What Games Are You Playing: 2008

[074]

P3: FES -- Chapter Yourself (Hard Mode)

Hard Mode Sleeping Table is why we can't have nice things.  I'm probably going to have to hope for a goddamned miracle.  And maybe cheeze with Revolution, Magic Mirrors, and Sutras.

...and that's not getting into Megidola.  I just hope I won't have to level like crazy just because this bastard is being especially whorish.

[Twilkitri]

TWEWY: The frenetic high-tension of getting shutdown PP is keeping me more awake than caffeine. GO LITTLE PINS. ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER MILLION DOLLARS ANOTHER 144 PP.
Looks like Whale will replace Peace Full as my cure drink of choice if I ever need a cure drink again (presuming its uses increase on level up, which I keep forgetting to check).

Anachronox: Apparently I am Mr. Oblivious because I am since back at Sender Station and off on a sidequest to Hephaestus without seeing any cutscenes that were especially unexpected or emotive. It's possible that I'm missing the point of what a strong scene is supposed to entail... It's also possible that I missed the scene in question if it was part of a side-thing since I utterly failed the one that was offered by clicking too quickly, but I don't think Anachronox is really the sort of game to put things like that in sidequests (except possibly in the continuing rebellion one).

The second room in the temple in Rho's sidequest can go jump, having the puzzle start off 'partially completed' as it does. Ire. Anachronox... really seems like it's TRYING to be a game to be replayed, with these quests you can only do one of a game and all the missable things and ludicrously hidden things and so forth... but it's nowhere near fast paced enough to work well like that. Perhaps for people with more patience than me...

[Grefter]

It was about Fatima, you can't miss it.  I might just be over the top, but shock there!

Edit - Oh yeah and Anachronox replays are pretty fun, but they need to be paced out a few years apart....  The other characters side quests aren't reaallllly good or worth playing for again (You can use the console to do them if you want actually, the game is oddly resilient to jumping around the plot with it IIRC)  Rho's isn't the best, but it isn't really the worst either.

[Clear Tranquil]

Dragon Quest VIII - Wandering around the western continent looking for the casino town. If there is an award for which DL member sucks most at this game then I win it. Latest folly was everyone except Yangus dying (hmm a familar happening) and then me making a mad dash around the world map with Yangus praying he wouldn't die. Somehow made it to the hut outside the Royal Hunting Ground and then from there to Prince Charmless' castle town w/o getting game over.  Revived Jess, Guv and Angelo at the church and then saved. I did however get game over whilst trying to make it to the casino at nightime. Today I bought Angelo a Silver Mail and am ready to try again. As my support character it's vital he survives as long as possible. Once he's gone everything pretty much goes to pot basically.

My PS2 also doesn't seem to like this game. It makes funny noises whilst it's playing >_>

S03

Managed to defeat Demetrio on my low level/no equipment/no reviving/no AAA/auto only/no HP, MP boosts from skill points/no controlling menu symbology challenge. L9 Cliff, L10 Fayt and L10 Nel are facing Albel. Roger is also at L10 but has more EXP than Nel/Fayt.

The juggle thing on Freya is *hard* The player that made that vid must has seriously awesme finger skills. I sometimes manage to juggle her for a while then drop her. Oh well at least Dream Hammering the crap out of things still worked~

[Taishyr]

Clear Tranquil, you'll need to tell me which endgame/near end-game bosses you die on. If you don't lose to one of them in specific, I'm sure I suck at DQ8 more than you.

[Sierra]

AI2: Lots of progress. Fake ending, seventh inning stretch, putting the band back together. And--

--Wait a minute. Did Poe just make a Dog Day Afternoon reference? "Attica! Attica!" He did. Ahahahaha. Awesome.

Anyway, I can unlock gold chests and doors at last, so it's time for loot now. Figure there's not much plot left after that.

[Otter]

Clear Tranquil, you'll need to tell me which endgame/near end-game bosses you die on. If you don't lose to one of them in specific, I'm sure I suck at DQ8 more than you.

RUIN?

[Jo'ou Ranbu]

SRW@3 - HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLY FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK THE GRUNTS NEVER END. KAIZO NEVER ENDS.

A Baran Doban is fine, too.

[Taishyr]

Otter: Yes. Yes, I died to Ruin. It was an impressive scene of fail.

[Captain K.]

*tries to remember who Ruin is*

*remembers*

Holy crap, you lost to that?

DQ8:  Progressing through the story now.  Enemies die before my alchemized cheapness.  Although Big Bird was still a scary fight - she does ridiculous damage.  Super Saiyan Yangus did over 2100 damage to Doglike with Typhoeus Maul.  Just beat Mr. Doesn't Take Orders Very Well.

TWEWY:  Beat Boss Rush on Hard difficulty.  Setup was Excalibur, Pegaso, Healing Whale, Blown Kiss, Psych Support, and Pig (oink oink).  Found one exploit in that your limited use pins recharge after Konishi steals them.

Also, Twil, how did you get that far in Pin Mastery without discovering Healing Whale?  It tops out at 4 shots of 70% healing, and it's psych doesn't conflict with anything else important.

[Taishyr]

Yes, Cap'n K. I had no healing, one of the four was dead - I currently forget who - and I missed the free MT healing item in there. Ruin managed to thrash me.

[Rozalia]

JC2- Finally gotten somewhat closer to beating the evil bug of the forest. I thought about how my party was and saw it had a lot of weak spots. For example my wind side was utter trash. Status doesn't work on bosses and they die too easily. In the end I just excluded all wind creatures from my party and brought in water ones and it paid off. Lilith ws left on around 100hp and had to dark impact spam to finish me off as I clinged on for 20 or so turns.

Just a little more training and I'll beat the bastard.

[VySaika]

SotN - Just got the Sheild Rod. Don't see what all the fuss is about right now, but I don't have the Alucard Sheild and that always gets mentioned in the same breath, so I guess I'll find out then. For now, I keep using my Holy Sword. I keep feeling like I've missed somethign retardedly obvious in my treck through the castle, but I *always* feel like that playing the CV games, so eh.

BvS - Just want to get my bloodline unique arena item, and then I loop. Reminder to self to poke Magic for a fixed fight, and see if anyone else would be willing to lend a hand as well. 10 wins in one day is not going to be easy.

[AAA]

FES: The Answer-Halfway through the sixth door. Pretty sure I'm overleveled since lots of Shadows are afraid of me, but I don't care. Still cannot afford shop items most of the time, but it's been getting easier and easier to cope what with exponentially more lucrative Rare Forms. Been using Melzechick or however you spell his name, he's basically Siegfried minus. Speaking of which, I should fuse a Siegfried with Growth 3 sometime.

Not much to say, gameplay's still as fun as ever but the story has mostly just hinted at what's going on so I can't really say what the deal is. So far the game is far more of a dungeon-crawler than The Journey and what plot there has been has only been MYSTARY.

[Niu]

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

Well, they increase the brave requirements for after game equips though.
BTW, the esper point required for S in Jp. version is actually 65536.

... ... ... ... ...
Was there anything you get esper points for apart from battling and mingling? Because that has to be the most unfeasible target of all time. Unless things gave you ten times the amount of esper points in the JP version as they do in the english version or something. That target seriously better have been lowered.

Well, you get +1 esper point by buying stuff that's over 10000yen. And well, there is plenty of money.

[Grefter]

For what its worth Gate, Shield Rod scales in attack power with your shield's defense boost (and boosts your defense on top of it...), it manages to consistently be a solid choice of weapon for the entire game because of this scaling and some of the shield spells (Both attack buttons at once) are really pretty useful.

[OblivionKnight]

Medusa Shield is the other big one.  Though, IIRC, that's a drop only item.  Still good.

But yeah, what Gref says holds true.  The weapon stays excellent the whole game through, and the shield specials in general are fantastic.

[Captain K.]

BvS - Just want to get my bloodline unique arena item, and then I loop. Reminder to self to poke Magic for a fixed fight, and see if anyone else would be willing to lend a hand as well. 10 wins in one day is not going to be easy.

Do you have Emergency Rations?  If not, I'll give you one when I rejoin the village.  I totally ignored the Arena fights for a long time because they were expensive and the prizes sucked.  Imagine my surprise when I looked at the prize list recently. 

[Sierra]

AI2: Fin~ Levels were 41/42, with Viese lingering in the thirties somewhere, hours were somewhere around 26/27. Palaxius continued the Gust tradition of capping a joke of a game with a surprisingly competent final boss (not surprising this time because I've played AI1 and AT). Standard party for random-bashing was generally Felt/Gray/Fee, with Noin getting subbed in for bosses since she had MT healing if I needed it for some reason. Went with Noin/Viese/Fee for the final though, because Quick is just that damned awesome (as is recurring healing). I refused to use Poe in battle as a direct consequence of him being damned annoying.

I imagine my opinion on the game was apparent before now, but yeah: substantial gameplay tweaks, less charming cast than AI1. It's more to fun to actually play than the first in the series, even if it's no more difficult (I never even saw the game over screen in this one). Basically balances out. 6/10 area, I figure. Enjoyable fluff, and nothing really bugged me about it (...apart from the Liberate Riese Palace sequence). Well, Tolena should've been a PC, but never mind.

Went back and glanced at the new arena battles after checking out the bonus material. I can fight Amalgam? Ahaha, cool. Will probably hack through that and the other extra fights later. Oh, random question: what would I have got for deciphering all the lithographs? I didn't have the patience to go back and find them all. Also curious about what Lutanus would've given me if I'd gone back to her (well, I did go back, but she just kept saying "Cure everyone in Eden," which I'd already taken the time to do and damned if I was going to revisit the entire island just in case I missed one person).

[Dark Holy Elf]

Wild Arms 4 - Super Jude Bros. has been demolished. Gold stars in everything, 400k in both modes, etc. Very fun minigame; I mean, it is a platformer (win) with Gobs (more win) and TONY (more win!) so you know you can't go wrong. I adore the NES-style remixes of WA4 music it uses, to boot. Only annoyance is that there's no way to quit out of a game short of game overing, and that often you want to intentionally game over since you get the highest possible scores by not dying. Oh well.

Also done 23/30 arena fights (all except AGONY EFFECT, the last two, and the final solos). A few of these were pretty damn nasty at endgame levels. Not sure the other seven are reasonably beatable yet. Next up is superboss hunting; I'll see how many of -those- I can manage at endgame. After that powerlevelling, Black Market since Raquel could use a better sword, and eventually Ragu I guess.


Fire Emblem 7 - My quest to finally beat Eliwood Hard Mode has been renewed! Up to the Dread Isle, 5 stars in everything and all that. Still holds up well as one of the best FEs, I think. Although god did the series need the constantly available shops the later games put in.


Mario Kart Wii - So I won gold in everything, but still have six characters to unlock? Guess it's time to gold-star everything. Doing so for 50/100 netted me a few more karts and one new character, but at least that character was BABY DAISY. Aside from that... eh. Game remains a distinct step down from Double Dash, but fun enough.


Mega Mans - Have I mentioned lately that these rule?

[Tonfa]

Oh, random question: what would I have got for deciphering all the lithographs? I didn't have the patience to go back and find them all. Also curious about what Lutanus would've given me if I'd gone back to her (well, I did go back, but she just kept saying "Cure everyone in Eden," which I'd already taken the time to do and damned if I was going to revisit the entire island just in case I missed one person).

Elixir(or something like that) and Element Blaze respectively I believe. Elixir is your typical broken healing item, Element Blaze deals a whole ton of tri-elemental damage, allowing Viese to break 5 digits.

[Sierra]

The plot throws Elixir at you earlier, actually, so it's probably something more broken with a different name. But yeah.

[Talaysen]

Well, Tolena should've been a PC, but never mind.

Yeah, that's what I've been saying!

Oh, random question: what would I have got for deciphering all the lithographs? I didn't have the patience to go back and find them all. Also curious about what Lutanus would've given me if I'd gone back to her (well, I did go back, but she just kept saying "Cure everyone in Eden," which I'd already taken the time to do and damned if I was going to revisit the entire island just in case I missed one person).

I forget what the lithographs give (Cure Crystal, maybe?), but yeah, curing everyone gives you Element Blaze, which deals damage of all four elements.  Pretty crazy damage, somewhere around 2500-3000 MT to average resists?  Under Power Item this shoots up to over 10,000, as Tonfa said, 5 digits.

[Unoriginal]

Yeah, you get the Cure Crystals and their MT Full HP/Status healing brokenness for the Lithographs.  Pair with that accessory that gives you a gauge bonus for healing to increase the cheese even further.

And if you missed someone, it's probably one of those little fire mana.

[VySaika]

Cap: already made 2, actually, and have a hollow leg to use 'em with. Getting the fights isn't a problem, it's winning 10 in 1 day. My track record at RPS is...not good.