What Games are you playing 2015?

[Grefter]

Persona Q is pretty much Persona Odyssey, made by the same team and all. You didn't know?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

<3?

[Excal]

Codename Steam - Gave it a try, got to the Mecha Lincoln, decided it's not for me.  Not entirely sure why, because I want to like this game.  And I like both Fire Emblem and X-Com.  But I just can't get into this.

Might it be related to the fact that there's a mecha Lincoln?


Also, I didn't know Persona Q had FOEs. I'll grab it.
For me now the 3DS has become an Atlus console with some unimportant Nintendo games on it

Are you kidding?  If a SRW gave me a mecha Lincoln, named it ABE, and let me punch aliens and Zakus with it, I'd probably squee for five minutes in sheer glee.

[Grefter]

<3?

You didn't know there was a URL?

[Luther Lansfeld]

Super Mario Bros. 1 - Repeatedly was stuck on World 7, now repeatedly stuck on World 8. Life sucks.

The Last Story - This game is just a little too tedious for its payoff, but I'm going to try to finish it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

FF5 - Welp, got into World 3, currently only Faris, Bartz and Krile are in my party. Exdeath Castle's most problematic part was the stretch with the lava tiles, which says volumes about what Blue Mage and Summoner do to the game. Air Knife Aeroga is pretty legit ST offense and covers for when Titan gets immuned - so far, so good, was my main means of damage against Gilgamesh 3 and Exdeath. Carbuncle ate Catoblepas, Gilgamesh 3 ate whatever, Exdeath ate Golem+Carbuncle total shutdown (which, really, makes it understandable why it's easy not to respect him as a dueller... though frankly, Tree Exdeath is likely to be even worse). White Wind ignoring Reflect is frankly ridiculous, by the way. I even learned Doom, which was an unexpected bonus that I'll probably give few fucks about. Randoms are mostly unnotable, though I have to note that making Red Dragons weak to Earth leads to absolutely hilarious damage figures. EDIT: I also ran from an unholy amount of battles so far, so I expect the Chicken Knife to do some obscene amounts of damage on Dance. Can I get Lamia's Tiaras on anything other than rare drops, though?

Final Fantasy Throughout The Dark Autobattles Of April And May - Black power day - AKA "Snow does nothing but farm those damned orbs and hone all those skillz" day. Already have R4 Comet, am considering either getting a couple -ra Strikes to R4 or just R5ing Firaga or Blizzaga. Thundaga ain't happening, I'd need to farm more Lightning Orbs and tomorrow there'll already be a new event out, along with the fact that there's more gil farming to be done.

[Meeplelard]

Codename Steam - Gave it a try, got to the Mecha Lincoln, decided it's not for me.  Not entirely sure why, because I want to like this game.  And I like both Fire Emblem and X-Com.  But I just can't get into this.

Sometimes, there is no rational reason you like or dislike something.  It just, for whatever reason, doesn't appeal to you and you can't put your finger on it.  This may very well be one of those cases.  I myself have the opposite reaction to Wild ARMs 2, a game that by all accounts I should find meh, but actually like, and can't figure out why.

[jsh357]

Fiesta - Finished my second one easily enough; started a classic run, Monk/Monk/Knight/Red Mage.

Current I am up to Exdeath (World 2) and he's been the only real stopping point.  Gaining a few levels vs. the dragons to get elemental rings. (I already have 2 Coral Rings from Yellow Dragons earlier) My other option is to learn Dualcast, but to be honest I am going to need levels so Monks can stay semi-okay anyway, so gaining EXP first makes sense. I was having no luck with Reflect Ring drops at the Barrier Tower and decided to just press on, but now I'm regretting it a little since one of those would be really sweet for this fight.  It's easy to forget that Exdeath's second AI script can actually be tough if your party doesn't have reflect.

Incidentally, since I have a Knight I'm going for the Brave Blade for the second time ever. I had forgotten how cheesy some of these encounters could be since I normally run from them; the Reflect Mage/Black Warlock formations particularly.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Autobattles Will Happen - Still grindans. Researching upon the Selphie/Quistis banner, I'm having second thoughts about pulling from it - at best, feels like a case for a 3-pull and hope something comes out. Two Light Armors is nice, but Selphie's rod focuses on Mind over Mag (unlike, say, Yuna's Magistral Rod, which has good values on both stats) and Selphie herself ain't a great unit (Celerity 3 on a -mage-? Black Magic 3? Vanille can do better than that, Selphie's only triumphs over it are the AoE Curaga and the Memory Crystal). Quistis' Sleipnir's Tail, well, is a goddamn whip. Only her, Selphie and RYDIA can use that, so it's highly niche as a mage weapon. Support 4 is a point (lets her play a Terra game with Support+Black Magic), but she only gets a 4 at BM and back row physicals aren't too hot when you have notably sub-Wakka strength. I'll mostly hold out for either Lightning/Sazh, whose weapons are terrific, or Golbez/Tellah, which is mage equipment heaven, and all of these are at least another dungeon batch update and a bunch of events away. I can't imagine I'll want anything out of Edgar+Sabin and Tifa reissue (Tifa's reissue will come with a bunch of Monk skills, at least, which should make Monk levels less irrelevant, but fighters focusing on offense when mage meta is just around the corner is so not what I want).

On more relevant news, I'll see if I'll get enough black power for R5 Firaga. If not, R4 Fira and Blizzara Strike may serve me as a substitute.

[Dark Holy Elf]

EDIT: I also ran from an unholy amount of battles so far, so I expect the Chicken Knife to do some obscene amounts of damage on Dance. Can I get Lamia's Tiaras on anything other than rare drops, though?

They're storebought in the Phantom Village.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

EDIT: I also ran from an unholy amount of battles so far, so I expect the Chicken Knife to do some obscene amounts of damage on Dance. Can I get Lamia's Tiaras on anything other than rare drops, though?

They're storebought in the Phantom Village.

Thank god, I so don't want to waste time farming Moore Pyramid randoms.

[Reiska]

For me now the 3DS has become an Atlus console with some unimportant Nintendo games on it

Meh, I have become quite soured on Atlus of late, between them marking all their games up to be $10 more expensive than even first party titles and then throwing in the occasional bit of frankly insulting DLC on top of this.  EO Untold 2 is the worst offender here by far, it has stuff that was very clearly cut out of the finished game to be sold as DLC, because there are parts of the dungeon where there's just a door, and you try to open it, and it's all "Sorry, gotta buy the DLC if you want to go past this door!" so you can't actually complete the map without buying all the DLC. 

The Japanese fanbase apparently revolted too, because EOU2 is the worst selling entry in the franchise to date (the best being EO4).  Granted, I can't say for sure whether it's because of that or because of EOU2's *other* design problems.  A common one I hear complaints about: the story mode main character is grossly overpowered, to the point where he makes all the rest of his party mostly irrelevant in boss fights except to support him because he does like over twice as much damage as the other four party members combined.  You would think that the solution to this problem is "well, just play classic mode instead then!" and that's all well and good, right?

Except they balanced the bosses' health pools around his damage, so enjoy your massive slog in classic.

[Fenrir]

Yeah that does sound pretty bad!

To be honest I find all the core additions to EOU terrible: The story mode is the worst, the grimoire system is needlessly convoluted, instant shortcuts between levels are stupid, and I cannot possibly roll my eyes enough at the addition of the maid. "NOTICE ME SENPAI!!" Jesus. And stop giving me dumb Medicas.

But the base game is compelling enough that I don't care. EOU brings some quality of life changes that EO1 lacked, from being the first game in the series (respec only costs 2 levels, for example)

EO3 is still the best, but EO1 remains the most memorable one.

All this just makes me want to replay Strange Journey yet another time though.

Persona Q is pretty much Persona Odyssey, made by the same team and all. You didn't know?

No, I noticed that it was Persona + Chibi and this turned off all my interest

[Scar]

I might skip the elite++ battle in Yuna's event, since I don't have carbuncle yet.

Might have to change too many things to even attempt it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You can improvise it out with a Celes Runic Blade RW. Not as good as Carbuncle, since the summon lasts longer and speeds up the fight along with saving you actions. You may also want to attempt it without vying for a mastery as well, since both Greater Dark Orbs and Major Summon Orbs aren't trivial to come by. A honed Carbuncle is a serious consideration for the future metagame regardless, since a lot of bosses can be shut down by it and it also plays into cheesing enemy magic counters in a ghetto Reta-meta way. I'd recommend crafting and getting it to R2 it as a midterm goal, at least, since it sounds like you missed the chance to score it from Garnet's event. That was totally worth the Mythril I spent for healing the party midbattle so I could beat that boss rush.

[SnowFire]

Re EOU2: High base prices on games seems fine to me - remember, back before digital distribution SNES games used to be 50 bucks in 1990s money.

That said, it still strikes me as weird why you'd remake an EO game anyway.  They're dungeon crawlers, right?  It's not like people have fond memories of the epic plot of EO2 and want to see it remade.  Just make EO5 & EO6 and say "bad news!  The Dark Lord is back!  We must journey through a fire level, a water level, caves, and a floating city to defeat him" or something.

[Fenrir]

There was understandably demand for these games to be remade with additional story in Japan. This is kinda like remaking Doom to allow talking to the monsters.

I do have fond memories of EO1 story bits! Not 2 or 3, though they still had that aura of mystery. The atmosphere is a pretty major part of the dungeon crawling genre and I would rapidly lose interest in a generic one like you just described.



RK: Carbuncle is useful for the mastery but not necessary for beating the stage. You do need high levels and high hones in any case. And the reward is not much, it will probably be marginally useful in 10 years.

The next event requires both Selphie and Quistis alive for the boss ex ++ deluxe combo fight. Selphie and Quistis haven't been available before this event and start at level 1.
Well if I use all my eggs I can get one character to lvl 50 and one to level 46. Goodbye, eggs.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You can -seriously- cut down on egg usage there just by bringing Selphie and Quistis to the elite stages, at least. The event will also last through a Sunday daily, so you could grind them two further there. I really don't think wasting those growth eggs on them is worth the hassle unless you don't have the FF8 levelling quests done or you seriously intend to use them - or you have nobody else you care to level. In my case, Summoner is a far higher priority than either because Record Materia being released on the next dungeon update, which may be even this week.

EDIT: OF COURSE, those events also dump a boatload of Growth Eggs on you anyway, so, if you care...

[Fudozukushi]

I, for three, would be very interested in learning the tortured past of the pinky.  DOOM movie notwithstanding.

[Fenrir]

Spoilers: The cacodemon is a tsundere


Snow, you don't get that much xp from elite dungeons. I want to get all the masteries (and already have a level 50 summoner)

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Oh, in that case, go nuts. Taking them to the elite dungeon adds up, though, and the level gain early is seriously frontloaded (don't forget they get 1.5x XP bonus from realm synergy!). From my experience with Balthier and Red XIII, just the eggs you get from the event + experience from the battles is almost enough for getting a single PC to L50, so if you have spare Eggs, you -should- be able to build both to that point.

Also, HYPE FOR SELPHIE RECORD MATERIA Y/Y

[Fenrir]

Well it looks impressive when you get one character from 1 to like 10 in one fight, but in total exp up to level 50, that's not much. My main goal is to have both at at least level 50 so they can equip materia. Lvl 50 means lvl 60 with synergy which should be enough.

I looked up Selphie's record materia. Better than Red Mage's?

Black day = I got Thundara strike from R2 to R4, Squall is happy and ready for the boss rush.

I am running out of equipment to upgrade, I only have shitty 3* FF12 rods to upgrade and I'm done, nothing to upgrade anymore. I blame the festival of gold

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

I'm torn between R5ing Firaga and waiting for tomorrow to grind Thundara Strike to R4. Problem is mainly missing a day of gil farming. I -might- manage to scrounge enough black power for both, but I don't count on it.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Mario 1 - Finally ceased being an embarassment and actually beat the game. It's glitchy and super hard but fun times.

[NotMiki]

instant shortcuts between levels are stupid

Most of what you're saying I agree with, kinda, but what?  Shortcuts are bad?  What?