self, watch him fail. Also he's weak to Syldra.

For the record, yes, doing Fork Tower is somewhat against the spirit of the solo. Rest very assured I could easly have beaten the rest of the game without doing it, though. As mentioned I just wanted the challenge/experience of beating everything in the game on a solo, so Fork Tower had to fall for me to access two more dungeons.

Great Trench is another slaughter dungeon. Only noteworthy thing is learning Doom from the skeleton unknowns (kinda useful in one fight if I don't use the Magic Lamp, which I never do). Everything else gets crushed, Syldra one-shots most things and Odin deals with the rest. Including the boss. The Gargoyles (who get 2HKOed by Syldra) are literally the only fight in this dungeon I don't just one-shot.

Waterfall cave is mostly a slaughter dungeon, but...
Tonberry - One reset here, I overestimate their HP and the Knife x3 kills me. When I fight them again, Golem or Protect both own them.
Leviathan - One reset here too. I figure "lol I have Thundaga and 3000 HP, I won't lose unless my luck sucks". Of course I trigger a Tidal Wave counter right before he doubleacts, he does like 2000 damage at once and I die. Okay, refight with White+Black, Protect/Shell THEN beat him down in slaughterrific fashion. (i.e. he's easy, but I take him too lightly once.)

Phoenix Tower can be a bit tricky. I have a reset on Kuza Beasts who have which is potentially evil, and one by triggering Danse Macabre (zombie) because I forgot which enemy used it and tried to stall for some MP regen. Otherwise it's not bad though. The randoms are just frail enough to be one-rounded by Syldra, the creatures in walls can largely be avoided (and most are easy anyway). Again Magic Pots I finish off Time Mage L6 and gain a bunch of AP for Red Mage... rod-using jobs are the best here because Wonder Rod assures you'll only lose one Elixir.

With all the dungeons done it's time for random world 3 stuff. I hunt down a bunch of randoms to say I did. And random other stuff.

Stingray - Oh yeah Mighty Guard is kinda cool I guess even in a solo, I take him down slowly otherwise.
Bahamut - lol boss focussed on multitarget damage in a solo, after Shell not even Megaflare is worth giving a shit about.
Famed Mimic Gogo - nothing
Level 5 Death - I pick this up from the island shrine at some point, Bone Mail finally lets me learn it!

Final dungeon time. Overall it's just bash away at everything with appropriate summons. Syldra kills lots, Odin kills most of the rest. I have a reset against an Iron Giant when I fight him accidentally without Summon equipped and get Rocket Punched, but no other issues with any randoms otherwise. A few randoms later resist Odin, but Leviathan (against water weaks) or just two uses of other summons also takes them down. Did I say two uses? I should mention I got Dualcast around when I hit the crystal region of the Void.

Calofisteri - lol

Omega - Okay, this bad boy is tricky. With Rapidfire, Spellblade, and Dual-Wield a one-shot is likely possible at my levels. Unfortunately I have none of these things, and they take a combined 1330 JP to learn even though I already have Ninja Level 4 in the bank. Fortunately there's another way to win, although it's slower and riskier, but it needs far less setup. I run Time and Black Magic on a Freelancer with a Magus Rod, Flame Shield, Gold Hairpin, Sage's Robe, and Reflect Ring.

Here's the idea. Most of what Omega does is reflectable, fire elemental (Flame Shield), or earth elemental (cast Float before the fight). The exceptions are Rainbow Wind, which silences (blocked by armour), Surge Beam, which takes only half HP (bounce Fira/ga off Omega to heal with Flame Shield), and Maelstrom, which sets HP to single digits. The only way to die is for a combination of Maelstrom and HP leak. HP Leak is pretty much permanent in this fight due to Surge Beam being used so often. It can happen at most 1/3 of the time. The way to counter it is to be ready for the turn it is potentially used and heal IMMEDIATELY, which will save me unless I get really unlucky and Maelstrom is used, hits (it checks MEvade), and sets HP to 1-2. Overall that's about a 5% chance which is acceptably low. The tricky part is being ready for this. Maelstrom is used on a double action, and the first half is potentially Surge Beam, so I have to be above half HP for the turn. And the previous turn is also Surge Beam... which I have to heal from, and he gets turns faster than I do (I have no speed-boosting classes mastered sadly). A crucial realising is the REGEN spell. Yes, Regen. With it, I will recover HP between those two turns so I don't actually have to heal between them, as regen more than offsets HP Leak (though kicks in at fixed intervals instead of every clocktick, hence HP Leak can still kill).

The other trick to the battle is one I used on one of my fiestas; once per cycle Omega will use search, which bounces off Reflect. When he does this, for the rest of the turn he'll direct all counters against the target of Search. i.e. himself. Since his counters are potentially fatal (Encircle), this is important. Quick, Thundaga x2 takes off about 9000 damage, more if I'm lucky and he hits himself with Mustard Bomb. So, after 6-7 cycles, he's dead. Black Magic is used both for offence and healing, while Time Magic provides Haste (always the first action of course), Quick (helps me get started, and doubles offence), and yes, REGEN. I assume this will be Grefter- and Laggy-approved.

This fight is probably the highlight of the challenge. While other bosses needed clever setups, few are this clever, and no others were this difficult, save KARLABOS (what the fuck, game). Yes, it took the superboss to rival the second boss in the game, for challenge on a solo.

Anyway, onto other stuff.

Apanda - lol
Azulmagia - Azulmagia is great, as long as you're not level divisible by 3 you can teach him Level 3 Flare and watch him spam it. Which is good because some of his other stuff is kinda scary for a solo.
Catastrophe - So he can use petrify, which means a sub-optimum set with Aegis Shield. Fortunately otherwise he is all about the MT damage, against a solo.
Halicarnassus - Turns me into a frog but pretty lol otherwise.
Twintania - Wait for him to charge, then hit him with Catoblepas.
Gilgamesh - I steal the Genji Shield then never use it.
Necrophobe - Now that I have dualcast... yeah. Doesn't even get an attack off. Blitz the fuck out of the barriers with double Syldra, he gets a turn to drop his invincibility and use Flash, use double Holy (vs. weakness) in his face. Yes, this is the one and only fight I use Mime, for White/Summon/Dualcast.

Shinryu - Y'know back when I first played the game I beat Omega with relatively little trouble (dat Rapidfire Spellblade is pretty awesome and he's not too hard to survive against) but Shinryu gave me all sorts of hell. This remained true on subsequent normal playthroughs, to varying degrees. On challenges though, Shinryu's the easier one on average, I think, because there are more ways to damage him effectively without being worn down by his counters and such. Anyway Shinryu's no easy target obviously, but not too bad. White Magic, in particular, has almost everything needed for this fight - Protect/Shell/Blink for control, and Berserk if desired, although Berserk is somewhat dicy. I also run Summon just for some back-row compliant offence with Syldra. Golem also does Blink's job better than Blink itself, at least until Berserk, since due to my high level Golem is only 3HKOed after protect + back row. Equipment is Masamune/Magus Rod, Ice Shield, Ribbon, Black Robe, Coral Ring. Blocking both water and ice is very important (especially water), and he has a bunch of status so Ribbon.

Anyway, the start of the fight is dicy due to no haste or quick, but fortunately he wastes his first two turns (skips one, then Tidal Wave against Coral Ring). Itemcast Masamune for Haste, heal as needed while putting up various buffs. Once they're all in place, attack with Syldra, watching Golem's HP. There are a few complications. Shinryu is fast as fuck, significantly faster than Omega. So respect for those doubleturns is key, even with Protect/Shell/Golem to slow him down. Even worse, he has some doubleactions, though as long as my level is odd and not divisble by 3 (it isn't... both would be REALLY bad though due to his blue magic spells) only one of them can be used for two attacks. Just staying on top of healing and Golem is the key, attacking only when safe. It's certainly not a short fight, but overall, not as bad as I was fearing. There are a few combinations which will kill me with bad luck (Maelstrom then Thunder on a doubleturn, or Maelstrom then Poison Breath), but thanks to Shell I have a decent chance of those failing even should they happen. Anyway they don't come up. Looking at his AI script again I realise I was kinda lucky to beat him on my first try, but that's how these things go sometimes!

Exdeath / Neo Exdeath - So this time, the setup is Blue Magic and Summon Magic. Magus Rod, Aegis Shield, Ribbon, Rainbow Dress, Hermes Sandals. The key to this equipment is it blocks all immunable status except zombie, which is key.

The first form is the harder one. Yeah, I'm kinda weirded out by this too. First off, between 60% and 20% HP, he can use Doom. YOU LOSE! Not until a few turns in but it means you need to press the gas pedal during this stage. Then, below 20%, he can use Meteor. Meteor... probably isn't going to kill through Shell, but it is a strange, random thing, and if you're unlucky, it -can-.

Anyway, it's best dealt with by Mighty Guard and Golem, then blitz blitz blitz blitz. Carbuncle would also probably be a good idea, since I can heal through it anyway and it does lessen the need to heal against Flare/Holy. I don't think to do this though. Fortunately it's easy to setup at full HP, since with statusblocking his full HP skillset is a horrid joke, ohnoes basic physicals. I do die once here, though, because of Doom. I never knew he had Doom!

Neo Exdeath by contrast is actually easier. The only thing he has that is scary is Grand Cross, hence the statusblocking setup. Even with all that, though, he can still inflict zombie (no way to block that at the same time as sleep/paralyse/stop) or Maelstrom-style low HP (and some of his moves inflict HP Leak). They're not likely (1/18 each), but y'never know. Otherwise the move does nothing. Still, that move puts a timer on the fight, which is why I used Syldra to blitz it down. In hindsight, this is questionable. I might have been better served by, say, Holy (it'd mean no Golem) or even Brave Blade Sword Dance since I really only need to blitz that one part. But this makes the overall fight shorter, so whatever. It's not that hard anyway.

Everything else is largely whatever. Dispel is the most notable move, but one Mighty Guard patches that up (it doesn't kill Golem). Damage moves all suck against 3000 HP and Protect/Shell, and Golem means I don't even need to heal often because the physicals ~12HKO Golem, Flare/Holy are the best (and they don't last long!) at a mere 3-4HKO. Almagest is a hilarious joke of course.

The back part is the recipient of a Doom spell, easing up on some damage a bit. It's not really necessary, as Carbuncle neutralises it (I don't bother) and it's not too damaging anyway, but it saves me some time. Beyond that it's straightforward, Syldra all day long and Elixir when I need to heal HP or MP (more often MP). When Grand Cross is coming before my next turn (I double constantly of course, but after the second turn post-the charge announcement), I wait in case it does critical HP so I can heal immediately. Of course it never does. The third Grand Cross does, in fact, inflict the dreaded countdown, but by then the battle is basically over. The nice thing about Syldra is it kills both parts at the same time. As with form 1, I -could- tank through Neo Exdeath's limit mode, but I would overall rather not.


Fun fun! As mentioned, final level was 55. I have a full maingame bestiary except for Bartz's Abductor (which I forgot about... if I'd cared I probably could have beaten him LLG style though not certain). Final job levels were as follows:

Mastered: Red Mage. Only class I did this for. Probably not worth it but it was something to do in world 3 as JP gains spiked up, and made endgame randoms a joke at least.
Job Level 6: Black, White, Time Magic. Pretty obvious, all good skillsets. Only reason I bothered with Black 6 was Osmose, and this probably was a waste of time, but any rod-user was so easy to use late that whatever.
Job Level 5: Summoner. Same as the above, this gives the full skillset. There's no reason for magic mastery as setting magic skillsets gives you good magic anyway. Anyway, Summon is probably the game's best skillset overall. MT damage that starts good then becomes absolutely amazing as time goes on, and some cool utility options.
Job Level 4: Ninja. Throw. Ninja is pretty obviously the best physical job in FF5, and you can debate if it's actually physical. Magic provides all the utility, Throw and Summon provide the best MT smash and... are pretty damn good at ST smash honestly! The best varies but yeah.
Job Level 3: Blue Mage, Knight. I went for Two Hands but never really ended up using it. Blue Magic is obvious. Vampire was OP for a while but as predicted it definitely fell by the wayside late.
Job Level 2: Monk, Beastmaster. Punching things worked very well earlygame, even moreso than usual due to being level-reliant. Still a world 1-thing only, really. Control's only occasionally useful, but really good when it is. Had I not being interested in defeating all enemies, though, I probably should have passed on this; confuse works as well for getting most blue skills save 1000 Needles which eh I wasn't durable enough to get while it still mattered.
Also used a bit: Dancer for ribbons. However in any actual tough fight, freelancer for ribbons is better. Thief for stealing the Genji Shield even if I didn't end up using it! I used Samurai on the kids in one fight for Masamune itemcast + better HP than Freelancher! Does that count?

Did not use: Everything else. Berserker obviously just sucks, Mystic Knight takes an extra turn to do much and is all ST even thereafter so not very useful on a solo (though Drain Sword would have some okay use against a few bosses probably), Geomancer is just inferior sweeping to other options, Bard is all about status which is too short-lasting on a solo (or team buffing), Ranger is just kinda mediocre outside Rapidfire which at 600 JP is too expensive for something so niche, Dragoon sucks, Samurai doesn't really have a great niche. Chemist... well, Mix is fine and in hindsight probably shouldn't have been banned, there are only a few fights where its extra utility is particularly useful (nice against Exdeath though, Doom immunity!). Early Vampire is certainly more overcentralising! Then again the early going is harder than the late, so banning things that are good in the earlygame is questionable.

Pretty fun. I'm not normally a big fan of solos but FF5 is fairly well-suited to them, game is fairly easy but just hard enough to gain some definite bite from a solo, without becoming stupid and grindy (hence why I did 2-person runs of SH3 and G3, for instance). My biggest issue with the challenge is it felt like too much of the challenge was just coming from status moves which normally are bad (and hence I often don't even remember despite having played the game 8 times!). Like seriously, ST confuse and ST paralyse and ST stop and ST doom and Grand Cross all suck in normal files, but they were some of the scariest things for a solo because it's pretty hard to block status outside Dancer/Freelancer (though Hermes Sandals cover a few, and Bone Mail is a godsend for certain things). It's fine though, just kinda weird; I was hoping for a bit more challenge from a good slugging boss (the way FF6 bosses can lay waste to solo PCs despite similar HP inflation) but it didn't really pan out.

[OblivionKnight]

Not a lot of console gaming, but lots of computer gaming!

Until my computer died a few weeks ago .  Still trying to salvage it...

Thank god for backups!


Big thing has been League of Legends.  This is an excellent game, but it's got a worse population of whiny players than any Blizzard game.  Holy shit.  The stories I could tell...I typically play a middle mage, secondary a support (Soraka...I think that's the only one I play).  Viktor, Lux, Morgana, Gragas are probably my mains (<3 Viktor's Death Ray).  Actually hit level 30 right before the computer blew, but will probably do ranked at some point.  Seriously though, the people are...asses.

For RPGs...hey, check out Exit Fate and Last Scenario.  Exit Fate is like the best Suikoden game I've played, and Last Scenario is also quite good for a more classic RPG feel.  They're free, and fun.   

Usual SCII, TFII stuff.  Love SC2 having unranked now - more fun experimentation.  TF2 always has been and always will be fun as hell.

Diablo 3 got boring real fast...the expansion and new direction look like it might revitalize it a lot.  Definitely picking it up, and will go back to it at some point, but it is definitely the most disappointing Blizzard game ever

[Fenrir]

About the FF5 solo: You're not playing the GBA version? The aftergame can definitely be done. I liked going in it blind and solo.



Baldur's Gate:

So I didn't like this game because:
- D&D rules are about as directly transferable to videogames as Mario Kart is to a book format. The mechanics are ridiculously complicated for no reason, and everybody has like a 30% chance to hit, MAX, making every fight heavily luck reliant. (This gets better in 2 IIRC)
- Evil path is pretty badly done. This is not really a game of choice, you're supposed to be a good guy/girl pretty much. Pretty much any time you can choose to be a jerk, you're pretty much going to be punished for it. (This is still fun)
- Exploring maps is terrible if you've OCD about this (I've gotten better at not caring about this lately)
- Too much bad loot everywhere
- Boring setting, characters, plot
- Fucked up balance
- Psycho Cyan final boss
- Bad journal


This is still all true.
That said, Lawful-Evil Yattaf solo challenge on the hardest difficulty setting.

I got the game on GOG and am doing the whole trilogy Tutu thing, with everything added, high resolution etc. The only gameplay change i made was removing the exp cap, which might have fun consequences later on.
Yattaf is a fighter/mage/thief, focused on long bows and long swords because longbows rock and I remember good swords being everywhere.
3 wisdom (And I am going to roleplay this all the way through), 13 charisma, maxed other stats. Same picture as Skie.

Fighter/mage/thief characters take ages to level up so the earlygame is hell. Yattaf's taco is either way too high or way too low (I forgot whether the taco stat should be high or low), and she has one level 1 spell. And no money.
Fortunately after some experimentation I realized that Sleep is disgustingly overpowered and sailed through earlygame randoms. Yattaf is now level 4/3/4. There is still no good way to heal so I'm just staying at royal chambers in inns several days in a row. Somehow this is waaaay less expensive than asking a priest to heal you in town.

Highlights so far:
- First time using sleep and realizing that this is AoE, asleep enemies have their stats lowered don't wake up after being hit.
- Maxing lockpick at first and getting that 1000G gem in the first city, selling that prompto
- Pickpocketing, failing, hiding in the shadows and getting the hell out
- Getting Imoen in the party just to have her get the kiss of death from Nereid (who immediately attacks Yattaf afterwards) Near death Nereid goes all "Wait please. I have a quest! Allow me to explain. I can resurrect thy friend" and Yattaf goes all "LOL no die". 5000 free exp. Awesome. Then Yattaf just dumps Imoen's body . (who will inexplicably come back in the sequel?)

Worst part:
- Having nearly enough money to buy an awesome longbow + 1, doing Garret's recruitment quest the lawful evil way, losing 2 reputation points and seeing the price of the longbow +1 skyrocket.