What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Shale]

They're going to be extremely short, painful stages, at least.

(Also, the game's 55 levels, isn't it? So, six.)

[Ryogo]

DW8: Slowly making progress on this, considering I don't have a PS2 up here at my university. I finally beat Dhoulmagus in the Dark Ruins after a year and a half of being stuck there. I also hadn't touched the game in about a year and a 5 months though. I'm in Arcadia, and am fighting the evil form of the PC. Ugg, I need levels, and bad. Its not so much the Guv, but stupid Angelo just likes to die every time I fight a boss and misses out on valuable exp. Currently at level 32 for the Guv, 31 for Yangus, and 29 for both Jess and Angelo. Let the grinding commence.

[Captain K.]

VP2:  Beat Frigga, got TinyBugs.

BvS:  Forgot to mention that my character name is Galuf, and I'm a Whiteeye.  Level 9 now.

[Yakumo]

Oh, right, I asked everyone for their names and didn't give you mine. <_<  I'm Fujii, currently a level 37 WhiteEye Taijutsu Special Jonin.

[DomaDragoon]

Puzzle Quest: Yes, went ahead and bought this. Currently level 14 or 15 Knight.

Portal: Up to Test 1...8? The one with the four turrets that get knocked down by the energy balls and then the stupid high up button thing that I haven't gotten to work properly yet. While interesting and fun and all that, I can't see where all the GotY hype comes from. Portal Gun = love. And I think my game is broken. My Companion Cube thingie never spoke to me at all. It's supposed to speak, right? The crazy people in the bowels of the lab seemed to think it did.

KOTOR: Got slaughtered by my first Sand People ambush. Boo.

[VySaika]

Oh, right, I asked everyone for their names and didn't give you mine. <_<  I'm Fujii, currently a level 37 WhiteEye Taijutsu Special Jonin.

Gatewalker, currently a level...35? yeah, 35 I think, WhiteEye Ninjutsu Special Jonin. I was wanting to go Taijutsu, but being in Demonic village gives you a +10% Gen/Nin AP bonus, and no Tai bonus, so I ended up advancing my Nin faster.

...Nin Nin~

[Meeplelard]

AI: Just reached Duran!

Game play is getting boring since its starting to get repetitive and randoms are starting to get annoying...and they love to attack Klein.

I've also determined that Norn annoys me.  They tried too hard for the catgirl thing, really overdoing the Meows and "cute cat sounds that aren't Meow" and...yeah, getting on my nerves in battle if nothing else.  And really, she has NOTHING ELSE for her character; its centered entirely around "I'm a catgirl!"

[TranceHime]

STARGAZER: Homebrew remake of legendary shit game.  I just got back into it after found out that someone wants help in it. So I was kind enough to continue the game, probably evne finish it. Still in the path from ARK CITY, trying to figure out how to get around... the dungeons are really confusing and the remake designs these dungeons VERY well, forcing you to use nearly every character's ESP ability in order to NOT GET KILLED. Luckily the battles and stuff are easy because I grinded before I came here.

[Clear Tranquil]

*steals avatar* *flees*


Meep - Is she useful in battle at all?

Suikoden V replay - Played from the end of the Queen's Campaign to recruiting Rogg and Rahal. Saved before next war battle. Current party is Prince/Miakis/Shigure/Norma/Ernst/Sagiri. Shigure and Norma do some mad critical hits. Erish's dungeon is open for some mad EXP farming. Might go there soon.

[Grefter]

Norn's use in battle varies, she isn't bad.  I never used her without muting though, the voice is horrible.  She is a character that only a Dune could love.

SotN replay on PSP - Stuff.  Inverted castle stuff mostly.

[Cotigo]

Brawl - Went to a tournament Saturday.  Unfortunately I hadn't played Zelda in a week and was so out of practice that I couldn't do very much as her, so I stuck with Wolf.  Got 6/32, not bad.  Really only lost because I got unlucky and Dedede threw an urchin at me first life, killing me at around 50%.  Considering I was beating him pretty handily otherwise, I probably could have won.  Roommate chose Ness, was undefeated and got $30.

Ness is absolutely ridiculous.  He's got all of the strengths of his Melee and 64 forms and really none of the weaknesses.  Has an assured kill at 130% with his throws, PK Thunder is so much easier to control, and all of his aerials and all of his smashes are useful, which is something you can't say for a lot of characters.  Picked him up after the tournament, might even start maining him.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I have become a Capcom fangirl.


MMX1 - Beat this with no upgrades besides forced ones, no heart tanks/subtanks, buster only, Chill Penguin stage last, etc., i.e. as hard as the game can get. Fun. First time I'd ever beaten Sting Chameleon with the buster (without stupid amounts of health/armour at least), so that was satisfying to finally do.

Revised opinion of bosses: Sting Chameleon > Spark Mandrill > Armoured Armadillo > Launch Octopus >>> Boomer Kuwanger > Storm Eagle > Flame Mammoth > Chill Penguin. There's a large drop in the middle.

Then the Sigma stages. Wow, stage 1 is much harder without special weapons to own everything's faces. Vile sucks and got beaten first try. Spider was ARGH, nothing new, just needed to get very, very good at reading his patterns and dodging his minispider barrage, and took a lot of tries.

Second stage is easy. Sub-bosses are easy. Rangda Bangda (awesome name) is decent but fundamentally no different than before. Watch out for the red eyes! And that's about it. Took a few tries but I always got to him with lots of lives so it was okay.

Third stage... surprisingly, the hardest. Because bustering the four best bosses in a row with only two health recharges the entire stage is painful. Usually by the time I got to D-rex I only had one life, and with his increased durability and damage I finally saw him do things besides fail, so this level took quite a bit of time to beat. D-rex still isn't ultimately much; dash-jump deals with most of his attacks and the charged shot, while somewhat dangerous, lets you hit him like half a dozen times during the charge time and aftercharge.

Sigma's dog is a fucking pain in the ass. I finally got good enough at him that I could usually keep him down to one hit against me! If he hit me twice I usually just suicided. Oddly, he hit me twice the time I ultimately won and I decided to go on anyway. Besides that, mostly about staying in the top corner and knowing the good times to drop down.

Sword Sigma now has double the durability and still fails almost as bad as Magikarp. Up the wall, let him bounce of your wall twice, fall down and shoot him, jump up and shoot him, repeat. Yawn.

Velguarder Sigma was fun, as I touched up my skills on him. Wish he didn't take so long to get to. Just keep calm and stay in the centre and he's really not bad at all, you just have to be really perfectionistic since you have to hit him 32 times before he hits you twice. Ended up perfecting him. Still have no idea how anyone finds him better than MMX2's final. ^_^~

Think I'm done with the game for a good while now. More MMX4 replays await. And MMX5!


Apollo Justice - Stuff. Case 2, near the end. Mmmhmm, not going to post thoughts yet.

[Sierra]

Ico got. For now, though, I've finally got around to picking up Front Mission 4 again after like a year of neglect. I have too many unfinished games lying around, and it was that or go back to the G2 replay (which I want to finish...but I dread playing it again since I just reached Cyrum, the world capital of slowdown, and I'm just generally not up to dealing with the kaleidoscopic horror that is G2 civilization at present).

So yeah, Elsa's second chapter, battle on the big bridge (in Germany. Gilgamesh not included). Game's starting to look fun now, even though I barely remember what the hell is going on (it looks to be something along the lines of "Germans bad.")

[Captain K.]

BvsS:  My first day as a village member was fairly productive.  Won all four ninja battles, and beat all D/C rank missions I attempted.  Unfortunately I failed to get either Stalkergirl or Little Shammy from Special Missions.  Want Stalkergirl's Jutsu so much!

VP2:  Collecting rare drops.  Anyone know if Black Pain is the same monster referred to as Tiamat in the FAQs?  I got a Mithril Helm from it instead of Tyrfing.

[VySaika]

BvS: Just got my third hairpin peice today, so I finally got the special item from that mission, giving me my third "other side" item and allowing me to unlock reaper missions. Did a few of said reaper misions, and aisde from them draining an extra 5 stamina a pop and not allowing me to use any of my good jutsu or good allies, they're alright. Meaning that I really prefer normal missions and will probably be back to them tomorrow unless there's some benefit to doing reaper missions I'm not seeing.

Also managed to get the Ro-Sham-Bo Redux team yesterday, having finally gotten my hands on that 12th bag of chips. This team rocks.

Crisis Core: Hate stealth missions in RPGs so much. Hell, I hate them in any games and try not to play games that require them. Stealth is not my cup of tea. Anyway, aside from this, I'm having alot of fun with the game. It's really solid, the plot isn't stupid so far, most of the characters are likable(or just work for what they are. The villian dude certainly is not likable), and the gameplay is great. I'm really surprised that it's as good as it is.

DDS2: Back to this with intent to beat it before DLC3 so I can return it to Super. Still fun. Just got through the first trip to the karma society tower(I'm assuming it won't be the last).

[Unoriginal]

Once you get a couple of allies out of the Reaper missions you can do a special mission to get an item to get rid of the stam penalty.  Reaper missions give more cash then B missions, along with generally being easier.  Stick with them until you pick up the Sword Justu/Captain's Jacket, at least.

[superaielman]

Ico got. For now, though, I've finally got around to picking up Front Mission 4 again after like a year of neglect. I have too many unfinished games lying around, and it was that or go back to the G2 replay (which I want to finish...but I dread playing it again since I just reached Cyrum, the world capital of slowdown, and I'm just generally not up to dealing with the kaleidoscopic horror that is G2 civilization at present).

So yeah, Elsa's second chapter, battle on the big bridge (in Germany. Gilgamesh not included). Game's starting to look fun now, even though I barely remember what the hell is going on (it looks to be something along the lines of "Germans bad.")

Elsa's path- Elsa just joined an elite trans european paramilitary force called the Durandal, who have been charged with investigating attacks on a German power plant. They are following a lead- which points a finger at the Blau Nabel, an elite german military wanzer ran by General Glasear. They are fighting on the bridge because they intercepted wanzers that match the ones used in the attack.

Combat trick: Make your melee fighter (Latona) as light on weight as possible. The melee weapons suck normally on paper, right? They get a bonus for each weight unit they're under.

For Latona, the best setup is probably two attacking weapons (Stick with the rods, they have better accuracy and that matters), a turbo backpack, and the heaviest possibe body frame/lightest other parts you can swing that don't hurt her accuracy. The status backpacks suck ass and shouldn't be bothered with.
Darril's path I'll explain on IRC.

[Nitori]

Etrian Odyssey: Beaten. After getting slapped down by the final's MT, I decided to go out and grind for more levels of Immunize. Thankfully I only needed one more level to stop the OHKO, then the fight became standard heal-attack fare. Overall fun game with non-fail challenge is yay~. 7/10 maybe?

Luminous Arc: I will give that it has a prettier opening than EO. Unfortunately it has characters that talk and say things, which can end up negatively...and so far it has, given how the plot can be figured out .003 seconds in and how most (all?) of the characters are ye old anime trope...Lucia is my favorite so far for having an awesome hat. Gameplay is basically what FFTA should have been, so that is entertaining enough. Also the stylus controls fail worse than a DW7/Hoshi cross remake~

[Pyro]

XF: Finished. The ending was generic, but it worked for what it was. Music hype goes *here*.

Overall I left with a fairly positive impression of the game, even if I realize how bad the budget for it must have been (SHAKING STILLS. SUCH MENACE). They tried with what they had though, and it shows. The music and combat system have a lot of quality in there, and everything else is just extraneous stuff that ranges from awesome to cliched but workable. In all seriousness, the plot is generic but the characters are likable enough through their actions to warrant a grin from time to time. The combat was kept fresh enough to warrant thought at least, and it would be very easy to make it a lot of fun on a challenge by limiting or banning the use of Turn Shift/Accelerate. I think without those two skills the difficulty would have been enough for me to say it was outright hard, but maybe not. Theres lots more ways to break the game than that if you are so inclined.


Probably a 5 or 6 from me. I liked it a lot but the flaws stand out painfully, and almost all stem from what seems to be a lack of budget. And I reiterate: MayaxVirginia is dead. Long live the new Wild Arms yuri pairing.

DL thoughts? The game boasts a lot of cool tricks from a lot of different people, with 7 rankable PCs and 3 rankable bosses (potentially more). I can see some variation in respect for the boss durability, but I think the one thing we can all agree on is that Tony is Godlike. Or an anagram thereof. But whatever.

Did I mention the music was good? I'll do so again and say good day.

[Mad Fnorder]

BvS: Just got my third hairpin peice today, so I finally got the special item from that mission, giving me my third "other side" item and allowing me to unlock reaper missions. Did a few of said reaper misions, and aisde from them draining an extra 5 stamina a pop and not allowing me to use any of my good jutsu or good allies, they're alright. Meaning that I really prefer normal missions and will probably be back to them tomorrow unless there's some benefit to doing reaper missions I'm not seeing.

Also managed to get the Ro-Sham-Bo Redux team yesterday, having finally gotten my hands on that 12th bag of chips. This team rocks.

RSB Redux is the second best team in the game (First being Ultimate Showdown, just because of its constituents, and third being Crazy Love Triangle). Amazing all around.

As for Reaper missions, Shorty's jutsu are good places to start, and every ally has something. Plus, with two relatively simple to get allies, you'll get Soul Candy and no longer suffer the stamina drain.  In interest of letting you choose whether you want to find them yourself, I'l just link you to http://people.rit.edu/jxt3701/ and let you decide.

[Dark Holy Elf]

VP2:  Collecting rare drops.  Anyone know if Black Pain is the same monster referred to as Tiamat in the FAQs?  I got a Mithril Helm from it instead of Tyrfing.

Tiamat is called Tiamat; he's pretty rare though. 10% encounter from the correct enemy(ies)?

[Niu]

12Riven- Put this on halt, I need to let my brain cells recover

Lux Pain- Adn I shall finish this first befire I return to 12.

And I reiterate: MayaxVirginia is dead. Long live the new Wild Arms yuri pairing.

I thought XF promotes yaoi more than yuri. Crescen has obviously gone off the deep end, lusting over Fias' body.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

You'd say that about a game that's got an entirely female cast of PCs that do attacks by making out and holy fuck I just invented the best game ever made.

[Clear Tranquil]

<_<

Thanks Grefter =-)

Suikoden V - Recruited Haleth. Nearing the finish of the game. Currently saved in Ersh's dungeon. Norma hit L56 so now has a Fury/Boost/Double Edge set up. Power would be better so I'll switch that for Power/Boost/Double Edge later. She also has 350+ HP but can't equip the Saint's Cloak <_< Funny I don't remember killing *that* many enemies with her >_> Was using Isabel and Mathis again in Ersh's dungeon. Think I'm going to keep them. Isabel is just too sexy to ignore. 

[Ultradude]

BvS - Level 11 Genin, RedEyes, working on Genjutsu primarily. Joined Demonic Village because Gatewalker is there, and I mentioned him as my referral. Anyways, moderately fun, decently humorous. Good way to blow some time while waiting for people to post on my various sites of interest.