What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Sierra]

Speaking personally, I usually need to allow for a warm-up game in which I fail fantastically before getting into a groove on the second attempt.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

DDS - This game is a succession of downright, purposefully annoying design choices piled onto each other to whom the game writes love letters so far. I sorta forgot why Megami Tensei games pissed me off to no end, and this is reminding me nicely of the reasons. This is sorta like the unholy manbaby spawn of Suikoden 4 and the Dork Age.

[Sierra]

I thought Suikoden 4 WAS the Dork Age for the series?

Heavenly Sword: Started this up, played a couple hours. I have to say that I approve of being able to hurl corpses at your enemies. Also, hat-throwing for fun and profit. Also, Andy Serkis. Yeah, game's fun. Fruitiest villain cast ever (if there's someone around that's fruitier than Flying Fox, I do not want to know about it). The lumbering oaf in the group is hereby dubbed Super Sloth.

Also, no one can dodge the Patriot Arrow. Well, except when I miss. Dammit Shen, stop dying. Yes, it's totally your fault that I didn't shoot the guy trying to stab you in the back.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Heavenly Sword: Started this up, played a couple hours.

So how was the ending, then?

[Dunefar]

Guilty Gear XX Accent Core:

Mouthful, eh?

Anyhow, it's yet another installment of Guilty Gear. It's fun, fast and flashy, which is good enough for me. I've not played it too seriously yet, mostly sticking to Dizzy and Ky. Dizzy feels about the same as always, only with yet another slight nerf. Ky feels somewhat reworked and I like him more now. Past that? Uh, Boss I-No feels like she's graduated to full SNK boss status. The changes to Megalomania and her Gold form characteristics are a real pisser.  It's very much a slog of a fight, one where a mistake can cost you 50%+ of your life. The battle feels designed to punish anything but a highly defensive strategy, though perhaps I'm simply not grokking various battle system changes yet. We'll see how it unfolds.

[Shale]

I-No isn't even the toughest boss in the game, and that's not meant to take anything away from her difficulty. Order Sol is just that goddamned wrong.

[Dunefar]

I-No isn't even the toughest boss in the game, and that's not meant to take anything away from her difficulty. Order Sol is just that goddamned wrong.

I've heard.

I get the feeling they're making up for a lack of challenge mode in this installment.

[Meeplelard]

FF5: Finally beat this file, only took me nearly a year to finally finish it up despite having only the final dungeon left.  I blame getting a PSP <_<

anyway, now in the after game, I'm trying to find the few enemies on the overworld...some of them are in the Ocean, go figure (I made sure all are available in World 3, so no, that's not an issue!), which means ;_;

FFX: In Zanarkand Dome as we speak.  Characters are breaking out of their own grids, yay!

[DjinnAndTonic]

Golden Sun: Completed the first game so that I can move onto the second (which is supposedly better?). Also, Saturos and Menardi.

Saturos: Damage is good, speed seems meh, durability is better than Menardi's, but I think Menardi dodged more? Both of them lose to Fire Djinn's def buffs.

Menardi: Damage is... passable, speed was pretty fast, she managed to ID me 4/5 times, so I can buy some ID respect. Dodged a lot more than I expected, but not really that durable once I got my hands on her. Seems like a good Heavy, but how she ever beat Myria has got to be a fluke. Unless people are allowing her to form-chain into the Fusion Dragon or something. She loses horribly to Fire Djinn's def buffs.

Currently playing:
Emulator: SaGa Frontier Red's Chapter
Console: Suikoden Tactics
Handheld: Golden Sun 2 The Lost Age/Ys DS (Japanese)

-Djinn

[Twilkitri]

Maybe they give her the form you first see >_>?


Strong Badia the Free: Easily better than Homestar Ruiner, although still not a top-tier game. The Teen Girl Squad stands out as the most dramatic improvement over the equivalent section in the first game.

Hum, on the plus side there's considerably less ludicrously hidden point-scoring things in this episode, but on the other hand they brought in permanently missable points (as far as I have been able to ascertain anyway) which is aggravating. They also took out the trophies, which I'm currently unsure how I feel about them having done.

In any case, I was completely not expecting where they went with the concept. I hope the next one manages this as well.

[Grefter]

How did you do for the Djinn uh Djinn?  or whatever they were called.  Spirit things.  I think testing showed the more you had equipped (thus the better stats... being the hard part to test which it is just off hand) the worse Death Grip or whatever is called is for hit rate.  It was pretty horrible for me after getting all of them.

[Clear Tranquil]

*nods @ Tai*

SMT- Tried the Mantra demon headquarters but having to fight three arena battles in a row is just beastly (especially considering I had trouble getting past the second fight >.>) so I am exploring the First Precint of the Labyrinth of Amala. EXP is great, already levelled up <.< Going to start levelling up the demons outside my main party (Angel is already in, her speed makes it seem like she'll be a better healer/support type than High Pixie though I'll still keep using High Pixie as well) and building up my Magitami more. I'm about to learn Life Aid next with one of them, Counter with another and umm I haven't even touched the one got from Forneous yet >.>

ToV- No I don't have the game =-( I do have a question about Repede though! How legal is his invincibilty loop for the DL? The invincibility loop sounds similar to the invincibility frames in Fayt's Sidekick or Peppita's dances which they can spam or time for extended invincibility/to avoid attacks but I feel like I shouldn't allow those and haven't before because they are kinda broken and besides everyone would hate me for allowing Peppita such a thing anyway <.<  Counters for Albel/Peppita are different because at least having invincibility in a counter makes more *sense* that just randomly having moves that have inbuilt invincibility frames >.>

[Pyro]

Repede's Invulnerability is from Gale Dog, a move specifically designed to make Repede invincible for a period of time. He has TP regen as well but I don't think its enough for him to keep it up forever offhand. Also doesn't deal much damage (at the minimum, he's competing with Yuri and Rita).

[Clear Tranquil]

I see ... thanks Cryo. So it isn't that broken then?

In that case sounds legal enough. I'll probably allow it but gwah maybe I should learn to stop being so generous >.>

[Grefter]

It is pretty simple.  If it is legal and broken then he won't be ranked.

[Sierra]

Heavenly Sword: Started this up, played a couple hours.

So how was the ending, then?

Hah. It's not that short, man.

[Strago]

grefter halp what clan should I play in Bloodlines

Ventrue or Toreador seem like the best bets for playing the smooth-talker route, which I always like. But maybe Malkavian would be a fun variation on that? Talk to me.

[VySaika]

My first char was a Toreador. Was certainly fun enough.

Anyway, TotA:

Up to the Final Savepoint. Notes on the bosses I fought yesterday:

Largo - Pretty durable, actually. His damage wasn't enough to make me need to revive more then once(he caught Jade in a corner and MA'd him. Owwwww), but overall he didn't seem too bad. Actually survived two shots of Luke's MA(I opened the fight with one, got OL built back up, whacked him a second time), though he did die shortly after the second one. Luke/Nat/Tear/Jade team.

Mohs - Weak. Very, very weak. Didn't kill anyone, and I didn't even get to drop Guy's MA on him. Right as I went into OL, Anise killed him. And I didn't even wait that long to try it. At least he has status or something? I dunno. Also wondering why we didn't rank him, as Mohs has a pretty large amount of plot, even if it is all for the same thing, and his boss fight didn't come out of nowhere, you'd seen him in Gigant Form and known it was going to happen for awhile. Eh, no big deal really, just feels like a Standard Rank that we left out for some reason. Guy/Anise/Tear/Jade team.

Legretta - Durability was kinda sad, honestly. Maybe it was that Jade learned Prism Sword and Meteor Storm between Mohs and Legretta, but she really felt like she died faster then Largo did. Only one casualty, and that was because I let her hit me with her MA to see what kind of damage it did. As suspected, it overkilled Luke at full HP. The rest of her fight though...was honestly kinda sad. Didn't have enough speed/damage to really keep me on the defensive, and didn't have enough durability to take my offense for long. Luke/Nat/Tear/Jade team.

Asch - Free Run > Him. You obviously weren't meant to lose this fight. Or even feel particularly threatened by it. Next!

Sync - What. Speed and Damage respect checking in. This fucker caused a total of 10 casualties over the course of this fight. Obviously has less concrete durability then Legretta, but it's so much harder to lock him down. I get in like two basic physicals, and before I can chain it into my artes he's on the other side of the screen. Managed to catch me with Harrowing Gale and I was trying to avoid it. Oh yeah, and he dodged my MA. I almost always activate Guy's MA from Severing Winds(is that it? The full circle wind tech that lifts the enemies into the air for a second), and while I managed to land that, and even get him in the air with it, by the time Raising Phoenix kicked in, he was out of range. I could not manage to lock this guy down with anything. Now thanks to the way the DL works, I don't think he'll be able to hang in Godlike very well. But I have no trouble seeing him take a Heavy season. Too fast, too much damage. Guy/Anise/Tear/Jade team.

Anyway, will likely fight Van today/tomorrow.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

DDS - ahahahahahahaha mick you wuss.

[Shale]

My first char was a Toreador. Was certainly fun enough.

Ditto.

I finished my PW3 replay last week. I'd forgotten how completely awesome case 5 is - the character interaction is just on a whole other level from the rest of the series, with all those recurring character put in new situations and dealing with new people, to fantastic effect (example: I don't particularly care for Larry, but his moments with Franziska and Pearl are classic). And that's in addition to The Best Investigation Phase Ever(TM), Mia and Phoenix literally owning a villain to death, and the second-day investigation, which is the most tightly plot-focused in the series (outside of maybe 2-4, which has other issues that drag it down). Apollo Justice next? More than likely. Gotta fill time before Z comes out somehow.

[Yakumo]

grefter halp what clan should I play in Bloodlines

Ventrue or Toreador seem like the best bets for playing the smooth-talker route, which I always like. But maybe Malkavian would be a fun variation on that? Talk to me.

Don't play a Malk the first time through.  They're awesome, but they're so much more awesome the second time when you can understand what they're referencing.  Also, if you know the references they're making they can actually spoil some plot points.

[Niu]

Repede's Invulnerability is from Gale Dog, a move specifically designed to make Repede invincible for a period of time. He has TP regen as well but I don't think its enough for him to keep it up forever offhand. Also doesn't deal much damage (at the minimum, he's competing with Yuri and Rita).

The move cost 16 TP, with a Repede having 550 TP, he can do it for all eternity if he just alternates it between the invinci and physical attacks. His invinci is also pretty long, allow him to toss in two Senkureha and still have time left for him to refresh the invinci before it wears off.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

DDS - *Gets Ice Lord Mantra, equips Bufudyne and Ice Amp.*

*Serph deals 380 damage without hitting weakness with it.*

Holy -fuck-.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

grefter halp what clan should I play in Bloodlines

Ventrue or Toreador seem like the best bets for playing the smooth-talker route, which I always like. But maybe Malkavian would be a fun variation on that? Talk to me.

I personally went Ventrue. Dominate and Fortitude are both really, really good.

[DjinnAndTonic]

How did you do for the Djinn uh Djinn?  or whatever they were called.  Spirit things.  I think testing showed the more you had equipped (thus the better stats... being the hard part to test which it is just off hand) the worse Death Grip or whatever is called is for hit rate.  It was pretty horrible for me after getting all of them.

They are indeed called Djinn... And I got all of them. Not sure if having Djinn in the 'ready' position means Death Seize's accuracy increases or not.. Having Djinn in the 'ready' position DOES cause a stat decrease, though... It's possible that because I often used Summons (thus requiring multiple Djinn to be in the ready position) that Death Seize hit more often due to decreased stats? However... since I figure using Summons is a pretty common strategy, I wouldn't hold this against the accuracy of the ID since that is the level of resistance it would normally be hitting? It would be like not allowing a boss -any- ID simply because by the time you fight them, everyone has access to a universal ID blocker...

-Djinn