What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[hinode]

- I didn't get anyone to 20/15. When the enemies on the last maps are only 20/5 at most, which is like 8 exp to a 20/11 unit for a kill, so its kind of hard to do so. Doubt its possible to do your whole party without randoms/bonus dungeons?

20/10 or 20/12 is generally considered standard endgame levels.  Not sure why the DL topic uses 15 aside from habit, and I'm too lazy to redo everything for the minor differences that it'd entail.

- Side note: Did Lyon have completely different plot in Eph's route than Eirika's? FIRE EMBLEM PLOT, I know, but still.

Yep.  And Eph path Lyon is the only part of FE8 plot that I found worthwhile.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

G3 - Gameplay continues to be excellent and just improve as things go. Since I have three skills for both Yuki and Alfina, and I've been getting Secret Methods at a good pace, I can guess I'm doing fine at the random growth thing, and while enemies kinda steered down a bit, they're still not total pushovers and the game's so polished in so many counts. G3 really picks up the pace with the gameplay potential Grandia games always had, but never fully utilized before.

The plot and writing? Continues to be anvilicious glurge that not even Pollyanna could enjoy. I'd do some sort of mockery of it, but, at this point, I don't even think it's a mockery case anymore. G3 writing is, so far, a case study for how badly a hack'neyed Disney story (as I mentioned before) can go, and it's just getting started. It's actually fascinating in a morbidly sadistic and masochistic way to watch.

EDIT: No, I lie. The "Alfina discovers hypothermia" scene is so laughably glurgy it's just too tempting to leave unmocked. Apparently, both the basics of human biology and mating were lost on her science classes. Also, late, but I can't shake off the feeling that Miranda pulled a Virgin Mary with Yuki when she was eight.

EDIT 2: SLAUGHTERING SHEEP BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES.

[Clear Tranquil]

... ... ... 

Is the gameplay really THAT good?

Like S03 standard? I don't really care about S03's mockable plot but I can't get enough of the gameplay.

I vagueely remember Gate saying something about G3 having aerials/juggling which I have fun with in S03 so if it's as good ... on the other hand umm plot >.> Is there a skip event? <.<

[Anthony Edward Stark]

SC4-

I finally beat the 20th floor of the Tower of Lost Souls after three days and more attempts than I can count. I believe my reaction was "SUCK IT, BITCH! I WILL FUCKING MURDER YOU!"

The thing that clinched it? Raphael and his ability to activate Dracula powers at an opportune moment.

[Rozalia]

You need to have everyone required for the story scenes or they never happen. Period. Lein may not be IN many scenes, but he's required.

I guess that makes sence as he is like the only person Allen even speaks to from what I remember besides that random soldier that does the reports from time to time.

[Monkeyfinger]

Is there a way to check a Disgaea file to see how many friendly fire kills I have?

[Sierra]

None that I know of. Annoying, no?

HL: "We've got hostiles." Yes, we do--and I'm not one of them, so stop shooting at me! Grr, stupid army guys. Yeah, just reached the surface.

MK: Did chapter seven. Not much to say about it.

[Cmdr_King]

CT- Personally I don't think so.  The combat is highly refined, but the ability learning system is SaGa-esque for both learning new techniques and improving existing ones, except without the internal logic that can be FAQed around.  Good, sure, but too flawed to justify the plot for me.  Also, Snow isn't that far; the plot has only begun to fail and doesn't truly show itself until after Emolious.
Though yes, there is sceneskip.

Persona 3: September.  6 S.Links maxed, one of which was a dating one, so I'll be able to do at least one more, hopefully two since Yukari's a lot more available than Yuko.  Hierophant of all people has been the only good boss fight so far, although I haven't yet fought the legendary TABLE.  Still, on the whole the last few bosses have dealt poorly with Tarunda and Sukunda.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

CT- Personally I don't think so.  The combat is highly refined, but the ability learning system is SaGa-esque for both learning new techniques and improving existing ones, except without the internal logic that can be FAQed around.

I can't argue that. The skill learning/growth system is the gaping black hole in what would be a freaking perfect gameplay system. So far, it has been mitigated by being forgiving to me, but that's a conceptually stupid idea in way too many levels. You usually have to spam your skills far less to evolve them, and they seem to be learned far faster, but it's still dumb and counter-intuitive beyond reason.

[Monkeyfinger]

The skills have experience bars. They are just invisible.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Yeah, that much I gathered. Not letting you see the freaking bars is just as stupid, though.

[Cmdr_King]

That's... probably worse to boot, since SP is a restricted resource.  Which I think bothered me as much as the seeming random of the skill system to start with.  Although ilt does make magic much more useful!  I dunno.

[superaielman]

Yeah, G3 has a good basic premise for the combat but the entire SP system drags it down for me. Having SP for every random battle is too key to the flow of combat, and it's very easy to run out thanks to having no way to really restore it besides for perfect battles and physical attacks.

And the complete worthlessness of the plot is a serious flaw of the game. I'm not sure why people give it mostly a free pass, it was fucking awful in most every regard and like most everything besides gameplay balance, a massive step back from G2. And yes, the plot was worse than G1's in spite of being made a decade later and having something like ten times the production value in that regard.

GoC- Stayed up till 5am playing this because I couldn't sleep. Motherfucking pirates with archers. *Resetresetreset*

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

And the complete worthlessness of the plot is a serious flaw of the game. I'm not sure why people give it mostly a free pass, it was fucking awful in most every regard and like most everything besides gameplay balance, a massive step back from G2. And yes, the plot was worse than G1's in spite of being made a decade later and having something like ten times the production value in that regard.

Part of the reason it's seemingly worse is -exactly- the higher production values. Grandia writing has always been one to revel in bonafide glurge one way or another (the entirety of G1, G2's first half was essentially a setup for the jarring deconstruction of every neat, vaguely more complex idea in the plot into cliche failure), and G3's approach is consciously using a horribly cliched plot and present it with stunning visuals and polish. The cutscenes are aesthetically wonderful, with a good sense of angles, expression, entonation and beauty, but all the great aesthetics are used to tell an irritating at best waterfall of uninspiring cliches - which is why I call it bad Disney plot, it's pretty much how Disney works when the writing sucks ass. The production values powerfully highlight the failure of a typically awful plot.

[AAA]

That's part of the reason why G3's story pisses me off so much. They clearly cared enough to put in so many cutscenes and spend so much time and effort on it...and you wind up with something so utterly terrible I can't believe that the writer wasn't fired on the spot. I can't fathom how they could screw up so badly.

Hell, at least G1 never pretended that it's story was anything but a vehicle to get to the next dungeon crawling segment.

[Grefter]

G3 plot gets a free pass because Grandia has always been about the combat system anyway and a Grandia that finally actually stands up and has more to it than face roll and win sticks out a lot not just in the series but in the genre.

It is just another one of those cases where if one part of the game is really exceptional it can outweigh the bad things.  The strength of the battle system is what keeps G3 above average.  I don't think anyone sane is goign 10/10 best game ever.

[Hunter Sopko]

GoC- Stayed up till 5am playing this because I couldn't sleep. Motherfucking pirates with archers. *Resetresetreset*

Why would you need to reset? Losing an average commander isn't a big deal, especially if it's a magician or an archer unit. Pirates suck to deal with though.

EDIT: Oh, and playing until 5AM cause you "couldn't sleep"? I used to use that excuse too.

[superaielman]

They kept nuking Gena/Glen. Fuck that noise. A change in tactics worked wonders there.

Nah, I got up at 2, couldn't sleep and played GoC for a few hours. Also played it again today, trying to figure out who's good and who's not.

ON THE GOOD LIGHT: NIGHTLY. Jesus flippin christ.

[Rozalia]

They kept nuking Gena/Glen. Fuck that noise. A change in tactics worked wonders there.

Nah, I got up at 2, couldn't sleep and played GoC for a few hours. Also played it again today, trying to figure out who's good and who's not.

ON THE GOOD LIGHT: NIGHTLY. Jesus flippin christ.

Nightly is good but wait until you see jack(el) sparrow in action.

[superaielman]

I saw Jackel at the con. I want. I sooo want.

[Hunter Sopko]

They kept nuking Gena/Glen. Fuck that noise. A change in tactics worked wonders there.

Nah, I got up at 2, couldn't sleep and played GoC for a few hours. Also played it again today, trying to figure out who's good and who's not.

ON THE GOOD LIGHT: NIGHTLY. Jesus flippin christ.

Nightly is awesome, yes. Fight with him at night, it powers up his partner's spells above their already brokenness. You get a slew of good commanders next chapter as well.

And yes, the Pirate/Infantry noise when bullets rip through your ranks is aggravating, but a symphony when you're using them. If it was archers... you had to have been using the Kamikaze formation.

[superaielman]

I always use Kamikaze formation. Charge in, use a super move then an SP move if the enemies are dangerous, mop up.

[Hunter Sopko]

What about Kamikaze formation against ranged units struck you as a good enough idea to use more than once?

[superaielman]

It generally worked well enough before this. Pirates just had way more offense than I'm used to seeing. Sending my Dark Knight to smash Arby's sorry ass.

[Hunter Sopko]

Heh. Arby eh? What'd you make your custom generics into?