What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Meeplelard]

FE10: Beat Chap 6!

Sadly, not all is well, cause I missed a lot of EXP that chapter.  Basically:
A. Aran was in a position where he was attacked a lot! ...by ranged attacks.  If I had equipped a Javelin, that'd be about 50 more EXP right there for him.
B. Sothe decided to Critical hit the boss that attacked him, thus leaving everything else alive ;_;

[metroid composite]

MC! Do you have Wifi? Part of the reason that I bought DoR was to challenge you. 

Never gotten wifi with my DS, although I have gotten it with my Wii, so I assume the DS can connect through the Wii as a hub or something.  (Though at the moment I've only used a CO power once, so I'm not sure I really know enough about the game to challenge people.  Plus my battery died >_>)

Anti-Tank: ....Zuh?  So...what land unit counters this?  Rockets...maybe?  Seems pretty absurd.

Infantry, Mechs and Recons do a number on it.  I think a single Infantry does more damage to it than a War Tank.  (War Tank does 30% while Infantry does 35%)

Yeah, figured that out when I did one of the trial maps and attacked with Bikes (though I hadn't realized recons were the same way).  I wonder if this means that a tank run out of ammo will deal good damage to ATs (they use a machine gun then, after all).

I haven't played any sea yet, but glanced at the manual.  Apparently Battleships have been nerfed to shoot 3-5 range instead of 2-6.  Seriously, ew, that's really bad.  Sea has had a price cut across the board (needed).  Gunboats sound neat.  Worse than Black Boats, but those were a bit degenerate.  (There's definitely situations where I'd build a lander over a gunboat even just for capturing, for instance, which already makes gunboat more balanced than BB).

Battleships can move AND fire on the same turn.  This makes sea battles a lot more interesting since it's no longer "Whoops! I accidently moved my Crusier into a Battleship's range! Oh fuck there goes my navy.  Gunboats are effective for finding subs and do a decent ammount of damage to crusiers.  Landers have increased defense vs. other naval units.  You haven't seen the new Carriers, which really do nothing but produce Seaplanes which are the super flying units with low ammo/fuel.

Yeah, I really like the way sea plays now (and I never thought I'd say that about AW sea combat).  Gunboats are awesome--I've built them purely for attacking purposes (in fact I'm inclined to call them slightly overpowered).  The way they play is also pretty fun too, since they need to run back and forth for supply.  Battleships serve the same role as always, they're just more fun to play (and stronger).  Cruisers take care of everything that Gunboats can't handle.  Subs are unchanged...well +1 move, but that's small compared to other upgrades (can't say I've built one yet; it's like a gunboat that takes more damage from Cruisers >_>).  Carrier...I've certainly used them when pre-deployed to me (deploying good flying units near the front lines = very useful).  I've yet to actually buy one, though--much like Starcraft, the upfront investment for a unit that does nothing on its own is a little daunting.  In fact, I really have to question building Carriers if you don't have control of the sea (since two kamakazie sunken subs is still a win money-wise against a Carrier+loaded sea-plane--43,000 vs 40,000).  I suppose they can fight with the Battleship for role of "you've lost control of the ocean now I smash you" (although the two support each other nicely there, come to think of it).

[Captain K.]

Our beloved Hal sent me a dvd full of Touhou crap.  So I'm busy installing and playing various things.

EoSD:  Not bad, but inferior to...

PCB:  Okay, I can see why people like this.  They took out the worst aspect of the early Touhou shooters (ridiculously long stages) and just get you straight to fighting the bosses.  And damn, the game is pretty.  I don't remember it looking that good on Hal's computer.

IN:  Tried the ghost team.  Which apparently has a really wide hitbox, because I kept dying when there were no bullets closeby.

PoFV:  Yeah, it's vastly inferior to PoDD.  Computer opponent has no AI whatsoever.

Megamari:  Controls suck.  Z is jump?  Everyone knows Z is shoot in a Touhou game!

Rekkaden:  Mildly amusing.

Samidare:  COOL.  Much harder than a Touhou game, but I like it a lot.  Got to the stage 2 boss!  Which is saying quite a bit.

[Xeroma]

PoFV:  Yeah, it's vastly inferior to PoDD.  Computer opponent has no AI whatsoever.

Then turn up the difficulty of the AI >_>; Just don't crank it up too high or you'll hate yourself.

[Nitori]

OG1: Somehow I managed to sit down long enough to beat the remainder of this thing. Most of the last bosses were the same thing; HP with shields powered by EN. Then you drain the bosses's EN and they go boom very, very quickly. (Although I didn't realize I had energy draining weapons until Septy.) I was mostly using Kyosuke people since I started on that path + Ryusei/Rai/Aya and a few other random people I tossed in near the end (Leona/Lune). Didn't really bother with mech switching except to give Leona one.

Solid SRPG, but I'm still wondering exactly what the hell I was doing the whole time with regards to twinkery. Oh well.

OG2: Beat the first two missions to get a feel for it. I can't see any major changes yet to the system so far, although it looks a little shinier.

[Crystalgate]

Star Ocean 2: Beat Cave of Trials. I had one reset when using only two characters due to pertrification. After that I toke the clue and checked a FAQ to see what kind of threat I'd face every floor in advance.

Gabriel put up a good fight until I figured out the strategy to defeat him. That strategy consisted of controlling Dias and spam Air Slash. Claude and Opera weren't properly prepared for this as they had specials equipped that take them to close to Gabriel, but fortunately they could block most of the stars.

I tried out the Iselia Quenn, but she will require much better preparation. I also summoned Dragon Tyrants to level the other characters up so I can unlock some of their voices.

[AAA]

OS-Up to Chapter 5. Been pretty quick and easy so far, which makes me fairly suspicious that the game is planning a giant 'fuck you' moment in the later chapters. We'll see. Unlimited POW would probably be better spent just regularly attacking. Shadow Knight is just plain useless.

[Pyro]

RSMS:

The plot and writing for this game is far worse than I had first thought. Throw in bosses who outclass you in every way (haha lol overkill damage always go first) and you have one very irritating game.

3 Fatestones acquired. Trying to get the Emerald of Evil, but aforementioned whorish boss syndrome is kicking in with a vengeance. Seriously, a boss who whores out good MT damage while his support puts out good damage and takes a while to kill. Then after the support dies you get one round to attack the boss, then they respawn. There isn't any MT healing. All with the looming threat of destroying your weapons or running out of LP. Frustrating beyond words.

[Sierra]

Finally getting around to playing Soul Nomad! Yep. Just restarted the game since it'd been a good four months or so since I got it and I didn't remember anything at all. It turns out that it is a good game! Someone should throw it at Super. It's OB done N1-style!

So, ~seven hours in now. Gig is an insufferable prick and Danette is among the dumbest RPG characters ever (I've said this before), but that's clearly what they were going for anyway. It does kind of amuse me that Gig was essentially an errand boy for interdimensional terraformers, if I'm reading that one flashback right. Otherwise, plot takes a backseat to gameplay because the latter is fun.

Doing Nereid stuff now, just unlocked the character class.

[Meeplelard]

FE10: Beat Chap 9 of Part 1!
HAAAATE Chap 8 with a passion.  The one chapter in this game I really despise (Chap 3 of Part 1 I use to hate, but realized that was my own fault for setting up in a way that...yeah...the way you're SUPPOSE to approach it makes it far less stab inducing <_<; )

I managed to save all but one Villager.  I'm confident the ONLY way to save that one is to get Vika's strength up either through energy drop, or a lucky level up (and said Level up will probably come through Bonus EXP, since her EXP gains suck.)  The way I see it?
Turn 1, she uses Olivi Grass, moves in range of boss and Wyvern.  Now, they CANNOT kill her outright; at best, they'll knock her to 2 HP.  Being unable to counter the boss, she gets Transformation Credit for that; the Wyvern, however, she'll counter and deal 6 damage too (doubles and all that.) She was doing only 4 in my file cause she had her initial stats.  Next turn, she'll be able to transform, kill the Wyvern, hopefully evading his counter in the mean time, and get out of there.
Its possible to do this without any strength increases, mind, but then you're banking on a 7% Chance to crit.

It may be possible to have Vika attacked by a different mage, and have her save that towns person once she transforms (she can't rescue them without transforming >_<.)  The one to south of that guy Muarim can rush in and rescue easily enough by turn 2, and given his HP, he'll have no problems surviving whatever the enemy tosses at him.

...you know what REALLY sucks though? This whole thing would be 5x easier if they JUST LET YOU USE JILL IN THIS CHAPTER.  This is a chapter that really would make Jill stand out and they don't let you use her, argh!  I love FE10 and all, but this chapter felt like FE6 level polish the way it was designed, at least for rescuing villagers.  Granted, all it means is Bonus EXP, but its a fair amount of it, so you do actually lose a lot -_-;.
They either needed to make the Wyvern NOT be an initial enemy (...really, felt like he was meant to be a turn 2 reinforcement, but they goofed), have Vika start the fight transformed, give you a Laguz Stone so you can make Vike transform turn 1, let you transfer Wild Heart from VOlug to her so she can be transformed, if with lower stats, if only so she can rescue villagers, give you Jill, or let Vika rescue townspeople without transforming.  That...argh.  Hate that chapter.  Glad its over with.

On the plus side, One Survives is SOOOO much easier when you have Micaiah that isn't doubled by everything under the sun.  No, my Micaiah isn't fast or anything...may even be below average? Would need to check.  She is, however, much faster than my original Micaiah, which means she avoids being doubled, thus there's some leeway to being attacked.  In a battle with Fog of War, its hard to avoid being attacked, so...yeah.
Ultra Gimped Micaiah's suck, its nice to actually see her do stuff besides nuke Armored/Mounted units in part 1 <_<.
(yes, despite that gimped Micaiah my first game, by the final battle, with White Pool, she managed to double the final boss, who is by no means slow O_o)

Would have finished part 1, but my brother decided to be a pest, figured it'd be easier to stop playing than deal with him (and it wasn't what you'd expect either...I best not get into it; lets just say he finds creative ways to be annoying.)

ANYWAY...

Since I couldn't play FE10 even after that, due to it being his Wii, and him taking the controller when he goes to sleep, blah blah blah, decided to play...

FE6: FINALLY finished Chapter 12.  Hate that chapter too, mostly cause its timed.

Aine was a bitch.  No, don't start mocking me yet.  What I mean is, HE REFUSED TO DIE.  He kept dodging everything I tossed at him, especially if it was a Wyrm Slayer hit, even when used by someone like Rutger.  Now, NORMALLY, I wouldn't care about bosses not dying; that's just vaguely irksome, you wait for good luck, you win, and move on...

But this was a fight that leads to a Gaiden.  If he didn't die fast enough, I'd have been screwed out of Armads (and thus the final dungeon entirely.)  Thankfully, he eventually did fall and the chapter completed (though didn't talk to Cath, OH NOES), but yeah...that was just annoying.

Also promoted Dieck and Clarine, yay!

[Niu]

RSMS:

The plot and writing for this game is far worse than I had first thought. Throw in bosses who outclass you in every way (haha lol overkill damage always go first) and you have one very irritating game.

3 Fatestones acquired. Trying to get the Emerald of Evil, but aforementioned whorish boss syndrome is kicking in with a vengeance. Seriously, a boss who whores out good MT damage while his support puts out good damage and takes a while to kill. Then after the support dies you get one round to attack the boss, then they respawn. There isn't any MT healing. All with the looming threat of destroying your weapons or running out of LP. Frustrating beyond words.

Time to abuse Flame Tyrant. It makes everything soooo much easier.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

SupCom: FA.

Got the expansion. All in all I'm quite happy with it so far. They fixed a lot of things what needed fixed (upgrading your ACU for construction, for instance, was way too expensive) and added some new faction-specific stuff, like how the defense-oriented UEF are the only race to get a third level of Point Defense turrets, and the Cybrans can now install upgrades to make their shields cover more ground.

Playing the first campaign mission right now, and even that is fucking intense. They threw a Galactic Colossus at me in the first mission. The single toughest unit in the game! The one that you have to nuke THREE TIMES to kill. Fortunately, I happened to have three nukes. Game, set, match. I fought across a sea full of enemy ships to get to a civilian town on the far side of the map, the end result of which was my Armored Assault Bots coming out of the water real dramatic-like and flanking the enemy, rolling them up nicely and saving the happy shiny town. Which was then levelled by the Colossus when it appeared. But hey.

My main problem? As a Stand-Alone expansion, it takes up too much disk space. Also, they killed off General Samantha Clarke, who I rather liked, in the opening video.

[Fudozukushi]

SV: War Battles went by easy as ever.  Duels are still fun.  Usual HQ recruitment spree done.  Though I missed talking to Murad in Lordlake.

I'm thinking my end part is gonna be Prince, Lyon, Viki, Norma, Lorelei, and Nick.

WBC2: My plan of taking the Dark Elf capital worked long enough for me to cut their empire in half.  During this time the Dark Dwarves managed to swipe the Fey Capital that had been occupied by the Dark Elves.  The Daemons managed to take the Dwarf Capital but lost their own in the process.  A couple battles later and they lost all their territory with the last being taken by me.  Afterwards I took the Orc Capital and wiped them off the map.  Next I took the last High Elf land, only for the Dark Elves to take out the Undead Capital, which I promptly stormed next.  Over half the lands are now under my control, and I can attack every remaining capital not under my command.  This will be fun.

[Shale]

Pyro: Fight more? Bosses tend to be annoyingly durable, but only a very few are "LOL overkill" unless you're tackling the quest really early.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

Legaia 2 - Just started. Sonic is collecting the Chaos Emeralds to turn Super Saiyan and get revenge on the mean people who mocked his spiky hair! Only Sonic's blue-headed tranvestite stepsister can stop him!

... yeah, I can tell this is gonna be an awesome plot.

[metroid composite]

AW:DoR

Okay, how the hell did this game get an E-rating?  No really, I could see this game giving kids nightmares.  Even setting aside the graphic disease descriptions, there's scenes like

*MAJOR SPOILERS*

Code: [Select]

Sub-Villain: don't shoot me.  If you shoot me then you're as bad as I am.
One of the Main heroes: Yeah, maybe I am *BANG*
I mean, don't get me wrong, I like the plot and post-apocalyptic setting, but it's darker than some M-rated games I've played.


...On gameplay notes, I keep forgetting to load COs onto units, but this doesn't seem to hurt me too much since I keep S-ranking.  Found this very informative image:
http://nnl1.com/awds/awds2-chart.jpg
Which tells me Carriers fail.  OHKOed by Subs?  Seriously?  It's bad enough that they can only build four seaplanes, meaning you're effectively paying at least 22,000 per seaplane (more expensive than Bomber or Fighter with worse stats and major fuel issues--reminds me of AWDS Stealth, except those could cloak).

I was wrong on subs: they have received a significant upgrade.  In AWDS you could just "move, cancel, move, cancel, move, cancel, move*TRAP* found the sub!"  In DoR it doesn't actually move and trigger the trap until you've confirmed everything, so you can't just sweep with one unit.  (For a while I was wondering "wtf?  Why did they change the controls?"  That's obviously why).  Also, the ability for subs to OHKO an expensive unit is pretty big--units left at 1 HP still informed their controller of where the sub is.  Dead units do not, so you need to use at least two units to take down the sub after such a OHKO.  Come to think of it, subs that have reached level 3 can OHKO Battleships and Landers too, so subs also like the new mechanics.

EDIT: oh yeah, I was worried at some point that there wouldn't be a use for Md Tanks because they're in the middle.  Thing is, if a War Tank sits just outside the range of a Rocket one turn, it can't hit the rocket next turn.  A Md Tank can due to having one more movement.  Similarly, I was wondering if bikes obsoleted infantry, but rivers, mountains, badlands terrain, the fact that infantry can get into transport units, and cases where you have an uncaptured city next to a factory of yours all vouch for Infantry.

[AAA]

OS- hey guys how about you have the beldor battle except with even more annoying support and a character with no range game whatosever does that sound like fun

How did I know something like that was coming? Eventually beat it just by tricking the support into never showing up. Goddamn, every time I start to like this game it pulls a stunt like that. Fucking hell.

[Ultradude]

So, finished Wild ARMs 5 over the weekend...

What the hell was that. What the hell is it with RPGs and being solid all the way through, only to horribly botch the last few hours. I mean, come on. Volsung lamed up his last moments with Hatred and FEEL MY PAIN, and was an extremely, disappointingly easy fight - I mean, god, that was the first major boss that I was able to totally toy with since... probably before the 4 Sentinels. Slow, undamaging, and his "gimmick", that being his wealth of full MT, is foiled by the ease with which you can cram all your units in one hex and heal it off every turn with ease. And the plot at the end? Well, leading up to Volsung wasn't bad despite his crappy monologuing before you reach him, and Dean's "plan" was actually pretty epic (why doesn't WA5 have any other scenes like that?), but after you beat Volsung 2 (i.e. "Real" Volsung 1) everything fell over. And then the very ending...

(Okay, screw trying to obscure messages on this board, just copy and paste to read this, it's got endgame spoilers.)

Time paradoxes. WHAT. THE. FUCK. Was that. I mean, it almost felt like they got nervous and decided to just dodge the whole "who does Dean end up with?" issue, and it came out horribly lame. Plus, Avril's "This isn't part of the loop" quote. I mean, that was basically like telling you "this time, thing's could be different!"... and then they ignore that entirely like it never even happened. Again, what. Way to leave me with a sour taste after all the fun beforehand.

Anyways, now that I've ranted on the ending, time for the other stuff. Early plot was good, and had some nice turns, nothing really amazing but kept me interested. Characters were nice, though except for Greg/Carol/Chuck specific material, Dean, Rebecca, and Avril stole the show. Again, the whole discrimination/separation of classes plot was used, but the human/Veruni conflict was actually fairly interesting by such standards, since they presented both sides as being at fault, where you normally just see an oppressor and a victim. The VR Factor stuff was interesting, and Volsung's plot LOOKED interesting all the way up until he revealed his frue emo goals. Then I kinda started to want to just get him over with.

The other villains had issues too; Fereydoon = standard "duty over justice, my own beliefs, and common sense!", Persephone was kinda just wimpy, and Nightburn was a jerk (his comeback was pretty cool though). Kartikeya, at least, wasn't especially bad, persay, just a very standard psycho loves-to-kill things villain. Elvis was cool and interesting, and had some cute scenes with Carol. And hey, most of them live to learn their lesson, so I guess that's a plus?

Main cast:

Dean. Every bit the standard main, you can do anything if you don't give up, dense but courageous, blah blah blah. At least he wasn't obnoxiously optimistic, and developed a little as he came to realize just what kind of crap he was going to have to go through to complete his goals. And, of course, he pushed on anyways, and by the end was well on his way to doing so, really. He almost served more of a role as a catalyst for everyone else to develop, more than as his own developing character. Gameplay... give him a Sword Medium, twink to take advantage of Double Critical. Bosses explode.

Rebecca. Honestly, going in I expected another Aika; I think that she was probably the most pleasant surprise of the whole cast. A bit peppy at times, but she was really quite level-headed and down to earth. The diary entries are nice, and show just how much of a normal girl she really is, and it's actually pretty convincing. And she's not just random "I can fight because I'm the main's friend!" she actually spent a long time just getting where she is. One of the stronger characters in the game, IMO. Gameplay, I ended up giving her the Luck Medium; stole things, got tons of turns, and either provided item support, or switched out to bring in a better attacker.

(interestingly, FireFox doesn't recognize this as a proper spelling of the name Rebecca...)

Avril. Another good surprise. Starts off as standard amnesia girl, her development is split between instinct locked away in her memories, and the influence of the party. Very much a not obnoxious take on the character type. Her friendship with Rebecca feels very natural, and strengthens both as characters. Then, she gets her memories back, and kinda throws aside the normal results of that sort of thing; try not to spoil, but suffice to say, it's different in a mostly good way. Gameplay, I started her off as a mage because of her base stats; however, her weapon upgrades were so attack oriented, I ended up giving her a Sword Medium, the Ankh Garb, and a Violator. Hit things, and took advantage of Double DP ability by attacking so many times.

Greg. Big tough guy with a dark past, driven by vengeance. Nothing out of the ordinary, both personality-wise and development-wise, as he learns to let go of his desire for revenge and all that, reconciling with his past. Still awesome, if only because of how nicely he handles the strong silent role without being cheesy or boring, making just the right comments at the right times to keep the image nicely balanced. Gameplay, he was the opposite of Avril, only less useful because you don't really need a mage for most battles and Dean was all the damage I needed.

Carol. Smart little girl. Provides science stuff when needed, keeps people from inserting foot to mouth (generally Chuck) when needed. Nice scenes with Elvis, and generally interesting party interaction, especially when they make fun of her >_>. Her shy to open development is kinda brief, but works. Needed a less annoying VA. Gameplay, I gave her the Sea Medium and never looked back. She filled the healer role perfectly, and Shoot Anywhere was made for healers.

(brain starting to tire...)

Chuck. Pretty boy who seems confident and smart on the outside, but is pretty much afraid of himself and actually pretty oblivious. Has mild angst without actually being angsty, so to speak, and his whole story of getting over it is fairly compact, though not poorly done. Then turns his sights on helping Fereydoon do the same, goodness knows he needs it. Provides some interesting commentary besides, and is about as dense as Dean on many things, requiring frequent corralling, mainly by Carol. Gameplay he... was entirely unessential. I had two physical fighters, Rebecca was better at the speed game, and he couldn't handle a magic role at all, so he ended up being Marivel food for the Black Market items.

So yeah, maybe I'll give it a numerical rating or go into more detail on the (pretty good) battle system some time. For now, let's just say that, overall, I have lots of praise for this game, though I should probably look back over this in a few months since I tend to see recently beaten games through rose-colored glasses.

[Sierra]

Soul Nomad: Stomped World Thingy #1, watched some loser king get hoisted on his own petard, endured plot fights (ew), got Odie of the Evil Eye (about time; he was always clearly destined to be a loser PC...except that when you get him his INT stat is stratospheric! This should be fun).

Actually had a couple game overs today! Yeah, the whole "Endure five rounds" fight just before the stuff with Feinne. Hate for Terror Blaze. Eventually I decided to just ignore them and run straight north. Worked well enough.

Also! It amuses me that Danette's monumental stupidity appears to actually be a major plot point.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

SupCom: FA. Holy crap, I just found out something mindblowing.

The build time and cost of the UEF's Mavor strategic artillery (a rapid-fire artillery emplacement with unlimited range that fires bullets with nuclear warheads in them) got cut. Big time. Originally, it took six hours for an engineer to build one. Now? Ninety-one minutes. It was already considered a game-ending unit, and now I can get it out faster. Sure, it's not 100% accurate anymore, but you're FIRING NUKES. Accuracy is a non-issue when you can put six rounds in the air before the first one lands.

I discovered this when I began building one as a mad attempt to break the siege of Fort Clarke. My attack force had been overrun and the enemy was pushing to my faction's HQ. My air support was gone, and my navy was reduced to a single, but badass, battleship.

I piled three engineers on the Mavor project and stalled as long as possible. It came online and started putting bullets in the air. One minute after, the Seraphim base (which previously covered a quarter of the map) was nothing but smoking craters. The Mavor kicks ass.

[Fudozukushi]

SV: Turns out I didn't miss Murad in Lordlake, yay.  Anyways, lelcar done, War battle perfect, yadda yadda halfway done with Sable.

I'm gonna change my end party to Viki, Jeane, Zerase, Levi.  And have them melee the boss to death.

WBC2: My enemies dwindle while I only grow.  The High Elf, Wood Elf, Minotaur and Daemon Capitals all have fallen to my army.  Those foes who remain are too scared to try and fight me.  Soon, I shall rule the world with an Iron Fist of Justice!

[Mad Fnorder]

got Odie of the Evil Eye (about time; he was always clearly destined to be a loser PC...except that when you get him his INT stat is stratospheric! This should be fun).

Yeah, I'm a bit ahead of you. When I got Odie, he went straight to Mage Unit Commander after seeing him in action. There's still a bit of cognitive dissonance between his plot character and his Hellthunder-wielding, Static Lance Ranged 1HKOing, solo unit-wrecking battle form.

[Hunter Sopko]

VP: Picked this up again, through Chapter 5. Sent up Yumei and Lucain. Seem to be on track for the A ending, but I'm not exactly sure as I can't recall what I may or may not have done in the first disk.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

LoL2 - Sonic disposed of the Chaos Emeralds for his ultimate plan, which apparently revolves around baking galactic scones in a starry shape. I expect much DBZ overcompensation in the future. So far, so good, it's been an entertaining fluff game.

Me notice topics good. Blessed be the delete button.

[metroid composite]

AW:DoR

Up to mission 25.  Missions where you get bombed by the great owl are just lame.  The first one gives you an economic disadvantage, but a dumbass opponent who can be baited into the blast.  The second one I was preparing for the bombs to go on indefnintely (probably winable, just obnoxious), which meant I abused my early advantage as much as possible, being a bit suicidal/desperate to try and make the missile shots really count.  Ended up only A-ranking both missions (oh noes!  I don't think I'll be going back for the S-rank).  Chapter 24, on the other hand, was pretty neat.  There's a limit to how hard they can make it (since otherwise it would become a memorization trial) but I think they found a nice balance (in that I don't think I could have taken on an additional wave, but the number they threw at me was not too hard).