What Games are You Playing 2018?

[Dhyerwolf]

For me, the hardest battles in Grandia 2 were Eye of Valmar, Valmer's Claw, and Melfice (tacking him at Lv 30 is scary.)

The only way I can really have fun with Grandia 2 anymore is when I purposely hamstring myself. Fighting him at level 25 with very limited coins makes the most difficult fights obvious (and the easiest fights also very obvious). Eye = Core >>> Melfice by far.

I think the re-release had a hard mode, which might also help.

[Sierra]

Didn't G2 hard mode just up enemy HP or something?

Aura is totes doable after you unlock the Tiny Bronco, but I am pretty sure they meant for you to do it after the Temple of Ancients.  A couple of levels go a long way and you have some of the 0 slot weapons.  It is also easy to hit trying to find the shallow water while circumnavigating the world.

Also you didn’t notice Cid was that bad?  There is a reason I never liked him and never really use him.

Point A: it turns out this boss does not immune Stop. Aeris solves all problems (though not for much longer).

Point B: interpersonal relationships, a thing which college Cid did not recognize existed, abusive or otherwise.

Also, something that popped up in chat after I went to bed last night:

<Tide|SuperisKnoll> Altneratively
<Tide|SuperisKnoll> you can have so much materia that Yuffie can't steal all of it

I'm curious now, how does that work?

FFVII: Had a couple gameovers walking from Wutai back to the Tiny Bronco, which is kind of hilarious considering the timing. Mobs of four birds that like to spam MT spells for close to 400 damage. No one in the party has 1,600 HP yet. This must have been shittastic RNG, because I don't remember that being an issue on the way up. (PS4 edition of FFVII has a trophy for dying, by the way.)

Anyway, Temple of the Ancients. This is a lot of dungeon by FFVII standards. I die once to the boss at the end because Demon's Rush is OHKO damage to people in the front row. Okay, I get it, keep everyone in the back row at all times! *Cid promptly puts everyone in the front row when rearranging the party after the dungeon* The mechanical logic of this is a bit lost on me when there's no front row to be protecting the "back row" anyway.

Cait Sith cheerily marching off to sacrifice himself might be more touching if I didn't know he'd immediately respawn afterward (and if he didn't rejoin at the most awkward time and in the most awkward manner possible). Also, kind of wish I had brought Tifa with me to see her reaction to Cait Sith announcing Cloud x Aeris OTP, but I'd brought Yuffie instead. (I do actually like Tifa, but it seems like even the writers meant for her themesong to be Born to Runner-Up.) It says a lot about the closeness of the core party that Tifa and Barret still want to trust Cloud even after he had a crazy fit and gave Sephiroth the Black Materia. It's hard not to conclude that Aeris marched off on her own at least in part because she realized there was no way of knowing what Cloud may or may not do at the next high-stakes encounter. Her final words don't scan this way at all--she addresses him directly in terms of "Please take some time off to figure yourself out before you have a complete breakdown, for your own sake"--but you can tell she knows she's dealing with someone dangerously unstable, even if it is a dangerously unstable person that she actually cares about. Also seems pretty clear Aeris martyring herself was never the plan--she talks too much about things she intends to do later in life, and not in any wistful sense but in genuine expectation that she'll have time. In a less close-knit party, I could see what happens to her becoming grounds for recrimination later, but FFVII's PCs just want to help each other--they just don't always know how.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Yuffie will only steal the 48(?) most valuable materia in your inventory. It's possible to mass buy cheap materia to break past this limit and keep some Fire/Ice/Bolt/Restore. Doing the sidequest late in the game also makes this more likely, but then of course you won't have any trouble with Rapps regardless.

Thunderbirds use Lightning 25% of the time so yeah you got haxed pretty hard. It is an unusually good enemy attack for FF7.

[Dhyerwolf]

Didn't G2 hard mode just up enemy HP or something?

I've heard it was more comprehensive in terms of boosts (still not necessarily great, but anything to add an iota of extra challenge is good in a game like G2).

[DragonKnight Zero]

Yuffie steals exactly 48 Materia.  This total doesn't include any she has equipped which is why I remove all of her's when I'm triggering the sidequest.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Cosmic Star Heroine -

Beat this (a couple weeks ago). It was a good time. Zeboyd's previous RPGs had some clunkiness in their dungeon design which is excised here; both the dungeons and battle aesthetics are very Chrono Trigger, which is a big improvement. Looking at the credits it's still the same guy doing the graphics work, so he's just getting better I guess? Cool anyway.

There's a lot to like about this game. It's fast-paced (just like the games it is paying homage to), the gameplay is interesting. The serious writing isn't much as usual but it has some decent funny moments mixed in at least. It looks and sounds nice, and manages to capture a distinct feel in its space opera meets cheesy spy movies setting.

The gameplay design is interesting to be sure. The Zeboyd tradition of enemies getting stronger and punishing you for stalling remains, but skillsets play very differently - they're now primarily based around setting up for and making use of predictable turns where each PC gets a damage bonus. Most skills can only be used once (the defend command recharges them) so thoughtful use of skills is rewarded and mindlessly spamming things is not.

My biggest complaint about the battle system is that what enemies do rarely matters. The game wnats to make it possible (and often even desirable) to win without ever healing, which means a well-crafted offensive blitz is always good enough, and in turn enemies aren't really able to do much to stop that. This is extra true because characters can survive for one turn at negative HP, so you even get a "warning" turn before that character actually dies for a real. I couldn't actually tell you what many enemies in this game actually do. It's still an interesting system, but it's a one-sided one.

I played on Heroine Mode which is the second highest, which has generally been an enjoyable way to play Zeboyd games for me. It's definitely easier than other Zeboyd games on this difficulty, or maybe I "got" the system well, I dunno. But difficulty can be adjusted on the fly and there's a higher one; I just figured I'd save that for replays myself. Of course it says something that I'm quite sure I will replay this game.

Usual Zeboyd good design like allies healing to full after fights and everyone levelling equally remain. MP's also gone and I don't miss it. Fights are individually crafted now which is great.

I rotated PCs some but ultimately settled on a party of Psybe, Orson, and Chanh. Different characters went through different phases of usefulness (e.g. Alyssa felt incredibly OP midgame with water boosting, but the weapon which does that falls off). In general my master strategy of crushing everything was using Sara's Gunmancy+50 and Chanh's Unleash->Focus->Orbital Assault with a bunch of buffs piled on, including Psybe's Hyper Awareness and Orson's Astralize to take advantage of her "+50% damage vs ghosts" trait; her hyper turn generally did around 50000. Kaboom.

I died twice, once to the mechdragon in the final dungeon (and only because it OHKOed the "right" person on turn 1) and once to Arete. In both cases I fell about 1% of their max HP short of winning. Mrgrgr.

Definitely recommended. Might need a replay to sort out my feelings but 7.5/10 works tentatively; I do want to see if the hardest difficulty makes me care about the enemy design.

[Grefter]

I need to make sure I label discussions like that so when they are quoted future me doesn't think I am absolutely slamming the shit out of people I like while skimming to find the last post I had read.  This is what I saw.

...
Also you didn’t notice Cid was that bad?  There is a reason I never liked him and never really use him.

Point A: it turns out this boss does not immune Stop. Aeris solves all problems (though not for much longer).

Point B: interpersonal relationships, a thing which college Cid did not recognize existed, abusive or otherwise.

[Sierra]

It's okay, I know the difference between a Cid and a Cid and when a Cid and a Cid isn't the same.

[SnowFire]

Celeste
Beat stages 1-3 B-Sides, beat the Core, got Heart of the Mountain.

It's a damn fine game, and I'm sure that people better than me at these didn't have the issue, but one minor complaint I have that both 3-B and Core had, notable when doing them twice in a row, was the combination of having moving obstacles as well as extremely tight timings.  IOW, say there's some sort of procession of a spikes equivalent that just goes back and forth.  If you're in a safe spot, you can just time when to jump through it.  Maybe you get it wrong a few times, but it's clearly your fault or a learning experience.  Over in the other corner, suppose there's some intricate jump where you're bouncing across three scenes with no respite and attempting to slow down will just mean losing too much momentum and plummeting to your doom.  Okay, that's exciting and fine too.  However, combine them, and you get potential frustration.  There would be times where I damn well knew I was jumping to my death but had no choice because slowing down would be death too, so I guess I'm just jumping and hoping the obstacle isn't in the way and timings all line up for me?  I'm sure speedrunners have things like the *initial* time of departure really down pat to mitigate this, but it's a bit frustrating for me because I don't feel like I have a lot of agency in those deaths.  (On the other hand, these are basically challenge stages, so it's my own damn fault for attempting 'em.)

But, to be clear, it's more that it's easier to talk about nitpicks than it is to talk about good stuff.  This was pretty amazing, highly recommended.

Also, patch just came out recently for PC, hopefully PS4 gets it soon!  Also the speedrun.com leaderboard for this game seems to have a new world record every day.  Intense stuff.

[Fenrir]

I am midway through Mirror Temple B side in Celeste. 175 strawberries and all blue hearts except for Reflection’s, which is some impossible puzzle shit.

Celeste is indeed very good, I like how momentum plays a much smaller role compared to games like Super Meat Boy. Jump windows are usually huge.
It’s pretty incredible how far I’ve gotten considering how I thought I had mastered the base gameplay by Chapter 3 A-side.

RANKING THE CHAPTERS
2 Old site
3 Celestial Resort
7 Summit
5 Mirror Temple. B side best music BTW
1 Forsaken City
-gap-
4 Golden Ridge
8 Core
6 Reflection

I am glad the b sides exist because the early chapters have the best visuals / gimmicks and they’d be wasted on low challenge areas

[NotMiki]

I figured out the stage 6 puzzle and my immediate reaction was "boy is this gonna make some folks salty."

If you care for one, here's a hint: it's related to the puzzle in stage 1.

Slight further spoiler warning: I actually couldn't figure out stage 1's puzzle til I solved stage 6's, which is cool how that can work but probably the exact opposite of what was intended.

[SnowFire]

I didn't even find the heart puzzle in Reflection!  'course, I didn't find any of them in the A-Sides, barring 3/6 of the Summit pieces.

I will be contrarian and say that Golden Ridge was my favorite stage.  Straining against the wind, yet pushing yourself forward anyway?  Was the stage to make me most feel like a badass taking on an inhospitable mountain, at least.

[NotMiki]

RANKING THE CHAPTERS
2 Old site
3 Celestial Resort
7 Summit
5 Mirror Temple. B side best music BTW
1 Forsaken City
-gap-
4 Golden Ridge
8 Core
6 Reflection

6>2>7>>>5>1>3>>8>4

4 didn't upset me or anything.  They're all good! But it didn't stand out much.  As for 6, the part that isn't a boss fight is cool-looking but mechanically pretty meh.  The part that IS a boss fight?  A++.

[Ranmilia]

RANKING THE CHAPTERS
2 Old site
3 Celestial Resort
7 Summit
5 Mirror Temple. B side best music BTW
1 Forsaken City
-gap-
4 Golden Ridge
8 Core
6 Reflection

6>2>7>>>5>1>3>>8>4

4 didn't upset me or anything.  They're all good! But it didn't stand out much.  As for 6, the part that isn't a boss fight is cool-looking but mechanically pretty meh.  The part that IS a boss fight?  A++.

2>6>7>5>3>4>1>8  but it's hard because they're all good.  8 kinda underwhelms me for what it is though.

[Fenrir]

The Golden Ridge would be strong thematically but who the hell is throwing those 100% accuracy snowballs? We never find out. 0/10

I’m surprised to see such love for Chapter 6 but I guess the boss fight was pretty cool. I didn’t like how the gar moved further and further away from single-screen rooms, and found the moving platforms and feathers to be the worst chapter exclusive gimmicks (I was especialy annoyed about how feathers impose joystick use over d-pad use) Fortunately Celeste’s level design is good enough that every level still feels allright

Chapter 2’s gimmick is so good but I think what sells it the most is the SFX. I want to dash through galaxy water all day just to hear that sound.

Notmiki I guessed that, but have no idea how to light all the torches. I think I’ll just check a guide honestly

[Grefter]

The Golden Ridge would be strong thematically but who the hell is throwing those 100% accuracy snowballs? We never find out. 0/10

Spoilers for those who don’t know who threw the snowballs

[Sierra]

FFVII: Timely reminder that this classic title includes a minigame wherein two women slap each other while standing on the barrel of a giant cannon.

The City of the Ancients is still altogether great. Coral reef architecture + that music, it's just a fantastic environment to have a confrontation. It's alien, dead, but eerily beautiful. You know something big is about to go down, and That Cutscene is still very effective at what it sets out to do. I feel that there's a decent chunk of filler in between FFVII's major plot moments--much of what's between the Kalm flashback and the Temple of the Ancients feels this way, as does Cid's tenure as party leader (short as it is, and justifiable as it is for Cloud to have time out). But the big moments all still land. Was flipping through Twitch streams during dinner a few days ago and happened to catch someone at the orphanage scene in FFVIII. Last night I hit the Cloud & Tifa lifestream scene in FFVII. The contrast here was extremely striking. Cloud's history is convoluted, but you can tell that it was very well thought out and planned in advance. All the pieces fit, what seem like inconsistencies earlier between Tifa and Cloud's stories are deliberate and there for dramatic tension if you can spot them, and when you finally have a complete explanation of what happened, it forms a compelling explanation for why Cloud's so dysfunctional. It's actually touching to watch them work together to get him back on his feet. It's also oddly easy to forget after the fact that it isn't actually Sephiroth you're chasing for the first third of the game, it's Jenova, but the game outright tells you this at the crater. FFVII is very smart about its mysteries. FFVIII's big backstory reveal by comparison plays like The Omega Glory of Final Fantasy cutscenes.

That Fort Condor minigame, gawd. I spent all the money I had at the time on soldiers and ran out of goons and had to fight the boss instead of winning the minigame. I think the boss got two-rounded in actual combat? Geez, I should've just saved my time and money and intentionally lost the minigame in the first place. I am probably also sticking to one standard party from here on out, too, because everyone seems behind on limits (Tifa and Yuffie only recently got the first L2, everyone else other than Cloud is stuck on L1s). I've not put Vincent in the party at all and likely won't except to trigger the Lucretia flashback scene.

The dread CARRY ARMOR is next.

[SnowFire]

4 & 7 just feel the most like "you are actually climbing a mountain" to me, complete with moutain-esque dangers like evil snowballs.
2 & 6 are awesome as well for Madeline's plot arc of course.  I think the boss fight in 6 might stretch a little too long?  Could be a few screens shorter.  Great stuff though of course.  2 has the best gimmick, sells the entire game.
All the other stages are fine.
8 is worst, but so it goes.  The Fire/Ice gimmick just isn't as fun as some of the others.  But whatevs, it's a bonus stage.

[NotMiki]

Def. agree about 2 selling the game.  After 1 you're starting to think maybe this will be a little pedestrian, or have challenge but not a lot else.  2 makes quick work of that.

[superaielman]

Europa Universalis 4- The French are such dicks to fight against; they have annoyingly high morale and are probably the strongest power in Europe. I  decided to play as them this time and.. .whoof. I used the Holy Roman Empire as my chewtoy, and it was great. I didn't bother colonizing, I focused on smashing the Empire and eating into Italy.

Orcs Must Die- Beat Great Gorge with no barricades, guardians, or autobalistas. Was less awful than expected, mostly due to the Knowledge Weaver being too damn good.

[DjinnAndTonic]

So this is a thing I said:

FF Dimensions 2:

So I've spent the majority of Chapter 6 on a whirlwind tour of refighting nearly every boss in the game and you'd think that would be awful. But FFD2, in another surprise move, manages to weave a bunch of character arc payoffs into this retread format. Once again demonstrating that it's a game that respects your time.

The main fights are still a little too weak for someone who has been completing all side content as it becomes available, but the side content in the form of submissions and Babil Tower fights continue to offer some challenge.

Honestly, while it's not groundbreaking storytelling or anything, it is a lot more competent than its cookie-cutter opening made me expect. And I think if Square had actually used this plot for a Chrono Trigger sequel, it would have been hailed as the Chrono sequel people had been waiting for. (presuming the gameplay was more CT-style with CT-level balance)

Almost done with the main campaign, but it seems there's a Seraphic Gate-style postgame chapter to play following the ending that I'm looking forward to for some higher challenge.

And upon immediately finishing that retread arc...

Another retread arc! No really, this time it's not just revisiting times and locations, it's literally just the characters watching their own memories with a sepia filter. 18 fucking times in a row... No change to the cutscenes at all... Just the characters spewing empty platitudes about how far they've come since then and OH MY GOD YOU JUST DID THIS LIKE 1000x BETTER WITHOUT BEATING THE PLAYER OVER THE HEAD WITH YOUR POINT LESS THAN 20 MINUTES AGO.

Soooo... yeah, Final Fantasy gotta screw up this otherwise good Chrono Trigger sequel plot with its Final Fantasy-ness.

I had to put the game down in the middle of this about a month ago, and coming back to it... it's still pretty bad. Maybe the final character's walk down memory lane will actually reveal something new? There better be some kind of payoff for this bullshit.

[Grefter]

I am still a bit before that (currently doing first set of time jumping I would peg it at).  I wonder how much of it is also the original mobile staggered release?  If they were running short on time and need to put out something, but it had been a while since an update or 12 months since the start of the game a refresher might seem more appropriate.

A shame if its the case because the start works pretty okay as a translation to a pay to play mobile game.

[Sierra]

FFVII: You are a poor scientist, Mr. Hojo.

At this point there's just Ultima Weapon (who I can't find) and triggering some stray flashbacks between me and the final dungeon. I may also grind out L3 limits for at least my main party (Cloud/Tifa/Yuffie) before calling it a day. Ruby and Emerald and KotR are right out. I've never bothered with any of that shit before and I'm not any more interested in the timesink now.

I wiped twice to Carry Armor and there was nothing I could do in either instance. Lapis Laser 2HKOs the entire party and he used it twice before anyone in the party could even get a turn. I fiddle around with equipment, is it water or ice maybe? I mean, it's blue. Turns out not, but it doesn't matter because he only opens with it once on the third attempt, then he gets clobbered with Haste + Slow. Maybe worth noting that I didn't bother to get Big Guard and somehow seem to have avoided ever even finding a Barrier materia. Possibly this is why PC durability is getting worse in lategame than I remember (I had one gameover to the Turks in Midgar that went largely along the same lines as Carry Armor KOs, lose init -> Tifa gets overkilled -> all downhill from there). Most everything in the Gelnika was a horrifying OHKO machine that I instantly ran from (the "boss" fight in that area is vastly less threatening than the randoms).

The submarine minigame ended in thirty seconds.

FFVII definitely has some dead periods, as is probably evident from the delay since last post. Why are we trying to get all the huge materia from Shinra, again? Let 'em fire the damn rocket if they want to. The worst that happens is that it doesn't work.

Does the Mideel weapon shop vendor just straight up disappear after the town gets nuked? Pri-tty lame, Milhouse.

[Cmdr_King]

One of the npcs, I think the one with the white chocobo, got all those shops instead.

[Hunter Sopko]

FFVII definitely has some dead periods, as is probably evident from the delay since last post. Why are we trying to get all the huge materia from Shinra, again? Let 'em fire the damn rocket if they want to. The worst that happens is that it doesn't work.

And when it doesn't work, we'll already be on our way over the only bridge out of town while everyone else is here twiddling their thumbs going doooo doodoo doo doo doo doodoodoo doodoo doo doooodoo doo doo doo doodoo doodoo doodoodoo.