What games are you playing 2014?

[Grefter]

Captain Mercaptain, huh? I better find a Major Mermajor out there somewhere too

MERMAN!

SMT: Soul Hackers - So I probably shouldn't have started up another first person SMT dungeon crawler straight away (or gone back to a long destitute Persona 1 run), but this game is so fucking metal that I just had to do it.

I really dig the early SMT setting that is more closely aligned to Neuromancer a than the usual post demon apocalypse ones are (which I already like a fair bit).  The others feel like the more Shadowrun side of Cyberpunk (with the Metal turned up to 11 because summoning Internet Demons is more metal than Orcs).

I had to restart right at the beginning though, because I picked a name, first name and last name both have 9 characters.  So MOTHAFUKA JONES was started, then I got to pick a Handle as well.  Power off. 

The adventures of Crash "ZeroCool" Override were begun.  Hack the planet?  He will hack your very Soul.  Mess with the best, die like the rest.

He is a member of The Spookies.  Hacktivists before Hacktivism was a thing?

Then he wandered around Second Life for a bit, tripped on LSD and spoke to my spirit animal.  Hacked the soul memory of the owner of this random Gun Computer he found lying around in The Spookies HQ (some older dude's camper van).  I am in the process of watching him die.

Pretty good acid.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Hyrule Warriors - Beat Legend Mode. HM, played as everyone but used Zelda for the final two maps because I'm a copycat apparently. Also beat Cia's Tale.

This game is the pleasant surprise of the year to me, I think. I wasn't really sure what to expect of it: it's a Zelda fanservice game and I'm not a Zelda fan, it's a Dynasty Warriors-type game and I didn't much care for my brief experiment with that my few years back. But after watching some of it it looked good, and it plays even better. It very much one of three games in the discussion for the best game I've played so far this year (the other two being Mario Kart 8 and Bravely Default).

One thing which was a big turnoff of the Warriors games was how terrible regular enemies were, and the scale of the slaughter of them. These enemies are still terrible in HW, but ultimately not what the game is about. They are generally better off ignored unless you need to clear them out to conquer a castle (in which case speed/efficiency matters a lot) or you just feel like practicing. Not the best part of the game, but not as bad as I feared. Fortunately fighting against mini-bosses and bosses is quite fun, especially when the game mixes up combinations of them; it actually starts to feel like a very solid action game then. And the game really hits its stride when it has you balancing a whole bunch of objectives: keep your allies alive, conquer spawn points, defeat various bosses, keep your own base from falling, etc. Many of the Legend (story) Mode maps come down to pretty epic finishes against one or more bosses as you desperately try to keep everything from falling apart. The varied objectives also but a bunch of extra pressure on your fighting bosses or mini-bosses, so there's a bit of risk/reward in fighting them defensively or offensively, with the scale sliding based on other things going on in the battle.

Where the game really shines gameplaywise is in its large cast of very varied playable characters. There are 16 PCs, probably close to 30 unique fighting styles, and they're quite different and it's a lot of fun to try out different ones. I'm pretty much a sucker for things like this in any game (SMB2, MMX8, Castlevania PoR, etc.) so it's not really a surprise that I enjoyed this.

The game's plot isn't much, though it's probably fair to say it exceeded my low expectations? It does a couple unexpected things which resonate well, and has a few good lines. The game does this crazy thing where the majority of its key characters are women and the game actually respects them and somehow Zelda makes it through the entire game without being kidnapped. The game seemed to wear this on its sleeve especially coming out of this year's disgraceful E3 on that front and it looks good on it.

Aesthetically, the game has some great music and character designs, and some very stylish attacks. The environment graphics are serviceable enough, but I care about those far less anyway. The game has loads of content as well: the core Legend Mode is pretty standard action game in length, but Adventure Mode attaches a ridiculous amount more.

It has some flaws certainly. The game managed a stylish and "better than I expected" plot, but that's obviously still a long way off from having an actual good plot. The game makes a few questionable interface choices (it's great that it places your allies' health gauges on the lower screen, but I really wish they placed the Allied Base gauge there too so I don't have to keep going into the menu to check that), and it's possible for the game's checkpoint system to lock you into a near or entirely unwinnable situation (although since you can save any time you want and reload those, it's not too big a deal, and generally the checkpoints do come at good times). And man could the game have used voice acting; the game's action is often too hectic to read the mid-battle dialog easily and the KIU treatment would have served this game beautifully. I blame the Zelda fanbase.

But yeah overall I have remarkably few bad things to say about the game. I've put about 20 hours into it so far and I can already tell there's ridiculously more to come. I just wish the overlap between "will actually play action games" and "owns a Wii U" weren't so tiny in the DL, so I could beat more people into this one.


SSB4 - I completed all of the first challenge grid but the second had way too much garbage, done with that. I don't enjoy Smash Run or target-breaking or homerun contest and in general am pretty lukewarm on everything which isn't the core Smash gameplay. Fortunately that itself is good fun, so I'm just sinking all my hours into that, multiplayer when possible of course. Palutena, Bowser, Bowser Jr./Roy, Peach, Lucina, Sheik, Mega Man, Dedede, Rosalina are all characters I've been using more recently.

[Niu]

Chaos Ring 3 - I... I... this game truly exceeded my expectation! What is with the adorable bishounen that the game paste on to my face!? Matsuoka also has the problem to sound like a man like he always do, which makes this even better!
Ahahaha, and I can abuse Vita's clock to get all the goodies first! Time to dress up! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!

[Fenrir]

SaGa: 
Killing Dullahans in the Bio-Lab! After having explored every area I could.
I got annoyed by how sparkle chance is drastically lower without a weapon crown, so I made Yattaf learn every sword skill she has the talent for, which is every skill but 4. These four unfortunately include Lifesprinkler!

I haven't beaten EarthDragon yet, but I have beaten King Sei and he was super hard. I just went to go tackle him several times through the game, thinking "this time, maybe, this could work", but noope, and I couldn't actually succeed until after having 700 HPs or so.
The skeletons he comes with like to combo (400 damage right there), so they need to get smashed ASAP, and that takes some good MT damage and luck. Afterwards he's difficult to outslug solo with that 1000 HP / round regen. He also gets his own 350 HP attack, so you can't just attack him constantly. RosarioImpale works nicely, but it costs a lot and Sei likes to block it.

[Dark Holy Elf]

If you didn't know, you can change Yattaf's costume to change what she has talent for. The Liza costume (Pink Tiger, I think?) has talent for Lifesprinkler.

(Although Lifesprinkler's still pretty annoying to learn even if you have talent for it.)

[Niu]

SaGa: 
Killing Dullahans in the Bio-Lab! After having explored every area I could.
I got annoyed by how sparkle chance is drastically lower without a weapon crown, so I made Yattaf learn every sword skill she has the talent for, which is every skill but 4. These four unfortunately include Lifesprinkler!

I haven't beaten EarthDragon yet, but I have beaten King Sei and he was super hard. I just went to go tackle him several times through the game, thinking "this time, maybe, this could work", but noope, and I couldn't actually succeed until after having 700 HPs or so.
The skeletons he comes with like to combo (400 damage right there), so they need to get smashed ASAP, and that takes some good MT damage and luck. Afterwards he's difficult to outslug solo with that 1000 HP / round regen. He also gets his own 350 HP attack, so you can't just attack him constantly. RosarioImpale works nicely, but it costs a lot and Sei likes to block it.

Why are you fighting King Sei? His sword is a pitiful trade to the Water Mirror Shield.
But never mind if you already got a Dullahan Shield from the Dullahan farming...

[DjinnAndTonic]

Hyrule Warriors - I just wish the overlap between "will actually play action games" and "owns a Wii U" weren't so tiny in the DL, so I could beat more people into this one.

I just beat the Legend mode on Normal in one long sitting at a friend's house (no WiiU for me, but he's a huuuuge Zelda fan, so he practically forced me to play it, not that I needed much convincing). I haven't beaten a Zelda game since the SNES because I hate doing puzzles in 3D adventure games, and I am generally uninterested in games with only a single playable character. BUT, this game made a bunch of LoZ famous characters actually -playable- and really that was all the excuse I needed to get interested in the entire franchise again, and have just recently beat Majora's Mask as a result. I'm thinking about trying out Twilight Princess since I liked the grimdark-lite setting in MM.

How's the Adventure Mode in HW, though? It looked interesting but after marathoning Legend Mode, I was done with this one for a while.

SSB4 - I completed all of the first challenge grid but the second had way too much garbage, done with that. I don't enjoy Smash Run or target-breaking or homerun contest and in general am pretty lukewarm on everything which isn't the core Smash gameplay. Fortunately that itself is good fun, so I'm just sinking all my hours into that, multiplayer when possible of course. Palutena, Bowser, Bowser Jr./Roy, Peach, Lucina, Sheik, Mega Man, Dedede, Rosalina are all characters I've been using more recently.

Nine mains is a lot... I'm just barely able to get a handle on Pikachu and Shulk. (And spoilers, Pikachu kinda sucks now.) I'm not sure what your issue with Smash Run is... It might just be that since my mains are pretty well suited for the platforming of it, I enjoy it more, but honestly Peach and Sheik at least should make Smash Run a blast. And Palutena is so customizeable for it, you should try playing around more with her varied moves.

I'm mostly going through Classic mode and Smash Run to pick up as many tools as possible to unlock all the custom moves.

[Grefter]

Tales of Xillia - This is also in lay as something of a comfort game.  This misnamed.  It is Tales of RICHARD.  Where Tales of Graces fffffffffffffffffff had RICHARD and Zombie Ghost RICHARD, this instead lets you custom make everyone with RICHARD and RICHARD accessories.

I am lame and boring and Mila and Alvin are both just rocking Framed Glasses.  Everyone else is getting Aviators.  Jude wears a pair of sunglasses tucked up on top of his head as well as his aviators.  All RICHARD all day.

[Fenrir]

I've been using costumes.  (I've been using the Pink Tiger costume for most of the run)
The data/mechanics faq says Liza/Basic Emelia/Annie don't have the talent for Lifesprinkler, and I haven't checked anything else. It seemed reliable.
I probably could learn it anyway byt smacking Dullahan for hours with the WonderBangle shield and DodgeTrample tech on anyway.
Edit: Yeah she smacks Dully 61 times with a regular physical as PinkTiger, and she hasn't learned Lifesprinker so I don't think she has the talent? Also this is too boring even with frameskip, I'll do fine with just RosarioImpale and DSC. Or I'll come back.
Also, beating EarthDragon is not happening. I haven't found a way to spoil his RNG canon attack (WallRune not working on this, whatever this was supposed to do), and I don't want to make a sacrifice to the RNG gods.

As for King Sei, this was more of a "wait a minute, I lost the three artifacts?" moment. I regret nothing, I haven't found a better sword yet. (Except for Asura. But I didn't pay the 3LP for Asura, just in case I ran into some LP damage monsters. Didn't think so but I didn't want to take risks)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Liza does have talent for Lifesprinkler. I think your problem is trying to use basic physicals: while it's possible to learn Lifesprinkler off that, it's very difficult (and is impossible off many enemies). Spam ShadowCounter (katana move) instead for best results. If you don't have ShadowCounter yet spam basic katana physicals and you should get it quickly off high-level enemies: I think everyone has talent for this one but you might want to doublecheck.


WallRune stops a single piercing attack. IIRC the best way to deal with iron orb spam is just get your defensive stat high and use a good shield but woof, that's still probably going to be too much for a solo.


HW Adventure Mode is basically oodles of more non-canon maps with varying objectives, they're usually quicker than the Legend Mode ones. They don't have the same story grounding as Legend Mode so I would assume you wouldn't enjoy them as much but they're oodles of more contenet for those who like the gameplay, plus you can hunt down lots of weapons/artwork/etc. in them, including a few new fighting styles.

Smash Run just isn't much fun, doesn't matter who I use! It's five minutes of kinda awkward, low-tension platforming followed by one final challenge which renders most of said platforming worthless anyway. It's like one of those game shows where you get to the final round and it's worth 10x as much. But even without that, the game's mechanics are optimised for a fighting game and it shows.

[Fenrir]

Where did you get the info about Liza having talent for Lifesprinkler? My reference is http://www.gamefaqs.com/ps/198537-saga-frontier/faqs/58412

I'll try this. I probably do have Shadowcounter, last time I checked I had 30 sword skills learned.

Man, fuck WallRune then. Such a crappy "high level" skill.
I know I shouldn't have trusted that "Blocks projectile" description, because it's SaGa Frontier.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Hyrule Warriors - I just wish the overlap between "will actually play action games" and "owns a Wii U" weren't so tiny in the DL, so I could beat more people into this one.

I just beat the Legend mode on Normal in one long sitting at a friend's house (no WiiU for me, but he's a huuuuge Zelda fan, so he practically forced me to play it, not that I needed much convincing). I haven't beaten a Zelda game since the SNES because I hate doing puzzles in 3D adventure games, and I am generally uninterested in games with only a single playable character. BUT, this game made a bunch of LoZ famous characters actually -playable- and really that was all the excuse I needed to get interested in the entire franchise again, and have just recently beat Majora's Mask as a result. I'm thinking about trying out Twilight Princess since I liked the grimdark-lite setting in MM.

How's the Adventure Mode in HW, though? It looked interesting but after marathoning Legend Mode, I was done with this one for a while.

Adventure Mode is reasonably enjoyable, but it certainly feels like aftergame content and fine to skip. I've mostly been doing a bunch of it because I both own and really enjoy the game. It gives you new and higher level weapons (I'm currently trying to get the Great Fairy weapon for Link, where she puts Link in a bottle and wrecks shit. It sounds and looked from Youtube absolutely hilarious) and unlocks a few additional playables as well (Zant, Ghirahim, Ruto, and Agitha). Did you do the Villain Legend Mode with Cia, or just the maingame maps? And to be honest with you, playing HW makes me want to play Twilight Princess too... >_>

[Fenrir]

Yattaf just learned Lifesprinkler but this was literally the only sword tech in the game she hadn't learnt at that point. ...Still think this faq was probably accurate about this skill not being on Liza's talent list?
Elf your stat topic is pretty great BTW.

BTW, Slime disappeared entirely from my game. Is that normal? I got it before the Baccarat quest, and just left him rot in the "third party". The Baccarat quest has a small solo segment at first, so he just left the team and has never appeared again.
Oh no, what will I do without Slime and his groundbreaking lore, etc.

Edit: I really regret not getting the Asura sword now. Oh well.

[The Duck]

I've played the Warriors games not because they're particularly good games, but out of an interest in the history behind those historical periods. Elf makes it sound like there's more interesting boss encounters and that it actually balances the pressures of constantly competing demands, so I may give it a shot. I need something other than Mario Kart 8 for that system.

[Fudozukushi]

I was heavily debating getting a Wii U solely for Hyrule Warriors.

[Dhyerwolf]

Bravely Default- Chapter 7. Trying to take down the multi boss challenges. So far...

DeRosso/Victor- Pretty easy, didn't really need any preparation. After this many DeRosso fights, his pattern is easy and Victor isn't too dangerous.
Alternis/Kami/Braev- Biiiiiiiitch of a fight. Made me actually use Examine. Knock Alt and Braev to near half HP, get everyone ready and swarm. Alternis and Braev may go down the same turn if Braev doesn't default with a big MT rush. Took several tries. Needed to switch back to two people with Dark Knight skillset.
Girl Power- Took a few tries with some setup readjustment (I'm still pointlessly idling in non-mastered skillsets for now real reason).Artemia is too random, so went for her first. Spiritmaster and Dark Shields deal with Victoria. Kikyo can throw in a roadblock by going first and killing someone with low HP.
Summoners- First fight I tackled. Took a little work to get used to what was happening. Ninjas for Utsu, rush Mephilia. Worked out well enough.
Holly/Einheria/Sword Fencer- No real prep needed here. Lack of MT made this one very easy.

Late Bloomer as a skill is like...offensively bad almost. Someone will generally always be using one attack stat, and defensive stats aren't checked enough. I think you'd have to master 6!!!!! classes in addition to Freelancer to get to a point where I would even consider using the skill over a straight 10% attack stat boost. That's just really, really bad, considering that it's a skill that it only of at all any use late and makes you run in a very sub-optimal class. Not sure what the thought process was on there.

[SnowFire]

Dhyer: Late Bloomer was clearly balanced around people who obsessively max every job.  It makes Freelancer a lot better if you do that, of course!  Of course you've already powerleveled the game into the ground, but some people like that...

I agree the Alternis / Braev / Kami fight was pretty crazy, by the way.  Tough one, although Dark Nulling helps a lot.  Both it & the Eternian Board of Girl Power were dealt with pretty well via Knight hax I thought, even on Hard non-Kami opponents have real trouble breaking her defense, and Kikyo is guaranteed to attack the lowest HP member.  So Phoenix Downing your Knight and leaving them there is pretty strong as Kikyo lockdown after your healer gets wounded is pretty scary.

Elf/Djinn/etc.: Smash Run *could* have been good.  I guess it's okay as a party game type thing, but solo it's a whiff.  I'd actually be interested in a Smash platformer, possibly with time pressure, but the random final showdown is meh.

Basically I'd be fine with a Warioware esque party mode that did nothing but shuffle betwene various final showdown challenges, and a platforming mode that did platformy stages, but combining the two ends up doing a disservice to the platforming.  I'd be totally down for Harmony of Despair style co-op platforming with light time pressure.  Or, for a more solo experience, simply giant maps that you can explore, get powered up, fight minibosses, and then fight a boss at the end.  Score based on both completionism & time a la Super Metroid.  Alas, that isn't what we have.

[Captain K.]

Fantasy Life:  Beat the story.  ~25 hours.  I found the game quite enjoyable, better than the reviews it has gotten.

I stayed in the Angler Life (read: job) for the full game, completing every fishing challenge except the final one.  Golden Swordfish was regenning hp faster than I could damage it.  I didn't have the hero clothes equipped though so I could probably beat it with those on.

Overall, the game has a nice sense of balance.  You can switch jobs at any time, although I chose not to.  You can avoid combat for 99% of the game (there are some plot fights, but they're dead easy and they give you allies to help).  But even though you don't have to engage in combat, enemies block off routes in the game.  So by defeating them you open up more rare materials, etc.  Likewise I could have gotten better-than-storebought fishing rods by switching to Carpenter, better-than-storebought daggers by switching to Blacksmith, better-than-storebought clothing by switching to Tailor, and so on.  So the game encourages switching jobs, but doesn't shove it down your throat.  You can play any way you please.

I also liked how the game treats each job as its own RPG.  When you reach Master as an Angler you get an "ending" song which is totally awesome and I am sad it is not on Youtube so I can show all of you.  Likewise the previously mentioned Golden Swordfish has epic final boss music of its own when you fight it.  Music is by Uematsu and very good overall.

The writing is good and pun-heavy, Dragon Quest style.  Ciatos keep your distance.  It also does a nice job turning the typical RPG tropes on their head.

Anyway really enjoyable game overall.  I will probably get the DLC once I fool around with it some more.

[Dhyerwolf]

Yeah, I know who it was intended for...but I don't like games that ever make any skill worth that insane amount of powerlevelling. Maybe if they did not make it the innate skill on Freelancer it would not feel as stupid (Should have been...Divining Rod). Just annoying considerating that the Freelancer skillset has one amazing utility skill, and then basically nothing at else going for it at all. If they made Late Bloomer 2% (or included all stats in the 1%), even mastering 2-3 classes would still make it a valid choice.

And I probably should have been using Knight more for sure. I kind of switched off when their damage got anemic, although Utsusemi spam was at least a workable strat.

[SnowFire]

Yupyup.  Dual Shields Super Charge the way to go, or Templar Desperation.  I like the strat because it's still really good but feels more interactive than just mass Dark Knight blitzing.

I do agree with you of course on Late Bloomer; if it was balanced for SnowFire tastes, it'd be something like "10% for the first job mastered, 4%/3%/2% for the next ones, 1% for all others" (but keep it as the free passive for Freelancer).  Freelancer stats are still not THAT amazing so it'd still be pretty reasonable.  If everybody sets Late Bloomer if you max out, whatever, it's okay for a skill to be centralizing insanely late so long as it's worth a damn earlier.  (See also: FEA Limit Breaker, how *not* to do it.  100% worthless early, then oh boy everybody has only 4 skill slots in late aftergame.)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, my bad about Liza having Lifesprinkler; the mechanics guide is quite right and I was just misremembering, probably just assuming that Liza has virtually everything. <_< My bad!


Late Bloomer is pretty bad even if you master all jobs. Even with those stat boosts they still won't have the Atk/Mag stats of a job dedicated to them and they have only B in equipment ranks.

[hinode]

Dhyer: Late Bloomer was clearly balanced around people who obsessively max every job.  It makes Freelancer a lot better if you do that, of course!  Of course you've already powerleveled the game into the ground, but some people like that...

For what it's worth the enhanced BD version that we got has a ton of downloadable Norende bosses who are designed to challenge even L99 teams with all jobs mastered, so this isn't as gratuitous as it is in, say, FF5. Still not great design on paper I'd agree,especially since Freelancer isn't a great offensive class even with everything mastered due to meh weapon ranks+bad speed+limited skillset. My Hero+Mimic is a degenerately good combo endgame/postgame that you probably want on your slowest PC, which is about Freelancer's real niche, but it's admittedly a useful one.

Elf/Djinn/etc.: Smash Run *could* have been good.  I guess it's okay as a party game type thing, but solo it's a whiff.  I'd actually be interested in a Smash platformer, possibly with time pressure, but the random final showdown is meh.

Basically I'd be fine with a Warioware esque party mode that did nothing but shuffle betwene various final showdown challenges, and a platforming mode that did platformy stages, but combining the two ends up doing a disservice to the platforming.  I'd be totally down for Harmony of Despair style co-op platforming with light time pressure.  Or, for a more solo experience, simply giant maps that you can explore, get powered up, fight minibosses, and then fight a boss at the end.  Score based on both completionism & time a la Super Metroid.  Alas, that isn't what we have.

The one minute finale is way too short to be satisfying at all - I've had four-way Sudden Deaths on several occasions, which is about the lamest ending possible. On the other hand, it's short enough to not distract too much from the mook beat'em up portion for me, and I do enjoy that. It's not as good as a proper single-player mode like SSE, but then it also took a fraction of the dev time that SSE did so I can live.

What I'd like for the next Smash game is a mode where you beat up random enemies from various series in randomly generated dungeons for loot and fun and maybe fight a mini-boss at the end. Hopefully that would provide decent replayability while not requiring a large timesink to get into or huge development resources which are ultimately better spent on the core mutiplayer gameplay.

[Fenrir]

Liza's skill tree doesn't -quite- have everything, I used Emelia's skill tree instead a few times.
Like 10% of the time.
I basically never used Annie's though.


Anyway, I finished the SaGa Yattaf solo!
I also beat the EarthDragon!
This was a nice enough challenge, not very varied (because crowns make magic a liability here, see below) but short and challenging enough. Inferior to FFL1 and Romancing SaGa 3 solos. I'd really like to try Minstrel Song or Unlimited SaGa solo, but my laptop can't run a PS2 emulator and I don't have my PS2 anymore.



Strategy talk for the SaGa fans.


Shiva the Diva / Diva the Shiva just ate a few 19960 damage dream super combos.
Plus one doubleslash.


EarthDragon was a lot harder.
Against fully powered Uber-Yattaf (876 HP, Powered Suit, EMES tag, Budowear, Angel Broach) most of its attacks do pretty bad damage (double digit-ish) and can often be blocked. Its ultimate ball canon attack thing (I forgot the name) does 1 to 6 hits of 190 damage, but these attacks can be avoided (unlikely), deflected by a sword or blocked by a shield. I have a bunch of full healing items available, but using them means no deflecting attacks this round, which is very bad. The battle is very long as the bastard has 60 000 HP and is immune to DSC.

I had two strategies, with crown (offensive) and without crown (defensive), and neither worked until the very end of the game, but both came close!

With crown: I just tossed a bunch of useless attack moves on Yattaf just so she could get the weapon crown. In battle I used VictoryRune (Damage buff) from the Rune Sword (I bought this only for this battle), and then spammed Lifesprinkler and DoubleSlash (when I ran out of WPs). The problem is that I eventually had to heal, but was likely to be toasted if the dragon used BigIronBalls during the same round, because deflecting attacks is seriously important to survive against this.

Without crown: Same strategy but I equipped the VitalityRune magic, which gives pretty good regen per round. (170 HP) Yattaf was pretty much always at full HP for the Dragon's big bad attack, which is really nice. The big problem is that Deflecting costs 1 WP with this setup. So I had to conserve WP like mad, and use very basic attacks, which do pitiful damage and are easily blocked. I couldn't outslug the dragon in any way using any of these freaking 32 sword skills I had learnt.

I eventually won with the weapon crown strategy (so much for doing useless magic gift sidequests)
I noticed that EarthDragon never use SuperBallz two turns in a row, so I only ever healed immediately after getting hit by this attack, just so I was sure I could deflect anytime it used the super move.
This meant that I had to face the GiantBalls attack after getting hit by a few weaksauce attacks, with only 500-600 HP remaining at times. But with both a decent shield and a 0WP deflect, the RNG was clearly on my side. I only had to try that strategy twice to win with these stats.

[Dark Holy Elf]

One thing which probably would have helped a lot against IronBall spam is LightSword, which gives you another independent Deflect chance that doesn't require WP or for you to be using a sword attack that round. It's based on your magic stats for activation rate instead of your physical, but has a higher base chance to succeed, and either way it stacks with regular Deflect. Of course that involves grinding up light magic a bunch. Good job beating him, regardless!

[Luther Lansfeld]

I was heavily debating getting a Wii U solely for Hyrule Warriors.

Although I probably wouldn't buy a Wii U for HW (or any one game, really), it is really enjoyable, beautiful, and pro-female. It has a lot of aftergame content which can keep you entertained for a long time, too. I wouldn't say that it is kick-you-in-the-junk challenging like some 3D action games, but it definitely offers a pleasant challenge on Hard (and I found it decent on Normal). Not sure how you feel about either of the series involved, but from my limited knowledge of Zelda it does seem to be a good homage to them.