What Games are you playing 2015?

[Veryslightlymad]

Check out Quiplash if you like the humor from the YDKJ crew.

[The Duck]

Jackbox / Drawful: This is the pack o' small games you get with You Don't Know Jack.  Of these, Drawful is definitely the best, especially when dealing with non-gamers or having distracted players (e.g. small children who need tending).  Get crazy prompt, draw picture of it, others insert their own fake interpretations of what you just drew, then have to vote on what they thought was the real prompt.  Needless to say hilarity results.  Don't even need a bunch of controllers and plays a ton of players: you just connect to their website on your phone / tablet and draw there. 

This is a great party game. Drawful is probably the best, but Fibbage is good too. The rest aren't necessarily that great, but those two are worth the price of the pack alone. I'm surprised more companies aren't using this type of controllerless gaming. It would work perfectly well for certain board games or party games for instance.

There's a second Jackbox which has more Drawful/Fibbage prompts, but the other new games look a little byzantine.

Quiplash is great too but I've only played it once. All these are dependent on the crowd you're with.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes looks potentially really interesting but that's a slightly different type of game.

[Veryslightlymad]

I'm not sure what the sound prompt game is, but it's also pretty fantastic.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Fallout 4 is not as good as Morrowind but better than Fallout 3, Oblivion and Skyrim by a good amount.  The ending actually has the player's decisions affecting it so they've rediscovered the concept of agency after 15 years. 

They also seemed to put actual work in companion characters, which is a shock after their more recent games.  They're not quite on the level of the New Vegas NPCs, but I think Nick Valentine in particular is a genuinely interesting, compelling character who I liked having around and whose presence in the game I appreciated.  Make sure you get all of Nick's story.  He's pretty great.

The narrative starts slow, gets good fairly soon, then kind of falls apart towards the end when you learn more about the antagonist plot (and consequently it stops making sense).  Suffers from the normal Bethesda problem where you are elevated to important positions in factions without actual agency in how they operate.  The fact that the factions are opponents this time makes it extra frustrating because you can't tell the Elder of the BoS "hey I'm a pretty important guy in the Institute, why don't we change gears and instead of a direct battle, assassinate people ahead of me in line to lead?"

World design is quite good overall, feels like what they wanted to do with the wasteland in FO3 but the engine couldn't handle it.  The Glowing Sea to the SW of the map is a genuinely tense, creepy environment that I enjoyed exploring in particular.

8/10.

[Fenrir]

It might be hard to believe but I'm always telling the truth

Have you tried the Dark World expansion? The new co-op is short but amazing. There are bosses ! There's an impossibler difficulty level even with three players, fun new arrows and most importantly, balanced new characters. The red ones are really cool. In the stat topic they would be godlike because I always play them


In general I find co-op slightly better than versus with two players , and versus better with three (and probably four), but everything is always amazing except singleplayer anyway

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bravely Default - Chapter 2 part 1

Miasma Woods before I get Level 2 Spellblade has probably the nastiest randoms of the challenge. Myconids have a decent chance to counter any physical with Spore, creating a copy of themselves, and hit hard in the meantime. There's a random with MT sleep. Life is not good. Fortunately after several resets and eventually two fights I do win, I get Sleep Spellblade at Job Level 2 and everything changes.

Anyway, at this point, my spell fencers have only 2-3 hits while my monks have 5, so obviously the monks are the main attackers. Roles are simple at this point, spell fencers will use sleep then the monks will finish. Usually I have three people default on turn 1 to cut down on damage, while one spell fencer uses sleep and hits as many people as possible, braving well into the negative. On round 2, the other spell fencer can repeat if necessary. The monks then go to work, using the appropriate L1 spellblade and follow it up with Hidden Dragon, whose negative property doesn't matter against sleeping targets.

Myconids are still a pain because at base I only 3HKO them with Fire spellblade. but one Invigorate will push me into a 2HKO! Which, against a sleeping target, means no chance of counter (sleeping enemies don't counter the attack which wakes them up). Fire spellblade also works great on the tree enemies, ice on the scorpions, and the moths are from an earlier dungeon and die in two Hidden Dragons anyway.


I reach Florem. Along with the Scimitar in Miasma Woods, I buy two Spiked Knuckles which are a significant power upgrade. From now on I can 2HKO Myconids with Fire Hidden Dragon, no Invigorate needed, which is nice. I also buy a bunch of items as always, and a couple Cross Shields for my Spell Fencers. I roll for my next job, and it's Ranger. Kinda disappointing, Valkyrie (for Crescent Moon spellblade shenanigans and various other tricks) or Red Mage (healing! dispel!) would have been much more valuable. But on the other hand, hey, I can get the job right now.


Artemia (2 resets) - The spell fencers are still behind on hits, so they spend this entire battle hiding behind their Cross Shields (which still work for inflicting sleep!) and healing, while the monks go on the attack. I do switch the monks to bucklers when they aren't attacking, she's certainly good enough to deserve that.

She comes with a Legion Impaler and Legion Mage. The former will sometimes brave and use Execution twice, which really hurts. The latter mostly serves as a reminder that BD MDef is a joke stat, since she has no magic damage, but Gravity can hurt (Silence is no longer useless against my party, but still a wasted turn). Both are worth taking out of course. First turn brave-blitz to put them to sleep, then once I feel I've built up enough BP, a Thunder Hidden Dragon blitz takes the impaler and a regular Hidden Dragon blitz takes out mage.

Artemia herself is the first boss who uses her BP rather unpredictably, she'll store up with default and periodically Multiburst, but overall likes to stay in the positive BP. Her other turns are either on a wussy physical or on Targeting, which does enough damage to warrant Hi-Potions, the first boss who hits this hard ST. She's weak to fire, so fire Hidden Dragons are obviously the way to go. Her unpredictable defaulting means sometimes damage will be wasted, unless I use Qigong Wave which goes through default, but I only have the MP to use that a limited number of times so I save that for nearer the end of the fight.

Multiburst is random as heck in terms of what it does, but can really wreck non-defending PCs pretty fast if they get unlucky. Still, it's a spiky fight in terms of recovery. Below half HP she can Multiburst x2 which is really brutal, could potentially instant wipe me if I wasn't defaulting, but I know it's coming. She only seems to use it at 2+ BP so that she doesn't go too negative, so I just make sure I'm mostly defaulting then.

I actually win the second try, but it's with two PCs dead and all my X-Potions used so I decide to redo the fight more competently. I still use all of my 20 Hi-Potions, easily the most of any boss since Orthros.


Ranger get! From this point on I keep two PCs as Spell Fencers, because I value the JP there a bit more: I really want Magic Armour on two PCs for Rusalka, I think, and Drain Spellblade is going to be a crucial part of my healing later so I want that on everyone! And Spellblade Amp. I hit JL 5 Spell Fencer after this fight which means the spell fencers are up to 5 hits, too, so from now on I start using them for legit damage occasionally too, although I only have two Knuckles total so one Spell Fencer is stuck with the weaker Scimitar. I do buy a Composite Bow for my ranger, though, as the bow is quite a bit stronger than the knuckles. Ranger actually gains hits faster than the other two classes, so it turns into a pretty legit carrier pretty quickly, although its own skillset is fairly trashy (Targeting is the same as Qigong Wave, but no Hidden Dragon or Inigorate or Inner Alchemy...). Everyone uses Spellblade, of course.


At this point I do the Florem Gardens to grab all the items there (Mephilia is absolutely not worth fighting yet). I have one reset on the 6x Alraunes fight to get in here, that's just rather a lot of enemies and I have no MT! I try to sleep 'em all quickly but that takes all the turns of two PCs and paralysis can wreck me pretty fast. I redo it with my two Earthing Rods equipped and it's not too bad. They do get 2HKOed by fire hidden dragon at least. Past that, Florem Gardens is mostly enemies I'm used to fighting by now, and the usual strategies work.


Mount Fragmentum is a bit tougher. Grizzlies can hit really hard with the MT Salmon Swipe (400-500 MT!) and can even brave on top of that. Three defaults and sleep is obviously the way to go, I double up on sleep hits against them for higher probability (while the total probability of ending the round with sleep is the same, this strategy has the advantage that if sleep is applied and then unapplied, the enemy's turn is cancelled that round and they don't gain BP). Chompers are also notably because they have loads of defence/evade (I get into real trouble once when I try a brave-blitz using basic physicals to go earlier in the round than Hidden Dragon) but are weak to lightning at least, and die effectively enough to my higher-Atk characters (especially my Ranger).


Land Turtle - More like LOL Turtle, am I right guys? ... guys? Anyway, first boss since Profiteur where I incur no reset, I only need 10 Hi-Potions which is by now a very affordable budget hit. Like Artemia he defaults a lot and unpredictably. Unlike her he sometimes wastes turns, by casting reflect, and he has no MT. His brave is used for Spin Strike x2, which does hurt; non-defaulting PCs take most-to-all of their HP in damage from one Spin Strike, so two can even kill a defaulting PC if I'm unlucky and they're not at full HP (or not equipping their shield) and he's smart. Still, the unpredictability and decent ST damage is all he has. He does, to his credit, run out my stock of four Phoenix Downs, so the battle could have gone south in theory (my bad for not bringing in more), but oh well. I'm Level 26.


One required dungeon and one optional dungeon left before Rusalka. I... am not looking forward to her.

Job notes:
Agnes: Monk 8
Edea: Monk 6, Spell Fencer 7
Ringabel: Monk 6, Spell Fencer 5, Ranger 5
Tiz: Monk 7, Spell Fencer 5

Next goals are to get Tiz/Ringabel to Spell Fencer 6 for Magic Armour, and Edea to Monk 7 for Qigong Wave.

[Sierra]

Just bashed through most of NG+ Bloodborne in one sitting (just optional stuff unfinished). Wow this game goes by fast when you're not stopping to loot everything. Mostly a breeze, only repeat deaths I had were to Micolash of all things. Wasn't even A Call Beyond OHKOing (which it will basically always do on higher difficulties I think) most of the time. Nope: did you know that he can parry and backstab you with Augur of Ebrietas? Because he can totally do that and he will happily chaincast squidarmz while you're stunned. Very rude, had never seen him do that before, but it happened repeatedly today.

From patched some new stuff in separate from the DLC (which drops on Tuesday). There's a new covenant, actually co-op focused (unlike the completely useless from my perspective original three), and it is led by this guy: http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/file/view/valtr.jpg

Now we wait for Fenrir to kill him just to get his bucket helm.

There's also a new hunter tool that lets you do the Shadow of Yharnam snake summon thing, but I can't use it on this file because it runs off of bloodtinge. President Maya could use it, but unfortunately President Maya is scrub and you have to fight a seriously hardcore hunter to get it.

EDIT: psyche, of course I'll pump bloodtinge up to 50 just to see what this thing can do. (Also transformed chikage is now totally ridiculous, maybe the most out of control melee offense I've got out of the game yet.) Apparently what snakes can do is murder the fuck out of the player. See, you can't aim this thing. The snake erupts from the ground under the caster's feet, and you need to move immediately or it'll catch you too. The damage is pretty severe for the relatively modest cost of four bullets, and it's an AoE so it'll obliterate a mob if you're getting swarmed, just, y'know, make sure you've got space to dodge out.

So basically it's Wrath of the Gods with friendly fire. I don't know whether it can kill friendly phantoms, because I'm not about to try, but I'd be surprised if it couldn't. Just waiting for the trolling vids of summons "accidentally" murdering their hosts right now.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Bravely Default - Just some dungeon updates.

Witherwood: Einheria's dungeon. Like Mephilia's, I do this for treasure, but do not fight the boss. This is very worthwhile because there's a new bow here. Score! Randoms here are a step up. The worst are the d'gons, which have enough durability to take ~8 elemental attacks to drop and can do loads of damage with Fireball (near OHKO). And they can brave. They're actually not that different offensively from Land Turtle, and you can fight two at once! Otherwise, Legion Archers are frustrating for their surprising bulk and confuse (and lack of elemental weakness). The dungeon really is quite a lot better than the early parts of the chapter, as evidenced by the fact I'm annihilating the map randoms now.

Twilight Ruins: Ow, another step up. Aqua Lanterns are a pain because they can't be put to sleep, and have pretty good defence, such that only my ranger(s) put a good dent in them. They can be silenced but their physicals are good enough that it isn't really worth the time (although I do equip my Ice Charm). They have an elemental weakness at least! Which sadly the other two randoms here do not. Imps can be put to sleep but seem kinda resistant to it, and use Drain and Fear, the former hitting decently hard. (Incidentally, these are the first two enemies since Khamer who actually use damage magic! And thus the first time I ever get to see Anti-Magic have an impact on a fight.) They're the least scary enemy in this area but can still annoy. Finally, there are minotaurs, who have a weakness to Beast Slayer if I want to use MP, but a lot of HP otherwise, and hit pretty hard. Not as scary as D'gons overall, but similar.

I get a Birch Bow in this dungeon, yet another stronger-than-storebought bow, which hits weakness on Imps, so that's cool. This actually convinces me to use two Rangers, since their innate higher hit count offsets lower JLs to some extent and the Atk is just so much higher.

Victor and Victoria are the boss here, last time I played this Victoria just wrecked my team with MT poison + Exterminate but this time they just dick around until the battle times out. Whatever, chapter 2 is done!


Except for one small problem...

[Grefter]

You make me want to replay this pretty badly.

Fallout 4 - So you know how way back in the day I was mad that Fallout 3 was going to be Oblivion with Guns and that Bethesda have no idea how to do Fallout properly and just took the brand and slapped it on top of their stuff badly?

Well Fallout 4 is exactly that.  It is done really well though.  It is a terrible Fallout game, but what it is is the best Elder Scrolls game they have ever made.  The progression system where you progress with nearly every action in the game (finding locations gives experience, building settlements gives experience, crafting gives you experience, lock picking, hacking, passing dialogue checks all give you experience and of course killing things gives you experience).  Instead of that funneling into a ton of discreet skills that build individually all your actions build into a character development system that is sprawling and lets you develop in any direction you want and levelling is nearly limitless by design but functionally is slow enough that you will finish with the game before you max out in everything.  So each investment feels earned because it takes time, but it isn't so punishing that if you get it "wrong" your character is wasted.

World building wise Boston in isolation is pretty interesting.  In the broader world it is kind of dumb (even Fallout 3 but meh Fallout 3 plot not in isolation is far worse).  The gameplay loop is just really fun. 

The menus suck.  Some of the gameplay quirks are terrible.  The party members personalities are pretty flat and unresponsive, but when you do get character interactions they are nice and decently written (it is pacing that is the problem).

I generally have a lot of fun when I am playing.   I don't use the Power Armour much, at first because of limited resource, more so now because I just don't like the play style (they are terrible at stealth unless you build hard for Science and armour making and I love hit and fade tactics).

I had the worst time with a segment last night though.  I had swapped to using one of the robot party members.  I started a quest.  It drops a fresh suit of Power Armour for you to take at the start of the mission (so big reward!  Power Armour is rare and expensive!  I was high enough level that it spawned with the highest end gear, which incidentally you seem to start hitting before even half way through where I peg "end game" levels at for people that do a lot of exploration).  So its a mission they spoon feed you Power Armour in.  So there is tons of enemies.  It is in tight quarters, so hit and fade/stealth in general isn't going to happen much at the best of times.  They also give you 3 fucking allies.  They can't die or anything, but them + your companion mean your only choice is pretty much to run into enemies in a meat grinder.  THere is lots of enemies and I am playing with boosted Legendary spawns.   So they can just mince meat me if things go badly.

There is 4 fucking AI companions.  Things go poorly a lot. 
A list of reasons for this is: I can't get to the enemies because there is a pile of fucks in my why, I can't hit with half me shots because there is a pile of fucks in my way, I can't loot the dead enemies because there is a pile of fucks in my way or I can't move through the tight corridors because there is a pile of fucks in my way.

This mission was a fucking terribly designed pile of shit and made me want to break things when I was already wound up and angry while I played it.

But generally speaking?  This is probably the best Bethesda game ever.  I don't think it will turn anyone on to the formula though.

[Meeplelard]

4 Dudes in a Car: Episode Pointless Name That Means Absolute Jack Shit:

So I got through this and my thoughts?

The game certainly shows potential but needs a lot of ironing out.  I realize it's a demo and a lot of these issues will hopefully be addressed, but as it stands there's a lot of little stupid things.  Funny fact is I did cause a major graphics glitch at one point.  I had Noctis drown himself causing the game to not know how to render underwater completely, just blanked out and suddenly all the ground textures disappear.  So it looked like a Steam Greenlight game!  I was thinking "There's no way the game looked this bad", reset, and yeah, "oh, yeah, IT DIDN'T look this bad, I just screwed it up, ha!"

Characters...well, I get a good sense of Prompto, Gladio, and Ignis' personalities at least and they seem like-able enough.  Noctis I can't figure out what they want to do with him at all.  He seems like an optimistic youth, but his voice and design highly suggest he's a loner dick, and he speaks the least of all the characters despite being the one in the most scenes. 

Cindy...what the hell?  That design is abysmal and no, I'm sorry, when she's the only female in your showcase of the game, it's awful.  It gives the sense that the game was made for middle-school boys.  You play as 4 bad-ass dudes capable of kicking ass, and the only chick is some half-naked girl working on your, in as seductive a way as possible.  I don't mind an all male party; fine, it's something we haven't done yet in the franchise, and if it works more power to it, but you still need to treat females with some sense of dignity.  It's ok to have a female mechanic, and heck, I'm totally all for it!  It's a profession more associated with males, sure, but having a female do a more associated male role once in a while is totally fair...just MAKE HER DRESS LIKE AN ACTUAL MECHANIC! 

The other thing I noticed is the game seems to want to address a number of stylistic complaints fans had from FF13, notably how detached FF13 felt from the series (apparently FF14 shoving references down our throats wasn't enough <.<).  It has the victory theme when you sleep, Prelude plays in the ending briefly, and the "Enemy nearbye!" theme is clearly meant to be an homage to the classic battle intros found in FF1-6/9.   Enemy designs are clearly meant to strongly resemble past games, no matter how much it clashes.  Behemoth looks fine, as does Galura (why those were brought back of all things, god only knows), but Goblins look like a joke since they look like something out of a fantasy cartoon in a setting highly promoting realistic graphics.

Plot...no point in talking about it.  The story of the demo is essentially your token filler episode in a TV show; it's a bump in the road the heroes run into that has nothing to do with anything just to justify filling that time-slot.  I guess "the guys are trying to get money to repair the car" works as an excuse to stop them on their road-trip, but yeah, you're not getting anything compelling in terms of story-telling, all character work...

Character work is fine as eluded to before, but a major problem is a lot of that "characters banter at random" thing which works until a random encounter shows up, and you can't hear the end their dialog. 


So...yeah, I guess I'm looking forward to the game if they can fix a lot of the gameplay issues; I won't go into details on the gameplay issues since they're numerous, but I think the core game is fine, just a lot of ironing out.  It's just an early build demo after all, so it shouldn't be indicative of the final product.

NO CLUE WHEN I'LL START TYPE-0 HD!  I bought the game for that reason after all, I played FF15 first mostly because it was shorter and might as well get it out of the way.  No sense holding off the demo for a full game, when it's clearly the lesser product.  Yes, FF15 Demo, you're the cartoon short before a feature length movie.

[dunie]

I finally picked up gaming again. I'm going through Legend of Legacy about 30 minutes or less a night. I just started the Animal Crossing home designer game, and I'll go back to Xenoblade once my semester is officially over. -Ahoy from Idun.

[Captain K]

Subterfuge:  started playing this after watching the Misc. Link.  Really interesting because of the amount of time it takes ships to get anywhere.  You really have to plan far into the future.  I'm going pretty ballsy/aggressive so we'll see how that pans out.

[Hunter Sopko]

I should have figured that was Idun. From the horrid avatar.

::Glares::

(Hi Idun, we missed you)

[Dark Holy Elf]

Welcome back Idun~


Bravely Default - My HPs, the defaults do nothing!

This post will be about Rusalka. For those who don't remember, Rusalka runs a five-turn cycle. On turn 4 (9, 14, etc.) she will use Seep, becoming untargettable for the rest of the round as well as the subsequent one. On turn 5 (10, 15, etc.) she will use Dark Flow, which does about 1000 water physical damage to everyone. It ignores default. It also summons three clones of her with similar offensive stats and 2700 HP (which is not a negligible amount), though they can't use Seep/Dark Flow themselves. Otherwise all turns are spent on a basic physical, Aqua Regia (water physical which lowers Def), and Charm, which is the worst. No, Dark Flow is the worst. Second worst then.

This fight would generally get my nod for being the hardest boss in the game normally, and is brutal with my team, which lacks MT or good healing. Fortunately it does have Spell Fencer, which provides two crucial weapons. One is Thundara spellblade (the only L3 spellblade I've bought so far), which hits weakness here and is obviously great. The other is a trick I haven't used yet, the Spell Fencer Level 6 passive, Magic Armour. It causes the caster to half elemental damage of the spellblade element he or she has just activated, for four turns. Blizzard Spellblade thus turns into a 4-turn "half Dark Flow" buff which is extremely important.

I toy around with different strategies. I even try leaving the clones alive, since I'm all ST, but this invariably fails, I spend way too many turns healing and charm sooner or later destroys me, that is if Dark Flow against a not-fully-healed party doesn't first. So yeah, clone-killing is the only viable option. And... there's a problem here, I actually only have one PC who can reliably two-shot the clones. Agnes the L3 ranger can... but only sometimes. Ringabel the L6 ranger is the only one who does it reliably. Anyone without a bow doesn't have enough Atk. So it's extremely difficult to reliably wipe the clones in one round, and I tend to hardly end up doing any real damage to Rusalka herself, and charm can really mess things up. Even if it doesn't, I estimate that I'll need about 80 Hi-Potions with this strategy, something I can't afford.

Okay I lied, this post isn't all about Rusalka, because I eventually decide I can't beat Rusalka when I get to her. So I go grind get some JP by doing an obviously meaningful sidequest with important rewards for my team.

Mephilia - Normally a pretty good boss herself, but I'm three dungeons after where she is "supposed" to be fought so she isn't too bad now. I default for three turns, tanking the summon she unleashes on turn 3, then blitz turn 4. On turn 5, I realise that if I repeat the blitz, I'll win, but if she gets a turn before I can kill her she'll summon two allies, who will likely wreck my BP -3 team. So I play it a bit safer, heal up, default turn 6 with everyone to tank the summon and attacks, hope confuse doesn't do things which are too bad (it doesn't), and win from there.

So yeah, after this I have my two reliable clone 2HKOers. But after some experimentation, I realise that, thanks to Aquatic Slayer which Ringabel picked up, Ringabel + Aeolian Bow + Thundara Spellblade + Aquatic Slayer + Hermes Sandals (for the extra hit)... can actually OHKO the clones. Not always, but experimentation yields "more often than not". This is pretty great! Thus, the winning strategy:

Agnes, L5 Ranger with Spellblade and an Ice Charm (there's only one, sadly)
Edea, L8 Monk - pure healer with a shield
Ringabel, L7 Ranger with Spellblade and Hermes Sandals (again, there's only one)
Tiz, L7 Spell Fencer - pure healer with a shield mk2

Ringabel notably has as much defence as he can possibly get, which includes a Cross Shield for defence when he isn't attacking, and the rather pricy Mirage Vest from Florem. This is so Dark Flow doesn't OHKO him, since I don't want to waste his turns switching between ice and thunder spellblade. (When I first tried the fight before any setup monkeying, he was OHKOed. It was bad.) The healers have the highest-def accessory since nothing else helps. Everyone has HP+10%, Agnes has PAtk+10%, everyone else has Magic Armour (not that RIngabel ends up using it).

Anyway, I default for the first three turns. If someone is charmed, the fastest person shield-punches them out of it. On turn 4, when Seep is used, I have up to eight turns to work with (if nobody was charmed). These are spent on setting up spellblades (ice for the healers, thunder for the attackers), healing any chippy damage taken (Ringabel at full HP is a must), and, if the spare turns exist, trying for one attack with each of the rangers. Turn 5, switch back to shields and default for all that it does nothing.

On turn 6, Ringabel is the only PC who reliably goes before the enemies, due to Hermes Sandals. (A fact which messed up many previous runs.) This is where potentially OHKOing is so helpful. RIngabel aims one Aquatic Slayer at each opponent, hopefully killing the clones. Now, the enemies can potentially get turns. If someone is killed, that's bad, since BP is such a premium in this fight. The faster healer (Edea) uses BP to try to minimise the chance of this. If charm lands at this point on someone yet to act, that's also terrible, especially if it's Agnes since she has a real weapon and has braved to the max (this tends to mean an instant loss if it happens). Fortunately, Agnes and Edea at least on average go before most/all of the enemies due to better speed. Agnes aims one Targeting at each of the four enemies, which will finish off any Ringabel didn't kill, and any he did kill just get redirected onto the boss. Finally, Tiz does some healing of his own.

If all went according to plan, then we're back at turn 2, essentially, in the old cycle. The attackers have one less BP than last time, but their spellblades are already in place, so a similar strategy can kick in. This time the "extra healing" that takes place before Dark Flow will likely need Hi-Potions (whereas Potions often sufficed the first time).

On the winning run, after the second big blitz (and a few other minor hits) on turn 11, I realise that I've done enough damage (~27k of the ~40k needed) to potentially blitz out a win, so I switch everyone to offence (the healers equip real weapons and use Thundara Spellblade Hidden Dragons), dumping everyone to -4 BP on turn 13, except Ringabel, who reliably acts before Seep on turn 14. I kill on turn 13 anyway thanks to a crit or two. Hooray! On the winning run I'm able to keep everyone alive which is hugely helpful, and not 100% reliable, but nothing too bad ever happens (Ringabel is never charmed, nobody is charmed before they act on turn 6/11), so while I have modestly good luck this strategy is certainly repeatable. I was Level 29 when I got to Rusalka (and fought Mephilia), Level 30 when I won. Nine resets total.

Onto Chapter 3!

[Meeplelard]

Hey Idun! Glad to see you back!

...no, I don't have much to talk about gaming...YET!!!! *dramatic lightning* 


BUT I WILL SOON!

[MC50]

Finished Tales of Zestiria.

Opinion hasn't changed too much. It's alright? If you like Tales games, you'll probably enjoy this.

The big, empty maps starting annoying me more and more as the game went on. It's like Xenoblade, but at least Xenoblade had cool looking environments. This just has big areas that take forever to walk around, with werewolves that are faster than you.

Although I enjoyed the combat well enough, it never "clicked" with me like Graces did. Played on Moderate the whole game and only had a couple of wipes - but I felt like enemy damage was too high, and so was enemy health - some fights dragged on. I would regularly get a lot of KO's in a tough boss fight, but reviving with Armatization made me wipe only two or three times. So... I'm not really sure? It doesn't have Xillia's annoying super armor, but the CC system doesn't feel as fun as Graces - maybe I just enjoyed playing Malik that much, no character in this game really felt like "the one".

I did enjoy the incidental dialogue found in the bestiary with the characters comments. The character interactions as a whole were decent, as well.

Still feel like the equipment system is way too convoluted for its own good. I would not have minded playing with it if it gave you lots of similar-statted equipment with a variety of skill slots without excessive grinding. But it doesn't. So you get a new dagger, and are like, awesome, a new dagger - and find it gives... 200 focus and nothing else. What on earth? It's not a HUGE deal, but it's strange.

The story was decent? It reminded me of... FF8, of all games, in that I feel like that game had a lot of potential for a cool story that didn't appear. This game has some flashes and sparks of cool story beats, but then shifts gears and goes to something else. And the main villain is strange, too. I mean, it wasn't great, but I'd still mark it as above, say, Symphonia's story. The characters were likable enough.

A bit of rambling here, I don't regret playing it, but there are better Tales games.

[Scar]

I doubt I'm too far in zesty.

I'm in some caves going to try and find the pope!

But I am on the same boat that this Tales game hasn't really stood out.

[Meeplelard]

Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition: Got this, loaded it up!

Hey! You can play as Lady/Trish and Vergil out of the gate!? That's awesome!

*proceeds to play Nero/Dante anyway*

...what?  To be fair, I am using Nero's new Sparda outfit so it's like I'm using a different character!  Not sure what I think of it, mostly because of the weird scarf thing.  Scarves are cool, make no mistake, but I think combined with the classic Sparda Purple Trench-coat, it might be a bit too much? It's nowhere the same level as intrusive as Lightning's Savior Outfit (I wanted an image but all of them are too big), where it was HIGHLY ANIMATED CLOTH EVERYWHERE Yes, I despise LR Lightning's design, especially since they love to reference it.  Original design? Fine.  Valkyrie Design? Quite good! That one? ***** you Toriyama!  I don't care if he didn't design it, I'm blaming him! This at least doesn't obstruct the character, but borders on "design feels a bit too busy", I guess they felt Nero's default outfit looks too similar at first glance and the simple color change wasn't enough, so they threw in an extra detail?  Honestly not sure.

For reference, it looks like this:




Other things to note? I'm watching cutscenes again, and wow, the character animations are awkward.  Like, ok, DMC4 is not trying to be realistic, nor does itself seriously, but when it's not an action scene of sorts, characters move in what feels like old CG movie fashion.  I guess compare DMC4 to something like FF13 and you'll see what I mean.  It's fine when dealing action scenes because the movements are far more over the top and suddenly you EXPECT this kind of stuff, but stuff like Kyrie singing just looks...weird...

The opening montage is worse.  Now it still uses the abbreviated version of Shall Never Surrender...that's good!  But it cuts out the audio, which added to the "cheesy action movie trailer" feel DMC4's had, that's bad.  Something felt lacking when there was no "Let her go!" "This is all Credo's doing!!"cheesy dialog, and no actual sound effects in the action scenes.  To it's credit, though, it's a new opening movie altogether, highlighting a lot of the new content, which demonstrates not only new gameplay, but also "hey look! The new characters have a legitimate campaign too!"

Also, HOLY CRAP Dash was sped up a lot.  It seems if there's no enemies on screen, the effect kicks in almost immediately now, which is a nice perk.

Otherwise? It's DMC4, and thus still one of the best action games to date.  Just got Devil Trigger, so yay having access to all primary mechanics!

[Anthony Edward Stark]

The party members personalities are pretty flat and unresponsive, but when you do get character interactions they are nice and decently written (it is pacing that is the problem).

I found a lot of them to be kinda middling overall (but good by the standards of Bethesda writing) except for Nick Valentine.  Nick Valentine is, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the most interesting and compelling character that Todd Howard and company have ever come up with.  Fuck all this other shit, you should just get to play as Nick, first before the bomb solving crimes and fighting the Winters family, then you wake up in a dumpster.  Dude had a narrative that was actually compelling.

That said they seem to have realized that they grossly misused the Brotherhood of Steel in FO3 and they're back to being dickheads, which is good.

[Sierra]

Holy crap it's an Idun. Welcome back!

~

Bloodborne Old Hunters DLC mostly complete. It's basically three zones, all of them quite lengthy in that Bloodborne way of oh my god when will I find a shortcut. The new content is actually accessed fairly early in the game (available immediately after Amelia). You could probably just about take the opening zone that early...but not some of the latter two, the damage is real. I'm running a 50 VIT character and the last two bosses were very capable of demolishing my healthbar in single combos with some bad luck (granted, I was wearing basically the least protective armor in the game but hey, there's only so much that armor can do for you in a Souls game). I can't imagine how some of this stuff could possibly be surviveable on NG+. Extremely glad I came in with a fairly overpowered NG file instead.

Level design in the second zone is extremely reminiscent of Latria, if it was an asylum instead of a prison. The last zone is essentially Innsmouth, which I guess is only proper considering how much Bloodborne always blatantly owed to Lovecraft anyway. I feel confident that Miyazaki must have been abused by a rickety swamp shantytown in his traumatic youth. Altogether very cool zones, tons of oh my god please don't tell me I actually have to go in there moments and consistently some of the creepiest shit that From has ever produced.

Bloodborne level design's definitely had its Castlevania moments, right? I can only presume The Old Hunters wished to acknowledge that, because there's both a Simon and a Maria running around, and the latter's even fought in a goddamn clock tower. (CV Maria should take some lessons in badassery here because Gihrlman does not fuck around: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rdt5XNvPkc).

In retrospect, it's painfully ironic that I walked into that fight wearing the doll outfit. Also I really want her sword but unfortunately to get it I'd have to fight two super elite fishmen hiding in a cave after a pair of brains and why would you do this, From.

Two of the boss fights are amazing. One is less so due to being fairly easy but still has some pretty outstanding atmosphere going for it. The last boss is terribad and I summoned help after the first death just to get this awful abomination off my screen as quickly as possible. I still haven't figured out how to access the remaining boss. It seems like there's a lot of easily missable (or at least easily overlooked) NPCs and items here, because I'm spotting lots of stuff on the wiki that I didn't encounter at all. Sadly, none of the new weapons were very well suited to Sierra at all, she wound up sticking with Ludwig's the whole time (this was at least the most appropriate option for one boss).

Get this if you liked the base game at all. (It probably shouldn't be any surprise at this point that From DLC provides some of the most outstanding content in the game.)

Also guys Micloash was wrong, it isn't Kos vs. Kosm it was Ko all along: http://bloodborne.wiki.fextralife.com/file/view/milkweed_kos_parasite_trickmode_small.jpg

[Scar]

Off topic a little, but what are some black Friday gaming deals you all have seen around?

I'm planning on picking up ffx ps4, fallout 4, mgs5, and maybe dragon quest heroes from best buy. Gcu member so 20% off any black Friday deals plus bogo on used games too.

[NotMiki]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/281863975098?afsrc=1&rmvSB=true

Wii U with SSB and Splatoon for $250.

[hinode]

FF7: Is Striking Staff worth the trouble of stealing? I ran into one Eligor but killed it without realizing how rare they are in the Train Graveyard.

The two most notable things about FF7 earlygame thus far are the terrible damage of most randoms and, conversely, how efficient a Restore-All Materia combo is for team healing. Cloud is healing over 60% PCHP with just Cure-All right now, which feels silly considering what sort of enemy offense it is dealing with.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I generally wouldn't bother with it because early enemies are too pathetic to justify stealing something that you can buy in Junon, but I don't have patience for stealing much in these games in general.

[Sierra]

Tracked down the last Old Hunters boss. It's a palette swap! However: A) there are legitimate plot reasons for it; B) it has its own distinct moveset; C) different music! I'll take it. More worthwhile than some other DLC bosses, that's for damn sure (*cough* bluesmelty). So as a reward I get enhanced beast mode, which is actually exactly the sort of reward I'm looking for and is why I'm now running claw file through NG+ Old Hunters. It rejiggers the Beast Claw moveset to add an awesome flying tackle! and a Beast Roar clone which appears to do nothing! neither of which are as impressive as my altered character model's hair, which now casually mocks gravity, or my fixed and dumbfounded, open-mouthed rictus grin which is about on par dignity-wise with DkS1 dragon form. It's amazing and I'm so sad there's relatively little left to actually use it against.

NG+ Maria took like ten tries and literally half a million echoes' worth of weapon buffs. It's a good thing I deal redonculous damage now because holy shit so does she.

Also I forgot to mention that the expansion added the most absurd elevator in the series, which is saying something for a series which contains Anor Londo.