What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Nitori]

Luminous Arc: The most awesome part about this game is Mel's hat. And Nikolai's VA. Cliche plot is cliche, and the gameplay just doesn't seem to change much. That display mode which shows HP and turn order above heads is awesome though~

[Niu]

I'm up to one of those fucking stealth missions and I met Cloud, so let the yaoi begin.

Fool, the yaoi started alrady since ch.1
Can you not see the sparks of love between Angeal and Zack?
Also, I now hate Tseng for he supports Zack/Aerith too.

[Hunter Sopko]

Oh. Almost forgot something in my SO3 assessment.

Welch Vineyard is awesome. That is all.

[Meeplelard]

Crisis Core: Yep, got this and such!  So far, games been enjoyable enough with no real flaws.  All things that seemed like they would be annoying were just side effects of expecting the game to be different than it was (in an objective sense mind) and treating it wrong, but once gotten use to, moves smoothly enough.

Anyway, Shinra HQ is getting ambushed, along with a random remix of "Fighting!" from FF7 playing.

If nothing else, this game does a good job of keeping true to FF7, and just randomly referencing it in cute ways.  Such like I noticed in the training room, there were two SOLDIERs actually seemingly facing off with SQUATS.

Also nice to see the game has a bit of a sense of humor.  It takes itself seriously, and is generally a serious plot, but the game isn't afraid to slip in some comic relief, which is usually from NPCs ("No one may enter without a proper permit from the director!  That includes you, SOLDIER boy!  However, I am too much of a coward to actually enforce this upon someone like you, so I'll just hope your conscience is enough to keep you out of this!"), though even some plot scenes have a bit of a humor moment, like Tseng and Zack are on their mission, Tseng talks about how Turks are often sent into destroy evidence and deal with all the dirty jobs for Shinra, and Zack says it must be tough; Tseng follows up by saying "We also get paid more than you."  No, its not that funny, but just an example of how the game isn't trying to be this total dead serious nonsense, and isn't forcing the existence of a talking stuffed cat to deal with all comic relief (at least thus far.)

Game's also avoided retconning so far, which is always a good thing.  As I said in the past, the game sounds more like "useless backstory covering characters you may have been curious about" and so far, that seems to be the case.

So...yeah, so far so good.  The question is will this stay being the one part of the FF7 Milking worth playing, or will it devolve into what we call "Vincent May Cry" level fail?  ONLY TIME WILL TELL!

[Niu]

It stays good, consider this game has much less Kitase than Vincent May Cry does.

[Sierra]

Oh. Almost forgot something in my SO3 assessment.

Welch Vineyard is awesome. That is all.

Quoted for truth.

[Xeroma]

Replayed PW1-3 for the hell of it. Still good games, don't need to say much there.

[Meeplelard]

Crisis Core: In the middle of the whole "Aeris escorts you back to the plate!" section, just got through the wallet scenario.

Why do they always have those stupid things in games anyway?  I mean, yeah, Crisis Core tried to mock them some ("Hey! Some kid stole my wallet!" "Ok, I'll help you!" *the guy fails to help, comes up with some ridiculous excuse*), but still felt like a bit of an annoying diversion.  Guess they just wanted to give Aeris a bit more screen time.

And based on what I've seen of her so far...it seems to be Zack's fault she acts the way she does in FF7.  Granted, she hasn't really done much so far (just an innocent 15 year old girl and all that...even if she looks older...), but...well, guess that'd be a reason to dislike Zack!

Which is a pity, cause Zack's otherwise been great.  Just a generally very likable guy who has good interaction (something needed to make this character work) with most of the rest of the cast, and isn't really stupid at all.  He's very much like Tidus, without the whole "stuck in a world he's completely unfamiliar with" thing, which means no whining (for all that I felt Tidus' whining complaints were somewhat exaggerated, since he doesn't whine as much as people make him out to...and in many cases, he had good reasons TO whine.)   Generally, just well done so far.  Also has some fun lines, best of them so far being "Normal is overrated!" if only cause its the very lines I (and probably 90% of the DL <.<) live their life by <_< >_>

Sephiroth's FINALLY got a scene where I can evaluate him!  Until the previous chapter, Sephiroth's scenes were "Appears looking all badass just for some fanservice" and that's it.  He is actually different than I expected.  Not the badass bishie stereotype like you'd expect, since he's a lot friendlier and more open than you'd think he is.  Also hasn't really pulled any belittling of Zack (if...anything, he treats Zack more like a comrade in arms, and not an inferior.)

Original characters...Angeal's too hard to really evaluate now; feels like someone you can't form an opinion on until the very end since its clear they're doing a lot with him.  Genisis, meanwhile, is a lamer...BUT HE LIKES POETRY!!!  Hey, that automatically puts him as a better villain than the likes of...uhh...the entire XS3 Villain Cast that isn't Virgil >_>? (I know; really positive statement there...)  Hollander barely exists beyond an intro, he'll obviously get more scenes and such.

I would have gone further but...Missions are really addictive.  I keep saying "Ok, this will be my last one!" and then I end up playing about 5 more after it...only to say the same thing and the cycle continues!

If its not obvious, I'm enjoying this game.  As I said, its generally well done and hasn't really done anything bad so far (ok, it put Aeris in (even if she's kind of needed given half of Zack's plot in FF7 was "Aeris' ex-Boyfriend"), so that's a flaw right there, but quiet!), and its been fun enough.

[Clear Tranquil]

Zack is responsible for a few things relating to the Aerith in FFVII (not going to say the Aerith we knew granting we all have different opinions of her >_>) yeah from what I've read on the net about the game (which really peeved me off because imo it reduced the sense of independence and assertive, confident young woman that I had of Aerith with street smarts and business wiles and then there are the things CC did to *Tifa* making them a lot more Mary Sue than I knew them as =/) but as to her overall personality? I dunno I think she was probably always a caring, generous, mysterious planet friendly character popular with children but yeah it's possible for bringing her out of her shell a bit and enabling her to be more assertive and confident about getting what she wants (or in other words annoying for people who see it that way ) =/ I'd have rather that came from herself as I originally thought but meh =/

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Did she ever know how to shut the hell up? Cause that would have been the biggest improvement I can think of. "Gee I'm nice to everyone" aggravates me to no end.

So! I'm replaying Fallout, because I can murder characters I don't like. Not that there's many unlikeable characters in the original Fallout (Fallout 2 has those, but most of THOSE are intentionally unlikeable, ie Lynette). I forgot how HOLY SHIT EASY this game becomes after you get in to the BoS. I took the Deathclaw nest TO TOWN with my Turbo Plasma Rifle and oh holy shit how did that gun get nerfed.

[Twilkitri]

Zack and Wiki - Halfway through the volcano area.
I haven't played much recently despite its generally awesomeness because they've gone and started putting in puzzles which you can't see the trick to until you've done them... and every time you retry a puzzle you lose points. So you've got the board puzzle near the start of the tall volcano level where you have to put three pieces in to match the pattern, and putting pieces in rotates the other pieces you've put in by certain amounts, and you don't know what those amounts ARE (or even that it's going to happen) until you've done it; so unless you're extremely lucky, you have to restart the level to get the maximum points and hope you remember the correct order. Tsk.

In any case, I'm currently backed up against the boss of the volcano level and a reasonably freakishly long one. For the boss, I managed to build the hammer but the ladder was broken, but I have a theory that this is because I dropped the pieces earlier, so I'm going to redo that without every dropping it and see if that changes things. Not sure offhand where I went wrong in the long level but I stopped trying it because it was so long >_> also it has a stupid segment where you have to tennis hit a fireball into a spider that you bizarrely lose points for missing. And this is not a put the racquet in the right place thing or anything you actually have to swing the controller the correct way. Annoyance.



In any case I've spent most of my time replaying MMBN1! Currently level 100 with 157/175 chips. I'm attempting to get as many as possible before going through the final lock system and boss, although I'm probably going to leave Dropdown until after that because I freakishly hate trying to get damned Dropdowns stupid rare-even-if-you-S-rank-on-stupidly-rare-enemy-set-also-you-need-to-get-really-good-chips-to-start-off-with last game I got it out of a chip trader

[TranceHime]

WA5 Replay: Ran off to my doom and fought Ragu O Ragla. First time, I died because of preparatory mistakes. So, I ran off and changed some stuff, mainly equips, badge and medium setups.

However, this second try is INEXCUSABLE.

I knocked Ragu's HP down quite low, and was doing quite well. However Ragu O Ragla used Dark Isolate and Avril, my Orange 100% badge user, got instantly killed. This screwed me over and then Ragu finished me off with a 1 Trillion Degrees, something I can easily shake off HAD AVRIL NOT DIED.

EDIT: Oh, I just ran off and checked. Dark Isolate does ID >________<

[Dark Holy Elf]

Apollo Justice - Three cases beat. Decent PW game, but... really hasn't engaged me yet. None of the first three cases caught my attention in the way... oh, every single case in PW2 and PW3 did (minus 2-1 and 3-4), and the witnesses and villains haven't been especially notable either. It's just kinda disappointing. It's also taken some steps backwards gameplaywise (Psychelocks for Perceive = worst trade ever). Feels like the weak link in the series so far, and has only one case left to turn this around.

On the plus side? The defendant was awesome in Case 1, Apollo's reactions to the zaniness of his world are in a different style from Phoenix's but still great, and both Trucy and Klavier are excellent and huge improvements over Maya and (*shudder*) Godot. Trucy is hilarious and lacks Maya's whole incompetent-damsel schtick, while Klavier is just... pretty charismatic and actually does his fucking job instead of whining about a perfect record or rivalry, while still being clever enough to be an enjoyable opponent.

[Niu]

12Riven- Crap, I should have guess. Renmaru and Narumi arc is not on the same day but a day apart. Now that I think about it, there is no indicator stating the starting day is 5/20 whenever Narumi is around, only Renmaru's arc has that. Crap crap crap, stupid me, I should have guessed earlier this when I heard the Ever17 crew is doing this, I could have saved a good deal of my braincells from dying. Fuck, the they look the same but are different people stunt is there too.

And something is troubeling me, I thought Integral series is not connected with Infinity series....
But 5/21 11:52 Renmaru's arc, the ability that Renmaru used.... is that Blick Winckle? I pray this is not... if Integral gets conected to the Infinity, god, oh god.

[Nitori]

Luminous Arc: C20. Game is of course still continuing with the standard cookie cutter plot of plotness, although the battles have been more fun lately~. I'd like it better if 90% of the characters meant something ever (and there was a better physical-magic balance). Oh weeeeeeeeellllllllllll~

[Sierra]

Haven't been playing much lately. However!

IN Normal: Cleared with the ghost team. Replay is being here: http://replays.gensokyo.org/download.php?id=746

Made some dumb mistakes near the end, but it's still better than the previous attempt (which saw me coming into stage five with maxed lives and losing five of them there. Ugh). Surprised I cleared Normal with the ghost team before team scarlet (who I use much more often and honestly think are a good deal better), especially since the ghost girls have to deal with Marisa. Boss Marisa = pain. I opted to just bomb the shit out of her this time, which is most likely what I will do in all future runs.

[DomaDragoon]

Doom: Inferno completed. The Spider Mastermind didn't like the fact I came packing the BFG fully charged (I think they threw three or four at me throughout the Chapter). Played the first map on Thy Flesh Consumed... what the ****? Massive amounts of teleporting enemies, small enclosed spaces, a bloody Baron (which my brother has affectionately deemed ManBearPig)... They certainly didn't design this for amateurs.

[AAA]

Thy Flesh Consumed is like that the entire time. I think there's a Cyberdemon in the second level of all things. Good luck playing it on Ultra-Violence!

[Talaysen]

I opted to just bomb the shit out of her this time, which is most likely what I will do in all future runs.

This is what you should be doing, yes.

Also, congrats.  Ghost Team is a weird one to clear it with, but that's because Ghost Team is weird.

[Dunefar]

Doom: Inferno completed. The Spider Mastermind didn't like the fact I came packing the BFG fully charged (I think they threw three or four at me throughout the Chapter). Played the first map on Thy Flesh Consumed... what the ****? Massive amounts of teleporting enemies, small enclosed spaces, a bloody Baron (which my brother has affectionately deemed ManBearPig)... They certainly didn't design this for amateurs.

Thy Flesh Consumed is hard, especially compared to the first three episodes. It was designed a fair ways after the basics of Doom and reflects toughening play styles. The first level of it happens to be a bitchy hitscan and trap level on top of it, so g'luck.

[Meeplelard]

AI: So I get to the Tower of Marcus, climb up to the 4th Crystal...to learn I have to climb back down and find the 4th stone anyway? ARGH! Stop finding superficial ways to make this game longer, damn it! A long mid game fetchquest is more than enough -_-

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Fallout 1 is done, blew up the Cathedral with the nuke I took off the Lou. On to Fallout 2!

My character is the Holiest Man Ever to Slap Iron. He will only kill for revenge, but he will never NOT take revenge on someone. Tagged Small Guns for the killing, barter to get the bullets, and lockpicking for general convenience. I go through lots of bullets, because I've got 10 AP, took Fast Shot as a trait, and am angling to get Bonus Rate of Fire, so I can put five rounds downfield a turn with some guns.

[Twilkitri]

Played through Great Greed for the heck of it. Fun fun.
Generally entertaining and inoffensive, so I'm not entirely sure why there seems to be a fair amount of dislike for it? I went into it expecting something along the lines of Aretha GB quality, and instead find it's Dragon Slayer Gaiden quality.

Biohaz was taking no damages from my physicals and for a short while I was thinking he was physical-immune. Then I tried swapping back to the Knight's Sword and found that it was just paying attention to the plot. Crazy game being consistent with itself. Nice of them to autosave between his forms even though it doesn't let you manually save there. I was actually expecting there to be a seperate form for each girl and had no idea how the heck my resources were going to last.

To be fair I was also expecting that Bio would turn out to be that guy who went off and left you alone in the opening, so my expectations aren't anything to be trusted >_>

[Cotigo]

Shadow of the Colossus: 12 Colossi beaten.

This game should suck.  Almost everything about it, taken individually, makes me think that this game should be an unplayable piece of shit.  The controls are odd and often frustrating, there's no overworld enemies (Not my complaint (hey, I enjoyed the first hour of DW7, you know, until I found out that that was all the plot you got for 70 hours of gameplay), the plot is open-ended as hell, collecting power ups is frustrating not only because the game does not tell you outright that you can boost your DEX and health, but also because seeing the power ups themselves is a pain--I still can't tell if there's fruit on a tree or not.  Furthermore, actually getting to the colossus is roughly 30% of the game, and that's just you trekking through a really large overworld while trying to get your god damn horse to listen to your directions.

However, somehow it takes all these handicaps and becomes pure awesome, because in the end a lot of what's wrong with the game does not matter.  Getting 3/4 of the way through without any power ups (maybe a couple lizards, I got lucky) has been challenging but because of the power ups.  They're actually fairly useless.  Everything else just adds to the atmosphere of the game.  That, and there's something about climbing over a behemoth and stabbing him in the head repeatedly while you're holding on for dear life that's just intrinsically fun and makes it hard to give a shit about the wonky controls.

Probably a bad idea to pick it up so close to the end of the semester, what with classes starting to put the cock to the gloryhole, as you will.  Oh well, if I wasn't playing this I'd be playing Smash so whatever.

[Sierra]

FM4: Darril 2. Met Ivanovna, who wasted no time in perpetrating the common villain sins of Not Killing the Heroes Even Though it Would Be Really Easy, and going "Rar, let's try out this expensive and presumably experimental new weapon against the heroes now that they're actually prepared." Clearly this will be an adversary for the ages. Since I know from an old post of Super's that she's the final boss, I'm sure she'll commit the latter mistake repeatedly.

Also met Luis and Ines. Grenade launcher = love. Goddamn, I needed some AoE offense. I probably should've asked chat before deciding to see if taking damage from friendly fire was possible before trying it, though. Oh well, Luis lived, so it's all good.

Now in Elsa's third chapter. Overhauled everyone's equipment since I actually had the cash to do so and it was blatantly apparent from the final chapter two fight that they needed it. Elsa remains a dual machinegunner to make the most of those techs, Latona's the link whore (1AP for melee attacks = link her to all the other frontline attackers for mass club beatings), gave Bosch a bazooka because, what the hey, let's try 'em out, Hermes pretty much does nothing but heal, Zead is the resident ubertank so that at least he can do some good by soaking up enemy counterattacks at melee range when he runs out of missiles. Turns out the preparation was quite warranted: first chapter three battle was much easier, though still not a pushover. Latona died halfway through (wasted by a shotgunner just after fragging Wagner) and missed out on an assload of EP as a result. Not to self: don't let people die ever.