What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[metroid composite]

After a few days of not having enough time left at night for Touhou, played PCB Easy with Reimu A last night.  Needed a couple of continues -_-.

[Xeroma]

Don't worry MC, you're doing better than me at it >_>;

Been playing lots of random shit these days. Chocobo's Dungeon is hillarious, odd fun. RANK THE ALMIGHTY COSPLAYING CHOCOBO OF DEATH.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Being as Red Alert 3 has begun beta testing, I got a hankering to play Red Alert 2.

Still fun. Massed GIs are still much too good defensively, though.

[Sierra]

After a few days of not having enough time left at night for Touhou, played PCB Easy with Reimu A last night.  Needed a couple of continues -_-.

PCB Easy =/= easy. It was months before I 1cced the damn thing.

[metroid composite]

Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, Normal, Marissa A.  Playing normal due to Easy not even having the final level.  Died in level 5 before the final level despite this.

Either bosses in this game have really low HP, or Marissa A deals a crapload of damage (guessing the latter since she doesn't have homing attacks).

Phantasmagoria of Flower: Beat Easy rather comfortably using bunny-girl; only lost one 1v1, and frequently won with full health.  That said, the game confuses me a lot.  I get the vague impression that charge shots and bombs use the same resource, but I'm not sure how to easily check that resource or how to refill it.  I'm also not sure if focusing consumes some of that resource.  It's also annoying tapping Z instead of holding the button down when I don't want to charge shot.  I'm also not impressed with the idea of enemies coming from the bottom of the screen.

[Talaysen]

Phantasmagoria of Flower: Beat Easy rather comfortably using bunny-girl; only lost one 1v1, and frequently won with full health.  That said, the game confuses me a lot.  I get the vague impression that charge shots and bombs use the same resource, but I'm not sure how to easily check that resource or how to refill it.  I'm also not sure if focusing consumes some of that resource.  It's also annoying tapping Z instead of holding the button down when I don't want to charge shot.  I'm also not impressed with the idea of enemies coming from the bottom of the screen.

Bombs do take up the same resource as charges, yes.  Bombs just use all of it and put you back to 0 charge, while charges you can decide how much to use and it uses up one less than the charge you use (so if you use charge L2, you lose 1).  Focusing doesn't consume charge at all.

Also, enemies coming from the bottom of the screen makes you learn not to bottomhug.  It's generally not a great idea, and especially in PoFV.

[VySaika]

After a few days of not having enough time left at night for Touhou, played PCB Easy with Reimu A last night.  Needed a couple of continues -_-.

PCB Easy =/= easy. It was months before I 1cced the damn thing.

And I STILL haven't managed it. -_-

[metroid composite]

Imperishable Night: Well since MoF hasn't finished downloading, and since I 0-continued IN on Easy, I set it on Normal, using the third PC pair (has a vampire; lets you lock familiars in place).  Came very, very close to using one continue (about 10 seconds left on the final spell card) but ended up needing two.

[Tide]

VP2 SG: Got off my lazy ass and working towards releasing. Getting all the perfect equipment though is arghle pain.

I found a couple of neat ways to get some of the items. Red Boots for example, can be gotten fairly simple with Brahms. Immortal Blow --> cancel halfway through with an Overhammer. It will knock the Dryad straight up and when the Overhammer hits, you'll come right down on the lower portion of the body. Ghibli Scales for Wind Gloves are fairly easy to get with a team of Lezard, Freya and either Brahms or Alicia. Head to the Swamp, and in the room with the Thundercloud law sealstone, the enemy that spawns there is 100% going to have a bolt dragon. Use Lezard's Prismatic Missile (make sure it doesn't kill), then time Alicia in with Cutting Edge. Followed by Freya using Mobius Slide. Its a bit tricky since timing Freya too early causes her to miss and too late for the attack to be over. But its two shots per Bolt Dragon for that scale, which makes things faster.

 It still took close to 3 hours to get all the parts despite finding ways around hitting the proper spots. Hate the Palace of the Venedrated Dragons so much since I got lost inside ;_; . Then getting the parts for the Conquerer's Armor is also annoying as all hell. Also have to get 4-5 Helgi Swords

However, now I can pretty much release one or two guys and work from there. But I'm still gathering Bat Wings next. Followed Windswept Tailfeathers ._. . Rufus with Blue Gale + Dismantle makes things lot less painful though. And surprisingly, even Lezard has use. Just for fun, I did a semi perfect release against the final again and found out I can DA him in one go without using Valkyrie. Whee!

EDIT: Helgi's Sword gotten! As well as all the Conquerer's Armors! Helgi's Sword is best done with Freya. Crisis Point --> Heavenly Punishment cancel the moment Freya does the downward spin in Crisis Point. Always hits the headpiece this way.

As for Conquerer's Armor. The tailfeathers are best gotten with Rufus + Blue Gale + Dismantle. Just use his standard Thunder Arrow on the back and it should sheer them straight off. The same applies to the Bat wings actually. Just jump beside the Giant bats or behind the Goblins and Thunder Arrow them with that set up.

[Random Consonant]

Hoshigami: Grinding for seals.  It's somewhat different, I guess, but the differences aren't great enough to be excited about and the implementation is fail.  Also, the battles feel like a slow form of torture.  Oh well, I brought this on myself...

Within A Deep Forest: I mostly started this to ease the pain of playing Hoshigami, though since I've gotten about half the balls already, I don't think that's going to last very long. *sigh*

[Shale]

When I got RSMS back at the con, I remembered I had a Barbara playthrough going that I hadn't touched in forever. So I picked that up. Started at ER13, in the process of whittling down Jewel Beast's pillars with Overdrive/Holy Sparkle cheese. I'm now at ER18, with all time-sensitive quests completed, the Jewel Beast dead, and all Fatestones but Ruby and Obsidian Sword collected. The game is pleasantly challenging when you're rushing through it - all four boss fights in the pirate invasion were pretty dangerous, and I killed Jewel Beast by the skin of my teeth (and a really lucky Pillar that hit for 2000 damage). Also, I finally saw Soulgutter use Black Ice, and he still wasn't that dangerous. Damage reflection's annoying, yeah, but the activation rate was low and I was going for status, not damage. Eating the 85 damage a Knee Split would've done isn't going to slaughter my party.

Team is Barbara (longswords and martial arts), Myriam (hydrology and aerology), Guella Ha (Polearms), Captain Silver (Greatswords) and Aisha (hand axes).

[Niu]

Don't worry MC, you're doing better than me at it >_>;

Been playing lots of random shit these days. Chocobo's Dungeon is hillarious, odd fun. RANK THE ALMIGHTY COSPLAYING CHOCOBO OF DEATH.

If this mean to rank Raffaelo too, then absolutely yes.

[metroid composite]

Moutain of Faith Easy, Reimu A

Easier than I remembered, particularly the early levels.  Don't think I bombed or lost a life in the first three or four levels, and granted the slow moving bullets can trap the player on some of the late stuff, but I still ended with 3 lives (more than the starting amount >_>).

[RadLink5]

Don't worry MC, you're doing better than me at it >_>;

Been playing lots of random shit these days. Chocobo's Dungeon is hillarious, odd fun. RANK THE ALMIGHTY COSPLAYING CHOCOBO OF DEATH.

The Almighty Cosplaying Chocobo of Death is surprisingly not that great in a duel setting I think, despite the whole solo RPG thing going for him. Only having access to one skill set at a time hurts of course.

[Grefter]

Solo RPG tends to hinder more than it helps (having shitty party members skews averages to better character advantages).

Castle of the Winds - Well Laggy was playing Nethack on and off yesterday and today, so I figured I would dig out my own pet easy roguelike and cream it again.

[Sierra]

MK: Muppy is awesome. That is all.

PST: Was pretty psyched to play this, so I went and started it up yesterday. Got out of the Mortuary, currently wandering around the Hive looking for Pharod (who sounds like a pretty worthless meatbag, but he has the plot). Grabbed Dak'kon because, hey, having another PC is always a good thing. And Morte is precisely as entertaining as advertised.

[Strago]

Yyyyyyeeeesssssssssssssss. Another has entered the fold! Glad to see you joining us, El Cid.

[SageAcrin]

Met: MarisaA in EoSD has gamebest damage for raw shot power. But things in EoSD generally just die faster. It's a balance for it having fairly hard, fast-hitting attacks in general.

Let's see, where was I...

Megaman Star Force: Completed.

Excellent game, easily as good as MMBN5/6 despite the lack of customization. The 3D style is a little weird, and takes some getting used to; Most notably, swords now have a downtime due to requiring homing and tent to feel a little less useful to me. The customization is rather depressing(Frankly, 2 had more basic customizability.), but I suppose they felt they had to go somewhere.

No, what this game made up for is plot. Megaman plot. It revels in it. It's hilarious about it. It has a pseudo-main character who constantly mocks all of it. Etc. It's not a serious plot, but I was surprised by this out of the series that constantly spouted off HEY THERE IS A GIANT INTERNET DOG TRYING TO DESTROY THE WORLD. Fun, and what puts the game prooobably over every MMBN. That and nice, non-grating dungeons. That was cool.

Megaman Star Force 2(Zerker):

I think I'm two dungeons from the end on this, got sidetracked by 4DS.

Good: Customization! LP basically works like WA PSes, more or less, although it's woefully simplistic still. It feels like they're trying too hard to save stuff for sequels. Sigh. It's still good.

Also, the powered up form gimmick, unlike SF1, is actually really useful and the game is well balanced for it. Well, except Tribe King but most people won't get that since it requires an IRL friend playing the right version of the game or a second playthrough of your own game, but regardless...

Bad: Dungeons are back to MMBN5 le-well, not that bad. But they're more like MMBN dungeons; Namely, mildly irritating a lot. The plot's a little flatter, too, though that's okay(And it does a better job with the other characters, just not with Mega and Geo.).

Overall, still good. I think I liked SF1 a bit more.

Final Fantasy 4DS:

Up to the final dungeon, grinding on Bombs for the Bomb Summon for like six hours. I may give up on that.

It's FF4. With better battle system. Notably better. And far, far less stupidity in mechanics and polish. Works well enough for me.

[Cotigo]

MK: Muppy is awesome. That is all.

PST: Was pretty psyched to play this, so I went and started it up yesterday. Got out of the Mortuary, currently wandering around the Hive looking for Pharod (who sounds like a pretty worthless meatbag, but he has the plot). Grabbed Dak'kon because, hey, having another PC is always a good thing. And Morte is precisely as entertaining as advertised.

Yyyyyyeeeesssssssssssssss. Another has entered the fold! Glad to see you joining us, El Cid.

One of us, one of us, little red cook book, little red cook book.

[Shale]

Yyyyyyeeeesssssssssssssss. Another has entered the fold! Glad to see you joining us, El Cid.

One of us, one of us, little red cook book, little red cook book.

Cid: Speaking of Dak'kon, remember that you can converse with your party members. It's good for more than just reminding TNO where to go next!

[Grefter]

MK: Muppy is awesome. That is all.

PST: Was pretty psyched to play this, so I went and started it up yesterday. Got out of the Mortuary, currently wandering around the Hive looking for Pharod (who sounds like a pretty worthless meatbag, but he has the plot). Grabbed Dak'kon because, hey, having another PC is always a good thing. And Morte is precisely as entertaining as advertised.

Yyyyyyeeeesssssssssssssss. Another has entered the fold! Glad to see you joining us, El Cid.

One of us, one of us, little red cook book, little red cook book.

It's a piece of cake to bake a pretty cake.

[DomaDragoon]

FFTA2: Luso is now tripping on ghost juice and having freak-out dreams. 125 missions clear, and two of the final jobs unlocked.

Civilization Revolution: I can now get wins on King level without too much difficulty. Now to start trying multiplayer.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

WO1 - Finished Wu path, took a peek at Shu path and stage one was boring as fuck. ;_; Oh well. I should use the XP I got from beating the game -somewhere-.

EDIT:

G3 - Just started! Apparently, there are three plotlines that can never coexist together in the end of the day so far: Yuki Queen of the Desert wants to flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy awaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyy~ and be fabulous like Hugo Weaving along with her best friend Ashley Ketchum, Miranda is on an epic adventure to get her surrogate son laid by a woman and prove his heterosexuality, and MYSTARY ALFINA GIRL wants to find her brother so she can know whether the story about birds, bees and babies she heard from generic white-haired emo Kaneko design was true or not. If it is, she won't be able to sleep at night. Yeeeeeeeeeeaaaaah.

[Excal]

Just remember, Snow.  You're currently at the high point for the plot.  It all goes downhill from there.

[superaielman]

Generations of Chaos: Just wrapping up the first trial map with Gena. Yeah yeah, stop throwing bricks at my head Soppy.