What Games are you Playing 2017?

[Fenrir]

Oh yeah ok
I have to respect a game with such a big HP spread. Though it's really sad that Torneko didn't even have average HP


It's okay I've also been playing SMT Apocalypse, no fusion hard mode
 It is like SMT4 without the huge pacing issues, but with added anime to appease the Persona fans. There's a scene where the girls change clothes and you can peep, for example.
The Persona elements drive me nuts but the appeal of the super refined SMT gameplay is high enough that I like it a lot overall. It's also still the best looking 3ds game.
The anime isn't much  of a problem at the beginning, but it starts becoming one as you get more party members. The story itself is very intriguing, it's just the banter between NPCs that's annoying as hell
YHVH is often mentioned and will likely play a big role. This game is voice acted and uses a weird scratch sound everytime someone mentions YHVH so you can't hear its name. I just sold the game to Grefter.
I have read that there are two endings: either you go full friendship is magic love everybody or you go full edgelord ultra metal let's kill god. I'll go with the second option, and have been a dick to all my friends for no reason.

[Grefter]

Have I mentioned lately that you are the highlight of my mornings Fen? 

Also let's be real, even if you didn't want to go full grindcore speed metal ending, Yattaf would be being dick to all her anime friends anyway.

I do like the name of god being incomprehensible.  I would prefer the sound file from NBA Jam a Tournament Edition when you use a special team and they had a generic filler name in the VA of just a dude going YOOOOIIiIP, but a record scratch works as well.

[LordDirtyBrit]

Final Fantasy VII: Got Yuffie. Damn was she a pain to find. Speaking of pains, is it just me, or are Chocobos annoying to catch in this game? On a more positive note, damn is that Nibelheim flashback fun to watch when replaying the game. There are so many different aspects you notice after knowing the truth of the incident.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds: Done the Dark Palace. I was a little worried when a stealth mission was involved to get there due to how dreadful the one at the start of Wind Waker was, but the wall merging ability manages to allow the section flow quite quickly. A plot point in the game I failed to mention was that Yuga is the one to hijack Ganon as opposed to the other way round like with most Big Bad Wannabes in most Zelda games. There is something oddly soothing about this.

[Sierra]

DMC4: Picked this up again after a couple weeks. I know I'm a little rusty, but holy shit Credo you are a cheap dickhead. I actually had to break down and buy a healing item here. And then fights with 3x jetpack knights. This is really swingy, either I blitz them in like ten seconds or I can't touch them at all and get shredded by charging attacks. I think the secret is Demon Suplex.

I think I'm getting close to the Nero -> Dante handover? I just beat up I. Ron Butterfly.

[AAA]

You have like one mission left before Dante mode. What difficulty are you playing on, btw?

[superaielman]

I'm going through the mobile Dragon Quests with extra challenge rules, because now that I'm used to the control scheme mobile has been ridiculously practical. In fact I don't even use computers anymore.

I went through DQ2 and 3 without the main hero. This forces a very pleasant mage-heavy playstyle. The removal of one party member really hurts, but DQ mages have more tricks than you'd expect. Boy did I struggle against the final bosses though.
The DQ3 port is pretty gorgeous, all other DQs on mobile look like trash in coparison.

I'm now going through DQ4 with a Torneko/Meena/Maya/Borya team. Maya owns, MVP forever, she's a total revelation, and Meena has been essential with Midheal and very useful with Sleep. Torneko is the most worthless tank ever and Borya has been very unimpressive (only one kind of attack spell so he's easily walled, Maya does way more damage usually, he gets his main trick Oomph relatively late and it's not very useful in this team, he has a level disadvantage and his durability blows)
Meena is the #2 best tank in this team and it's a tragedy

Ooof that team is so bad on durability, Psaro is not going to be easy. You can itemcast the sword of decimation (+110 attack, cursed) for Sap. You can use the Zenthian sword to dispel Bounce in the final form at least! Your offense is going to be garbage too as Psaro tends to resist elements. No Kabuff really hurts as well. DQ bosses have competent physicals and your team is awful at taking hits. Taloon has HP but bad defense due to low speed (Needs Liquid Metal Armor real bad); Meena has the same problem.


E: Torneko........... yeah. He's a fusion of the Merchant/Goof-Off from DQ4, he's not meant to be anything other than a joke character.  He's closer to Cristo than Solo in STR which is just pathetic.

[Sierra]

You have like one mission left before Dante mode. What difficulty are you playing on, btw?

I forget what the game calls it, but it's the default one I.E., the one just above the Obviously Easy setting, so presumably this game's version of Normal. I am really bad at these games, but I'm also stubborn.

I play every game on Normal the first time through unless it's Gust or Touhou.

[SnowFire]

I forget what the game calls it, but it's the default one I.E., the one just above the Obviously Easy setting, so presumably this game's version of Normal. I am really bad at these games, but I'm also stubborn.

I play every game on Normal the first time through unless it's Gust or Touhou.

I'm the same way, but it's not quite so satisfying in DMC4.  You may have noticed anyway, but every time you die against a boss, it gets weaker on the replay.  Not 100% sure this applies to the first death, but it definitely happens by two deaths.  So if you're bad-but-stubborn, it'll basically force-downgrade you to EZ mode.  You can get around this by replaying the whole mission again, but meh.

I know it definitely happened to me for a few bosses was "Round 1: Get rekt."  "Round 2: I think I got this guy's pattern, but I still lost."  "Round 3/4: Okay now I definitely have his pattern but all his numbers are now horrible so it's a one-sided slaughter and I don't know if this would have been good enough for the boss non-nerfed."

[Dark Holy Elf]

I started with DMC1 so I played on whatever difficulty was recommended for such people (I think it's the highest available without an existing file?) and whatever it's still significantly easier than DMC1.

I'm okay with bosses getting easier upon your death (as in KIU for instance, which works because the game really rewards you for not dying as far as rewards go) though yeah it's really unsatisfying if the dropoff is dramatic.

[SnowFire]

Yeah, and that was a mild turnoff to me from trying to finish KIU at higher intensities, too!  For games like Ys Origin/Oath, you press the "replay" button and you're good to go, and have a save point right outside the boss room anyway.  Lets you practice on the boss easily with 10 deaths in a row before you figure it out well enough to win, and it's glorious.  If you want a "temporarily reduce difficulty, I give up and just want to get past this annoying fight" button, great, but pls don't press that button for me.

Then again, I guess there's classic NES games which totally do send you back to the start of the stage upon death, scrub, and I'm not against them.  But eh.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah, it's different design philosophies when it comes to bosses. Some games are fine with letting you practice the boss over and over again, some aren't, and I certainly think both types have their place. DMC1-3 all had finite lives for you to play with before you restart the level, anyway (at least on the difficulty I played; I know DMC3 had gold orb EZ mode)... I forget if DMC4 did or not. For a game I rather like it's a bit of a blur.

God Hand had a take I definitely enjoyed, where the game got higher as you did better and lower as you did worse, but it the game made it a big point of personal pride to try and keep your ranking high. Since dying means you're (obviously) doing worse, bosses would quickly fall to the lowest difficulty setting if you died... although on Normal Mode, said lowest setting was still enough for them to be competent, and the more difficult ones might well take quite a few tries even then, at least for most first-time players. So it kinda blended both styles.

[SnowFire]

Trails of Cold Steel
So...  you're sticking to your story that the Old Schoolhouse having multiple levels of doom is a recent development, Principal?  This isn't just hazing and you throw every class through here?  Huh.  That said, if you're serious and the Old Schoolhouse is vaguely related to Emperor Dreichels, why would he ask the schoolhouse be preserved?  And why would it be opening up sections that are slightly harder with a new boss to test our skills against?  I've thought long and hard about the issue, and the only way it makes a lick of sense would be that this really is a training ground designed to level up new badasses fast.  That way, Dreichels' reincarnation could quickly regain all his combat skills as a student before going on a bloody war of conquest and unification.  So, basically I am a side character in Gaius's training montage before he conquers the world.  It'll do.

Anyway, people play weird pranks on me.  Today I learned that giving a rose to a girl is considered romantic; who knew?  Not sure if her sister was actually trying to hook us up, or just has a weird sense of humor.  Practical exam wasn't so bad (although the extra credit was pretty RNG).  The EXTREME extra credit was pretty bad, though.  Our instructor whipped out her weapons dramatically, and this is apparently a surprise to everyone.  Not me, I had a prophetic dream where I saw this when I was level 50, but still...  really, class?  Are we doing straight book-learning or something? Why is her weapon choice surprising?  Don't you generally know if you're getting taught by a karate master, a kendo instructor, or a sniper?  Presumably there's some sort of training dojo offscreen and she's been demonstrating moves and crap over these last two months.  Then again, since we have 8 different styles, maybe she really is saying "eh screw it you all handle it yourselves, I'm a not even bother with training weapons."  (Also, I can only assume she keeps her weapons stashed in the same pocket dimension Laura uses for her sword, as her outfit sure doesn't look like there's a lot of places to comfortably hide a big gunblade.  Screw learning that trick, walking around with a sheathed sword is more stylish IMO.)

In any case, I was less than impressed with the master of the dojo flaunting that she can throwdown with her students, but whatever.  Surprisingly, rather than being integrated with new party members one at a time, Sara decides to straight-up swap me into the Fail Group, so guess I get to learn how all of these losers fight at once.  Checking, it seems Matthias & Jusis haven't bothered to upgrade their crappy Master Quartzes at all, which might explain their woes.

On to Baraheard next.  Jusis, I realize you don't want special treatment, but do you think you can get, say, a minor loan from your dad for "school supplies"?  I swear the money won't go into shotguns.  It'd probably be cheaper than the fancy hotel rooms you can get for free.

--

Random thought: The Celdic arc is actually kinda close to the first chapter of Trails in the Sky - criminals disrupt local economic practice, flee to nearby forest, Our Heroes investigate.  On the bright side, compared to the Sky version, CS seems more cognizant that this is Pretty Bad (the Capuas are "rivals" but are supposed to be sympathetic thieves or the like who don't kill people, except their plan involves setting off explosives underground and unleashing monsters.  Look the only reason you didn't have any deaths was sheer luck, and even ignoring that, disrupting people's livelihoods is not really going to make you friends here), and hell, there's even an excuse for how it was remotely possible to track down thieves in a forest (rather than a fortress or the like) - they were dragging goods via wagon, so you can't just go into trackless wilderness, but are stuck following obvious paths.

Schoolhouse 2 (well, Schoolhouse 3, but it's floor 2) boss was pretty rad.  Classic way to design a three-part boss encounter, where they get *pissed* once one of them is reduced to critical health or dies.  I see that CS is going to let me have a reserve slot, which is pretty handy; might make balance a little tricky, similar to how FFX bosses are brutalized by walking in with *7* Overdrives ready to go rather than merely 3, but S-Crafts are a bit fairer, so be it.  It worked out pretty well; I could use Laura in the first part of the fight while I could maintain a big Strength buff and use her to help blitz down the first boss hard, while keeping the frail Alisa R (Elliot had HP 1, she didn't) in reserve.  Once Laura was low on health and her one-dimensionalness too much of a liability, I could swap into Alisa for turtle mode.  Killed #2 with basically only Gaius left alive, then proceeded to win the fight.  It cost me ~4-5 revival balms, but I'll take it.  I also lucked out a bit in having status immunity items on the right people (Elliot immuning Confuse, fighters immuning Seal), but might make future bosses a bit swingy if you don't guess their status correct.  (Insert Trails SC Angel of Slaughter fight woes here, where you want to block both Instant Death and Petrify, and things get a lot dicier if you don't.  Luciola a bit similar although blocking Sleep should be really, really obvious in her case at least.).

[Sierra]

I forget what the game calls it, but it's the default one I.E., the one just above the Obviously Easy setting, so presumably this game's version of Normal. I am really bad at these games, but I'm also stubborn.

I play every game on Normal the first time through unless it's Gust or Touhou.

I'm the same way, but it's not quite so satisfying in DMC4.  You may have noticed anyway, but every time you die against a boss, it gets weaker on the replay.  Not 100% sure this applies to the first death, but it definitely happens by two deaths.  So if you're bad-but-stubborn, it'll basically force-downgrade you to EZ mode.  You can get around this by replaying the whole mission again, but meh.

I know it definitely happened to me for a few bosses was "Round 1: Get rekt."  "Round 2: I think I got this guy's pattern, but I still lost."  "Round 3/4: Okay now I definitely have his pattern but all his numbers are now horrible so it's a one-sided slaughter and I don't know if this would have been good enough for the boss non-nerfed."

Yeah, it was apparent. A couple of the scoring screens have included demerits for "boss handicap." I expect crap scores anyway, but I'm not a fan of the game condescending to make things easier without asking me.

[Fenrir]

SMT 4 Apocalypse: My save file got corrupted. I had a secondary save file, it doesn't work (I can't save) I tried deleting and redownloading the game, plus backing up the savefile and re-getting it. It didn't help.







DQ4:

Hey guys did you know about Dragon Quest 4's racist enemy?

Hoodoo Gooroo:



He also has a more red, harder version called Voodoo Gooroo
Yeaaaaaah I think they removed this enemy from Dragon Quest 5 onwards and that's for the best.


Anyway, Psaro? More like NECROsaro.
I beat him on the fourth try, though two times I died for Dragon Quest Reasons like Zing failing 10 turns in a row. Levels were 32-25.

He's different from the other bosses in that he's not very threatening (thanks to the Sage's stone) but the battle is very very long and any mistake is big trouble.

Finding the right person for the Sagestone was the biggest issue:
Brey can't use it because he has a lot of shit to do with Oomph, Sap, Accelerate
Meena can't use it because, after a dispel wave, it is vital to use both Sagestone and Insulatle.
Maya can't use it because she does so much damage, without any buffs / debuffs
Torneko can't use it because he might spend turns dancing at a critical moment instead. The prick.
I went with Maya first, but ran out of steam against the final form; Then I went with Brey and gave the Midheal staff to Meena.

I ended up going with Brey.
Against the first forms Meena and Maya bring enough healing that he could spend some turns not Sage Stoning and going for Oomph instead. Against the last forms, Oomph doesn't matter that much, Maya can do all the damage instead.

I'll do the postgame with that same awesome team, before moving on to 5. I'm considering doing a monster only party?



Oh yeah I also tried a Romancing SaGa 2 solo challenge.
It was a spectacular failure, let us not talk about it ever again.

[SnowFire]

AM2R
Been playing through this on desktop when not Cold Steeling it up.  It's pretty good.  Difficulty curve is a little wacky.  Starts off at "games for your parents" level of difficulty (okay, sure, I died on the first Alpha Metroid, but that was thanks to my controller repeatedly disconnecting and the game not auto-pausing on this), then the first Gamma Metroid utterly wrecked me, killing me once, forcing me to run away a 2nd time after being reduced to like 10 health, then finally defeating it with 4 health left and tiptoeing VERY CAREFULLY around the damage tiles on the way back to the savepoint.  (Have I mentioned that I am Bad At Metroid Combat before?)  The boss guarding the space jump was pretty badass too, and the boss guarding the Varia Suit killed me a few times before I figured out how I was supposed to damage him.  And oh man the Varia Suit has made things way more sane (I certainly didn't have it for the first Gamma Metroid).  The next wave of Metroid breeding grounds, in the area around the super missiles, was much easier, despite the spoopy mood lighting.

Kinda cool how "early" you get the Space Jump in this game, it's nice to vary up the traditional Metroid gathering order some.  Anyway.   Just did Research Team ship, now onto the Mining Facility, where there's a puzzle / blockage annoyingly far from the save point with the stuck driller.

[MasterLemon]

Mega Man X: I decided to play this game because I heard that many consider it an all-time great. I'm currently playing it little due to the fact that I barely have room for it on my backlog. I've just cleared the Flame Mammoth level and, yeah, the Storm Tornado is pretty damn awesome. I'd go as far as to say that it's the game's Metal Blade.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yeah that's not really an exaggeration.

Do try out some of the other weapons too, several others are quite good and there's at least one other I consider another real gem. One of the reasons I definitely consider the best of the SNES MMX games, at least, is how much more fun and effective its weapons are than those of the other games. (Having said that, MMX4 and MMX8 are great too.)

[VySaika]

Storm Tornado is op as fuck, but I've cheerfully gone through multiple stages just murdering shit with the flamethrower or the boomerang as well. MMX has really good weapon variety.

[The Duck]

Fenrir do a slimes only challenge in DQ6 (no don't dq6 sucks)

[Fenrir]

It's too late I already bought it


A very good idea. I don't kno whether I should do this or DQ5 next

[Grefter]

I can't speak for DQ5, but I came out of DQ6 kinda regretting my time with it, wishing it was more like DQ4 or DQ8.  If I really wanted job system DQ there is just so much better one in 9.

[Lord Ephraim]

DQ6 is like DQ7 on a much smaller scale, which says a lot about how bad DQ7 is.  Even the 3DS remake didn't really address most of the issues.

On the otherhand DQ8 3DS is a nice quality of life improvement for handheld play.  You think the game is easier but all the post-Dhoulmagus bosses are stronger.  Empyrea, thanks for having Kafuddle hit 100% of the time on my party.  I actually wiped on Rhapthorne level 39 thanks to his stronger offense and defense.

[Sierra]

DMC4: Popeman seemed refreshingly easy until he hit phase two and then I could barely even hit him anymore. Several deaths and one victory later, I YouTube the fight to check on whatever it was that I was obviously missing. Oh, you're supposed to uppercut the giant statue when it tries to punch you. That had not occurred to me, although I guess the most ridiculous plan being the most viable one really should've struck me first, in this game.

Onward to Dante mode now. One of Dante's costumes is smug monocle aristocrat outfit. Worth the price of entry, wearing this for the rest of the game. I immediately feel a lot more comfortable mechanically with Dante than with Nero, though I do miss the claw.

Also took time to replay a couple things recently in preparation for The Last Guardian (which I have--Christmas present--but haven't touched yet):

Ico: Was definitely worth experiencing again. I'm struck now by something I was probably less conscious of as being a key draw when I originally played this: interconnected environments that span an entire game. I find it difficult to define exactly what makes this work so well for me, but it absolutely does (hi there Symphony of the Night and Dark Souls, and this is probably even more obvious to people who've beta-tested Cidgame). Comprehension of spatial relationships is like left-brainsex or something. There's a lot to be said for making your setting one of the main characters, because then exploring from the highest peak to the neglected cellars is like engaging in a dialogue with the game. I love stepping into these forgotten corners of a world. Who built this castle? It's on a scale that probably surpasses any brick-and-mortar construction in the real world, but most of it doesn't seem to serve any practical purpose for its lone living inhabitant. All this space, all these empty rooms, and what does Queenie do with it? Apparently just sit around turning kids into wraiths and clones for body-swapping. Pathetic.

This game is so amazingly good at provoking vertigo though. The elevator shaft, fuck.

Shadow of the Colossus: It's great, everybody knows this, etc. But man, those controls. I remembered them being a bit clunky, but guys, next time I complain about Camera Souls, somebody just tell me to shut up. Doesn't matter though, SotC is an amazing experience anyway.

I was planning on climbing up to the Secret Garden again, but after checking a video to confirm exactly how much stamina that requires, I think I'm gonna pass for now. You're not getting that much grip gauge without multiple replays or chasing down all the lizards--and you're not finding all the lizards without the lizard radar and you're not getting the lizard radar without clearing time trials and etc. I actually did all that stuff when the game was new (even hard mode trials, I think), not inclined to invest the time again right now.

But the real selling point of replaying both of these games is just the suggestiveness of the scenery. Team Ico apply a really unique Bronze Age aesthetic to their games that just doesn't overlap with anything else that I can think of, and the clothes have a strong Ainu vibe going on. I'm sick to death of medieval settings, so this was refreshing to see again. Everything visually conveys a sense of great antiquity and neglect without anyone telling you much of anything about where you are. This time, I played both games on the PS3 edition; they still look great, but the HD transfer is only a small component of that effect. PS2 scenery textures generally didn't look amazing, right? They can often come across as pretty barren of detail by contemporary standards. The fact that Ico and SotC don't suffer from this despite age can be credited to good set design. SotC's forbidden zone conveys more the natural desolation of a Scottish moor than of Friday afternoon copypasta work. This place feels abandoned because it's supposed to feel like the edge of the world.

Great stuff, fun presentation of its otherworldly presences too--I love the visual effect around the Queen, I love that Dormin refers to itself as We and simultaneously speaks in both male and female voices, etc.

Dunno when I'll get to The Last Guardian--want to finish DMC4 first, and next weekend the Souls fan community is apparently trying to organize global co-op replays of DS2 which you know I'll have to participate in, so probably not for some weeks. I've heard mixed things about TLG, but after these replays, I'm at least confident that Team Ico won't let me down in the realm of audiovisual design, and you guys know I'll overlook a helluva lot for that.

Random edit: point I forgot to fit in somewhere was just that Wander can take such an absurd amount of falling damage that it makes you wonder why they bothered with any outside of the straight up dead drops.

[Grefter]

but guys, next time I complain about Camera Souls, somebody just tell me to shut up

Nope, because no matter how bad it is in there, Camera Souls is still fucking terrible and DS demands a lot more out of the player in terms of challenge and camera control.

[SnowFire]

Trails of Cold Steel

Bareahard was pretty interesting.  My attempt to stoke Machias - Jusis cooperation via competitiveness - look we gotta beat the other team - seems to have done okay at forging a truce.  Still, weird stuff afoot, yo.  What are the odds that the military base we visit has one of those annoying little kids with a flying device.  And Baron Bleublanc, while of course a fine gentleman, sure seemed to know a little too much.  To wildly guess: clearly our instructor, Sara, is a member of Ouroboros since she blatantly has an Ouroboros mech.  The little kid with her flying mech is one too.  They're both trying to undermine the noble faction, Sara by luring them into overreacting to Machias, the mysterious kid by just raiding their shit.  Bleublanc is actually a brave bracer in disguise trying to keep the peace.  We'll see how my intuition stacks up.

Midterms were fun.  Not really sure how I did it, but I had strange memories of cram sessions with everyone, despite only having enough time for 3 of them?  Almost like I was having the cram session, then moving back in time to have a different study session with someone else, while maintaining the memories of the first session.  Anyway, this served me well on the test, although I miiiiight have looked up the answers from Emma's cheat sheet as a final sanity check.  I think I did pretty well, as a result.

The "practical" Midterm went pear-shaped, no thanks to Instructor Valestein.  But hey, our rivals in this friendly bout sucked enough that they had real trouble breaking Eliot / Machias sustain, so it was pretty easy anyway.  I tried to make up with Kenneth, but he was not having it.  Oddly enough, he didn't seize on what could be a perfect excuse for him losing: the fact that we were armed with prototype super ARCUS orbments.  He's heard of how this kinda thing is a huge edge in battle, right?  Go pull some strings and get some of your own, bro, and we can have a fair fight where we EACH have the unstoppable power of love and friendship. 

I also had a bizarre Student Council request this time.  Our resident Casanova was receiving mysterious letters pledging undying love to him, and he wanted me to investigate?  An odd bird.  Anyway, turned out the one ugly person the administration allowed on campus was the one sending the letters, causing him to nervously run off!  Hilarious.  Silly secret admirer, thinking that ugly people count as, well, people.  Speaking of odd requests, there's apparently some super-fan of the radio program Abend Time on campus, as well.  I'm a fan too, but whenever I'm paying attention, it's boring.  I guess it must be good off-screen when I'm not really paying close attention...  whatever that means.  Weird.

Anyway, time for some horseback practice.  The Riding Club is going to be sooooo jealous of this.

--

Really liking ToCS so far.  Chapter 2 was extremely good, interesting stuff happening, and the narrative electing to err on the side of making everyone awesome rather than lame.  Mentioned this before, but Rean is definitely falling closer to the "Commander Shepard" side of main characters rather than the "SMT silent hero" side - sure, he's awesome, and people like Rean, but that's because the writers are being careful to include scenes of Rean being perceptive, noticing things, saying the right thing, etc.  In other words, he isn't a silent-yet-adored protagonist, nor is he a huge-jerk-yet-adored-anyway protagonist.  Cool.

While this plan is of course miles better than yon average RPG villain plan, I hope that Duke Albarea had something else in mind with C2's villain plan.  Kidnapping someone, fine.  Arresting someone publicly seems problematic, since now it's open knowledge that you have them, and you're inviting both the law and the military to take an interest in it.  When the Black Clad soldiers showed up to take Prof. Russel in Trails FC, they didn't say "hi we're with the intelligence division, come with us" in the town square.  They just kidnapped him quietly.  Also, he had to have known that this would get both his sons in trouble.  Remains to be seen if he's just an idiot, or was up to something else.  At least, as usual, these types of things are fine as long as Our Heroes point out "hey this plan is stupid what is he thinking" too.

I really like that they didn't try and hang into Jusis vs. Machias tension forever, but instead used this as an excuse to move on to a new and different inter-party tension du jour.

On the downside...  I'm pretty skeptical of our new additions to the cast.  Millium looks like she's gonna be annoying.  Sharon is terrible and the narrative is treating her terribly...  considering that only the noble dorm had maids & butlers & such before, I thought that was a nice wedge, and one that would realistically be horrible for morale in a West Point type situation where you want everyone feeling like they're treated the same.  Now Class VII gets in on this, and it's portrayed positively?  Boo hiss.  Elise & Alfin, ugh, not good first impressions, although I guess I was warned of this before.

Also.  The music in this game is great, not that this is a huge surprise, Falcom etc.  All of the battle themes are fantastic, and work pretty well with the 'pace' of the battle - I think you write slightly different for turn-based vs. real-time, and they're great at amping up the tension and making things awesome.  I was pleasantly surprised with, of all things, the rainy day at the Academy before Midterms music too.  Way better than the usual Academy music.  It's such a small thing to let the player visit a place they've seen a lot already, except with rain and Our Hero running around with an umbrella, with rainy music in the background, but it's effective.  Neat.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1tI_idiwnQ&index=10&list=PLzFTGYa_evXg9ZudTxcGNs2m5X4O9nj66  -- The Glint of Cold Steel, regular battle theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnpg9Zc3_iE&index=20&list=PLzFTGYa_evXg9ZudTxcGNs2m5X4O9nj66 -- Boss theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1bNrqTXacU&index=45&list=PLzFTGYa_evXg9ZudTxcGNs2m5X4O9nj66  -- Big boss theme
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rV_zh3Q7N14&index=30&list=PLzFTGYa_evXg9ZudTxcGNs2m5X4O9nj66 -- Rainy day

I may have to ban myself from using Impede & Arc Slash.  The fact that Rean can basically lock someone down in a duel with that move says all that should be needed about its effectiveness in a teamfight situation, where everyone else can pile on the delayed enemies.  I really hope that they start handing out Delay immunity like candy to the enemies...  or resistance...  or something.