What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[superaielman]

I know Maria and Lancaster were in FM1, Excal. Thammond? Wikipedia says he was in the first huffman war, but.. don't think he was in the earlier games at all.


IIRC though some FM4 characters however were added to the DS version.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - Ahahahahahahahahahahaha the Sound Force is so broken. Ahahahahahahaha the Virtual On mechs are so retardedly nuts. Ahahahahahahahaha a squad of the three Evas kills things so dead.

[Excal]

Lancaster I got a kick out of seeing, since he's my main missile guy.  Maria, I'm wondering if she shows up in the OCU path, but the instruction book does show her as being in the new UCS path.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - Okay, stage 28 was jarring. Quick digest of stage plot: "Oh hey Gai I'm Mikoto and I'm a random girl who has never been inbetween @2 and 3 before AND NOW I TURN INTO BIG MONSTER." *Fight ensues, Gai kills the thing.* "Oh, I'm so insecure and worried, hold me Fayt Gai!" "I love you, Mikoto!" "Oh Fayt Gai!" AND THEN EPIC NAKED FEI AND ELLY GAI AND MIKOTO GOD BLESSING SCENE ENSUES LOVE IS BEAUTIFUL ETC, the pilots leave.

And now, for something completely different.

"Oh hey I'm Selena, I'm happy and cheerful and I stroll through the woods city in my inconspicuous giant ninja mech! This couldn't possibly fail - *BALMAR ZERGRUSH KEKEKEKEKEKE OUT OF NOWHERE.* - PLOT FIGHT OHSHI---" *Spectra's boytoy blows Selena up.*

And hilarity ensues. This is probably made funnier by me not knowing Japanese, but still.

[Niu]

Errr, wait. when is Mikoto random and never inbetween @2 and 3? She has been around for a while.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You ruined the magic. =(

But no, I jest. It's just that sceneskipping wasn't kind to her in @2, and I haven't seen a single scene with her nor even got her name dropped in the other game in the scenes I didn't R1+Start. So, when I got to that, it felt really, really random. It's not really the plot's fault there, but it was funny.

Of course, that doesn't explain the EPIC SWERVE from GaoGaiGar Elly/Fei bonding to Selena frolicking in the woods to pick flowers and suddenly getting blown up. 

[Crystalgate]

DDS: Picked up a file where I'm at the aftergame. I'm sure I also have picked all the "correct" answers. I have killed all optional bosses except Huang-something and demifiend, the latter which I don't plan to fight ever. I'm at the process of mastering mantras.

Anyway, replaying DDS made me sure that they worsened the to hit algorithm in DDS 2. In DDS 2 there seems to be a small chance to miss regardless of how high your respective stat is. This is not the case in DDS, I never miss with Serph's spells unless he has an accuracy down effect or the enemy has an evasion up effect. Also, it seems to be harder to get a high evasion rate in DDS 2. A formula the guarantees that attacks can miss and makes it hard to get a high evasion rate is the best one to screw PCs over.

[Talaysen]

Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance - Finished!

C25 - Rocks fall, everybody dies~  Though seriously, this map was quite annoying but not too tough.  Most annoying part was the team on the right getting to the top and then realizing I couldn't push the boulder.  Fail.  Marcia took out the boss here (and like half of the enemy party) with ease.  Bolt Axe get?

C26 - Hueg battle is hueg.  You know, I don't even remember what happened here.  Oh well, I got a Runesword~

C27 - Oh hay another Arrive map.  OH HAY THEY DON'T TELL YOU WHERE TO ARRIVE.  It is kind of obvious at least.  Anyways, split up, mow over the enemies.  Thank goodness for Chest Keys, otherwise this would've been stupidly long.  Also, Brave Lance get!  This will be key to BROKEN later on~

C27 pt2 - lol bk.  Ike attacks, AETHER!! to the face.  Mist heals.  BK attacks, Ike counters, AETHER!! to the face.  gg

C28 - OH GOD DRAGONS THEY ARE PAINFUL ;_;  Got a reset because Nephenee got nuked by a dragon.  I knew they hit hard but I didn't realize just HOW hard.  Anyways, second time I just killed dragons with ranged attacks (Sonic Sword/Runesword to the face!) and it was much easier.  Kind of scary when Marcia got Sleep'd but Marcia is awesome so nothing killed her.  Boss failed though the threat of Bolting was a nice trick.  Too bad it ALWAYS MISSED.

Endgame - Yay, the final battle!  For this map, I pulled out all those brave weapons and such.  Gave Nephenee the Brave Lance.  Vantage+Wrath+Brave Lance = WTFHAX.  srsly.  Boyd had the Brave Axe and owned some things alongside Nephenee.  Again, split my group into three teams, most going up the middle, and nuked the dragons first.  After that the battle was pretty easy.  Ended up getting Ike, Mist, and Marcia to 19 with BEXP before the fight, and they hit 20 during it.  Astrid was already at 20.  Also gave Ilyana and Elincia a bunch of Physic staves and abused them to get them to hit 20 as well.  Also poured on the stat boosting items to cap stats.  Ashnard is a pansy.  He only 3HKOd Ike (if he, y'know, hits) and 2HKOd Naesala and Mist Dragon.  Ike dealt 9 damage, Naesala dealt 5*2, so he is pretty tanky, but taking into account Reyson's Chant means they both get two attacks per turn and Naesala gets a counter, meaning he gets two rounded.  Mist Dragon was worthless because he can't even break defense.  Fail.  Oh, and forgot, Ashnard had like a 50% to hit.  Epic.  Fail.  Unfortunately no AETHER!! showed up but it wasn't really needed.

Overall, the game was enjoyable outside the times when the RNG likes to fuck you over because the game hates you.  Still has other FE problems like finite EXP, but Bonus EXP helps fix that by letting your lower levelled people catch up so you don't have like four people being the only people doing anything and thus getting more EXP and thus getting more overpowered, etc.  Permadeath is still a failure mechanic though.  Addition of skills makes the gameplay at least somewhat more interesting, but they're never anything you can rely on.  Forging was also really neat but the 1/battle restriction makes it not as cool as it could be.  I realize they wanted to restrict it somehow, but this is not the way to do it.  Shops being available every chapter was a good addition as well, but the randomness of the shops can get stupid sometimes.  Think it's about a 6/10 game or so?  Something like that.

Oh, top 5:

5) Oscar 75
4) Marcia 81
3) Astrid 83
2) Ike 84
1) Titania 94

Mounted units fucking rule.  6, 7, and 8 were Boyd, Nephenee, and Jill for the record.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The Lion War - Did another mission and a random encounter.  Got ARGATH!!  Uh yay?

[AAA]

FES-December 7th or something. Cleared out the fifth block quickly and with minimal fuss. I didn't mention it before, but one of the new Personae they put in FES is Jailer from DDS2, which I thought was cool, since Jailer was stylish. Pity he's fairly useless at this point though. Maxed Star, started Empress and...that's it, since right on top of the angsting period when you apparently can't do SEES related S. Links, exams are next week! And then you get winter break right on top of that! Fuck! So been working on Hierophant instead. Maxing that and Hanged Man will likely not take up enough of Winter Break which means plenty of time wasted. Son of a bitch.

Edit-Oh, and I guess Alp was added too, but that was a low-level random in DDS1 and it's a low level Lovers arcana Persona in FES so I didn't remember it until I started reading Luisfe's DDS1 LP.

[Grefter]

For the record, Huang Long should be a pretty easy fight for you.

[Clear Tranquil]

^^ *eyes Snowe*

Ameria Gate? Don't think I have her yet~

Oh and uh yeah no idea why I thought Viki *had* to be in the party in order to use teleportation since I've already played S5 and that wasn't a requirement there <_<

Suikoden IV- Back in Razril. Went on a recruiting fest before hand so the roster is really filling up now. Picked up Maxine too which is good because I was worried I'd screwed up her recruiting early on. Game has been much easier to play since I obtained the Glowing Hand Mirror. Only thing is it means is that I'm rotating less between characters to aleviate boredom now that random fighting has been cut by a lot. Settled on Hero/Jeane/Rita/Kika as the main party I've been using for quite a while now. Kika - well Kika. Have her equipped with Falcon + Fury with Fury also being quite nifty on her physicals. Especially when she gets a two hit critical. Nummy. Her Double Sword unite with Hero has also been useful for AoE against randoms and on the Moving Isle boss. Yeah it's all good~ Jeane does some pretty wow damage with L4 Lightning Rune and L1s are good for finishing off randoms. I also equipped her with the Skunk Orb to counter her frailty somewhat. Rita is my healer with a decent physical. She has a Killer Orb and Counter Ring. Her evade and luck are sky high now. Though I'm not sure what Luck actually does! Skill either. I'm assuming something to do w/th critical hits and counter rates? Rita also functions as my back up mage to Jeane getting in some damage w/th Lightning Rune when she doesn't have to heal peeps.

Don't get me wrong I LOVE Mizuki. Ninja dancer *^_^* It's just using her in a party w/o Akaghi feels odd and Akaghi's pretty darn nifty too so ... *roars at limited four battle members set up*

I just got a Warrior's Orb from Razril and I'm wondering who to give it to. Kika? Seems like the obvious choice. Is it better than Fury?

Also Deborah is god. That is all~

[Meeplelard]

Warrior Rune is a Double Strike Rune-lite, as in, instead of Double Damage Dealt and Taken, its Half Defense, put said Defense loss into your attack.

It depends on the character.  For someone like Kika, whose defense isn't really that amazing, I wouldn't expect Warrior to beat out Fury.  Ideally, Kika is going to want to use Double Strike, naturally.

Warrior is best given to someone who has highish defense, which means he can take the defense loss more, and gains a larger attack boost.

[SageAcrin]

You ruined the magic. =(

But no, I jest. It's just that sceneskipping wasn't kind to her in @2, and I haven't seen a single scene with her nor even got her name dropped in the other game in the scenes I didn't R1+Start. So, when I got to that, it felt really, really random. It's not really the plot's fault there, but it was funny.

She's in the bloody Goldion Hammer animation, Jo'ou. >_>;

The World Ends With You:

Day 6. Evoing pins, so I haven't been playing it much.

Downside of the game; Evoing pins without moving the clock forward involves a lot of not playing. Eh, still works though.

Outside of the evo system being vaguely lousy, this is still a great game, and well polished in most every other area.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne.

Started this up again, got back to where I was when I deleted my save(It was a big save! ._.).

I enjoy how High Pixie mauls things. (Though I would have liked that Dia this early, I gather I have to go through another short dungeon and a boss before I can finally get it. By then I'll probably learn Media off the stupid Magatama. Oh well, super fairy will be cool enough.)

Enjoying it more this time, mostly because I'm finding it's much, much better to just not worry about most of the system yet. It doesn't do much good to.

It still feels like a bit of a step down from DDS, though(Which makes sense, admitably); It has less plot, and while four press turns is generally much more interesting for strategy, the skill system does the opposite; The only thing you can possibly change on the fly with any ease at all is your main's elemental affinities. (Okay, that is cool, and breaks enough fights to get by, but it's still kinda sad you can't keep *any* skills in the long run.) Ah well.

[Talaysen]

Outside of the evo system being vaguely lousy, this is still a great game, and well polished in most every other area.

Shop interface wants to have a word with you.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

You ruined the magic. =(

But no, I jest. It's just that sceneskipping wasn't kind to her in @2, and I haven't seen a single scene with her nor even got her name dropped in the other game in the scenes I didn't R1+Start. So, when I got to that, it felt really, really random. It's not really the plot's fault there, but it was funny.

She's in the bloody Goldion Hammer animation, Jo'ou. >_>;

You mean, the animation I haven't seen in like a month because its music is boring? <_<

[AAA]

FES-January 8th. Okay. No way in hell am I going to get Temperance, Empress, High Priestess, and Aeon all up to level 10 in the 3 week or so of school I have left. Probably just gonna drop everything and focus on Aeon since I'm curious about it and I've already seen all of Empress except rank 10. Went to the top of Tartarus, killed the Reaper with Armageddon(<3 Imported Compendium), opened up Monad and grinded to level 89(so far).

 Figured out a way to fuse Helel with Victory Cry, so now I just got to drop the one I have now off at the weapon fusion place and I'll be indestructible. Managed to get a rare drop in Monad, which happened to be a 400-power spear with +3 to all stats. Not as good as the +15 to all stats Apocalypse I managed to get last playthrough, but I'll take it.

[SageAcrin]

Outside of the evo system being vaguely lousy, this is still a great game, and well polished in most every other area.

Shop interface wants to have a word with you.

Hey, selling(trashing, whatever, they just called it something different) things works about as well as possible, considering.

And it's not all that common that you need to buy a ton of something.

Still can't argue, though.

[Captain K.]

No, selling would work well if you could access it from the shop, where it would actually be useful.  Instead, you have to leave the shop, open up a menu, click on the Mastered tab, scroll down to where your money pins are (assuming you're sorting by number, since hand-sorting=fail), drag them to the trash, get out of the menu, go back in the shop, and then try to remember what the hell you wanted to buy in the first place.

TWEWY:  Playing through again on Ultimate difficulty.  Near the end of Joshua's week.

Vantage Master:  Got tired of getting slaughtered, and restarted as a Swordsman.  Increased speed helps immensely.  Battles are much easier now.

[TranceHime]

Vantage Master: Fuck you, expert mode, fuck you. Your totally random fluky battles won't stop meeeee

Summon Night DS: Yeaaaaah. Started, chapter 2, grinding for bonus exp and gold. Not levelling up for brave clears. Brave clears are hard though since NO ONE MUST DIE -___-

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - Ending the pathsplit and now I reap the goodies. The Alegrias is pretty nutsy. 4900 base P ALL with two S Ranks that becomes available by 110 Will? God yes. The MAP is pretty awesome, too, a pity it's just one shot.

[Niu]

Bullet Save, Bullet Save
You'll be surprised how two shot of that map can make all things scream.

Summon Night DS: Yeaaaaah. Started, chapter 2, grinding for bonus exp and gold. Not levelling up for brave clears. Brave clears are hard though since NO ONE MUST DIE -___-

You are cheated of your money I must say. Replaying the PS version is a much better idea.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

That's the issue, Niu: I have B-Save and it's still one-shot. So, uh, I don't know. Granted, B-Save is awesome on Selena anyway: Stealth Boomerang and the Tempests are serious money moves for her, and, being ammo-based... yeah. Don't regret that decision.

[Cmdr_King]

TWEWY- Played, finished.  Haven't done the side story or the myriad of other fun aftergame options, although I read their contents for fun.  It's an incredibly schizophrenic game.  The early plot works quite well, blending the MYSTARY with the dynamic between the characters well, all dovetails nicely.  Subsequently the game focuses on mystery and The Game to the near exclusion of the rest, barring one or two dialogues a piece for the other partners.  The Ansem Reports add a great deal to that and it's a neat setup, but damn if it's not strongly detatched from the rest of the game.
Naturally, all things gameplay are detatched yet again.  The raw combat's pretty functional, lots of different types of pins to use makes it work pretty well, although in boss fights the whole second screen thing becomes a big drawback if your brain does not work that way (partner starts taking gross damage and you die out of nowhere, that sort of thing.)  But since you have a "Continue on Easy" option, the game's not exactly punishing you for not being able to run at its speed all the time.

Gripes... well, aside from the breakneck pace sacrificing the chemistry the first week had, mostly just the equip/item/pins had some minor shortcomings.  Equipment... there was just so much of it, and while the game throws money at you there's just too much to keep up with, even without Brand coming into the picture.  That you have to keep on top of food to actually use any decent equips is a huge downside as well, there really needed to be more options for boosting Brave or whatever.  Pins... largely, PP felt scaled for the midgame, so getting high end pins without simply abusing the DS calender would be pretty exhausting.  Of course, the option is there and the game gives you some options for easing grinding (multiple encounters adds some great mults), but still.

Not much else to say.  Vagrant Story may have been dethroned as Least Rankable Game Ever.  Fancy that.

[TranceHime]

You are cheated of your money I must say. Replaying the PS version is a much better idea.

Who says I buy my games?

I have a flash cart for a reason

[Tonfa]

Vagrant Story may have been dethroned as Least Rankable Game Ever.  Fancy that.

Play Yggdra Union. >_>