What Games are you playing 2016?

[AAA]

Unfortunately they waste the twist by handing protagonist duties to Connor, who is by far the worst main character in the series that I've played. At least Haytham still shows up every so often and steals every scene he's in.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

He comes back for Rogue and he's the same delightful dickhead in that.

[Sierra]

Started Undertale. Solved puzzles with some skeletons. Pretty endearing so far.

Still level 1.

[Fenrir]

Soma: I played up until the underwater part.
Not really feeling it so far. Setting is very generic, not much has happened, health system is a headache (your character gets more gimped and the game becomes more blurry if he gets hit, health doesn't auto-regen)

Nuclear throne: Just got past the 100 hours mark on vita. Still no patch what the fuck

[Cotigo]

Momodora: Jim was right, is sidescrolling Dark Souls with a very ignorable animu aesthetic. Beat hard mode, was hard. Playing through Insanity mode now. Dungeons are quite hard now because they're completely unforgiving, but bosses are frankly just as difficult if not easier than my first playthrough, partly because I've been using the attack boost items but mostly because I already recognize their patterns pretty well. Would recommend.

Glad you're liking it.  I beat insane mode a few days ago.  As I expected, the first area was brutal (you start insane with 1HP) but things eased up from there.  I guess I didn't mention it but another similarity the game has to Dark Souls is abusable, overpowered bow & arrow.  I leaned pretty heavily on bow & arrow - especially after picking up the item that adds fire element to your attacks, which ohbytheway means you can hitstun enemies with arrows like you normally can with melee attacks - and ranged item casts.  Considering playing through the game again and doing a melee only run.  Give Pardoner Fennel a sporting chance.

Just finished up my Insanity run myself. Yeah, the bow is ridiculous. If you get Edeas Pearl/Dull Pearl and the Drilling Arrows, every boss up until you can buy the Pocket Insensory falls hard. Drill Arrows/PI make the final dungeon trivial, and PI/Speed Arrows make the final boss more trivial than she normally is. I don't know if I want to do a Melee only run, because that seems like more trouble than it's worth, but I started up a no deaths/pacifist run on normal. After Insanity, this is EZ. Took a couple resets on Edea to perfect her for her pearl (apparently quitting to title screen doesn't affect the no death achievement), and will probably do the same for the boss in the Cinder chambers since she drops the Pocket Insensory if you clear her perfectly.

Pacifist and No Deaths will probably get really difficult later on, with some of the sections planting enemies that shoot at you on pillars you have to jump on near the end. If it becomes a choice, I'll probably give up on No Deaths rather than give up pacifism, then run a No Death run on hard.

EDIT: Oh yeah, I switched the language to Japanese. I'm pretty sure whoever did their translation isn't a native Japanese speaker, but I'm also pretty sure it's not just google translate Japanese so I'll probably leave it on.

EDIT2: Sped through, really easy even leaving enemies alive after Insanity. Cleared out Fennel, Cinderella (seriously why isn't that her name), Lubella, and got warping, just need to fight Derelict Freda and go to the end. Died a few times but scummed past that by closing the client before reloading, think it still counts and also I don't care.

Getting pacifist on Derelict Frieda is going to be fairly difficult, though. Dark Souls-style, there is a mob that joins the battle from outside the arena if you don't kill it right off, and he summons dogs to attack you mid fight. I don't know that I can kill them and still get the achievement, so... uh, yeah. Gonna pause there and pick it up again later when I feel like dealing withat.

[NotMiki]

You can kill the dogs.  That was addressed in an early patch.  Dunno about the other enemy though.  Maybe you can avoid triggering it with air dash?

[Cotigo]

Oh, if you can kill the dogs then that's easy. The add isn't really that threatening, she's one of the cat girls who throws her trident at you. Very slow and predictable, and with the amount of HP I have in normal difficulty I can afford to make mistakes. The bigger problem with the dogs is having four targets, only one of which I am allowed to hit, all of which I have to dodge. But since I can kill the dogs I don't expect to have any problems next time I load it up.

EDIT: Actually, you may know. I assume this is the case, but just in case... For the pacifist run, you're allowed to kill the two bosses without HP bars (the one at the start of Karst City after Lubella 1 in armor, and the demon that has several clones of herself), right? Or am I supposed to be doing some Super Metroid style maneuvering to avoid triggering those battles? (Though I couldn't imagine how that's possible.)

[Tide]

FFX Replay - Mostly complete. The only things left are Omega Ruins and BFA; not sure if I really care about the former. I know I don't for the latter though. Overall, this was a successful playthrough. Kimahri ended up being probably one of the best PCs on the team, so pretty happy with that. I'm also convinced that despite only 1 playthrough, that this is probably the most effective Kimahri build. More on that when I go back and review some balance stuff.

Calm Lands - This area is pretty big. I actually wander around like an idiot for a bit, because I forgot where the Chocobo was. The randoms here are trickier to handle for the most part. There are your standard fodder enemies but this area also has a lot of unique monsters that require a little more legwork. The most notable are probably the Chimera Brains. They have a decent amount of HP and a wide variety of elemental attacks that hit pretty hard. Yuna is great here due to Nul-spells since it's almost impossible to have any character have armor that can absorb all the damage. Speaking of which, Yuna also has the Soft Ring that makes her an ideal choice against the Anacondaurs. She's a good anchor to have against most of the enemies here in general. With the black magic sphere, she also has decent offense against some of them too! Tidus owns the Malboros for free thanks to Provoke vulnerability and Wakka eats the Coeurels with status.

For damage, Wakka / Kimahri wins out. Wakka in particular kind of takes off at this part and deals notably more damage than Tidus or Auron - go figure. This is bad news for Tidus because it means that Wakka easily takes over his specialty. The only advantage Tidus has then is Sonic Steel. It's a bit better with Auron because you have to sacrifice a L2 Keysphere to get Piercing, and you might not want to do that for a couple of reasons (poor weapon trait + needing the key sphere on the grid). Kimahri's damage mainly comes off Yuna's grid + having a Halberd with Magic +20%. He easily takes over Lulu, although Lulu is still better because she has more variety whereas Kimahri is locked into one spell at the moment. Speaking of Lulu, she starts to fall off pretty bad here. Her grid is notably absent on further Magic bonuses until near the end (where she picks up 12 points in a short span). This severely hurts her, although it will be more evident soon enough. For now, she just manages to stay relevant since she can hit weakness on other monsters when Kimahri doesn't have the spell selection to own them. Tidus beats Auron and Rikku is a . All depends on how much you steal and how much you use those items. I have no qualms about it but the Use command is really silly. There's a bunch of MT items that you can toss (such as Dream Powders) that just totally wreck the enemies. The problem of giving a score for this though is that Kimahri also has the it available and Yuna can get it soon too. She's fast though I guess, so she's not totally useless. Still probably bottom of the barrel though. Yuna (excellent anchor) > Wakka (best phys damage + status still owns) = Kimahri (best magic damage +utility)> Lulu (magic damage variety) > Tidus (Sonic Steel + owns Malboros) > Auron (can take out armored dudes).

I head to Remiem temple and get the bonus items. It's fast and easy. So at this point, Rikku ends up being broke due to Trio of 9999 existing. I won't be grading on that similar to how I'm not grading based on Aeons. As a consolation prize, she can have MASTER THIEF I guess. It at least makes her different from Kimahri's stealing.

Defender X -
His defenses are pretty good, but ST and all physicals means  that he gets owned by Auron. One of Kimahri/Yuna can Protect Auron/Heal Auron, while Auron spams Guard and the other spams Magic damage. You could armor break him and go the physical route too, but since Tidus' damage is sorta bad, this just leaves Wakka on offense. Oh and neither of them can heal. I do get Tidus in there to Haste Yuna/Kimahri, then just proceed to watch as they own the boss. Lulu is slower than the other two but could do the same thing...also has less damage though, so probably worse. Yuna/Kimahri (Protect/Heals/Spells) > Auron (Mental break + Guard) > Tidus/Rikku (Haste makes things faster vs. Use BS)  >Lulu (Redundant, and slower) > Wakka (has Phys damage but...).

Cavern of the Stolen Faith -
I don't run into a single Magic Urn. Weird. The monsters around here though are harder and this is what I remember about late game FFX monsters. Wakka still the dominant guy since he takes out the Imps, the lizards and has Busters that own a few enemies  (sup Ghosts). Past that, the only other notable enemy were the Black elementals; they have no weaknesses but magic makes pretty short work of them. So Yuna/Kimahri/Lulu can get rid of them pretty easily. Auron at least takes out armors, I really have no reason to use Tidus outside of Sonic Steel. Rikku kind of shares this spot as well although as usual, Use shinenagans makes her better (probably about as good as the mages at least). Wakka > Yuna/Kimahri/Lulu >= Rikku > Auron > Tidus

Gagazet -
Kimahri got some L3 Key Spheres and cast Doom on the Ronso Duo for lulz. I also got Mighty Guard and White Wind but that's not really important. For the fiends, the Grenades can only be handled by Wakka. Auron eventually catches up on damage (and then overtakes pretty quickly) but these things have insane Magic Defense. Oh, also, they can be Petrified. More lulz. Same thing with the Grats and the Ogre. The Ogre has resistance it seems and slugging it out with damage seems to be better. Oh and by the way, most of these enemy formations share weaknesses, so if you are decent with Wakka's OD, he can recharge half a gauge on almost every encounter because elemental reels is MT and one shots everything. The only monster that Wakka doesn't eat alive are the Mechs, which are fodder since 3 characters on the team have Steal now. Lulu meanwhile is deadweight for most of this area and I have to force feed her AP. Its probably a better idea to beeline to the Agas and then backtrack and pick up Demi/Bio/Death. But then, Yuna (and Kimahri in this case) can just take over with Black magic spheres and become stronger/faster users. And yes, you have 4 of them at this point. I teach an Aga spell/Demi to Kimahri and 2 Aga spells to Yuna. Poor Lulu can't win. At least not yet. Gets a bit better half way up the mountain because O'aka sells a Magic Booster weapon, although it costs 110,000 gil.  Tidus still at least has Haste and Sonic Steel and Return Spheres are a little too valuable to sacrifice on First Strike (YMMV) since there are only 2. Auron eventually catches up and he deals pretty good damage as well, but the sluggishness really doesn't help him. Wakka (owns everything but mechs) > Yuna/Kimahri (Speed/magic damage/Utility) > Auron (Damage) > Rikku (Steal at least owns mechs and she's fast) > Tidus (Sonic Steel + Haste) > Lulu (Bad)

Flux -
I dunno; I'm not sure how he works exactly. I dunno how you can survive Total Annihilation (if even) other than Aeon shielding so Yuna > the rest for this since I couldn't pump out enough damage to kill him. Other than that move, the rest of his stuff isn't all that bad. Kimahri is notable for for being able to survive a Cross Cleave without Protect (Yuna can't) and is generally more durable albeit a bit slower. Tidus finally has Hastega and Haste is a pretty godly. Still loses to Physical damage compared to Wakka. Ranks...probably something like Yuna > Kimahri > Tidus > Wakka > Auron > Rikku > Lulu. Last three are not very notable and can probably be grouped together really.

Gagazet Caverns -
The only enemy I have no idea how to deal with is Dark Flans. At first, I thought Silence Buster/Demi would own it, but it like Auto Counters with White Wind. Welp. The only method I have to get rid of is with Shooting Star. Auron, the best. Plenty of other unique enemies. Behemoths are very nasty with their damage, but they can be status'd with like Sleep and also owned by Provoke. Afterwards, Demi works great on it and the mages can go to town. You can also cast Protect on Tidus and then beat it with physicals. Mandragoras have a Fire weakness and also vulnerable to Demi. They have status, but I can usually take it out with Yuna/Lulu/Wakka/Kimahri, depending on order. Auron's usually too slow. He is good against the Dual Horn enemies here though because Armor Break makes vulnerable to additional beatings and helps conserve MP. They're really not good enemies since they prefer to use their 500 Damage MT attacks instead of their stronger physicals. Wakka still owns the flyers of course, but less enemies are vulnerable to petrify and I suspect this trend to persist in the end-game. Ah well, TKO had a great run. Wakka > Kimahri/Yuna > Auron > Lulu = Tidus > Rikku

Sanctuary Keeper (?) -
One nasty boss. He counters Armor break with Protect but doesn't counter Mental break with Shell. Well then. I think I know who is going to be good for this fight. In the meantime, Photon Wings does quite a bit of damage and adds status, but my Use clones all have Al Bhed Potions at the ready to quickly heal up. Haste exists too and is quite helpful for this fight, although not that much since the boss has Dispel from recollection. I just didn't see it this time. All in all, Auron makes this fight faster and I don't have to worry about its healing because of him. Probably not MVP though because he himself has no magic and the bad speed really sucks for the fight. Yuna/Kimahri probably the best just for damage/utility. Yuna/Kimahri > Auron > Tidus > Rikku (can at least throw Al Bhed Pots in a pinch/fast) = Lulu (can sub in as a finisher) > Wakka (has physical damage but...).

Zanarkand Ruins -
Same enemies as Gagazet caverns. HOWEVER, Lulu finally learns Dual Cast...and is only negligibly better on damage even after Booster. God damn, Lulu, your growths need to be better spaced. Most notable is that I also got some good armors somewhere (including one that has Ice/Lightning Eater on it), so I add Fire Eater to it and get an early Phantom Bangle. You can add Fire Eater to anything really; the important thing is that it gives Lulu pseudo Healing since she can cast Fire on herself now to recover.

Dome -
All the enemies here are different. Tidus finally picks back up in strength, but he's still worse than Auron and Wakka on damage and a lot worse on durability. He is however faster, and has Sonic Steel, which is still relevant. The zombie monks get owned by healing and Yuna/Kimahri work best on them due to Curaga scoring an overkill. For the machine types, Wakka/Auron are great on damage and the enemies aren't that fast so Auron's slow speed doesn't bite him. Lulu can help now at least, but she's probably still a bad choice compared to Yuna/Kimahri on damage. Rikku has Fire Gems but eh. Still probably the worst person. Robots are overall more dangerous, so Wakka > Auron probably feels right. Tidus/Yuna/Kimahri are all about the same. Tidus has Sonic Steel and helps for most fights other than Defender Z, where Yuna/Kimahri are better for healing and Protect. Lulu can at least help with some damage, Rikku has nothing really. Fire Gems are only good if they focus.


Spectral Keeper (?) -
Hardy har har, a boss challenging me to a HEX grid battle. I split the party up into a triangle formation, which guarantees he can only hit one person with his counters. From there, I Hasted up, used Mental break and then proceed to heal/defend/Protect my way to victory. The one time where it was a little tricky was when he got Auron with a glyph mine (gj Auron) due to Mental Break's lag and Auron's own sluggishness. Still haven't really found a good use for Wakka on bosses but at least he owned the randoms for about 90% of the game, which is pretty damn crazy! Yuna/Kimahri (Speed, healing, Protect, magic damage) > > Tidus (Hastega) > Auron (Mental Break; the slow speed is also usually an advantage because if he is berserked, he won't randomly start attacking in a bad position so you can heal him) > Lulu (can be used for a finisher) > Wakka = Rikku (both don't do much. Wakka has physical damage, Rikky has speed). I think.

Yunalesca -
Think magic works a bit better than physicals here. A few reasons for this. First Al Bhed Potions cure Silence but not Darkness. Second, when you get to the third phase, getting hit by Mindblast means all your attackers have bad strength and won't suicide themselves on each other. Also, they seem to have the better damage here anyway. Damage matters the most here because those Dispel counters means buffing is out and durability doesn't really work when Curaga one shots you. The longer the fight goes, the more chances of having something go wrong. I will note, I never saw Curaga - although I did see a lot of Regen, which was weird. Yuna/Kimahri work really well here. I take down the first phase without Haste, second phase with, and having Yuna and Kimahri work on point. For the third person, I swapped between Lulu and Tidus pretty regularly, but Tidus really doesn't do much other than trying to reapply Haste a few times until he ran out of MP (lol). By then though, I was in phase 3, so it didn't matter. The mages ward off most of the bad stuff that could happen and Lulu has pseudo healing anyway, so yeah. Having Fire Eater is super beneficial, although that means you can't spam gems all that much, which was not an issue here. Yuna/Kimahri > Rikku (pre-battle contribution) = Lulu > Tidus > Wakka > Auron

Sin Fins/Overdrive Sin -
Really easy fights. Lulu has sorta caught up now, so she's the best damage dealer by a fair margin. Tidus still sorta lagging, but Hastega/Sonic Steel still make him relevant despite poor damage. The main thing of note is that this thing likes doing Negation so Use > Auron's breaks if you have those Frag Grenades. However, magic can be used at a distance and doesn't require you to fly in beside him. Still no compelling reason to use Wakka though.  Yuna/Kimahri > Tidus > Lulu>  Rikku >= Auron > Wakka.

Sea of Sorrow -
The bad news for Wakka is that TKO is dead in this area as nothing of value can be petrified sans the Adamantoise. The good news though? His busters still work on almost everything. So yes, he still wrecks randoms. Better yet, if you've been a devoted Klepto, he makes the best use of a strike weapon due to his accuracy. The Iron Giants can spoil the mages some, but Demi works on them and Using Frag Grenades really makes them not like you. Armor break also works, although slower. Sleep Bustering one while you kill the other tends to work anyway. For the Adamantoise, NulBlaze gets rid of Breath and their other attacks can be Al Bhed Potions. Also, more Breaking + Sleep bustering. Exorays are destroyed by Lulu Dual Casting and the Ahrimans get owned by Wakka. Badly at that. Elemental Reels still does MT OHKOing thing while recharging half your OD so it's pretty great. Off hand, Wakka > Kimahri/Yuna (Frag Grenades) > Auron (with no Frag Grenades) = Rikku (Frag Grenades) > Lulu > Tidus > Auron (if you have Frag Grenades).

Side note - How do you take care of the King Behemoths? The Meteor death counter one shots everyone and I've done Shell/Draining all their MP away through Osmose. I guess Silence Buster or Stamina Tonic to tank through it?

Final Seymour - Uh...he's vulnerable to Armor Break. So after he gets hit by that, Tidus face wrecks him with the Double Edge through Quick Hits. He has Ultima! Except Auron can tank it at this point so lolno. The Mages get him pretty badly too with that elemental weakness. Probably something like Yuna (Phantom Ring means she mocks 3/4 revolutions and she has null spells to keep your offense pumping by making sure only one spell goes through) > Lulu (Phantom Bangle + hits weakness consistently through Dual Cast and Magic Booster) > Tidus (Hastega / Quick Hits + weakness after Armor Break) > Auron (Armor Break, can survive an Ultima) > Kimahri (secondary healing duties at worst) > Rikku (Gem damage) > Wakka (no compelling reason unless after Armor Break for damage)

City of the Dead -
Pretty unremarkable. Similar randoms as before except the odd one or two. I know there is a mortar guy, but never saw him. Great Malboros get owned by Provoke and then Al Bhed Potioning...so for the most part, same as Sea of Sorrow.

Closing -
Pretty satisfied with the way Kimahri turned out. He was in running for MVP at several points. The thing that made this build good was that he wasn't redundant. He always had something he could do because of the variety of things available to him. He could cure, do damage, buff, and steal which made him relevant at all points. Plus going down Yuna's grid made him fast, which is another advantage. Having higher starting HP+Def also contributed to how he was tankier, giving him a unique position at times. As for the others...

Tidus - Pretty bad compared to what I remember. The main things he has are Haste and weapon selection. The rest of the package and growth patterns are not good.

Auron - Also pretty bad. Slow, but at least his specialty isn't taken over as easy because L2 Key spheres don't appear for some time and even then, you might not want it. Breaks are cool for some fights and his durability is useful at some points. He does finish his grid the fastest so he will be the first person to get a chance to look at other people's stuff though.

Yuna - Uh yeah. Even without Aeons, she's really good. Nulspells keep her relevant for a good chunk of the game and she has probably the best overall growth pattern between high magic and speed. Those Black magic spheres are almost made for her (or Kimahri if you do this build). I didn't even touch on the healing yet, did I?

Wakka - Much better than I remember. Owns randoms for free but lackluster in bosses and lacks a compelling reason to be used on them. Still, destroying randoms all the time makes you pretty great.

Lulu - Weird. Great until about 70% of the game, then she lags really bad. If you don't help her out, she will continue to lag into obscurity. The growth pattern is just awful (way too much Defense/Evasion focus before the final stretch of the grid).  However, if you do decide to keep using her, she gets back into the 'good' range. Not as domineering then but still solid.

Rikku - Useless unless you like Stealing. Technically, the best character through Mix however, and the Use command is broken. Rikku herself however, is not great and Use can be picked up by 2 other PCs really easily, so I dunno how many points she really should get from that.

[NotMiki]

EDIT: Actually, you may know. I assume this is the case, but just in case... For the pacifist run, you're allowed to kill the two bosses without HP bars (the one at the start of Karst City after Lubella 1 in armor, and the demon that has several clones of herself), right? Or am I supposed to be doing some Super Metroid style maneuvering to avoid triggering those battles? (Though I couldn't imagine how that's possible.)

I assume so. I don't know of any way to avoid them.

[Sierra]

More Undertale. I went on a date with a skeleton and it was basically the verbal equivalent of the Sideshow Bob rake scene. Also the puns in this game are the net output of Gate and Acrina during an all-night bender.

Still level 1.

[The Duck]

Day of the Tentacle remake - I haven't been too impressed with a lot of these LucasArts remakes but this one is really good. I guess it helps that it was my second favorite as a kid, behind the first Monkey Island. It's surprising how much I've internalized the solutions to these puzzles and the order in which to do things. The graphical overhaul is really crisp, although the animations are a little jumpy since they skip frames. Just started it, will probably finish it in like two sittings.

[Grefter]

Did you only play 15 mins at a time or something?

Also when the fuck did it come out?  I thought I would have got an email...

I need to update the avatar to a better quality picture.

[Cotigo]

Momodora - Pacifist/No Death run finished. It turns out I could air dash past the area where the catgirl spawns in Freida's arena, so actually the fight wasn't difficult at all. Oh well, poor Frieda.

Normal has a lot fewer enemy spawns than Hard so many of the parts I anticipated having difficulty with were actually quite easy. Karst Castle still had some difficult platforming that I don't think would have been possible on Hard and absolutely wouldn't have been on Insanity, where you had to damage boost into enemies on two-block wide platforms and get past them before you could take damage again and get knocked into the spikes.

Done with the game for now unless NG+ Insanity adds enough to keep me interested, but there are no more achievements soooooo w/e.

[Grefter]

FE Fatties - Final stats.

Mission 1 Two turns
Final Mission Two turns.

Easy game.

[Scar]

FE revelations

There's not enough time for this camp to sleep around with individuals. There needs to be an organization option.

[Sierra]

Undertale: "This phone is ANCIENT! It doesn't even have texting or anything!"

It's like the game is staring into my soul.

(Also, still level 1. Had first game-over figuring out Undyne, though. Stupid backwards arrows.)

[The Duck]

Undertale: "This phone is ANCIENT! It doesn't even have texting or anything!"

It's like the game is staring into my soul.

(Also, still level 1. Had first game-over figuring out Undyne, though. Stupid backwards arrows.)

Glad you're liking this!

[Grefter]

FE THINGS - Started again to do Conquest route since I am so good at video games.

Redid first 6 chapters to farm exp on Kaze and the main.  +Mag -Speed going dragonstones  going to be terrible compared to + Str that was Str capped by end game.

Gunter died i cry evere tiem

[Meeplelard]

Fire Emblem "We Swear This Is Not Thracia 776 Honest!": Beat Chapter 22.  Yes, I'm playing this game slowly, but well...there's a reason I labelled this update the way I did.

[size]Though let's be real, you can tell it's not Thracia 776 because you can, you know, learn the maps with trial and error...unlike Thracia 776 where you beat yuor head against the wall and the game just says "please stop, you're making dents and stains."[/size]

[Niu]

Granblue Fantasy-

So, the 10million campaign starts.

Xer got like 4 good SSR form his pull.
One of my on lien friend got 3 good SSR summon, and another friend pulled a SSR character that I was dying to have.

And I pull 60 times today. Got 2 SSR that's totally trash and 1 SSR that's good but I don't really need for my set up.

.....hahahaha, why am I the only one?

[Sierra]

Undertale: Finished. For a given value of finished. I got what I gather is the Neutral ending and was pretty much outright told in the ending that maybe things could be better and HEY if you go do this thing that you missed then that's how you start. Which I guess is informative if immersion-breaking. I don't favor fourth wall breaking--it's usually a pretty great way for a work to immediately lose my interest or respect, so it should say something that this game usually succeeded anyway.

I think about 75% of the Undertale equation worked extremely well for me:

-The humor wasn't always compatible with my tastes, but could be amazing when it was on point. I think Papyrus has to be the highlight comedically, because nothing can prepare you for that. Nothing!

-Routine combat was fine. There are plenty of hints what you need to do to spare an enemy, so I never felt like I was wasting my time experimenting or just using Check. It could potentially be tedious running into a lot of the same enemy after you've already figured it out, but encounter rates are mercifully low so this isn't really a problem. I also usually didn't have much trouble staying alive, outside of a couple endgame bosses that took me 3-4 attempts each, despite being level 1 the whole game through. It's a simple system they make creative use out of and which doesn't have time to overstay its welcome.

-Boss encounters were outstanding--I'd go so far as to say some of the most memorable I've seen, period. All of them stretch the boundaries of a simple combat system in unique ways appropriate to the personality of the opponent. And that's great, but I think it's equally key that most of the big bosses benefit from having considerable lead-up to ensure they're a known quantity personality-wise before you have to fight them. Having a choice to fight or spare is more significant when you understand who you're dealing with. This might be why Mettaton and by extension the Core arc of the game mostly fell flat with me--unlike the bosses of the ruins/Snowedin/waterfall areas, there was no point of empathy there. He is just a killer robot (with style I guess). Presumably Alphys is who you're supposed to latch onto there, but she never really landed for me for reasons I find difficult to articulate. Though I guess her story's not entirely finished on my file.

-The above is also helped a lot by the music, holy shit the music. I am probably on record more times than necessary stating that a quality soundtrack is almost a requirement for me to perceive a game as great (or at least a personal favorite that I can remember affectionately). The boss themes in Undertale deliver on this requirement extraordinarily well. They always perfectly capture the mood of a fight and enhance it through their presence. Incredibly evocative stuff, sometimes with very limited instrumentation. This is what I take with me when I walk away from a game. Sound is my recall key.

-I can see that the meta conversation around the game has mostly been covered in tiny text months past, and I don't have a ton to add to that. I will say that I think it's a perfectly valid goal to make the argument the game is interested in making about the role of violence in games. In fact, I'm happy to see someone do it. I do object to the manner of delivery. I don't need to have someone straight up tell me at the last minute what the point was. I'm capable of inferring that from context, thanks. But it is refreshing for me to find something so stubbornly, determinedly good-natured.

-But I think maybe the crucial point in the game's favor is just that it was so obviously made with love. It is not a perfect game, but it does boast an overabundance of personality. I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere else, but it's remarkable how much random scenery in this game has flavor text. I clicked on every object in sight and rarely found anything non-responsive. I find this kind of attention to detail telling. It's just endearing to see someone apply such enthusiasm to bringing their ideas to life, and this applies everywhere throughout the game's writing. They really wanted you to care about these characters before you fought them, and they mostly succeeded.

-I hated the last boss encounter, though. It's mechanically a mess, graphically at odds with the rest of the game in a way I find simply ugly rather than shocking (I guess it was probably supposed to be the latter), it goes on for too damn long, and most crucially spoils the mood of the encounter immediately before it--which was amazing because the music holy shit the music. I'd be a lot happier with the game if it had stopped one boss earlier.

So really cool stuff more often than not. It's lucky I'm not the type to let a mess of an ending ruin the journey getting there, though. I definitely recommend it as a unique thing worth experiencing, especially considering its relative brevity and affordability. I will probably reload and try to aim for mega-happy ending soon. Will not be running kill 'em all mode, because accidentally killing Toriel that one time (yes I reloaded) was bad enough, but will check an LP to see what changes. (I did happen to tune in to Zenny's stream when he was attempting the second geno mode exclusive boss--over and over and over again--and holy shit man.)

Belated thanks to Fenrir for buying this for me.

[Fenrir]

No problem!

Ys 7 Nightmare mode:
A girl is gravely ill
We need to go to the end of a dungeon to find the super rare item that will help her

I'm still not very fond of NewYs gameplay compared to OldYs. (I'll still probably get VitaYs at one point)
Even on Nightmare mode it's too button-mashy. Two buttons press for guard makes it a bad choice all around so you're just dodging like mad and it lacks finesse.
You can switch between 3 PCs on the map, the ones you don't control are AI controlled. AI controlled PCs suck in every game, this game gets around that by making them basically invulnerable but with shitty offense. Unfortunately this makes the archer girl OP, because the two AI controlled PCs can often divert the attention from the enemy while you mash X from afar. This also works on some bosses.
Skills leveling up like in Star Ocean makes playing new characters with shitty lvl 1 skills unappealing. So I'm just going to stick with good old Dogi and Adol.
Otherwise it's nice enough fluff

[MC50]

Fire Emblem Fates: Birthright.

Won't go into as much detail this time. Finished, Hard/Classic.

Significantly easier than Conquest Hard, though I still had a handful of resets to silly things. Final Playtime (about 23 hours compared to conquest's 50+ hours). It was still fun, though, and was solid enough Fire Emblem gameplay, with less gimmicks if those annoy you.

The plot... Had its ups and downs. i really feel like they had a good "Outline" for a plot here, but the inbetween was weak. I'm not asking for a masterpiece - I really enjoyed Path of Radiances story, even though it was fairly simple.

Will start Revelations later, but I'm waiting for a friend to catch up.

Otherwise, I've started Trails of Cold Steel, randomly. At the second field study. Fairly fun so far, went with Hard mode. The combat is just in depth enough and nothing seems obviously abusable so that it is fun, and while the characters aren't super exciting I can appreciate them trying to set up their big world.

I did play a bit of the first trails in the sky a few years ago but I couldn't really get into it, but I'm latching onto this a bit better. Might gave Sky another chance at some point, as I didn't hate it or anything.

[SnowFire]

Fenrir is SnowFire time-displaced by 2 years confirmed.  Playing all the games that I hit ~ 2 years ago in SMT4, Ys7, BD, etc.

I enjoyed Ys7 but agree that the dodge button is over-centralizing.  In Origin, Toal has a dash...  that's on his lowest-damage skillset, and he's the shortest range character in the game, so if you want to ninja dash everywhere you're going to need close eventually and claw someone in the face.  In 7, everybody can dash!  This is fun for a bit but also OP.

I wouldn't worry too much about skill usage levels, every character has a zillion skills so even if you use someone the whole game, their latest skills still come at L1; and even if you never used someone before, you can hit their latest gained skills and probably be good.  They don't even mean that much in the way of damage, more that you get slightly more generous targeting areas occasionally.

FE Conquest: I'm apparently playing at Meeple rates, on C25 Conquest.  I like the gimmick for this map, but waiting 25 turns?!  Sheesh, I guess they're timing for take everyone to boss 1, backtrack and take everyone to boss 2, or something.  Also the floor is totally lying as it's got some crazy damage-reduction effect too, obviously.

For all that the gameplay gimmicks are fantastic, I really don't like how they're playing the plot, alas.  It's actually gotten worse.  More on that later perhaps.

[Fenrir]

It's more psychological than anything. Why do all these skills have all so many skill levels anyway?

Salt and Sanctuary: is 2D Souls and where have the past four hours gone.
I think I may have Souls fatigue but 2D changes the game so much!
It really is Souls.
Some things seem copypasted: character creation, Souls/salt system, combat, tutorial, classes, mechanics, enemies, estus, save, badass armored roaming earlygame enemy, etc.There are also qcool impenetrable secrets and nifty tricks. Should I become an apostate? Probably not right?

The game has an alternate currency (money). You get a % stolen upon death. It's a good idea, there was a tendency in Souls to spend everything on souls, so this helps alleviate that problem. You can now spend everything on arrows and shitty fashion and still have souls.

There is now a sphere grid but it isn't very exciting.
I am focusing on miracles and willpower at the moment. Miracles kinda blow in Souls, they also sound bad here but at least they're interesting. There aren't spell uses or mp bars, instead using a spell lowers max stamina. You also get alternate estus flasks to restore stamina. It's all pretty cool, but juggling between estus/staminestus/spells is probably going to get tricky (yes spells are now items)

You get awesome 2d plateforming levels with snipers shooting you from everywhere and Death below. Fun fun fun.

Translation is google translate and I had to swith my PS4's language to understand anything. I can't make that up it's that bad.