What Games are You Playing 2018?

[Niu]

The fights clearly get scaled based on level and character count, as far as I can understand. I picked Cyrus as my main and his boss was pretty manageable. This said, the game doesn't hold your hand and isn't afraid to wipe your ass, so stay on your toes!

There is an internal difficulty counter that increases as you beat more chapters. The game then scale up with the counter value.
Later the chapter, bigger the increase.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment

So this is great, but the forums just ate my 3-page review of it, so fuck it. Just go play it. It's literally a brand new game and Yacht Club Games needs to market it better because I basically skipped it because Plague Knight's campaign was a little too same-y when compared to vanilla Shovel Knight.

Specter of Torment has a tragic story that resonated with me and was a good prequel to a simple game/narrative like Shovel Knight.

Specter Knight himself also has one of the best mobility designs, basically ripping off Shanoa from CV Order of Ecclesia. That alone is worth the time/money investment to play around with it. It only takes like a day to complete.

[SnowFire]

Octopath Traveller
Finished up all the Chapter 1s, thanks to delays & plane rides.  Thoughts:

* Encounter rate is a little alarmingly high, even if you'd generally want to fight it out some anyway just to catch your new L1 character up...  oh wait I see, this is the side-effect from doing Cyrus last, he's got the encounter reduction skill.   (Did Tressa and rotated clockwise, so Tressa->Olberic->Primrose->Alfin->Therion->Ha'anit->Ophilia->Cyrus.)

* On that note, I actually kinda like that this game doesn't have an easy catch-up leveling curve, oddly enough.  This is usually a mistake in games that let you usually pick your party because it encourages you to hard lock into the characters you're using and makes it hard to switch out, but knowing that every character is going to have to conquer 4 chapters means that you have a nice strong incentive to use everyone, darnit.  (Only problem is that it makes catching a Cait, the metal slime equivalent, and getting super XP with party members you like = whoops I guess I'm not using these guys for awhile?).

* Djinn / Niu, didst thee playen Octopath Traveller or オクトパストラベラー?  If ye playen the JP version, how dost the residents in H'aanit's village speaken?  I sup that it is Heian era Japanese out of yon Tale of Genji for an equivalent olden tongue, but I knoweth not.

* This is one of Those Games where for a lot of these dungeons - anything with human enemies, basically - you're just supposed to assume that random encounters don't really happen.  The flavor is definitely NOT Tressa shivving a bunch of defenseless sleeping pirates, or H'aanit talking about respecting the cycle of life of the forest after dropping like 30 wolves & boars for fun, or the Ravuses offering a job to the criminal gang that hast just laid out a trail of mangled corpses, both human and canine, all over the floor of the mansion.  No, Tressa was sneaking to take back to the treasure on her brave solo mission, Therion sneaked in via the window and didn't become a mass murderer, and H'aanit doesn't hate the forest she protects.

* I respect that the writers probably wanted to separate out Alfin & H'aanit some by giving them different first dungeon quests, buuut.  I'd just like to point out that unless Alfin is a homeopathic alchemist, you do not in general need a sample of a venom  to cure the venom, especially if you're already familiar with what type of venom it was.  There would still be a *perfectly valid* "monster hunter" excuse that this snake is super-dangerous and attacking kids, we need to take it out, but I guess they thought that was too close to H'aanit's thing?  Then make it so he needs the obligatory rare flower or something, I dunno.

* While we're nitpicking, Therion's plot setup is a little odd, at least if it gets played totally straight in its later chapters.  Is a humiliating tattoo THAT bad?  If Heathcote can also remove it, then can't other people potentially remove it too?  I can maybe buy a "please raid Fort Knox then give me the gold" quest if the threat is, say, death, or death of loved ones.  But telling a thief to go steal back some incredible treasures that are super-valueable, and oh by the way give them to us afterward...  I have a better idea, steal the treasures, move far away, sell them for a fortune, and retire to a place that doesn't care about your weird tattoo, only that you're fabulously rich.

* The difficulty caps out and stops scaling after a certain point, which I suppose is a "nice" thing they do so that people who are really bad can grind effectively, but also means the later chapter 1s fall off pretty hard.  All L11 suggested (=quests stop scaling after you're +10 levels over?), when the main Traveller should easily be L20+ by the time you do the last two or three and just eradicate everything.

* I respect that you need a few "straight" type PC characters who have perfectly normal happy lives so that the person with half-demon blood and an evil twin brother and a mystic amulet stands out as properly weird, but I'm a little worried that Alfin & Ophilia don't appear to have anything too potentially bad / dramatic in their lives?  Alfin is a wandering do-gooder with a supportive village & close friends, and Ophilia is apparently still on excellent terms with her loving and supportive sister & father despite a rather bold play.  We'll see.

[Niu]

H'aanit and her folks speak normal modern Japanese. So I am pretty surprised when I discovered she speaks in old English in the localized version.

As for Therion? It is more about pride.
Heathcote does not want just any thieves, but those who takes pride in their bandithood.
In such a case, even the theif may betray them, he'll not betrays his profession and ultimately get the job done.
The real flaw in his starting chapter is well... Therion is all about "I don't need any companion!" yet he let you help him out so easily...

But you are terribly wrong about the level grind.
It is just too easy thanks to the Dancer job, especially so if you make everyone into one.

[Veryslightlymad]

Lately I've beaten Dragon Quest 3 (SNES Remake) and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (FC)

I have a lot to say about DW3 but now is not the time.

Now is the time for Trails.

So, before I get into any nitty gritty, Trails in the Sky is a very good JRPG. I've been burnt out on JRPGs for years on end, and for some reason got into, of all things, Dragon Quest/warrior, but when I beat 3, I decided to finally play this game that a friend gave me for Christmas something like four years ago.
This is a charming game, and I would definitely rate it above average, but of all the things it throws at me, there's really only two stand-out parts that I enjoy. Thankfully they're pretty big parts. Those would be "Story and Characterization" and "Battle System".
Battle system takes quite a bit of dings from god-awful design decisions, but keep in mind I played on Hard, so YMMV.

Let's talk about stories and things this game does absolutely right.
1)Holy shit you're not saving the world.
I can't overemphasize this. You get a full game... a long game, at that, and the driving focus for the entire game is in no means "You're destined heroes to blah blah blah" that is a cheap cop-out of not just JRPGs but Fantasy settings in general. It's very, very refreshing to have your goal be something like "Stop a political coup" and also "Find your dad". This is good.
2)It makes people seem like people. ...and not just your party.
I adore how many random NPCs I actually remember in this game when they turn up, and not just "people who have faces". I love that everyone in the first town knows you and have new things to say every time you talk to them between story beats. More than just about any RPG I've ever played, Trails in the Sky feels like you're actually playing in a living world, and that people outside of the party might have lives of their own. At one point, toward the end of the game, Joshua points this out, and while it could feel kind of like the developers bragging, I think it actually read a lot more like them making a plea for making more games like theirs. Take a bow, Falcom. You did good here.

Let's talk characters.

Estelle:
Estelle supplants.... ........................................................Virginia? As my favorite female JRPG protagonist? And probably enters the list fairly high in general as far as protagonists go. Estelle is a fantastic character. I gotta admit, during the opening sequence in the game, where we briefly had child Estelle, I was terrified that she was going to be god-awful and I would hate every minute of this game, but it quickly gives you a much more competent, well-rounded character, who is just... fantastically believable. Very well balanced between brimming confidence and believable insecurities when they do come up. I like her "God damn it." face whenever it comes up. I like how the game has little details in the "descriptive" text, like her presenting her papers with a flourish (to which Joshua rolls his eyes) and so on.
In combat, Estelle is... ok. I mean, a lot of this game is how you construct your own characters and she has no orbment restrictions, so I suppose there's nothing saying you can't figure out how to turn her into a supreme shit-kicker. I just didn't. The big thing I got use of from her for the entire game was Hurricane. I gave her an on-hit-petrify effect, and just using her to multi-target several enemies and maybe take one out of the fight immediately pretty much never got old. Otherwise, she's got nothing really special combat-wise that I could tell. She wields a staff correctly.

Joshua:
Joshua is also a fantastic character. There's a lot of ways they could have gone with this guy, and there's quite a few pitfalls where they could have made him just bland and moody and mysterious or whatever, and the game deftly says "fuck that noise" and just makes him highly competent, and gives him a really dry sense of humor and an easy-going personality. God damn, the writing in this game is good. I like that it gives him honest-to-goodness chemistry with Estelle. These two feel like a unit, and since that's one of the main thrusts of the game, I'd say that's another roaring success on the writing team.
In combat, Joshua is either the best or second-best character in the game, depending on what you actually value. He's forced into Shadow orbments, but those are the best ones, so the game almost forces you to make him good. Beyond that, he's got two AT-Reduction skills, and those are the most valuable Crafts in the game, by far. His second S Craft also his the whole field, because why not. I gave him a mix of Shadow and Water, because fuck it, why not go full JRPG protagonist.

Scherazard:
I hate the way you spell your name. Schera is fine. It's weird thinking of her as a cougar when I'm pretty sure I'm 10 years older than she is. Fucking JRPGs, man. But yeah, naughty older woman/sexy teacher character. I don't have much to say about her character-wise. They could have made her deeply annoying, but didn't, so that's good!
She is, however, easily the worst character in the game. I'm not sure if there's anything she actually does that isn't done better by at least one other character. Poor Schera.

Olivier:
Another character that easily could have been made deeply annoying, but was saved at the last minute by competent writing staff. Olivier is actually very likable, and his antics are generally timed/executed in the right way to make him genuinely funny. He fits a trope I like of "Seems like an indolent moron but is actually basically James Bond." I think he also benefits by his voice acting. Giving him a legitimately smooth voice lends a certain level of "he's not a joke" that characters like this need.
Olivier is quite good in a fight. All of his Crafts are useful in different situations, it's nice that he starts with an S-craft that hits multiple targets. He was in my final party, albeit, was the clear LVP of my final party.

Agate:
I like Agate a bunch, too. It'd be easy to just make him an unlikable dick, but, pretty much every time Agate complains and your cast gets mad at him.... uh.... he's right. Letting the stick-in-the-mud actually be correct is another way of staying out of the pitfall of making this character unlikeable. So far this cast is 5 for 5 on characters that were very nearly bad, but turned out to be good. That's some slick work.
In combat, Agate is... I almost said "there", but that's hardly true, now, is it. You almost never get to use Agate. When you finally get to freely use him in the last chapter, you also have Zin who is literally better in every way. Agate's still not BAD, though, he's just... not Zin. I'm sure he'd be more useful than Schera.

Kloe:
Why does she have a magic bird? Why are magic birds a thing? I have little to say about Kloe in general. For someone with the party for so long, she seems like she'd have a more memorable character, but... eh. She's just a normal girl. Only not. I guess that's the point?
In combat, she ought to be really good. She's given all the healing and also her S Craft is a full party heal with a boost if you somehow let your CP get to 200 and who the hell actually does that? She also has like, pretty much the only debuff in a game that honestly feels like the entire battle system/encounters were based around the idea of having debuffs, and then the developers forgot to actually include any. So she's pretty much always useful. I didn't use her myself, mind, but that's because I (as it turns out mistakenly!) thought I needed some more firepower instead of healing for the last few bosses.

Tita:
........................well, we had to stop the run somewhere. Tita.... Tita is not a good character. I'm sorry. I know it's basically a JRPG thing to make little children characters, and it should stop, and for a game that in a lot of other places makes the characters feel really realistic, Tita just repeatedly undermines that. In a way, she makes Agate a better character by virtue of what I said earlier about "Every time Agate voices a complaint or objection, he's actually 100% right". Tita has no business adventuring, or in your party. I am irrationally furious that she has an Orbal Cannon as a weapon, when earlier in the same fucking game, it's a big deal that Don is able to use one as a personal weapon, and Don is bigger and stronger than everyone other than Zin. But you would have me believe that a twelve year old girl can do it? Fuck off.
This game would be better if she were an NPC like Dorothy or Nial.
In actual combat, though, she has a multi-target physical, so you can do something like stick Deathblow 1 on her and she'll make encounters quite a bit easier more-or-less by accident. She'd arguably be one of the better characters in the game if she didn't have the defense and HP of a 12 year old girl.

Zin:
The other side of the "Obfuscates stupidity" trope. I like it here, too. Zin seems like a big, easy going friendly huggable guy. I like that they pair him with Olivier, so we get to see both sides of this tradition at once. I also like that he originally decides "Fuck it, I'll fight solo in this tournament" and probably could have placed almost as well even if you didn't join him.
In combat, Zin is the other character who might well be the best character in the game. His stats are nonsense. Aside from HP (which matters a lot!) he's only a little better than everyone in everything else, it's just that he's... better than everyone. In everything else.

In short:
Characterization ranks:
Estelle > Joshua >> Olivier > Agate > Zin >> Schera > Kloe >>>>>>> Tita
Combat Ranks:
Zin >= Joshua > Kloe >> Olivier = Estelle >>> Agate > Tita >> Schera

Excellent game. Fuck its boss design. Fuck the final dungeon for taking me away from the parts of the game I liked for way too long. Fuck Tita.

[Lord Ephraim]

I finished Octopath this week.  If I have to say one thing about it, it's extremely disappointing.  It squanders great potential in order to play a by-the-books most basic RPG storyline and gameplay ever.  It suffers the same way the most recent Mario Odyssey does;  it's not really meant for experienced RPG fans but rather trying to hook in new players by showing off cool retro style graphics that gamers played 25 years ago....except it doesn't with a unbalanced learning curve.

Secluded storylines of each character does nothing for the whole game package.  It felt like I was playing 32 sidequests, building up to something bigger that never happens.  Each chapter plays out exactly the same way:  cutscene, use your path action, another cutscene, small 10 minute dungeon with side paths for treasure, boss fight, ending cutscene.  If not for the large amount of grinding the game requires,  it's about a 15 hour game.  Octopath Traveler should take about 60 hours to complete.  Sidequests (aside from postgame) are mostly there to tack on more hours since the payoff is just money (which is not an issue if you abuse Tressa and Therion).  Path actions are extremely unbalanced.  If you avoid using Therion, you're playing hardmode.  Once leveled up, he just steals so much free shit you never have to touch a shop ever. Tressa generates an insane amount of money for doing nothing but walk around, so go around steal/buy all the strong equipment then you're good to go.  In contrast,  there's not much reason to Challenge/Provoke aside from getting a dude from blocking a door to someone where you can steal/buy more shit.  I heard you can get endgame equipment as a 1% drop from some of the strongest NPCs, but it's already too much grinding as is.

The plot is the most safe and boring I have ever experienced since something like Dragon Quest Four.  You have three standard revenge plots, a "journey was the real treasure" garbage, a guy with trust issues,  an inexperienced chemist trying to prove himself, and Cyrus.  I'd admit, Cyrus had me intrigued because he's a giant nerd caught up in some serious shit just because he's trying to find a book.  I skipped probably 40% of the cutscenes just by how droll they were.  Just watch videogamedunkey's take on the game to summarize Olpiela's quest.  At least her final boss had some excellent voice acting and battle sprite.

I liked the gameplay and music, although if you're gonna advertise having a job system try having a few more intermediate jobs.  You get the 8 basic jobs and four super jobs, with nothing filling out the rather large midgame.  The extra jobs are clearly meant to be postgame.  The Sorcerer job alone makes everything except the final boss a complete joke.  Runemaster lets you pump out 50k-100k damage without having to use a single boost.  Nothing besides the super job bosses and post game has more than 150k HP.  There's also not much reason to try out funny comps since job points are universal so if you want to learn all cleric skills with Olberic without him ever using the class in a single battle, you can. 

A sequel that fleshes out the story and expands on the job system would make the game near perfect.  But as is, it's sad that it was suppose to be one of the Switch's biggest titles and hooks when the system was announced.

[Pyro]

Bravely Second: Completed.

I liked the gameplay but for a few reasons not as much as Bravely Default. I didn't enjoy the story and thought that the game would have been better served with an entirely new roster of characters. Overall I can't deny that it polished some edges off of Bravely Default but I still think it was an inferior experience. This ends up being a failure of the game because by reusing so much from the first game (characters, locales, themes, jobs, etc) it invites comparison with the first game at every turn.


The combat system is typical Brave/Default goodness. The inherient tactical nature of figuring out how to overcome enemies by balancing Default/Brave and mutli-actions is still there and in many respects (such as the ease of multiplying an action) improved. The limited "Oh crap" Bravely Second system makes a return as well. The problem I had was in how the game actually implemented it. Bosses in Bravely Second are mostly underwhelming compared to the prequel, and randoms are somehow even MORE balanced to be one-rounded by a brave-chain. Indeed the game's battle-chain system rewards you enormously for setting up your team to splatter randoms without ever seeing what they can do. This also exacerbates the game's difficulty curve because getting stronger means more easily going through battle chains which means yet more power. This no doubt inflates the difference between Hard and Normal, and makes me really wish I had played on Hard instead.
The game had a fun magic system (Spellcraft!) and loads and loads of abilities just like it's predecessor. They did cut some of the pointless fluff abilities but then added a bunch more. I think re-using the original jobs was a mistake in that they could have created an entirely new experience but ended up just kind of rehashing the job system from Bravely Default. An unfavorable comparison in the combat system with Bravely Default is that Default tended ot emphasize boss fights more than I thought Second did, and the Brave/Default combat system really shines in tough boss fights. Flip-side, the obelisk bosses in Second were so, so much better than Default. 


Storywise I didn't like them re-using assets without really adding depth to them. There are 4 new towns (Gathelieo, Al Khamis, Yunohana, and Sagiita) but these feel like they were added as an after-thought to the original story (because they were). The character work is acceptable, but re-using Tiz, Edea, and Agnes felt like a mistake because they didn't fee like natural continuations of their stories (because they weren't!). The Glanz empire was more open about what they were doing than Eternia in the first game (good!) but what they were doing was much stupider (bad!). There were also some problematic issues with characterization of the villains from the earlygame compared to the midgame. (and WTF is an empire without any actual terriotory?). Yew and Magnolia were enjoyable enough but neither felt very well explored. Also "Coup de Gravy!" and "Ba'al Buster" are so stupid they make me want to bang my head against a wall. Maybe a fine one-off joke but to run it into the ground is frustrating. Finally the game makes a play for an evil fairy just like the original but trying the exact same trick the second time just doesn't have the same impact.


Good sumnation for the game. "Trying the exact same trick a second time just doens't have the same impact." I'll go with that.

(oh and Chainspell/Echo, Magic Twinked Meteor Rains were completely and hilariously insane beyond all reason).
 

[Niu]

Ephraim, you forget about the biggest offense on this game's plot.
They dump a whole bunch of very important points in a wall of text just right before the real final boss.
I am like, WTF? Who let the writer did this and who thought this is a good idea?
Especially the piece about H'aanit ch.4; I cannot control my urge to banish the writer to the furtherest reach of hell the moment I read it.
And it is disgusting to see the protagonists has no reaction after we done the reading.
How can they tolerate this sloppy way of plot writing? Absolutely unforgivable.

[Luther Lansfeld]

In honor of our arrival in Melbourne, we picked up a copy of Gloomhaven and started playing it. We’ve done about 10 scenarios so far, and it is quite good. It’s basically DnD for people who are too lazy to DM.

Some notes:

Cool things:

-combat is scaled for 2, 3, or 4 players in an elegant way. Each map has a key for which enemies should show up on each number of players. Some enemies are ‘elite’ and some are not, and that also varies based on the number of players.

-level is very similar to other games, and the enemies scale based on your level. There is also a difficulty toggle based on how much bite you want in the encounters. We played the first scenario on Easy (Level -1 enemies), but after that we’ve played on Normal, which seems like a nice place where the player usually wins but is pretty hard. The difficulty of individual maps definitely varies, though. Although some of the variation might be due to…

-There are six starting classes in the game that the players can choose from, and each have strengths and weaknesses. Our team is very ranged and AoE based, so we like maps with obstacles and terrain to prevent the enemies from moving. You can open like ten more classes, but we haven’t opened any of them yet. I’m playing as a tank/jack of all trades, Elfboy is an AoE focused mage, and Grefter is the healer/status whore. The classes don’t really feel like they have direct analogs in DnD.

-Each card has two actions; a top action (often attacking but sometimes healing) and an bottom action (often moving but sometimes healing or looting). and you can control your initiative using the cards. It’s quite a clever little system and gives you some flexibility on when you go in the turn order without affecting how fast you go next turn.

-It’s less random than DnD because you hit 19/20 of the time, but sometimes hit for less or more than you ‘should’. There is one crit card, one miss card, one -2 damage card, five -1 hit cards, six +0 (normal damage) cards, five +1 damage cards, and one +2 damage card. And even if you miss, it still inflicts any stats on your attacks, which is awesome.

-the maps are based on the scenario you play, and there are cutouts of the monsters and the maps. The monsters’ art is quite nice, and the maps add some variety to the game. It is a hex-based system.

-each scenario takes 1.5-2.5 hours, which isn’t an excessive length of time.

Some complaints:

-the plot is pretty bare bones. it feels a little bit like an old-school DnD RPG from the 90’s, with everyone playing as silent mains and being talked at. There are city and road events that are supposed to build up the setting, but it doesn’t really do a lot for me.

-I feel like the plot also sometimes doesn’t connect the dots very well. Especially at first, it was very confusing! We got used to its strange structure eventually.

-it seems to have a few too many rules governing things like changing higher level cards outside battle and the number of enhancements you get. We’ve just ignored the rules on both of those things and it doesn’t seem to break the game at all!

-There are a few too many enemies with really high Shield stats, which kind of breaks the durability curve of monsters a bit and really overcentralizes the item that pierces Shield (Piercing Bow).

Still, it’s been a really fun game that has generated a lot of discussion and fun. I might pick it up back in Vancouver.

[Dark Holy Elf]

good post

Interesting that you thought BD did much better on boss fights. Bravely Default certainly had its share of underwhelming bosses too - very few asterisk bosses past chapter 2 are worth much of anything since they're faithful to the PC class and it turns out you can't make a solo boss locked to ST worthwhile in BD's system. Were BD's bosses overall better? Mm, probably - BD's toughest required bosses had some real teeth. But as someone who played both on Hard I don't recall feeling the challenge of boss fights was that different past a few standouts. Bravely Second had tougher randoms by a notable margin because some of them are faster so it's harder to assemble teams which paste them all before they get a turn. That ruins dungeon during the weird "we'll talk about SP as aan in-universe thing" arc stands out as tougher than any BD dungeon to me.

I agree with most of the other criticisms and do ultimately feel that BS is a worse game than BD despite some welcome polish improvements and rebalancing. (Also, as you noted, Spellcraft is great.) I think the new plot has potential at points for sure - I was interested in things like the Geneolgia family backstory, the plague. Janne is a much better character than I first assumed he would be (granted, I assumed he'd be shit). But it largely bungles this potential with terrible pacing (seriously, how is it we go like 15 hours before we learn about Denys?) and awful setting work, plus misusing the returning characters and none of the new ones being THAT great, y'know? (Although at least BS has the better protagonist.) Also far too much talking about food.

[Dhyerwolf]

In terms of required boss fights, I do think BD boss fights were a bit more varied in terms of ST damage (magic, physical, ITD). I seem to remember most BS plot bosses as just having physical damage (albeit quite strong physical damage). I played BD on hard and BS on normal though, so I can't really make a comparison there. I did personally like BS's battle system better and already hated BD's main cast to start (found them much more bearable in game 2), so it all kind of evened out to me.

[Pyro]

It isn't so much that Bravely Default had better bosses, they were just more of a focus. BD randoms were trash and the game didn't really try to hide that after a point. It replaced them with copious optional boss fights and mixed them up towards the end. The focus became more on fights against foes with boss level HP. Even teams of them. And the blitzing aspect was only for grinding randoms. By contrast BS focused endgame combat on battle chains moreso than bosses. Boss fights are where the battle system shines.

Bravely Second on Normal is a lot easier than default on Normal. I think in part because on Normal you can go through more chains and get more bonuses. So in addition to lower enemy stats you get more exp/jp. I suppose you could avoid battle chains but the game is geared towards them it feels like (and you are driven to want JP to getl the sweet reward of job ablilities)

Bravely Second wins hands down for obelisk fights. The Sins were so much better than the stupid dragons. So much better.

Bravely Second had some good randoms in Old Sagita ruins, yeah. Best dungeon by far because of it, even on Normal.

[Dhyerwolf]

BD also did have some really cool side fights like the Command Tower(?), for all that the mage fight there really was the epitome of depending on complete luck. I did like BS randoms more if only because you had to consider to to allocate BP over multiple fights (as such, I didn't mind randoms being worse).

Are you thinking of stat topicing BS Pyro?

[Pyro]

Glancing at it, for all that bosses have an issue with later bosses being exposed to easy-to-set gratuitous overkill.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I suppose most later bosses at least have earlier forms.


Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle - Beat this.

This was a lot of fun! It's a strategy RPG but in true Mario fashion puts its own spin on the genre (this time without timed hits!). I'm pretty confident it's the best of the Mario RPGs pretty easily. Like most strategy games it doesn't really have many of those RPG "explore a town" etc. elements so if you actually still play the genre for those then too bad I guess. It does have "walk around an environment and solve puzzles to either advance or access treasure" which from my point of view mostly serves to break up the gameplay a bit (not the worst thing I suppose, but not why I'm playing the game) but maybe this might be a selling point to some.

So let's talk about gameplay. Compared to most strategy games, two things about Rabbids jump out quickly.

1. Movement in this game is crazy. You can, as part of your move, dash through one enemy (or more, it depends on the enemy). You can, as part of your move, jump off one of your allies and end your move within X tiles (one PC can jump off two enemies). You can go through pipes which cost no move and give you a fixed amount of move (character- and build-dependent) when you end. Mario can end jumps by stomping off of enemies, of course, doing a bunch of movement and boosting further. And that's just some of it.

2. You only have three PCs. (I'm struggling to think of another SRPG that had a final party size below 5.) However, this is for a damn good reason, since it feels like any more would be overwhelming. Every PC can do three things in one turn: move (which, as per above, is extremely complex and can involve dealing damage in various ways, as well as enabling move of other PCs), attack, and use a special ability. Of these nine actions, you can do them in any order you wish. How you use these actions gives you loads of choice with how to approach things.

The game has some teeth and thus rewards sound tactical play. It also has 8 different PCs who each manage to feel unique (although Yoshi joins too late to really have much impact, and sadly Mario is forced which limits party composition options).

The game has pretty great enemy design too. The best of the bunch is almost certainly the Smasher, an enemy which, if attacked, charges 4 squares towards its attacker and, if in range, gets a free attack off. They hit like trucks, both in this way and on their own turn. Baiting and controlling them is great fun. No one other enemy design is this clever but they're a pretty good varied bunch anyway, with different attacks (some cover-subject, some not) and styles (some capable of dash damage, some who use reaction shots a la XCOM, some who are immune to attacks from the front, etc.). There are boss fights and they're usually pretty fun too.

The game grades you on speed and survival which provides some incentive for good play besides just winning. You get extra money for doing well which could create a bit of a snowball effect but extra money is mostly just good for keeping your entire squad upgraded so you could always compensate by neglecting a PC I suppose.


PC notes:

Mario - Is forced. Mario can stomp on enemies which is great because it extends his ability to do damage with his move action. He can both dash and stomp on two different enemies, but upgrading both is expensive so I focused on stomp. Otherwise he's pretty average at attacking and HP with low move. He has solid special abilities, though - full-party damage buff and overwatch are both good.

Rabbid Peach - Might kill you to take a selfie with you as you die. Also a really good PC. She can dash into lots of enemies (2-4) so she can pile up damage if she starts in range of a lot of them, is the party healer (which is pretty great even if it has a cooldown of a few turns), and perhaps most importantly has sentries, which both give her a good way to damage enemies far away and/or behind cover, and draw enemy fire - especially overwatch shots.

Rabbid Luigi - He is somewhat situational but freaking amazing when he's on his game. His dash deals the most damage and can target two enemies, so his ability to do damage with moving is phenomenal. His low weapon damage offsets that, though it comes with super-high odds of added status - petrify from some optional fights, but otherwise even push is surprisingly solid since it gets enemies out of cover and can trigger overwatch. Also, his dash inflicts Vampire status, which rules - not only does he drain enemy health with the attack, but any allies who target Vampire'd enemies ALSO drain, so it can be quite good healing if used properly.

Luigi - Sniper, which means he has huge range - often overkill though, since it doesn't ignore cover. He also has horrid HP. His overwatch starts out bad but becomes solid once upgraded. Otherwise, the two biggest things in his favour are that he's the second Sentry user, and that he has a full-party movement buff which is invaluable for some mission types where you need to reach an objective.

Rabbid Mario - Interesting certainly. Rabbid Mario hits hard and hits lots of enemies... but only if they're close to him. Everything about him plays into this - he uses a shotgun (short-range AoE), his dash can be used multiple times and hits a blast radius (not IFF, so watch out!), his special weapon is a hammer which lets him hit a nearby AoE even harder. He also has good move, thank goodness. His biggest weakness is a lack of good options when enemies are out of range. He does have a special which draws enemies towards him but its own range isn't quite good enough to compensate, though has applications anyway.

Peach - The party defender. She shares Rabbid Mario's penchant for doing huge damage with a shotgun, though isn't as good at dashing. Her big advantages over Rabbid Mario are her huge HP pool, the fact that she AoE heals every time she uses jump (i.e. every turn if you're playing her properly), and the fact that she actually has a long range option with grenades. Her big disadvantage is that she has 2 less move, a big deal on a character who is short-range focused. She has an overwatch but it's... weird (in a bad way), because of her bad range. Great at murdering Smashers though!

Rabbid Yoshi - Dashes into fifty million enemies which is funny but honestly nothing Rabbid Peach can't do too (though he does have +1 move on her). His damage is extremely random and his status rate is low, so I guess I'm saying he's not that great! I got a lot of milage out of his shield in certain fights though - all the rabbid PCs have a shield which they can use every 2-3 turns (Rabbid Mario's kinda sucks though) but Yoshi's is the best because instead of generically reducing damage it blocks ALL (or close to it) of 1-2 hits, which is great in boss fights!

Yoshi - Joins super-late and objectively not worth it because you have to buy weapons for him (you don't have to, but you do if you want added status on his weapons, and spoilers you do). He has the same kinda problematic weapon as Rabbid Yoshi and doesn't have the dash... though instead he has an AoE stomp kinda like Mario's (better I guess?). His special is to raise the party's status odds to 100% for one turn, which is neat for sure but I don't think it justifies the rest of the package.


Game was a good time. Writing's not worth playing the game for but it's a Mario RPG so it's got some goofy scenes if that's what you're in the mood for (mostly Bowser Jr. rather than Bowser this time, who has lines like "I've got things to do and daddy issues to repress!") plus rabbids being insane. But that gameplay, man. Great to see. Probably around an 8.5/10 to me, might be the best game of the last couple years for me.

[DjinnAndTonic]

Trails in the Sky SC:

Beat this. I'm honestly astonished that I've played another game in this year that has left such a great impression on me. After XBC2 surprised the hell out of me, and FE15 blew the rest of the series out of the water in terms of writing, and then Tales of Berseria inspired me to write a small novel of its praises, I didn't think the video game industry had anymore hits for me this year.

But Trails SC is a solid contender for a "Suikoden replacement". It's the kind of game that entwines lore and theme and worldbuilding in such a solid way that immediately after finishing one entry in the series, I immediately wanted to buy the next one. The characters are so well-written and avoid so many annoying tropes and pitfalls that so many other games stumble on... It just gets me invested.

The gameplay has more to it than I expected, but overall it just pales compared to the narrative aspects of the game (and doesn't have nearly the ludonarrative harmony that Berseria did to really prop it up). But honestly, competent if somewhat standard gameplay is more like a bonus on top of a great interactive narrative experience when it comes to Trails.

Music hype also goes here.

So yeah, a potential 8.5- or 9/10 for me. Excels at everything I really wanted from it and makes it that much harder for me to pick a "Best Game I played this Year" title. JRPG narratives are finally catching up to where Suikoden was years ago. Yay, progress~

[Dhyerwolf]

Cold Steel 2- Just need to beat the final boss in the Epilogue. Probably ended up an 8 just thanks to the fantastic penultimate dungeon. I do wish the world felt more cohesive technologically, because it feels like a complete distracting mish-mash (orbal revolution was 50 years ago? Seriously? Landlines are super rare, but all of a sudden they have pseudo cell phones (walkie-talkies? completely unsure as to the range, but I'm sure the writers are as well) and video chat? A single plane is a big deal in a world with weapons of mass destruction? Also, literally everything about Soldats, which are way, way, way too mobile to not feel out of place).

[DragonKnight Zero]

Zelda: Wind Waker - It's too soon for another dungeon

  Actually, this one ended up straightforward by Zelda dungeon standards.  I did get stumped in the very first room long enough to trigger the charm but was able to work out how to progress after that.  There was one chest I couldn't figure out how to reach and in the end, decided to skip it.  Even the boss is more direct about using the item from the dungeon to expose the vulnerable part and delivering stabby death.  I goof up afterwards is scooping up some Forest Water into my bottle and then saving.  Trying to get rid of it to make space for a potion, it was a shock to find I couldn't and I didn't want to wait it out.

  Do some backtracking before going on to the next objective.  I find my first Treasure Chart treasure.  200 Rupees, yay; my wallet it maxed out so it goes to waste.  I end up finding a total of 350 Rupees before it sinks in that I'd be better off waiting until I a bigger capacity before really putting effort into treasure hunting.  Add to the sea chart a bit on the path to more plot progression.  Reach a stuck point where I look through the manual on how to change directions when swinging on ropes.  Bombs as cannonballs is one of the most fun ideas I've seen from the series, limited exposure as it is.  Do more plot stuff, get third plot coupon without a dungeon which is a relief as I still haven't found 4 heart pieces yet.  Get two wallet upgrades in rather quick succession, travel time aside.  Try to fill out the sea chart some more while on the path to the next objective.  Link Ayesha gets catapaulted into a wall yet again.  I end up sailing around some more and getting a bomb upgrade before tacking the next dungeon.  Still haven't formed a new heart container yet so doing it with minimal life.  Game's been really forgiving so far though.

[Tide]

Fire Emblem Echoes: Done. Had to take two shots against the final battle even though I was on casual. I made a blitzkreig in the first attempt which didn't work. After mulling it over a little, I changed my line up a little. Mycen over Zeke, Silque over Est and Python over Palla.

Final battle war story/spoilers. Don't read if you are planning to play but haven't yet!

SPOILERS

So the final fight is interesting. Not just because the game lets you use a massive amount of characters, but also because it moves in 3 very distinct phases. Looking over the map, the final is tucked away in the back corner, surrounded by 2 conjurers (both summon Witches) and a really nasty Arcanist. They are flanked by 2 Bow Knights that will rush out to your position very early. Alm's army starts on the mid left, while Celica's army starts on the bottom right. Jedah is somewhere within the center and effective works as a roadblock to get to the final. Oh yeah, he also summons and has a couple of nasty passives to boot. On the plus side, he doesn't have the Dragon Shield so actually killing him isn't too terrible (unlike last time). By Alm's side are three competent physical enemies. 2 Dread Fighters with 23 Speed and a decent Gold Knight. 23 Speed I should note is really high. The number of people in the party that can effectively double this are limited down to just: Alm, Celica, person with Speed Ring, Saber and Catria. The latter two I had to feed Pegasus Cheese to in order to bump them up to 24/25. For the other enemies, 23 Speed is the magic number. It effectively doubles the eyeballs (which hover at 22 speed) and will stop the Dread Fighters from doubling. I had more units within this range (Gray, Jesse and Delthea if using Fire, Mathilda) but I couldn't group everyone there with Alm cause Celica's position gets run over by around turn 3.

As noted, this fight moves in 3 phases. In the first phase, the Bow knights + the physical units by Alm will charge forward. Some eyeballs will converge on Celica's position. This first rush lasts only about 2-3 turns, but getting rid of all of the first wave is paramount because the conjurers + final + Jedah will just keep spamming eyeball/witch reinforcements. So if you don't work quickly, you'll be swarmed. The second phase is to deal with Jedah since he sits comfortably in the center and any attempts to pass him are difficult due to terrain + sheer number of enemies. He also has 3 range and some new passives, which let him counter regardless of range. This is trouble because using a melee or mid-range character means they have to be upfront where all the other summoned enemies will start moving to. So for this, I purposely brought my 3 Bow Knights. Tobin was the best since he had the most HP and the support ring of Alm's childhood buddies, which reduces Jedah's crit to 0. So he was always a safe bet to poke with. Once you attack 3 times, one of Alm or Celica can deal a massive damaging attack and hopefully one shot with a crit. This isn't as hard as it sounds because surrounding Alm/Celica with the support rings brings their crit rate to something like 50-60. Once Jedah is dead, then its time to go to phase 3, which is killing the final boss.

The main issue with the final boss is getting to actually attack him. Since there are so many summoned units, it's hard to actually get into range and hit him for some damage. He also has a huge HP pool, decent defenses and good support. Taking him down quickly is harder than it sounds. A second problem is his Upheaval ability which lets him do MT damage every 3 rounds or so. This has appeared before at Dolth Keep, and it would be tougher to deal with here - but you have Tatiana, who, with Fortify, pretty much makes that a non-issue as long as you keep her safe. It does however mean, you have to be careful when moving in since Upheaval + 2-3 enemies ganging up one person means they are probably dead. Oh yeah, he also moves. I had a feeling that was the case due to some blue squares when selecting him, but having him move is a big wrench because so many units can't handle the damage he dishes out. These things make approaching him much tougher. I had maybe only 2-3 units who had enough speed+defense to take a hit (Alm, Celica, Mathilda, Saber and Catria). Everyone else would just die. And unfortunately the first time, he came in and crushed a couple of units that were too important so I restarted. 2nd time, I decided to take the opposite and just turtle. Although he moves, he won't until you actually get in range. So my strategy here was more Warp/Rescue BS. This was why I needed to bring in Silque. Since Tatania was locked into casting Fortify pretty much every turn, I needed a second person who could do this without taking her away from group healing. Building a wall with my high durability units (Mycen/Saber/Mathilda + a couple of others) and having them backed up by saints made it such that they had a ton of Endurance to eat some hits while Alm teleports away, gets a hit or two in, then gets called back to safety. Doing this for about 5-6 rounds, I bring the final down to within a killing stroke and just watched as the Falchion landed a crit and killed him.

END SPOILER

Ending thoughts:
Overall, this is a very different FE. It's different both from Neo-FE (FEs after RD) and GBA FEs. I'm not sure what to call it really, but it's worth a playthrough IMO as there are a lot of new ideas and its a breath of fresh air to the concept. Is it distinctly better than the others? Eh, I don't think so. I agree with NEB that the dungeon portions of the game are just a big no-no. They'd actually probably be the biggest reason why I wouldn't replay this. They just take away from the game and slow it down. On the other hand, I like the town roaming and quests. Those feel genuinely neat additions and I think add a bit more to the setting. You usually don't get to see towns all that much otherwise in FEs. As for the gameplay it's pretty solid: No ninja reinforcements! No weapon charges! Promotions are worth doing early and don't have to deal with GBA FE's convoluted item promos! Maps are mostly challenging (final + Dolth Fortress are tough) although there are a couple of snoozers in there (Last Bastion). So yeah, good stuff on the whole. I'd probably rank it above FE6 and maybe FE8. But I see it as worse than FE7/FE9, so it probably sits at like a low 7 for me.

Oh, one last thing: Plot is a garbage fire. Pretty much the entirety of the end of Act 4 + Act 5 is a mixture of bad writing, motivations and plot. Rudolf's plan is nonsense and feels like a Xantanos Roulette. The closest thing I saw was that it had shades of Lambda's crazy, but Lambda had clairvoyance and was proven right several times across the game. Even if they don't illustrate that well, the game is at least doing something to show that he can see far into the future and plan around it. Rudolf doesn't have this crazy super power and his plan is to...cause a war so people will be strong enough to over throw two crazy gods? Um...okay. And that one of those people will be his son? Um...okay. How you manage to come to this conclusion and having it work out exactly is beyond me. Berkut is also a dumpster fire of bad. Dude, the woman that you are engaged to has told you she doesn't care about rank and status. I don't know how else to get it in your head that she doesn't care, but his entire lust and need for superiority over Alm is just poorly written. Then the fact he SACRIFICES her and later she's totally okay with this is just *psyduck*. It's like the worst parts of Kresnik + MOMO put together. It says something when the best characters are the baby eating evil priest and the stupid farm boy destined for greatness. tldr - plot sucks.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Enjoyed the war story, Tide. It's a neat fight.

FE15 blew the rest of the series out of the water in terms of bad writing

Hey, I agree that it's shit, but blew the series out of the water? Pretty sure I consider the DS remakes to be worse still, although the flaws are different.


Final Fantasy 5

Four Job Fiesta time! Forbidden Mode sounds dumb so I'm skipping that, instead did No 750 to raise my chance of getting Beastmaster, the only job I've never gotten on Fiesta (spoilers, I didn't get it). I'm playing the Steam version, which is pretty faithful aside from having much nicer PC and enemy sprites, but has a bunch of small mechanical changes.

Steam version mechanics notes:

-By far the biggest change is that filling up your ATB gauge does not stop the game's clock. In FF5 SNES/PSX/GBA, the game's clock stops every time one of your PCs gets a turn (how long varies based on game speed). This allows you time to react and choose a menu command, and in turn makes FF5 turn order pretty much "as advertised" - it's the closest ATB game to FFX-style CTB because of it. In the mobile/Steam version, this doesn't happen, which means even if you move quickly, there's time lost, which the enemies can take advantage of. It can be quite difficult to beat the first enemy to the punch even with the fastest jobs (spoilers, I got the fastest jobs). The flipside of this is that there's an Auto Mode which automatically enters a PC's previous command and target, and takes no time at all, so if you're happy with the commands lined up, it's quite a time-saver mechanically.
-For the first time since SNES, there's no run unless you have Thief. Base movement speed seems higher than I remember from SNES, but I could be wrong. There's also 8-directional move which speeds things up some.
-The MT MHP/4 spells (Blaze, etc.) are now subject to status evade. (Maybe I should be happy I didn't get Beastmaster, since this nerfs them as they're the only PCs which can access them.)
-Confuse no longer resets ATB when applied, so it's MUCH more dangerous as sometimes a quick reaction isn't good enough to remove it.
-Physicals which apply sleep now no longer remove sleep, so sleep spellblade spam is a perfect lock.
-Sandworm is now in the front row if he's in the front hole, instead of always in the back. This helps physical jobs a bit here. Liquid Flame is now in the back row unless he's in hand form, which reduces his human form's physical but otherwise makes physical jobs unhappy. Metamorph is in the back row until he transforms, which makes him take even longer.
-Dragon Pod and Exdeath now have Auto-Regen as they're supposed to (it's not that potent). From memory, Tyrannosaur now counters magic with Zombie Breath (in original, he was probably supposed to counter magic, but actually only did against those of certain rarely-used elements). Exdeath no longer appears to counter physicsls with Dispel, or my luck is ludicrous.
-Vampire only heals half of missing HP, a nerf to the bosses who use it and Blue Mage. (It's probably still good.)
-Enemies now change colour if statused. Only an aesthetic change, but a mechanically helpful one if you're wondering if a status has worn off.

Anyway, play log:

Wind Crystal: Thief. Sad day.

Karlabos not much of a threat, still drains potions and that's it. I get lucky in the Ship Graveyard and enemies drop two Daggers. Siren's not a problem as I can toss Potions on her. North Mountain's easy enough.

Magissa (1 reset) is another matter. Thieves don't like this fight. She summons Forza and together they wreck me. One quick trip to the BMG later to remind myself she only summons him below 300 HP, and I do the fight again, slowly chipping her down to just above 300, wait until she takes a turn, then unleash Auto Mode and two rounds of thief physicals (they doubleturn her) takes her out before I see the summon. Hooray!

I grab the Elven Mantle taking advantage of Flee. In Walse Tower I can steal Mythril Knives. I only grab one but that's all I need with how the next fight works. I stuff three thieves in the back row and once Garula starts going counter-crazy I do my best to only attack with one thief and do a mix of defending and using items with everyone else. A rough experience with the new ATB mechanics and I'm pretty sure I waste a couple Phoenix Downs but I win first try.

Water Crystal: Mystic Knight. It's not berserker yesssss.

Suddenly I'm in need of money but s'okay. Fire Ship has a bunch of nice loot for thieves, as well as a common steal Hi-Potion from Poltergeists, which are sure to be very helpful as I fail it up against bosses I can't elementally shred. Liquid Flame I do a mix of Blizzara Spellblade to deal with the two ice-weak forms (sadly it only does around 200 now) and Moonring Blade tosses from a thief to deal with the hand form. I get OHKOed by Fira 3 times and need to bust out Hi-Potions/one Elixir to keep up with the offence but I win.

Karnak Escape is hairy because I have no good put-away option for Gigases and get ground down by Aero/Aera. I even need to retreat to the heal point a couple times. I miss a number of items (four Elixirs?) but I get the important ones, namely the Elven Mantle and Main Gaunche, and I avoid Iron Claw by being nice to 33.3% of dogs.


Fire Crystal: Ninja.

Luckilly for me I killed Liquid Flame in the form where he drops a Flame Scroll, though it turns out I don't need it. Onto the library! I'm low enough level to not fear L5 Death, and between Fira Spellblade and Ninja's high base offence I'm able to take out randoms without much trouble. Ifrit burns a Hi-Potion and Phoenix Down or two but otherwise he does his usual thing of being a worse version of the boss before him. Byblos gives me a scare as he uses Wind Slash early and casts Protect on the first chance, but he never uses Wind Slash again and as soon as he uses Drain once I toss a Fire Scroll and kill him. Ship randoms feature an alternation of enemies who drop Lightning Scrolls and formations who die horribly to Lightning Scrolls. Then I get a black chocobo and can go buy more scrolls, and I obviously do so because those rule.

Sandworm (2 resets) - Hardest boss of the playthrough?!? Probably not but he does cause the most trouble. With the new ATB (+ me being incompetent and impatient) I screw up and target holes a lot. I also for some reason misremember him as not countering scrolls; he does and very quickly I'm in Quicksand death range. Second time I try to play it super-conservative with items but get caught into too much healing and overwhelmed eventually. Third time I'm a bit more careful and counter his HP until I've done around 2000 damage (around when I'm about to be overwhelmed unless I spam Hi-Potion), toss two Water Scrolls and finish him off.

Desert is easy. Cray Claw is a joke, Thundara Spellblade. Adamantoise has bad luck landing hits through my Elven Mantles, shields, and Main Gauche and dies to Blizzara Spellblade.

In the Ronka approach, the game's new mechanics slap me around in a bad way. First, I die to Rocket Launchers as their Rocket Punch confuses people at bad times and holy crap ninjas do a lot of damage to each other. Then, Soul Cannon (1 reset) has the Launchers get a turn before me because I'm too slow to enter turns and two of my damage-dealers get hit by Old. I assume Thundara Spellblade will still let me win before the beam fires twice but am incorrect (could have won if I'd thrown more lightning scrolls, I'm cheap). Second try I manage the quickdraw, no old gets applied, and the fight is a joke.

Ronka Ruins themselves hate thrown scrolls. I set up to steal Hi-Potions from Ronkan Knights but otherwise not much to say. Archeoaevis I use scrolls against the first two, high-def forms, then switch to just physicals. I burn a couple Phoenix Downs on the last form as his confuse is, as noted above, now more dangerous, but still win first try.


Earth Crystal: Dragoon.

I go steal a Javelin! With Sleep Spellblade I can put a Sand Bear to sleep and auto a mix of defend and steal until the 1/32 rare steal chance (1/64 without the Thief Gloves) kicks in. Not too bad. Manticore's offence gives me quite a scare but I win first try, and steal his Dragon Fang.

Titan (1 reset) does in fact kill me as he OHKOs Ninja (and Thief who I don't use). Second try I use Dragoon to dodge the Earth Shakers. Purobulos hate Throw. I even screw up and attack one by mistake so they die at different times, but Silence Spellblade fixes that error.

I die to solo Abductor. Gilgamesh 1 is a joke. Gilgamesh 2, I use the Ancient Sword to land Old on. His Jump still hurts but stolen Hi-Potions do good work.

Gloceanea randoms give me some headaches at first as I misremember some elemental defences but then I settle in, Break Spellblade > Kuza Beasts and scrolls in general > Moogle River. Tyrannosaur dies to the second Phoenix Down. Abductor 2 is a joke.

I decide to try stealing Twin Lances. They're a rare steal guarded by a common in Bal basement, so I set up a macro of the thief stealing and everyone else tossing Gold Hairpins. This nets me a good amount of money and ABP, which is nice (hardly any Exp). What is not nice is the horrid 1/32 rare steal rate. This takes forever. I get one, but after 45 minutes and still only having one, I decide to call it quits. This is over 10% of my play time at this point. Don't have the patience for this shit. One Twin Lance is a nice push; I end up giving it to Ninja so that they can use spellblade with their second weapon.

In Drakenvale, the Zombie Dragon in the Save Golem encounter now appears to use Strong Fight which wrecks Golem bad, but oh well, not my problem this file. Dancing Dagger keeps backfiring on undead, but I never really pay for it. Dragon Pod hates thrown scrolls more than perhaps anything else in the game and that's saying something.

Against Gilgamesh 3 I toss scrolls to blitz Enkiduh and steal the Genji Gloves. Barrier Tower is uneventful scroll-bait. Atomos is vulnerable to sleep spellblade which is a more complete lockdown than it used to be. In Ghido's Cave, Metamorph is now in the back row so Air Knife spam can no longer blitz him before he transforms, but all this does is waste my time. Don't like this dungeon, why does it have no treasure. Moore Forest I run low on Fire Scrolls and Galajellies roll way to well on their 50% evade (they immune scrolls) but isn't much of a problem.

Seal Guardians are the first boss to really challenge me in a while; I set everyone up with Drain Spellblade and spam physicals at them, counting HP so I can reduce their time in limit phase by blitzing at the right moment. Each crystal gets off its spell only once. Firaga OHKOs the two squishier PCs but two Phoenix Downs take care of that.

Castle Exdeath I don't have two much trouble because scrolls are great. Hairiest parts are the lava lowering me to poor HP; encounters then are potentially deadly as I can get wrecked before I have time to select Flee (which I set for any such areas). No resets though. Gilgamesh 4 has a showing worthy of his DL hype as status wrecks me everywhere; I actually get kinda worried about losing in the middle but I'm able to recover. Due to my thief getting olded I only have time for 2 shots at the Genji Helmet, and the first one fails, but fortunately the second 80% roll goes my way.

I finish Exdeath Castle at Level 26 which feels really low considering I didn't run much. I kinda wonder if the encounter rate is different in this version? One level to low for Level 3 Flare, which is good because I end up seeing it...

Exdeath gives me a good scare. I set up for Drain Spellblade against (except on my thief who I just put in the back row, foolishly with a Moonring Blade instead of Main Gauche) and do a mix of attacks and tossing items. I definitely have some hairy moments with his general level of offence, in both forms - the worst is when Zombie Breath comes at a bad time when one PC is already dead and a second gets zombified but I'm able to recover well. I throw the Fuma, Excalipoor, and Kotetsu from this dungeon. I win first try but it's a hairy affair with no Phoenix Downs and two PCs left, fortunately Twin Lance Ninja offence pulls through in the end, no resets.


I'm actually done most of World 3 now thanks to plane trip but I'll post about that later.

[Tide]

Oh yeah, final unit thoughts! I didn't take the number of kills each person had but Alm had some ridiculous number (like 120) and was like 20+ more on kills than everyone else. I wonder why? (SPOILERS: I don't. Warp/Rescue Sniping + Assassinations). Like NEB's post a year back, * means used in final fight.

*Alm - MVP of like most of the late game sans maybe the final fight, but even then, he's still near the top. Alm is like most FE lords, with the caveat that early on, he's still pretty good (instead of being non special early). He has to compete with his other buddies over the Lightning Sword, but his good bases and strong growths means he keeps up pretty well. His only down point is mid-game, which has been touched upon. Late game, Alm is ridiculous. Double Lion does horrible things to people (+6 MT and actual brave effect is ridic) and he just wrecks most physical enemies. Mine was 16/18 by the final and had something like 29 Speed/27 Defense, which made him ridiculous on the front line.

*Gray - Went Merc and is really saved by DF being an amazing class. 7 Move + magic halving and good speed + phys offense is great. His growths are pretty awful though so he has periods where he sucks (right before promoting usually). The Lightning Sword was like designed for him since Alm can carry his own weight with an Iron early. Due to Alm route not having an abundance of mercs, whoever goes that line is usually in a good spot because of all the magic enemies. Halving magic in this game is huge since Res is a luxury commodity.

*Tobin - Went Archer. Saved mainly by his really high base speed of 6. His growths are utter garbage, mostly resulting in +1 Skill or +1 HP for a large portion and unlike DF, Archer doesn't have as good bases. What it does have is huge range. This is hugely valuable at various parts in the game (see War story before for an example) I should also note that Alm's buddies have an added perk in that they all have passive support boosts with each other. This makes them all a bit better. With Tobin, Gray gives him +15 Crit. This saves his offense some and his speed can keep up for awhile until the growths really start showing. A good candidate for your speed fountains/pegasus cheese if you care.

*Kliff - Went Mage and is pretty damn good. He starts off bad because of 1 AS due to being weighted down and no boost in the class. But early, mage is a unique niche since it can hit the weaker stats and he has good enough HP to soak a hit if necessary. Around mid-game, he gets Excalibur and becomes a frightening force since his speed starts catching up. Late game, you have access to special rings and that can turn Kliff into a powerhouse. His main problem is really late promotion and being stuck in a 4 Move class. I gave him the Speed ring, which helped get him around faster. Mine also had 15 Defense for some reason so he can take face axes if necessary.

*Faye - Went Cleric and is really good early/mid/late. Psychic is just amazing and once Faye picks up Rescue, you now have access to some fun movement BS. She's also okay on defense/speed but I wouldn't have her do Nos tanking. Just that she can survive a hit and not get wrecked. Oh, and her support with Alm is really good. Like +20 Hit or something, so their support circle gives Faye notable accuracy on Nos - this is important if she gets attacked for some reason.

*Silque - Gains access to Warp, but other than I don't have too many good things to say about her. She's super fragile and her offense is really bad. Doesn't even get the support ring like Faye. But being a healer in this game is really good and W.Magic has a lot of utility. Just that she doesn't get to play around a lot with that until late since its just so unlikely for her to gain EXP outside of heals. At least Faye can be makeshift offense unit if absolutely necessary or you feel cheeky for XP.

Lukas - Knights are not good in this game. They have their moments, but they are fragile to magic and honestly, their Defense isn't THAT amazing. I guess it is good at the time of promoting, but eh. 7 Speed/19 Defense late game isn't anything great and has poor offense. Still, has a couple of spots where he is a decent choice.

*Clair - The only flyer on Alm route and keeps up with the Whitewings decently. She's basically Catria, trading in some offense for even more speed. Sorta losing trade at the end, but because she's the only flyer on her end, gets some rather unique niche situations. Pretty good throughout.

Clive - Him on the other hand...in the running for LVP. His stats are so middling and he's just so unimpressive on all fronts. I guess he moves fast so yay?

Forsyth - Lukas trading in a few points in Defense for a touch more speed and Res. As noted, this lets him do some things that Lukas can't. On the whole though, still not impressive and doesn't have Lukas' good moments early. Hard to say which one is worse.

*Python - Of the OG Deliverance crew, has the roughest start but probably the best ending outcome? He turns out best of the Bow Knights by virtue of having some speed and they grow similarly in other places. His downfall is his Skill is bad and this matters for the class. But massive range to the rescue. The early game though is just awful and definitely makes him worse of the three overall. Seriously, 3 base speed?

*Mathilda - Part of the reason why the knights don't matter. She doesn't start off with great durability, but she gains it over time. Mine at the end has like 18 Defense. And actual offense. And actual Res. And Move. Yeah. She just outclasses all of them. The best pally probably. Just really solid outside of mounted penalties.

Luthier - Is a mage, but I wasn't impressed. He's good for 2 levels, then gets outclassed by his sis and pretty much everything after. But at least after he promotes, he could just be a healer, which is miles more valuable than...whatever Clive does. And those 2 levels where he is good, he's really good. Starting with Excalibur will do that.

*Delthea - Super magic cannon. Has bases in the right areas and hits really hard. Is the Est of Alm route basically. She starts off frail, but late, doesn't matter too much. Is like the prime candidate for either your speed Ring (for the extra move) or Mage ring (for the extra range).

*Tatiana - MVP of the last map with Alm. Upheaval's MT is basically neutered by Fortify and she has so many of the good White utility specials (Invoke/Warp). A touch fragile, but this usually doesn't matter since she doesn't have to be anywhere near close to do her job. Having someone be Tatiana's pocket medic was actually someone's full-time position for me.

Zeke - He's basically Clive if Clive was good but with significantly less screentime and having to compete with Mycen later. They have similar builds and it's just a question of do you want the dude who can pay off a little more with growths or the dude who will remain static the entire way? It's actually kind of interesting because the final dungeon is so big, but this is also a good case where bases vs. growths comes out and bases win.

*Mycen - Giving him the Renning award is underselling IMO. Mycen is a little better because you can just use him for the final and he will do his job, possibly better than Zeke and more likely better than Clive. This is due to the fact that his bases are perfect for the final levels. He's already really slow, so he'll get doubled by the DFs and the Gold Knight, so does almost everyone else. However, his defense is really good (18), which means he reduces the eyeballs to just 1 damage, so who cares. Also, even with the Gradivus, he still has 6 AS, which is just enough to avoid doubles from summoned Witches. In short, you can use him as a wall and he does that perfectly. Also the Alm group of supports effects him too (Kliff/Tobin/Gray/Faye) so he'll be a little better than Zeke in practice, all things being equal.

*Celica - Amazing. Held back mainly by 4 move. Also a good candidate for mage ring. I got the Beloved Sofia but didn't get much use out of it. Great spell list. Is only outshone by a later promotion and lowish Def but still serviceable.

*Mae - Less amazing but still really good until the final level. But then she got the role of "Pocket Medic for Tatiana" and had a touch of offense when needed, so yeah, solid.

Boey - Went to the Edward school of tanking face axes. Significantly less speed really hurts. I agree with random that learning other spells so slowly really hurt him. Never even promoted in my game.

* Genny - Is really really good. Has early Psychic and Invoke and the only healer for a while since Celica doesn't promote until End of Act 3 and Mae takes a long while to get to promotion.

* Saber - He starts with only 4 Def and is in a weird spot since he's Defense focused, which means his offense doesn't pick up initially. Mid game to late game though, is a terror. DF's amazing class + Saber's naturally good defense made him a tanky, mobile and good on offense unit. Was my go-to for physicals in Celica route.

* Kamui - The balanced DF. So he had better offense than Saber, but worse defenses. Still really solid though, I feel like he's the worst of the three primary DFs you get on Celica route.

*Leon - Only Archer sans Atlas if you go that route gives him a unique niche. Very very useful and was MVP in a couple of spots. Held back by really awful growths (as most Bow Knights do) - possibly the worst of the 3?

Valbar - Failure. Don't get me wrong though - he has his moments since there are some spots where Valbar's high DEF is very handy. But the desert maps, complete lack of speed, bad accuracy and atrocious Res made him barely usable outside of niche cases. Like Boey, didn't even Promote. Was that underwhelming

Palla - Starts off well, but drops off in Act 4 when the growths start catching up. Had a use then for Triangle set ups to avoid counters, but yeah, ended up the worst of the 3.

*Catria - Consistent across the board. Starts off good and can keep up to pace pretty well. Was the only I used in the final fight due to the well balanced stats from being decently levelled.

Est - Pays off, but didn't fully catch up for me? She starts off bad, but then gets good. Late though, she couldn't stop Mogals from doubling and has 4 less points of Def than Catria. This made her much more fragile so I didn't end up taking her in the end.

Atlas - LVP of Celica route. Even if you promote him to something, he still doesn't perform well. I've heard Archer is probably his best choice. Inclined to almost agree if not for how his growths will shape him. I went Merc and he was unimpressive.

*Jesse - More offensively focused Merc with better Attack and speed then the other two at the cost of some defenses. This made him useful in certain cases since he didn't need to crit fish like Kamui and Saber.

Deen - Sonja's probably better. Deen is "Just another DF" if you recruit him, and the three that you get cover the areas that you need. Deen is basically another Jesse but starts with some better bases. Mage versatility + not having to deal with Teleporting Witch death just seems so much more.

Nomah - Is Renault. Can do some healing but is otherwise, meh. Wouldn't put him on offense. He's replacement Boey essentially.

Conrad - Is actually solid but very few maps for him to do anything. His defense is kind of weakish compared to the other pallies, but makes up for this with much higher Res. Overall, he's good for what he does, but he joins way too late and the stats aren't in the right place for the final.

[DjinnAndTonic]

FE15 blew the rest of the series out of the water in terms of bad writing

Hey, I agree that it's shit, but blew the series out of the water? Pretty sure I consider the DS remakes to be worse still, although the flaws are different.

Obviously I disagree. I have a lot to say about FE15, so I'll come back to this. I probably need a replay of it anyway.

Not that I disagree with most of Tide's assessment of FE15's plot, I just think that none of his complaints matter compared to what FE15's writing did correctly.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I don't really like to have to take the "this sucks" position in a debate but Echoes writing really does suck. Will be interested to have that conversation whenever you feel like crystallizing what it did well for you, because there's a lot of bad there and I don't think it should be brushed off.


Speaking of games with bad writing that I like anyway, I finished FF5. That didn't take long. Fiesta party is Thief/Mystic Knight/Ninja/Dragoon, as a reminder.

More Steam version updates:

-"HP damage" enemy counter triggers now counter no-damage and missed attacks. Enemies with both evade and counters are now pretty obnoxious.
-A cool bug I found, which might exist in earlier versions of the game too: if you use the Thief Knife in your first weapon slot and have Dual-Wield, then instead of stealing an item 50% of the time, the Thief Knife will call a random extra attack (which mugs) 50% of the time, using the second weapon, giving a 50% chance at 3 attaks instead of two. Thief Knife + Sasuke Katana is thus quite potent, especially with Spellblade. (Wouldn't work with Rapidfire, which disables randocasts.)
-Tree Exdeath is in the back row, which softens his physicals but buffs his durability. Neo Exdeath parts behave as normal.

Anyway, World 3. Antlion is a joke. Gargoyles are a joke, pyramid I run from. Melusine gives me some frustration due to some misplays involving using spellblade on people who don't have blades (giving her enough time to start her barrier shift nonsnse) but I eventually I assemble the sleep + appropriate weakness spellblade setup and beat her down. Get Lenna, buy Hermes Sandals, get the three legendary weapons my team can use (Assassin's Dagger, Sasuke Katana, Holy Lance) do the pyramid for real, raid the final dungeon for the Enhancer, grab the Mirage Vest and Magic Lamp, do the Island Shrine (Wendigo gets owned by sleep as usual), get three more legendary weapons to throw.

Fork Tower deserves mention; I use two PCs with Image to beat Minotaur, and two PCs with Silence Spellblade to beat Omniscient. I get a big scare as I realise I'd forgot to set Spellblade for the Omniscient fight so I have to quickly do it in the menu before the tower blows up. I have no idea what the time limit is on this (10 seconds? 20?) but whatever I get it done fast enough.

In the final dungeon, I'm still using thrown scrolls sometimes! Less often but they do good work in the forest section in particular. Landcrawlers are a problematic random for me, since they immune MK's status tricks, have OHKO damage to the front row (where I am) and huge HP, but aside from burning Phoenix Downs I'm able to plow through the one I fight well enough.

Calofisteri I'll mention even though I usually don't. She has very high def but I figure two people with Flare Spellblade will be good enough and don't look up anything else about her (so I forget her vulnerabilities to silence and poison, and misremember her as being weak to the Poison element). She olds one of my damage-dealers right away which actually makes the fight pretty long due to her Drain counters. The hilarious part of the fight though is that I use Bio Spellblade on her (due to thinking her weak to poison) and she ends up dying from HP Leak.

Past this point I mostly use Break Spellblade to defeat randoms, since they have high MEvade but little petrify resistance. Death Claws immune it but fall to damage. Ninjas (the enemy) are a pain for my party since they can now counter misses by using Image. Including attacks which are guaranteed to miss due to image. fff. I end up just running from them. Everything else dies.

Apanda puts up a bit of a fight despite Firaga Spellblade as he hits pretty hard against my low-level squishy front-row PCs, actually OHKOing on occasion. Protect/Drain slow things down, but I'm in no risk of losing. One interesting thing is that I see Toad counters in addition to Drain and Protect, which I thought were only against magic. Something unique to this version? Spellblade related? I dunno. Might have only happened on misses, I don't remember.

Azulmagia I correctly remember as being weak to Bio Spellblade and he dies horribly.

Catastrophe (1 reset) is my first since World 1. I'm Level 32-33 and Earth Shaker OHKOs the two light armoured PCs, I try to dig in with Drain Spellblade but misses overwhelm me eventually. Second try I unironically switch my light armour PCs to Protect Rings instead of the Sandals and they avoid the OHKO and things go better. To be honest I should have just thrown legendary weapons at him, he's the biggest threat to my team in the final dungeon at my levels.

Halicarnassus is a joke.

Twintania (1 reset) I foolishly decide to guess when he transforms. There's no good reason to do this. I'm not healed and I die to a counter. Second time I'm not an idiot and wait for the actual "charge for Giga Flare" message since Break Spellblade is 100% at that point.

Break Spellblade is generally great from here on. Against Necrophobe it kills all the barriers before they can move, then switch to elementals. I get both final Genji equips, though I don't end up using the shield.

Final setup involves two Dual-Wield Spellblade 6 users, a Thief who does nothing but set Break Spellblade and toss items, and a Dragoon with Throw. Tree Exdeath Dooms someone but poses no problems otherwise, I avoid Meteor. I also set Break during this phase. Against Neo Exdeath I Magic Lamp away the back part and Break the Almagest part, and from there it's just chipping the other two down. I see several Grand Crosses but the worst thing it does is Berserk and that's really not that bad when it hits one of my Spellblade users. I'm squishy so I get OHKOed by the front part a bunch but it hardly matters as I have plenty of Phoenix Downs and Elixirs, as well as stuff to throw. The end. Final level is 33, very low for a not-much-running playthrough.

Job notes, nothing really new but:

-Thief has a bunch of QOL stuff but is a pretty bad job otherwise. Twin Lance stealing is ugh. Still they do enable W1 Hi-Potions which is nice since W1 was the hardest for my team. And the early Javelin was... kinda useful?
-Mystic Knight is mostly a late-bloomer as Break Spellblade is amazing then and they finally get a damage option not contingent on weakness hits, but they're situationally good the rest of the way.
-Ninja... well Throw is overpowered pretty much up to the midpoint of the final dungeon honestly. Dual-Wield is nice too. They have some other cool tricks too. Wish they had more HP/mdur but you can't have everything, the best job overall.
-Dragoon is a bulky, non-slow carrier for Throw/Spellblade, you can do worse. It's embarrassing how much I had them use daggers over lances.

Steam version would be generally superior (although the new ATB makes quick reactions far more important, YMMV on whether that's a good thing) but I hate that it doesn't have a speedup option. FF5 has too much plot and despite the GBA script's best efforts to salvage parts of it, it is not good. And often cutscenes just go slower than they have to, and there are like 8 instances where the game just wants you to wait around before a cutscene advances (sometimes it's appropriate, like Galuf's death, but it's overplayed). So a version I can't frameskip at these points does hurt replayability some. It'll probably still be my vehicle for playing the game next year though.

[DjinnAndTonic]

I don't really like to have to take the "this sucks" position in a debate but Echoes writing really does suck. Will be interested to have that conversation whenever you feel like crystallizing what it did well for you, because there's a lot of bad there and I don't think it should be brushed off.

I thought we had like an hour long conversation about it in chat already? I'll get around to writing my full thesis on why it's The Best FE Ever(TM) just because I like it so much. Eventually. I played FE2 and FE15 back-to-back but didn't have the time to do a full writeup when it was fresh (probably because I typed most of it into chat....>.>;; ) So I'll need a replay to do it justice.

[SnowFire]

Re FE15:
Both Djinn & Tide are right.  FE15 simultaneously has some terrible writing and some great writing, garnished with great-ideas-executed-poorly and a few poor-ideas-executed-well.  I prefer to focus on the positive & the potential that is there, so I'm pretty positive toward FE15, but that doesn't stop some of its ideas from being really, really, REALLY stupid.

Anyway, Berkut is interesting; the fact that Tide hates him so much is "good", I like that he does evil acts that are more shocking and different from "blargh I will get ultimate power via allying with an evil dragon" or just plain "blargh I am evil".  The "problem" is the narrative slant...  like, you know how Darth Vader kills like a zillion people but does one good deed and then everyone's cool with him?  Berkut is kinda like that, except without really the repentance angle, but gets a bit "let off the hook" anyway.  I'm not even annoyed that Rinea's ghost isn't chewing him out - she loved him, after all - and Alm just regained then promptly lost like his entire family, so I get that he can't either - but SOMEBODY needs to chew him out, or smack talk him, if he isn't going to be particularly sorry.  Mycen or Clive perhaps.

Cosmic Star Heroine
Plot continues to roll downhill.  Now that my expectations have been properly lowered, I wasn't shocked when the cast is just like "uh sure let's go to the third planet now that we've heard weird rumors about, I bet something shady is going on there."  Because who needs a good plot excuse or anything.

Octopath Traveller
Ophilia's Chapter 2 has a totally broken Aesop, to use TVTropes-ese.  While I kind of like that Nefarious Monsters aren't trying to stop the pilgrimage and Ophilia just plain lights the flame at the very start, and the do-gooder quest is set up okay...  spoilers?

This quest was about valuing friendship and recovering from loss, and was NOT about getting a shiny trinket back.  Wouldn't it be MORE powerful to have them make up despite kid 1 losing the memento?  Have him buy/construct a replacement or some such?  As is, the lesson we learned is that endagering your life for a shiny thing is a-okay and will work out.  Also, WTF?  A dog with a shiny thing in its mouth like an hour after the incident did indeed run through the woods, drop it, then disappear right before a direwolf appeared?  Yeah right.

Also, the game has gotten easy again after I bothered to explore around a bit and grab subjobs.  I first attempted to take on Therion Ch. 2 with like a L12 and L16 party member, which needless to say didn't go well.  Post exploring the next "layer" of towns and areas, all the plot chapters have been pretty easy.  Doing 'em mostly in suggested level order, so Therion/Therion/Tressa/Ophilia/Cyrus so far.