What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[Dhyerwolf]

P3- Fucking Nyx Mark 2. So, yeah, basically the exact same thing happened. Except this time, AI got in a few smacks and it looked like it should have died. They wouldn't be supposed enough to throw in an "Only the main can kill," would they? Again, pulling shit like this on the end of a boring 30-minute fight is brain-dead.

[Nitori]

Odin Sphere - Beat Cornelius's chapter and two chapters of Mercedes'.

The Cornelius chapter was actually quite well designed, more so than Gwen's chapter, and I liked the plot there better. Then it ruins it by placing green slimes in his last chapter that he apparently has no way of killing short of using items. Seriously, making attack items outright required there is pretty stupid. Cornelius as a PC was probably simpler to control than Gwen (and he spins~), but is definitely worse due to his terrible earlygame Psypher skill selection.

Mercedes seems pretty awesome outside of the HP, due to free flight/range/not being able to accidently dizzy myself, and the HP thing is probably fixable with Crystals/the kitchen/items, so hopefully this chapter goes quickly~

[Anthony Edward Stark]

SotS- I'm mostly experimenting with Destroyer Wolfpack tactics this game, and I'm just going to say... I am terrible at them. I will stick with Dreadnoughts, I think. They may not move as fast, but at least they never die. Ever.

[Ultradude]

Shadow Hearts: Smashed Amon. Halley with Mind's Eye and Improved Slingshot to make the shots easy to land is pretty good, though I might end up practicing using it with a better weapon at some point. Now hunting for gravestones and building up to maxing out Light at the moment, already have Czernobog. Still fairly entertaining, and I do plan on getting Covenant soon, hopefully to occupy me for a little while over the summer.

I plan on blasting through a few games this summer, actually, such as getting back to Phantom Brave, and going emulator crazy.

[Luther Lansfeld]

Megaman 1:

Weapons order:

Thunder Beam > Fire Storm >> Ice Slasher > Rolling Cutter >> Super Arm >> Hyper Bomb

Thunder Beam just pretty much decimates things from three directions, and it has a really large covered area as well. It also hits weakness on the Yellow Devil, who is a massive massive bitch. It pretty much decimates Iceman's level as well as Iceman, who is kind of difficult in his own right (and not because I'm biased ^_^). 3HKO is ouch, but when Megaman 3HKOs back, life is good. Its utility in murdering things below it is also very handy in Wily stage 2, and its long range makes if very useful in Wily 4. 10/10, of course.

Fire Storm is pretty much unquestionably the second best weapon. It pretty much murders any enemy it comes across aside from hoppers (who don't really die to much of anything). Since you need both Guts and Cut for Elecman's level pretty much for sure unless you want to do Elecman's stage over (yuck), I feel like doing Fireman's first and getting the weapon is the best option. It kills the guys who shoot in five directions in one hit, kills the shield guys in one hit, murders ground crawlers, and just owns those guys who swoop down on you in Cutman's level and on Wily 2 with its shield. It's also the best weapon against the Clone, which is good because I find the clone to be mega bitchy. It also RAPES the final boss part 1. 9/10.

I feel like the line between Ice Slasher and Rolling Cutter is rather iffy, but I feel like Ice Slasher fills a niche better, whereas Rolling Cutter is a harder to aim/control Thunder Beam/ Fire Storm. Ice Slasher has a few places where it is immensely useful. First of all, it does a number on Fireman's stage, allowing you to dodge the very yucky fire. It also does this very effectively on Wily 1, where the fire is really a big pain. Second of all, it really helps you deal with hoppers nicely by just  smoothly gilding under them, and there's nothing else that deals with hoppers quite as well. The third major use I found for Ice Slasher was in the levels with the regenerating bombs guys that blow up and the guys who go across the screen and shoot in eight directions (they look like orange balls). You can freeze them and then just go around them. This is pretty nifty in Bomb's level, but invaluable in Wily 1, where the bombs come at you from directly over a series of small spikey pits. Pretty much all of you have to do is wait for the first one to go by, and the second one comes at you toward the top, and then you freeze him and it makes this part much much easier. 6/10 overall.

Rolling Cutter is nice for killing ground crawlers when the two actually good weapons aren't around, but its main use is killing Elecman (and while I usually don't give a lot of credit to weapons for hitting weakness on a boss (that's their job! gg Super Arm), Elecman is just that badass) and really doing a number on the final boss. It's neat enough, but it just has the misfortune of being in the same game as these other weapons. 4/10.

Super Arm has issues. In Cutman's level, which is clearly designed for its use since blocks are laying around, Fire works far better than it in pretty much all the situations. It is really good against Cutman, but sometimes it is hard to aim and Cutman kind of sucks anyway, since he takes 3 from the buster. <_< Not only that, but on the redux, you don't even get blocks! Just what. Super Arm's main lot in life is to get Magnet Beam without having to do Elecman's level twice, to save you Thunder Beam charges on Wily 1 (why does Thunder Beam have the same function again? <_<), and to kick the ass of the boss in Wily 3, even if IT'S A TRAP!! That fight is pretty cool so Super Arm gets points for that. 2/10.

Hyper Bomb... fails fails fails fails fails fails.WHY THE FUCK DOES HYPER BOMB TAKE TWO BARS AND THUNDER BEAM ONLY TAKES ONE? Did they really think it was that broken? <_< Hyper Bomb's main uses are uh uh being a subpar replacement for the good weapons because it is slooooooooow (it kills ground crawlers and people below it... rather inconsistently). Pretty much every single place I tried to find a use for it it only worked part of the time, and it is slower than Gutsman's moving! SLOWER THAN GUTSMAN! It is decent at killing him if it actually hits him but the buster is about the same speed ANYWAY and you have to get closer to him to use Hyper Bomb, which means it is harder to dodge his Super Arm attack. Hyper Bomb has to be one of the worst weapons in the series, and it is only really useful if you don't have Thunder Beam OR Fire Storm OR Rolling Cutter and it really isn't good at replacing them aside from killing ground crawlers. Booooo, fail. 0/10.

After grinding the game to a fine paste after many playthroughs, the order that I play the stages is:

Fireman ---> Gutsman ---> Cutman ---> Elecman ---> Iceman --->Bombman.

Fireman is first because his weapon rules on Gutsman's and Cutman's stages, and the reverse is far less true. Gutsman is next mostly due to hitting weakness on Cutman and the marginal usefulness of Super Arm on Cut's level versus the no use of Rolling Cutter on Gutsman's level. Both of them are before Elecman for obviously reasons, but Elecman is next because he hits weakness on Iceman, as well as having a godlike weapon instead of Hyper Bomb. Iceman is pretty close to last because his weapon is only really useful in Fireman's stage and Bombman's, and Fireman is easy enough to buster without weakness since trading shots you win. Also, Magnet Beam is really wonderful in Iceman's stage if you do it right, since you can just subvert all the annoying parts altogether. Bombman is last because it's Hyper Bomb, plus Ice rapes parts of the stage.

Another option (if you really hate Gutsman's level) is to put Gutsman behind Iceman and do Elecman's level twice to get the Magnet Beam, and then you can just skip the first part of Gutsman's stage if you are so inclined. Personally, I hate Elecman's stage more since it is a pain in the ass, especially to do twice.

The Wily stuff is pretty fun in this game, and it's pretty short and sweet if you know what you are doing. Definitely not short and certainly not sweet if you don't, since Yellow Devil will eat your babies. Wily 1's stage is pretty unmanagably hard at first; between the spikes and the bombs and the hoppers and the Yellow Devil, I really got frustrated because trying to get through the stage is bad enough, and then you have this ungodly boss at the end. These days I just Ice the first part of the level with the hoppers and fire, Thunder Beam cheese the annoying tiny hopping guys, Ice the bomb that makes the spikeys difficult, and MAgnet Beam cheese the big pit. Yellow Devil just takes some practice, but overall he's managable enough since he does the exact same thing every time. All you have to do is dodge one of the rounds (and not get hit twice by others) and you'll be good. I remember some of my first times I beat him I would dodge one round and then use the invinsibility frames to make sure I got to the other end before I got hit twice. I've been perfecting him sometimes and getting hit once and twice most of the time. The problem I run into is that I relax during the times when you have to shoot him and get owned by his shot. Wily 2 is a pain in the ass. It's very huge and has a lot of places where you can screw up, and it has lots of different types of enemies to get used to. I find the Clone to be incredibly obnoxious and I've been trying to devise a strategy to kick his ass, and I find Fire is the best, and hitting him consistently is important since he'll jump toward you.

Wily 3 is pretty bland but has the boss of awesome that is a trap. Wily 4 is pretty difficult because of the gauntlet, and I was really pleased that MMX brought it back, for all that I thought MM1 did it better because gauntlet with durable bosses is very much tears. The rest of the level is vaguely Magnet Beam cheese + Thunder Beam. The final boss is interesting, although Fire Storming the first part and Rolling Cuttering the second part is pretty much the way to go.

My favorite boss in the game is Wily 3, my favorite stage is Iceman's because disappearing blocks are the stuff, and my favorite Wily stage is probably 4 because it has the gauntlet.

So basically the game has four big flaws that stand out in my mind.

1. Elecman. In general, I'd say that making a robot master this tough with the buster is a really bad idea, and it seems like it could turn off a potential player who becomes frustrated with the game pretty quickly, although if the MM1 guide outlines the weaknesses or acknowledges their existence I would be less offended by this.

2. Required Magnet Beam for Wily levels. It forces you into a certain order or you have to do a stage again -or- you miss the weapon and end up confused in Wily's stage.

3. Glitches. Iceman's level with the dudes is a good example. If it is randomly impossible for you to do -anything- on the level because of a glitch, that is lame. Fortunately it doesn't crop up much and/or Magnet Beam exists.

4. Slippery controls. It kind of glides you an extra bit after you land on a platform, which can be extremely dangerous with no fault of your own. Wily 2 is a stage where this gave me grief.

The good news is that MM2 fixed all of these, so I guess the creators saw all of them, and I'd love to play the remake to see how they polished the game up.

Tearing apart MM1 has been pretty fun, and trying to use all the weapons throughly and finding which ones fall through is pretty great. MM2 next! Someday.

[Sierra]

AI2: Oh yeah, still playing this. Occasionally. It's enjoyable fluff, just haven't been gaming much. Anyway, blah blah AI plot, finding workshops to save Eden, blah blah radicola.

[InfinityDragon]

P3 FES, The Answer - Beaten

Overall, it was...okay. Despite all the annoyances (no compendium, no S.Links, no warps before bosses, no cash), the difficulty, by and large, was quite pathetic. This is largely due to Metis, who is flat out broken. As for plot? I really didn't care for The Journey's plot to begin with and The Answer's is no better and arguably makes the whole plotline worse.

Gameplay was too easy for a number of reasons. First, there's Metis. She can strike 5 weaknesses (Slash, Strike, Pierce, Wind, Ice) all without having a single weakness of her own. She also has Neo Orgia Mode, which doubles damage dealt, halves damage received, boosts Accuracy/Evade and Critical Hit rate, eliminates the HP/SP cost, blocks all mental status, and dispels any current mental status when activated. You can seriously just set Metis to activate Orgia Mode at the beginning of a random battle and she'll wipe them out.

Second, tying in with Metis, you can now create a party that covers EVERYTHING without needing to rely on Aigis at all. Ken, Koromaru, and Metis will hit every weakness, provides healing, stat debuffs, and is virtually unkillable (Koromaru and Metis flat out don't die). Only two bosses gave me any sort of trouble at all. Harem Dancer, only because I refused to backtrack to the Lounge to heal so I fought it with close to 0 SP on everyone, and the Acheron Seekers who have both Mudoon and Hamaon and could actually hit my only weaknesses.

Despite warp points being after bosses, it wasn't hard at all to get to bosses with ~75% of your SP remaining. Random battles are easily won by assigning Metis to activate Orgia Mode and having the other two characters Conserve SP. I only used SP on randoms that are immune to physicals (and not weak no Ice or Wind) or to heal myself. Also, despite the lack of good income, I made enough money to keep fairly up to date with equipment. I could generally afford all the new weapons when they were for sale, then after reaching the next warp point, I had enough to buy all the new armor. Keeping up to date on weapons made randoms a joke, since even Ken could 2HKO them.

Lack of the Compendium is the worst thing. You really have to know what high-end Personae you're aiming for if you want Aigis to have any redeeming value at all. This means you need to know what the high-Personae are, the abilities they have already, the abilities you want them to have, and the formulas to actually fuse those Personae. I settled for Norn and Odin for damage dealing (Odin also had Hama Boost and Samsara for when I was sick of randoms and wanted to rape them) and made a Magic Master, Repel Fire, Repel Light Beelzebub for support and tanking. Worked well enough for me. I only had Beelzebub for the Arena Duels and final battle, though. Cybele was the support character before that.

So, really, it was an easy game for the most part. Which really highlights the annoyances, since they served no purpose whatsoever. They just made the game much, much less enjoyable to play without actively adding to the challenge. 6/10 is probably about the score I'd give the game. Mostly because Metis is awesome enough to make the game enjoyable at times!

[Rozalia]

Ccod- Beat Drac. First form is beyond pathetic, so frail it isn't even funny. Second form was better but a little thing called bone storm happened and he died a horrible death. Ending was somewhat salvaged by St Germain but it still sucked.

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - OH GOD END OF MACROSS 7 THE CHEESE OVERWHELMS US THE FINAL COUNTDOWN SAVED THE WORLD FROM TRANVESTITE DOOM.

In other, lighter news, Sibil joined and now I have the Try Again MAP. Mmmmmmmmm, cheese.

Also, SS Size on someone with -that- evade score and natural Ignore Unit Size? Man, that'd be so wrong if Sibil had actual offense.

[Captain K.]

DQ8:  Finished abusing the casino, now I'm Alchemy grinding.

TWEWY:  Got all the shops to 100%, just have to get Quest items now.  Yay for relatively easy Dark Matters from boss Beat.

[Dark Holy Elf]

FF3 - Beat. Final boss was everyone in the back row, only the Ninja attacking by tossing Shuriken, and everyone else healing (Curaja or Elixirs) at all times. Had enough items to make it work, though I did kill the Lightning tentacle in a conventional manner before starting this and pushing her to the point where she starts using Particle Beam every turn. Yay.

Class notes:

First note, this playthrough was designed around using classes I didn't last time, so I didn't use a few useful classes. Mostly commenting on what I did use.

Warrior: I miss Warrior. Best damage in the game by a ways, and nothing else I could try ever really compared, except at certain points. This playthrough largely cemented in my mind that Warrior is the best class in the game.

Thief: Warrior trading damage (a fair bit of it) for speed and utility and is STILL the second best damage-dealer in the game. aka another class I missed a fair amount.

Monk: Meh. Godawful at first, does take off some around Goldor's Manse. I then stopped using it shortly after, but the upside didn't really look too incredible, beyond a low demand on other class' equips. Not sure what it does better than Warrior/Thief, and those two are available just as early...

Black/White/Red Mage: Well y'know. Only used them as earlygame filler this time. BM is the best because the high-level spells kick ass, and his Int kicks ass. Not like his physicals aren't good early on either, and as soon as they might start dropping, you get rods and he's the best at spamming them. Red is Black trading damage, spell charges, and speed for healing. Losing trade, especially since speed is a factor in effective job level. White is Red trading -ara spell charges for Cura spell charges and regaining BM's speed. Better fight that, although WM just sucks until rods are available.

Ranger: Probably the class I underestimated most. At first, elemental arrows seem too expensive, but he doesn't need them too much, seeing as quite a few enemies in Hein's dungeon are Holy-weak. Then Cave of Tides, against whom your innate supply of lightning arrows kicks ass, and can be suplemented if need be. Competent in Goldor's (super tank if nothing else, at this point!), destroys the midgame aquatic dungeons, then starts falling off some (mainly in the Cave of Darkness). That said, might have been interesting to keep using, for sure, as some neat new bows show up and Barrage becomes more and more usable. Overall, yeah, Ninja level speed and decent damage is a good mix. A bit costly to use but not as bad as it first appears.

Geomancer, Knight: Didn't use, sadly in Geo's case.

Scholar: Boss-killer class. Game-best Int + double damage on attack items = KABOOM. Yeah, I two-rounded Kraken thanks to this dude, and he did a number on Hein and Garuda too. These are not scrubby or frail bosses. Against randoms you are stuck between completely inept damage or completely inept durability (awful Vit/Mind/armour combo) depending on row choice, but their boss-killing should remain awesome well into lategame. Particularly if you can farm the Flare/Holy items, I haven't checked. Works best with a Thief but decent regardless. Scholar equips save it against randoms during its early going, but after that... at least they are healing batteries.

Bard: Well, hmm. Bard's main thing is initiative Attack Up. This is a notable damage increase to the rest of your party. Pretty cool. Unfortunately a third fighter is probably better. Bard may be a bit cheaper than a third fighter, granted. That's pretty much all Bard is good for in randoms, though uh, FREE 11% MT HEALING AW YEAH is an option. Bosses, the Defence Up song is also good, and the All Damage Song down should be quite badass against the final boss. Pretty durable class too, decent Vit/Mind and back row. Can not do damage ever. Overall, I dunno how good the class is, but at least it's different.

Viking: Tanky tank tank. FF3 made sure to give you some proactive tanks, and none takes it further than Viking. Where Knight is mediocre on offence, Viking is fucking pathetic. Don't try to pretend otherwise. Awful speed, bad damage. So yeah, most of the time you're better off pretending its offence is no better than Bards, strapping on some shields, and using Provoke. Initiative defence drop is already probably better than its damage, and it distracts big, bruising physical enemies very well. Behemoths? Yeah, those dudes are bad enough to rescue the president, but a back row, shield-using Viking Provoking them = they fail. Provoke even works on bosses, too, which is sweet. Granted, against most other things I'd rate another damage-dealer higher, but Viking is a neat idea pulled off, and deserved props for that.

Dragoon: Really helps a lot against Garuda, didn't use otherwise, this playthrough.

Dark Knight: Uh. Well, pre-Cave of Darkness, they are... a slower, less durable Warrior with lower Job Levels, and no Advance. Can you spell failure? I hope so. Darkside is at least a nice option, being a reasonably damaging MT attack, but all that does is make them a Geomancer wannabe. Granted, a Geo wannabe was nice enough in a few areas. Then come Dark Swords / Genji equips which make its speed less bad. Obviously good in Cave of Darkness, then outclassed by half a dozen other physical classes afterwards. It's worth noting Ninja outdamaged my used-since-Water-crystal DK as soon as she came out of class sickness, despite the Job Level deficit. Bad sign.

Evoker: Didn't use.

Black Belt: Sucks sucks sucks. At first glance, seems like it might be okay, but the damage is just bad. Bleh weapons for an endgame class ensures it's behind lots of other options. Game-worst magical durability, physical is okay but definitely not great. Extra HP doesn't help. It might help if you switched to another job, but chances are you are better off gaining JLs in said job (even if you aren't, uh yeah, competence difference in the meantime is stark). If Black Belt was still a Water job, then the HP growth would see a benefit, since it's not like Earth jobs would be losing out on JLs anyway if you go for Black Belt instead of something actually good. That'd still be a suspect, project-y choice though. As is, LVP.

Warlock: Hey, it's the FF3 status class. Note that there's only one, unlike in FF3o. And it's not nearly as good. Still, Warp is pretty darned accurate, and knocking off one enemy with non-fail speed's not a bad idea. It stops working much in the final dungeon, but Breakga keeps going, downing enemies with as much as 30k HP or so. Then Breakga stops working in Dark World, and Warlock is saddened. Besides that, Thundaga is decent offence in Lake Dohr, Flare is okay but fundamentally not great damage against endgame bosses, and he's mediocre otherwise, with remarkably bad magic durabilty for a mage class.

Ninja: Thief Jr. How depressing. Is there another FF we can slap that label on Ninja? Probably not. That said, damage/speed combo is still decent, if only #3 at best. And Shuriken's a nice pickup for the final boss, since that damage is definitely above everything except Advance.

Summoner: MT around the time multi-enemy parties start getting rare, and not very fast. Didn't use this time, but on the whole I think I preferred Warlock.

Sage: So very slow. Good for virtually nothing in randoms, although Aeroga's somewhat okay. Bosses? Yeah. Sage mainly exists to chuck Curaga/Curaja every turn against tough bosses lategame, and honestly until Cloud of Darkness it's damn good at this, since it always goes last! Also can use Haste and the likes. It has a use, certainly, even if I gnashed my teeth at it more than once against the final.

Devout: Is better against Cloud of Darkness, due to always going before Particle Beam. I remember Sage (the poster) once claiming PB could go first, but in some five fights I've never seen her outspeed a Warlock/Devout with it. I'm sure it can happen, but it's still way more reliable than Sage (the class). Of course, the best solution is totally to use both for the final boss, which largely covers your bases completely. Also, only using one makes Arise pretty bad since you can't afford the lost turn of MT healing, but with both, you are set. Otherwise... oh, randoms? Comparable to Sage overall, maybe a bit ahead. Bit less damage, but it's actually relevant more often. In fact if you're using one of the slower physical classes for some reason (Monk? BK?) it can reliably Haste said fighter up, which would be very nice indeed. Not that I ever have, but it's there!


Overall... mm. I'm actually pretty impressed with the quirky classes; feel they pulled off their quirks well without being too over- or underpowered. If it weren't for Warrior/Thief feeling like the dominate other physical jobs, FF3DS class balance would be pretty sexy.

[Talaysen]

Actually, I think Metis's Orgia Mode is only 150% damage, but it seems inconsistent enough for me to believe it was 200% at first, so uh... I don't know.  Are you sure it's 200%?

In either case, you're right, Metis rocks face.  You forgot to mention how it lasts longer than normal Orgia Mode as well.  Unfortunately it also takes 1 more turns into account which is retarded.

Also, cooldown stops immediately after she dies, so even on bosses if she cools down, just let her die and revive, hit up Orgia Mode again, profit.

Anyways, I'm on Door 3 now, second boss.  Got my ass handed to me the first time but that's because I skipped every random between the last one and this one and didn't buy equipment for anyone but Aigis.

[InfinityDragon]

Actually, I think Metis's Orgia Mode is only 150% damage, but it seems inconsistent enough for me to believe it was 200% at first, so uh... I don't know.  Are you sure it's 200%?

I don't know the exact mechanics, but I saw jumps of 600 damage pre-Orgia mode to 1100 during Orgia mode. It might be a 150% boost to the Power of the attack, which would mean it could more than double the final damage against high-defense enemies and have a lesser effect against low-defense enemies.

Unfortunately it also takes 1 more turns into account which is retarded.

I only had a problem with it taking "1 More!s" into account once or twice, and that's only if she misses after 2-3 extra turns. She gets enough actions that she can generally kill groups of four or less without going into cooldown.

[Talaysen]

I don't know the exact mechanics, but I saw jumps of 600 damage pre-Orgia mode to 1100 during Orgia mode. It might be a 150% boost to the Power of the attack, which would mean it could more than double the final damage against high-defense enemies and have a lesser effect against low-defense enemies.

I... thought P3 defense was divisive, but it might have something to do with that, yeah.  P3 mechanics are weird and use level in the formulas as well so it could be that too.

I only had a problem with it taking "1 More!s" into account once or twice, and that's only if she misses after 2-3 extra turns. She gets enough actions that she can generally kill groups of four or less without going into cooldown.

It's more notable if you use it against bosses.  Randoms never live long enough, you're right.  It's just really stupid because the -kaja spells ignore 1 mores, as well as the HP/SP regen stuff... so why doesn't Orgia Mode?  It just makes absolutely no sense.

[Yakumo]

Well, from a technical standpoint it could be argued that the attacks being made in Orgia mode are causing the system to overheat, whereas the other things are strictly time-based.  So there's a (slightly) logical explanation for it?  Still sounds dumb, though. <_<

[Anthony Edward Stark]

SotS- So guess who got AI technology made available to him off a second-tier tech? Yup, 50% more research, production and income (income, of course, gets turned in to both, so basically double both things) from the BEGINNING OF THE GAME.

[Twilkitri]

TWEWY - Finally found TP Sunscorch, so I'll be getting one of those items I need shortlyish. Also finally got around to getting another King Arthur and I am mid-attempting to max it out without it sneakily evolving on me, and if that succeeds I'll be able to get the other. Fun fun.

I'm currently up to around 83% pin mastery, and I'm yet to see any of the supposed offensiveness involved with pinvolution. Hopefully I won't have to psych out at people for extremely overblowing what are currently exceedingly simple mechanics, but the gap in which they could appear is shrinking...

Rewent through Another Day while looking for Sunscorch and it is still awesome. Good times. I intend to go through again and get Black ASAP and see if it changes any of the conversations around town instead of last as I keep doing for some reason.

Not found the final enemy yet but I'm not really sure where or when I'm supposed to be looking. Persistence will pay off eventually. I've finished my prize index except for that enemy and the Ultimate's normal through ultimate as well, hooray.



Why Beat of all fights for Dark Matter? He's easily the hardest out of the three droppers I know of. Neo Mathman is flagrantly easy and I'm pretty sure he drops it at a higher rate too, for all that Beat's drop can be 100%d just by chaining one extra battle.



Anachanox: Just gone into the Mysterium Levant. The game has a fair amount of awesome, but it struggles to maintain that level for long periods of time... Constant slow backtracking is seriously getting on my goat. Not to mention that at the current time I have to go all the way back to the Lounge to change party members even if I'm currently on a different planet... this had seriously better change, or they'd better give me some sort of instant movement/teleportation. And small things like DUR HUR HUR WALK DOWN SIX-ODD COMPLETELY POINTLESS RIGHT-ANGLE CORRIDORS TO GET TO THE SPACESHIP why WHY IS THIS NECESSARY

The right-most character is the best character idea ever as far as I've experienced. Although it keeps making me think of various things with regards to what you would expect being beaten up to actually do to it and completely miss the point of that I'm not supposed to think of things like that and just concentrate of the awesome ludicrousity.

[Monkeyfinger]

SotS- So guess who got AI technology made available to him off a second-tier tech? Yup, 50% more research, production and income (income, of course, gets turned in to both, so basically double both things) from the BEGINNING OF THE GAME.

Out of pure schadenfreude I want the AI to revolt on you and stamp you out when you try to research one of the branch-off techs.

You lucky asshole.

[Clear Tranquil]

Dragon Quest VIII Reached Trodian. Stop dying Jess =D Haetful randoms. Also Jess did 300+ damage to Trapbox with a 50 tension powered Twin Dragon Lash ... and then promptly died when it attacked her straight afterwards >_><_< This was with me keeping her in the back row as I've often been switching to Yangus when the game takes a difficulty curve.

Edit: S03 - 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqkZ8OEXko

Must ... try ... this. Jugglers <(^^)>

Ciato and Meep make me want to play Megaman ;o

[Captain K.]

TWEWY - Finally found TP Sunscorch, so I'll be getting one of those items I need shortlyish. Also finally got around to getting another King Arthur and I am mid-attempting to max it out without it sneakily evolving on me, and if that succeeds I'll be able to get the other. Fun fun.

Where did you find that one?  I couldn't find it in FAQs.

Not found the final enemy yet but I'm not really sure where or when I'm supposed to be looking.

Any of the Shibuya river locations (Trail of the Sinner, Rubicon, etc.) in Another Day.  Beat Day 7 does *not* work.  You generally run into one per screen, so it's not that hard to find.

Why Beat of all fights for Dark Matter? He's easily the hardest out of the three droppers I know of. Neo Mathman is flagrantly easy and I'm pretty sure he drops it at a higher rate too, for all that Beat's drop can be 100%d just by chaining one extra battle.

Beat is really easy to get to compared to the others.  Just use Eden set on Neku and wail on him with Joshua.  Not hard at all if you have decent equipment.  I can get about 5 Dark Matters in 10 minutes.

[Twilkitri]

On the Joshua day where you're constantly running into people being attacked by Taboos, beat Shooter at the Stride (and possibly Yammer as well... I did Yammer first, so I can't be sure on this) and you'll get the option to play both of them at once, and you'll get it after beating that. In case I'm off on which day it is, it's the one where playing them normally doesn't give you any prize like you'd usually get, but I'm pretty sure it's that one.



The two items I knew of were indeed the only two remaining, so now I'm on 100% items. Presumably enemies next since I assume that that last one will drop at least one pin I don't have. Points rank fails at life and I have no idea if I'm going to bother starring it considering the amount I'm on and haven't gotten to A yet.

I read that aliens were only worth 20 PP in the japanese version. So freaking thankful they changed that if that's true.

[VySaika]

Grim Grimoire - Picked this up the other day. Up to Day "11". Really liking the story and style of this, and the gameplay is...doable. RTS games and Gate tend not to mix well, but I'm managing to keep my head above water here, if barely sometimes.

SaGa Frontier- Just started a new game of this for the halibut. Started with Riki, just to get the pain out of the way first...and this run might not end up all that painful. Team of Riki/Fei-on/Gen/Dr. N/T260G has somehow managed to accidentally put together no fewer then four different Level 5 Combos just on random bosses. If I can recreate these on Virgil, I should be good to go.

Assuming I survive his/her dungeon, of course.

And there's still the final.

Gooooo Riki's quest...

Prolly going to do Em or Red next, not sure which.

[Anthony Edward Stark]

SotS- So guess who got AI technology made available to him off a second-tier tech? Yup, 50% more research, production and income (income, of course, gets turned in to both, so basically double both things) from the BEGINNING OF THE GAME.

Out of pure schadenfreude I want the AI to revolt on you and stamp you out when you try to research one of the branch-off techs.

You lucky asshole.

You wanna know what one of my branch-off techs was? AI Slaves.

[Sierra]

Edit: S03 - 

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=4EqkZ8OEXko

Must ... try ... this. Jugglers <(^^)>

Bwahahaha. Badass.

[superaielman]

Just set challenge to sweet if any fights overwhelm you, Gate. Even I could smash the game at that level and I suck at RTSes.