What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[DomaDragoon]

Did you keep the main low level for maximum Consular brokenness Doma?  Massively unnecessary and can make doing the arena annoying (Doable at level 2 with every class though!) and the underside and the fight at the races of that first world brutal, but doable.  Also remember, no matter how sexy the dark side is, Force Wave is better.  At everything.  Get it ASAP at level 15.

Nope. Figured I'd play it straight this time. Actually, I'm going to go the ___ Droid route for the first time in a while, coupled with Burst of Speed and Cure.

[superaielman]

Lufia 2- Up to the end of the mountain of no return. Just finishing up compiling Lexis notes right now. Pain in the ass but only a minor one since he has limited equip options. Pain is going to be Artea and Selan at endgame.

Enjoying the replay quite a bit. Still the generally bright, fun game I remember. Puzzles are generally okay though there are a few stinkers *Punts the mountain of no return*.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Beat Doom 2-

Shotgun becomes a lot less useful towards the end, but the rocket launcher still rapes everything. 
Also, you don't have to fight 1 legit Cyberdemon the entire time.
1- Room with like 20 Baron of Hells, you let the Cyberdemon see you, he fights the barons, then they give you an invul to finish him.
2- Level 20, you can either get him/super spider to fight, then OHKO him, or you can just stand at bottom of stairs where he can't hit you and BFG away (This is the closest to an actual fight though.)
3- Level 29, he comes out and would be tough, except you just run by to the exit.
4- I think there was a 4th where you get an invul before fighting him, forget what level though.
5- Bonus level, you can run right by him again

Anywho... enemy ratings in terms of in game evilness!  (Evilness based on non BFG use, since a lot of these guys are standard BFG fodder, thus not hard in game.)

0- Pew Pew man- They're bad... they shoot you for shit
1- Demon- They get a point for having a little bit of HP, that said they should never ever hit you barring falling right next to them, even then they take a second to attack, giving you time to run.
Sergant-- Shotgun can hurt you, but not that much... and they fire slow and have no HP
2- Imp- Fireballs easy as hell to avoid.  They do come in big groups and if you run into them close range they can hurt... a little
Invis Demon- Demon, but invisible!
Lost Soul- They themselves blow, they can be annoying when being fired by Brown Blobs, but they also charge right away, something they don't seem to do alone.
3- NONE, the gap is that large between the fail and non fail
4- Cacodemon- I've seen people bitch about these... I don't know why.  If they're close range you 2 shot them with Super Shotgun, if they're not they can be annoying to hit, but they also CANNOT hit you unless you're stupid.  That said, they can fly and are basically buffed up imps.
5- Mancubas- They hit hard, but they're slow moving and shooting, also easy to dodge shots.  Shotgun fodder
Pain Elemental- Summon lost souls, yawn.  Main issue is the waste of ammo they can be because of summing guys.
6- Tubby with a Chain Gun- Yes, I have the heavy weapon guys at 6.  They're common, they rip you apart fast when you don't see them in time, and they seem to be placed in spots to shoot you from 7 miles away.  They do die fast as hell, but a lot of triggered doors = you dead if you don't react in time. 
Hell Knight- Hit hard, but go down fairly easy
Arachnatron- More HP than tubby, probably better firepower too, but they never appear in any tricky spots.  They also tell you they're coming a mile away.  Makes it fairly easy to deal with them.
7- Cyberdemon- Yes he's this low... I just can't justify putting him higher despite his badass power because of the situations you fight him in.  Not cheesing him on level 20 alone could lead to enough deaths to justify 7 though
Revenant- Rockets are annoying and hit hard, they're also quick and tough to stunlock with chaingun
8- Spider Mastermind- You only fight one of these without invul or a Cyberdemon to kill him for you, that said he is a tough fight without the BFG.  Quick shooting enemies are a bitch
9- Baron of Hell- Obviously not as astrong as the Spider Mastermind, but he's a LOT more common, and he still hits damn hard, and takes a lot to put down. 
10- Archvile- Hi, I'm fast, have an attack that's hard to dodge, and I ressurect my friends if you don't kill me first.  Without a BFG these guys are annoying as hell because they always come with support, which you have to ignore of kill very fast.  There fire attack is also a bitch unless there's good cover, which there isn't always for these guys.  Easily most annoying Doom2 enemy.

[Meeplelard]

M&L: Just finished the Bean Star piece fetch quest.

Ok, the entire thing itself wasn't so bad, but getting the first piece can go die.  So you do this mini game that's a bit annoying but barable first.  Ok, that's fair, gotta be more than just "Find bean star piece, move on!"

,,,then it gets knocked away for some hilarity.  Ok, chase it down isn't so bad...ARGH! UNDER WATER DUNGEON HATE! (seriously hate this, especially since its the ONLY PLACES THE EMULATOR ACTUALLY LOCKS UP IN THIS GAME >_<)  So it ends up being a whole annoying dungeon arc, which exists purely to test out the new skills (cause a simple tutorial and then slight extension wouldn't be enough), followed by a boss.  Made me pray that the game was going to do something silly like "hey, Peasley found the other while you spent forever on the first!"

Thank god 2 of them were simple one task aspects (One was do a mini game, the other was Mini Game followed by an easy boss.)  The last one looked a bit annoying at first, but didn't realize everything was as close as the map made it out to be.  Though, only allowing one of each Bean Fruit at a time is bull, really.  Just a way to make things longer.  Also, not the game's fault, it took longer than it needed to cause I took the long way to get one when I didn't realize there was an alternate route which I ended up seeing on the BACK SIDE...which you can't get through apparently from there (you COULD if you went through the front way though, stupid nitpicky side puzzles *grumbles*)...yeah, was a bit annoying.

Anyway, now that's done with, should be able to finish the game on my next sitting.

Beyond the nuisance of the first bean star piece, game is still generally enjoyable for a variety of reasons.  Pure Fluff game? Yes, but it doesn't pretend to be anything else.  If anything, it knows its a fluff game and takes it for the entire ride by being as random and silly as possible.  Its generally succeeding at it too!

Also, something I learned that was awesome and someone should have brought it to my attention long ago, so we wouldn't have had those MF6 arguments...



Yeah, if you can see what I'm aiming at, good for you.  If you can't...well <_<

[Grefter]

Destroy Droid line is also very good.  Consular has powers to spare though, I still say pick up Wave.

Brawl - You are all retards.

Wild Arms XF - The name sucks.  The plot is worse.  The SRPG stuff in the first couple of stages blow hard.  WOOOO STRATEGY SUPER STRONG ENEMY THAT RUNS AWAY.  SUPER STRONG ENEMY YOU HAVE TO AVOID GETTING ONE SHOTTED WHILE YOU HIT A SWITCH BATTLE OVER IN 3 TURNS.

Meh.

[Captain K.]

Yeah, if you can see what I'm aiming at, good for you.  If you can't...well <_<

That Mario is the M in S&M?  Makes sense.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SH3 - Edna down. I've pretty much buckled down the battle system now, and the ride is fairly smooth. I'm going through this game pretty much for the gameplay, which is definitely pretty fun. Plot that doesn't have Lady and Killer in it doesn't exist and I don't particularly care. Not too bad.

[AAA]

Ninja Gaiden II-I need help. Anyway, have to pass a level without dying with no savestates before moving onto the next one, etc. Up to Act IV so far. Act I was easy as hell, Act II wasn't too bad but took longer than it should have because of just random shit happening like the boss knocking you halfway across the screen and into a pit if you happen to face the wrong way. Also the first section glitched on me so it was a random mismash of train parts so it took some time to get used to that as well. 

Act III had a lot of split-second timing but other than that wasn't so bad. The gimmick was pretty cool. The boss, however, was a pain in the fucking ass. I don't know how you're expected to beat him if you don't have the fire attack; Sword strikes take forever and it's very iffy on letting you knock him to the ground. Urrrrgh. Well, almost halfway done, anywho. Music is pretty good, on another note.

[Meeplelard]

Mario and Luigi: I am practically done.

By this I mean "I could beat the final boss, and I know I can succeed, but the Emulator controls keep locking up and do so in THIS FIGHT ONLY and are especially bad about here it." making the fight not realistically winnable.  Maybe I'll try it in the future and hope my luck gets better, but...yeah, can't see the ending ;_;

(I am genuinely sad cause M&L has some awesome scenes if only for pure hilarity, and I'd like to see how they wrap it up.)

Game is...well, Fluff at its finest I guess would be the best way to put it.  The game was hilarious from start to end.  I knew it was going to be humor toned (come on; its a game about Mario), but I didn't expect them to be as zany as they were, and generally were very funny about it.  Had some nuisances here and there, and fights got a bit repetitive combined with a few stupid ones, though boss fights each had a niche at least.  Also, the bosses before Fawful in the final Dungeon = yay!

Overall, probably a 7/10.  A generally fun game with a lot of hilarity, though its far from perfect at the same time.

[Twilkitri]

Megaman Starforce Pegasus - Beaten. Current stats: Level 76, 108 Normal, 7 Mega, 2 Giga.

Was better than I expected, although to be fair I haven't played any BNs in ages and my opinion of them has apparently dropped unwarrantedly. That being said, I think I considerably prefer the BN series' setting. Also Appliance Men = ;_; Boss design is generally inferior to BNs as well.

The battle system being deep instead of wide is unnerving and I'm still not wholly used to it. Lack of being able to freely move in and out is also somewhat aggravating.

The minimission system is arguably superior to MMBN2/3s, although walking back and forth and in and out of Wave World and can get annoying. On that note Wave World is also worse than BN's Net. Too much disconnection, and no possibility for things like the WWW Area of BN2 since they're all associated with Real World locations. EDIT: And it turns out it does in fact have an area like that. Good good. Something interesting to do.

Hm. Why exactly do I only get a weapon arguably superior to the BN Blaster in the LAST LOCATION IN THE GAME? They might as well not even have bothered putting all the weapons in between in -_-.
Speaking of broken weapons, the Broken Time Bomb is exceedingly broken. 600 damage to all enemy squares and bypasses shielding? Not to mention that's 1200 damage to things weak to fire. Like Ophiuca. All this with the only drawbacks that you can only have one of them, and that enemies MIGHT destroy it in the three second countdown despite the fact that most of them don't attack anywhere near fast enough to do that. It was underpriced.

Presumably it's time to go scouring for minimissions I haven't done yet and missing HP/cards. Presuming I can return from the final location.

Worthwhile game on the whole, but worse than BN2. Not sure how it stands against BN1, but I'm considering replaying that now, especially since I'm pretty sure that my saved game on it has commited suicide anyway.




Also!
SRWR: Up to chapter 8. Being boring due to two plays worth of upgrades. Consequently is going to be slow going despite GX's existance.
SRWFF: Up to chapter 4, if you know what I mean. Forgot to sortie Quattro last time I tried it and now I have to do it over -_- I lost Gilliam? Lame.

[BaconForTheSoul]

Tally up WA2 to games I started and couldn't get into recently.  I think I'm just not in the mood for PS1/SNES/GB stuff, but the PS2 stuff I can't play because of lack of any time with the TV.

April 15th I can start SO3 though soo.... go me or something?

[AAA]

NGII-Up to the last Act. This game really is much easier than NGI, mostly due to clones and a general degrade in enemy damage. Turns out the 3 boss rush at the end does not heal you before each fight, however, which means doing it all in one go is not happening. So I'm splitting it up into two, with the full level+first boss and then the last level section+2 bosses. This is still going to drive me insane most likely. We'll see how it goes.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SH3 - Machu Picchu is past, got all of Shania's fetishes. This game is actually pretty fun.

[Meeplelard]

SSBB: Started SSE FINALLY.

Its a lot of fun and such.  Well done adventure mode and definitely one of the best reasons to buy this game.

[AAA]

NGII-Done. Bosses were pains in the ass. On the whole, though, this game has been much easier than NG1 and was relatively painless to beat.

NGIII-Up to Act V. Act 1 was a joke, Act II was a little bit harder but the boss was a complete wuss, Act III was pretty tough, Act IV was a joke, both level and boss-wise. The game itself is harder than NG2 though, mostly because enemies do way more damage and healing items are lots more scarce. The sword upgrade is awesome, though.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Um... hmm.

SMG - 91 stars. Finally started on the purple comet stuff. Getting nearish the end?

MMX1 - Finished a replay of this, going through an actually efficient order for once! (Penguin -> Octopus -> Eagle -> Kuwanger -> Chameleon -> Mammoth -> Mandrill -> Armadillo). Helmet upgrade still completely fails; why would I do a stage over for something that lets you get... uh... a heart tank at some point or something? (No, getting the decidedly underwhelming buster upgrade a couple maps early does not count for anything.)

Game is fun though, if it's already started to get a bit easy; I basically didn't die this playthrough besides early on? Know I had one reset total on the Sigma stages, which was due to a platforming goofup in the very first part.

Storm Tornado and Homing Torpedo between them form a ridiculous one-two punch that hasn't been seen since MM1 and MM2. So much broken in those weapons. L4 buster fails at life, 1 damage to robot masters? Granted, you shouldn't be using it against them (I was for fun), but still.

MMX4 - Beat a replay of this, too, as X. Finally found the weapons (and hence armour) upgrade, which makes me feel stupid because it wasn't especially hidden and the trick for getting it ultimately wasn't complicated. Oops. Final boss still got me a few times even so. This game rules, even if weapons are underwhelming overall. Did get decent mileage out of Slash Wave post-helmet upgrade, though. Fire is always solid too, other weapons were situational at best however (though they usually have, say, a miniboss they completely own). Can't argue with Web's utility, naturally.

Improved charged buster is really badass (doesn't take forever to charge, hueg like x-box, and the contrail damage really rapes some things). This is probably the only buster in the series I'd rate above 5/10.

Brawl - Kinda puts me to sleep at times. <_< I don't really care for their decision to make Smash slower, though improved character balance (yay slow characters are worth using now!) is a point in its favour. Final Smashes are a neat idea, though (baffled that Smash Ball would be considered broken, since unlike other items there's actual strategy as to who ends up getting it, and it brings out more character uniqueness). And King Dedede is <3, of course.

Double Dash - Played a whole lot of this, including unlocking everything on my own GC memory card at last, and some more. This game is definitely a favourite, and it's time for an avatar change, I think.

FFT - Up to Balk 2 on the Satan-FFT file. It's almost done after... three years? Regardless, yay. Highlights: UBS4 was an immensely fun, lengthy, edge-of-the-seat battle, and Kletian took 700 damage on the very first PC action.

[DomaDragoon]

Diamond: Clearing out the new areas. I'm a little sad at the fact that I can't ask for trades until I've actually seen the Pokemon I'm asking for - it's going to be impossible to even come close to filling up the Pokedex.

KOTOR: Made a good chunk into Korriban (after a quick sidetrip to Tatooine), and I'm about ready to start abusing the infinite experience bug. General party is Main, Fully Upgraded HK, Carth.

[metroid composite]

FFT poaching game

Ninja with jump is...underwhelming.  Yeah, sounds great on paper--Ninja gives some speed which Lancers need and which speeds up Jump's charge time, and have the highest PA, so with Equip Spear they should be the best jumper.  In practice even with no speed boosting equipment they tend to be faster than story battle enemies (only by one point or so, but still, Ninja reaches 8 speed stupidly early, and most enemies are 7 until the lategame).  Archer/Monk with Jump actually performed considerably better.

Whale Whisker actually feels fairly good, which surprises me since no previous Stick really made attacking all that attractive for the oracle, and sure it's a power boost...but usually not enough of one to kill in one hit.  However it will often finish off someone that Setiemson-Agrias started with, for instance, and ~200 damage doesn't feel bad or anything (there are still enemies in about that range).

The Dagger user hasn't really changed (still using Zorlin Shapes).  Mostly I had a vague idea that I'd actually steal Elmdor's equipment this game (the party's certainly powerful enough for it) and I'm realizing that he still needs thousands of Thief JP (so he's been spending time as a Gain JP Up Thief...which is a notable downgrade from being an Attack Up Ninja).  I'll probably still be short on JP when Limberry rolls around.

The Gun user is actually getting a fair bit of use out of the Stone Gun.  It's pretty hazardous, actually, since I can forget to unequip it in between battles (though luckily the only time I forgot this was Balk 1...a battle where the initial Stone doesn't activate due to glitchiness, yay!)  I'm pleased, since I was somewhat concerned that the gun user wouldn't want to waste turn 1 when he could be healing or whatever, but that doesn't seem to be an issue.

Agrias has been hanging out in Geomancer and Thief; she's got Attack Up, and is maybe 100 JP away from Move +1, though will be heading back to Holy Knight or Knight anyhow since I just got the Excalibur.



Appolo Justice

Fairly gripping so far.  I'm finding the investigations more irksome than usual.  I do notice that they patched up a few issues for actual trials, though (the penalties no longer save between recesses, which could sometimes be nasty.  Also, you can't present people during regular evidence presentations anymore, which keeps the options down to a much more sane number).  Percieve is a kind of lame mechanic, though.

Character-wise, Appolo seems like a cheap, incompetent Phoenix replacement.  I can't bring myself to really care about him, but I do forgive his existence, since....  Phoenix is significantly changed, and in ways that I have found entertaining so-far.  Trucey comes across as the most competent of the "younger female assistants" (well...okay, mostly just more competent than Maya).  (SPOILER-type speculation) I have some suspicions on her identity, particularly based on some hand gestures, hair colour, and the fact that she's the exact age that another character would be.  Klavier is actually a competent prosecutor, which is to say he does what the prosecution is actually contracted to do--hunt down the truth.  As opposed to say, hunt down a guilty verdict, or sit around and act vindictive towards the defence attourney.  Ema Skye is back playing Detective Gumshoe.  I don't like her as much as her 16-year-old self, but she's still pretty good (and a hell of an improvement on Detective Gumshoe).  I also like that she's only been a witness in one case so far (whereas Gumshoe was a witness in every single case ever, as I recall).

[Meeplelard]

SSBB:  Up to the Great Maze of SSE!

Its still a lot of fun though this whole nonlinear run around large area thing is a bit of a turn off.

DMC1: Decided to start Hard Mode and give it a whirl.

Just beat Phantom...barely. Took me a bunch of tries too.

Also, it was good to learn that trying to be honorable and not use weapons earlier than you should have them...doesn't work.  Which is to say, I found myself using DT on early game scrubs.  Eventually I just swallowed pride and whipped out the Grenade Gun and started barreling through enemies that way.

...I am in immense fear for things to come ;_;

[Hunter Sopko]

WA:XF- Through the prison in the beginning. The setting the people free wasn't so bad, but the escape was annoying as hell. They all kept focusing on the old man. Wasn't until I realized Clarissa's RFX raising skill that I passed it. I like the interesting missions, as frustrating as they can be sometimes. They actually make you think about how to beat them.

Writing is a bit stilted though. Labrynthia's VA is bland as hell too, though the character is awesome.

[Ryogo]

I just snagged myself a copy of SH2 off eBay to add to my collection of games, now to hunt down the first and third. I know my friend has the first one, and the third seems to be spammed on eBay, so hopefully it wont be too hard to do.

[Nitori]

Etrian Odyssey: Hit floor 11, traded in the Whip DH for a Survivalist. Seems like a good trade since the Dark Hunter had to do all the binding herself~.

[AAA]

NGIII-Up to Act 7. 5 and 6 were pretty easy and short, 7 pretty much throws all the game has at you and is pretty hard. This might take me awhile, especially now that school's back in session.

[Twilkitri]

MM Starforce Pegasus- Level 96, 150/29/5

Pending PegasusMagicSP, which should also give me three levels, I appear to be effectively done (unless max level is 100 and I'm missing a HPMem10). However PegasusMagicSP is freakishly fast and durable and I haven't even managed to beat it yet, let alone S-rank it. I've put together an all-electric Best Combo of 670 damage which'll hopefully do double damage for 1340 against it, but that's still not that great against 3400 HP... especially considering you need to win in 30 seconds or less for S-rank and you can't use any other cards in a turn that you're using a combo card among other things.

I've also beaten up a couple early bosses to improve their cards' attack power, which is a nice addition. Theoretically, I should go after the electrics Gemini Spark and Crown Thunder and improve their cards for use against PMSP but they happen to be the most difficult bosses aside from him to begin with -_- I could always try for an awesome wood combo to use against them or something.

...why exactly are the completion marks strewn across the opening screen and not in any sort of balanced layout? Unless it's insinuating that there are a lot more than just the M-mark I don't have, but I've got no idea what else that would need.



Zack & Wiki- Finished the first area. Don't have the best scores in all levels yet though.

All I'd heard about this game was effectively reading one guy somewhere asking why he wasn't hearing about this game at all. So I picked it up to look at while I was easter shopping and it seemed like it could be entertaining enough from the back, so I got it to see what the fuss about the absence of fuss was about.

So, why aren't I hearing anything about this game at all -_- I've only done the first area and it's already freakishly awesome.

[Pyro]

WA:XF
Up to Act 1-12

Plusses:
- Cool combat abilities and customization. FFT-like but with a lot more of the game spelling out what to do if you are so inclined to let it solve things for you. But things like Slow Down (halve enemy speed, works on everything), Rob Turn (steals an enemy turn at a 75% rate. Oh yes), and other hax make the game fun.
- Difficulty! Granted, its mostly of the "don't let the townspeople die" variety, but it works.
- Clarissa is cute. Like Ceclila in her best art except better.
- Plot is somewhat interesting, with politics and war and all that stuff. Could turn out good or could bomb at this point. I'm kind of digging it now, even it is mostly generic fluff.
- Music is typical WA goodness.
- Japanese vocal track option.

Minuses:
- English Voice acting. Egads its bad.
- "Class change" as a plot device. This isn't FF4 and I'd rather keep it that way. Albeit they have done a better job of including it in the plot recently.
- Some of the missions are silly, but thats been toned down recently.
- Unequipping party members automatically upon class change/joining. Frustrating several times over.


Character Thoughts:

- Clarissa: Cute, interacts... decently well with her cast. I can't find much fault with her in plot, although I guess she hasn't finished developing. Whats happened thus far has changed her for the better mostly, so thats a plus. Typical do-gooder type, but tempered with some wisdom as time goes on. In battle? Badass. Turn her into an Elementalist and abuse that good speed and magic to hit weaknesses for big booms. Doesn't take magic damage worth noting. Sacrifice is actually shockingly awesome at damage from full health. 200 when little else comes close to 100. Rob Turn and Encourage (add a significant amount of CT to every ally around her) are just extra niceness.

- Felius: Character is near-worthless. No real existence other than "I promise to protect you!" Uhh... physical tank or something? He isn't fast or damaging or particularly good at range. Disarm is a nice boon to help take the punch out of enemies though, as it makes mages and physical-reliant peeps alike fail at damage.

- Tony: Sucks, but is a dog and therefore awesome. Really durable and good range! Pity about that speed and damage.

- Labyrintha: Is a lot of fun as a character in a shallow sense. Middle aged woman who enjoys praise and earns it frequently. Also love triangle with Tony and Clarissa. Yep. Works well enough as a mage. But egads the speed fails. Warp makes up for the lack of movement at least, and she IS a good mage.

- Levin: Hothead. Like Jude, only he has a crush on a better Sacrifice user. Really fast and... has no damage. Fortunately we have ways to fix this! Unfortunately I haven't really used them. Regardless of what else he may be, that speed and Turn-cancelling with damage attached make him useful.

Ragner: I can't say much about his characters. In battle he hits things really, really, REALLY hard!!!! If he is lucky enough for them to be melee reliant, casts Hyper beforehand, doesn't have the foe against an object, and wastes 1/3rd of his shallow MP score. Oh well. Hyper is always nice and he's fast enough.

I'm enjoying it a lot right now. More to come later probably.