What Games are you playing 2015?

[Cotigo]

Uuuuuugh I really should be saving up money for next year when I don't know if I'll have a job or even what country I'll be in but y'all are sorely tempting me to splurge on a 3DS and BD.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy Living, Loving, Autobattling - Farmfarmfarm. Up to 37 Black Orbs, but I realized I only have 63 Dark Orbs, so no R5 for Biora until Friday at the earliest. The alternative would be R5ing Comet, but that's not so attractive given the incoming event. Oh well, still a ways to farm.

[Dhyerwolf]

Apparently the Hard Mode is just +20% enemy HP according to the comments, which is pretty much the worst type of Hard Mode. It's possible there are also boosts to other stats and they just haven't noticed yet because earlygame G2 enemy offence, though, I dunno.

Ugh, yeah, that would suck. It would be a shame that they had the right idea and then botched it.

[Fenrir]

I find that hard modes that just add +X% to enemy stats sound bad on paper but work reasonably well in practice. There don't seem to be a lot of games that offer interesting alternatives anyway...

This Grandia 2 hard mode does not sound very good though. Eye of Valmar bumrushing your team ASAP aside, Grandia 2's difficulty is a total joke and +20% enemy HPs will not help make anything threatening enough to force you to really use strategy beyond trying to cancel things with your Cancel Striku abilities.



Hinode and Captain K: That video is the best thing to come out of Dissidia

I don't actually have a Masamune, but I've been slowly replacing all the Tiduses from my friend list with Sephiroths because Hell's Gate looks way better than Tidus doing the least spectacular somersault you can imagine.

Now my ~30 people friends list is 20% DL people
40% Sentinel Grimoires
20% Sephiroth's Hell Gate
17% Various potentially useful RWs for the sake of variety
3% someone who had "Follow if you like dogs" as her message, I felt compelled enough

If you don't want to train a character you HAVE TO bring (like Eiko), and have four good enough characters (Let's say, Cloud, Vivi, Selphie, Garnet?), and the battle isn't too difficult, you can just petrify the lvl1 needed character at the beginning of the battle. Voila, no medals lost.

[DjinnAndTonic]

FF5: I actually just finished a replay of this myself. Started it as a 4JF, but since this is literally the first time I'd played the game in fifteen years, I decided it'd be more fun to actually play around with classes. Dualcast Summon/White on Mime is just too much fun to pass up. Time/Blue is also awesome. Dualwield Sword Magic on any physical class is almost broken. Apart from Mime, though, all of those classes are gotten really early on, so the broken is just handed to you from almost the beginning. Oh well, it was fun steamrolling the game.

It -was- kind of interesting getting to mix magical and physical skillsets thanks to how skillsets hand you stats to back them up. Nerfs challenge though.

FFD: Compare with this game, which I am intentionally trying to break, but still consistently almost-wiping to bosses. Playing them together, it -really- shows that FFD is FF5-2 in all but name. They could have said Sol was a descendant of Bartz and pulled in tons of money on the name alone. Then again, perhaps giving the game its own title keeps it from getting unfavorably compared? (Or keeps away FF sequelitis, since their previous attempts at sequels are... middling at best, for all that I like X-2 and 13-2 well enough.)

Complaints about JP limiting Job options/growth are basically null and void on a replay where you know what sort of build you're going for ahead of time. The game just hands you JP too often, and even with grinding, I haven't wasted any AP so far. It's especially nice early game where you have a ton of basic jobs you can get the first few joblevels of for free. One of which is Red Mage's HP+20%, basically an AP sink that every PC might as well pick up in that first hour. Red Mage is pretty solid early on, and any mages you make are going to want to master it anyway.

Current builds planned on the Light Warriors are Monk/Paladin (w/ Warrior early on), Warrior/Dragoon (w/ Monk for F-Abilities), Red Mage/Memorist (Dualcast on Memorist means free access to all spells, but Summoner as a secondary until Mem shows up), Red Mage/White Mage (w/ Bard and Seer for lategame AP sinks)
The Dark Warriors will net me my physical guys, while the Light Warriors are my mages/utility guys. Dark Warriors will be focusing on Ninja and Dark Knight, with the earlygame builds not mattering much.

FF1: Up to the pirates~ This game is so old it's tedious even with this pretty new iOS update.

FFRK: Still plinking away at Eiko's elite event, Rallying Etude is great for Reta-Meta. Also, now I have five proper Healers! Can't wait to tackle some elite core dungeons with the power of care and song~

and yes, I -am- playing 4 FF games at once. Maybe I'll FF3 in there too and play -all- the job system games at once!

[hinode]

I'm pretty sure that nobody cares about Bartz, not even FF5 fans. If anything you might risk reminding the Japanese about the crappy 90s OVA that had the same premise.

Gilgamesh and Battle on the Big Bridge is where the FF5 nostalgia money is at.

[Captain K]

Actually FF5 characters are the ones I'm fondest of.  Don't know why, I just like them.  I will probably be blowing real money on FFRK when they actually release them.

Also did I mention how pissed I am that Krile never made it to English Theathrhythm?  I'm mentioning it again.

[Dark Holy Elf]

With how much FFD leaned on FF5 I'm kinda surprised it didn't have an extra direct reference or two such as a Gilgamesh summon.

I find that hard modes that just add +X% to enemy stats sound bad on paper but work reasonably well in practice. There don't seem to be a lot of games that offer interesting alternatives anyway...

A % boost to various stats is a pretty effective way to make a hard mode, I think, and yeah there are plenty of effective examples (Star Ocean, Fire Emblem, DDS, CStW, etc.). In theory, a HM should rebalance everything but in practice that's waaay more work for an only slightly better product which the vast, vast majority of your market won't care about.

However, only boosting enemy HP/durability is terrible. There are very, very few RPGs where I've ever thought "This game would be signifcantly harder if only the enemies could take a few more hits", partially because most RPGs let you survive for far longer than is required via healing etc. There are a few exceptions I can think of but they involve either your resources being severely limited (increasing enemy HP by 50% in FF1 would be terrifying) or battles designed around both sides slugging each other down ball-lightning style making player stall difficult to impossible (Cthulhu Saves the World for instance). Even in those cases, I am skeptical that pure HP boosts would be the most fun way to do a HM. And outside those cases, enemies are pretty much going to need to have more offence to be more dangerous, and only boosting their HP just runs the risk of making everything more boring.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Actually FF5 characters are the ones I'm fondest of.  Don't know why, I just like them.  I will probably be blowing real money on FFRK when they actually release them.

Also did I mention how pissed I am that Krile never made it to English Theathrhythm?  I'm mentioning it again.

At least, the game will cover your needs there, Bartz, Gilgy, Faris and Krile are all crazy good PCs in RK.

[Captain K]

Yeah I was looking at that.  And Lenna is first level 80 White Mage, so her gamebest Mind stat becomes *way* gamebest.  Galuf is considered to be one of the weaker characters but he has an interesting SB that makes him totally invincible.  So yeah I will totally be rocking full FF5 team when they're released.

[DjinnAndTonic]

re:FF5
I've always thought of FF5's cast as the only almost-redeemable part of the story. The plot itself is just kinda -there-, and the characters are just varying shades of 'heroic', but together, they're chums. Like, they just -feel- like a nice set of friends who would literally do anything for one another, more than just 'save the world together'. Most of the scenes that actually -show- this tend to be hidden by going to various places and sleeping at inns, though. Whether this is a plus or a detriment is debatable. On the one hand, it's nice to have optional story as a reward for exploration. On the other hand, the required story scenes don't build the characters up much, so you never really care about them enough to go looking for their backstory. A few more scenes in the main plot would have helped overall, but this is FF5 so who cares. FF6 did the whole thing better, with having only -one- Mysterious character with a hidden backstory scene (well, more if you count all of the WoR as optional hidden backstory, but Shadow's the notable one). So you get the colorful cast of characters and then the -one- guy whose deal you just don't know, so seeking it out is worthwhile and a nice reward.

Also, if there was any oldschool FF that deserved to called "anime", it'd probably be FF5...

FFRK:
All Healer Party is go!
Garnet: R1 Valefor, R3 Kirin, Summoner's Spring II (Restore 1 Summon charge per Summon per battle)
Aerith: Curaga, Diaga, Light of the Fayth (Healing+)
Yuna: Diara, R3 Alexander, Sage's Staff (Holy damage up), Eidolon's Gift (Summon damage up)
Selphie: Curaga, Protectga, Concentration II (Restore 1 White charge per spell per battle)
Eiko: R3 Ramuh, Shellga/Raise/Esuna/Curaja, Light Staff (Thunder damage up), no RM yet only Lv46

Kicked Beatrix's ass! (...on classic core)

[Grefter]

Yeah I was gonna say Elf, +%HP on Grandia 2 isn't enough but it is a pretty damn good start... because holy crap enemy stats in that game.

[Dhyerwolf]

In fairness, at endgame enemies aren't truly damage anemic (AoE 4HKO could be worse), but they'd still need far more than 20% in HP boosts to make you care.

[Cmdr_King]

A flat +20% boost to everything for enemies would probably end up pretty balanced (if still a bit easy) for Grandia II.

I'd add FFVII to the list of games where just HP boosts might make a difference.  They aren't GREAT, but FFVII enemies definitely have stuff they can do if they actually get a damn turn.  Of course, the number might be closer to 200% boosts to work there.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Final Fantasy White Light From The Mouth Of Autobattle - Farming Lightning and Wind Orbs because hell, I may need them soon with Dual Delay's release slated for next month. Getting a couple Greater Lightning and Wind Orbs randomly wouldn't be bad either. The farming lull may end soon, though, since sez the oracle that we'll have another dungeon update either today or tomorrow. Guess I can't complain about having more Mythril for the SB celebration starting next week. If I got even Quistis' Scorpion's Tail, it'd be aces, though I dream of Yuna's second SB weapon. God, I want MT healing so bad.

[Grefter]

The Magic Circle - This came out a few months ago, but finally got around to it and finished it.

Weird meta game that is about games stuck in development hell, the difficulty of game development, fan entitlement and engagement, ownership of "story" by individual writer and the large community of consumers, how bad it is to be involved in all of those, how good it is to be involved in all of those.  Plays as a weird sort of puzzle game where you can pick and choose attributes of enemy monsters to make them fight opponents for you.  Ultimately I went with really powered up dog creature that flew, was fire proof, had a rail gun for a mouth and shared its abilities with every other dog within a large radius (So a pack of helicopter railgun dogs).

It is a strange game.  It has James Urbaniak doing some of the main VA, so that's also pretty great.  Recommend.  It isn't quite Fenrir/Fenrir, but it is maybe Gourry/Fenrir.  It is definitely Grefter/Fenrir but a rating of Grefter never gets anyone to play shit.

[Veryslightlymad]

FFRK:

Saved up for another 11x relic draw. No 5stars. No 4star armors. No accessories.

Got 2 doubles on 4star swords and bows, though. Both will eventually be combined. Cloud has sword for now. Stared at stats and equipment and abilities lists for like, 30 minutes (maybe more. God help me.) and decided to give a Bow each to Gordon and Wakka. Party has evolved to:

Gordon, Rydia, Josef, Cloud, Wakka

All at/around level 30.

[Fenrir]

Grefter I heard about this game. One query: I feel that the premise is extremely innovative and cool BUT that nothing inside the game would actually surprise me. Am I wrong Y/N


NEB: You are right most of the time (no one wants punching bags that just take longer to kill) , though yeah it largely depends on the game. (WA4 could have really benefited from a hard mode that only boosts enemy HP)

There are also some games in which you can just get by by spamming physicals; higher enemy HP would mean having to start using more damaging skills (Suikoden?)

Anyway yeah, I probably would have bought Grandia 2 again on steam if it had a real hard mode. Not sure though. I youtubed the Melfice fight and could hardly handle that much cringe. Sorry guys


RK: Pressure point is a pretty good way to inflict instant death. Case in point, all these bosses in Eiko's event..
Snow, I have MT healing... And it's definitely cool, but I'm not that crazy about it? You want healing to be reliable, and SBs aren't extremely reliable. They have a very long charge time + you can only them once or twice in difficult battles. It's not going to save you, it's only going to be convenient.


Shadowrun Hong Kong: I started up Steam to download this but noticed that the LISA DLC is here. Sorry Shadowrun, BRB

[Dark Holy Elf]

With WA4 it is worth noting that when I've done challenge runs I've generally focused on raising enemy offence (e.g. no armour, HP/MP slider set to minimum HP) at least as much as enemy durability, usually more. You're right that due to the nature of WA4 fights, increasing only their durability would be effective (although this isn't always the case, e.g. someone like Balgaine wouldn't be any better with 2x the HP), but even then increasing their other stats too would result in a more fun, balanced HM experience, at least in my opinion.

[Captain K]

Lisa DLC = he grows more arms so he has more to cut off?

And Fenrir is wrong, MT healing is godlike and will definitely save you.  Pretty much every white mage gets some version of it in the future though so it'll show up eventually.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

RK: Pressure point is a pretty good way to inflict instant death. Case in point, all these bosses in Eiko's event..
Snow, I have MT healing... And it's definitely cool, but I'm not that crazy about it? You want healing to be reliable, and SBs aren't extremely reliable. They have a very long charge time + you can only them once or twice in difficult battles. It's not going to save you, it's only going to be convenient.

Yeah, but I want it exactly due to convenience. There are hardly any fights where I feel I -need- MT healing, but there are many where I feel like it'd save at least three actions. Since MT healing isn't worth bringing as a RW either (SG is way too overcentralizing, to a lesser degree, so are Lunatic High and Boon)...

EDIT: Though what really makes Yuna's MT healing SB attractive to me is the fact that it also casts MT Hi-Regen. MT Buff + healing on a single move is just all kinds of hot.

[Veryslightlymad]

Why does Blind sometimes go away? It's not supposed to wear off, but I've had it vanish a couple of times without me curing it or the character leveling up.

[The Duck]

It is a strange game.  It has James Urbaniak doing some of the main VA, so that's also pretty great.  Recommend.  It isn't quite Fenrir/Fenrir, but it is maybe Gourry/Fenrir.  It is definitely Grefter/Fenrir but a rating of Grefter never gets anyone to play shit.

Is this a scale between two extremes or is Fenrir/Fenrir the pinnacle?

Do want to play Magic Circle at some point, I'll look into it.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

VSM: Blind -is- supposed to wear off. Its duration just refreshes between battles and is also longer than most status attacks.

[Grefter]

Gourry/Fenrir is only like a step down on the scale of liking experimental weird art games.

Honestly, I don't even think it is that innovative Fen?  I have played stuff with similar mechanical concepts before, but the one runs them further and executes on them better.  Storytellingwise like I don't really see how it pushes any envelopes that Stanley Parable didn't?  But the content is different.  Both are about games in very different ways.