What Games are you playing 2015?

[Cotigo]

Pro Downwell Tips

Also: I played Undertale, and it was exceptional.  Everyone should play it.  That is all.

What the fuck is this abortion of a website

[NotMiki]

fingernails on chalkboard that only Japanese speakers can hear.  Meta-weeaboo fun the whole family can enjoy.  I back it on Patreon because I hate you.

[SnowFire]

Way behind on updates, but....

Human Resource Machine: This is teaching GOTO programming.  Evil.  As it happened I actually learned Apple IIe BASIC back in the day, so I know my way around GOTOs, but ack.  Not stopping me from "playing" it anyway of course.

[AndrewRogue]

Undertale: NeutralPacifist and Pacifist ends get. It's a good game. Very solid 10/10. You could mostly read Alex's commentary to get my opinions. Game is legit funny and continuously surprises me with things it does with it's system. Pretty much every fight in the game is interesting and does some seriously amazing things with the game's structure. I can definitely see if utterly falling flat for some people, though.

I'm... not sure if I'll play further. Did watch the Sans fight out of curiosity. That shit is amazing.

The meta stuff works for me. I get into media. Maybe it is being a writer, but I do honestly enjoy being good and hate taking the messy/foul options in games, and this one obviously discourages it even harder than most.

I do find the very strong reactions to the meta "Why're you fucking up the world?" kind of interesting. I'm not really up for an essay right this second, but it's just interesting to me because, despite my previous comment about getting into media, I'm not really offended or irritated by the idea that I'm a "terrible" person for fucking up a completely fictional world. I just naturally don't like doing it. I want happy endings. But sometimes my desire to see things or just let out my darker desires wins out sometimes. Though I usually fix it.

My English majory gut says that the game's push for the relatively peaceful -> pacifist trajectory is "correct." A large part of the point to me seems to be to challenge one of the basic conceptions of a lot of games: Being good is harder than being evil (as well as stuff like: is it worth doing things just to do them?). I think it also helps with the last two fights (Asgore is actually a "challenge" since you are looking for the way out and killing Flowey actually feels like a real choice). I dunno, Maybe I'll try talking more when I'm more coherent.

This game puts me a lot in mind of Where We Remain.

[Cotigo]

fingernails on chalkboard that only Japanese speakers can hear.  Meta-weeaboo fun the whole family can enjoy.  I back it on Patreon because I hate you.

Are… are you hitting on me?

Edit: Ooh. More Undertale talk. I am basically in the same camp as you, though I will say that the experience of doing a genocide run mostly blind lead to a few big moments that will probably stick with me for a long time.

The only minor point of contention is that killing Flowey is unfortunately really just an illusion of choice. No future playthroughs are effected by this, and more than any other point of contention others have had I feel like this was 100 percent detrimental to the game, and with just a little more time to program Flowey killed scenarios for all future playthroughs the game would be a goddamn masterpiece.

Toby Fox tried to play with the idea of being a shit having consequences in the genocide run. With some reservations, I think it was largely well presented, and made for a neat experience. But he really missed the opportunity to explore that in less heavy handed, on-the-nose ways with making the Kill Flowey decision not have any consequences at all, in practice.

Mmmm, the more I think about that last bit the more sad I am made by that decision. Nothing else so poignantly undermines the conclusions Fox made while exploring these themes.

Teeldar, Sans best character 11 out of 10

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

fingernails on chalkboard that only Japanese speakers can hear.  Meta-weeaboo fun the whole family can enjoy.  I back it on Patreon because I hate you.

Are… are you hitting on me?

Wasn't that the point?

[DjinnAndTonic]

Undertale: NeutralPacifist and Pacifist ends get. It's a good game. Very solid 10/10. You could mostly read Alex's commentary to get my opinions. Game is legit funny and continuously surprises me with things it does with it's system. Pretty much every fight in the game is interesting and does some seriously amazing things with the game's structure. I can definitely see if utterly falling flat for some people, though.

I'm... not sure if I'll play further. Did watch the Sans fight out of curiosity. That shit is amazing.

The meta stuff works for me. I get into media. Maybe it is being a writer, but I do honestly enjoy being good and hate taking the messy/foul options in games, and this one obviously discourages it even harder than most.

I do find the very strong reactions to the meta "Why're you fucking up the world?" kind of interesting. I'm not really up for an essay right this second, but it's just interesting to me because, despite my previous comment about getting into media, I'm not really offended or irritated by the idea that I'm a "terrible" person for fucking up a completely fictional world. I just naturally don't like doing it. I want happy endings. But sometimes my desire to see things or just let out my darker desires wins out sometimes. Though I usually fix it.

My English majory gut says that the game's push for the relatively peaceful -> pacifist trajectory is "correct." A large part of the point to me seems to be to challenge one of the basic conceptions of a lot of games: Being good is harder than being evil (as well as stuff like: is it worth doing things just to do them?). I think it also helps with the last two fights (Asgore is actually a "challenge" since you are looking for the way out and killing Flowey actually feels like a real choice). I dunno, Maybe I'll try talking more when I'm more coherent.

This game puts me a lot in mind of Where We Remain.

The only issue I had was that there's no choice for "go along with the Monster King's plan and give up your soul so that they can rise up and conquer those mean old humans". I just want to make these people happy.

[NotMiki]

Are… are you hitting on me?

D-don't get the wrong idea

[Grefter]

Are… are you hitting on me?

D-don't get the wrong idea

You best step off.  This is one I have marked.

[Fenrir]

Dreeps: you know that fucking stupid iphone alarm RPG?
Well after beating it, I kept using it every day to grind, Progress Quest style. Took me five seconds per day.

Now that I am level way too fucking much and have all companions almost maxed out, weird things have started happening. My guy can either stay alive for very long or drop dead 30 minutes after a full rest. I do not know what is happening.
Either there is stupid Elder Scrolls like level scaling going on, and numbers going too up for this game not to crash and burn
OR there is some amazing secret that only I will likely ever see, some amazing event or monster that can give you the true meaning of life and reason for the universe.
I will study this extensively.

[AndrewRogue]

Undertale: I didn't mention this, but I wanted to take a moment to say that this is also the first game in a while where the OST has really resonated with me. Great shit. Also, on the off-chance that anyone is being scared off by all the small metatalk text: I will say that I thoroughly believe Undertale is worth experiencing for the gameplay alone. The fights are basically all just danmaku puzzles, but they are all just incredibly different and do some absolutely fantastic shit with the interface.

Zenny: Yeah, that does sound like a serious drag that there isn't an alternate scenario sans Flowey.

And I definitely think that doing the Genocide first option has some serious advantages by providing the opportunity to walk back some of the very nasty stuff that happens, while the Pacifist first route provides a very different emotional resonance for a gamer: do I want to fuck this all up just to see what happens?

Thinking on it, the game's tagline might actually be really clever: "The friendly RPG where no one has to die." I mean, the game puts it to you right there. Killing folks is your choice in this game. You have the power to shape the narrative however you want. You can make it a saccharine sweet story, or you can make it tragic. You just have to accept the consequences for it. Which is gonna fall utterly, utterly flat with some people, but it is the exact sort of meta commentary that I'm going to respond to.

I will say I'm much more unsure about the Frisk/Chara thing and that the way that ends up being presented (particularly if you speak with Asriel again after completing the Pacifist Run). If you do neutralgood -> good, Chara being portrayed as "not that good" inherently is rough and I wish Toby had been vaguer about that or only did it in response to player assholery. Positioning the player inherently as a douchebag is something I disagree with. But I think I'd have to do some exploring on a replay (I think I missed a bunch of that plot stuff?) to really get a good grasp on it.

DJ: It does exist! Lose a boss fight, don't restore your save! :p

[Cotigo]

Undertale: I didn't mention this, but I wanted to take a moment to say that this is also the first game in a while where the OST has really resonated with me. Great shit. Also, on the off-chance that anyone is being scared off by all the small metatalk text: I will say that I thoroughly believe Undertale is worth experiencing for the gameplay alone. The fights are basically all just danmaku puzzles, but they are all just incredibly different and do some absolutely fantastic shit with the interface.

Zenny: Yeah, that does sound like a serious drag that there isn't an alternate scenario sans Flowey.

And I definitely think that doing the Genocide first option has some serious advantages by providing the opportunity to walk back some of the very nasty stuff that happens, while the Pacifist first route provides a very different emotional resonance for a gamer: do I want to fuck this all up just to see what happens?

Thinking on it, the game's tagline might actually be really clever: "The friendly RPG where no one has to die." I mean, the game puts it to you right there. Killing folks is your choice in this game. You have the power to shape the narrative however you want. You can make it a saccharine sweet story, or you can make it tragic. You just have to accept the consequences for it. Which is gonna fall utterly, utterly flat with some people, but it is the exact sort of meta commentary that I'm going to respond to.

I will say I'm much more unsure about the Frisk/Chara thing and that the way that ends up being presented (particularly if you speak with Asriel again after completing the Pacifist Run). If you do neutralgood -> good, Chara being portrayed as "not that good" inherently is rough and I wish Toby had been vaguer about that or only did it in response to player assholery. Positioning the player inherently as a douchebag is something I disagree with. But I think I'd have to do some exploring on a replay (I think I missed a bunch of that plot stuff?) to really get a good grasp on it.

DJ: It does exist! Lose a boss fight, don't restore your save! :p

Way too drunk for meaningful discourse at the moment so I'll respond in the morning, but I want to clear this up because I also made the same mistake when I first played the game. Mostly semantics more than anything.

There is a drastic difference between an actual genocide run (defined as a run that you start in the tutorial dungeon, that requires grinding random battles until enemies stop appearing in an area, and that can be aborted by failing to kill all enemies in an area before reaching the next area), and a normal run where you don't spare any bosses. I referred to the latter as Genocide/Neutral not knowing any better. They are not the same at all.  I do think though that playing normally and not sparing any bosses, then restarting and doing a run where you do spare all the bosses/go pacifist, is a great experience and I'm thoroughly glad I played that way.  But, yeah, Neutral/No Mercy is much closer in every way except tone to Pacifist than it is to Genocide.

[AndrewRogue]

Zenny: From what I've seen, that's fair. Replace my use of Genocide with No Mercy.

[NotMiki]

Speaking of semantics, the term no mercy seems to imply merely that in a situation where you have the abilityto spare an enemy, you decline to do so.  But in the negative route you're going beyond that and actively trying to kill as many monsters as you possibly can.

[Cotigo]

I will say I'm much more unsure about the Frisk/Chara thing and that the way that ends up being presented (particularly if you speak with Asriel again after completing the Pacifist Run). If you do neutralgood -> good, Chara being portrayed as "not that good" inherently is rough and I wish Toby had been vaguer about that or only did it in response to player assholery. Positioning the player inherently as a douchebag is something I disagree with. But I think I'd have to do some exploring on a replay (I think I missed a bunch of that plot stuff?) to really get a good grasp on it.

OK so I don't actually have that much to respond do, but I do want to point out that in this sort of realm of meta abstraction, but player is much more closely linked to Frisk than they are to Chara. It really doesn't come through in the No Mercy/Neutral/Pacifist side of the game, but Chara directly interacts with the player in the Genocide ending. Just as importantly, throughout the Geno ending the battle prompt text is altered with a lot more of Chara's voice in the prompts as opposed to just description of the world and what Frisk is sensing. Chara directly gives opinions in some of the battle prompts (trying to talk to Toriel will return, "Not worth talking to.", the battle with Undyne starts with "In my way", etc.), while IIRC 100% of Frisk's battle prompts are description ("Smells like Papyrus") or direct narrator-talking-to-player. Those come up in the Geno playthrough as well but it's not 100%, and is justified because Chara doesn't assume 100% control until you beat Sans.

(Side note, it would be neat if this came up again when doing a Pacifist run after the Genocide run in more than just an easter egg at the end, but like with the game not having a Flowey-killed scenario of all future runs that probably is something that got cut because it would have taken a long time to program, I assume.)

All that leads me to conclude that Frisk is much more of an empty avatar the player is supposed to inhabit while Chara is an actual character, so the "Chara isn't actually a good person" info dump at the end of the Pacifist run isn't necessarily incongruous with the player's actions.

This does however undermine the reveal at the end of the Pacifist ending, though. Like, the whole reveal is that Frisk isn't who you thought s/he was, the name you gave him/her isn't actually Frisk's name, is supposed to be this huge revelation, but when you take the geno ending into account and think about it even a little that falls apart for reasons I've already outlined. Man, the more I think about the ending the less satisfied I am with it. All of the interesting meta commentary really comes at the very beginning if you save scum, and in the end of the Genocide run.

Speaking of semantics, the term no mercy seems to imply merely that in a situation where you have the abilityto spare an enemy, you decline to do so.  But in the negative route you're going beyond that and actively trying to kill as many monsters as you possibly can.

I personally like that distinction, but from what I recall of the Undertale wiki the player base is having a tedious argument about which terminology is better so meh I just avoid using No Mercy when talking about the game to avoid confusion or even sparking that argument. Not that it matters particularly here, mind.

EDIT: Also this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ejy457WNkuE&spfreload=1

[Cmdr_King]

Undertale- Strange.  Funny.  Heartrending.

Pacifist but by no means perfectionist.
Not terribly inclined to replay the game for more endings.

Urges to Murder:
Every random in Snowedin.
Muffet.

The game does a fantastic job of creating a charming world and populating it with fun and interesting characters that I give big smiles without a hint of malice.  The plot, especially the meta, just don't work on the same level.  There's also a lot of clunkiness where they have the right idea for the exposition but have this fear the player won't pick up on the hint to look around and end up force-feeding it to them anyway.  It's also a chore to play.  Part of that is because the Check command takes a turn; I haven't seen this enemy, I need some ideas how to coax it into giving up.  Oh wait I took a third of my HP in damage during that and it'll use a stronger attack next turn while I work it out.  Fantastic.

In all I know the lowest score I can give it, but I'm not sure if I want to give it higher than that or not.  Mmm.  Nah.  7/10.

Yes, I've read all the spoilers.  That has minimal impact on my opinion.  See comment about the plot and meta not doing much for me.

[Meeplelard]

Tales of Encount:

Narrator: We joins our heroes as...
Ludger: Quiet.
Narrator: *sigh* Fine.
Jude: Ok, so I guess we need to report that got this object to Bakur, as well as Julius and such?
Ludger: Yes.

*at Bakur's office*
Bakur: Excellent, you destroyed the Fractured Dimension!  Also you have the Waymarker, give it to me please.
Rowen: Can you explain what those Waymarkers are for?  I mean, they can't be something as simple just precious artifacts.
Alvin: Yeah I'd like intel on that too.
Bakur: Yes.  They're keys to Canaan.
Elle: OMG! CANAAN! THE PLACE DADDY TOLD ME TO GO!
Bakur: ...who let that little girl in here?
Jude: She just kind of follows Ludger everywhere, we hope the "ignore her and hope she goes away" strategy will work...eventually...
Leia: Also she's kind of a key to Ludger's Chromatus working it seems.
Bakur: I see...in any event, I need you to destroy more Fractured Dimensions so Origin can maintain souls and you can get mo-...
Milla: Destroy more worlds!? That's appauling!
Bakur: ...say aren't you Maxwell?
Milla: YOU DESTROYED MY WORLD JUST TO GET THAT ITEM!
Jude: Uhh...you see...she is Maxwell but of a fractured dimension...yeah, I don't get how she managed to come back with us.  I also don't know why she lacks that big green strand of hair our Milla has.
Milla: It's called a hair cut; I thought you humans knew better than that.
Jude: ...you get haircuts?
Bakur: *AHEM* Anyway, now that we have the Waymarker, we need you to get 4 MORE OF THESE to enter Canaan!
Ludger: ...Macguffin Hunt?
Bakur: Yes, yes it is.
Ludger: ...I quit...
Julius: Good, you shouldn't have to be dragged into this brother.
Bakur: Oh, sure, quit, but who is going to handle your debt? Where you getting money from?
Ludger: Quest Board.
Bakur: QUIET!  YOU STILL WORK FOR ME AND THAT DEBT STILL LOOMS OVER YOUR HEAD!
Julius: Hey! I'll handle the debt, you just worry about living your-...
Bakur: YOU"RE IN NO POSITION TO TALK! TAKE HIM AWAY!!!  Anyway, we'll call you when we find a new one, go waste time to finish your debt.
Jude: ...let's go home? And by home, I mean Ludger's home of course...
Ludger: ...why me...

*Ludger's home*
Elle: Yay!! FOOD! NO TOMATOES THOUGH!
Milla: Is Ludger some kind of cook?
Elle: Yeah! He's awesome, BUT NO TOMATOS!  What's for dinner?
Ludger: Tomato soup.
Elle:
Milla: well nice to try someone else's cooking for once...though it was nice to get my cooking complimented.  Muzet hated mine afterall...and was abusive...you know, now that I think about it, losing my world maybe wasn't such a bad thing...
Jude: So you're saying...
Milla: I CAN'T LET YOU DO THIS ANYMORE!
Jude: That's just an excuse for you to join us now until the Milla of our world is found, yet remain annoyed isn't it?
Milla: And what of it?
Jude: Nothing! Just doing the usual thing...(man, she's just like our Milla, but not quite...it's not the same...)

*one debt repayment later*
Nova: YAY!!! YOUR DEBT IS BEING PAID! PAID YOUR DEBT IS BEING! LET US GIVE 3 CHEERS FOR DEBT PAYMENTS! UNTIL NEXT TIME ^_^
Ludger: ...bitch...
*Phone ring*
Vera (name of the Spirius Corps agent from before): We've got a lead on a fractured dimension.  Go to Hamil.  Also some guy named Erston wants to speak with you elsewhere.
Ludger: I'll talk to Erston *Dialog prompt, Not cheating with Ludger*
Vera: NO! YOU GO TO HAMIL FIRST! THIS IS YOUR JOB AND I'M YOUR MASTER!  But first head to the Seahaven to get details on your journey.
Ludger: ...fine...
Elize: Ooooh, it'll be like old times!
Teepo: They abused in Hamil, why do we want to go back there?
Elize: ...good point, why DO I want to go back there?

*the Sapstrath Seahaven*
Elle: Hey, there's glasses man and that bad guy!
Riddeaux: How rude!
Elize: Why are you wearing those sunglasses now?
Ivar: Because Julius ruined his face!
Riddeaux: Shut Up moron!
Ivar: YES SIR!!!  ...wait, is that...MILLA!?
Milla: Yes?
Ivar: WHAT ARE YOU-...no, you can't be her!
Jude: Yeah, it's not the same, can you just explain what's going on now?
Riddeaux: Your brother ran to a fractured dimension in Hamil, go find him! 
Ludger: Great.

*Hamil*
Muzet: Hi everyone!!!
Milla: Muzet!? Is that-...wait, no, it's not really yo.
Muzet: What are you talking about? Of course it's me!
Elize: Hi Muzet, didn't expect to see you here...
Muzet: Yes, and I didn't expect to see Milla...though she's not really Milla...
Milla: I am the former Maxwell!
Muzet: ...yes, yes you are...
Jude: Er...let me explain.  *cut away later*  And then we ate Tomato Soup, and Elle wouldn't shut up which explains why I didn't get much sleep last night and...
Muzet: Ok, I get it! Do you humans like to keep talking about nothing forever?
Jude: ...sorry, got carried away.
Muzet: So you're Milla from a fractured dimension?  Darn, thought I found you!  Still looking for her!
Villager: PORANGE THIEF! HOW DARE YOU STEAL MY FOOD!
Muzet: What can I say? Sometimes I just get hungry! *actual line of dialog*
Elle: Wait, do Spirits get hungry?
Muzet: No, but I have been introduced to this concept called "good food" and well, I can't get enough of it! You humans are such lucky creatures!
Jude: Yes, because potential to starve is completely lucky *rolls eyes*
Muzet: So you are going to a fractured dimension? Ok, count me in then!
Elize: Wait, you want to join us!?
Muzet: Yes, I'm interested in doing that!
Elize: Did we just recruit a final boss into our team?
Jude: It would appear so...wait, we now have 5 party members, and we need to clear some space, so whose going to le-...
Ludger: Jude.
Milla: Jude.
Elize: Jude.
Muzet: Jude.
Jude: ...I hate not being the main character anymore....

*fractured dimension jump later*
Elle: OH LOOK AT THE SEASHELL WHEE!!!!!
Milla: ...and there she goes, should we run after her?
Ludger: No.
Milla: Thought so.
Muzet: Why do you bring her along with you anyway? She seems to just get in the way.
Ludger: Good question.
*Ludger looks to the side and sees Julius*
Milla: And there HE goes.  Are all humans as impulsive as him?
Julius: Ah, Ludger, I knew by humming this song I'd attract you.
Ludger: *nods*
Julius: Yes, remember that camping trip? With the poison ivy?  And the scratching? And the you crying like a little girl while I kept telling you to shut up? ...well, neither do I so I'm not sure why I brought it up!
Ludger: *sigh*
Julius: Now listen, GIVE ME THE GIRL!
Ludger: Ok.
Julius: ...OH COME ON! You're suppose to resist this notion.  If you just give me her, then there's no conflict between us and as we know, brothers are ALWAYS in conflict.
Ludger: Take her.
Julius: Well, now I don't want her!
Ludger: Crap.
Elle: EEEEEE!!!!
Ludger: ...double crap....

*back at Elle*
Elize: She's hurt, healing artes are doing nothing!
Muzet: It's a Stigma Arte!
Milla: a what?
Muzet: How do you not know about Stigma Artes? I mean, you're Maxwell...of a different world...but seriously, how?
Milla: ...just tell us what it is.
Muzet: It's a super evil arte that exists to suck the soul of a person and thus needs-...
Milla: Basically an excuse for a big dramatic boss fight which would have happened anyway since this thing is clearly the catalyst.
Muzet: My, you're sharp!
Julius: Take this watch, NOW BEAT THE THING!
Ludger: Fine.

Narrator: And so, one boss fight and Ludger getting an upgrade to his transformation later, Elle is saved and the team heads back to the PRIME DIMENSION!  And so we end another episode of...
Ludger: Stop.
Narrator: But why?
Ludger: Just stop.
Narrator: ...
Ludger: Good.

[SnowFire]

Etrian Odyssey 4: Legends of the Attack on Titan: What a strange, dystopian world.

* In the future, child labor is not only legal, it is common.  Some of them occasionally dress up like adults but they aren't fooling anyone.
* In the same way, the 40-hour work-week is a thing of the past.  Staff are expected to work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  It's not surprising why so many people look so young - such a grueling pace leads to early graves and a short life expectancy.
* Guys, Titans aren't legendary.  They're right out there.  Horrific giant rabbits the size of a town prowl the land, thirsting for carrots and human flesh.  They literally reach up to the skies to attack passing airships if they detect humans with their razor-sharp noses.
** Don't think duck meat or buffalo will satiate them.  It won't, they'll keep coming for the delicious humans.
** Despite having access to flight, the threat of the murderous rabbits apparently has prevented very basic cartography of the area, such that even educated rulers are not entirely certain where the town's river flows from.
* For some reason, soldiers & adventurers are being sent into dangerous, monster-infested woods near by.  Why?  I can't rightly say.  At least one of the nearby forests has a mine in it, and I can respect securing precious ore there, but why visit the larger & more dangerous bear-infested forest?
* The topography of said forest is very strange.  There's a staircase that leads from "B1F" to "B2F".  Basement 2/ 2nd floor?  Except...  there's another ground level forest down there, with majestic trees reaching far upward.  And another set of stairs down to "B3F."  And people in town refer to the "2nd floor" and the like.  Are these... stacked forests?  What happens if you look straight up?  Is there sunlight?  And who built these stairs?  How long are they?
** Option 1: These are three forests separated by cliffs, and the stairs go diagonally down the cliff to the next, lower forest, with this horizontal movement not shown.  Diagram:

__B1F__
       \
        \
____________B2F__
                 \
                  \
_____________________B3F__

** Option 2: These really are underground forests.  The stairs are incredibly deep, and there's an artificial sun on the "ceiling" of the lower floors.  The upper level trees have adapted to having shallow roots due to their soil "bottoming out" and becoming the ceiling of the next level.
** Option 3: These forests exist in some kind of alternate dimensions where the stairs are actually piercing the boundary between the worlds.

Probably gonna finish the 1st Labyrinth then switch off to Trails SC, but not bad for a time-filler.  Beat the fake boss already, and since this game doesn't have the giveaway save point before a boss, it nicely lets the characters have psychic danger sense of "hmm, feels like the REAL boss is behind this door."  Time to go back in & give it a shot.

[Veryslightlymad]

Yesterday I played FFXII for a little bit and didn't advance the plot because I really like the hunts.

Highlight was, in the process of going for Marilith I decided to finally get the Adremmelech summon (gave it to Vaan). Even at decent levels, Adremmelech is HARD. His support zombies are just super crazy mean. I eventually said fuck it and burned repeated quickenings on him, and managed to stylishly execute him with Ark whatever, the lightning one. Yeah, that's right, mother fucker. I'm so cool I'll defeat you with the element YOU ABSORB. Anyhow, lest I sound too cocky, that was the second time I beat him. The first time I beat him, I barely beat him. Got the cinematic for beating him. Got the "You got the esper: Adremmelech the Wroth" message for beating him. Got my party (really just Basch at that point) to strike a cool victory pose with fanfare.

...then I pressed a button to exit that screen and the zombie minions were still alive and immediately nailed me with 4 ARA level spells and I died. Basch is dumb, guys.
~~~

Vaan: Now has a Francesca axe which is like a hammer, but not as cool. It is, however, over 20 points higher than my next best (real) weapon, and Vaan will hit things for 2-3000 damage now, while everyone else hovers around 1, if they're lucky. Goddamn, Axes are great. On Vaan. You need good Vitality.

Balthier: Is still just kinda there in my party. He's sort of my "utility" guy that is pushed in enough directions to be useful in any situation, so he's often in my party when the boss dies, but... for the life of me, I'm not sure WHY.

Fran: OK, full stop, I don't understand stats/stat growth in this game. Does Fran ALWAYS have the lowest speed, by, like, a lot, or did I just equip her that way? Anyhow, I find it infuriating that she's stuck on bows, because, statistically, she is the worst person in my party I could conceivably give a bow to. Anyhow, I'm waiting around for the glorious day I can give her a Katana, or possibly a Mace and Shield, but I can't find a decent one of either. Can cast "Bubble" which is crazy good, especially on Ashe.

Basch: Yep. Having 3 levels of quickening is useful. That's really all I have to say on Basch. He didn't develop anything else that was cool.

Ashe: Discovered the +150, +200, and +500 HP locations on the board. So is a super tank. Has just shy of 6000 HP when bubbled, which... uh... next highest (when bubbled) is a bit over 3000. So yeah. Ashe is what I put in my party when I'm panicking and not sure what my actual strategy should be, yet. (She doesn't exactly have damage, since I keep giving Basch my better sword-type weapons. I should dedicate an entire weapon niche to Ashe, but I'm not sure what I'd actually use.

Penelo: Currently has a crossbow. Is my second best mage. Is kind of falling into the Balthier category of not really specializing in anything but generally always being useful. When I kill a boss or hard mark, my party is usually Penelo/Balthier, and then either Basch if I have to quickening it out, or Vaan if I don't.

[SnowFire]

Probably gonna finish the 1st Labyrinth then switch off to Trails SC, but not bad for a time-filler.  Beat the fake boss already, and since this game doesn't have the giveaway save point before a boss, it nicely lets the characters have psychic danger sense of "hmm, feels like the REAL boss is behind this door."  Time to go back in & give it a shot.

Welp.  Ran out of MP with the boss at ~40% HP or so, died with it @ ~20% HP or so.  Guess I needed to avoid the Bloodbear guards rather than kill 1.  Resource management.jpg?  I wonder if I can kill one, leave, then come back without having it respawn.  Probably not.

I should add that hunting in this dark world is similar to hunting via helicopter.  Airships just soar through a herd of animals blasting 'em with something and take the meat.  I'm forseeing an American bison-level near extinction event in the future if this becomes more common.

[Grefter]

Payday 2 - I am still playing this.

Vermintide - Got a group for Normal.  My younger brother got a Rifle of any kind finally and is happier with the game.  Might not be money wasted.  It is good and feels amazing when you are rolling in deep in a melee.

Seriously if you guys want that Left4Dead experience again, get on board this train.

Jade Empire - After finishing KotOR2 I figured I could revisit the oddest game in that engine.  It holds up about what you would expect.  It is early Bioware writing so all the stock tropes are in full swing.  Closed Fist tries hard often to be "not thug evil", but very often it is just 'fuck you pay me' or the 'fuck you pay me' options are functionally identical.  I am playing Open Palm anyway since you really don't need the extra money for being evil for anything and the OP options are always first in the dialogue list, so it is literally easier to be good. 

Number keys don't pick dialogue, you need to use the mouse.  That is dumb.
The menus are terrible.
The game just kind of doesn't work properly under Vista+ environments.  Some stuff you can do to make it tolerable but the camera just shits itself.
There is still loading sections where the game has big areas that it only loads half of into memory and will dump and reload when you walk back into the other half of the area.  This was due to memory limitations of the original X-Box.  These areas are tiny.  This is hilarious.
Playing this in 2015 is a bit awkward.  Like 100% of the voice cast I recognise I know are white.


It is a fun experiment for a game and has a few stock Bioware things before they really became stock Bioware things (there is 3 romance options, one girl only interested in guys, a guy and a girl both romancable by either sex main).  It at no point splits off two four areas of your choice.  It does do 3 at one point, but they are interrelated and much smaller (and is not the entire game).


It did make realise, there should be a suite of mods that turn any character Cam Clarke VAs into Leonardo from TMNT.

[Veryslightlymad]

I want Vermintide real, real bad, and your endorsement more or less seals the deal, assuming I ever know what money looks like again.

[Grefter]

You need to get a group of regulars to play with, just like L4D.  Also (at least on easier difficulty levels?) there is no Friendly Fire.  So Super won't take your head off with a shotgun blast/burn the entire group down with an AoE Conflagrate.

But seriously, L4D + asynchronous gameplay on the player side = really smart idea.  Why has it taken nearly a decade for someone to get behind it this hard?  (Yeah yeah, Payday and Warfrane both play with it but they also significantly shifted up the formula). 

Also (kind of obviously), Vermintide takes the melee push from L4D2 and dials it up to 11.  At least as characters I have played you will be quick swapping between ranged and melee a lot as the situation demands.

One quality of life thing I would like is for specials to be auto tagged when they are doing things to your allies.  Yeah it would make the game easier, but the game also auto highlights your allies in giant fuck off red sillhouettes in those situations.  So you have to train yourself out of targetting the silhouette and leading your shot appropriately (which is easy to do because a Gutter-Runner/hunter will be on top of your ally and you can like literally see the pole a Packmaster/smoker is choking your ally with.  It 100% is just a case of overriding your twitch reflexes to hit just off to the edge of the big highlighted thing.  (Also that is something that Payday 2 does with tasers after a while, so I am used to it).

[superaielman]

Laggy deserved to be set fire to all those times in L4D and I will not hear otherwise.

[Scar]

D5: beat~

Now the games really begins!