What games are you playing 2014?

[Captain K.]

So basically the only place you'll ever need it. Of course.

Of course!  Remember Dark Souls design philosophy is "we hate you".

I also had the most trouble with Wind Dragon Gref, although that may have been because it was the first one I fought.

DS:  Finished the Dragon Covenant, working on the Awesomestones covenant now.  Then Bellbros and (eventually) Vendrick and finally I might be ready for NG+.

[SnowFire]

Arcanist / Spiritmaster fight is probably harder than Templar fight if you go into both blind, but once you've fought 'em once, the Templar fight mostly maintains its difficulty while Arcanist / Spiritmaster collapses.  Block POIZN, collect victoly.  I only even had 2 Poison blockers but if I'd really been desperate I could've gone back and spent the princely 500 pg. a piece on a full set of 4.  Per earlier comments, Templar wiped me twice, but A/S was a "die horribly first time, win easily second time w/ no grinding" affair.  Seriously, Spiritmaster is very turn inefficient (you want to trade 2 BP on Fairy's Aid for 1 BP of mine in Dispel?  Please do.), & Arcanist doesn't OHKO through Default, and it's just a single target anyway.  Arcanist is very sad once Poison is blocked and her Brave shenanigans aren't too bad.

Templar meanwhile goes on horrific Brave-backed killing sprees where he'll take 3 actions two turns in a row, OHKOs through Default, can KO through Default if your HP wasn't maxed without his Default piercer, etc. and sports absurd durability to give him time to get lucky.  Knowing to take Hunting into the battle helps a lot at speeding things up, but he can still murder you (presumably on Normal as well!), so.

In more recent news, a dragon ate my party.  Guess I'm not doing Vamp just quite yet!

[Dark Holy Elf]

(minor spoilers)

If you're at the point where you can get Vampire, there is actually much less game in your way before getting Dark Knight, which is IMO the better class anyway.

I basically second Snowfire on the relative merits of Templar and Arcanist/Spiritmaster fights but will note that both of us played on Hard, which makes a big difference, as Templar's default-piercing move becomes a OHKO there (at least potentially, depending on your levels/def).

[Anthony Edward Stark]

This game is worse than Kirby Super Star in every way

That's true for most games that have ever been made, though?

Well, this is true, can't argue with that.  But I assume the point of the comparison is noted.

Everything I hear about it makes me think it is terrible, yes. I have been lifting weights and doing cocaine all day, and just thinking about Kirby's Dream Land 2 makes me so angry I might bite off someone's nipple, Castle Freak style.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

If you have L1 Spiritmaster on the entire party, you have -absolute- control over the dragon fights as long as you equip the appropriate statusblocker as needed.

[Meeplelard]

The final boss is terrible too, and he's the icing on the crap cake.  To fight Dark Matter, you have to use the new Rainbow sword ability.  Kirby also gets to move freely in all directions... very slowly.  This makes it nearly impossible to avoid Dark Matter's screen-splitting attacks, and since the sword doesn't actually hurt the boss, you have to reflect his attacks with it.  The physics of this are poorly conceived to say the least, so I would not be surprised if many players didn't bother to beat the boss.  I know I save-scummed through it on this playthrough.

That's something I forgot to bring up myself.

In Kirby Adventure, you get the Star Rod, which is basically the Ultimate Power.  It's a ranged attack that hits hard (it shoots stars, I can only assume these would do as much damage as Kirby's basic inhale -> release attack), with no strings attached, and even has a decent fire rate.  On top of that, it has the Sword Spin-strike, which works as a defensive move in the air.   It's the kind of power that makes you feel like a bad ass when fighting the final boss.

The Rainbow Sword, by contrast, is basically what you had when you fought Meta Knight is Kirby's Adventure, namely a sword that doesn't disappear due to damage.  This is not a great way to feel awesome because it's such a boring power; the least it could do is fire beams out at full health like in Zelda or something.  Heck, the whole point is just to give Kirby something to bat away attacks with.
With Meta Knight, they didn't try to pretend it was a new power, just a gimmick stylish fight.  Meta Knight uses Swords, so let's have Kirby with permanent sword to have a sword duel; it was a cute idea and worked for a singular boss fight.


Basically, if you're forcing a special power for a final boss fight, make that power seem good.  The Star Rod made it feel like everything else would be pointless, so being forced with it was totally fair!  Rainbow Sword, I felt weakened.  The fact that, like you said, you really win by playing baseball with him is insulting; beating him with melee is possible but takes forever.

[Pyro]

Child of Light:

Engrossing. The gameplay combines that of a 2D action platformer with a Grandia-esque battle system. It's not an incredibly deep battle system, but it is challenging enough on Hard.

The game's atmosphere is haunting and the music backs that up in subdued fashion. The action platformer part would normally prove lackluster but the game quickly twists the standard formula by giving Aurora the ability to fly after one little dungeon. Aurora herself is a fairly charming as a child protagonist.

[Dhyerwolf]

Ooh, I remember seeing images of that game. It looked beautiful. Glad to hear it's panning out decently.

[Sierra]

DS2: Great scythe is wonky as hell. My nemesis now constitutes the sum total of Drangleic's stationary vertical objects. Man, the times I've been stabbed in the face due to being stunned after a follow-up slash pinged off a wall? I now live in dread of all narrow corridors. Weapon also seems to degrade notably when striking armored enemies (or maybe just when you whiff a lot and club people with it, not sure) so I have two of them now, one magic and one dark. Great scythe + enemy hitbox continues to be a really weird combination; little dudes you have to be really precise with your positioning to get proper damage, but bosses are just big blobs you can wail on indiscriminately I guess? (Hi Rotten, you are not a wizard this time.) Damage is aces buffed when you don't have to worry about precision at all.

Speaking of, I can use Resonant Weapon now! But I'm not yet really because there are still things I want to spend levels on (I can't use Dark Fog yet). Anyway there's Great Magic Weapon in the meantime.

Was sitting around the Iron Keep bellbroing it up some more and got invaded. Tossed Chameleon and sat around for a bit. Dude runs past with the Staff of Wisdom and Havel's Greatshield equipped. Okayyyyy there's no way someone legitimately has the stats to use (or even acquire) both of those at my SM level. I don't want to deal with this, so I sit around answering PSN messages while he runs past a couple times more. Eventually I'm interrupted by POIZN noises. He's throwing Dark Fog on all the stationary objects in the Iron Keep. I notice this once I'm poisoned, so I backstab him and run off to heal. He starts throwing around Crystal Soul Spear, Great Lightning Spear, Crystal Homing Soulmass...I managed a piddly three hundred damage with a backstab and he can deal 95% of my health with one spell, so guess how this ends.

I check his PSN profile afterwards. He has two trophies: the one you get for DS2 chargen, and the All Hexes trophy. You know, I really don't understand the hacker mentality. How is that even fun at all?

[Fudozukushi]

You see, by being the unkillable he gets back at all the people who've ever wronged him by annoying random strangers!  It's brilliant really.

Dark Souls 2: Spooky Scary Skeletons, Covetus and Mytha down.  Lazy lazy day.  Connection didn't pop so I didn't Ratbro but I got a Twinkling off Crow Roulette so Havel's is up to +4.  Yayyyyy.  Deaths include randomly missing the Huntsmans Corpse drop and the Iron Keep column of pointless that I just shut off right then and there because bloody hell do I not want to jump over to the Allone Captain Archer again.

[Dark Holy Elf]

The gameplay combines that of a 2D action platformer with a Grandia-esque battle system.

So I'm hearing I need to pick this game up.


DmC - Got Devil Trigger! Seriously DMC, stop waiting so long to give me this, why do you keep doing this. Enemy design is ticking upwards although the focus still seems to be more on what the player can do with ridiculous aerial combos; the redesign of devil trigger kinda drives this home...

(edit: In fairness, I think I begrudge this game's long devil trigger delay less than 3 or 4 [I don't even remember when you gained it in 2. Bad sign]. The toys you have to play with as of Chapter 2 made the lack of it less pronounced. Still a welcome addition to the arsenal!)

[Meeplelard]

DMC2 you actually get Devil Trigger from the outset; you get modifications of it throughout the game via accessories, which while DMC2 has issues, that was one of the cooler features.

Kirby Super Stars: IN the middle of Great Cave Offensive.  Trying to 100% it on treasures for the first time ever.  Got about 15 thus far!

[Shale]

Yeah, if you're going to make Devil Trigger a late pickup, having it be a super-move rather than a new character mode makes that decision go down easier, I think.

SRWZ3.1: Mid-chapter 16. They did a pretty good job balancing the combat system - I've had a few close scrapes with both SR points and outright losses, and got out of them with Tag Tension and chain-killing shenanigans rather than just seishin spam. The current stage in particular is going to be fun to deal with – two bosses to kill, they have to go down in the same turn, and only one of them moves so you have to split the team. Nasty grunts to wade through, too. Aquarion has a lot of those, no matter which show it is.

Top aces are Kouji, Souske and Hibiki. Mazinger uber alles.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Bravely Default - Just got to Chapter 6. Did all of the dragons on Chapter 5, they are still quite tough in Hard Mode. I had to level a bunch to get Stop Immunity on all of my characters to beat the Blue one, though. I'm using a party of Templar(with DK)/DK(with piracy)/Perfomer(with WM)/Vampire(with valk).

spoilerz for end of C5

I guess alternate dimension Alternis Dim is less of a Nice Guy than the original. Also, I think Super might be right about the fairy??? who knew Super could be right about fairies

[Luther Lansfeld]

Bravely Default - Decided to take the bait and go for the normal/alternate ending in C6.

[Grefter]

BD - Still dragons for me.  Shinryuu decided it was sick mad idea to just spam Holy Breath turn after turn before I moved, so party wiped a bit.  Ladon is actually scaring me a bit because he is busting out the same thing.  When they outspeed my White Mage Tiz with Agi boosting accessory consistently it is scary.  My Time Mage is currently a Black Mage with Spiritualism set (and is normally slower than dragons).  Ladon could proc Paralyze at very bad times very easily.  I could swap to Time Mage for the added control at the cost of damage.  I think that is smarter than messing around with Slow Parry like I had been.  I have the skill slots for Slow Parry on these fights, but ehhh.  I think I would rather build a strat with my current tool kit first.

[superaielman]

I too am at the same point Ciato is at. Game quality has taken a sharp nosedive to me since the end of C4 but eh, oh well. I have absolutely no comment on the plot, but those who have played it can imagine my reaction to it.

[Pyro]

Child of Light:

I continue to play this game. Soaring through the air is truly divine. Combat is like Grandia, albeit rather plain.
The plot is thin, which is unfortunate. Aurora is charming and the party is growing. A cadre of loyal (?) subordinates.
Customizing is choosing from 3 paths. But a dead end on each one makes little room for maths.
I say you should play Child of Light. A passion for simplicity it may reignite.

Have I mentioned the dialog all rhymes? And I don't just mean ... infrequently  (He means Sometimes).

[Sierra]

DS2: Today I backstabbed Havel off a cliff.

Velstadt's not much fun when your primary offense is dark elemental. I dumbed down Sunlight Blade just to make things a little easier but even still chipping was a chore. Farmed up a Black Witch Staff to replace existing casting triggers because hey, all-in-one functionality at last. Glancing at the status menu after equipping it, wait what 800ish power? I wonder what it would be like maxed out? I have plenty of titanite sitting around so hey, let's find out. 1266. The display has trouble making sense of a four-digit number, but yeah, 1266. I have to assume the status screen's attack rating for hexing implements is just an amalgamation of the various elements it works for (that's how it works for elemental weapons anyway), because the results when I start experimenting with hexes don't really testify to their reputed gamebreaking greatness (still good, mind).

So I know I wasn't going to use attack magic at all but hey, gotta do something with those spell slots once Waifu Scythe makes all the buffs obsolete. I might just jack up INT/FTH to 40 since there's little else worth caring about for levels and anyway might as well make all those hexes accessible for experimentation purposes at the least. There's probably better catalysts for pumping out damage, but convenience alone basically ensures BWS isn't going anywhere (and at least it doesn't compete with my armor for ore).

Turns out Agdayne gives you a super cool katana if you talk to him after beating up Velstadt. Something to remember whenever I get back to running a DEX fighter.

[Fudozukushi]

Sadly Vestaldt probably has the lowest Dark Def of the three Dark bosses. 

Hexes strong point is the sheer ludicrous speed you fire them out due to the nature of the stat invest.  Firing off 1K damage with a normal weapon's attack speed is nuts.

Agadyne's Darkdrift has something embarrassing like 20 durability.

Dark Souls 2: Only killed Chariot because I woke up late and I'm adhering to a no-gaming after midnight philosophy.  The run to the Chariot was maximum easy at least!  Tried going after Lost Sinner but SURPRISE EXPLODING ZOMBIE OUTTA NOWHERE!  And of course it goes through the shield because why wouldn't it?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Child of Light:

I continue to play this game. Soaring through the air is truly divine. Combat is like Grandia, albeit rather plain.
The plot is thin, which is unfortunate. Aurora is charming and the party is growing. A cadre of loyal (?) subordinates.
Customizing is choosing from 3 paths. But a dead end on each one makes little room for maths.
I say you should play Child of Light. A passion for simplicity it may reignite.

Have I mentioned the dialog all rhymes? And I don't just mean ... infrequently  (He means Sometimes).

I hear the story puts one in the mind of classic fairy tales. That sounds like the simplicity is more about wins than fails...

[jsh357]

Pokemon X Electric Monotype Challenge:
I started this as filler to avoid replaying Souls over and over.  Have spent an hour and a half attempting to catch Light Ball Pikachu.  No luck so far, but on the bright side, managed to get one with a decent nature.  In my first run of this game, the one Pikachu I caught had the Light Ball.  So it goes... Y gets Elektrike exclusively, but I can at least get Mega Ampharos, which is probably better here since I'll need type variety.

This doesn't seem to be that challenging at a glance, but maybe it'll surprise me like Mono-flying 3rd gen.

[Dark Holy Elf]

It seems like it could be tricky without the Exp Share. With, probably a joke, but I could be surprised.

[Grefter]

Bravely Default - Ladon proved difficult because he decided that busting out random speed was fun.  Earth Eye then bust out Megaton Press before even White Mage Tiz with Hermes Sandals goes who in almost all other turns consistently out sped him.  Okay.  Make sure to keep Slow up, win eh enough.  Just have to play game with like real strategy and shit.

Vampire Castle randoms fucking legit capable of one rounding me if ambushed, a few wipes in dungeon.  Lots of wins with someone dead because dogs decided to focus them down through default after starting with a BP. Black Mage had null fire shield on so could clean them up easily enough.  Could have slapped shields on those turns I guess.

Got to the boss.  Levelled everyone enough to get Utsusemi.  Played around a bit.  Decided it was boring.  Decided I didn't feel like fucking around enough to beat it any other way.  Decided Edea can get 999 JP.  Had everyone but her kill themselves and won on auto battle and Transience counters. 

[superaielman]

Bravely Default: Finished. This entire post is going to be spoilery, don't read if you haven't finished.



This is the tale of two games. The first half of bravely default is a brilliantly paced game that constantly introduces new jobs, has plenty of quality subquests to do, and tells a classic story of healing the crystals.  The characters start off badly, but that's mostly Tiz and Agnes being boring. Ringabel and Edea are both a lot of fun and spice things up when they go to the forefront (Mercifully, the game calls out Ringabel on his shit constantly which is great). Then chapter five happens and you get to repeat the game four times before getting to the end! What in the fuck. That means you get to do the crystal purging 16 fucking times and do those dungeons 4 more times each. The repetition is mind numbing and completely not fun. The side stuff with the Eternian knights is great if you can stomach refighting them over and over, but ugh god. The gameplay goes in the toliet to me after C4. The tight gameplay is replaced by repeat bosses with no new tricks and the same randoms from C5 till the end of the game. You stop getting to buy things from non Norende shops, so your money issues vanish. It turns into a stompfest/time to figure out your favorite broken setups for endgame. That part's okay, just the repetition hurts.


All that repetition completely kills any interest I have in replaying, which is a shame because the core battle system is amazing. The second half of the game would be okay if it was condensed into an extra world, not *four* extra worlds.I didn't do vampire castle and skipped the conjurer. I apparently missed a bunch of side plot in worlds 5-8 by not doing most of the side fights, but hell with it.

Airy's twist is brilliant. The execution that goes into it is not.  Why does the party willingly go along for an extra two worlds after figuring out the truth about Airy, and *then* act shocked when she turns into a personsification of evil? The writing falls apart badly in the main plot after C4 minus Airy's twist, and it hurts to see. So much purifying crystals over and over.


Some brief character notes for NPC's:


Braev: MORON. Oh my god there are a thousand ways you can dissect how he's dumb, but I'll just say not warning his daughter that she's travelling with the Evil One for reasons hurts my head.

Alternis Dim: His diary is amazing to read and gives a lot of depth to a mostly wankery character. Also, love how he explains exactly why the Dutchy got into a brutal civil war in Eisen. It makes sense- ideology has pulled world powers into ugly wars before. C4 Dim still needs a kick to the temple because his dumb confession of love rather than telling Edea the truth about the Fairie is wretched.


Airy: Ah..ahah. AHhaha. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE TRUTH IS REVEALED NEVER TRUST A FAIRIE EVER. Ahem. The twist with Airy as the game's true villain is amazing. I had picked up on it before due to my really serious dislike of Fairies, but joking aside her behavior really comes off as strange at best at several points. Still, she does a fantastic job being evil and I can't complain. Most tolerable fairie ever, because you get to exterminate her. 


De Rossa/Yulana: Go away. You are tied with the really terrible overarching plot.

The first half of BD is close to 10/10 range. I loved almost all of it. The second half is more like 2/10 range minus Airy's twist. I think it averages out to a 6? No matter how much I adore the first half of the game, I find everything after you beat up Alternis for the first time to be a chore. There's only one new dungeon after that point which is a shame.


It averages out to a 6. There's just too much crap tacked on in the second half. I love the polish put into the game, I love the job system, I hate how the entire second half of the game executes itself.

Non spoilery stuff: I really, really appreciated how the game went out of it's way to balance the classes for the most part. It was like the game designers had figured out it wasn't 1994 any more and things like Steal should be useful. The only classes I'd call out and out bad are Conjurer (accession time's an issue), and Arcanist (Skillset looks really bad, BM tails off late). Classes differ and they try to give every class a unique niche, which is very cool.