What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Fudozukushi]

Wrath: Finished up my Heroic dungeons run.  Just one boss away from that nifty Champion of the Frozen Wastes title.  Also ran a spectacularly bad Naxx.  Twelve wipes, no loot!

Bolvar may be alive as well.  Seriously made me wtf.

[Cmdr_King]

Soul Nomad- Finished.  Also finished EVIL mode.

In general I'm not sure how they expect you to play the game if you don't just do Inspections and outpower everything.  Using generic mages/archers as unit leaders is asking for it to lose the leader in an unlucky hit and explode and it's ages before you get any story characters for the job.  Besides which, enemies are pretty good about unit groupings so you're also just going to have something with advantage wander over and kill you anyway.
That said, once you have just a few levels to get the ball rolling inspections aren't so bad as an N1 mindless powerlevelling system goes.
Otherwise, solid job of making the real bosses stand out in gameplay terms, although after a while you do want to yell murderous things about never wanting to see a Pyremage again.

Story just... works.  Gig makes it work.  I don't think I want to say much more.
EVIL mode?  I dunno, spent a lot of time wondering where they were going in terms of why.  Never got any answers there.  Still, evil lesbian laugh works well.

DL!

Just kidding.  Doing Soul Nomad in the DL basically involves hours of testing each character (and generic) in a solo neutral panel, which basically takes until the end of time to do.  And of course deciding how to treat Summon and Transform.  Also important.

I dunno, 9/10 maybe?  Sometimes it seemed like too much work was needed to keep ahead of the enemy power curve, which was essential to not being frustrated with the game, and the plot occasionally felt like there were scenes cut for some reason, but what's there is still very good.

[Yakumo]

Dude, CK.  I didn't do inspections, beat up townspeople, or attempt to break the game at all my first time through and I had no problems whatsoever.  Not even with keeping Archer generics alive or anything like that.  Well, except Pyremages, but they're made of wet paper or something. >_>

[Sierra]

Dude, CK.  I didn't do inspections, beat up townspeople, or attempt to break the game at all my first time through and I had no problems whatsoever.  Not even with keeping Archer generics alive or anything like that.  Well, except Pyremages, but they're made of wet paper or something. >_>

Ditto. I mean, I had a couple gameovers, sure, but in no way is powerbuilding necessary to stomp the maingame.

ES: Obligatory ice dungeon --> obligatory lava dungeon. Yawn. I'm only now hitting the twenty hour mark on this game, which makes me wonder if I'll even finish it this year (and with P4 coming out in a few days...) The cast and plot are so embarrassingly trite that it's hard not to nod off during the garbled nonsense the characters spout after every boss fight. The urge to abuse sceneskip is strong.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Wrath: Finished up my Heroic dungeons run.  Just one boss away from that nifty Champion of the Frozen Wastes title.  Also ran a spectacularly bad Naxx.  Twelve wipes, no loot!

Bolvar may be alive as well.  Seriously made me wtf.

Yeah, I figured that was the case from the moment I saw the video. Comic book rule, man! If you don't see a body, they're not dead. If you see a body and you don't burn it and/or chop it's head off, they could still not be dead. The only time you can be sure you are dead is if they not only die and you see a body which is then cremated, you also have to be incredibly lame (see: Doug Ramsey).

[Ryogo]

Next time, just ask here or in chat and we'll give you advice without spoilers.  Unless it is Niu, then spoilers are inevitable.  That sounds like Sleeping Table you're fighting, and it is indeed the most difficult fight in the game.  Use Tarunda on him to lower his attack.  If Junpei has Marakakaja already, set him to Heal/Support and he'll cast it on your team.

I'm also playing P3, specifically The Answer.  Figured I should beat it before P4 comes out.  Bulldozing my way through, just need one set of doors to go.  Funny how most of the difficulty is at the beginning.  Some of the later door bosses don't even put up a fight.  Of course that could also be because I made myself an awesome Norn with Wind Boost/Amp and Resist Elec.  Mwahaha.

Hahaha, Junpei is at an uber low level. I was talking about leveling him back up, then someone here said not to bother leveling Junpei becaues he sucks later anyways. Sadly, I took said advice XP
Yeah, the boss is Sleeping Table. I never thought of trying some statuses though. I never do. Most the games I've played in the past, status attacks were rarely worth the effort/didn't work on bosses when I actually needed them.

[Cmdr_King]

Sleeping Table is one of the last few bosses to lack decent AI.  That is to say, it does not automatically cast Megido spells when faced with Makarakarn/Magic Mirror.  This is probably the simplest way to beat ti down.

[Ryogo]

Wow, you know your character is at a low level when he makes his little level up taunt after 4 battles in a row....

[AAA]

MK-Chapter 8. Holy shit, way behind on AP now. I'm not going to grind for it, though, because that shit's boring. Mostly on top of synthesis, just need a few things more and I'll be all caught up. I...guess this is where the plot becomes more serious? Shyeah right.

GH3-Expert beaten! Battle vs. Lou ended up going exactly as expected, got a Whammy on the first powerup and a few minutes later he's dead. I was in the glowing red during the Finish Him segment, dunno how I managed to pull that off without failing. It's sort of a shame that Achievements for being difficulty levels don't stack. Next: Bonus songs! Also, cheating to get the Co-Op exclusive ones!

Edit-I think F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X. just gave my strumming hand carpal tunnel. In brighter news, I FC'ed Closer on sightread, first Expert FC so far.

[DjinnAndTonic]

DL!

Just kidding.  Doing Soul Nomad in the DL basically involves hours of testing each character (and generic) in a solo neutral panel, which basically takes until the end of time to do.  And of course deciding how to treat Summon and Transform.  Also important.

Obviously, Revya is uber-Bluelike because s/he can Summon like Marona, but doesn't even need random rocks and trees to Confine phantoms into! >.>;;

I've actually been -trying- to put together some kind of Soul Nomad stat topic which would incorporate some of the 'class-specific' skills, but it's a little difficult due to how most of the class-specific skills involve making an entire unit composed of multiple characters all of the same class. The legality of this is questionable, as they act as a single unit 'in the field', but are multiple characters 'in battle'. Made seemingly legal by the idea that there's quite a few skills that are only used -on the field-; however, there are 'combo' skills that are used 'in battle'.

Whether you take an average of one Pyremage, one Archer, one Enchantress, etc... or an average of nine Pyremages, nine Archers, nine Enchantresses, etc... you're going to end up with basically the same stat averages. The main difference is whether to include class-specific skills (and whether to give characters access to -all- of their front-middle-back-row abilities in one battle or not). If you count each set of nine as "1 unit-character", then suddenly Priests actually have a method of dealing (pitiful, but existant) damage. Similarly, Pyremages have access to their long-range field skill. Dracosages can use their field skill Rune/Trap thing that drains 30% (?) of mHP every round.

Due to the nature of the game, this actually works for the PC story characters, too, due to the fact that all PCs are a slightly-more-powerful version of their generic class. So... Tricia+8Archers is basically the same as 9 Archers, only the stats are boosted a little (from Tricia's naturally higher basic stats) and the "unit-character" has access to Tricia's unique skills AND the Archer-class' unique skills (which overlap mostly). Has the nifty side-effect of allowing the PC cast to fully represent the range of generics (there's only a few exceptions, even most of the monster classes have PC equivalents, like Grunzford).

In many ways, it's like viewing the individual members of the unit as "equipment" of the "unit-character".

But all of that may be too complex, so I'm guessing most people would rather just have a bland cast like Ogre Battle.

-Djinn

[Shale]

FF3: Cleared Eureka. Team is pretty much set as Ninja/Sage/Black Belt/Dragoon. The only issue I see going into the final section is a lack of high-level healing charges for the Sage, but that's why I saved every Elixir I ever got.

Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia: Fun game, not as different from the other portable CVs as I'd hoped but still good. I've gone with an all-magic playthrough because the weapon glyphs felt like I was just replaying Dawn of Sorrow or Portrait of Ruin, and it's been a neat change of pace that way, especially with glyph switching. In Dracula's castle now, with Blackmore beaten (he curls up and dies to Ignis pretty easily).

[Meeplelard]

FF9: Just got the Hilda Garde!  Now the plot takes major backseat to me dicking around and doing side quests, mostly CH&C.

[Dark Holy Elf]

SH3 - Beat this again today. Not much to add; it remains a very solid, fun gameplay experience that is short of stellar, and doesn't have too much to recommend it otherwise, though there's some glimmers of plot in there (the villains, the big plot twist... needed a better story game. Oh well) and it's reasonably pretty and very polished.

Generally, North America was easier than I remembered (Edna and Jeg Niglas really aren't that scary when you've raised your standards above "SH2 boss", and the first dungeon wasn't so frightening this time either) but South America was scarier. To blame is the fact that I already knew the system, and the fact that I didn't use the Magic Mind's Eye in a vain attempt to get The Extreme (I suppose I might yet pull it off, 72% perfect rate or so). It doesn't seem like that one little trinket will make that big a difference, but it does (it stacks with Warlock Earrings, Entrance, and long combo chains until its effect is pretty psycho actually). Anyway, as a result, later game bosses gained a lot of durability (if I got Enemy Action 5 I was clapping myself on the back) which meant more time for them to really wreck some shit since goodness knows they have no problems on offence. Very fun. Did one sidequest after beating Gilbert, and that was getting Tirawa, which apart from raping randoms hardcore with Dream Porter and Sun Flare, was also a big help against the final boss with her better Arc Cure + oh hey it does damage too. The extra levels did help too, though I'd still probably have died if I didn't know all her tricks. As is, yay no resets. Had one against... Delget, and certainly was very nervous against Kerufe, Killer 2, Gilbert, and Lady among others. Final levels ranged from 46 to 50, the 50 being Shania who basically never left the party. I rotated everyone else.

So yeah, this time I am going to do Purgatory, because Purgatory sounds rad. Which means I have a lot of sidequests in front of me!

[Captain K.]

Sleeping Table is one of the last few bosses to lack decent AI.  That is to say, it does not automatically cast Megido spells when faced with Makarakarn/Magic Mirror.  This is probably the simplest way to beat ti down.

But note that he can still cast those spells while Makarakarn is up - he just doesn't do it consistently.

[Ryogo]

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh. Beat Sleeping Table. I took in Koromaru and Junpei after I leveled him from level 22 to 39 tonight. Also got Yukari's Mediarama skill, which also helped. I used Power and his revolution ability to boost everyones crit rates, though crits didn't happen often anyways. Strangely enough, he didn't use the uber no-affinity spell this time. I think I actually glitched him out when he was at 1/4 HP. Yukari died, and I used Revival Beads to bring her back. He'd use Meagarama (Or whatever the fire spell was). It'd deal 7 damage to Junpei, no damage to me and Koro since I'd switch to Sati after using Revolution, and kill Yukari again. I used another bead, and the cycle repeated for 6 turns until he was dead. I'm not going to complain though. The fucker's dead

[Pyro]

I think people tend to forget to blow items when fighting Sleeping Table. I had some troubles with that fight until I lost reservations about blowing hard-to-get items. Its not like other fights will need them more. It IS the most challenging fight in the game, likely (Night Queen aside)

[TranceHime]

Kimi no Yuusha: Frozen Cave section finished.

Warp 1 - Boss: Ancient Soldier Exa
Party: Tango / Dranko / Tio / Wanda
Exa is a bastard who, aside from inane durability, has spammable MT (Exploder / Dust Cannon) and a scary ST attack (UV Bullet). Stupidly challenging and requires lots of item spammage. How crazy is durability? BEST Average damage is around 4675, against 250000 HP. That's fucking insane. It took me like 20 minutes -___- I thought I was gonna die.

Warp 2 - Boss: Filigardia
Party: Ryunette / Dranko / Wanda / Grey
Filigardia has even more life than Exa and, aside from being moderately fast, has a scary scary ST attack in the form of Berserk Attack, easily dealing 200+ damage over 10 hits >___.;; Even though the average damage was a little higher, it was still retarded because the damn thing is so powerful. That's why I had to swap out Tango and Tio for Ryunette for her MT healing and Grey for extra damage. It was still retardedly hard.

Warp 3 - Bosses: Dagon King 3, Phobos 3, Zeros 3, Nemesis Lord 2, Zolvar Form 2 (fight 2)
Party: Ryunette / Dranko / Wanda / Grey
The first three bosses are not worth mentioning. Nemesis Lord however was remotely hard because he spams Sleep status. Which hurts a lot. And he has scary MT in Wave Attack and a powerful ST attack that does around 170 on average. Zolvar however was the hardest. He has sick durability, and aside from that, he can negate buffs, his spells hurt a LOT (and Freeze Slave can inflict SLP) but also after a limit (<45% HP) he starts to use Armageddon Fire, which does on average 180~ish MT damage =___= So it's a pain to recover that. Sometimes he double turns after using it, so that makes things even more murderous. However, you'll know when he's gonna die once he uses his pisspoor healing spell (3500 HP healing).

...Yeah, Zolvar Form 2 Fight 2 is also repeatable. Dunno why. Metamore is a cute slime.

[Talaysen]

I think people tend to forget to blow items when fighting Sleeping Table. I had some troubles with that fight until I lost reservations about blowing hard-to-get items. Its not like other fights will need them more. It IS the most challenging fight in the game, likely (Night Queen aside)

It's not like you would know it's the most challenging fight in the game, either.

[Hunter Sopko]

Suikoden Tactics- At Chapter 19, right before Battle 23. Just went through the Ruins of Obel for the first time, grabbed all the quest items. Intend to go through again for the Mother Earth Chamber to get the Wizened Arm for Simeon. Using Kyril, Andarc, Seneca, Flare, Kika, Hervey, Sigurd, Mizuki, Akaghi, Keneth, Lazlo and switch in Maxine and Corselia depending if I want Water or Fire magic. A skills S ranked, best equipment I can buy. I've managed maybe 7 S ranks, which is... eh.

[Ryogo]

I think people tend to forget to blow items when fighting Sleeping Table. I had some troubles with that fight until I lost reservations about blowing hard-to-get items. Its not like other fights will need them more. It IS the most challenging fight in the game, likely (Night Queen aside)

I rarely stress about using items, especially on bosses, and even more so if I've been stuck on them. The reason you get 'em is to use them, and chances are (unless its some uber great item) you'll find one again at some point.

P3: Anyways, made it to the Full Moon in October. That boss was pure awesome, if not fairly easy. Though the luck fortune wheel was easy as hell after I figured out how it worked. Which was after one spin. It just landed on the exact opposite space you hit X on. Either way, that was easily my favourite boss battle so far. And everything that happened afterwards is a huge mindblower. I'm still waiting for them to say, "Hahaha! It was just a dream! None of that happened!" though I know its not going to happen.

Anyone think I can beat P3 in two days from where I'm at so I can start up P4?

[Taishyr]

Doubtful. (Says the person who takes four hours to progress four days.)


Speaking of which...

FFTA2: Beaten, working on stat topic. Man, this cast is funny.

Idly, how many people would see immunity to basic physicals (Hamedo-like, except monsters are affected as well) as screwing over FE fighters that don't get a skill (like AETHER?!) to trigger?

The cast has a -ton- of this stuff, all legal. I think... about... a fourth of the cast can do this?

And then there's the guy who goes "hurr hurr status me or die".

Yeah, fun cast.

P3: Approaching second full moon. Main personas thus far are Pyro Jack, Zouchoten, Berith, and 4 Element Lilim. There's a fifth but I don't remember them; they had Garu.

Pyro Jack is offering me a return item if I get him all his skills or something, so.

Non-main cast: Junpei for MVP thus far, non-MP consuming ~OHKO physicals for the win. No one's really LVP; Akihiko gets the closest due to Ice weakness, but being Junpei minus high octane physical plus actual magic damage and healing is also nice. Eh.

[QuietRain]

So, logged into Billy vs. Snakeman this morning to see the current notice about the charity auction.  Is it sad that my first thought was, 'Wouldn't it be funny if all of the DLers who play the game pitched in together and we bought the winning prize, our very own Ally?  The RPGDL Ally.  How cool would that be?'.

[Mad Fnorder]

Capn' K was just talking about that. I'm certainly up for a bid since I can't make it to Funderazor this year. If we could work out what Ally we were trying to make, I'd chip in~

[Sierra]

ES: Mandolin Church Filler Catacombs. I want Falsetto back, dammit! Oh well, closest thing to a full party I've had yet, at least.

Urge to smack Crescendo: rising. Dude, Count Forte is a megalomaniac who wants to take over the world. He is turning the populace of his country into an army of mindless zombies specifically for this purpose. You cannot reason with this person. Quit your emo bitching and have him assassinated already.

[DjinnAndTonic]

ES: Mandolin Church Filler Catacombs. I want Falsetto back, dammit! Oh well, closest thing to a full party I've had yet, at least.

Urge to smack Crescendo: rising. Dude, Count Forte is a megalomaniac who wants to take over the world. He is turning the populace of his country into an army of mindless zombies specifically for this purpose. You cannot reason with this person. Quit your emo bitching and have him assassinated already.

You're still in the part of the plot that resembles logical progression and you're already losing your patience with the game? This does not bode well.