Odin Sphere; Started this last night (by which I mean Thursday Night), just beat Velvet.
Gameplay isn't bad at its core, but the game has some glaring flaws from the get go. For starters, its very easy to take damage and not even know WHAT hit you. Not going to say much else, game has potential to be good and frustrating, hard to say which it'll be at this point.
Demon's Crest: Completed, got the best Ending finally! Infinity Crest Phalanx is a whore, mostly cause he cheeses out invincibility stages. See, in a game like Mega Man, invincibility stages are fine cause its a fast paced thing you're constantly moving in, and you rapidly fire, etc. But in a game like this, which is much slower, and more about precision in your positioning and such, its just annoying. Granted, True Final also implies you have Legendary Gargoyle form (Halves damage), Armored Talisman (more damage halving, so that's quartering) and 5 Urns (basically, LoZ Pots when all is said and done, so do the math <_<.)
Otherwise, game was generally fun. Pity its the last game in the Gargoyle's Quest subseries (I say sub series cause its technically a spin off of the G&G games), as the game was creative and an interesting direction to go in after Gargoyle's Quest 2, which was already kind of fun (sounds like it did very little new compared to the original GQ, but never played that, for all that it sounds like it mainly was just generally better in terms of stage design and such.) Makes me wanna replay it too, in fact! That aside, it was nice to see where the idea for MMZX series got its roots too. The Bio Metal system was so obviously a Mega Man adaptation of the Crest system in this game its not even funny.
Heck, even utility purposes have parallels; for example, Aerial Gargoyle and Model H are both wind elemental forms that are meant to be the sky combat (granted, in DC, you fly, so this is translated to "Ignores Tempests that force you to move, and you can fly vertically" while in MM games, its "Air Dashing and Hovering" <_<)
The secrets...weren't as obscure as I thought they'd be. The ones I missed and had to FAQ were basically 2 Life Forces (one of which I had the right idea for, the other...I would have never have guessed since the rewards for the OTHER two mini games was simply cash, and I sucked at the hard one! Glad that's over with), and the Hand Talisman. I was running around looking for the 5th Urn only to learn that I got it completely by accident thinking it was a different power up <_<;
Anyway, best form is Legendary Gargoyle. That's pretty much a "duh" statement. Its the base form (technically Fire Crest), except the weapon is a combination of the Buster (breaks stuff) and Demon Fire (hits hard as hell), and halves all damage. GRANTED, its suppose to be turning Firebrand into his Red Blaze form that I guess was what he got in GQ2, for all that it didn't change his appearance in that game.
Played around with Ultimate Gargoyle after getting the password from beating the game. That thing is...um, yeah. Combine the best features of ALL forms, give it an attack better than Legendary Gargoyle's *AND* give it a charge attack akin to the Mega Buster (though it takes forever to charge) and that's Ultimate Gargoyle. I didn't expect anything less, granted, but its nice when big super secret abilities actually live up to their name, and aren't just cheap "oh, its the best but not by much!" nonsense some games do.
