What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Dark Holy Elf]

Actually, it is a bit of a 50/50 splicing. Well, more like 75/75, but yeah, the combination skills aren't as strong as their components. This is why Magic tends to beat out most combination skills for mages, because the Magic skill itself is so much more valuable than Concentration, MDef, and whatever else mages get.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Well, later on the good characters are effectively using a full set of S3 skills... I think Richard and Georg can get, with their two slots, all the fighter skills. I know Belcoot can get all the defense skills. Kyle's got a good number of options with his combinations. And of course, the Prince and Roy can get Royal whatever it's called, which is every skill there is.

It really just hurts the shitty characters more, and makes the characters not as good early on. In the late-game, you can actually get a full set of skills if you use characters who are actually good.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Georg only has one open skill slot, and has kinda unimpressive skill caps to boot (plus he tends to lag way behind in SP for obvious reasons). Not that it really matters, since other factors (stats, weapon) >>> skills for importance and thus Georg is a complete beast. Similarly, Roy fails utterly even with Royal Paradise.

And as I said, the multiuse skills aren't as good as their components, so you aren't getting a free lunch - the full set of skills you're talking about.

[Clear Tranquil]

Suikoden V Second replay. For some reason I felt like using a certain lady for as long as possible this time through hence the entire party is overlevelled at L40 - L45 before Doraat ;p

Main party this time is to be -

Prince
Lyon
Shigure
Sagiri
Isabel
Mathias

Though I haven't quite managed to switch Kyle out yet ;p He amd Miakis will probably see quite a bit of usage anyway despite my planned party. Meh ;p

[Cotigo]

Hm.  Just a quick question, 'cause I don't really feel like giving the horrible gameplay of this game too much thought:  What are some good characters I should be focusing on for the endgame or at least a good portion of the game?  Is Killey as twinkable as he was in S2, for instance?  I know I should use Georg, but that's really about it.

[superaielman]

Richard, Lorelai, and Zerase are all excellent. Killey's solid in spite of his defense. Kyle gets a fair bit of hype but I didn't use him.

[Dark Holy Elf]

Killey is still incredibly twinkable, yes.

Georg and Zerase are pretty much the best low-maintenance PCs, i.e. they already rule and don't require much work. Both are fast and awesome at the damage type they deal.

Miakis is the only fighter who has three rune slots before Level 55, and a damn good one at that.

Other PCs with good overall stats/equips/rune slots who you can't really go too wrong with... Kyle, Lorelei, Nelis, Cathari, Isabel, Mathias, Shigure, Urda, Jeane, Levi, Bernadette, and I'm probably forgetting a bunch. Belcoot, Dinn, and Galleon are the best tanks (along with Isabel) if you feel you need one. Richard's pretty good for a while on paper, due to overlevelledness and high stats, despite the only one rune slot.

EDIT: Also Prince and Lyon of course, duh.

[Cotigo]

Fighter with 3 rune slots?  I'm there.

Sounds like my party's going to end up being Georg, Zerase, Miakis, The Prince and his Mouthpiece, and either Shigure or Kyle.  As much as I like Killey and want to twink him out... S5 gameplay.  Thinking.  Yeah no.

[Meeplelard]

And just warning you that Georg is...not usable for most of the game.  This includes how they even rip him out of your team SPECIFICALLY for the Final Boss fight (probably a pity thing though; he'd get CREAMED in that fight, so they didn't want you to make that mistake, maybe?  The plot reason is something ridiculous like "Oh noes! Enemies from behind! Quick, I'll hold them off!" or something similarly stupid)

So...yeah, probably best to NOT factor Georg into your team for that reason.  Furthermore, might not be a bad idea training up about 18 PCs total, at least SOMEWHAT anyway (Zweig being one of them, at least.  I'd say Lyon but you get her forced plenty any, so she'll be caught up anyway)

[AAA]

Yeah, S5 has a triple party split like S3 so you might want to do some rotation.

[Cotigo]

Ah, lame.

[AAA]

Split-party dungeons are my nemesis.

Battletoads-Beat Terra Tubes without dying, which was surprisingly easy once I knew where everything was. Rat Race I could beat without dying by cheesing the rat, but I'm going to do it legit. Clinger Winger....


Oh god why

[MC50]

I'm not a Battletoads expert by any means, but I tried to beat the game a year ago or so on an emulator, using save states. Even using them, I couldn't get past Clinger Winger.

Haven't been playing a lot. Mostly Phoenix Wright: Justice for all. I'm on the final case right now.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

Richard, Lorelai, and Zerase are all excellent. Killey's solid in spite of his defense. Kyle gets a fair bit of hype but I didn't use him.

Stat-wise, Kyle is Flik, except that he uses the Water rune instead of Lightning. You use him the same way.

Bernadette is really awesome, being mail-wearing, long-range mage.

[Meeplelard]

MMPU: Got up to Final Wily in Mega Man mode!
everything goes fine unless:
A. He uses Oilman's attack, which he loves to do.  This is not only a pain in the ass to dodge, but Oil Slicks means that jumping is your ONLY method of Mobility depending on where you land.  Also, PSP hardware likes to mimic NES hardware, since if there's too much on the screen, the game decides to lag...exactly what Oil Man's attack mimics!
B. His Desperation. It hits hard as hell, and I can't figure out HOW to avoid it; its basically a big Impact Smack from hell, and I never have enough Health to take the hit (cause he loves to use Oil Man's attack.)

Yeah, I'll get him eventually.

DDS2: Up to Power Plant.

Game is at least not putting me to sleep the way DDS1 is!

[Shale]

Serious Sam The Second Encounter: Level four in the South American section. Viper Yards or something? I like how the game gives you all of the weapons (or almost all, I guess there could be more new stuff I don't know about) so early, and the level design's been a nice contrast to The First Encounter so far - it's a bit worse overall, but I'm still glad they didn't go with more of the same.

The one part of the game that's sucked so far is the bouncy room in the underground caverns. Beheaded Kamikazes I can't see coming are no fun at all, even without factoring in the Skeleton support. With it, and the fact that the room was too small for cannonballs or explosives to be anything but suicide? Argh. I eventually just godmoded that room because it was driving me insane.

[Nitori]

Golden Sun: Beat this. Why? I don't know. Menardi for doublechamp Godlike, anyway.

KOTOR: After bad game comes good game. Just finished off the tutorial ship for now.

[AAA]

Battletoads-CLINGER WINGER DONE WITHOUT DYING JESUS FUCK

I FUCKING HATE THIS GAME

WHY DID I DO THIS

HATE EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY TOADS

AS;LGDHSA;LGASGSAG;HAS;LGDHAHS;A;LGHSALSAA;LGH;LHASG;LSHL;GHSA

Just gotta do Rat Race legit and the final level and then I never have to play this fucking game ever ever again.

[Meeplelard]

YOu do realize you just gave us a new way to torture you in IRC Chat, right?

[AAA]

You'd actually have to touch Battletoads to do that!

[Fudozukushi]

Disgaea: Why am I grinding for Baal?  I have no fucking clue...

[Strago]

Bioshock: Completely rad.

I'm up to Arcadia, so not all that far yet. Chose to boost my shotgun's rate of fire at the one Power to the People station I've found so far, since my general strategy against Splicers is usually Electro Bolt -> run up to melee range -> point blank shotgun blast to the face. This is obviously complicated somewhat by the Spider/Houdini Splicers that are now around, but having a rapid shotgun is still obviously awesome. Winter Blast is fun and effective, especially the animation (icicles sticking out of your hand very painfully for the win), but usually not worth losing enemy loot in the shatter. Wish I had something that was a bit better at long range sniping-type combat.

I'm loving the atmosphere of the game. The music and voice acting are especially fantastic. They just add so much to the feel of the game. There's also moments here and there of really brilliant horror, and I kind of wish the game would do more than that. I have a handful of ideas about where the plot is going, but nothing all that developed yet. Been rescuing all the Little Sisters so far, not harvesting.

[Ranmilia]

Bioshock: Completely rad.

Yesssssss.  The game drags a bit in Arcadia, but picks up even better afterwards. 

[Meeplelard]

You'd actually have to touch Battletoads to do that!

You mean like have played the game? Cause I actually have <_<

[Meeplelard]

MMPU: Finished Mega Man Mode on Normal.  Think I'll crush Easy Mode with my newly unlocked Mega Man C to unlock the obsolete Mega Man S, YEEEES.

Wily...was entirely a quirk fight apparently. Apparently, you need to really hit his weakness each time to do big damage and stop his current attack (most of the moves can be dodged normally...EXCEPT OIL MAN'S) and his big desperation has a Robot Master type indicated by his color.

SO what's the problem? THEY CHANGED THE WHOLE ROBOT MASTER WEAKNESS CHART.  Yes, ok, Oil Man and Time Man coming in does screw things a little, but...well...they could have just added them in, changed Bomb Man's weakness from Timeman or something (Time Manipulation = Screws up control over detonations works for logic!  Oilman being weak to Fireman feels fairly intuitive, and Oil > Time...eh, Oil screws up clocks!!! <_<; )

Instead, they redid it entirely.  It looks something like this now!

Fireman > Oilman > Elecman > Timeman > Gutsman (...no clue how this works; Timeman's ability is a retarded Flashman, basically, in that instead of time stop, its just time slow down) > Cutman (Hey look! ONE THEY KEPT THE SAME!) > Bombman > Iceman > Fireman (that's *2* they kept the same!)

...yeah, so basically, using the old logic of "See Ice, fire Lightning" doesn't work, as its "See Ice, THROW BOMBS!"  Furthermore, the fact that he uses Cutman's weapon and they expect you to hit him with Super Arm...which is COMPLETELY UNCHANGED from the original game...yeah...

All in all, MMPU is a nice remake but...that Wily Fight needs punting.  Just...its not fun.  Its a cool idea and all, heck, I like the "use Robot Masters all on one enemy" boss fight type, certainly beats Teleporting Wily Ships or single monotone bosses that have a ***** of a pattern to avoid (or are just really stupid about it thus easy to exploit, hi MM1 Wily!) but...yeah, badly handled.
Also, Thunder Beam got hit with a massive nerf stick.  As in, it often felt unusable at times.  Granted, Thunder Beam was a tad broken, but...they really hit it harder than necessary here.  Its hard to get into details about it, but to keep things simple, lost a good amount of its Hit Radius, AND doesn't pass through walls.  At least Fire Storm's still decent, if inferior to the original.  On the plus side, Ice Slasher can now actually kill weak things, while still retaining its Status use, and Hyper Bomb can actually kill things on impact, so that's a plus.  Rolling Cutter and Super Arm are completely unchanged, Magnet Beam doesn't exist anymore, Oil Slider is a nice novelty weapon and Time Slow...like I said before, Retarded Time Stopper from MM2.

Probably going to try Cutman's mode next, though I fear Yellow Devil for my life ;_;