What Games Are You Playing 2013?

[Meeplelard]

Pokemon X: Xerneas get, it is Rash nature.  Sylveon, I like you and all, but the Christmas Deer Demands a Sacrifice!!!

...by which I mean it's going into my box so I can clear up space in my party, what, you thought I was going to sacrifice Sylveon?  I'm not that evil!


Last Story: So Jiral supposedly was behind the assassination, and all the info to prove it was right on his desk and blatantly in front of us.  THIS DOES NOT SEEM SUSPICIOUS AT ALL!

[Nitori]

Disgaea D2: beaten, trades 90% humor for better gameplay. Given where I'm posting this this is clearly a super winning trade but I want something funny

Disgaea 4: hard-hitting political commentary from NISA, much better. I think the first two chapters are funnier than all of DD2

[Shale]

DmC Vergil's Downfall: Almost done with this. Vergil plays pretty well once you get all his styles - close enough to his DMC3 version that it flows naturally, but with a bunch of new moves. He's pared down to pretty much just his Yamato and Summoned Swords moves, though, which is annoying - rather than giving him new weapons for his Angel and Demon styles it's just different katana attacks. Plus, the DLC is short - six stages, including one that's just a boss, without much enemy variety and all with the same visual style. No cool stage transformations or THEY LIVE writing on the walls, either. Booo to that.

Luckily I'm playing the PC version, so there's a hack to put Vergil into the Bloody Palace. He plays well but I can't see going through those few levels over and over through all the higher difficulties.

[AndrewRogue]

WoW: Magic has been helping me gear up. =)

The Wolf Among Us Ep. 1: Bought this on a whim + Sopko respect. Pretty good. Telltale needs to learn to optimize, though. Some of the loadtimes/skipping were amazingly obnoxious.

[Fudozukushi]

ToX: I beat Jude's EPIC ONE-ON-ONE DUEL using nothing but Assault Step as my damage.  That was fun.

[Niu]

ToX: I admit it, I am the consumerism whore and bought costume DLC. /negative man

At least they worth every penny spent.
The Star Driver costumes are hilarious. Past character outfits are good with the battle BGM change. Dhaos costume pretty much is the best costume for having Resolution as the battle BGM.

[Hunter Sopko]

If only the Star Driver outfits changed the battle music to Monochrome

[Fudozukushi]

US doesn't get Star Driver.  And I totally would have purchased every single piece.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

WoW: Magic has been helping me gear up. =)

You got told where the Timeless Isle was?

[Magic Fanatic]

You got told where the Timeless Isle was?

That and then some, actually.  I'll often kidnap him for helping him build up his gear and whatnot.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Penny Arcade: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, episodes 2-4:

So yeah, I played all of these this week (and a bit of last?). They are short. They kinda remind me a bit of what I like about Disgaea in that they have this 'refuge in audicity' kind of writing and humor-style, but actual serious shit happens sometimes, despite it not usually getting taken all that seriously. It's a fun balancing act to watch and the overwrought writing style of PA works pretty well at telling a JRPG-style over-the-top plot.

Gameplay is a different story: It is pretty unambiguously awesome and since the games are short, it doesn't really overstay its welcome. Well, for episodes 3 and 4 anyway. Zeboyd games does good work and they are getting increasingly better at it as they get bigger budgets. I keep worrying that they are going to hit critical mass at some point, but maybe we'll get a few more gems out of them before that happens? I'm really looking forward to the new Zeboyd Phantasy Star game.

tl;dr: all the good design choices of Cthulhu, but with more polish and a completed script by a more practiced writer!

[hinode]

Pokemon X beaten. Mono-Fairy was a suitably amusing gimmick for a playthrough, and with trainer customization I made a few suitable outfits to go with the theme. The earlygame was a bit rough due to limited STAB options and some not so great Pokemon, but eventually the strengths of the typing, dual types (Water, Psychic, and Steel) that helped cover its weaknesses, and an overpowered cover legendary made for a smooth ride. Lack of a maingame Fly user was the biggest nuisance, I had to resort pull out an HM slave Farfetch'd anytime I needed to backtrack. About two-thirds of the way in I figured out how to request something I hadn't seen yet in GTS, but despite getting a Togepi this way eventually I opted not to use it until post-E4 to maintain the normal game experience.

Final team was 66/67, the Exp share having been turned off around gym 5. (Edit: Had a brainfart on my levels earlier, somehow)

Azumarill: Useless at first due to being stuck with Bubble and other special Water attacks, Return and Bulldoze from PokeParis made it a wrecking ball and my first legitimately good Fairy type. Annoyingly it evolved too late to get Aqua Tail by level, so I had to wait until the relearner for physical Water STAB; this ended up mattering surprisingly little, though. As my highest levelled team member up until I turned off the Exp Share I almost never used it in boss battles, and Return/Bulldoze/Bubblebeam was enough to OHKO every random I pulled out Marill/Azumarill for. Aqua Tail (later Waterfall)/Play Rough/Superpower made for a great lategame moveset with room for an extra HM move. Steel neutrality, STAB Water moves, and Superpower made it my best lategame counter to Steel types, an obviously important role for a mono-Fairy type.

Gardevoir: Earlygame is basically unchanged, midgame is worse due to Psychic getting pushed back from L26 in RSE to L40 now, but the lategame is far better with a second STAB type and a better set of resists. Dark neutrality and hitting Darks SE with Dazzling Gleam/Moonblast are huge improvements, while the STAB Psychic attacks for OHKOing Poisons were welcome for this particular team, although it doesn't like actually switching into Poison attacks. Psychic/Moonblast/Thunderbolt/Calm Mind was what I mostly ran lategame, but plenty of other options existed for those last two slots (Shadow Ball, Energy Ball, Flash, Double Team, etc.).

Swirlix/Slurpuff: An all-around statistical mediocrity, Slurpuff's saving grace is its killer movepool. TM compatibility includes the likes of Flamethrower, Surf, Thunderbolt, Energy Ball, and Psychic, making it a swiss army knife of coverage moves my other Pokemon couldn't get. Mine ran Dazzling Gleam/Flamethrower/Surf/Energy Ball lategame, providing my only Fire attack and letting Azumarill run something other than Surf in its last slot.

Sylveon: Evolves immediately if you catch an L19 Eevee, then getes Draining Kiss at L20 and Moonblast at L37. That's way better than what the Flabebe and Swirlix lines get for Fairy move progression, though apparantly not Spritzee (which isn't an option in X anyhow). Actual competence at being a Fairy type earned it a teamslot up for midgame despite the poor coverage options; it spent much of the game with a set of Draining Kiss/Moonblast, Swift, Bite, and Cut, only getting better alternatives like Hidden Power Fighting, Shadow Ball, and Psyshock late in the game. Xerneas pretty much obsoletes it completely, but with Dedenne's failures I had nothing better to replace it with, so I stuck with it through the end. Helps that I like Sylveon's design a lot more than, say, Granbull's or Mr. Mime's.

Klefki: Poison immunity is priceless for a team that generally has 5 members weak to that type, and the other Steel resists certainly don't hurt. Mega Mawile would pretty clearly outclass Klefki for the team's Steel/Fairy slot, but it is sadly only available post-E4. Compared to regular Mawile, Klefki trades Intimidate, Swords Dance, and better Steel damage for better speed and special defense, Calm Mind, and Prankster Thunderwave. At the time, I wasn't totally sure which would actually be more effective and picked Klefki mainly because I liked it design more. After seeing it successfully set up a CM sweep on the champ's Aurorus with zero item support, I felt justified in my decision. (Dazzling Gleam/Mirror Shot/Calm Mind/Thunderwave

Xerneas: 131 base SpAtk + STAB + Fairy Aura + Pixie Plate = things die to Moonblast. Geomancy isn't all that good in-game, but it OHKOs almost everything in-game that doesn't resist Fairy without setup anyhow, plus Calm Mind exists if I feel the need for a no-charge setup move. Thunderbolt and Psyshock rounded out its largely unused coverage moves.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Suikoden 3 - Beat the Brass Castle war battle in chapter 5. The end is in sight.


Fire Emblem: New Mystery of the Emblem - Hard mode beaten.

My Marth got pretty badly speed-screwed so I had to give him two speed boosters to not be doubled by Medeus, who was much less pathetic in this game than he was in FESD in no small part because he lost the manakete weakness. Still got one-rounded once the bishops were out of the way, Marth 3HKOed with 100 hit, so Feena + Again Staff = three actions = victory.

Enemies get very fast late in the game. On the one hand this is kind of cool, on the other hand this pretty much just means you throw everyone into their fastest class which features a weapon they have (swordmaster, or falcon knight/paladin for lance-users, etc.). Like my first playthrough, I barely used anyone on the male reclass set B.

Peeps used with kill counts:
Luke: 94 - Good stats, hits things with swords, not much to say.
Palla: 84 - Uber. Made her my falconknight because I figured she could use the +2 speed, ended up capping there anyway.
Catria: 83 - Uber.
Caeda: 77 - Wing Spear
Chris: 74 - Got RNG screwed, so I benched her, then took her off the shelf at 14/1 to recruit Katarina, then ended up running with her anyway. At least she promoted late enough that I could have a second FK, that was cool.
Maris: 73 - Had a lot of stat boosters. Yay favouritism! After said favouritism, see Luke.
Marth: 50 - Mine got RNG screwed. Had the boots so getting exp with him wasn't painful, for all that I do wonder if I shouldn't have given them to Feena anyway.
Minerva: 28 - Used most of midgame, mostly benched late outside C21 and Final.
Sirius: 21 - See Minerva; joins earlier, benched earlier (around 12 or so). Was typically a dracoknight.
Nagi: 18 - OHKO dragons. Not a great unit otherwise, but is durable at least. A robe would help her fear Glower less. Fuck Glower, that shit's rude.
Linde: 16 - Earlygame filler, blast things with Aura/Nosferatu. Probably could have stuck it out with her but Etzel showed up so meh whatever.
Malicia: 15 - Awesome staff user, high speed meant she could kill Gharnef too, and Nosferatu tank in a pinch.
Tiki: 15 - Probably shouldn't have bothered, growth unit who I ended up benching before she hit her good chapters since Nagi is faster anyway.
Rody: 14 - Earlygame competent, ultimately didn't make the cut.
Barst: 12 - Filler pirate midgame, hit things with axes until I got Minerva.
Etzel: 11 - Can use Excalibur and staves at base, not much not to like.
Draug: 10 - Filler pirate midgame, hit things with axes until I got Barst. E rank hurt.
Darros: 7 - Filler (promoted) pirate midgame, hit things with axes until I got better units.
(gap)
Katarina: 3 - Random staff user on some later maps when I felt like having three. Also Nosferatu.
Feena: 0 - Dancer, godlike for turn allocation, Lady Sword let her defend herself somewhat though she badly needed an Angelic Robe and even then I had to watch sometimes.

Rankings were A in Speed, B in Survival (I lost Cord and Midia on their joining maps, and Radd died before I could recruit him), and B Tactics (not that people seem to know what that one means?). Most maps took a reasonable number of turns (topping out at 11) except C19 (Wolfguard recruitment) which took 13 and C3 which took 21. Fuck chapter 3, that map is so dumb. Hope you like to watch Marth walk a lot. At least it's FE's most realistic depiction of military life?!

Game had some reasonably cool maps later, they did a pretty good job with setting up enemy threat ranges in places and such. Too much Seize though. I do appreciate the FE11-onwards polish things like skipping enemy phase, skipping battle animations in the middle, dead PCs dropping their inventory into convoy, but I really miss Rescue. At least the game has a cool set of staves with nifty effects but it's not really enough. Hard was a pretty good place challenge-wise, it'll be interesting to try Maniac at some point (seems like the game has a pretty nice array of difficulty settings?). It was pretty fun but still worse than FE6-10/13 fairly clearly. Game stays at 6/10 or wherever I had it.


Bubsy: Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind - Played this for the first time in well over a decade. I dunno why. I have some nostalgia for the game because I played it a lot when I was younger, particularly with my young cousin who I think really loved the death animations (which are pretty funny). Felt like dusting it off and seeing how it held up I guess. Anyway it's okay. Good challenge level (the game showers you with lives, but damned if it doesn't make you feel like you need 'em), although the physics are a bit weird. Stage design's pretty good (rewards you nicely for exploring with the aforementioned lives, but you can rush through most levels instead if you'd rather), enemy design's a bit weak though (outside some of the raw visual design, such as land sharks).

[hinode]

I believe the 'Tactics' rank in FE12 is for completionism: things like recruiting people, visiting villages, getting the true ending, etc.

Class set A>>>class set B in FE12 is a pretty universal consensus from what I can tell, it has both most of the high move classes and most of the high speed classes. This also favors female characters prior to unlocking merged class sets, since the female class set is a superset of male A both before and after promoting. Then merged sets massively favors males overall, although the good PC list still skews female thanks to Palla/Catria/Caeda hax.

[hinode]

I guess this is technically a doublepost but it's been close to a day now so whatever.

Pokemon X:





Wish medals could still be viewed in-game, but this will have to do.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Are there any Fairy-types (retypes?) that -aren't- in the Kalos pokedex? I know the Kalos dex is huge (400-something mon?), but that's still only like half the Pokemon in existence and I don't know if some of the ones that got retyped with Fairy that required trading from an older game.

[Captain K.]

Only one Serebii lists is Arceus, but I think that's only with Pixie Plate equipped.

[hinode]

Togekiss and Clefable lines are retconned as well, can be potentially obtained from Friend Safari.

Whimsicott is not available at all, but one NPC uses it postgame, so you can verify its newfound Dragon immunity yourself.

[TranceHime]

pokemon x: over 100+ hours spent in post-game, what the fuck is wrong with me

going through the painstaking effort of raising pokemon for online battles i don't really know why but i'm going to limit myself only to mons that aren't incredibly popular, i will make exceptions of course, such as excadrill.

[Fudozukushi]

ToX: I think the most important thing I learned over the past few days is that Ilbert is one of the Six Ruling Houses of Rashugal.  :explodingpsyduck:

But in boss testing news!

Chapter 4 Jude Side:
EPIC DUEL BOSS!: Can inflict status with a decent chance.  Way too many damn moves.
IMMA ON A BOAT!: Starts out with the ability to one combo KO.  And one of those moves adds poison/TP poison.  FUN!  Inflicting Burn before using the Mystic Arte that can't kill?  ALSO FUN!
RAWR IMMA NOT A DRAGON!: Um, doesn't inflict Skill/Arteseal with stupid-high chances like the earlier form.  Mystic Arte can't KO.  But has a fairly brutal stun combo... that's 50% HP and below.  LAMER.
RAGING MIST OH YEAH: Raging Mist is stupid giant-AOE bullshit that even Jude can barely avoid.  Anyway, there's actual some semblance of durability here now.  Being able to start off with a Mystic Arte is cool beans too!  And so is spamming it after every combo when below 50% HP.
THE THRONE OF THIS WORLD: The Mystic Arte can't even seem to activate unless the Arcane Arte hits everyone.  And the Mystic is Light it looks like.  That's weird on so many levels.

[Meiousei]

I’m not used to reviewing a beat game, so this is going to take a bit for me to write. Spoilers are slightly abound.

White 2: Beaten. I have to admit the music in this game is catchy, especially the three musketeer deers’ trio and Colress’s music. I normally have to say, Pokémon music does not normally interest me, but this time I liked it.

As for my challenge, I had to drop the 2 Bug, 2 Grass Challenge midway because of Skyla. I just could not beat her with the team without dying. I did manage, however, to keep the majority of my Pokémon around the same level (read: 13 of them). I also went on a Nature/Ability spree, making sure to grab the right nature for a lot of the Pokémon I wanted. As a result, I had one Legendary aiding me in the Elite Four part of Pokémon League.

Plot was…different. It was not what I was expecting in a children’s game, but even more, I felt the plot reminded me a lot of (no joke) a drama series that mother likes to watch on TV. Rival character wants to take down the villains in revenge, the villain not really WANTING to be a villain but looking for strength by fighting others. The ones that ARE bad guys just being terrible at their jobs (save for freezing ONE city and taking Pokémon). Even with the clichés, I still like the game plot (I must be a sucker for games like that) and the Shadow Triad had to save their butts several times. I actually like those people. Why can we not have a game that involves only the Shadow Triad? Anyways-

Quick shout out to Status Effects. Thank goodness you cannot die of poison while out of combat. Otherwise, I would be dead more times then I can count. In addition, Confuse Ray + Toxic combo is sick (and how I made Ninetails remain relevant).

Final team consisted of:

Serperior- This one. This one has usually been in my party since the start. She died several times, and during the Marshal fight, she got smashed in the face with Hammer Arm (x8 times before she fainted). She held up when the going got tough though, even in light of type disadvantages, so she earned a spot in my final team. For what it was worth, using her as a tank and lead in has helped me (especially when I remember to use Coil to raise defenses). She isn't the best starter, but somehow I managed to do fine with her.
Move Set: Giga Drain, Leaf Blade, Iron Tail, Coil

Braviery- Sheer Force is making its presence known. It is how I knocked out a lot of Marshal’s and Caitlin’s Pokémon with Crush Claw / Shadow Claw spam. When equipped with Quick Claw, most of the time, it manages to destroy Pokémon thanks to the Sheer Force (which prevents status effects in lull of more damage).
Move Set: Superpower, Crush Claw, Rock Slide, Shadow Claw

Lapras-An oldie but goodie. Since I hunted down one for the better part of 2 days, the Lapras I named “Garry” has proven his worth the entire game since. Having Hydro Pump before I reached the final gym, I made it learn Thunder to make it useful for the final gym. Even after that, Lapras’s Special Defense (Sassy Nature) really did not help much when it came to enemies that unleashed Fighting- or Rock- on him. Ironically, thanks to the Rocky Helmet, I can just sit back and heal while those particular enemies suicide on him (which was my main strategy since the final gym).
Move Set: Hydro Pump, Ice Beam, Thunder, Surf

Hydreigon- I kept swapping between this one and the others when it came to Shauntal and Grimsley. It’s a good thing I did, as it was a good meat shield to protect some of my other Pokémon. While it is true it was my last Pokémon to catch, (save for the Ninetails, who will be appearing a lot more in my post-game play) it is showing its worth for all work I put into leveling it. Also, it being Hasty makes it able to move fast and just burn things.
Move Set: Fire Blast, Dragon Rush, Dragon Pulse, Work Up

Mienshao-Now this one. This one is funny. She had crap for defenses, so she goes down rather quick against Pokémon who are stronger in ATK. That said, she was able to kill many of the trainers I fought since I caught her and was trying to get her defenses up. The same Pokémon that caused Serperior and Braviery to faint made her faint early on. She turned around and (once revived) dodged the attack that killed her to defeat that very same Pokémon.
Move Set: Drain Punch, Hi-Jump Kick, Rock Slide, Acrobatics

Terrakion- I was not going to use him. I only did because A) The team I was going to use was very weak to Rock, so I needed to have someone (aside from Hydreigon) that could withstand the attacks and B) The original one that was supposed to be in this slot was supposed to be Gliscor. However, it has earned its place, holding up against 3 of the 4 Elite Four members. It’s probably not going to stay in the post-game group, as I’m going to run a more “demented” team for that one.
Move Set: Rock Slide, X-Scissor, Sacred Sword, Swords Dance

Overall, this game was a lot better (to me) than Diamond. I’m very happy I was able to play this game, and I hope that Pokémon X will be as memorable, especially once I transfer my Pokémon from Diamond and White 2 over for breeding, trading, and training purposes.

I am sorry if my review kind of sucks. I am not very good at this kind of thing, since it has been a while since I wrote anything longer than a mere paragraph. I might make a second review for after-game impressions, but that depends.

[Sierra]

Arkham Origins: Deathstroke's pretty spry for an old guy. Captain K-approved villainy.

[Niu]

Blazblue Chrono Phantasma - Finished story mode. Time to work on Abyss Mode.

[Cmdr_King]

Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies- Hello new PW game.

The original trilogy blurs for me, but I feel like Edgeworth>This>Trilogy>AJ more or less.  It's fairly streamlined (much less pixel hunting, in fact only about one location per case is actually searched fully, and most of your investigation is done through questioning people), and they pretty routinely mix up which lawyer you're controlling and their mechanics.  Also tells a fairly complete story but is clearly making way for a bigger story arc.  Go buy it.

[Grefter]

Blue Dragon - started up a save I have at start of disc 2.  Jiro bro, I ain't saying she's a gold digger.

Shu refuses to lose at this game of vaginas.  Thanks for teaching him it Jiro.