Star Ocean 3 - Got Maria, cleared the Shrine of Kaddan. Ameena plot is not the best; I kinda like the way it affects Fayt but in its own right it is stupid and kinda melodramatic. I've enjoyed pretty much all of the rest of the writing, so far, so that's good. It's interesting to note that Roger and Adray, despite being PCs, are both completely irrelevant to the plot so far, hooray for transparent roster padding? Gameplaywise this game has really puny weak bosses so far (outside the optional one in Suferio Aquatic Gardens or whatever they're called) but Shrine of Kaddan was a significant step up in giving randoms teeth.
Fire Emblem 8 - Beaten! Nothing special to say about this run. Tana was MVP with her capped Str/Spd/almost luck, not really a huge surprise. Seth of course is the MVP for the first two thirds of the game or so. Ephraim was super-Str-screwed but still very useful, Eirika slightly Spd-screwed but still very useful, Vanessa when propped up by Lute was only slightly worse than Tana, Lute grew into invaluable offence after a rough start. I let a lot of people die but it wasn't strictly a no-reset playthrough, since I did reset if someone died really early or multiple people who died.
Playthrough data / kill counts which most people probably don't care about.
226 turns (16 on Scorched Sand, 14 on Unbroken Heart and Distant Blade)
Tana 102
Vanessa 99
Lute 97
Eirika 84
Franz 82
Seth 67
Marisa 61
Gerik 56
Cormag 52
Ephraim 46
Colm 31 (died C12)
Artur 20
Saleh 19
Garcia 18
Kyle 17 (died C11)
Forde 16 (died C10)
Innes 13
Moulder 8
Ross 8 (died C7)
Duessel 5
Joshua 5 (died C6)
Amelia 3
Ewan 3
Rennac 3
Gilliam 1
Knoll 1
Myrrh 1 (died C19)
Syrene 0 (died C19)
Super Mario Bros.: Lost Levels - Finished! World 8 was certainly the hardest part of the game, even if 8-1 was relatively easy (easier than in SMB1) and 8-2 was short once you figure out the trick. 8-3 and 8-4 were both brutal, brutal levels, though. 8-3 has combinations of lakitus, springboards, and mobile hammer brothers, i.e. everything that is nasty about SMB1/LL in general. 8-4 just has some brutal platforming jumps not seen before in the game and a finnicky "maze" in which you have to not touch certain platforms. I had to FAQ what I was doing wrong in one of them. Well, I would have figured it out eventually, but the level was hard enough that I didn't want to do so myself. Ended up getting to Bowser with a fire flower after a lot of tries to get through the level, which obviously wrecked both him and his blue clone.
Anyway it was enjoyable enough (certainly better than SML2 as far as 2D Mario goes... possibly SML1 as well?), but also kinda frustrating at points, and as I said before, remains a good example of how not to make a sequel.
