What games are you playing 2014?

[Cotigo]

Gref, don't bother with daggers in DS1. They are all pretty much garbage. If you want a fun dex weapon, I highly recommend the Balder Side Sword. It's a random drop, but it's not super rare or anything if you blow at least one humanity while fighting Balder Knights around the parish. Quite a bit of fun. Cid, Zenny, and Laggy approved. Richard's Rapier is an OK alternative if you can wait for Sen's Fortress.

Great Sycthe is a lot of fun too, and available from the start if you rush the catacombs. I don't know how good it is as a pure dex weapon though since it's on my Cleric. I'm not a fan of curved swords in general. Katanas are supposedly OK but I don't like them. 

[Sierra]

Great Scythe is amazingly good. Probably the best DEX weapon. Tears for how badly it got nerfed in DS2.

Also seconding other suggestions, BSS not too much trouble to get early while farming titanite. (Daggers are worthless for anything but backstab-fishing in DS1. DS2 at least you can dual-wield properly and spam the hell out of fast attacks.)

[Grefter]

It was the fast attacks that I was quite liking in Demons's, so that is unfortunate.  Put on the back burner for now until I do some kind of Int based run then i guess.  Balder Swag Sword is always an option I suppose.  Great Scythe maayyyyyybe, but I have done Catacombs early and am not super keen to do that again.  Though I suppose practicing suicide runs will teach me the place better.

[jsh357]

If you want to really test your suicide skill, going for the iato early in upper blight town is a possibility.  I did that once; it's a good weapon.  Of course, if you just wanted any katana you could murder the undead merchant in burg.  He drops most of his important goods.

[NotMiki]

Iaito has a neat special attack.  Lots of fun to use, although I'm not sure I would want to rely on it in the long term.

[Sierra]

If you want to really test your suicide skill, going for the iato early in upper blight town is a possibility.  I did that once; it's a good weapon.  Of course, if you just wanted any katana you could murder the undead merchant in burg.  He drops most of his important goods.

Undead Merchant: most murdered NPC in Souls games? I always saw a tremendous number of other players using the uchigatana in multiplayer, was never sure whether this was just because it's easy to get early (for the low price of murdering an innocent bystander) or because of Sephiroth cachet. Or both I guess. Katanas are okay I guess, for all that I think there are much cooler options out there.

Lack of a kicking option with curved swords always bugged me, which is a shame since there's some neat ones on paper.

[jsh357]

You can buy Uchigatanas from Shiva too, but it's considerably more trouble.

[Meeplelard]

Bayonetta 2: Replaying some missions because THERE ARE THINGS I DID NOT GET OK!?  Spliced things up a bit by playing as Jeanne.  No, that's not really a spoiler because they revealed pre-release she's playable and she was playable in Bayonetta 1 anyway, they just made her easier to unlock here.

Jeanne is very much a more advanced version of Bayonetta.  She has all the same moves, weapons, etc. as Bayonetta, but...

-The window to activate Witch Time is way lower. 

-Higher damage on Wicked Weaves.


IOWs, both aspects that reward you playing better.  Witch Time doesn't sound like a big deal until you realize just how many dodges you take for granted that were Witch Time; Jeanne, you really need to time the dodges properly, or you'll be punished.  Oh, her dodges work fine, and you can keep dodging of course, but if you're use to Bayo, you'll instinctively go "Ok, Witch Time, COUNTER ATTACK NOW!" which will get YOU punished.  Likewise, Wicked Weaves encourage you to use more advanced combos, since now using them rewards you more than before.

Haven't played much as the other unlocked character.  I played a bit with that character in Tag Climax and wow do you notice the durability loss; it feels like playing Dante Must Die mode in DMC1 because every hit does 2-3HKO damage.  Allegedly this characters hits harder, but haven't had much to gauge with.

[Grefter]

Undead Merchant: most murdered NPC in Souls games?

Because of the nature of speed runs I would expect it is Maughlin the Armorer from Dark Souls 2.  Getting 1 million souls being a route and the nature of repetition of speed runs pretty much guarantees he is killed more often than even Yurt.

[hinode]

Started up Pokemon Colosseum's RPG mode in Dolphin on a whim last Sunday. I beat XD years ago, so this is the last Pokemon RPG that I haven't played, not counting alternate versions.

Just reached the point where I can finally purify Shadow Pokemon, thankfully, because the earlygame is just obnoxious in Colosseum. It would take a Meeple-sized rant to cover all the reasons why Shadow Pokemon are a pain in the ass to use in this game, and I'm not in the mood right now.

Edit: Starter Espeon deserves a special mention for an obscenely good earlygame. It has fully evolved stats vs mostly NFE enemies early on, plus it starts with Return and maxed happiness for a physical attack that's actually pretty good this early on, so it's not deadweight vs Psychic resists. Umbreon sadly can't compare despite a higher starting level; it has much worse damage, no way of drawing enemy attacks away from a frailer target, and no worthwhile support moves. It still's still significant through the first major dungeon because it's a second team member that will never randomly lose turns to Hyper Mode, but after that it's pretty mediocre.

[Meeplelard]

The Shadow Pokemon handling alone kills a lot of Pokemon Colosseum's experience.  Cannot be emphasized enough how much better an experience XD was because they fixed that so much.

[Grefter]

Well that was a little underwhelming.

Soul Hackers - A woman who summons demons with a parasol tried to blow up the Spookies' super secret camper van which has their logo on the side.

[Fenrir]

Dark Souls 2 Sunken Crown:
Finished. Holy shit this DLC was so good. Like everything about it. Superior level design and bosses.
There were so many memorable moments including three times where I just ran away from everything in panic, which is the coolest thing that can happen in Dark Souls.

The 1 vs 3 boss fight was pretty fun, I won that on the first try. I pancacked people with a giant club. That's just what I do. 

Flower skirt is pretty great for fashion souls but I have nothing in my wardrobe that goes well with it. Horrible.
At least I have that shiny crown that goes well with everything. I'm also going to use this new Yorgh spear for a bit. There were enough materials in the DLC to upgrade it to max.

[SnowFire]

PSP/Vita updatez on Japan, France, & Japan.

Muramasa Rebirth - Finished "Momohime"'s final chapter.  Well this clearly isn't the end of everything but dunno if I can be arsed to do Kisuke's story and attempt to get a different ending or whatever.  Stylish game, but eh.  I appreciate that the narrative finally embraced a bit of "you are the bad guy" by the end, but the narrative / ending is *still* way the heck too soft on Jinkuro, what with Rankai / Momohime's reactions.  Look this guy is a psychotic body-stealing mass murderer trying to invade heaven and become an evil god, it's not much of a sin to hate him.  Shame, because I do like the idea of a villain protagonist - it certainly gives you far more excuses to fight and slay everything than usual, as everyone quite reasonably wants your head.

Jeanne d'Arc - Wait...  what.  Did this game just have a good plot twist?  ...you're kidding me.  Now I'm suddenly interested in what happens and where this goes from here.  I'm 98% sure they will screw it up, but hey, props for a single moment that actually makes things ten times more interesting.  Reminds me a bit of Sands of Destruction, which for the most part had terrible writing & plotting, but did manage 1 good twist.

...of course the game then promptly goes and annoys me with a *pitifully* easy mission where you just mow down everything effortlessly, but lose anyway because an enemy archer reinforcement spawns in the rear with the ability to one-shot your uncontrollable guest.  Despite the fact that he was like literally the only enemy on the board as I'd already crushed everything else and was easily 2HKO'd by me and utterly harmless to my real team.  And the excuse for this guest-escort mission was pretty damn specious.  SIGH.  Difficult, fine, but easy & boring & still lost?  Meh.

Corpse Party - Kowai.

[Fenrir]

Jeanne d'Arc - Wait...  what.  Did this game just have a good plot twist?  ...you're kidding me.  Now I'm suddenly interested in what happens and where this goes from here. 

Jeanne D'Arc gets burnt at the stake at the age of 19.

[Dhyerwolf]

Jeanne D'Arc is surprisingly solid plotwise.

[Sierra]

Flower skirt is pretty great for fashion souls but I have nothing in my wardrobe that goes well with it. Horrible.
At least I have that shiny crown that goes well with everything. I'm also going to use this new Yorgh spear for a bit. There were enough materials in the DLC to upgrade it to max.

I wear the flower skirt with the singer's dress. You can't actually see the skirt under that but at least you get some nice shoes out of the equation. I really can't find anything else in the game that goes well with it, sadly.

DLC zones are shockingly generous with ore. Pretty sure there are more twinklies and dragonbones in the DLC zones than in the entirety of the base game.

[Grefter]

Tales of Xillia - So there is a lot of discussion right now about how there is the world of Reize Maxia and that the invaders come from the world of Elympios.  So yeah, aliens.

Aaaaaaand there is jokes about Spirits "tethering" which is pretty close to belonging in an Ar Tonelico game.

Nier - picked this back up because I wanted something I could press buttons while I listen to a podcast.  Finished off the side quests I'm part 1 then pushed through past the point of no return.

I think I hate this game.  Circle jerking itself about hurr hurr video games so shitty you guys here I will show you by making a shitty video game.  Also why is the haunted mansion Resident Evil for no fucking reason?

[Niu]

Well that was a little underwhelming.

Soul Hackers - A woman who summons demons with a parasol tried to blow up the Spookies' super secret camper van which has their logo on the side.

That's it? Her umbrella is the most fashionable among all the summon devices out there. well, maybe except the saxophone.

[Fenrir]

Crown of the Old Iron King DLC:

Well this was worse than Sunken King but still pretty cool.

Best part was the NPC invader who runs away after a while to make you fall into his cool trap.
Fume Knight took me countless tries. Bastard really didn't want to me to run away and drink my Sunny Delight. I then respecced all my dex into adaptability and won on the first try. I'll stop saying adp sucks now.
Smelter 2.0 shows just how much a bigger room makes a difference.

[Cmdr_King]

I think I hate this game.  Circle jerking itself about hurr hurr video games so shitty you guys here I will show you by making a shitty video game.  Also why is the haunted mansion Resident Evil for no fucking reason?

Hey now, you're the crazy person who did sidequests in a Cavia game.
That said Nier is pretty... bare bones I guess is the word I want?  even at the best of times so calling it bad is pretty defensible to say the least.

It is Resident Evil because the Nier they made is not the Nier they set out to make.  The original game concept was like... you move in and out of different Fairy Tales or some such, and I think the idea was going to be that each story was its own genre and atmosphere and hence the weird mishmash of stuff from different games in there.  Honestly I really like that about Nier even in the final product where it's downplayed, but I may also be a sucker for Nier's soundtrack.

[Sierra]

Fenrir: Yeah, Sunken King > Old Iron King >> Ivory King, unfortunately. OIK has the two best bosses in the game at least (did you fight Sir Alonne?) alongside the lame-o recolor. Oh, did you get the chicken leg greatclub? It drops from the giants in Brume Tower and might just be the most ridiculous weapon in the game.

There were so many memorable moments including three times where I just ran away from everything in panic, which is the coolest thing that can happen in Dark Souls.

Oh, I wanted to guess at this:

-Room fulla bloodstains
-Enemy horde ahead therefore be wary of bug
-The spike floor room

[Fenrir]

Yeah I fought Alonne, he was pretty easy especially after Fume Knight w/ one statue left.
Nice katana. I also like the ridiculously blue Smelter 2.0 sword.

What is the bloodstain room? If it's the first one with the ghost knight, you are correct. I just saw these phantoms and ignored them like usual, then went "Uh... They are pretty huge... Why are they standing there... Why are they looking at me now... OH GOD" I ran to that small room with the mage and like three poison knights where you have to activate a switch three times to survive. I just ran around and died.
Second gues is not really correct, I got scared a little but found the stairs soon enough.
Third guess is correct, too many ghost knights, spikes everywhere, wait where was that entrance where I came from, oh shit where do I go, oh god oh god. Somehow I found a ladder and survived.
Third actual case was That Room in the Cave of the Dead. Somehow I also survived here , even though I was super close to getting petrified.


BTW I got an invader for the first time this playthrough! I stood in a narrow corridor and pancacked him.

BRB farming for chicken leg

[Meeplelard]

Bayonetta 1 (Wii U): So replaying the early game has made me realize how much crap I take for granted.

Things you don't have in the prologue of Bayo 1:

-Wicked Weaves
-Panther
-Any of Rodin's abilities (given granted)
-Air Dodge (this feels like a fundamental enough to distinguish from the previous)
-Witch Time
-Any combos worth a damn due to lack of weapons and Witch Time (you're using the Hand Guns, the joke weapons handed to you for completing the game)
-Torture Attacks

Now granted, Torture Attacks, Witch Time and Wicked Weaves are all given to you by the beginning of Chap 1, but prologue doesn't go as smoothly when you take these things for granted!  Albeit, prologue also gives you infinite health near as I can tell for your initial playthrough.

Why didn't this come up in Bayo 2?  Because just about all of those sans the Rodin thing are in fact initial skills, on top of which, you also get Umbran Climax.

This in turn makes Bayo 1's early game harder than Bayo 2's, not because enemies are tougher but because you're so much weaker, and when you're use to big skills, that happens.  Bayo 2, you still need to learn a bunch of stuff (Form of Bat is a big deal for example) but the system doesn't feel like it's restricting itself for tutorial purposes.

This is not a complaint about how Bayo 1 didn't age well, more just what happens when you're use to one thing and it's gone.  By Chapter 4 or so, you should get everything notable back, and be on the right track.  I just finished Chapter 2, which by now I have bought Air Dodge, both Stinger clones, the Shurada (aka the weapon I'm most familiar with), and...yeah, I just want Panther form because lots of moments of "ok, gotta run for a bit, TIME TO GO PANT-...oh, right "


Also used the Peach Outfit and Samus Outfit.  Samus is kind of boring beacuse it seems to just replace the animation of guns with the Arm cannon.  Peach has Bowser Weaves, automatically awesome!

[Fenrir]

I finished the Ivory King Dark Souls DLC, I really liked it too. (like everything Dark Souls, to be fair)

Level design is pretty unmemorable for Souls, (except the outskirts) it feels almost like a PS2 game. (Like those 3D Castlevanias but obviously not that bad) Stone walls, questionable dead ends, etc. Almost no verticality for a Souls game.

The atmosphere is pretty amazing though. I'm not really into srs roleplay at all, but even I had to give some warmer-looking equipment to my character because this place just looked way too cold. (And it's not like she was showing much skin before. The place really just felt too cold)


The outskirts were such a dick move. Wow.

Thankfully the Great Club is probably the best anti-reindeer weapon. Reindeers die in 3 hits and get pancacked after the second hit, so the only hard part is smacking them once. Then, for the second hit, you can don't have to worry about taking damage since the reindeer will be flattened, and for the third hit you just smack him when he tries to get up. (THIS is usually the part where I say "Welcome to the CLUB")
The bosses got me once and I was all "Noooooooo" for two minutes. My great club broke mid-fight and I could barely outdamage the boss' dark regen with my crappy other weapons.
This must be amazing in NG+

Bell = Best helm
Bone Fist = Best weapon
And the DLC had the best invasions